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The Current Transcript for November 26, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

Prologue

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 1: Alright, okay.

MATT GALLOWAY: Instant winter. Yes.

VOICE: It is. It is winter, that's for sure. And looking in this direction, you can see the Remai Art Gallery, which is new. And on both sides of the riverbank here, there's the Meewasin Trail.

MATT GALLOWAY: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway in Saskatoon. I'm here on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. They got smoked with a big storm over the last couple of days. We flew into a blizzard. It's about -15. There's a lot of snow here on the ground. I'm with Guy Vanderhaeghe, one of this country's great writers and author who has for most of his life, made his home right here in Saskatoon.

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GUY VANDERHAEGE: But those clump of bushes, they're a character in my novel, My Present Age. He would go and hunker down there when his married life was not going particularly well.

MG: What does the river mean to this place? You said it divides it, but it brings the city together, too.

GUY VANDERHAEGE: Yeah. So, the river is the ribbon that goes through the city. But the riverbank is where people meet.

MG: What happens in this river in the winter? I mean, it's freezing up.

GUY VANDERHAEGE: Well, in the old days, one of the big events in the city was when the water on the river broke up and people would be awakened by the sound of the ice crashing. And people would rush down to the river banks to watch it break up. Down there, there's a weir. And now, everybody checks the weir out for when the pelicans come back, because then you kind of know that it's, it's spring.

MG: People have been waiting for that for a long time. [GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Exactly.]

MG: Guy Vanderhaeghe is one of several acclaimed writers who have settled here in this city of Saskatoon. There's a lot going on here. There's about 350,000 people in Saskatoon. And over the next 90 minutes, you're going to meet some of the people who are helping Saskatoon punch above its weight and cope with some of the wicked problems that a city like this faces in 2024. From Saskatoon, my name's Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current.

The Current in Saskatoon, the ‘Paris of the Prairies’ – Part 1

Guests: Terrence, Linda Walker, Robert Pearce, Shirley Isbister

MG: You can feel the bite of winter on this sunny morning. Here on 20th Street, people are gathering inside a drop-in centre called the Bridge, looking for a place to warm up. And that is where we meet Terrence.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Tell us how you're doing on a cold morning like this morning.

TERRENCE: Tired. Cold. Yeah. Confused.

MG: Where are you trying to stay warm?

TERRENCE: Any shelter that's open.

MG: And what's the situation? Are there shelters that are open here?

TERRENCE: Yeah, there is. There's three of them are open, and they're all full.

MG: Okay. And so when they're full, where do you go?

TERRENCE: Wherever you can find warmth. Any, you know, banks that's open, front doors or, you know, a place that's got a bathroom you can get into for an hour.

MG: Do you worry about finding a space?

TERRENCE: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's really, like, it's really hard to find housing right now. You know, it's just too beyond a lot of people's reach, you know, like for, for rent and stuff and down payment. You got it, you know? You know, it's like it's crazy, you know?

MG: What do you, what do you think should be done about it? We're going to talk to the mayor? [TERRENCE: Yeah] about this. What do you think she could do with this?

TERRENCE: I think she should do just to [inaudible], open more shelters. You know, like I think last year, there are so many seniors, like 280, some homeless. And I hear this year's over 480. You know, it's just a storm centre, you know, to go and have a coffee and warm up. And I don't understand why they're seeing more of that here.

MG: How long have you been out?

TERRENCE: Well, my wife passed away about two years ago, and I lost my job about [MG: Sorry] a year ago. I'm 66 now, so about a year. [MG: Yeah], I've been on the street, eh? It's hard. It's like, it's really hard, you know? You know, at my age, find a job or, you know, anything.

MG: What would you, what would you hope for? I mean, if I were to talk to you in a year or so, where would you want to be?

TERRENCE: In my own place. You know, talking to my son visiting, my granddaughter come visit me. Yeah. You know, that'd be it. Affordable housing. That's what we need, really, you know?

MG: So, what happens in the bridge here? Are you able to get in and get warm in there, or...?

TERRENCE: You can come in. You get warm, they'll serve you a breakfast. You know, I have a coffee. Sometimes, they handle clothes when, it's a nice little warm up centre.

MG: Take care of yourself.

[cross-talk between Matt Galloway and Terrence]

[Numbers called on PA system in shelter]

MG: Inside, it's busy. People are drinking coffee and waiting for their number to be called so they can pick up fresh clothing and get a hot shower.

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LINDA WALKER: Hi, my name is Linda Walker, and I'm the founding executive director here at The Bridge On 20th.

MG: Tell us where we're standing right now.

LINDA WALKER: We're standing in what we call the floor, which is the main room where people eat, where they visit, where they receive prayer, where they tell us where they're at. Our vision and purpose here is to meet the people where they're at, accept them as they are and for God's body to share His unconditional love. And so that's what we get to do here in many practical ways, as well as spiritual ways.

MG: What are you able to offer people on a morning like today when I mean, it's sunny and bright, but it's really cold outside?

LINDA WALKER: Yeah, a warm, safe place to come. Over and over, people report to us that they come here because it's safe, and they get a free meal. They can visit our free store. They can have a shower.

MG: How stretched are the resources in this city to deal with the crisis that we're seeing right now?

LINDA WALKER: Well, the biggest crisis is having no shelters in the evenings.

MG: So, where do these folks go when, when you close?

LINDA WALKER: Lots of them go into vestibules of banks or under stairwells or to a friend's, a lot of couchsurfing and staying in overcrowded housing.

MG: It's just the beginning of winter. What do you most worry about this year?

LINDA WALKER: Well, the cold and how that's going to affect our friends. I guess we're most concerned about lives.

MG: That people are going to die, being outside.

