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The Current Transcript for November 18, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

[Cheers]

MATT GALLOWAY: Outer space is getting crowded from Elon Musk, launching passengers and tools for high speed internet to hundreds of military GPS and weather satellites. There's a lot orbiting high above us in 30 minutes. The astronaut Chris Hadfield on why life in space just got a lot more dangerous after Russia blew up one of its own satellites and created even more space junk. Also this morning, when we last spoke with an Afghan journalist that we're calling Zahra, she was fearing for her life, hiding from the Taliban in a Kabul safe house and waiting for passage out of that country while she's out now. And coming up, we'll hear about leaving her homeland and her hopes of coming to Canada. Plus.

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I have a request for the rich and the powerful and the well-connected, the celebrity and the corporate set who lent their power to the elevation of free the children and WE Charities. I'm asking that you come out of hiding on this matter and go on the record, as I have had to do.

MG: The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelly is here with his latest investigation into the We charity and whether money specifically donated to build schools in Africa led to those schools actually being built. We start, though, with a supply chain already strained and now facing washed out roads and rail lines in B.C.. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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How truckers being stranded in B.C. could impact Canada’s supply chain

Guests: Peter Sandhu, Barry Prentice

MG: Well, the rain may have stopped pouring down on British Columbia, but the damage done by an historic storm is severe. B.C. is now in a province wide state of emergency to cope with the impacts of flooding and mudslides. The prime minister confirmed last night that hundreds of armed forces personnel are headed to the province to lend a hand. Almost 18000 people have been evacuated from their homes. Good news, though, came yesterday for some of the hundreds of people who have been stranded in the town of Hope. The highway from Hope to Metro Vancouver was reopened to westbound traffic to allow them to evacuate. It was a release valve for a situation that has been getting more difficult by the day.

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The Chilliwack team, which is a couple of us, flew up from Chilliwack to hope in a helicopter with enough food for to feed 100 people. Once we get in there and start talking to people, they're very, very calm and they're so appreciative of what we're doing and you never get one negative comment. Even if we made lousy food, I don't think you would get a bad comment.

MG: Don Armstrong is the community food bank coordinator for Chilliwack Salvation Army. He's been flying food into hope by helicopter to feed evacuees. And while the situation in hope has improved, Armstrong's hometown is still struggling.

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We are basically cut off. We're just using because I'm a registered food bank. We do have a decent stock here, so we're using. I don't really know our stock down pretty quick by doing it all. So we're right now we're able to manage. We've got lots of supplies and support out here in Chilliwack. The only thing that we might run short of on everything is the the fresh produce and that kind of stuff, because none of that can get in here even to us. Being in Chilliwack, we're cut off. We can't get to Abbotsford, we can't get we like where we're basically cut off from everybody to.

MG: One of the reasons that supplies are running short is because hundreds of truckers are stranded as well. Peter Sandhu is one of them. He owns a small trucking company with his family in Edmonton, and he and his brother, Gary, were headed to Vancouver for a delivery. They've been stuck in Hope since Sunday, and only cars are being allowed through last night, so he is still stranded. Peter, good morning.

PETER SANDHU: Good morning.

MG: How are you doing?

PETER SANDHU: Oh, God bless. He's still in a safe place, but sitting away from your host five days, it's not really good.

MG: You're still stranded, I mean, we were saying that the part of the highway has been reopened for westbound traffic, but you still aren't able to get on the road.

PETER SANDHU: Yes, sir, because I think they opened up. I was seven for only a few, I think a one hour or two hours further just to test drive to the passenger cars, light vehicles, but up to 1000 or [unintelligible]. But after that, they formed some kind of crack or friction, so they closed down again.

MG: You've been sleeping in the truck for the last few days, you and your brother. I mean, are you getting frustrated with the situation or it is what it is and there's not much you can do about it?

PETER SANDHU: Well, you know, when you think of sleepers for last five days, they left Alberta Saturday, the pretty the Thursday morning. So yeah, we have a procedure at the same time, a lack of communication from authorities. Nobody really comes out to say, Well, you know, you're here for five days or four days or three days and not good information close to me or brother or thousand truckers here. They're all hoping, you know, it's going to be open today, tomorrow or next hour, but no information.

MG: And is that what it is? There's about a thousand truckers that are stuck there.

PETER SANDHU: Well, I will say, you know, like if you look at the all the major three truck stops, the truckers there, but they're hard to control because [unintelliglbe] and trucks parks. So all the truckers, all these four or five highways connected to Hope and they all ended up here because they can't go anywhere. So the they're all over the streets, so very hard to. Put the number together, but the loss of the [unintelligible].

MG: Wherever there's space, people are just parking.

PETER SANDHU: That's right, because it flickers. The court also all 75 feet long, basically with the driver and 53 for the truck is over 25 feet. Kind of, you know, very hard to park. So wherever there are places they put parking.

MG: How are you getting food?

PETER SANDHU: Well. We just go to gas station [unintelligible] or Esso, one of those because you cannot take the truck. Sunday was first day with no power at all. Only one Esso, the truck stop was open because there's no power and so Husky, they got a big generators. That was Sunday night was a big deal because the truckers and all these passengers ended up here. They're all going to the same location. There was like water all over the place. And now [unintelligible] get the power because the power back in the city, the town. So truckers only access to that. And some of the I noticed yesterday and the residents from Hope become all giving, you know, their I will say whatever they cook for home like I toasted or bananas or apples or spinach. Yeah, there are some nice generous people there. They're given food to the truckers, but truckers basically stuck because of the long length of the vehicle.

MG: The drive you have an a really important job in hauling goods around. How do you think the fact that you and so many other truckers are stranded is going to affect the supply chain in B.C. and the rest of the country? How do you think that's going to affect that supply chain?

PETER SANDHU: I think John is going to be sitting back for, I will say, there's going to be. Well, the truckers and and the supply chain is going to be heard the big time because you know that before this episode, there was, you know. And the Chinese ship was kind of class, it was like I think it was stuck finishing for five months there, finally that it gets over and all this stuff is going for overseas landed in Vancouver, then goes to all over Canada and the east part of the country. But this highway situations are going to make this whole thing worse because how are you going to get this flight to from Vancouver Island to other part of the country is going to be really- and as the holiday season coming up is mostly. I met somebody when I was in Quebec. He brought some music, some stuff for the music and other stuff from Quebec all the way to here. So. I totally shut down this supply chain. I will say nobody really knows what's going to happen. How long would that happen and processes? I understand the engineering part of they want to make sure everything good and go and do a good job on that part of the rebuild. But is this moment really, as people supply chain, if the no food like, well, I don't know what is it's effect, but as I was talking to my wife and back home in Edmonton, yeah, he said, we don't get diesel. I don't know what to do with this highway, with the diesel, but we produce diesel ourselves. And Alberta, I got a lot of oil. I think things are getting the situation like communities underwater and where are going to get food. It's going to be really set back many, many months. We hope not, but look like that.

