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The Current Transcript for July 23, 2018

Host: Megan Williams

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: It's almost inconceivable these kinds of things can happen. We were so used to living in a city where these things didn't happen and as we saw them going on in the world around us that we thought they didn't have them here. Couldn't or shouldn't. And I can just say to people that they should try to stay calm, while the police do their job.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Toronto Mayor, John Tory, in the wake of last night's shooting in the city's popular Greektown that has left two people dead and at least a dozen injured. The shooter, a 29-year-old man, is also dead. We'll have more details on that coming up shortly.

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VOICE: It's really hard to see the outline of even the tops of the mountains. That whole hill was red embers. Just terrifying.

MW: And a year after British Columbia experienced its worst wildfire season in its history, parts of B.C. are burning again. We got the latest on another scorching hot summer and what residents should be doing to prepare for the worst. And in the second half hour of today's show.

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VOICE: I woke up this morning and learned the Taliban could go to the city without harm. My heart is bursting with happiness because of this cease fire.

MW: A few surprising days of ceasefire in war-torn Afghanistan are opening up new possibilities for peace. And then.

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VOICE: It is about living. Rather than me spending my energies worrying about clear torment to come, in my situation it's allowed this year to flower.

MW: A Victoria man finds solace in refusing to allow his cancer to decide the day of his death. Our documentary, One More Moment, in an hour from now. I'm Megan Williams and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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As gunfire rips through Toronto's Greektown, a community is 'shaken'

Guest: Meagan Fitzpatrick

MW: Well, the country's largest city is reeling from a shooting today, yet again. Jody Steinhauer was out on Toronto's Danforth Avenue with family yesterday evening when the shooting happened.

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VOICE: We were having a family birthday dinner. We were halfway inside the restaurant and the door to Christina's was wide open. And all of a sudden, we just heard, what sounded like firecrackers. Ten to fifteen, very, very, quick and very, very, loud, right outside the restaurant. And it kind of just took us seconds and I looked at my boyfriend and said uh, and all of a sudden you heard someone scream, "Get down!" And we immediately got the parents and children to the back of the restaurant with another family and everybody was under tables at the very back of the restaurant.

MW: CBC News reporter, Meagan Fitzpatrick, joins us now from the scene on the Danforth. Hello.

MEAGAN FITZPATRICK: Hi.

MW: So can you tell us what happened last night?

MF: Well, police started getting 9-1-1 phone calls around 10:00 p.m. last night. Reports of gunshots being fired along Danforth Avenue. For people who haven't been to Toronto, it's a very busy area. It's known as Greektown. This strip of Danforth is packed with businesses and restaurants and cafes. Busy on most evenings, but especially in the summer. Some eyewitnesses reported seeing a gunman who was dressed in black, zigzagging kind of across the street and unloading his gun multiple times. Police reported last night that 14 people had been shot including the gunman. They are telling us that they got to the scene quite quickly after those 9-1-1 calls came in. They were able to locate the suspect and they exchanged gunfire with him. Where that happened is just down the street from where I am right now on the scene. They say after they exchanged gunfire with him, he fled and then they found him deceased on Danforth Avenue. We're not sure yet whether he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or whether it was because of the police gunfire that was exchanged with the alleged suspect. But as we have been hearing from witnesses all last night, it was an extreme and this morning, an extremely frightening situation last night. The witnesses are saying the gunman was firing into restaurants and people were diving for cover, trying to get out of the way, but people also saw other people who had been shot and were laying on the ground and they were trying to help them. We're just hearing eyewitness accounts of just a terrifying scene and people I've been talking to here this morning, telling me the same thing.

MW: Now have you spoken directly to witnesses about what they went through? Anybody who actually came close to the gunman.

MF: Not so far this morning. No. The people that I've been talking to here are mostly local residents, were kind of coming down to take a look and see for themselves what happened here. And they're shaken. They are just in shock that this happened in their neighbourhood, which is known as you know a safe place in Toronto. Family-friendly. Lots of people come out here. I talked to one woman whose children had been out for ice cream just an hour before it happened and she was literally choking back tears cause she's so upset that this happened in her neighbourhood and obviously was so frightened because she was thinking it could have been her children that may have been struck by the bullet, had the timing been a bit different. So a lot of, yeah, people in the neighbourhood just saying they can't believe that this happened here. Another business owner I talked to, who has a restaurant, who works at a restaurant along Danforth, saying that just in about two weeks time this major festival called the Taste of the Danforth happens along here in Greektown, attracting thousands of people. He's worried that people might not come because they're going to be scared to come to this neighbourhood now. I talked to another man who lived in an apartment above one of the businesses along Danforth and he worked at a restaurant in a neighbourhood too and he was just saying how he lived around here his whole life and he can't believe this happened. So the people I've been talking to here, down the scene, none of them saw the gunman or witnessed the actual incident, but they live around here and they're still very shaken up by what happened. And quite a few of the parents too who I've been talking to, saying just how upsetting this is for them because as we know, one of the shooting victims is a little girl who was taken to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto last night.

MW: Right and we've heard she's in critical condition. I guess we don't know yet, how she's doing.

MF: We do know though that it is two people who have been killed now. Last night the latest information we had, it was that it was one person, one woman killed and the gunman, but just a few minutes ago the SIU did confirm that two people have been killed, but we don't have any identities or ages of the victims.

MW: Right and what are you hearing from police?

MF: Well they did say in that news release that put out just a few minutes ago, that the gunman was a 29-year-old, but they did not release a name. That really is the only detail we have about him at this point. And the eyewitnesses that have been talking to us, described the suspect, the alleged gunman as someone who was maybe in his 20s or 30s. He was dressed all in black, carrying a bag, when some of the eyewitnesses saw him pull out his gun and fire into these restaurant. But police saying they don't know a motive at this point. And that really everything is on the table and they don't want to speculate. So they're really just getting their investigation going and they're appealing to the public for help. There were a lot of witnesses. This was a busy evening when this happened around 10:00. Lots of people having meals and desserts in the area, but they do know that people may have fled the area quickly when this all happened, of course, as you would expect. And so they are asking people to come forward this morning. If they have any information, if they have any photos or video on their phones or if they have any dash cam video perhaps because right along Danforth, lots of cars are parked. I can still see some of them right now. People having to leave their cars overnight because the street is shut down, while the police continue their investigation. The police are saying Chief Mark Saunders said last night that police arrived on the scene very quickly after the 9-1-1 calls came in. And that is partly why they were able to locate the suspect while he was still in the area and exchanged gunfire with him. Mark Saunders saying he's glad all of his officers are safe and he's happy with the response time. But again, they have no motive at this point and really are appealing to the public for any information about the alleged gunman and about just what they may have witnessed here last night.