LINDA WALKER: It isn't a common thing in our city, but it is a possibility. And not to mention that it's just inhumane.

MG: What do we as a society need to do to address this? This is a crisis that people see across the country, and it's getting worse. What do we need to do about it?

LINDA WALKER: Well, we believe that we're blessed to be a blessing. And I think many of us have way too much. And lots of us have way too little.

MG: Thank you very much.

LINDA WALKER: You're welcome.

The growing number of people who are homeless in this weather is putting pressure on the nearby hospital.

[Melissa McGillvray talking to a patient]

MG: I'm meeting Melissa McGillvray outside the emergency department in the core where she works as a psychiatric nurse. Melissa, good morning.

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: Good morning. [MG: It's nice to meet you.] Nice to meet you as well.

MG: When it gets this cold, I mean, it's beautiful. The sun's up, but it's really saying it's really scary for people who are out on the streets. We've seen a lot of folks who are living rough. When it gets this cold for you, what are you thinking about and who are you thinking about?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: It's actually kind of terrifying. We had people lose fingers, toes, limbs last year. [MG: Oh my goodness.] Frostbite has already been a problem in our department. We have people who virtually live in the emergency room every night because they have nowhere else to be. We have people in wheelchairs and with walkers who are homeless who are trying to navigate through this snow. And then add on the fact it's -25.

MG: What worries you the most about, about this?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: That we're not helping people and that we're forcing people to suffer needlessly. Like, this is a preventable problem. We know this is happening every year in, in Saskatchewan. This is not, this is not a new problem. And I've been working in Emerg for 10 years and it's just been getting worse every year.

MG: A preventable problem?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: I think so. I think so. I think that if we looked at beefing up transitional housing for people and we actually supported them and then also set obligations so that, you know, they were able to succeed in the housing we put them in, shelters aren't a solution. They're just a, should be a stopgap measure. It's like food banks. We shouldn't need food banks.

MG: I mean, if it's a preventable problem and you understand that and the people who are working on the front level understand that, right at the edge of it, and yet it still happens. And on a cold morning like today coming over here, we saw some of those folks who are in wheelchairs who are trying to bust their way through a snow bank to get somewhere. Why isn't it being dealt with? What's, what's the barrier to addressing that preventable problem?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: I don't know. I think there's a lot of disconnect. I think there needs to be more talking to people on the front lines who have the effective solutions. I think there needs to be I mean, I'm not a big fan of government oversight, but I do think there needs to be someone coordinating services because we have a lot of replication of services. You know, you look at people donate money to the charitable organisations that are flashy, that are sexy, that have the great ad campaigns, but we don't always know that that's the organisation that's doing the real work at the grassroots level. And so I think, you know, we need more coordination, more oversight, and we need people talking to those at the front line who actually know what will work for these people.

MG: One of the other people we'll be speaking with is the new mayor who has said multiple times her top priority is to deal with homelessness. What do you want from her?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: Well, I've had, I am very involved the Saskatoon District Labour Council. We've had many conversations with Cynthia Block, and I believe that, you know, she is invested in this, addressing this problem. I just hope she has the support of city council, and that she has the support of organisations and the community and the provincial government and the federal government to actually make it happen.

MG: Are you optimistic? There's a lot of, I mean, it's a cliche, but there's a lot of energy in this town and [MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: Yep] people are invested in their place. Are you confident that, that energy and that investment will, will make a meaningful dent in a crisis like this?

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: I think people in Saskatchewan care. I mean, you can't survive in a rough climate like this one if you don't care about your neighbour. And so I think we just need to get back to the grass roots. And I think fundamentally, people want to help one another. They just need to figure out how to work together and be effective with it. And especially because, like the people who are staying in our emerge at night, like, I mean, they're exposed to violence and you shouldn't live in a hospital and you shouldn't be in a hospital unless you're sick.

MG: It's good of you to come outside and talk about this. I mean, we could have done it inside, but I think it speaks to the urgency of the issue. And we're standing here in the snow, in the cold talking about this. Thank you very much.

MELISSA MCGILLVRAY: Well, thanks for taking the time to take a stop in Saskatoon and listen to what people have to say. And yeah, stay warm this week.

MG: The issue of homelessness was a major issue in the recent city election here in Saskatoon. Robert Pearce is a local pastor and he won a seat on council on a campaign to move a 106-bed shelter out of his residential neighbourhood and to change the way this city responds to homelessness.

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ROBERT PEARCE: My name is Robert Pearce. I am a city councillor of Saskatoon, and I am also a pastor at Fairmont Baptist Church.

MG: What does homelessness and the homelessness crisis look like in your neighbourhood?

ROBERT PEARCE: A little under two years ago, a 106-bed shelter was opened in our residential community. What it's done is it's really changed the character of our community. We have a lot of people that do care about the homeless. I see them all the time helping people out. But at the end of the day, it's, it's the crime and the encampments and all the things that come with that that have really changed our community in such devastating ways.

MG: You've seen this personally. You wrote a long letter that was posted on social media about the crisis, but also, what did you to call it? A 'harrowing experience' that you had.

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, I've had some yeah, I've had about seven forceful attempted entries to our church when we have it lock--. We have had to lock our doors 24/7. And that's not to keep people out. That's so that we can control the engagement.

MG: You campaigned in part to have that shelter, if not moved, then closed, right?

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, you know what? There's a big discrepancy. The press loves to take some of my statements and twist them a bit. I called for the closure because I want something better to replace it in a, in a better location like a residential community is not the place for a first come, first serve homeless shelter.

MG: But you want that shelter in that, in that community to be closed. That's accurate to say.