MG: I hope you're on the road soon and I wish you the best and now it's a really, really tricky situation, but I'm glad that you were able to talk to us. Peter, thank you very much and good luck.

PETER SANDHU: Thank you, sir.

MG: Peter Sandhu owns a small trucking company with his family in Edmonton. He and his brother, Gary, have been stuck in Hope British Columbia since Sunday, sleeping in their truck. All those trucks stuck with their loads have led to some panic buying in stores from Metro Vancouver to the B.C. interior. The CBC's Sally Shelley Joyce went to a shop in Kamloops.

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VOICE 1: Well, my name is Craig Bruce Gordon, the general manager of Market Fresh Foods. Oh, it's empty counter. It just looks like the end of a day when you've had a really busy day and it's what we call not show time ready. Put it that way.

VOICE 2: I got avocados, spinach, meatballs. I got it all. I was actually on my way to do some more work. But because the stores are all shut down or the shelves are all empty, including this store, I decided I'll just pick up some items that I normally wouldn't purchase, like potato chips and other things that I wouldn't normally get, but just to have some things on the shelf in case this is, in case we don't have supplies for the next near time,

VOICE 1: there's not a lot of choice here and all the all the bare necessities are gone. What you're seeing left is, is your fruits. Some of your fruits and that, but people are buying up all the potatoes and the lettuce and your your staples for dinner. I can tell you a little story I did up about 30 packs of chicken here about a half an hour ago, and within 10 minutes, the whole, they were going. That's another one or baker today was just in the back, put out her regular baking what she did, and it's been gone in an hour. She's doing more again.

VOICE 3: I'm just actually just buying some whatever I you know, like I need, like I need audience and just things that may last a little longer. But I didn't believe these. I heard the people panicking, but I didn't believe it just now, and I'm just seeing what else there is left. There's not really very much left, I don't think. But yeah, it's unreal.

VOICE 1: It's almost like the pandemic. We describe it as maybe Gong Show. I think people are panic shopping. You know, everybody's worried that the supply chains are being cut off, but it doesn't mean that our suppliers are having an issue like we have depots all over, we have them in Alberta. We can access supplies from all over Canada. Basically right now, what's happened is anything on the West Coast is where we're getting a lot of our stuff for the orders that we're getting this week has been cut off. Yeah, we we have contact with all of our suppliers, like I say, right through to Alberta, right across Canada. We are getting an order on Thursday now and I'm currently trying to get sauce, some fresh chicken, beef and pork from other areas as well. Basically, all of the interior has been cut off. All the roads are closed everywhere. So I think people start watching what's going on. They hear some things and then it just panic shopping.

VOICE 4: So this is unnecessary panic shopping.

VOICE 1: I would say it is. Yes, I would say it's just based on one person post something on social media and an empty counter, and then all hell breaks loose here, yes. Yes.

MG: The B.C. government is asking people to be patient, saying there is a lot of supply and part of the reason for declaring a state of emergency is to get goods moving again. Rob Fleming is British Columbia's minister for Transportation and Infrastructure.

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Our immediate priority is to re-establish Connexions from the Lower Mainland to the interior and the north parts of the province. We know how vitally important it is to open routes and to have supply chains moving. That is our focus. We are working on this focus with multiple partners. This is a huge job, but collectively we're up to the challenge and we will get things opened up again just as soon as we possibly can.

MG: Just how soon is still the question. Barry Prentice is a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba's Asper School of Business Barrie. Good morning.

BARRY PRENTICE: Good morning.

MG: You hear about Peters truck parked there and hope and hundreds of other trucks there as well. How badly damaged is this country's supply chain by what's happening in British Columbia?

BARRY PRENTICE: Well, certainly it's an important artery. In fact, it is the most important artery for our export trade with Asia. And when it's cut off, nothing moves, so it backs up both directions. You know, things are coming in that you can't move out and and things that we would like to ship, for example, this is the peak of the grain trade movement. And no, those trains are moving. And of course, so they probably haven't been loading any ships during the rain, either. So there's a quite a backlog to catch up.

MG: Grain is one part of it. What do you see as the biggest impact and where the biggest impact would be felt?

BARRY PRENTICE: Well, I think, you know, obviously the local area floods like this are horrible. We've we've gone through some here in Manitoba as well, and the the impact is long after the flood recedes. You know, people have damaged houses and and damaged lives to catch up. So there will be a long time recovering from this, as well as in some cases, critical infrastructure like the bridge. It's out on the hall or a couple, you know, it'll take a long time for that to be repaired. We don't really know with regard to the railway how serious it is. We know there are washes, but the ground is very soft and it's dangerous to be working in those mountainside areas when you know you don't really know what the situation is. So I think it's going to be longer than we expect.

MG: We hear we just heard it from the conversations with people in the grocery store of a shortage on grocery store shelves in British Columbia. How worried, given what you're saying, should people be about getting things like food and medicine?

BARRY PRENTICE: I don't think the, well, the panic buying is a I think it's just that it's panic buying. You know, the roads will open up shortly so that people can get supplies into those communities. You know, I don't think it's going to be more than five or six days before those stores will get supplies again, for sure. But obviously, there is a an issue that, you know, it just reflects how dependent we are on getting regular supplies. And you know, the trucking industry is one which is very little. I don't think we appreciate just how important trucking and truck drivers are to us. You know, again, during the pandemic, they were the guys crossing the border into a real unknown in terms of of the pandemic and the virus. So again, we really do owe a lot of gratitude towards them for carrying on.

MG: And they move right across the country. I mean, again, Peter was talking about, you know, a colleague who had been shipping things from Quebec. Is there the sense that that in the rest of the country will feel the impacts of what's happening in British Columbia?

BARRY PRENTICE: Yeah, we'll feel them directly and indirectly. I mean, again, it's going to be spotty because, you know, there are people who are expecting a shipment of one of those ships anchored off at the Port of Vancouver that's not going to arrive in time. And depending on what it is, you know, the factory might have a key element coming from China that they just have no, they can't produce. And, you know, so they may feel that now that being said, you know, a lot of places will have inventory. And so you do have a buffer stock. We've moved towards this notion and supply chains of just in time, but it's not perfectly just in time. We always have some buffer stocks, but eventually it's just a matter of how long does it take before that runs out?

MG: Are there redundancies in the supply chain? Part of that is is the buffer stock, but also, you know, other routes that truckers or rail traffic could take if some of those main routes are disrupted.

