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The Current Transcript for May 1, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They were holding hands and smiling by the way, to the very end. To the end.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: They had been married more than 70 years devoted and inseparable so attached and in sync that Shirley and George Brickenden's adult kids called them symbiotic. And so in their 90s', as the health of one failed and then the other, they sought permission to die together. The request for medically assisted death in tandem is rarely granted, but Shirley and George Brickenden became one of the few couples to get that permission. Bringing them and their family great relief, but raising questions among those wary of Canada's still new medically assisted death laws. In an hour, their children offer their perspective on their parents' choice. Also today, you probably heard of Fatbergs, those giant, congealed lumps of oil and grease clogging city sewers everywhere.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Oh my God, that is horrendous. Is this white stuff just fat? This is pure fat that solidified with other material. It's come from all over London.

AMT: But in London, British curiosity got the best of them they not only attacked a Fatberg, they autopsied it discovering all sorts of delightfully disgusting details, but it doesn't have to be like that. There are more lucrative things to do with your cooking oil than pour it down the drain. We'll tell you more in half an hour. But we're starting in Kabul, Afghanistan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It is first time that our journalists are targeted by militants groups and this attack is just coming few days ahead of Press World Freedom Day.

AMT: A man posing as a journalist detonates a suicide bomb among reporters who have rushed to cover an earlier attack and it wasn't even the deadliest attack of the past few weeks.I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

'Peace industry' must stop violence in Afghanistan from derailing elections, says expert

Guests: Ali Latifi, Jonas Claes

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well, sounds from the aftermath of a suicide bombing on the streets of Kabul yesterday. There were multiple bombings in the Afghan capital Monday, killing at least 25 people. Nine were journalists who had arrived to cover one grisly bombing scene when someone armed with a press pass and a bomb created another. Also in Khost, a journalist from the BBC's Pashto language service was shot dead. Yesterday's carnage comes one week after an attack at a voter registration centre in Kabul that killed 57 people. The week before that, militant stormed a luxury hotel in the city killing at least 20. The spike in attacks by the Taliban, ISIS and other armed groups comes as Afghanistan prepares for parliamentary elections in October. We're going to be exploring ways to combat pre-election violence in areas of conflict around the world in a few moments, but first joining us from Kabul is freelance reporter Ali Latifi. He's been based in Kabul for the past five years. His colleagues were among the victims of yesterday's attacks. Hello.

ALI LATIFI: Hi, how are you?

AMT: I'm wondering what the mood in Kabul is like one day after this latest attack.

AL: The day after any attack it's kind of the same, you know there's a lot of hesitation to go outside. There's usually more roadblocks on the roads and, but especially after this attack I think it's really interesting how people reacted to it because people that you wouldn't think would be, you know these attacks always affect everyone and everyone always has an emotional response, but to me maybe it's cause I'm a journalist, it's interesting to me to hear people say that this is somehow different for them or taking more of a toll because it's journalists.

AMT: Mhmm, they're the ones that bring everyone else the news of what's going on, that they're appreciating that is what they're telling you, maybe?

AL: Right.

AMT: And journalists were back on that site yesterday, not many hours after.

AL: Right, because you know, that's your job. And so that's always sort of the question whenever you're going to a situation like this, whether like you're traveling to a certain province or district or you're going to some kind of an attack site or anywhere where there might be some level of danger, you know you always have this in the back of your mind.

AMT: So is there any doubt that they were deliberately targeted?

AL: I don't think so because of the fact that everyone knows that, you know, after after an incident like that, like there's been so many incidents like that in Kabul and you see it, you know, there are journalists there on the scene right away. Sometimes as it's happening. So no. And the fact that they brought a camera and that they had a press pass, that all seems very obvious.

AMT: Who claimed responsibility?

AL: As far as we know groups claiming to be allied with Daesh or the so-called Islamic State.

AMT: And what can you tell us about the people who were killed?

AL: They were photographers. They were video journalists. They were cameramen for international media. So for the AFP, for Radio Free Europe and also for three major local media networks. You know these were like hard working guys who, this is what they did. And so that's what, you know, that's I think the most important thing about the journalist community, the Afghan journalist community, is that everyone is so hardworking and so dedicated and like really, you know there's definitely competition like you want a good story for someone else. You want to get closer than someone else can get. But it's also like you want to get the story and that's who these guys were.

AMT: And one of them, you mentioned the AFP, Agence France-Presse, Shah Marai was a veteran chief photographer. What can you tell us about him?

AL: I think more than anything, what many people will remember about him are his pictures because I can't tell you the number of stories that I've written for The L.A. Times or for Al-Jazeera or for any other media outlet and how many times his picture has been the one chosen.

AMT: So his long career and legendary as well, there was a young woman Maharam Durani, I guess just what, just a week earlier, she's just joined. She just started as a radio producer, I guess, she was also there.

AL: Right. So this is what I'm saying is that like you know these are, you know, so you have someone who's been doing it for decades, right. And you have someone who just started and the reason you see so many young people now, I mean that's what I find surprising is I meet so many young people they're like 'I want to be a journalist', 'how do I get to be a journalist' and 'I'm like why do you want to do this job'. But I think part of it is because they see, you know, like these guys and these girls working so hard and like really determined to get the stories that they need.

AMT: There was another attack yesterday, school children were killed, what happened there?

AL: So it was in a district in Kandahar province in the south. And the reports are that it was a Romanian military convoy that was targeted. But what ended up happening is what always ends happens is that it will be Afghan civilians that end up dying. No matter who is the target, no matter what the claim is, you know, whether they claim they're targeting some kind of a ministry or a foreign force or whatever, it's always the Afghan civilians that end up paying the price.

AMT: And so who did claim responsibility for that attack on school children?

AL: As far as I've read, no one yet.

AMT: And that was Kandahar province.

AL: Right. Right, in the south. So again, so if we look at yesterday right, it was three different provinces. It was Kabul, in the eastern Khost province and in the south in Kandahar province and in all of them what you see is, you know a journalist as a civilian, so Afghan civilians ended up dying, no matter what the target was. And in the case of in the east in the province of Khost, this wasn't even as far as anyone knows, one of these armed opposition groups like the Taliban or the so-called Daesh groups or whatever, it was just armed men. And this is the problem and the danger that journalists face because it's not just from these armed groups because yes, these armed groups will, we've seen that they will attack you. We've seen that Daesh has done it and we've seen that the Taliban have done it, but we've also seen, you know, things like this where and then a week ago in Kandahar province, another journalist was killed by armed men.

AMT: And have you seen this kind of thing where there's been a double bombing before where the people who rush to help and the journalists who run to cover, are then vulnerable like that. Is that new what happened yesterday, is that new to?

AL: The closest thing I remember is around 2011 they had a tactic where, for instance, they would make like smaller bombs in other, in like two or three different parts of the city and then launch their actual attack on a bigger major target.