ROBERT PEARCE: I want it relocated first. [MG: Right.] I want it safely and responsibly relocated. I don't want people shuttered out from the services that they receive. I want them to get better services. And the problem is, in our community, we are not able to provide those services just by the community make up that we are.

MG: What does that mean, that you're not able to provide the service?

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, in other words, when, when the open house occurred for this shelter, we walked in and in the lobby there was long rows of displays of wraparound services. That was for those who were poor, those who were addicted to alcohol, you name it. All sorts of great wraparound services. And the impression we were left is all those would be delivered in that shelter. And, and so unfortunately, we're left with a case where that's not what was delivered. Now, there are a couple of services provided out of there, and I know that the STC does their best. I've spoken with Chief Arcand a number of times, but it's just not being delivered the way it should be. And I'm not sure that a residential community is the best place because this is where we live, right? This isn't like, we go to work and then we go home. We have a couple of people who do social work, for instance. And their biggest complaint is not only do they get to go to work and deal with it all day, but then they come home and deal with it all night.

MG: Where is a better place for that shelter to be located?

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, you know, and that's a great question and I don't have an immediate answer. One of the my first questions that I'm going to be bringing to one of our first council meetings is to ask for a zoning map that shows all the locations where shelters are actually zoned. The building where this shelter is in Fairhaven is not zoned for a shelter.

MG: But there are I mean, the city is filled with residential neighbourhoods, people all over the place. So if it's not your residential neighbourhood, would it be another residential neighbourhood? [ROBERT PEARCE: No, I] I'm just trying to understand where.

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, I. I went in great detail, and I don't know how much time you have, but basically what I've been proposing to the province for, well, it's got to be 16 months now is there's different classifications of the homeless population that, that I've experienced. When is complex needs? And complex needs are people with severe addictions, you know, severe untreated mental illness all combined together. And they're the ones who are mostly volatile, potentially violent. They're the people who are yelling at people for no reason or whatever. They do need long-term treatment facilities to help them. And that is one of the things I've been advocating for. The second thing I've been advocating for is more transitional housing, because to me, that's a bigger piece. We have a lot of newly homeless people in the last year that if they actually had a place where they could stay for 3 to 12 months, get the support they need, get the wraparound services for counselling, better income support like the, the SIS program definitely needs to be revamped, which is another thing we've been advocating for. So, there's, there's a lot of solutions that need to come from the provincial side of things, especially to support people better.

MG: When people call actions like the ones that you're talking about, Nimbyism, not in my backyard. You smile as I say that. What is your reaction?

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, you know.

MG: Because that's been, that's been levied at you.

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, it's been levied. It's not true. I mean, I want to see people get the help that they need.

MG: But not in your neighbourhood.

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, you know what? Here's the thing. If it was transitional housing where people want help, if people are getting the services, the beds are assigned, that would work in a residential community, Transitional housing could work very easily. A first come, first serve shelter, emergency shelter won't because where we have 106 beds, when those beds are full, there's potentially 200 to 300 homeless people in our community looking for a bed.

MG: Because they come trying to find a bed, and that's not available.

ROBERT PEARCE: Exactly. So, that's the problem, right? It's, it doesn't work in a residential community because then you're stacking people into that community and that community can't support that. It attracts crime because the gangs come in, the drug dealing comes in. Right? And then, it becomes a territory that needs to be defended.

MG: What needs to be done to address this? There's long-term concerns, but right now, winter's just starting.

ROBERT PEARCE: Yeah. Well, my understanding is the city has already found locations for cold weather shelters. I think it's about 200 beds that they have ready to go. But I think come spring, we need to start looking at next winter and making sure we have better solutions. Things lined up well in advance. I know the city has been trying. I know they've been at this for a, for a number of months. It's, it's just hard to do at this point. And I don't know why. And we need to find out why.

MG: I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. This is important. Thank you.

ROBERT PEARCE: Well, it is. It's very important. And trust me, I want to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

MG: Shirley? [VOICE: That's Shirley, I'm Kelly.] Hi, I'm Matt.

KELLY: Hi, Matt.

MG: How are you?

KELLY: I'm good, thank you.

MG: Nice to meet you.

MG: Another organisation working to help people in need is the Central Urban Metis Federation, or CUMFI. I met up with Shirley Isbister, CUMFI's President at the Round Prairie Elders Lodge. It's a space that provides affordable housing for dozens of Metis seniors.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: What is this place mean to you?

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: It means comfort. You know, we always envisioned it to be, to become a Metis community so that, like, just like we used to have the communities where people came together. And in this home, we have 30 Metis elders. And this is, you're sitting in the gathering room here and they do many activities in here. They have a jam session. JJ Lavallee comes in, and they sing and play different instruments and dance and they just have a really good time. And so it's, it's a place where we hope that our elders feel secure and have a nice place to live.

MG: What does it mean for you personally to have a place like that where, as you said, elders can, can be together and feel secure?

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: The Elders Lodge has been a dream, a vision, whatever you want to call it, for well over 20 years before we finally were able to get all of the dollars together to be able to build the lodge. You know, for years, I would be telling the elders one day we're going to have it. One day we're going to be able to open it. And I'm a person who believes that when the time is right, creator puts the right people together. And that's pretty well happened in all of the projects that CUMFI's done.

MG: Work like this is important, but it's unusual in some ways, too. It doesn't happen perhaps as often as it needs to. And the effect of that, to your point, is that sometimes those elders don't have a safe place to go. What's the urgency to this kind of work, do you think?

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: Well, there's always an urgency to not only housing the, the elders, but, you know, homes for our youth and for the people who are living on the street, which is, you know, at this time of year is really hard to do. You know, your concern is always, you know, is someone going to freeze to death? Because, you know, we have vehicles in Saskatoon that go around picking people up that transport them to warm up stations, to shelters. You know, there's hotels for people who need to be in them, but you can't be on every side street.