BARRY PRENTICE: Well, Canada isn't blessed with the greatest geography or geology when it comes to corridors. You know, there's two railway tracks down the Fraser Canyon, and there's no room for a third. And we don't really have another option to get there. So on the rail side is pretty limited. And you know, we the kukui'ula opened up a new route for four trucking. As well as the route down the Fraser Canyon, so that did expand a lot of resiliency in that side, but and we can see where we need it. But again, we don't have that much option. You can take some things to the U.S. The CP Rail can take trains over the Kingsgate crossing to Idaho and to Portland. But again, are your customers? There are the ships there. You know, there's only a limited amount that you can move things around. And given the relatively expected short nature of this, you know, you don't want to make a whole lot of moves because that takes time, money and effort. And it's only temporary. It may not be worth it.

MG: You used the word resiliency and this is temporary, but this is part. Many people are saying of a change in our climate where we're seeing more intense storms more frequently. 100 year storm becomes a 30 year storm becomes a 20 year storm. How prepared are our transportation networks for the impact of climate change?

BARRY PRENTICE: Well, they've been aware of this for some time and indeed they've been making moves. The Port of Vancouver has a policy of raising everything three feet, you know, because they're worried about the rising ocean levels. And certainly the railways, you know, I've talked to them. They've been working to find any area where they have no avalanches or weaknesses and trying to shore it up. But we have to just remember the size of the country and the and the possibilities. Nobody expected landslides in this area. And so suddenly, you know, things emerge that you didn't expect and you can't prepare for everything.

MG: Do you think this will be a moment, though? I guess just briefly where people will start to think about that preparation differently, given the scale of the disruption?

BARRY PRENTICE: Oh yeah, I think companies are already doing that and and we should also remember that, you know, we do have Prince Rupert and we have another route through Prince Rupert. There's a container port there. Fortunately, I think, you know, established a a decade or more ago and there have been successful in there, moving in different phases. So we are diversifying our routes a bit, but only and serves that towards. So again, anyone on the CP line who have to make a switch somehow.

MG: Barry, good to speak with you. Good to speak with you about this. Will be keeping a close eye on it. Thank you very much.

BARRY PRENTICE: Yeah, bye bye.

MG: Barry Prentice is a professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba. He was in Winnipeg. You're CBC. News is next. And then.

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Russia's dangerous and irresponsible behaviour jeopardises the long term sustainability of outer space. United States will work with our allies and partners to respond to Russia's irresponsible act.

MG: Apparently, this planet is not big enough to contain all the tension between the United States and Russia. Their diplomatic disagreements are now leaking into orbit. In six minutes. Whether a recent satellite spat is a harbinger of future space wars. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

Chris Hadfield says more regulations needed to protect astronauts from space debris

Guests: Tara Copp, Brian Weeden, Chris Hadfiled

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

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MG: Still to come, WE Charity has gone from a much lauded home-grown Canadian success story to a much maligned organisation plagued by scandal. The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelly travelled to Kenya to figure out what the charity has really been doing in that country. In about half an hour, he'll be here to talk about what he turned up. We'll also hear from an Afghan journalist we spoke with this summer who's now waiting in Greece for the green light to come to Canada. But first, space wars no longer a remote possibility in a galaxy far, far away.

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Sorry for the early call. We were recently informed of a satellite break-up, and that's all we got from the crew. Thanks for a crazy but, uh, well, coordinated day. We really appreciate all the situational awareness you gave us. And it was certainly a great way to bond as a crew, starting off their very first work day in space.

MG: When things go wrong in space, the threat is very, very real. That was audio from NASA, warning astronauts aboard the International Space Station about debris from a Russian missile launch that could have breached the space station. The Pentagon says the United States was given no advance notice of the missile that destroyed one of Russia's own satellites. Missiles in space might feel like the stuff of science fiction, Doomed or Star Wars or something like that. But as we have seen this week, military engagement off of this planet is closer and more dangerous than we might think. Tara Copp is the senior Pentagon correspondent for Defence one. She's in Alexandria, Virginia. Tara, good morning.

TARA COPP: Good morning.

MG: What exactly did Russia do here?

TARA COPP: So they launched into low-Earth orbit, a missile that took out one of its own ageing satellites. And this, the hit took place about 480 kilometres above the Earth. For comparison, the International Space Station is orbiting about 400 kilometres above the Earth. But because of the strike and because of the scattering of debris, which the space tracking site space now is now predicting has spread as low as 200 kilometres and as high as 1000 kilometres, you have this massive debris field that the space station is passing through about every 90 minutes, which can potentially put those astronauts and cosmonauts at risk. So it was a very real life example on Monday on how SpaceX is quickly becoming more dangerous for both, you know, peaceful civilian space travel and for the militaries that want to operate satellites and be able to have visibility and advanced communications capabilities in space.

MG: What do you think this move by Russia says to the world?

TARA COPP: Well, the Space Force, which was stood up about two years ago and has in the last couple of years really tried to put this message out there on Monday found a very real life example and said it quite bluntly yesterday at a space conference in Las Vegas. The The Space Force, one of their lieutenant general, said, You know, directly what we're seeing Russia demonstrate is a weapon and quote if they can destroy a Russian satellite, they can destroy an American satellite. And that's really what Space Force was set up to prevent. And we had those capabilities within the Air Force and within other service branches. But it was really kind of concentrated to create a force that is solely dedicated to tracking and being able to prevent these type of collisions or detect them quickly enough to be able to take defensive measures.

MG: Coming out of that conference in Las Vegas, he wrote a piece suggesting that the Pentagon is scrambling to defend juicy targets after this test by Russia. What is the Pentagon concerned about or what is it doing? What are the juicy targets that it has to figure out how to protect

TARA COPP: so its strategic assets that the GPS satellites? It's the early warning missile launch satellites that if you were going to if you were a country that was looking to blind the U.S. to a potential first strike, you'd want to take these things out. And so they're having to do different layers of defences looking to a future where you don't have to have just right now, we have entities basically 30 gigantic, you know, once in a generation launch strategic satellites. Well, if you can spread that out and you can put those capabilities in, you know, dozens or more smaller satellites in different levels of orbit, it makes it much more difficult for any adversary to be able to take out all of the capability by just hitting that one target. So they're really looking at how to spread those capabilities around in various orbits, how concerned.

MG: And I mean, the Pentagon has some interest in this because it's involved in it as well. But how concerned are defence officials about the weaponization of space?