MW: Right. Mayor John Tory has said already that this is evidence that there's a gun problem in Toronto. Are you hearing the same sort of thing from the people you've spoken with?

MF: Well definitely, this has been a concern on the minds of Torontonians this summer. This is just the latest in a number of shootings and some of those shootings have happened on busy streets like this, where people are out enjoying their summer evenings and John Tory and the police chief have had several news conferences in the last few weeks, talking about the gun violence in Toronto. Toronto police have even put extra officers on the streets from 7:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. to help tackle some of this and they have said before, they know some of this gun violence in recent weeks is gang-related. But as to whether that had anything to do with what happened last night, again, the police chief saying he's not going to speculate on why this unfolded. But some of the people I talked to this morning, when I asked you know how they think this might impact their neighbourhood, they said it really depends on what the motive was. You know, if it was gang related, that might make them feel differently than if this was just a lone gunman who was you know operating on his own for whatever reason. So some people saying you know it matters why this happened and what it was related to in terms of how fearful they might be about this happening again in their neighbourhood and in another parts of Toronto. Some of these other shootings have happened in playgrounds. Some of them happened in busy areas like Kensington Market, again another part of Toronto with lots of restaurants and bars and cafes. So Torontonians have been, I can tell you, I've been reporting on this throughout the summer, it's a topic of discussion. People in Toronto are talking about this. And really the sense sometimes is just, oh no, not again, another shooting. So it's definitely on the minds of residents and the police and politicians at all levels. Mayor John Tory has met with Premier Doug Ford and with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in recent weeks and gun violence in Canada's biggest city has been a topic on the agenda.

MF: And I'm sure it will continue to be. OK, thanks very much. I've been speaking with CBC News reporter Meagan Fitzpatrick, who joined us from the Danforth in Toronto, where the shooting took place.

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'Everyone remembers it': B.C. Okanagan fires trigger reminder of 2003 disaster

Guest: Brady Strachan

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VOICE: Anxiety, I guess, would be the most thing and grab the dog, grab whatever you can and head out.

MW: Grab what you can and head out. That's the situation many residents of B.C.'s interior have had to face over the past week. High alert and mandatory evacuation orders. The winds have been less fierce over the weekend with cooler temperatures and some cloud cover, leading to orders being lifted. But there are still dozens of small fires and smoke still smoldering in parts of the Okanagan Valley, B.C.'s wine-producing region. Gordon Fitzpatrick is president of Fitzpatrick Family Vineyards and has been through the ring of fire before.

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VOICE: We experienced the fire storm of 2003, which came through the winery that we had at that time, Cedar Creek Estate Winery. And although you know we lost our pump house and a farm shed and it was very close to harvest and so the ramifications of that wildfire were much more considerable than this, but you know when you've been through it, you also know the potential damage that it can do. And so although I guess I'm thinking to myself, well gosh I'm on the other side of the lake and we're getting it again. What's going on?

MW: And a hot dry summer in Ontario has put some residents and campers in the north eastern part of the province on alert and under a mandatory emergency evacuation over the weekend. Fires there, one as large as 5000 hectares, have pushed through provincial parks. Fire is also wreaking havoc further north in the Arctic Circle, where wildfires are raging as record-breaking heat takes hold of northern Europe. There are currently 50 wildfires burning above the Arctic Circle. But first let's turn to B.C., to get the latest. Local CBC News reporter Brady Strachan covered the wildfires in B.C. last week and over the weekend. He joins me from west Kelowna. The raging fires of last week seem to have calmed down somewhat, but it also seems like it could be just temporary. What areas are still under fire alert in B.C.?

BRADY STRACHAN: Well, here in the Okanagan region we've got seven fires of note and these of course all started up last Tuesday, when we had a very hot day followed by a dry lightning. Basically, a thunderstorm that rolled through the Okanagan valley, sort of followed Okanagan Lake from the south to the north and littering the sides of the hillsides on the sides of the lake with lightning, but not much rain. And those, that kicked off 22 fires, many of them expanded over the next couple of days. And they've now sort of whittled it down to about seven main fires in the area. Some of them have grown as big as 1500 hectares, which is quite large and these are sort of up in the rugged hillsides of the Okanagan region. It's sort of a dense forest and brush on steep slopes and above communities, as we have a lot of communities in this valley. The main community that's affected is Peachland. It's just outside of West Kelowna, where I am now and there's a fire about a little bit south of that community and it of course has threatened several homes, hundreds of homes actually and it has been doing so for the last five or six days. So it's tense in the area here. As we know that we're going into another spell of hot and dry weather, that's supposed to kick off this week and people are waiting to see what's going to happen with these fires we have and hope that no more are going to start.

MW: Now you heard the vineyard owner talking about the fire following him. What are you hearing from residents and business owners in the area?

BS: That's funny, he talks about experiencing the 2003 fire and you hear that a lot from people. That of course was that sort of the fire on record here in the Okanagan, where more than 200 homes burned down after this just out of control, raging fire raged along the the edge of Okanagan Lake and then right into Kelowna. And that's sort of the fire of note that everyone remembers. Whenever you talk to an evacuee, they may not have experienced that fire, but they remember that time or they remember hearing about that time, if they weren't here. The evacuees now, they've been out for let's say five or six nights now. So they'll be entering almost a week out of their homes, of course they're anxious to get back. A lot of times people just have a limited amount of time to grab what they need and head out. And when these fires happen, it also restricted movement out of the area because there is one road that connects the south Okanagan to the North Okanagan, down along the lake and the fire was burning fairly close to that road. So it was, traffic was limited to just one lane and police would escort several cars through the area as firefighters were fighting it on the side of the highway. So you can imagine being there late at night, looking up at the hillside, which is on fire above you and you're stuck in traffic there, waiting to get through. So it certainly, was certainly a tense time for people. Luckily no homes have been lost and that's you know always something people can fall back on when they're out of their homes, knowing that no homes have been lost and hopefully none will be as firefighters try to get a handle on these aggressive blazes.