MG: What is it about that work that drives you to do it?

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: I have a passion for my community, and for our Metis people.

MG: You say this with a smile on your face.

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: Yeah, I do. And I know that. I was raised as a caregiver, and I still am a caregiver. You know, my history and growing up, you know, we had dysfunction in our family. And, and there was times where my mom and eight of us slept along the riverbank. You know, there's addiction in my family. Those are things that that motivate me.

MG: It's a special place. Thank you for taking us here. I appreciate it.

SHIRLEY ISBISTER: Thank you.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Welcome over. No, we can come over to you.

MARLENE CONRON: A lot of surprise residents in here. So I've been living here will be three years and I will be.

MG: Marlene Conron is one of the elders who lives here.

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MARLENE CONRON: We've been waiting for a place like this all our lives, eh? So, at least 20 years for me. And I always thought, "Oh, Ma, maybe I'll have my foot in the door." And I did. I, Yeah, I finally made it here. So, yeah: We have a really lot of activities here and everything. You can never be lonesome here, eh? There's lots of, lots of really good people that are living in here right now. So, yes.

MG: Where were you living before you came here?

MARLENE CONRON: A couple times, I was homeless and I was living at my daughter's. So, the last time, yes, before I moved in here.

MG: And so having a place like this, having been homeless, what, what did that, did you ever imagine that you would have something like this?

MARLENE CONRON: No, never. Always wanted it, but never imagined it. Yes. Yeah.

MG: That day that you moved in. What do you remember about that?

MARLENE CONRON: It was just so exciting. It was very, very exciting for me. And the place is so beautiful, right? You know, it should have been long time ago, too, eh? Not just now. But I always feel guilty because living in this area and I go when I'm driving around and I drive around and I see all the homeless people, I feel so guilty having a beautiful home and everything. Place to live in. And then, they have nothing and they're laying on the street and it just brings tears to my eyes. They would love to move in here, too. So there should be more. Yes, I think.

MG: The Round Prairie Elders Lodge was built by a Saskatoon company, Big Block Construction. Just last week, they were putting together a new multi-family development in the northeast part of the city.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 2: This is Lego for grown ups. This is absolutely Lego for grown ups. I love it. I loved building things when I was young. And to be able to, to bring that, that excitement and innovation, that advanced construction methods to a very archaic way that we build is exciting.

MG: It's pretty neat the way Big Block works. They build individual apartments in a factory, and they hoist each module up using a giant crane.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 2: You know, we live in a housing crisis. We live in a productivity crisis. But when you watch something like this happen, you kind of ask, why isn't this being done everywhere in Canada? Yeah.

VOICE 3: I love this, though, and I haven't lost it. Over all the years of doing this, it's the aspect that this day has. The impact on the neighbourhood where we start with an open foundation, people go for work in the morning, they come home and there's a full three-storey building. Where'd that come from?

MG: You're listening to a special edition of The Current. Today, we are in very chilly and snowy Saskatoon, meeting some of the people who make this city great. After the news, we're going inside somewhere much warmer. It's the Saskatoon Diving Club. It's the home club of Rylan Wiens. He just won bronze at the Paris Olympics.

[Sounds of cheering and diving at the Saskatoon Diving Club]

The Current in Saskatoon, the ‘Paris of the Prairies’ – Part 2

Guests: Steve Carroll, Rylan Wiens, Margo Erlam, Guy Vanderhaeghe

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE AT POOL: 3-2-1, go!

[Sounds of kids diving]

MG: I'm Matt Galloway, and this is a special edition of The Current. You know, it's not every day that you get to see an Olympic medallist and launch himself off the 10-metre platform. I'm here at the Saskatoon Diving Club. Maybe it seems unlikely for a small city in a landlocked province, but this is one of the top diving facilities in the country. Steve Carroll is the head coach here. He won gold at the Canada Games in 1985, and he started this club with his wife, Mary Carroll, who represented Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. They came here from Newfoundland in 2008, and they never left.

SOUNDCLIP

STEVE CARROLL: The big draw that brought us here was the pool. And I've been here 18 years, and the first 10 years, I just committed to developing a culture. And, you don't come in and say, 'I want this culture, I want you guys to be confident, I want you to win. I want an attitude. I want hard work.' You got to create good people around you. And I mean, obviously Mary's a phenomenal coach. Technically, I don't think anyone could touch her in the world. But the other stuff behind the scenes, that was my job. When they're younger, we just really make sure that they care about each other. We teach them character before we teach them how to compete. We teach them how to have empathy for other kids. And we think that all is very important in becoming a full, rounded athlete.

MG: That sounds like something that perhaps has been missing in other elements of sport and high-level sport perhaps.

STEVE CARROLL: I can guarantee you that it was missing here. You know, when, when we had COVID, I felt there was something missing, and I was kind of self-assessing: What are we missing? We pushed athletes and we pushed them, but we kind of disregarded all the things outside of sport that make them even better and make them good people outside of the sport. And that was my task during COVID, and I was shocked how much I didn't know.

MG: What did you learn?

STEVE CARROLL: I learned empathy. I learned that courage, I learned that resilience. I learned how that important that was to the development of kids.

MG: What was it like to see a couple of your athletes go to Paris, to the Olympics?