TARA COPP: So it's interesting for a long time, this has been kind of one of those topics that got, you know, a quiet mention but didn't have didn't hold everybody's high interest. And when the Space Force was stood up about two years ago, you had a lot of people questioning, Well, why do you need a Space Force? You know, why don't we already have this? But there's been so much rapid growth in capabilities both by Russia, by China, by others. And what you're seeing predominantly is rapid growth by private companies that are launching their own spaceships. They're launching their own satellites to develop their own capabilities that it kind of help to make the case for the Space Force. This is why they are in existence now to just be solely dedicated on this mission and for the, you know, for the sheer number of things that have grown. The number of objects in low Earth orbit over the last couple of years jumped more than 22 percent. You now have about 37000 objects in low Earth orbit of about 5000 of those are active payloads. And so it's become a very, very congested space. And some of these objects have different capabilities that have become concerning to the Pentagon, such as the ability to be able to blind a satellite by dazzling it or by when China has just starting to develop its own space station, it has a robotic arm now that Pentagon officials worry could actually be used to disable a strategic asset. And so these are the things that they're thinking about. How do you defend against that? How do you deter it?

MG: And so I mean, to your point, when when the Space Force was announced, when Donald Trump announced it, I mean, a lot of people looked at it as a bit of a joke. Is it no longer? It's no longer that joke.

TARA COPP: I think it depends on who you ask, but they have definitely made the case over the last year because of so many, you know, because there's so much more activity in space. You've seen not just the public and the government, but we've seen the private sector really start to focus on space. And you've seen other countries around the world establish their own space forces within the last two years as well to, you know, be able to focus their own abilities there.

MG: It sounds like a new arms race.

TARA COPP: I think you can just hope it's not. Everybody emphasises that they want a peaceful use of space, but when has a new technology only been used for peaceful purposes in human history?

MG: Tara, great to speak with you. Thank you very much.

TARA COPP: Thank you.

MG: Tara Copp is the senior Pentagon correspondent for Defence one. The Russian missile incident, certainly as we were just talking about, caught the attention of the U.S. government. But the whole idea of targeting satellites, it turns out, is not new. This goes back to the Cold War years. Brian Weeden is director of programme planning for the Secure World Foundation. It's a U.S. based non-profit that focuses on space policy and sustainability issues. He's been monitoring the dangers of targeting satellites in space. Brian, good morning to you.

BRIAN WEEDEN: Good morning. How often?

MG: Thank you for being here. How often does this happen that the satellites would be targeted?

BRIAN WEEDEN: Well, unfortunately, more often than we'd like, if you look back over history between 1959 and 1995, the U.S. and Soviet Union conducted about 50 anti-satellite tests in space, about a dozen of which actually intercepted and destroyed satellites, creating orbital debris. There was then a brief lull of about 10 years, whether it was or anything. But between 2005 and today, we've seen more than 20 tests be conducted by the United States, Russia, China and India. So unfortunately, I think we're seeing a return to the competition and the concerns over militarisation that we saw during the Cold War.

MG: So Tara talked about what Russia was doing in Russia, zaps this satellite, and there's all this space junk that is created from that. What happens to that debris field over time?

BRIAN WEEDEN: It grows and expands, and it fills a sort of a whole area in space. If you think about it, you've got one satellite that suddenly becomes a whole bunch of things in this case, maybe 1500 or more bigger than a softball, and that spreads out over time. It starts as a tight ball and then it turns into like a long, thin ring that goes around the Earth. And then that ring rotates sideways around the Earth and becomes a shell, and it sort of grows both going up and down. So it starts in a very dense cluster. But within a few weeks, this is going to be pretty much everywhere in low-Earth orbit.

MG: And do you think that the fear that NASA had that elements of this debris field could pose a threat to the International Space Station? Is that a valid concern?

BRIAN WEEDEN: Oh, absolutely. Just a few days ago, they had to move the International Space Station to avoid a piece of debris from another anti-satellite test that was conducted in 2007 by China. And so that debris from that test is going to be with us for decades more. And it's just sort of part of this background radiation, if you want to think of it that way, concern that every satellites that have to deal with it now, we have a bunch more added to it from this Russian, et cetera.

MG: So have the Russian test you have you mentioned a China test? Russia accuses the United States of being hypocritical here because it says that it's done similar tests as well. Is everybody doing this?

BRIAN WEEDEN: Not everybody is doing it. As I mentioned, there are four countries that have demonstrated this ability by destroying a satellite. U.S., Russia, China, India 2019. There are differences between them when the U.S. demonstrators 2008, it created less than 200 pieces and they were all out of orbit within a year and a half. So it's a difference in decreasing on, on, on the impact of it. And the U.S. went out of its way to try and minimise what that impact would be.

MG: Are there any sorts of rules of engagement when it comes to what you can and can't do in space?

BRIAN WEEDEN: Well, we have a set of international treaties that lay out some very broad principles that most countries have upheld, too. Unfortunately, one of those principles is not don't blow things up in space and create over the brink. They do have a principle of due regard for other space actors and not creating, you know, harmful contamination of the environment. But no country has ever really enforced that principle. So we have a situation where there's general agreement about sort of how people should conduct themselves in space. But so far, countries have been unwilling to enforce those or to really agree towards stricter agreements on things like this kind of testing.

MG: Well, Tara talked about, I mean, it's that testing the Tara also talked about the idea of blinding other satellites. I mean, what are some of the ways that countries would go about trying to sabotage the satellites of other countries?

BRIAN WEEDEN: But this falls into a cadre of capabilities known as counter space design. How do you counter somebody else's space capabilities? And it's a pretty wide range. What we saw in this test this what we call the direct ascent and satellite weapon. There are weapons you can put on orbit that might manoeuvre to get close to and collide or do something else to a satellite. There's ground-based jamming, radio frequency interference, even cyber attacks, as satellites are essentially computers flying through space controlled by other computers on the ground. There's a pretty wide range of these technologies. Some of them are destructive and could cause lots of space debris like we saw earlier this week. Others, like the jamming, are temporary in nature and generally don't have long lasting effects on the space environment.

MG: You've spoken about the idea of space diplomats. What role might they play in helping to prevent conflict and prevent this from escalating into some sort of arms race?

BRIAN WEEDEN: Well, I think that's a good point about the arms race because I think we are seeing that, which is something that, you know, countries like United States sort of didn't want to acknowledge for quite a while. There actually is a lot of diplomatic discussions on this. Unfortunately, for the last few decades, they haven't gone anywhere, mainly because of disagreements between some of the core countries over whether these agreements should be legally binding or not or what do they include? What do they not include. There is a slight glimmer of hope. Just a few weeks ago, the United Nations First Committee agreed to create a new working group that would meet over the next two years between countries to discuss threats to space and what to do about them. And it may not sound like much, but this is sort of the first glimmer of hope we have for some sort of diplomatic discussion and resolution in the last couple of decades.

MG: That people might be able to agree on some sort of shared rules of engagement for what you can and can't do in outer

BRIAN WEEDEN: space. That that is exactly the hope, right? You know, there's a discussion about whether, first of all, would it start with sort of agreed upon norms of behaviour? What is responsible behaviour in space? And then might there actually be in addition to that, maybe some legally binding agreements on things you really shouldn't do, such as destroying satellites?