MW: OK. And what are you hearing from first responders? I mean do you get a sense that that the fire is contained for now, at least?

BS: Yeah. The biggest fire, south of Peachland, it's at 1500 hectares now. It certainly stabilized. Yesterday afternoon they did an interesting maneuver where they burnt off a bunch of forest fire fuel, basically trees and brush that were in between this large fire and another fire up on a hillside there. And so when you're in town here and you're looking up, it looked like the hillside was suddenly on fire again with a massive plume of smoke billowing up into the sky. It looked quite concerning, until you found out that this was a controlled burn. It's something that they actually planned to do to burn off this area in between these two fires that they said would have burned off eventually anyway and it was hard to get to. So they wanted to do it while there was low wind and it was under their control. And now that they've done that, they say fighting, they won't have to fight the fire in that steep area. They'll be fighting it in a more flatter areas that are easier to access and easier to get to and hopefully that will mean they can bring this fire under control quicker and help people back in their homes.

MF: What's the air quality like with all the burning going on?

BS: It's not bad this morning. The winds have been pushing it sort of out of the valley, which is nice. A change in winds though can bring it down into communities like Kelowna and Peachland, even Penticton and there are air quality advisories for, especially for people with respiratory problems or children or seniors. But when you do come outside, you do notice that constant smell of smoke right as you exit your house. It smells like you're at a campfire all the time and that's just sort of become the smell of summer for many communities in the southern interior of British Columbia. As every year we're getting fires near communities, you can almost count on it happening again, every year.

MF: So Brady, what are B.C.'s wildfires services saying about how the weather has been impacting their work?

BS: Well, it's been very hot and very dry here this month and we've also had a lot of wind as well, specially late in the afternoon. Well, the wind will start to pick up at say 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and what that does is it really fans the flames of the fires and causes them to grow. The one night where the fires here last week grew the most, that wind carried on late into the evening and through the night. And it's really that combination of the hot dry weather, along with those winds that is a big problem for the firefighting effort. Now we know that we're coming back to hot dry weather this week, but actually we're, I spoke with the incident commander of the fires in this area and he says it looks like the winds should be more stabilized. They won't be blowing as much and he says that really will be a factor in helping them get control of the fires.

MW: OK. And do you have a sense that people are prepared to deal with more fires, if they were to come?

BS: I think the fires from last week that we're dealing with now, that's really been sort of a wakeup call to everyone in the Okanagan, that yes we are back in fire season. I mean people always know that we have fires in the summer, but it's just, it's really top of mind now. And we always hear this, we always have authorities telling us to be prepared and have a bag ready to go because who knows when your community could be next. That lightning strike could happen up in the hills above your town and you do have to prepare for that.

MW: Thanks very much. I've been speaking with Brady Strachan, who's a local CBC news reporter and I spoke to him in west Kelowna. Next up, CBC News.

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'A lot can be done' to build on success of 3-day ceasefire in Afghanistan

Guest: Graeme Smith, Orzala Ashraf Nemat

MW: You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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MW: Still to come. Will Pegg has terminal cancer and he's planning a medically assisted death. He's surrounded himself with a circle of supporters to walk the journey along his side. We'll hear about their experience along the way and our documentary, One More Moment. But first, hopes for peace in a country tortured for years by war.

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VOICE 1: I woke up this morning and learned the Taliban could go to the city without harm. My heart is bursting with happiness because of this cease-fire.

VOICE 2: We are so happy because today is a celebration. We gathered here happily with our brothers, who have been unhappy for so long.

VOICE 3: We hope for a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. We must be proud of this peaceful moment and we hope it will last forever.

MW: A Taliban fighter, an Afghan government soldier and an Afghan civilian on Al-Jazeera last month, celebrating a three-day cease-fire to mark the Muslim celebration of Eid. Yet, despite the surprising and short laying down of arms, the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan has hit a record high this year. The United Nations counts nearly 1700 civilian deaths in the first six months of 2018. Yet, the three day break in fighting has sparked hope among some that this could be a chance to lay down the groundwork for a longer, if not permanent end to the bloody war between the Afghan military and U.S. forces and the Taliban. The International Crisis Group has released a new report entitled, Building on Afghanistan's Fleeting Ceasefire. Graeme Smith is a consultant for the International Crisis Group and author of the book, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan. He joins me from Beirut.

GRAEME SMITH: Hello.

MW: Graeme, you've been following the conflict in Afghanistan for some years now. What was your reaction when you saw the ceasefire take hold?

GS: I mean it was absolutely astounding. I've been in and out of Afghanistan since 2005 and every year it's been like this treadmill of escalating violence, just things kept getting worse and worse and worse. And so to see something go right for a change was just amazing really. I mean it brought tears to my eyes and you know all of my Afghan friends were just flooding me with messages. It was it was quite something.

MW: Wow and what was it that made this particular cease-fire come about?

GS: We understand that there was a meeting between President Ashraf Ghani and the outgoing senior U.S. general in Afghanistan, General Nicholson in May and after that conversation Ghani went back to his people and said look we're going to declare a cease fire over the Eid holiday. That's sort of an annual religious holiday where traditionally people are supposed to forgive and forget, supposed to you know to bridge enmities. So it's a good time for something like that. Nicholson, for his part, apparently went back to the U.S. administration and coordinated with the American side. So we had this press release come out from Ghani saying we're going to do this and immediately afterwards the U.S. forces said, yeah we're also going to support this cease-fire. And it caught some of Ghani's people by surprise. He didn't really have time to discuss this with his own commanders in the field and so it tested the coherence of the government side because the Taliban always say you know the government is just a bunch of warlords, a bunch of militias, they don't really hang together. Well, they did hang together. President Ghani showed he has commanding control and he was able to bring this about.

MW: And I suppose the Taliban hung together as well.