STEVE CARROLL: That's a biggie. It was. I mean, I think if I just went to Paris with just Paris and no Olympics, no daughter there, no wife there, no team-mates there, I think I probably would have cried. It was just overwhelming. But the layers on top of layers, you know, I, I'm almost 60 now and I didn't think I'd ever go to the Olympics. I used to coach the old kids. When Mary came up with Rylan, I said, 'Mary, you're going to have to stick with him. You're going to start taking the older kids' because she had something with him that was special and I didn't want to come in and break it. So, you know, I coached the little kids, and it's very rewarding. But I thought I'd never get to the Olympics. So, going there and seeing our two athletes there and my daughter was on the synchronised swimming team there. I don't think there was an hour went by when I didn't think about everything and just filled up with tears. It was just so emotional. It was incredible. It was more emotion than I could ever contain. It was really hard. I mean, this is four months after the Olympics now, and I still bring myself back to those moments. And there are so many moments that just make you go, 'Wow, what an experience,' you know? And if I quit coaching tomorrow, I'm pretty happy with what happens. Pretty fulfilled. I feel the reward. And I can promise you that Mary is still feeling like there's something more. You know, it's never enough. And now, she's on the next four years of Olympic training. We got a kid named Kash Tarasoff, who came in 10 years ago, watching Rylan succeed and watching him do what, what Rylan did, something that Canadians never did before, you know? And now, Kash, a little boy from, you know, Saskatoon, wants to outdo what Rylan did.

MG: What is, just finally, what is the story, do you think that this club tells about Saskatoon?

STEVE CARROLL: I don't think we could have done that in Montreal or Toronto or Calgary. [MG: Why?] I think it's the size of the city. Our kids appreciate what they have, and I appreciate what we have. This is a really special city. And I think in return, we put Saskatoon on the map as a really positive place to live and a cool place to bring up some athletes.

MG: One of those Olympians that competed in Paris is Rylan Wiens. He competed in the games in Tokyo as well. Then, this summer in Paris, where he won bronze in synchronised diving.

SOUNDCLIP

RYLAN WIENS: Going into the night of the synchro competition with my partner, Nathan. We looked at each other and were like, 'This is what we've been like working for the last 16 years for.' On that last dive, I remember waiting with Nathan, knowing we're third place right now if the Mexicans don't get a certain score in the dive. We knew the dive was close, but that wait, it's something else. It's, it's something that I can't even explain. Just the hope that they didn't do it. Hope that we did it, and that uncertainty of what happened. It felt like an eternity. But as soon as those scores came up, the feeling of like just pure joy and excitement overwhelming.

MG: I mean, the work is hard, right? Is there a point before you get to that, that stage where you think, like, what am I doing?

RYLAN WIENS: Yeah, there's... Oh gosh, there's, I can't say there's been many weeks where I didn't question, in the last couple of years, question 'Why am I doing this?' really? And especially after last, last year, I had a nasty back injury missile world championships. I missed a couple other competitions. And coming back from that was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done mentally and physically. So, it really came down to a lot of a lot of things like journaling, like reassuring myself that I want to go to the Olympics and get that Olympic medal. I think I wrote down that goal probably 60, 70 times in my notebook. I just, I knew that I'd put the work in and I knew I deserved to be where I was.

MG: And today, the national level divers are hard at work.

SOUNDCLIP

MARGO ERLAM: We use the trampoline a lot for especially for springboard. What I do, it's like walking on your leg and jumping and making sure you're in the right position on the end of the board. That's why we have that little square there. It's for balance.

MG: How many of those would you imagine you have done in your life?

MARGO ERLAM: Since I was a child, probably around a million.

MG: A million? The other big star of this club is Margot Erland. She competed in the three metre springboard event in Paris this summer.

MARGO ERLAM: This club means the world to me. I, when I moved here at 16, I was in a very dark place with my coach in Calgary. And, you know, I had kind of given up on myself and the sport and this club kind of just opened their club and their home to me and kind of made it my home. And I mean, my coach was a big part of that. Mary Carroll. She basically was my mom here. My parents didn't move when I was 16, so she made sure that I was loving the sport again.

MG: What was your experience at the Olympics like? How would you describe it?

MARGO ERLAM: My experience was amazing. I mean, I obviously didn't perform like the results weren't there, but just being there was incredible for me, and I think it was just a lifelong dream that I finally got to achieve. I finally got to experience. I wish I could go back and relive it.

MG: You were really hard on yourself after the Olympics.

MARGO ERLAM: Yeah.

MG: You wrote about how you questioned whether you deserved to be called an Olympian.

MARGO ERLAM: Yes.

MG: Why would you say that?

MARGO ERLAM: I think I was in a very tough spot post-competition, knowing I could have done better. I've always been hard on myself. I think it's just stems from being an elite athlete that you always want to be perfect. You always want to show your best. And I didn't that day, and I think there was just so many emotions about feeling like I let everybody down.

MG: You have a tattoo of the Olympic rings, is that right? Yeah, I thought I saw that coming in. So clearly, you believe that you're an Olympian now? When did you realise that? When it was. When somebody was inking you up or...?

MARGO ERLAM: No. I mean, I think it was the closing ceremonies, seeing all those people being there for me and for Canada and for the whole world and these athletes, like we're such a small population of the world. And I think having that big of a crowd, just being there, supporting us and, you know, was the start of me realising that I was an Olympian. I think coming home and having my family and friends like, we're so proud of you. Like, just having their support was massive.

MG: You are, what, the 22nd best diver? [FEMALE VOICE: Yeah.] There's 7.9 billion people in the world. You're the 22nd best diver [FEMALE VOICE: Yeah] in the world.

MARGO ERLAM: Yeah. [MG: That's amazing, come on.] It is amazing in the grand scheme. But when you're in the sport and you know that you can do better, like it was a little bit overwhelming. So...

MG: So what happens next? You also said, did you say...?

MARGO ERLAM: You can bet your ass I'll come back stronger.

MG: You know, there are certain people that I work with who would like me to jump off this really high diving board. Rylan has changed into his bathing suit, and he is going to take me up the steps to the top of the 10-metre platform.