MG: Brian, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

BRIAN WEEDEN: Welcome.

MG: Brian Weeden, director of programme planning for the Secure World Foundation. It's a U.S. based non-profit that focuses on space policy and sustainability issues. Well, Chris Hadfield knows better than most about how dangerous space debris can be to the International Space Station. He, of course, in 2013 became the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station. He has a new novel out. It's called the Apollo Murders. He's been listening in to our conversations. Chris, good morning to you.

CHRIS HADFIELD: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How alarming is this story to you as somebody who has spent a good deal of time in outer space?

CHRIS HADFIELD: It has increased the threat to everything that's in low-Earth orbit, including the people that are up on the Chinese space station and friends of mine that are up in the International Space Station by on the order of like 10 percent greater chance now of debris hitting their vehicle in space. So that's definitely an increased concern and it's something that we should not be doing collectively as human beings here around Earth.

MG: NASA sent a warning to the International Space Station about the destruction of the Russian satellite. That does not sound like a good thing when you get a warning saying that this has happened. Our commanders of the East trained in terms of what they should do if space debris is heading their way.

CHRIS HADFIELD: Yeah, it's one of the three big divergences you trained for, Matt. I think it's important to remember the Earth gets hit by 40 tons of natural debris every day. 40 tons of rock comes from space and hits the world every day, and lots of those little pieces hit the space station. But it's got armour. So so it's not just human made things in orbit that provide a big threat for the crew on board. And we have a long list of threats, but one of them is something puncturing the hull and causing depressurisation, and we practise for that. We have procedures. And what the crew did in response to this satellite break-up was do a safe haven procedure where they close the hatches they could and you're ready to jump into your return vehicle just in case things go terribly wrong. Fortunately, they didn't.

MG: What was the most dangerous experience you had on board the space station when it came to space debris?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Well, I think as one of the previous two people Tara may have said it was occasionally we know there's a big piece coming and we fire the engines on the space station so that we won't run into that piece and that happens every few months. Sometimes several months can go by where you don't have to do that. If you sit quietly on the space station and wait, you can actually hear things hitting the hull. So it's kind of a reminder that you're in both the natural and human made shooting gallery.

MG: What does it sound like?

CHRIS HADFIELD: A like a cracker, you know, a snap crackle and pop on your ship or, you know, sort of reminding you of a ricochet. It's a reminder of the danger of where you are.

MG: I'm not an astronaut, but that sounds alarming. If you're sitting there in space and you hear something that sounds like a snap, crackle and pop.

CHRIS HADFIELD: Well, things aren't alarming. Just sometimes people are alarmed, but the the key is what are the actual dangers up there? And there are lots of them. And one of them is space debris. And, you know, listening to the other people, speak space has been weaponized since the 1970s. I mean, the book of mine that I just wrote, there was a machine gun mounted to the outside of the Soviet [unintelligible] space station in the early nineteen seventies, and we've been doing serious any satellite as Brian mentioned. So so yeah, that's been going on for a long time. It just recently this event was egregious. It shouldn't happen. We need international agreements. We need a way to clean up space debris, and we also need a way to punish people for breaking the societal norms here. All of that has to happen. But meanwhile, people and machines are working and living in space, and we need to protect them.

MG: Let me ask you about the cleanup thirty seven thousand objects in low Earth orbit above space. And I mean, there's a visualisation that was done where you see the Earth and you see all of this stuff that's swirling around above it. And it's very delicate dance. One piece can't hit another and certainly you don't want it to hit the space station. How do you go about cleaning up that space junk?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Yeah, a couple of things that that graphic that it's very misleading. I mean, space is bigger than you think. And that graphic that everybody sees, each one of those little pieces would have to be bigger than the Empire State Building for them to show up like that. And most of them are the size of your, you know, your baby fingernail. So it's not it's not as bad as it looked. And you know, we've lived in space continuously on the space station for the last twenty one years. So. So it's not like it's nearly as maybe alarming as you feel. But we we need to find a way. And there are multiple government led organisations, private organisations and philanthropic organisations that are working for all the best technologists we can come up with to clean up space debris. It's a lot like landmines where military forces come in for short term, selfish reasons and deploy a bunch of landmines that nobody can see. And now that's a no go area until someone goes through all the effort of cleaning up those landmines. And that's sort of what we're doing to space right now. And it's we need that three pronged attack of regulation or coming back at people that are broken the rules and then finding a way to clean up the mess. That's where we are right now in history.

MG: Is it about plucking those things out of space? Is that what you'd have to do?

CHRIS HADFIELD: There are lots of different ways you could possibly do it, depending on how even using the pressure of light. Like, if you can shine a bright enough laser or a light on something, you can change its orbit and decay. Absorb it. There's there is and we're, you know, in some of the philanthropic work we're looking at trying to inspire young people to recognise this is a serious thing for the future of access to space. And we need to come up with technical solutions to it while we're working on the other end of it and trying to stop it from getting worse like the Russians did last week.

MG: Or what should that regulation look like? I mean, Bryan was talking about the idea of of space diplomats, and you could have the United Nations perhaps extend its reach into outer space. From your perspective, having been there and having studied this extensively, what should that regulation look like?

CHRIS HADFIELD: Well, the European Union put out a pretty good paper earlier this year, and it's a really good starting point. I think the easiest way to start is with bilateral treaties. But if you look at the Salt Anti-Ballistic missile treaties of the 1970s, they were quite effective in some areas of anti ballistic missiles, but they really didn't get into anti-satellite weapons like these ones. So and even those talks, although they've had long lasting effects, they had a time limit on them. But that's the type of thing we need to pursue and try to make it global this difficult. So start with bilaterals. I think between the biggest players, there's only four countries in the world that have built and tested anti-satellite weapons. So start with the quadrilateral treaty and then try and work that through to something. Obviously, through any international organisation like the United Nations, to me, that's the path that that's going to follow. But that's correct. You also need to stick somehow. And when some countries go too far, you know, other countries respond. And I'm not sure how that would happen, but it's one piece of this puzzle that that's going to that we've done on Earth. And it's there's nothing sacrosanct about space. It's just where our technology is starting to take us and we need to expand our regulatory behaviours and how we control ourselves into Earth orbit as well.

MG: I guess just finally, in the last minute or so that we have, do you worry that that that stick could lead to? Brian talked about this being an arms race that it could lead to. Well, if you're going to do this, we're going to make sure that we can respond in kind and that that just further militarise this space.

CHRIS HADFIELD: No, that's an exaggeration. Just based on a recent event, that capability has existed for many decades, are ready to be able to shoot something from Earth and shoot down someone else's satellite. And that's, you know, that's- it's always been a threat ever since the 1980s, anyway. So no, we just, we- it's not somehow some recent escalation. This is just like India did a few years ago. This is just a short sighted, selfish act that that we need to somehow curtail.