GS: Yeah. So that was the really surprising thing because the Taliban as we understand were kind of caught flat-footed. They you know they'd spent years saying you know the Americans are just you know a war machine in Afghanistan. They want to kill and kill and kill and they can't do anything else. And so here you know, you have this kind of olive branch and that was a bit of a challenge to the Taliban. So they had to have some emergency meetings and some internal discussions and come out pretty quickly with a reaction. And it was a sort of the same story on the Taliban side, they didn't, as far as we understand, they didn't have time to negotiate this with all of their field commanders. And so you've had you know for years very senior figures within the Afghan government, within the U.S. administration saying, these Taliban, it's not really a thing. You know, it's just a bunch of different collection of terrorist groups. It's a bunch of different militants. You can't really negotiate with the Taliban because there is no the Taliban. And then over a span of a few days in June the Taliban proved they do have command and control. And yeah, it was amazing.

MW: Now did the violence cease completely during those three days?

GS: No, violence didn't seem completely. I was talking to friends who have three different databases of violence across Afghanistan. Different people count violent incidents in different ways, but basically in an ordinary three day period in the middle of fighting season, you should have expected hundreds of violent incidents to occur across the country. Explosions, assassinations, armed clashes all kinds of different things, you know there's a huge temple of violence on an ordinary day. And then during the ceasefire period it was down to single digits, depending on how you count and a fair bit of what was going on was actually criminal activity or pro government militia squabbling with each other or people being injured in celebratory fire. The biggest violent incidents had nothing to do with the Taliban. They were committed by the local affiliate of the Islamic State or ISIS, which has a small presence in eastern Afghanistan.

MW: So what brought this ceasefire to an end then, if it was so successful?

GS: Well that's an interesting story in and of itself. President Ghani went public as soon as he saw the success of the cease fire and said look we want to extend this you know, let's you know for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, let's try to make this work for a longer period. That apparently sparked some debate within the Taliban as some Taliban said, yeah let's take this opportunity to stop fighting and apparently some of the more senior Taliban, especially the ones living in Pakistan disagreed with that and called for a resumption of the violence. And so on the evening of the third day at sunset, it was like a thunderclap. Just all of a sudden the violence came back as they decided to continue fighting. Some of the Taliban commanders that my colleague, Borhan Osman, who was the lead author of this report, some of the people that he was talking to said that the Taliban felt that if they didn't continue fighting, that they would never achieve their main political aims. That is to say removing the foreign troops from Afghanistan and creating a more Islamic system of government.

MW: Now I can hear the excitement in your voice about that, is that, does not come from surprise that this even happened or from what that could mean for the future? Or both?

GS: Well it's surprised, you know as an analyst, you know as someone who calls himself an Afghanistan expert, it's really delightful to be wrong. You know because for years I've been predicting things getting worse and so it's great when things go well for a change. I think that there is a lot that can be done right now to build on the success of the ceasefire and actually as far as we understand, senior people in the Afghan government and senior people in the American government and actually I think some Taliban, have had their minds changed by this experience because now they understand who they need to talk to switch off the violence. That essentially you know you can have a negotiation between two sides, the U.S. backed government on the one hand and the Taliban on the other hand. And so that's enormously exciting thing. And as we understand, the American government in particular is ready to finally after years of refusing to do so, make some kind of formal outreach to the Taliban as a way of breaking the ice and trying to kick-start some kind of peace negotiation.

MW: Well we know that the Taliban has been asking the U.S. government for years to engage in direct talks. Here is the U.S. State Department spokesperson, Heather Nauert, responding to a reporter's question last week about the American appetite to do just that.

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VOICE 1: We're exploring all avenues to advance a peace process in close consultation with the government of Afghanistan. Our position on this hasn't changed. Any peace and reconciliation talks have to be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned. We stand by that position and that is something that we've not backed away from.

VOICE 2: So the U.S. did not engage in direct talks?

VOICE 1: Abby, that's all I'm going to say to you right now. We're exploring all avenues to advance the peace process, but that peace process has to be Afghan-led, Afghan-owned. That's very important, in order to make it a long-term success.

MW: Graeme hearing that, what do you think the odds are that the U.S. will engage directly with the Taliban?

GS: Well that's a bit of a red herring because the American officials have been engaging directly with the Taliban across three U.S. administrations, so that's really nothing new. What is new I think is a willingness to make that public. You know to make it, to add a degree of formality to that engagement. And also a willingness to talk about things that matter to the Taliban. You know Taliban wants to talk about the withdrawal of American troops. You know what kind of timeline, you know what kind of guarantees. And there are things that the Americans would be interested in talking to the Taliban about as well because you know the Americans are more interested in making sure that foreign fighters and international militants don't regain a foothold in Afghanistan as they did before 2001. And the Taliban want to talk about that too. They're fighting ISIS every day up there in the mountains in eastern Afghanistan, sweating it out in bloody battles against basically international terrorists. So you know there's a lot to talk about and I think they could actually reach some common ground.

MW: And what about the Afghan government?

GS: Well the Afghan government is sort of the end goal in some ways, right. You're trying to persuade the Taliban to finally open the door to talks with the Afghan government because the Taliban know that they can't rule all of Afghanistan. And so they're going to have to talk to whoever's in Kabul.

MW: Now Canada of course has had troops in Afghanistan. And what role would you see for Canada in bringing about peace in the region?

GS: I mean Canada has invested a lot in Afghanistan and I think that a lot of my Afghan friends that I talked to are grateful for that. I think it's worth noting how much effort Canada put into fighting the war in the south and how badly that went and how much that, frankly speaking, stirred up a lot of conflict. I mean if you look at the period of time when Canada was deployed down to Kandahar, the intensity of the conflict just blossomed you know during that time. And so you know, Canada should have some sense of responsibility about this and should maybe try to reengage with the political process as part of the solution.

MW: And what do you mean by that exactly?

GS: Well this, I mean and I'm sure your next guest Orzala knows much more than I do about how thorny the politics are. This is going to take years. I mean what we're talking about now is just the very beginning glimmer of a peace process and any kind of peace process is going to require years and years of support from foreign donors.

MW: OK. And so how hopeful are you that this is going to move forward?

GS: I have to tell, you know a few months ago I was not really hopeful. And now I'm a lot more hopeful than I was, although you know there'll probably still be gray in my beard before I really see a real peace in Afghanistan.

MW: OK. Thanks so much Graeme.

GS: Thank you.

MW: Graeme Smith is a consultant for the International Crisis Group and he was in Beirut. My next guest has spent much of her life under the threat of war and the elusive promise of peace in Afghanistan. Orzala Ashraf Nemat is the Director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent research institute, based in Kabul. That's where we've reached her. Hello.