SOUNDCLIP

RYLAN WIENS: Are we going to the 10-metre right now?

MG: Yeah, you ready?

RYLAN WIENS: Are you ready, is the question?

MG: I'm not going to go off of it, but I would like to know what it looks like when I'm up there.

RYLAN WIENS: So, this is where it all begins. Welcome to the three metres.

MG: When do you start to get nervous when you're walking up here?

RYLAN WIENS: Me? If I'm actually doing something off 10-metre, probably now. All right. This is our halfway point. I'll take you out on all the other ones, but I want to get the shock of 10-metre first.

MG: Okay. The shock. I like that.

RYLAN WIENS: We're not getting up there. [MG: Yeah, we're going up higher.] And now, this is where I spend most of my time.

MG: So, this is 10 metres up above the water?

RYLAN WIENS: This is 10 metres up. This is 10 metres, 33 feet, whatever you want to call it.

MG: It's pretty high up. It's pretty high up.

RYLAN WIENS: Yeah. Yeah. Feel free to come to the end.

MG: I'm going to hang on to the edge while I do that. When you're looking over, what is that like? What do you see?

RYLAN WIENS: I, see for yourself.

MG: Thank you.

RYLAN WIENS: Yeah, it's basically just your sheer drop rate to the water.

MG: Can you get a quiet mind when you're up here before you go off like this? Are you able to kind of still yourself such that you don't hear anything? You don't hear the fans? You know, you don't hear, like, you just...

RYLAN WIENS: That's one of the. Yeah, that's one of the biggest struggles when you're, you're doing your dives is you have a set list of things. I think about 2 to 3 things in every dive. Well, specific to that dive. I go through in my head once before I walk to the end. Big, deep breath. Count to three and throw myself off.

MG: And when you throw yourself off, is there anything that's happening in your mind at that time? Is your body just kind of going through what it's been trained to do?

RYLAN WIENS: Once you're kind of leaning up to a competition, generally, you want to stop thinking. You want to let it just happen naturally. You have that muscle memory, you have that base, and you can't think that fast when you're in the competition. You get down in less than two seconds. So, I mean, you got to throw in four and a half flips between here and there. You can't be thinking about what's happening every flip.

MG: And it really does feel like you're throwing yourself off the edge?

RYLAN WIENS: Sometimes when you're running at the end, it's like, I'm really about to throw myself off of here, aren't I? And that's when you got to really, like, focus it back in.

MG: This is about as close as I'll go to the edge. Thank you very much.

RYLAN WIENS: Absolutely. What about standing backwards? But one leg?

MG: Better you than me.

RYLAN WIENS: You know, we don't often let people walk down. It's called the walk of shame, but we'll let you slide on this one.

MG: So, what is the walk of shame? I mean...

RYLAN WIENS: We're about to do it. There is always that slight amount of judgement as you walk back down.

MG: I'm happy to be judged because I'm not going off the edge. Thank you.

MG: I'm Matt Galloway in Saskatoon. This is a special edition of The Current. We're back in the Broadway District of Saskatoon. My guide to this neighbourhood is Guy Vanderhaeghe. He's a two-time winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction. His 2004 novel, The Last Crossing, was the winner of Canada Reads. And we're here in this great community. He's kind of walking us around, showing us an historic district, but also a place that's really personal to him.

SOUNDCLIP

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Very close to here was where Joni Mitchell apparently had her first public appearance in a coffee shop called Louis Riel.

MG: Do people have great affection for her?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: It's mixed [MG: Yeah] because, because I think everybody recognises what a great artist she is. Right? But she said some things that, you know, push people's minds out of joint. So what? You know, it's, it's not a, it's not a niceness competition. So, just if you hang a left at the end of this block and go down a little ways, we're standing right outside of the Broadway Theatre, which when I first came to Saskatoon, it specialised in soft porn. And...

MG: Is that's why it says 'We got that scummy magic' on the...?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: No, it's evolved. Mostly, it's a, it's a venue for a live performance.

MG: And that's where we'll be on stage.

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Yeah. And then we go up just a little ways. Calories will be up here.

[Guy and Matt enter the restaurant. Natural restaurant sounds.].

MG: And this is your local hangout?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Yep.

MG: For years, Guy has been a regular at this restaurant, Calories. When it opened in 1986, it was one of the first outposts in an area that has become really trendy and vibrant.

SOUNDCLIP

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: I'm coming with more people.

FEMALE VOICE 2: I know, more. I'm happy about that.

MG: You've lived in in Saskatoon for how long? You said you came when you were in university.

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Yeah, I ca--, I came from a small town called Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, in 1968. I lived virtually all my life in Saskatoon.

MG: And why Saskatoon?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Well, one of the things like, for me was, first of all, I developed a very strong attachment to it through the university, because for me, the university was a huge eyeopener. I came from a very small town, working class. My father was also a part-time farmer. And I still remember walking to the university library and seeing these rows and rows of books and thinking, 'I can read anything that I want here.' There's, the city also has a long association with art of all kinds, and it was cheap. You could make it here. A lot of people could, could do art here that would have trouble doing some place else. Now, all of these costs have risen.

MG: I was going to say, have you seen all of that change? I mean, this population has popped up and there's it's a city that's now facing all the problems that a big city faces. Do you know what I mean?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Yeah. It's, you know, it's, it's hard, harder. I don't want to sound like too utopian or too blissful about everything because.