MG: Chris, it's great to speak with you. As always, thank you very much.

CHRIS HADFIELD: Nice to talk to you, Matt.

MG: Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station. His new book is a thriller is called The Apollo Murders. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

You know, I've been deceived. Lying to people who've lost children about doing something good on their behalf. It doesn't seem like an awesome group of people to lie to.

MG: Lying to the parents of children who have died is exactly what WE Charity has been accused of by donor Watson, Jordan and others. The CBC's Mark Kelliy went to Kenya to get to the bottom of those accusations. Mark is here in 90 seconds to tell us what he found. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

The Fifth Estate’s investigation into WE Charity schools; and an update on a woman who fled Afghanistan

Guests: Mark Kelley, Zahra

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current,

SOUNDCLIP

I have a request for the rich and the powerful and the well-connected, the celebrity and the corporate set who lent their power to the elevation of free the children and we charities. I'm asking that you come out of hiding on this matter and go on the record, as I have had to do today, all of the kids, I would say to them that they have every right to seek answers and transparency and accountability of free the children and we charities.

MG: That's Reed Cowan testifying before a parliamentary ethics committee earlier this year in honour of his son, Wesley, who died. He raised money to build a school in Kenya through we charity's free. The Children Recount told MPPs he felt defrauded because another donor had also funded the same school. He was told he paid for the CBC's Fifth Estate, launched an investigation to see what was behind Reed Cowan's claim and if the number of schools funded matched the number of schools we charity actually built. Host Mark Kelley travelled to Kenya to do a count on the ground. He's back in Toronto. Mark, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Why did you travel to Kenya looking for answers?

MARK KELLEY: Well, Matt, it wasn't just Reed Cowan who had funded a school and later learnt that others had funded it. There was some reporting that was done by Bloomberg News in the U.S., and they also talked about how some of the staffers we charity staffers in Kenya joked that they should have put velcro on donors plaques because they were being changed. So often put up one day when one donor came to visit, put up another one would be put up another day when another donor came to visit, saying that they had funded that very same schoolhouse. We approached some former we charity employees. We asked them, Is this true? Was there a pattern of double matching, triple matching, quadruple matching donors to one single structure? We were told, in fact, that that was the case. So we spent months scouring social media posts, web sites, any public records that we could find of donors saying that they had funded a primary school house in Kenya. Months we spent scouring, adding these all up together, and then we took that total with us to Kenya to see how many school houses had actually been built.

MG: So what did you find when you got on the ground and you started doing a count of the schools that were built compared to the schools that were funded? What did you find?

MARK KELLEY: fWell, I'll give you an example. So we're in the Maasai Mara region of Kenya. This is southwestern Kenya, impoverished, very rural, very rugged area and in deep need. And we charity has been there for two decades making a difference. But we go to the first village. Our records show that donors had fully funded seventy one room schoolhouses in this village. The number of we counted that were actually built in that village, 28. And that was the pattern that we started to discover as we went from village to village.

MG: You sat down with a senior executive that we in Kenya, Carol Mora, and you asked what she thought about what you were doing there. Let's take a listen to what she had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

That's the wrong approach, Mark, that clearly shows that you don't understand our model. We have always tried our best to be very clear with our donors. When a donor funds a village, we will definitely send a picture from that village to the donor. And it's not just one donor funding this village because it's not just an empty classroom. We have learners in that classroom, learners who are getting school meals, who are getting, you know, health screenings. We have teacher trainings that are happening. All this programming takes place together with the infrastructure. You have a spreadsheet where you're counting the number of buildings. But it's not about the infrastructure, it's about the impact the lives that are touched every single day.

MG: So I want to ask you about the numbers. But she says it's not about the infrastructure, it's about the impact. What impact has we charity had in Kenya?

MARK KELLEY: Well, let's and will be very clear about this, a significant impact. Mad. I mean, the charity has built some 360 primary school houses in 30 villages. They've built a girls' high school that built a boys high school. I was able to see that they showed me around a technical college as well. They've built a hospital that's a critical lifeline for people in this impoverished region. The impact is real, but there's a very big difference, Matt, in saying, let's going to measure the impact and let's actually follow donors money to see what it was spent on.

MG: And so when you do that, the numbers don't add up. How did she explain the discrepancy in the number of schools built compared to the number of schools that were funded?

MARK KELLEY: Here's where things get fuzzy maths. You know, we had asked the charity months ago how many school house primary school houses have you built? Where are they located? We waited months to get a response from them. They came back with us to say two things. First, that we're going to give you a number of the educational structures that we have built there. We said, OK, well, that's curious and educational structure. What is an educational structure? And that includes primary school houses, which we were counting. But secondary schools, high schools that included libraries, it concluded and included kitchens that the kids may be using for for a lunchroom. It included latrines that the kids were using at school. I mean, it was this largely inflated number that already got us a little curious of why this number had. Suddenly, once we started counting, that number grew. But but what they wanted to say was how their funding model works is that money is pooled into projects, so donors are never told that your money will build a school house. It'll go for an educational pillar. It'll go to help support teacher salaries. It'll help go to support teachers accommodations. But we had already accounted for those donations. So specific donations, what we were talking about primary school houses and once again, their numbers in our numbers did not add up.

MG: You spoke with a couple of people who worked for we and CBC is protecting their identity based on their fear of legal reprisal. What did those people have? Say about the charity's fundraising strategy.

MARK KELLEY: Well, first of all, just that that that it was a marketing strategy. The charity's telling us that they have never told donors that they will fund a schoolhouse. And yet we have dozens of videos when they were on the stage at wee days saying, Give us $10000, we will build a schoolhouse. We have those donors who have received a picture of the school house saying This is the school house you funded. We have videos that they were sent saying this. I'm standing in front of the schoolhouse that you funded. So what our the insiders were saying is, yes, this was a marketing strategy. Yes, it was well known that schools were already built, were being double matched, triple matched and more importantly, that this had been brought to the attention of Marc and Craig Kielburger, the co-founders of the charity. And they were told quote, You are playing with fire here. That was the message that we got from both current and former WI employees.

MG: If we charity is using that donor money to do beneficial work in Kenya. As Carol Mora points out, why does this matter? Why do the numbers matter?

MARK KELLEY: Yeah, and that's a great question, Matt. And this is something that we took to a charity watchdog in the U.S. and it's their job to look at charities to rate charities for prospective donors. And I asked that very question. And the answer is because this is a charity's commitment to donors. If you are asking for money for unspecified projects in Kenya, just give us money to help kids in Kenya. You can spend that money to help kids in Kenya. However, if you are raising money to build a schoolhouse, then you have an ethical and sometimes a legal obligation to fulfil that promise. These are targeted donations. This is what they wanted. Sometimes they did like and read Cowan's case, and in other donors case, they did this in memory of a son that had passed away, and that was the commitment that they were making. And they were sent a picture saying, Here's the schoolhouse that you built.