ORZALA ASHRAF NEMAT: Hello. Hi.

MW: Hi.

OA:N Very nice to talk to you.

MW: Nice to talk to you. So do you share the optimism that we just heard from Graeme Smith?

OAN: Well you know as an Afghan who lives in wars all of her life in Afghanistan, we have no choice, but to be optimist about possibility of peace, even if that is in terms of percentage, a one per cent possibility or even less. But I have to say that our optimism is more cautious than overexcited, if I'm very specific to say that.

MW: One per cent is pretty low. Were you surprised as Graeme was that the cease fire even held those three days?

OAN: Well, I was listening to Graeme and his analysis and I'm very pleased that someone who has spent a lot of time in Kandahar and studied and looked at Afghanistan for many, many years, I'm very happy to hear that in fact there is some higher level of optimism from far away to see how things are.

MW: OK, now you know obviously you're Afghan and your home is Afghanistan, I mean do you have a sense of of how hungry Afghans, people you know, people throughout the country are for peace now?

OAN: The willingness and the kind of readiness for ending this ugly war is very powerful. Women and men, young and old, everyone is reaching to a point to say enough is enough. We have lost enough people and we have been losing this throughout the four decades of war in Afghanistan. So the thirst for peace is there. Of course, there has been also fears. I have visited relatives during Eid, which is a custom that we do and a lot of my relatives who have stayed all their lives in Afghanistan, especially elderlys who remember very well, the war periods and the civil war periods, they were seeming to be more worried about what is going to happen next. So one aspect of this whole cease fire experience, which I found a bit problematic was that it was seen more as an experiment in the very best scenario in a PR sort of activity in a second scenario because it was PR both by government and also by Taliban, both of whom have had good sort of advantages out of this. Now trying to portray that this was there was a level of coherence in a sort of control or monopoly over violence across the country.

MW: Now assuming that there is some the some sort of peace approach to peace out of this that there are direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. I mean what worries do you have about a potential peace deal out of this in practice.

OAN: Well so we look at the peace, as a process and not as an event. So ceasefire is a step towards possibilities of getting closer to at least having ideas, practical ideas on you know starting negotiation, not even the negotiation itself. Across these processes and these different steps that has been communicated by government and different parties involved, I think the major concern is first of all, a very absence or lack of a very sort of in-depth analysis of the stakeholders in this conflict in Afghanistan. Meaning that who are the actors and to what extent do they have or to what degree do they sort of, could they be considered as a threat for stability. I'm saying this because an agreement with Taliban may happen, sooner or later it will happen one day, as history shows, but this agreement would not be the end of the story of this conflict. Addressing the grievances, addressing the injustices that happened on all sides, Afghan government, civilians who are bearing the heaviest weight of this war on their shoulders and also the Taliban. They all have been victims of this.

MW: You've been working for a long time with local groups and community groups and women of course. How well, if at all, are women being represented in you know potential peace talks or peace talks that have taken place already.

OAN: Well so based on my overall observation, there is a real concern that women's representation around the talks. First of all, there are no clear sort of picture of how are the talks being sort of initiated and how are they going on in terms of you know having the talks more kind of behind the closed doors. But even behind closed doors or in the open doors of the High Peace Council for example, we are concerned that the representation of women so far has been to a large extent symbolic and tokenistic. And one thing that I can see sort of evolving among the women leaders and women's groups in the civil society is the fact that we should focus on the substance of what women bring around the table, rather than just having a female representative sitting around the table. So there are now members of High Peace Council who are women, but we are not entirely confident that by having just women around the table of the so-called you know talks and negotiations, we will be satisfied that there will be you know a full representation of concerns of women in the villages women in the districts and provinces or women across the country and basically addressed.

MW: Do you have any concerns that if the Taliban does strike some sort of a peace deal or through as you say a peace process with the Afghanistan government that somehow women's rights might be a bargaining chip and somehow taken off the table to please the Taliban.

OAN: Well, not really. As someone who have worked under the Taliban regime, running home-based literacy classes in the earlier days and talking about late 90s, early 2000s, I'm confident the Taliban are also human beings. They have also mothers, they have sisters, they have wives, they have daughters and I believe that this whole systematic dehumanization of a particular armed group fighting against the government is not fair. I believe that if Taliban are Afghans and they are part of the communities in which Afghanistan government and also international donors have provided you know tons of or millions and billions of dollars of development assistance, basic human needs assistance, such as you know health facilities, education facilities and income generating facilities, I think they will all go and agree with it. On the other hand, I also in my articles and in my writings I have always emphasized on the fact that first do not expect the voice of Afghan women to be one voice. Like the people of the country, the women of this country are diverse. They come from different backgrounds. They come with different expertise. They come from different parts of the society. So there is no such thing as woman voices towards peace. And secondly, do not expect that women of Afghanistan will be surrendering to going back home and sitting and surrendering to a kind of peace deal, which completely excludes them. Now I mean we have, when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in '96, we were recovering from a civil war that women were raped, women were killed, women were kidnapped or were systematically abused. There was a kind of a gender apartheid happening before that during the civil war time. So we came out of that and so you would see streets by streets of Kabul and many, many other cities in which I have traveled and I have worked that women were actively working on education. So if at that time we were doing that, now with 16 years, with billions of dollars arriving in this country and not of course all of the dollars were used in the right way and there is a lot of corruption and inefficiency and so forth. But with the level of education that we have gained, which is beyond class you know based or ethnicity based, I think there is no way to shut the women's voices down. There would be one way or another for us to pave our way towards sustaining peace and in which we also have a strong voice.

MW: OK. Thank you very much. We're going to have to end there. Orzala Ashraf Nemat is the Director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. She was in Kabul.

[Music]

MW: Coming up in our next half hour, how a man with terminal cancer in Victoria, B.C., took control of his own mortality. Stay tuned for our documentary, One More Moment. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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Will Pegg will die an assisted death. He couldn't feel more alive

Guest: Will Pegg

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VOICE 1: Today, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that seriously and incurably ill Canadians have the constitutional right.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Plan we put forward is one that respects Canadians choices.

VOICE 2: Late today Bill C14 passed in the Senate and was given royal assent. that means Canada has a law on assisted dying.