AMT: But the idea of waiting till people are there to actually cover or the the first responders would have been there as well.

AL: Right.

AMT: But waiting and then doing it again is something new in Kabul.

AL: Right.

AMT: OK, Ali Latifi thank you for speaking with us today.

AL: Thank you.

AL: Ali Latifi, freelance journalist in Kabul, Afghanistan. Well the spike in attacks inside Afghanistan comes as the country prepares for elections, they are in October. We spoke earlier with a pro-democracy activist in Kabul for his thoughts about how violence can compromise the vote. Tabish Forugh used to work for the Independent Election Commission in Afghanistan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: What we see across Afghanistan, it's a number of polling centres were attacked by the Taliban ,which means that nearly 3000 out of 7000 polling centres are somehow either insecure or semi-secure, which is directly affecting the inclusivity of the elections and the overall participation and the turnout of the voters in October. The legitimacy of the upcoming elections is going to be undermined if not most of the eligible voters are able to register and vote.

AMT: Nevertheless, Mr. Forugh believes his country and its citizens must forge ahead. Elections have already been delayed for three years. They are a prerequisite for the next presidential vote in 2019. He calls it a make or break time for his country.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We literally have no other time to postpone the elections because we might not be able to have another presidential elections in 2019, which overall going to delegitimize the very foundations of this government. We don't have other alternatives for a peacefully toppling of our disputes and politics. We have tried having authoritarian and then leftist and then Islamist and then of course Wahabist extremists, they never could settle the disputes among Afghans. Elections is all the intellitive that we have so far, so we have to push for this narrative.

AMT: Well my next guest studies elections at risk of destabilizing violence and has spent a lot of time thinking about new ways to guard against such threats. Jonas Claes is a senior program officer for global practice and innovation with the United States Institute for Peace. That's a nonpartisan organization funded by the U.S. government. He joins us from Washington D.C., hello.

JONAS CLAES: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Well, a surge in violence related to elections that are as far away as October, why would that happen now?

JC: What you see is that about one in five elections in the world turns violent, so it's not entirely unusual to anticipate a spike of risk around this time. Usually though, of course the violence takes much lesser violent forms. You have intimidation of the opposition, you may have gender-based violence, but in Afghanistan you have a very unusual situation where you have extremist groups that really see this election as a great strategic target. You have large groups of people that are in line either to register or soon enough, to go out and vote. You also have good physical targets with polling stations, party headquarters and you also have increased international focus on the country where there's more international monitors on the ground, many additional advisors and journalists that unfortunately were to face that we saw last week.

AMT: So in other words even at the registration level, as as they start to ramp up looking months down the road, the very people who want to stop it start ramping up with violence.

JC: That is correct.

AMT: Have you got other examples of countries that have seen similar surges?

JC: Yes. So traditionally this field that I work on the prevention of election violence, it's really rooted in the sub-Saharan African experience. So both sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia seem to experience a lot of violence around elections. And the traditional forms really happen either between political parties or within political parties as they jockey for certain positions. But we should not lose sight of cases like Mexico, for example, just to cross the border, where you have dozens and dozens of candidates that were killed primarily by criminal organizations in the run up to the elections.

AMT: And so how given that this is more common than we might realize, what are ways to prevent it?

JC: I would say that there's three different ways, roughly speaking. Prevention always starts at home, in my view. You have the important work that individuals like Tabish Forugh do with election commissions. So election commissions if they do their job, you've come a long way already in guaranteeing integrity of the elections and hence, also the peaceful nature there of. The police is also critical, they do hotspot mapping in the run-up to elections, they engage in dialogue with communities to gain trust and I think a complimentary role can be played both by the international community and by local civil society, through peace messaging, civic education and what most people are familiar with I think around elections, election monitoring and observation.

AMT: Well there are a lot of international organizations that seem to have a stake in seeing elections proceed in a conflict zone, such as Afghanistan. Who are the main players on that front?

JC: I think the largest international players are the UN, the United Nations, particularly through the efforts of UNDP Development Program, the European Union has a strong presence as well in many elections around the world. And then depending on which part of the world, you have different individual countries, their embassies and their development efforts, the United States government, U.K., France in various countries as well. In addition you have organizations like the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute that do a lot of work with political parties to make sure they engage responsibly, that you do not undermine the efforts of election commission. So I think those efforts, as well as finally local organizations, they do a lot of important work engaging youth, making sure they're constructively engaged in the election process.

AMT: That's a lot of NGOs. Some call that an election support industry.

JC: That's fair. I think in many countries that are on the radar, such as Kenya for example, where people really know that the elections are associated with violence there's really a so-called peace industry that arrives. But the problem is that usually these organizations arrive rather late, few months before the elections and then they parachute back out the day after the elections or after the results are verified. In my opinion this is a very short time frame to make a difference and to change attitudes and behaviors, so I certainly advocate for early engagement and then sustained effort across different election cycles.

AMT: So in other words, so let's look at Afghanistan then, the elections aren't until October, what would you have in place now that's not there, if you could change that?

JC: Well Afghanistan is a really complicated situation of course because you have an election amidst an ongoing violent conflict. So almost the best way to prevent election violence is by resolving the conflict, which is not going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately. What I hear most Afghanistan experts indicate is that you need a political solution for the problem. So one way of getting to that is by trying to integrate the warring parties into the political process and I think some steps have been taken to see whether you can engage Taliban as potentially a political actor, in some form. And these are efforts that have been successfully tried in a country like Colombia or in Nepal, where you had saw the former warring parties that was formerly attacking the electoral system and the electoral process, engaged in it as a participant afterwards.

AMT: OK and what are the obstacles to doing that?

JC: There are many, obviously these these groups are usually not familiar with how to participate in election, so they have to be closely assisted, often by the election commission. But then you also often create the perception that you're giving them an unfair advantage by giving them additional training, additional resources. So with more traditional parties will often not be too keen on that and obviously they always have the option of pulling back and possibly boycotting the election, which may create more chaos.

AMT: The other thing is, I guess all sides have to realize they would share some kind of power, if they got in and none of them seem to want to when it's warring factions, right.

JC: Yeah, depending on the electoral system, you may have a winner take all system where they may grab everything or get nothing or you have a proportional system where indeed they may have to share seats in a Parliament or divide up perhaps the role of president and vice president or prime minister.

AMT: Are there any outside the box solutions that you think they should consider for a place like Afghanistan?

JC: Well there are different streams of thought on this. I do believe that the idea of coming up with alternatives to form a l election processes is always an option out there. I think in some way or form that has been tried in Afghanistan before with the Loya Jirga. In Somalia as well, you have an informal election where clan elders will appoint the leaders indirectly because it's simply unsafe to put voters in long lines at voting stations. They form a perfect target for some of the violent actors in that region.