MG: How did people in Kenya react to you asking these kind of questions about charity?

MARK KELLEY: Well, our first stop was in Narok County, and that's where we charity's. The 30 villages that they're involved with are located in Narok County. We went to meet the governor of our county, the Honourable Samuel tonight, a huge fan of WE Charity. And why not? For two decades, they've been there digging wells, building school houses, building sustainable income projects. I mean, really important things. He's very, very grateful for their work and so grateful that he recorded our interview. We did an interview with him. He had three cameramen in the room with us. Shortly after that interview, we got a lawyer's letter from WE Charity here in Toronto, directly quoting my questions and the governor's answers. Soon after we had done that interview, that entry was sent back or transcript of the entry was sent to Toronto so that they could use that against us, saying that we that we had labelled the good reputation the good name of we charity in our interview. So in many cases, Matt too short answer is we weren't very welcome in some of the places where we went.

MG: I mean, once word gets out that you are looking into the school efforts of we charity. Efforts to stop you have gone all the way up the food chain to the Ministry of the Interior in that country.

MARK KELLEY: Yeah. At what point we were given a it almost looked like a rap sheet of criminal allegations against us, saying that we had misrepresented ourselves to gain access to the villages and and that we were trespassing on government property. And the CBC took these these these allegations quite seriously. We were contacted. We were told to essentially get on a plane and come home. Our fact-finding mission to Kenya was over. But they gave you the tone because not only was that that that that rap sheet, as I'm calling it, sent to the CBC, a copy of it was also sent to We charity. Another reminder just about how closely connected the institutions in the charity are there, which obviously made our work there sensitive.

MG: You mentioned organisations that oversee charities, charity watches, an organisation out of Chicago. It rates charities for prospective donors. You showed the executive director of charity watch, Larry Starr and what you found. Let's take a listen to what she had to say.

Speaker 5: That's highly problematic because it doesn't look like it was a mistake. It looks like it was a strategy, a fundraising strategy to compel donors to give more money on the promise that they would be accomplishing something very, very specific with their donation. The donors and the general public really needs to, you know, demand that this is investigated.

MG: You've hinted at this, but what's she talking about there?

MARK KELLEY: We contacted former employees and not only were they providing us with information map, but they were encouraging us to dig in with our investigation to see what was going on with what they thought were some accounting practises that just didn't add up. So one thing that they did is we were actually leaked internal documents from we charity itself. So while our own numbers had shown that that that that projects like schoolhouses mean double matched, triple match quadruple matched to donors, their own internal documents actually proved that as well. We we could see how both large donors and small donors would be assigned to a specific school house project. It was there in black and white, but more interesting than that, there were notes in the margin about from what we staffers were saying about particular donors. So one donor was described as being, quote, tricky because she wants to make sure that the money she has donated will build the project it was donated for. So this was marked in the margin. Another generous donor was not determined not to be a problem because they don't track line by line on projects that they funded. It was a calculus about what needs to be built now and what could be kicked down the road for later, if ever built. And when I showed that to Laurie Styron, she said, Well, there goes plausible deniability.

MG: In the course of your investigation, you spoke with a number of people who had fundraised money to build a school in Kenya. You talked to them about what you found. We heard from Recount earlier. He was not one of those people that you spoke with. Why wouldn't he speak with you?

MARK KELLEY: Interesting situation. Cowan spoke to a parliamentary committee made headlines in Canada. In the U.S., he's a journalist in the U.S. and also a grieving dad. The news that he made obviously did damage to the reputation of the charity and attracted our attention. It helped launch our own investigation. But later, Matt, he would demand $20 million in damages in return for keeping quiet going forward about his story of what he called fraud. The charity called that extortion. Then he went silent. What happened between him and the charity, we don't know, but he has gone silent.

MG: You did speak with another father, Watson Jordan, who is in North Carolina, who had a similar story to that of Rico. And take a listen. At the end, you know,

MARK KELLEY: I've been deceived lying to people who have lost children about doing something good on their behalf. It doesn't seem like an awesome group of people to lie to.

MG: What did you find out about the school that Watson Jordan had fundraised? Yeah, we wanted

MARK KELLEY: to go see the school with our own eyes. It was a school No. Four in a village called Irkut. He was sent a picture of the school house by the charity, they said. Here is the school house built in memory of your son. We learnt at least four other donors funded that very same school house, and we shared that information with him.

MG: What did fundraising for the school mean to us? And I mean, as you mentioned in memory of his son?

MARK KELLEY: Yeah, I mean, it meant the world to him, and that's why you can't minimise this. And I think it's it's often the argument is used. Listen, if the money spent on kids, the money spent on kids, if it did good, it did good. What's the big problem? Well, he funded in memory of his infant son, who had died. He's a former school teacher. He wanted to build a school, and he was told he did. And that's why he feels betrayed.

MG: Not all donors feel the same way that Watson Jordan does. During the course of your investigation, there were emails that started to pour in sent to the CEO of CBC, the head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, taking a very different stand. Who are some of the people who are writing those emails and what were they saying?

MARK KELLEY: Well, it was widespread. I mean, these were the some of the corporate leaders in Canada, the founder of Lululemon as the former CEO of BlackBerry, a former vice president of the Royal Bank, even even former Prime Minister Kim Campbell. And it was 60 significant major donors who were involved in an orchestrated, led and aggressive campaign, saying that we were wrong, that they were never misled as donors, that they always understood that their donations would be pooled. But it was interesting because there was one email that was sent to Catherine Tate, the president of the CBC. And when we looked at the email thread, we noticed at one point that the email had been first sent to Craig Kielburger, co-founder of WE Charity, to be proofread and approved before it was sent on to the president of the CBC. So it was an orchestrated campaign, an aggressive campaign and an interesting because our reporting isn't even out yet, and already we're being told we're wrong.

MG: How have the co-founders of charity, Marc and Craig Kielburger responded to all of this?

MARK KELLEY: We have been in touch with Marc Kielburger for months now via email back and forth with him. To be clear, they say our methodology is flawed and to prove it, they've now hired a forensic accountant to see if all the money donated to Kenya was spent in Kenya, which is all well and fine. But it doesn't answer our core question how many primary school houses were fully funded? How many were actually built? That's the question we tried to answer.

MG: Mark, thank you.