MW: Two years ago it became legal for doctors to help people die in Canada, the result of years of legal challenges and public debate. According to Health Canada, more than 3700 Canadians have died with medical assistance, since it became legal. Doctors, patients and families have all had to adapt to the idea of someone choosing to end their own life. As part of our series, Adaptation, Producer Kristin Nelson brought us the story of a 59-year-old man in Victoria, B.C. and his journey with medically-assisted dying. We first aired this documentary in December. Here it is again, One More Moment.

SOUNDCLIP

[Chatter]

KRISTIN NELSON: It's the Sunday night sit, a regular meeting of this Victoria meditation group.

[Music]

VOICE 3: Welcome everyone to the Sunday night sit.

KRISTIN NELSON: Dozens of people are gathered in this yoga studio. They're settling in; some with crossed legs on pillows, others on chairs wool socks brushing the hardwood floor. The windows are cracked slightly to lead in the crisp evening air.

[Music]

VOICE 3: Just settling in, arriving in this room, in this posture, in this body, in our body andmind.

KRISTIN NELSON: The meditation leader sits at the front of the room. A small statue of the Buddha on one side of him a bell on the other.

[Bill ring]

VOICE 3: They all beings everywhere. Be free from suffering.

WILL PEGG: Welcome everybody.

KRISTIN NELSON: There are more people than usual at this meeting. Many of those gathered are here to support their friend, Will Pegg.

WILL PEGG: The glass broke for me this January. I was driving home and I stopped in a Vic general and ten hours later a very ashen faced, young internist came into the room and said that I had prostate cancer, and then mentioned that I had some growths on my pelvis.

[Music]

KRISTIN NELSON: Those growths turned out to be metastatic bone cancer. By the time the cancer was found he had over 200 metastases or Mets on his bones.

WILL PEGG: On my spine, pelvis, every rib, skull, the left eye that's looking at you right now has a mat just above and behind it.

KRISTIN NELSON: Will is under no illusions about what his future will be.

WILL PEGG: Over time my rib cage will fall apart, my vertebrae will fall apart. The nerves that are in those areas will be crushed, my neck may break to be various forms of paralysis and the opioid load that's needed to control that degree of pain would be stunning.

KRISTIN NELSON: He knows what's coming because that's how his dad died.

WILL PEGG: My dad had the same type of cancer. He was on no pain medication. The people who were present on site told me he was screaming with pain.

KRISTIN NELSON: We all knew he didn't want to die that way. And so almost immediately he started inquiring about medically assisted dying.

WILL PEGG: It feels like the ability to go with the ways of nature instead of against the ways of nature that there'll be a point where the body's carrying capacity for me to live well versus the inputs it's required to keep that going will be fairly negative cost benefit analysis for both myself and my loved ones. And for me it seems beautiful that we can end our time together on this planet, potentially somewhere that's beautiful for me and beautiful for them. And with a lot less drain on the resources of myself, my family, and the Canadian medical system.

KRISTIN NELSON: He'd like to die on a beach on Clayuquot Sound on the far west coast of Vancouver Island, but when and how that will happen is still unclear.

WILL PEGG: Having never died before, at least not that I'm aware of, so it's a bit hard to envision, but this whole process for me has been about trying to embrace wellness for the people around me. So whatever it looks like it would be without drama hopefully, without a lot of footprints left under hearts and there should be singing.

[Group singing]

KRISTIN NELSON: When Will talks about the people around him, he's talking about a huge community of friends that came together after his diagnosis. There are Quakers, Buddhists, environmentalists, nurses, counselors. They set up committees and got to work when it became clear that we'll needed help.

WILL PEGG: The symptoms came on very quick. After my diagnosis, about a week later, I had become unable to manage large parts of my life because the illness was taking up so much energy every day.

KRISTIN NELSON: He was in a lot of pain and living alone in a house outside of Victoria. On bad days, he would have to crawl to the bathroom.

WILL PEGG: One terrible night in February I had managed to get into the bath tub but I couldn't get out of the bath tub. And because the house was wood heated the fire went out, the house got cold and I was stuck in there just running more and more bathwater.

KRISTIN NELSON: It looked like he was weeks away from dying.

WILL PEGG: I think of it as being sort of in the antechamber of death. I was in the waiting room.

MARGA ST. JAMES: Will was having a lot of symptoms you know I just said this "he looks like he's dying right in front of my eyes".

KRISTIN NELSON: That's when Marga St. James stepped in.

MARGA ST. JAMES: I could see him you know losing colour and weight and you know he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't eating. He was just totally in a lot of discomfort.

KRISTIN NELSON: Marga has spiky grey hair and rainbow striped eyeglasses. She's been friends with Will since the 80s and she put her life on hold to help him, signing 'do not resuscitate orders', registering for palliative care and calling hospice. Then she moved on to the more practical matters of his home and business.

MARGA ST. JAMES: Just like packing up his house and closing up his business and getting his financial affairs in order. We didn't know what the timeline was and we just felt like - and he did too - that selling the house and moving into town was the best option.

KRISTIN NELSON: Margaret admits that the way Wills closest friends were making decisions was a bit radical but they agreed that the good of the group should be paramount. And they felt that it would be easier to support him if he was in the city, even though it was hard for Will to leave his house.

WILL PEGG: It was incredibly disorienting but Quaker's generally try to do things by consensus. So it seemed reasonable that they should operate by a principle whereby a good decision would be a decision that benefited the whole, and the consequence of that of course was that they made a lot of decisions that were very difficult for them in terms of relieving me of my possessions, my business, my home and other things but their vision turned out to be a beautiful one.

KRISTIN NELSON: And then, after all those intense decisions were made and Will was settled in an apartment in the city close to his community of supporters, the treatments started working and Will's health improved.

WILL PEGG: And I got a temporary day pass to get out of the antechamber and I've been living full throttle ever since.

KRISTIN NELSON: But Will still has terminal cancer and living full throttle is possible in part, he says, because he knows he can get a medically assisted death when the time is right. But for a small number of people in his large multi-faith community, the idea of him ending his own life is just too much.

MARGA ST. JAMES: I know of a couple of people who who he was friends with you know before his diagnosis and they just weren't - they weren't able to accept his choices and they have just kind of moved away and he doesn't hear from them.

WILL PEGG: Groups that have deep cultural and religious belief in reincarnation and the Karmic implications, if you like, the rebirth implications of how one spends one's last moments on earth have been amongst those people who've had a bit of a struggle with this new opportunity to end one's life.