AMT: I think we all remember some of the Afghan votes years ago where people would show their, I guess their thumbs or their fingers with the ink on it to prove they'd voted. It seems to be sliding back, am I right?

JC: I think that's a fair impression. There is a lot of different challenges, development challenges, security challenges, there's been a long term presence in Afghanistan already and there's no immediate end in sight towards stability, but I think a lot of different things have been tried and some progress I think is still conceivable, but many actors are underground trying to achieve that.

AMT: And what about the Afghan government itself, how much credibility does it have in terms of trying to push this election forward and have the security it needs.

JC: Well what you see right now is that the integrity of the election and just support for governance in traditional ways is really sliding a little bit. You see with low registration numbers, people have some form of voter apathy. Why would I come out and vote corrupt individuals in place when they don't really do anything for my situation anyway. So that's really problematic because it will undermine democratic processes and really push people to support maybe alternative, more radical ways of governing areas.

AMT: OK well Jonas Claes, thank you for your your thoughts today.

JC: Thank you for having me.

AMT: That is Jonas Claes, he's a senior program officer with Global Practice and Innovation with United States Institute for Peace, he joined us in Washington D.C. Let us know what you think, you can tweet us @The CurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[THEME]

AMT: CBC News is next and then getting up close and personal with a Fatberg. We'll talk to one of the British scientists of the first ever autopsy of one of those giant blobs of fat and waste clogging up London's sewers, here in Canada as well. We'll tell you what they found. I'm Anna Maria Tremonte. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Only you can prevent gross, smelly fatbergs from clogging up city sewers, says inspector

Guests: Justin Pachebat, Barry Orr, Scott Lewis

Anna Maria Tremonte: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, a love story with a bittersweet end. George and Shirley Brickenden were married nearly 73 years. This Spring they chose to die together. Their children join me in half an hour to talk about their parents' life and their choice of medically assisted death together. But first a trip down the tubes of London's other underground.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Clip of discovering Fatberg. I smelt it first hand. It's one of the biggest ones we've found. A congealed, concrete-like massive, all the stuff that people flushed down their toilet and flushed down their sinks. They all mixed it together and congeals just to form this Fatberg.

VOICE 2: Fresh Fatberg smells like rotting meat, so rotting dirty nappies. But dry Fatberg has a bit more of a smelly toilet sort of a smell.

AMT: Lovely. That is real and it is disgusting. It is a Fatberg, the giant blog of congealed fat and waste clogging up the sewers of London, England and other cities around the world. Fatbergs are born when millions of citizens pour grease down their drains and flush who knows what down their toilets. They are doing serious damage to sewer systems and have I mentioned the result is disgusting. Nevertheless, British television's Channel 4 brought together a team of scientists to dig into that city's notorious Fatbergs to find out for the first time exactly what they're composed of, in all their glorious and disgusting detail. Justin Pachebat was one of the scientists on the program. He is a lecturer in microbial genomics with Aberystwyth University in Wales and that's where we've reached him, hello.

JUSTIN PACHEBAT: Bore Da, hello Anna Maria.

AMT: Hello. So you were in a room ready to autopsy this giant deposit of congealed fat, set the scene for me, what does it look like?

JP: It looks a little bit like slightly unset cement or plaster. The only problem is it really smells, as well.

AMT: And how much fat did you have there? There were I think three tonnes of fat in the actual room, we only analyzed probably about five kilos of fat for our samples. So there's lots and lots more to analyze.

AMT: So you had it on a table and you basically went through it. What did you do?

JP: We looked for parasites. So we looked for parasite eggs and also live worms. So my colleague Professor Joe Hamilton who's a colleague here at Aberystwyth University was looking for basically parasite eggs and she found eggs, which were either Fasciola or Alaria eggs, which are quite unusual to find in the middle of London, where as I was looking for bacteria.

AMT: OK and again this is like concrete, you have to chip away at it, it's not all like kind of gushy and squishy?

JP: It's like soft slightly unset concrete. We tried to, we have to deal with it very, very carefully in a Category 2 safety lab, where we were double gloved, we had special equipment, on goggles, masks, etc. And it was in a hood and we were trying to break it open and in the end we had to use metal tools to force it open and to actually split it open to get to the inside of it.

AMT: Wow okay and so you have all this gear on, did you have nose plugs too, it must've really smell.

JP: They did smell quite a bit, but the the hood we've got basically sucks out all the air and it keeps us safe as well. So it kept most of the bad smell away.

AMT: So you started to tell me what you found, what surprised you in that glob of fat?

JP: The fact that we found quite a few worm eggs for either Fasciola or Alaria. So Fasciola hepatica is generally found in sheep, but it can also infect humans, but humans are dead-end hosts, so the eggs would have come from sheep. So they could have come from one of the farms in London or the Alaria alata eggs, they come probably from either dogs or from foxes, but they're usually found in Europe, not in the UK. And they have an intermediate host, which is a frog.

AMT: So if that's in the sewer system, is that dangerous for the public?

JP: You wouldn't want to get infected with the Fasciola eggs. So it's probably more of an issue for the people working on the Fatbergs themselves.

AMT: And what else did you find in there, what did it reveal to you about human behaviour?

JP: The fact that people flush from too many single use plastics down the toilet and we found n appy wipes, wet wipes, which aren't degradable and even the biodegradable ones, they clog up the system and the fat congeals around them. We found condoms and femidoms and also lots of plastic earbuds as well. And these are all basically form a matrix around, which the fact conjugates and then of course you then start to get bacteria layering in the layers of fat and parasites.

AMT: And so remind us how big these things get in the sewer pipes.

JP: Well the beast, the Fatberg that was discovered in White Chapel was 130 tons and about 820 feet long.

AMT: How do you get rid of that?

JP: So it was almost as long as London bridge itself.

AMT: How do you get rid of that?

JP: The workers basically chip away at it with tools. They break it up into large lumps, they put into sacks and then they pull them out of the manhole covers.

AMT: And that's what you got for your autopsy.

JP: And that's what we then got for the autopsy. We also found quite a lot of bacteria, campylobacter and listeria, obviously lots of E.coli and all sorts of other bacteria. And when we tested them, we found bacteria resistance against every single antibiotic that we tested for.

AMT: So this stuff would be going through the sewer system and it gets clogged in the Fatberg as well, where would that stuff go normally then?

JP: It normally gets melted down. Sometimes it gets turned into biodiesel. Other times it just gets burned.

AMT: Okay, so you're saying the people working with it could be susceptible to stuff, but it doesn't go back into any system that makes the general public susceptible?

JP: We have very efficient water treatment and filtration systems in the UK, which remove all bacteria and so on, but they could potentially be a source of antibiotic resistance mixing between bacteria because bacteria can communicate via horizontal gene transfer.

AMT: So now that there's a better understanding of what people are flushing down their toilets and pouring down their sinks, what has to happen?