MG: Well, I mean, that's the other thing. Like, we're here talking to like the mayor and the new mayor and other folks who are helping people who are out on the streets. I mean, winter's just kind of arrived in a wallop and it's freezing cold, and there's people are. On our way over here, we saw folks who are trying to get by. Those are those are big problems that are kind of nibbling around the edges, if not at the edges. Do you know [GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Yup] what I mean?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: I mean, this city has a lot of those kinds of problems: Homelessness, racism, all sorts of things that you would wish that a city doesn't have. But it's wrong to pretend that they don't exist. But I also think, I get a sense that there's, that there's a fairly concerted effort to make some changes.

MG: Do you worry about this country in terms of how not politically, but it, it's almost regionally the way that people... The idea of Canada feels like it's under threat to some people. Do you know what I mean? That we are atomised in, in individual, not even provinces, but areas and that people don't understand and may not be even curious about people who live in a different part of the country or have a different way of life than they do here. Do you worry about that? You're nodding away, as I said that.

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: This is a historical problem of Canada, but I think it's, it's gotten worse. But at one time, the country, like in the earliest days, were divided up between French and English, Catholic and Protestant. And those were big dividing lines. When the West got settled, then, then the question became, you know, feelings of, of the West being exploited by Bay Street bankers. Famous cartoons of the cow being fed in Saskatchewan and being milked in Ontario, all those sorts of things. The problem now is that I think that politicians are willing to exploit these differences in a way that I don't think they would have countenanced before. They really press hot button issues. I think of that as the failure of liberal democracy, which is part of the division between rural Canada. Like, if you take Saskatchewan in the last election, the city's two major cities, Regina and Saskatoon, went NDP. Countryside, solidly Saskatchewan Party.

MG: What do you do about that?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: I think what you have to do is you have to... I keep on thinking about that old Rooseveltian coalition, right? Where you put people together who maybe don't rub up against each other the way they should, but you find some sort of common ground for them. And that means, okay, that everybody tones it down a bit. That, that the whole business about, about identity politics, cultural politics. And it's not that they're not important, but that they can be exploited. That maybe we need to talk less about those kinds of things, and about issues that most people are attempting to live with. And those are largely economic, I think.

MG: What do you think people in the East, what don't they understand about, about this place? About Saskatoon, and about Saskatchewan?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Now, I'm going to be displaying my own touchiness here, right? The sort of sense that we're all kind of stupid, that there aren't thoughtful people here or that there aren't, you know, things being accomplished outside of areas of being hewers of wood and jars of water. And again, I'm going back to the past. But if you, you know, if you look back to the glory days of, of progressive politics in Saskatchewan, many of the ideas that were resisted by Central Canada now become staples of how we think about this country like Medicare, etc., etc..

MG: Came from here?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: Came from here. Saskatchewan had the first arts board in the country long before the Canada Council. There were Canadian, Canadian writers coming from all over the country. And that was kind of the beginning in a sense of the writing community here that stayed here, who made a mark in Can-Lit.

MG: What would you tell them? We're going to go back out into the snow and stomp around a little bit. But what would you tell people from the rest of the country about this place, about Saskatoon?

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: I think it's a good place to live. It's physically beautiful, that the river makes a huge difference to this city. And I think that the history of the city itself, for anyone who connects with it, like the English prof at the University of Saskatchewan, who George Bernard Shaw wrote an introduction to his history of the English language, saying that and getting this is going to sound like boosterism, saying, you know, 'I thought all the smart people were at Cambridge and Oxford, but didn't hold a candle to this guy.' You know, so there's artists of all kinds who, you know, most famously, I suppose Joni Mitchell was probably the most famous performer to come out of Saskatoon, but not too far from here, Gordie Howe, he just, you know, played hockey on an outdoor rink and it's not a wasteland, you know? I once had a line in a story about people driving through Saskatchewan deploring its flatness, and the condition of its washrooms. Right? So, I don't think that's the case. And you never know if people like people visiting, if they're sucking up to you. But you remember the late Leonard Cohen doing a concert and saying, I'm so glad to be in the Paris of the Prairies. I don't know what he really thought, but he knew what, what button to push. And the Paris of the Prairies is kind of the button, I think.

MG: Thank you for having us and bringing us to your local as well.

GUY VANDERHAEGHE: I hope you have a good time here.

MG: Guy Vanderhaeghe's latest book is a collection of essays called Because Somebody Asked Me To. Coming up after the break, you're going to meet one of the largest farmland owners in Saskatchewan, and find out why he's betting big on the future of farming. This is a special edition of The Current from very snowy [Music: A Case Of You by Joni Mitchell fading in] and very cold Saskatoon. I'm Matt Galloway. And to take you to the regional update, here's Joni Mitchell, and A Case Of You.

[Music: A Case Of You by Joni Mitchell]

The Current in Saskatoon, the ‘Paris of the Prairies’ – Part 3

Guests: Robert Andjelic, Julie Maxwell, Terry Boehm

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current from Saskatoon. You do not have to go very far from this city to find yourself in farming country. This province is often called Canada's breadbasket. But like elsewhere, farming here in Saskatchewan is going through a transition. Small farms are becoming rare. Family farms are expanding into large operations, and big investors see an opportunity in all of that. And that is where our next guest comes in. Robert Andjelic is the largest farmland owner in Canada. He started investing 14 years ago. Most of his land is in Saskatchewan. He's in our Calgary studio this morning. Robert, good morning.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How did you come to start investing in farmland?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, originally, most of my life, I was in commercial real estate and construction. And I seen the subprime issue ready to hit the fan in [2006], [2007] and [2007], we sold the portfolio at the peak. It was around 3,000,000 square feet of commercial space. And then I thought to myself, "Well, what does Canada have that the rest of the world needs and China or other countries can duplicate easily?" And the answer to that was farmland and agriculture and water.