KRISTIN NELSON: Even though some people fell away and were unable to adapt to the idea, others came forward.

[Chatter and Cross talking]

MULTIPLE VOICES: He is as good at this as you are, Will. It feels very awkward. You are great.

LOUISE TAKEDA: Hi my name is Louise Tekada.

LOUISE TAKEDA: Very intimidating after watching him go right.

KRISTIN NELSON: Louise and Will sit beside each other on a couch, in a room filled with house plants. Afternoon sun streams in through a nearby window.

LOUISE TAKEDA: At one point I got an email from Will saying that he had this terminal cancer diagnosis.

LOUISE TAKEDA: Curly Locks of dark brown hair frame Luisa's small face. She's wearing jeans and a down vest. There are reading glasses propped on top of her head.

LOUISE TAKEDA: It was very shocking it was very saddening and it kind of realize at that point "Gee" you always think you have more time. That's too bad that I didn't get to know him better you know he is such a - such a great person and felt very sad about that. And then I thought. There's still time like there is still time to get to know him.

KRISTIN NELSON: Louise began volunteering to stay with well after his chemo treatments.

WILL PEGG: She really saw me at my completely lowest and most vulnerable. My body aged 10 years in a few months, my hair fell out. My skin fell part. In the course of those visits, I don't know about falling in love but in Buddhist terms we somehow entered into that place of love, being in the place of love, together, completely surprising, stunning both of us really.

KRISTIN NELSON: For Louise. Falling in love with someone who is dying, who's planning to end his own life was hard.

LOUISE TAKEDA: You open yourself to a lot more pain just even in thinking about these things. You really have to find a love that's greater than that pain. And be willing to make that space in your own heart to have pain and to have fear and to be okay with that. So that's definitely a process.

KRISTIN NELSON: A process that led to a wedding in November. It was an intimate Buddhist ceremony in a room full of flowers, tears streaming down their faces as they exchanged vows.

LOUISE TAKEDA: I feel incredibly honored and privileged to be able to spend this time with him. You know whether that's three months or three years or longer. And the fact that it is more time limited makes all the time that we spend together very precious.

WILL PEGG: It takes a lot of clear mind and wise heart and some crying. I do all the crying.

[Laughter]

WILL PEGG: You're more private about that.

KRISTIN NELSON: Most newlyweds don't have to think about preparing for their partner's death so soon. But Louise has had to come to terms with Will's decision to end his own life, and visits like this one to Dr. Stephanie Green helped. Stephanie Green is used to needing a lot of chairs in the room when she meets with Will. He often brings at least a few people from his care committee.

DR. GREEN: Louisa. Aaron, I forgot the name.

KRISTIN NELSON: When the time comes, Dr. Green will be the one who helps Will die.

DR. GREEN: Yes it's months probably since we've met.

[Cross Talk]

KRISTIN NELSON: Will stood out to Dr. Green early on.

DR. GREEN: Will is a unique guy. He's got a lot of love around him. He's got a huge community around him and they're really really incredibly supportive. So I was experiencing it that the first time I went to meet him.

KRISTIN NELSON: For many years Stephanie Green worked in maternity. But after the law changed she began taking on patients at the opposite end of life.

DR. GREEN: I may feel quite privileged to be in a position where I can actually give someone the gift of compassion that they're asking for. There's very few people in our society who've been given that honor really. I don't take that for granted I am enthralled with it. I am rewarded by it and it's been an amazing year.

KRISTIN NELSON: Medical assistance in dying or MAID was only legal for six months before Will's cancer diagnosis.

WILL PEGG: I mean Stephanie gave me my life back. The perception might be that MAID is about dying but as far as my personal experience of it, it is about living. Rather than me spending my energies worrying about clear torment to come. In my situation it's allowed this year to flower. Stephanie is in the position to accord me mercy which is an incredible gift in the midst of dire circumstances .

DR. GREEN: I just want to add to that. I think Will has hit a really important point. I mean I've been able to see through this year the effect of telling someone "okay I think you're eligible for this care in fact I know you are. It's now up to you." To be able to give that power to someone at the end of their life is not just empowering for them it's truly therapeutic. I mean clinically I've seen people react to that news that they now have that control, even if they never asked for this care later, they feel better. Planning for a good death allows for good life. I really believe that.

KRISTIN NELSON: Today Dr. Green explains how a doctor assisted death unfolds.

[Music]

DR. GREEN: ...One more time but once that last verbal 'go ahead' is there then I'll begin the procedure itself. And the nuts and bolts of that are that I start administering a series of four medications. The first one is...

KRISTIN NELSON: The whole process only takes about 10 minutes. It's somewhat incongruous considering this most profound existential moment through the lens of a sanitized medical procedure.

DR. GREEN: The patient will go from a light sleep down into a much deeper sleep and then down into quite a deep coma.

KRISTIN NELSON: And hearing it explained in such detail, somehow brings Will's death closer into the room even.

DR. GREEN: Breathing will slow down if not stop. But even if that happens we go ahead and complete our protocol which is a fourth medication to make sure that's final. And of course I'm with the patient the entire time making sure things are going as expected and I won't let any gather guest know when we are complete and the heart has stopped.

WILL PEGG: I feel incredibly comforted. And to me it's a great relief to hear about the process. Very comforting indeed.

KRISTIN NELSON: We'll has no problem talking about his own death and Dr. Green says that's common, that patients often accept the idea of dying this way well before their loved ones do.

DR. GREEN: They have come to a place where they want to have the discussion about the possibilities of this care usually much sooner than their family members, because they're the ones dealing with the situation personally, the symptoms, the psychology of it, the fallout, their sense of burden on others. They're the ones who've been sitting in this.

KRISTIN NELSON: The medical profession is adapting to. Dr. Green says she's in touch with her colleagues all the time debating how the laws should be interpreted? Who is eligible? What are the best practices. But the one thing she isn't struggling with is the moral question.

KRISTIN NELSON: [To Dr. Green]Is there any weight on you to be the one taking a life?

DR. GREEN: That's an interesting question. Is there any weight on me?

KRISTIN NELSON: Do you ever go home and "Oh my God.