JP: People shouldn't pour cooking oil down the sinks and also they should try and avoid using soaps and fatty-based makeup etc. But the main thing seems to be cooking oil and we think that in many of the cases it's cooking oil coming from fast food restaurants.

AMT: OK so it's not only solely households.

JP: So Kentucky Fried Chickens and a number of other type of fast food outlets like that.

AMT: So it is the congealed oil that then traps all this other stuff and doesn't let it move and makes it grow and everything.

JP: It does and it then sets solid as well. So it's not soft squiggy oil it then literally sets solid like concrete.

AMT: Has this changed what you flush or pour down the drain?

JP: I've always been very careful with what I put down the toilets anyway and I would never put things like wet wipes down there anyway, but I think it should change people's behaviour. Particularly people who've seen the program because they will hopefully stop putting wet wipes and plastic single-use plastics down the toilet.

AMT: You're going to gross them out and change their behaviour.

JP: Yes. Have you seen it?

AMT: I haven't actually seen it, no. I've seen the stories here on CBC about the hunt for the Fatbergs, but I haven't actually looked at the detail. You want to watch it, it's fascinating actually.

AMT: OK well Justin thanks for your time.

JP: Thank you very much then. Bye-bye.

AMT: Bye-bye. That's Justin Pachebat. He's a lecturer in Microbial Genomics at Aberystwyth University in Wales. While Fatbergs are not unique to Britain, we have our own two tonne monsters clogging municipal sewers in places across Canada and since clogged sewers cause backups that flood your basement, increase your insurance rates and damage the environment, there is a push to do something to stop the growth of the Fatberg. Barry Orr is the sewer outreach and control inspector for the City of London Ontario. He is also known as Captain FOG, fog as in fats, oils and grease. He represents Canada on the international stage when it comes to finding solutions for consumer and business behaviours that lead to Fatbergs and Barry Orr is in our London, Ontario studio. Hello.

BARRY ORR: Good morning Anna.

AMT: So Captain FOG, where'd you get that moniker?

BO: That came about in 2008 when I started to inspect restaurants around the city of London and it just sort of followed me around.

AMT: And is it true you have your own Fatberg in an aquarium?

BO: I have had a Fatberg in an aquarium for many years to help show students the situation down below, that most don't get to see.

AMT: Kind of like a pet Fatberg?

BO: Well yes. Unfortunately working in the sewer system nobody else gets to see what you're dealing with, so you have to really bring it up above, so you can get people's attention about these bad behaviours that are going on within the system, right.

AMT: So tell us what it's like to go in search of a Fatberg in a sewer system.

BO: It's not much fun and you have to suit up and have some gas meters and safety equipment and all kind of protective equipment on because all kinds of things are being flushed down toilets and poured down sinks and so, yeah it's quite a bit of work and we have a lot of dedicated professionals right across the globe doing a great job in fighting these Fatbergs.

AMT: So when you come across one it's like, what's it look like?

BO: Well for the most part, a lot of people are dumping bacon fat down the drain. And so bacon fat is sort of this yellowish-whitish colour and it's got all kinds of non-flushable material in there such as wipes and feminine hygiene products and cotton swabs and flossers, I just, these plastic flossers out there by the hundreds of thousands. People are flushing them and I just don't understand it. So that's what it sort of looks like.

AMT: And we really have to stop that. Who flushes that? Who does that?

BO: We have to stop a lot of things from going down the toilet. The only thing that should be going down the toilet is human waste and toilet tissue. That is it.

AMT: OK, so when you come across this, is it like a big ball, sitting in half the sewer or does it start congealing around the pipes and then just keeps moving inward to make the actual pipe outlets smaller, like what is it actually physically look like when you come across it?

BO: So what happens is we usually put cameras down in the sewers, most of the time to see what's going on. And as you're putting the camera along you can see that it's collecting on ridges, it's collecting on sections of the pipe and then it just starts to grow and so certain areas of the sewer might collect more fats and garbage than other parts and so it literally can block an entire sewer line.

AMT: Kind of like a clogged artery.

BO: Exactly.

AMT: And so when you have something like this we talked about, you know, the basements rising insurance costs, what are the other problems that are caused?

BO: Well it could overflow on the road and you know the square things on the side of roads and in parking lots are storm drains so they're only for rainwater and snow melt. There's absolutely no treatment on that. So if you have raw sewage bubbling up through the manholes, getting into the storm drains that's going directly into our creeks and rivers. And so this is what really concerns me because I see so many of these products that should never be flushed, now entering our natural environment and so people need to be aware of what to flush.

AMT: And you've got them in London, Ontario so you don't need a population of of multiple millions to have these things growing in your sewers.

BO: Well back in 2008, when we started, yes we had about 40 percent of our blockages related to fats, oils and grease. But then we started a program of inspecting restaurants and visiting restaurants and instantaneously we saw a difference in our sewer lines. But we also saw problems with our residential areas and so we created a program for residents to put fats, oils and grease into a cup here and it's been very successful. We're saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year here in London and we haven't had a blockage related to fats, oils and grease in over four years now here in London, Ontario.

AMT: Just by putting out this, it's like a, it looks like a disposable coffee cup essentially.

BO: Yeah, it's basically a cup that is degradable in a commercial composting facility and all you do is put your fats, oils and grease in it and what we found was people would do it, first off, and then secondly that we found that it was very valuable to collect the fats, oils and grease and get it over to an anaerobic digester that would produce methane gas and that methane gas would then be able to burn electricity or create clean electricity for the grid. So last year we collected over six thousand kilograms of fats, oils and grease at our enviro depots here in London.

AMT: OK. And that was solely from households or was that also from commercial cooking.

BO: Nope. Solely from households.

AMT: Fascinating. So, but how do you collect it, do people just stick it in their garbage or do they actually have, like there's a special collection for this stuff.

BO: Yeah. City of London has four depots called enviro depots and we've set up bins and totes at these depots so the residents can bring their cups full of fats, oils and grease to us at those depots. We put it into a tote and then we're able to get it over to this anaerobic digester facility. So this is really incredible that our community is A, using the cup, saving us money, but B, also dropping it off for us. We've taken a waste product and we've turned it into a resource now.

AMT: So that's hats off to the people of London, Ontario, huh.

BO: Our community has really been engaged in this. There's all kinds, church groups and environmental groups and students and businesses are asking for us to come and drop off cups for their employees and so we've handed out over 100,000 cups.

AMT: And so if it sounds pretty straightforward why aren't, why isn't every city doing this?

BO: A lot of cities are doing things related to proper disposal of fats, oils and grease there and so some cities have picked up on the cups and have started it. We've had inquiries all across Canada for municipalities, we've had inquiries from the States and Australia and Japan and even the UK. I was over in the UK and I went to the Museum of London and I saw the Fatberg that was over there in their museum.