MARK KELLEY: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Mark Kelly is the host of CBC's The Fifth Estate. For more on the story. You can tune in to CBC Television and CBC Gem tonight at 9:00 p.m. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. It's been nearly three months since the Taliban took back power in Afghanistan after American forces withdrew from that country in the days after the Taliban swept into Kabul. We spoke with a woman named Zahra. She was hiding out in a safe house in the Afghan capital, looking desperately for a way to leave the country. We recently found out that she did finally get out. Zahra is now in Greece with some of her family members. They're waiting for paperwork to be processed so they can come to Canada as refugees. We have reached her in Athens. Zahra Hello.

ZAHRA: Hello, sir. It's very nice talking to you.

MG: It's great to have you back on the programme. When we last had you on the programme, you were in hiding in Kabul. Tell me about how you got out and what your journey was like from there to Greece.

ZAHRA: Actually, we were fortunate that we could given a chance from one organisation to be part of a convoy from Kabul province to Mazar with the buses. And we could get the plane to Georgia and we had to stop for two and half hours. Then we get to Greece on 24th October. Fortunately, we were able to get to the safe location, though.

MG: What was that bus trip like?

ZAHRA: It was unbelievable. It was a big convoy of about 300 people men, women, judges, lawyers, journalists, their family members, their kids. It was really unbelievable moment that I got the phone call. It was 2:30 a.m. at middle of night. I got the call from the leader of the convoy that we have been selected to be evacuated from Afghanistan. And I was not believing that all the time that I was suffering and waiting for an opportunity to get out of the country, I was hiding myself with my family. That's really coming through now. But fortunately, it was real. Even I get to Greece, I was not believing it for the first week of my journey here that I'm still in Greece and I'm safe now. It was really unbelievable for my kids and myself as well.

MG: Was able to. You mentioned your kids who was able to travel with you.

ZAHRA: Fortunately, I have my mom, my sister and both kids, and it's really unfortunate that I left out my husband, my brother, sister and their family back in Kabul, and they are waiting for a support as well.

MG: What are you hearing from them about what life is like in Afghanistan now?

ZAHRA: They are really stressed because this life in Afghanistan getting worse day by day and the security's even started to get worse again after the Taliban take over the country. And there are other groups of terrorism starting attacks threatening people. Even the Taliban really threaten people. They are searching people, especially lawyers, judges, journalists, activists, human rights women, rights, civil society activists as well. And there has been a lot of kidnappings, killings anonymously. When people refer to any kind of organisation or even the Taliban, they are saying and not to say to any people, anyone, and they are not allowing people to come for the kidnapped, for the killings or robberies. They are even threatening the rest of family members will be affected. So that is the situation. Unfortunately, they are leaving. They are really stressed. They feel that when I get out of the country, they will not have the same opportunity or chance. Now they are really afraid of the situation. It is winter also coming. Economic is really down. None of my family members has job now. They are all jobless. It's really hard to hear from them, especially when since I'm out of the country, I feel more stressed about the situation, how the people could manage the life back in Afghanistan.

MG: Why was it? Can you just explain why it was that they weren't able to join you in leaving the country?

ZAHRA: Actually, we had applied all together for support, but only five of the family members were allowed to get in that plane or get in that cold way to be evacuated. And we had also received some sort of promises that the rest of the family will also be given a chance to be evacuated. But it's not yet unfortunately happening because there was a little bit break on the evacuation process and also the challenges I feel increased for evacuation organisations that they can't speed up the process as it was promised for people as it. So that's the issue, which is delayed for my family members to get out of the country.

MG: I hope they get out soon. You were able to follow. Yeah, you were able to take your your children. You have a 14 year old daughter and an 11 year old son. What is life like for them now there now with you in Athens? And so what is life like there?

ZAHRA: Yes, actually, for the first week, none of us was were believing that we are really out of the desperate situation. We are now in a safer location, but now they are really happy to see the freedom here. My girl was very happy to take a picture of herself freely without scarf outside this on the streets. My kids, they, you know, they are happy to see the basic facilities in their life. For example, the lights will not go off. We are we don't had the 24 hour lights or electricity in our country or my son was very happy to see that here is the freedom. Here is security and was telling me that, mom, I'm very happy to be here because since I'm in Athens, I don't hear the Schilling's are firing, which is giving me a free life. They're happy to be here, but they are not still in school, so that is one of the wishes. They all also have to go to school as soon as possible because it's about five months that they are out of school now.

MG: You mentioned your daughter that she was able to take a selfie on the street without a scarf on. I mean, what do you think that means to her?

ZAHRA: She seems that that's the really life with the freedom. No one has anything to do with any other citizens here and other people or human being. So everyone have their own life to leave whatever they want. That was the first time she was experiencing such a such a moment that she had given that freedom or the chance to take a picture or selfie without a scarf sitting on her. But in our country, she was used to even put on a burka. Well, she's a 14 year child.

MG: What happens now? You're waiting for a visa to come to Canada? Do you have any idea when that might come through and how long you might be waiting until you can come to this country?

ZAHRA: I don't have any idea when it's going to happen, but I'm still waiting for our eyes to see your visa application approval. And that's one of the biggest challenges that the on not only us, a lot of other applicants are really waiting. That process is really taking a lot of time from the Canadian government to approve the visas. And also, I have learnt that they are coming at these sponsor. Communities from Canada want to help Afghan people who are in difficult situation. So I'm just hoping that the visas should be approved as soon as possible and there is more opportunities, better spots for private sponsorships to be able to help more Afghans.

MG: What would it mean for you and for your children to be here in Canada?

ZAHRA: It means we will be able to start a new journey in our life. That's a really, really new seasons of our life. We would be able to go to school back to school. We would be able to go to work we can as we have grown up in a really educated family. We used to work and we used to go to school. We used to be part of civil society and start something really different, new with all freedoms, with all great achievements in our future.

MG: Could you ever imagine returning to Afghanistan?

ZAHRA: Oh, well, everyone really wants to go to the to their home country. I really wish that I would be able I would be able to go back to Afghanistan. Not at the moment considering the situation and all the politics going on, that is really hard to really hard to dream it now. But I really hope for future. It just happens and I am very happy to go back to the country when there's the opportunity.

MG: I hope that you get further information about coming to Canada soon, and I hope to welcome you here into this country sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'm glad to speak with you and glad to know that you're safe in Greece and we'll talk again. Thank you very much and take care.

ZAHRA: Thank you so much. It was a really good opportunity to talk to you.

MG: Zahra is a journalist who fled her home country of Afghanistan earlier this year. We've changed her name due to concerns for the safety of her family, who are still in that country. That is The Current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio On its Q, Damon Albarn is a fascinating musician, helped start the band blur, he helped create the band Gorillaz. He has a brilliant new solo album out. It's called the near the fountain. The more pure the stream flows. His brain works in mysterious ways, and you'll hear him explain that as he can to Tom Power coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One, I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current and we'll see you tomorrow.

Tuesday November 18, 2021 Full Transcript

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