DR. GREEN: You know, no. I don't have to think too hard about that. I worry that that might be the case. My family worried that might be the case. Many colleagues expressed worry about whether that would be the case. I sleep very well at night. I always feel like I've done something good. I will never assist someone who I don't think meets the criteria of the law. So I don't put myself in a position where I'm worried about going to jail that's never been an issue. And with that aside I've only experienced gratitude from people and feel like I've really. It sounds weird. I feel like I've done a good thing. I really do. I don't feel karmic weight. In fact good karma breeds good karma. I think this only breeds positive things.

[Chatter]

KRISTIN NELSON: After that meeting with Dr. Green Will's friends gather for a dinner of takeout Thai.

[Chatter]

KRISTIN NELSON: Erin Munro was one of Will's dearest friends someone he thinks of as a daughter.

ERIN MUNRO: He's kind of like an adopted family member in a way like he is definitely part of my inner circle of closest people and most part of people for sure and definitely seen me through some really tough times.

KRISTIN NELSON: Before he got sick, Will ran an organic gardening business. He mostly hired young people who were recovering from addictions and often trauma. Erin was 24 when she first met.

ERIN MUNRO: Well it was like such amazing therapy to me gardening and... I don't know was just really healing like it just sort of expanded my sense of myself, my sense of like the world in a way like I don't think I'd really experience that other places.

KRISTIN NELSON: Erin was in the room earlier in the day when Dr. Green described Will's death. She has mixed feelings.

ERIN MUNRO: I think I have kind of maybe a slightly naive perspective that I just I worry that... I just wouldn't want him to do it too soon. You know and I feel like, I don't know, if this is a weird parallel to draw, but like I feel like a lot of the time with animals we do it too soon. You know what I mean and there's all this kind of dogma around it being a kindness. And I actually have some conflict about it like where I'm kind of like... 'huh'.

KRISTIN NELSON: It's complicated because Aaron supports assisted death and Will's right to choose it.

I just don't want to miss any moments I guess. I don't know. I just have that comes up for me like 'this is so final'. I mean the end is the end of it. Like you can't be like 'wait one more'. You know like Hang on. I had one more one more good moment. You know like I want to have it. That's the I guess my job as his support version is to like work through whatever I have to work through to get to the point where I'm 100 percent comfortable with him making that call for himself. You know what I mean so that I'm not dealing with that stuff by the time it comes you know. It's great that Stephanie is able to meet with people kind of a little bit earlier on the path right. So it's like yeah like, if I'm a little slow I've got a little bit of time which is nice.

DR. GREEN: It's going to hurt like hell when he is gone.

ERIN MUNRO: Yes but in an odd way I feel - I've told this to him too - like I don't know if it's trust or love or what but it's like I feel totally sure that I will still carry him and like his spirit and his support like I don't feel like I'm going to lose that kind of life. I get it. And so and that's the piece where I'm like 'oh just one more moment'. But the work is done at the same time, do you know what I mean? So it's like it's all there anyway.

[Music]

WILL PEGG: When one is experienced whatever we would call out with our loved ones; great love, great beauty to have one more minute of it is not necessary. And therefore to artificially extend my life at great suffering for all involved seems counter-intuitive.

KRISTIN NELSON: Today Will is on his way to Salt Spring Island, embracing the moments. C.

WILL PEGG: Coming here. Is a reminder of the bigger picture.

KRISTIN NELSON: Will has been coming to Salt Spring since the early 1990s. Lately he's been coming back to Salt Spring more regularly to see a holistic doctor and to visit Seed Spirit farms.

WILL PEGG: We're looking out over many acres of seed fields stretched across the Cranberry Valley.

KRISTIN NELSON: This is the home of Will's friend Dan Jason.

DAN JASON: We're going down to plant some garlic and this time of year. Is it okay to walk all the way down there?

WILL PEGG: I am I'm going to get you to take my arms. Walking for me is getting to be a little hard. Cancer is more advanced than the last time I saw you. That is a lot of clothes Dan.

DAN JASON: Two ladies out will first and then....

WILL PEGG: Any particular [unintelligible] the cove lands in the bed down for you?

DAN JASON: Pointed side up because that's where it's going to grow from and the roots are going to come out at the bottom just fall.

KRISTIN NELSON: How hard is it to think that you may not be here when that garlic comes out?

WILL PEGG: It's heartbreaking to think. But I remember that my pain is part of a larger pain and kind of a contract that we make with life when we're born that some of us are going to see the other ones go. And so yes, but I can definitely feel a deep sadness in my chest as we talk about this and I see the there's finches sitting on the post behind us. Looks like they were it just came out of licorice patch. And I want to hear them sing next spring holiday.

[Music]

MW: One More Moment was produced by The Current's Kristin Nelson and Liz Hoath. We first aired it in December. Will Pegg did get to see and hear finches this spring. His partner Louise along with her extended family and friends continue to support him. We checked in with them to see how he's doing and he sent us this update. Recorded by his friend Raven Hume.

SOUNDCLIP

WILL PEGG: Over the past seven months, this aggressive cancer has continued spreading, despite really world-class Western and alternative treatments. And each time I'd hit a pain and loss line, you know whether physical or mental or both and the mind would think, I cannot do this anymore. Then somebody in our support community would show up unbidden with some resource that turned not doable into doable. And because made isn't just about the last moment of life, but it's about backstopping living well, until it's time to say goodbye as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross used to say. Louise has moved my hospital bed into the bay window of the garden. Every moment I'm laying with carrots, raspberries, blueberries, Jan Jason's beans are around my feet just outside the window. Hummingbirds and chickadees are buzzing around the feeders and there's also a little wooden bowl that was carved by Ken Holmes of Orangeville, Ontario, with stones and I chose five little stones, pebbles really. Each representing some aspect of living like business that I need to get done in the world or relationships with family members and in the dawn, especially when I'm worrying I take a rock from that bowl by the bed and I look out into the garden and I say, really when I move this rock from here over to the altar in the living room, I am going to die. So what do I need to do before I can set it over there and a list of things gradually appears and you know I just kind of work away at whatever has come up. And so far, three of the five stones has made it over as far as the altar. None of them in a single day.

MW: Tomorrow we'll bring you a different perspective on end of life. Anna Maria Tremonti spoke with a disability activist, Ing Wong-Ward. She's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but is not choosing a medically-assisted death. I'm Megan Williams thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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July 23, 2018 episode transcript

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