AMT: OK, well thank you for bringing us up to date on a solution, Barry Orr.

BO: Well thank you for having me and everyone just remember that toilets are not garbage cans.

AMT: Okay, well thank you. That's Barry Orr, the Sewer Outreach and Control inspector for the city of London, Ontario, known as Captain FOG. Now before we go any further, we do want to hear from you, what do you do with your used oil, do you have anything like a cup or a tin to save it? What goes down your drain? Admit it. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to our Facebook page. Email us from our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. And let's get some more perspective on the Fatberg problem, someone who sees only opportunity in all that used cooking oil. Scott Lewis is the executive vice president of commercial operations and strategy for World Energy. It's a renewable energy company with eight biodiesel and renewable diesel plants across North America. He's with me in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

SCOTT LEWIS: Thank you very much, Anna Maria.

AMT: And so our last guest talks about the cup system, how do you capture used cooking oil?

SL: Well we buy it as a finished product. We deal with more of the commercial and industrial side of grease collection. So it's been the law for many, many years that businesses and industrial operation, food operations aren't able to put that product to the waste greases and oils from cooking operations down the drain. And so it's been collected for many years and what we do is we buy it from the companies that process it. Basically they collect it from the back of a restaurant. If you look at the back of a restaurant you'll see a barrel of some sort that they pour all the grease that they use in the cooking and it gets collected, basically takes, goes back to a central facility where it gets boiled. They boil off the water that collects in there, they strain out the french fry bits and so on and then we buy it. And so we turned it into biodiesel and renewable diesel. Our plant in Hamilton, Ontario processes about fifty-two thousand tonnes of that per year, just to put a little perspective on, you know, having on a residential side and finding 6000 kilograms, which is a huge number when you think about it on a per capita basis, but you know we're processing 52000 tonnes in Hamilton. When our second facility in Ontario comes up next year, it'll be about the same amount again. And we have plants around around North America that do even more.

AMT: OK, I have lots of questions.

SL: O kay.

AMT: So first of all, how much a barrel like how expensive, how lucrative is one barrel of cooking grease then sitting outside a restaurant?

SL: Well, oh that's an interesting calculation. Basically the restauranteur used to have to pay to have that product taken away. It was a cost to them. So there were lots of places for slippage and I'm sure that more than one did put it down the drain to avoid the hassle and the cost. Now because of programs like having the Greener Diesel Program in Ontario, where you get a benefit, an added benefit for taking waste products such as yellow grease and animal fats and turning those into energy, that the values have grown considerably. So now it is the restauranteurs and the actual creators of that of that grease are part of the value chain, so they get paid to have that taken away.

AMT: OK, OK. And does anybody try to steal it?

SL: I think they do. I think that, right now we've seen the value for that today in US dollars per tonne, the way it trades is about 450 to 500 dollars per tonne in when the market, because it's a commodity, the market goes higher and lower. It's been as high as 800 to 900 dollars a tonne in past years and so at that point you do get people coming out of the woodwork and in the middle of the night going and stealing those barrels and trying to sell it. I'll tell you it's very easy to run a profitable business if you have no cost attached to it. So when they steal it, it means a lot of profit. I don't think it lasts for very long and I think that the actual collectors that have contracts to pick this up, they have been policing it more and more. They've been getting the authorities involved and slowly, but surely I think they're tamping that down.

AMT: So interesting and this is called yellow grease?

SL: Yellow grease or recovered vegetable oils, recovered cooking oils, you know the trade names for it, they vary in different areas.

AMT: OK so you say 52,000 tonnes of this gets processed in Hamilton?

SL: Yeah, just at our facility alone.

AMT: Okay and how does that translate into, you make biofuel with that?

SL: We make biodiesel at that particular plant. We could also make renewable diesel at our other plant that would, coming online next year. And so these are direct replacements for or additives to diesel fuel. So currently with the Greener Diesel mandate across Ontario, it's mandatory that producers and importers of petroleum products need to blend four per cent of their total pool with biofuels, such as biodiesel or renewable diesel.

AMT: Okay so that's a fairly large volume.

SL: Very large volume.

AMT: A fuel you're creating from our french fry orders.

SL: That's exactly right.

AMT: OK. And you say there are government mandates. First, where is this industry headed, is it only going to get bigger?

SL: Well we certainly hope so and we're trying to do that. The benefit is that when we are able to take a waste product like yellow grease and convert that into biodiesel, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions when compared to petroleum diesel of about 102 percent. We can actually go above 100 percent because we upgrade our co-products such as glycerin which go to replacing petrochemicals in the industrial sector.

AMT: And you can get carbon credits for, can you not?.

SL: We do. Yes.

AMT: And so you're talking about fueling vehicles and fueling with biodiesel fuel, what about the grid? What about the electrical grid, is some of this going into that?

SL: Certainly you could use it for stationary power as well, we don't have a mandate for that yet, but we do see that on the horizon. We hope that it happens. Right now the transportation sector is the single largest emitter of carbon in our society. So it's about 25 per cent comes from transportation. And so the idea is to tackle the biggest things first. Ontario has a very clean grid itself, with wind power, nuclear and hydro. So I think that the places where you can make the biggest inroads into both ethanol and gasoline, as well as biodiesel and renewable diesel into diesel fuel.

AMT: So as you look to the future, how dominant could yellow grease become in fueling our cars and providing electrical power?

SL: Well I think it's important to realize that it's both yellow grease, it's also animal fats that go into that at our rendering facilities. And so between the two there certainly is a limit. Because society produces, you obviously, this is a byproduct of the food industry. This is not the reason why that food happens. And so it really is taking every bit that you can and looking for new sources as well. So from here you're going to go into cellulosic processes that are going to take all matter of waste and once waste has has a place in the economic chain, then it's no longer waste and it derives value and people start to preserve it and start to take care of it, as if it's going to be a finished product.

AMT: So there have been regulations about the kind of the dumping of grease obviously from commercial businesses. At the same time this kind of thing where there's actually monetary value in hanging onto it, just provides greater incentive, right?

SL: That's exactly right. This is about the real grassroots of what a low carbon economy is, when you can take waste products that people formerly thought there's just, I have to pay to have this taken away or it's a difficult thing for me to deal with and you create value in it. And that's exactly what is the best thing for society right now.

AMT: And then the Fatberg will be an endangered species.

SL: Wouldn't that be wonderful.

AMT: Scott Lewis thanks for coming in.

SL: Thank you so much.

AMT: Scott Lewis is the executive vice president of commercial operations and strategy for World Energy, a renewable energy company, with eight biodiesel and renewable diesel plants across North America. He joined us in our Toronto studio. Stay with us. Still to come.

[sc].

VOICE 1: Every single day they woke up, they said and worried, is today the day one of us is going to leave the other and that was the most terrifying thing.

AMT: Eternal love after more than 70 years together, a husband and wife choose to leave this life hand in hand. I will speak to three of their children about their parents choice of a medically assisted death together. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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'There was no hesitation': Why a couple married 73 years chose doctor-assisted death together

Guests: Pamela Brickenden, Saxe Brickenden, Angela Colterjohn

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from funeral procession.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: A few sounds from the funeral of George and Shirley Brickenden. Through nearly 73 years of marriage, George and Shirley had done nearly everything together. And on March 27th of this year, they died together at the Toronto retirement home holding hands. They became one of the very few couples in Canada to have chosen and to have been granted permission to die together with medical assistance. Their story highlights many of the ethical and practical challenges as this country comes to terms with medically assisted dying. To find out more about the Brickenden's choice, I'm joined by three of their children: Pamela Brickenden, Saxe Brickenden and Angela Colterjohn. They're with me in our Toronto studio. Hello to you.

PAMELA BRICKENDEN: Good morning.

AMT: First of all help us understand who your parents were, how would you describe their life together? Saxe?

SAXE BRICKENDEN: Well it was magic. It was the quintessential love story. My father was set up by his mother, who was a playwright and an actor and she was producing a play in Halifax, when my father's ship came in. He was sub-lieutenant in the Navy and he was only in for a few days and so I guess grandma was booking him appointments, it was amazing. And my mother had initially said, 'oh no, I'm engaged to another man'. But when grandma pulled his picture out, she went, 'well maybe, OK'. So it was at war. Anyway, within six days my father proposed and my mother accepted. So that was in itself astonishing. I can't believe every one of those days has translated into over a decade of very happy marriage. They were awesome.

AMT: Pamela when you remember them growing up, what do you remember?

PB: Laughing.

ANGELA COLTERJOHN: Yeah I was going to say the same thing.

PB: Laughing. Dad was dry, slightly twisted, hilarious and he'd get up and act out and jump on the furniture and just all my life just laughing.

AMT: Angela?

AC: I would say the same. As a child I'd go to sleep at night, I'd hear them laughing. I'd have friends over, it was just a very happy childhood and I feel a great deal of gratitude for that. Also their values they instilled upon us, I think were invaluable. Their sense of morality, they're very devoted and dedicated to one another and to us.

AMT: And so they were in their 90s' what was their life like in recent years?

AC: They were functional, but they became more and more sick with various ailments. Some, well definitely life-threatening in both cases. My mom has had Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis for decades.

PB: 50 years.

SB: Yeah.

AC: And her hands were, when it flared up like purple claws, she couldn't do up her buttons or zippers, she couldn't eat properly with a knife and fork. And my father was so sweet. He'd anticipate her needs and do up the buttons for her and do up her pants for her. He said he'd prefer to undo them. And then she had significant heart issues and then he went downhill in the last couple of years. And his heart became a real problem. So he became very fragile.

AMT: So their life together really is a life that most people dream of. Why did they want to die? Why did they want to control when they died.

AC: Well they were both in significant pain for different reasons and with their heart problems, both of them had heart problems, they had both died, nearly died several times. And I'm convinced that, for instance, in January when my dad we thought he had a heart attack it turned out to be a severe case of influenza. 104 temperature and old people die from influenza. I'm convinced and we're all convinced that he tried to stay alive because my mom was in rehabilitation for her hip that she'd just broken. He wanted to stay alive to be with her. She wanted to get out of the rehabilitation to be with him, so they could be together. And last year when Mom had her, a year and half ago, her heart attack she thought she was dying.

SB: It was like a year ago.

AC: Okay it's a year. And she said, she told us, she said in her head, 'I cannot die, I cannot leave George, I cannot leave George' and I swear that they were hanging on for each.

SB: Absolutely, I second that.

AC: A hundred per cent.

SB: You could see those sheer will and these were very determined people. I mean they were both war vets. My mom was in the air force in Eastern Air Command. And you can see the determination to be together. They weren't going to leave the other one behind. So it was like mind over body. Absolutely.

AC: I saw it numerous times.

AMT: How long have they talked about assisted death as an option?

PB: Forty years.

SB: About four decades. Yeah, my mother would casually say, 'well when we fly away together, we're going to do this and we're going to do that and leave this to so-and-so'. So they referred to it as always flying away together and I used to think as the cynic, you know the teenage cynic, I thought, 'right, sure you're going to fly away together'. You know the laws aren't going to allow that to happen. So it astonished me that the, you know, the Supreme court adjusted the laws in 2015 and right on cue, when mom and dad's health was just at, on last legs, the doors opened up and allowed them to do this. And thanks to Dying with Dignity, who really helped us through all of this stuff.

AMT: When did they first start to take serious steps then toward arranging their deaths.

AC: 18 months ago.

PB: Yeah 18 months ago.

AC: Mom applied and they had a battery of doctors interview her and she was approved quite quickly. And my dad was still pretty robust and so he did not, he was not approved, which demonstrates that these safety guards are working. And then when his health went really downhill in November and January, as I mentioned, he did qualify, but really seriously about 18 months ago, had to have huge determination and tenacity, which my parents have. And they were really excited when they found out they both got approved.

SB: The safeguards are many layers. There's also one that makes sure you're compos mentis. And my father because he's a bit of a joker, a couple of times, you know he answered questions where they would throw a phrase at him, like people in glass houses and instead of saying you shouldn't throw stones, he said shouldn't walk around naked.

AC: Or shouldn't live in glass houses.

SB: So that was a fail. You know and then mom had to chew him out and say will you stop that. You know, these are serious questions.

AMT: But there was a period of time when your father was not, he wasn't approved. And how did your mother react to that?

PB: She was pretty worried.

SB: Oh yeah, they were both worried.

PB: Yeah they're both worried. It was every single day they woke up, they said and worried, 'is today the day, one of us is going to leave the other' and that was the most terrifying thing. They weren't depressed. It wasn't that they were depressed and wanted to end it all. They just didn't want to live without the other. They were one organism with two heads.

AC: And in pain.

PB: Constant pain for decades. So when people say, 'oh they're being' it's as though they're trivializing it or treating this whole issue as a cavalier thing. It was a long term decision. They worked hard, they were tenacious. The safeguards were in place, they didn't make it easy. They just, the worst thing, worse than losing two parents at the same time is losing one and having to watch the other try to cope, that would be heartbreaking.

AC: Yup and in their case particularly.

SB: And they were very stoic too. They didn't complain. I mean, mom's hands were so mangled and she would always wave her hands around when she was speaking and gesticulate. But she never complained about it when you just looked at the hands, you realize that's got to be very uncomfortable. And Dad didn't complain, although he'd been crushed by a horse in an equestrian competition pre-Olympic training, and they had to shoot the horse and his back, lower back was fused and they said he'd never walk again and then they started doing yoga together. And soon he was walking and then running and then back on a horse. They were very determined people and this was something they wanted.

PB: But he had pain for 70 years, she had pain for 50.

AC: Yeah.

PB: And you can't judge another person's pain, but you really should walk in someone else's shoes cause I've had the kind of pain where you will do anything to get away from it. And this is what they were going through.

AMT: But his pain was not deemed worthy of approval at first, right, it was that he ended up with a heart attack after his health went downhill.

AC: Yeah it wasn't so much his pain, it was him collapsing and going unconscious on the floor that drew their attention to the situation. I mean his heart was stopping.

AMT: How well do you think the system worked for your parents?

SB: I think it worked perfectly for them, except that, well I think it's fair that we need to protect the vulnerable in our society. So we do need these safeguards. It was a bit scary and I'm sure, you know, mom and dad would have preferred it were easier. But I think in balance it was, the laws are really well thought out.

AMT: Do you think anything can be improved in this system?

AC: Well, listening to Chantal, Dr. Chantal Perrot, speaking to a parliamentary committee, a couple of weeks ago, she was talking about such an abundance of caution. And doctors are afraid to be involved in this because of the potential legalities, litigation. So it's new to Canada and I think it's going to take a little bit of time for people to adjust. So on one hand I think it should be a little more accessible, but on the other hand, I agree, it should also have all these stringent safeguards.

SB: And I think the society has to adjust how we think about this issue as well because mom and dad had to be very surreptitious for a bit there because you know, even when we had to call in, you know, the coroner's office there were two bodies. And you know, when the Humphrey funeral home came to pick up the bodies. 'Why are there two bodies?' It sounds like it's a homicide or something and interestingly when they walked into the room to take them away, they both came out with tears in their eyes. They were crying, which of course made us all break down because they'd never seen anything like this. You know they could barely get their hands apart.

PB: They were holding hands and smiling by the way.

AC: To the very end.

PB: To the end.

AMT: Were you there? Were you in the room?

PB: Yes. We had our arms around each other. Angela was rubbing mom's feet cause we loved that sort of thing and I was rubbing dad's. We were standing at the foot of the bed and there was no fear, there was no hesitation. They embraced this process and they looked at each other. The last thing dad said was, 'I love you all'. Well that's a pretty good, that tells you a lot.

AMT: And did you get any sense at all that they had any doubts at any time.

AC: Never ever ever ever.

PB: Never.

SB: Not once.

PB: Not once.

AMT: And what about you guys, did you ever like argue it with them.

AC: Never.

SB: I don't think we argued it, I've never heard an argument about it, except that the only thing I was reticent about was actually being present for their death.

AC: Yeah we weren't sure.

SB: I thought that was very intimate. I thought that's something they'd want to do together, but at the last minute they said, 'you know what we want the kids in'.

AC: I'm glad we were there.

SB: I'm glad we were there as well, in hindsight, but you know, before the time I thought I don't think I could do that.

PB: They helped us into the world, we should help them out of it.

SB: That's fair.

AMT: What has the conversation been like amongst you guys that as this process was unfolding. What kinds of things did you talk about in anticipation of what was going on with your parents?

AC: In anticipation?

AMT: Like knowing that they had a date.

PB: We had mom and I, and I guess all of us had conversations that were surreal, where you'd say, okay well if we can't get the authorization from Dying with Dignity or made, medical assistance in death, then we're going to do ourselves. We're going. We're going. So do we do carbon monoxide, do we do, we slit their wrists. What's the right way. They read all the books, Final Exit. They read a book on what pill to take, but then do you regurgitate and then you end up, so, this I believe in Dying with Dignity if you're at that point because it's better than a botched suicide. They were going. They weren't depressed, they just had had enough. They were exhausted.

SB: They were going into emerge three times a week sometimes.

PB: Their natural habitat.

AC: It's like that case that we read about recently, I think with the doctor whose parents committed suicide because they didn't, couldn't get approval and the children were shattered because they weren't prepared.

SB: They didn't see that coming.

AC: What we had, which was fantastic quality time. We really had, all of our family flew from around the world: Norway, Switzerland, Scotland, Vietnam, Vancouver to be together and we had 22 of us.

AMT: Tell me a little bit more. Did everyone know in the wider family or was this like when everybody got together.

AC: It was immediate family to begin with and our kids had heard them talk freely about flying together, flying together and then a little bit about Dying with Dignity and you know, again with a little skepticism. And then for me I have four kids. They're older. I called them, called my daughter in Scotland and said so Annabelle, papa and ganggang have a date, you know they've been approved. There was silence. And I said do you want to know that date or do you want to know after? And she said, 'I want to know the date and I want to come home right now'. Yeah. All my three boys same thing. Your two boys?

PB: Yeah my two guys when I told them there was that moment and then they reflected on overhearing mom and dad talk about this and take a deep breath and said, 'okay I'm getting on a plane'. My son Cam was in Vancouver, he and his fiance and my son Matt was in Vietnam and they immediately said we're coming home.

AC: Immediately. And so we rallied together and mom and dad are very private people, so they didn't tell very many people. Plus this was going to happen in their retirement home. They weren't so sure how that would go over, so we were all sworn to secrecy. And in fact the only reason they went public with this at all is to hopefully facilitate or help others in Canada get access to this option. If you don't like it, don't do it, but at least if people want to have this option it's nice to have it more accessible.

AMT: So tell me what their final days together were like.

SB: Oh they were relieved.

AC: Fun.

AC: They were relieved. There was a lightness that hadn't been there in a year and a half.

PB: You could hear dad in the other room, he'd be humming and singing, making unsuitable jokes.

AC: And he said all this funeral planning is killing me. It's like..

SB: There was there was a meeting with the two doctors prior to, obviously, and at one point dad in the middle of the conversation just got up and lay down on the floor and my mom said, 'Brick what are you doing?' And he said, 'practicing'. So I mean yeah, there was a dark humor, but there was humour and that I think made it easier for all of us.

AC: Going to Humphreys with mom and dad was very strange, to the funeral home walking and I was feeling very weird about it and we walked in and said, 'yeah we're planning a funeral' and they're like, 'yeah that's normal, your parents are old'. And I said, 'it's for actually Monday after next. 'Oh'. But they had to be obviously they couldn't tell anybody, but that was a weird experience, but strangely comforting to plan their funeral with them. Plus we knew we wouldn't get in trouble if we messed up.

AMT: So the actual, their deaths it was in the evening? Am I right?

AC: 7 o'clock.

SB: 7 o'clock.

AMT: So talk to me a little bit about that evening. Can you tell me what was it like in the room, what was the mood, what were you thinking. Take me through that.

SB: Well Dean Asbil was there from St. James Cathedral to read them their last rites. And that meant a lot to them. My mother was, well they were both both religious. I always thought my mother a bit more so than my father, but I think it really gave him a lot of comfort to have the dean there and then the two doctors. And that was surreal too, as Angela said it was, the whole experience was surreal. But to sit and be having, the doctors didn't drink, needless to say, but..

AC: We had champagne and lobster.

SB: We had champagne and a toast to their life. And then mom said, you know, 'Well Brick, are you ready?' And he said, 'Whenever you are.' And they walked into the.

AC: And that was like quarter to seven, I thought they had 15 more minutes. 'You sure you want to go right now? You still have a little more time.'

SB: Yeah.

PB: They were, as Saxe said, they were both, they had deep faith and I asked Mmom about that and I said, 'are you, how are you dealing with that aspect of this decision, you're taking essentially, you're agreeing to have someone assist you in dying.' And she said, 'I don't believe that God wants me to suffer like this anymore. I've had enough. I'm exhausted'.

AC: Yeah. Good point.

AMT: Did she get any push back from faith leaders?

PB: No. In fact, my experience, my personal experiences, I've dealt, I've had conversations with Buddhists, Muslims, of Greek Orthodox, Anglican Roman Catholic, agnostics, every possible Jewish everything and they've all said, 'wow I mean this is really amazing'. Some people say, 'I wouldn't do it myself, but I respect your right to choose'. It might not be right for me, but it's right for them.

AMT: I wanted to know the reaction you have been getting.

AC: Unbelievably positive. Unbelievably positive.

SB: Yeah. Really overwhelmingly positive. I mean I put a post up on Facebook and I did address that that this was, you know, I had been skeptical about it and that there's a reason for the laws being there. But we got 100 per cent. It went viral you know, within a couple of days, I had 120 reposts and over about 600 likes and for me that's a lot.

AC: And huge moments.

SB: Yeah and very, very supportive comments and people, even people who had watched their parents suffer without this option and who said, 'I really wish that we had this'. Which is really why I'm here and why we're here to honour mom and dad's wishes because I don't think, you know, the inadvertent side effect of the really tight laws, was that we had nursing homes full of people who are drugged out of their minds, in pain and therefore drugged and just being warehouse and not even recognizing sometimes, they aren't who they were.

AC: To add to your point, I've spent seven years, we have a dog who's a St. John Ambulance accredited dog, Stanley, he's very famous and for seven years I've been going to a retirement home every Wednesday that I can. And there are several florists, some are independent, some are not. And it has happened so often that I'll talk to a resident and say, 'oh see you next week,' and they'll say, 'you know what, I love you Angela, but I hope not'. 'You know my heart's been acting up. I hope not.' The ones that can speak. Then there are the ones that are totally paralyzed or don't know who they are or where they are, by laughing at the wall and running around with scantily clad. A lot of those people that I've spoken to there, don't want to be alive. And I don't know they have to be of course sound mind, to make that decision.

SB: Yeah that's the problem.

AC: Every week.

PB: When it's not going to get better and you have no hope, before you fall apart and lose all your dignity completely and perhaps even damage some memories or real relationships because some diseases make you lose your mind and become violent or aggressive. Who wants that?

AMT: You know there are Canadians who do have ethical and religious objections and you made the point, people can make their own decisions. But what do you say to those who worry that access to assisted dying, medically assisted dying is too easy.

SB: It's not.

AC: It's not. You have to have huge tenacity and determination. And some people don't have families to support them and we didn't do anything, but we were there and mom is able-bodied enough to pursue it vigorously, rigorously.

AMT: And what do you say to those who, you talk about dignity in old age or in illness and what do you say to those who react to what you say as suggesting that they don't have dignity. If they lose some of their physical abilities or their mental abilities that we see them. Those of us who are not in that position we see them as losing their dignity. But maybe they haven't.

AC: It's a choice.

PB: I think it's a personal choice. I don't think it's for everybody and it shouldn't be. It certainly didn't make it easy. And it's not a decision you come to with a cavalier, last minute. Oh let's try this, this is a long journey deeply ingrained conviction of theirs, this plan has happened to align and they were able to go together. But to see them lying there together looking adorable, holding hands, smiling at each other, no fear, no hesitation and watching as they gently flew away together. I saw their faces and they the pain, the worry, the stress just melted away. It was a beautiful thing to see.

AC: For them.

PB: For them. Not for everybody.

AMT: And I'm guessing that despite the fact that you are so supportive of that and you able to talk about it so easily, there must be moments when it's really hard that you're mourning them, that you miss them.

PB: But we have each other. They gave us each other as Saxe says.

SB: Yeah they were so central, they were still, you know, very much in our day-to-day activities, we would call and touch base.

AC: Oh yeah.

PB: Daily.

AC: Multiple times.

SB: So yeah, of course, there's a big hole there, but they've been preparing us for this for 40 years and I hope that we can stimulate some conversation around the dinner table with what's going on.

AC: Totally has happened. That's another thing I've heard from everybody I've talked to that, that was the dinner topic. This conversation. People don't have it, so what mom and dad have done by going public with this is they've pulled the subject out of the shadows and made it topical and dinner table conversation and hopefully that will help others.

PB: I'd like to emphasise that mom and dad, in fact, our whole family tend to be very private. So for them to do this and say to us you know you're going to get pushback. Are you ready? And we all said, yes we're ready. I would, I mean I find this process very stressful being on the radio and so on, but I'm doing it because they wanted their deaths to matter, to count, to help other people who are suffering, to give them the option.

AMT: Well I'm guessing that there are days when the emotions are hard, regardless of the fact that you approved of all of this and you wanted them to have their own choice.

PB: We have each other.

AMT: I mean you must miss them.

SB: We do.

AC: They went at a time of their choosing. Not when time chose that, I mean that's different. And some things are going to take a long time to adjust to. I confess I took an Ativan when I went to the funeral.

PB: Me too.

AMT: Well thank you for sharing your story and their story as well.

PB: Thank you.

SB: Thanks Anna Maria.

AC: Thank you for having us.

AMT: I've been speaking with Pamela Brickenden, Saxe Brickenden and Angela Colterjohn. Their parents George and Shirley died together with medical assistance in March. Later this week we will hear a different perspective on medically assisted dying from Ing Wong-Ward. She's a former CBC journalist, she's now a disability rights activist, who has a condition known as Spinal muscular atrophy. Ing Wong-Ward has been diagnosed with incurable colon cancer. She'll tell us why she would not choose to end her life with medical assistance. That is our program for today, let us know what you think of what you've been hearing on our show today. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with Radio One for Q. Neil Patrick Harris joins Tom Power today to talk about his latest role as Count Olaf in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Finally today, in my conversation with the Brickenden's children, Saxe mentioned that his parents had spoken about their plans for death with what they called their final trip together for years and they referred to it as flying away together, as you heard. And in that spirit we will leave you with music to end today, Frank Sinatra, Come Fly With Me. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[SONG: COME FLY WITH ME]

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May 1, 2018 episode transcript

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