MG: Did you know much about agriculture, about farming when you got into this?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, I was always going to hobby farming a little bit, but never really actual farming where I had to make a living out of it and pay the bills from it.

MG: You're not harping on farming now. You have, what? Upwards of 250,000 acres of land in Saskatchewan?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: It's almost, it's getting up there, yes. To the, almost that to that, that 250.

MG: Why is farmland in Saskatchewan such a good investment for you?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, before I got into farmland, I looked at all the provinces. Of course, what they had to offer, what I read across Canada. Actually, I studied throughout the world, global. And at that point, Saskatchewan had some of the cheapest farmland in the world on an equal production basis. So, if you were producing 50 bushels an acre, let's say canola in U.S., 50 bushels in Saskatchewan, in Alberta, or in Manitoba, land should be a similar price, save for some differences in freight and so on. But Saskatchewan at that time was about less than half the price of Manitoba and about one third of Alberta farmland. That was, of course, due to the regulations they had where you had to be a Saskatchewan resident to own Saskatchewan farmland. And then, they changed it that you had to be a Canadian citizen.

MG: And that gave you an opportunity to, to get in.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, I got in and I kind of figured that the rest of the market would figure out that it was a good deal. And so, I started buying real fast and accumulating. At that time, they had a lot of listings. I'd say 4 or 5 times more than they have currently.

MG: What sort of response did you get from people when you started buying up all this land?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, they thought I was crazy because they had all these memories of the '80s when their prices collapsed and everything else. And when I started buying, price of land was only $400 or $500 or $600 an acre. When I started paying $650, they thought it was way too much. But I knew it had to, or I didn't know. But I figured it would have to come up.

MG: You have about, well, just more than 200 farmers who rent from you and you spend a lot of time driving around the province, visiting the farmers on your land. Tell me a little bit about why that's important for you to be out with them, to see what they're doing and to see what life is like on the land that you owned that they're renting from.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, that's very important because we talk about rotations of crops and about how to do land improvements, because most of the land, especially the eastern part of the province, doesn't lend itself very well to today's modern big equipment. So, it needs some improvements, the removal of fences. Quite often, there's rock piles everywhere that people left throughout the years of farming and we bury those so there's at least less obstacles because you can't manoeuvre a 90-foot cedar the way you could an old 10x12 footer. So, today's cedars are 90 feet and then, you have that big 500 horsepower tractor up front with the cedar and the nurse wagon. So, it's like a little train coming along. We try to manoeuvre in between all that.

MG: You've admitted that, that you've turned farming in some ways on its head through those kind of practices.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, not really, but we are doing what we can so that my upper juicers have the most efficient land as far as farming practices are concerned in Canada.

MG: That, that's been controversial. There have been a lot of people who have said that land transformation has, for example, drained wetlands. It's killed the biodiversity around these farms. It's essentially just flattened them out so that you can have an industrial scale farm.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: That's not really true.

MG: What, what do you say to that?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: What I'll say to that is you have a full section. Let's say one mile by one mile square. Around that section is all the road allowances and they are all either trees or brush or something. The rest, you farm in between. So, you can never remove all that. So, you do not have just everything bare. That's not, absolutely not true. And then, there's no way that we can farm everything anyway. Ottawa total 245,000 acres or thereabouts. We have 40,000 acres of green space that we can farm that's will be in, that's creeks, that's slews, that's all kinds of different obstacles that you just can't farm through. And those stay like that.

MG: Do you think that the large operations, like the ones that that you're talking about and the ones that you helped create, I mean, is that kind of the future of farming in Saskatchewan, do you think?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, all you have to do is look at it is look at the past. Look at the past hundred years. It's all been going, where you used to have a house virtually on every quarter section. Now they're, of course, much further apart and the farms are getting bigger. I think the average size of a Saskatchewan farm is around 1,600 acres. But you have to gear your land base to your equipment. So, how do you have the latest equipment, the most efficient equipment, and do only 2000 or 5000 acres? You have to have it go through to that next size.

MG: So, do you think that smaller farms can make it in Saskatchewan?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, they can if they use proper farming business practices. Yes, there's room for everybody.

MG: One of the things we hear and we've heard it from the National Farmers Union, you'll hear it from people who want to get into farming, is that they'll blame investors like you for, for pricing young farmers out of the market. They say that it's impossible for them to, to get in or even to survive because you push up the prices of farmland and it's hard for them, to your point. I mean, they need to scale up, but they can't afford to scale up because the land's more expensive. When you hear that, when you hear investors like yourself called land grabber by, by some people, how do you react?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: That's totally false. That whole idea that we push up prices or that we even compete. Most of the sales that come to me are much larger, quite often 2,000 up to what, seven, eight, 10,000 acres? No, no young farmer's going to buy that anyway. And quite often, when they're smaller pieces that are for sale, I step aside. I don't even bother with them. I let the producers, local producers pick them up.

MG: So, you don't believe that investors, just to be clear, you don't believe that investors, by investing in farmland, drive up the price of that land?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Absolutely not. If you look at investors constitute around 3 per cent of the total land ownership in, let's say, Saskatchewan. How does 3 per cent sway any market? I've been in commodities, I've been in stocks. I've been all kinds. Three per cent doesn't do anything to any market.

MG: When you are out with your farmers on the land that you own, the land that they're renting from you, do you see the impact? I mean, we're in a changing climate and they would be as close to the land as anybody. Do you see the impact of climate change in the work that you do?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Absolutely. It's happening. No question. I see that when I talk to my producers, let's say south of number 1 Highway where they used to get 25, 30, 35, even 40 bushel canola crop, let's say, like canola is a cooler weather-loving plant. So, when you get all this heat coming like we've had in the past summers and so on, it doesn't produce as well.

MG: What does that mean for the future of farming in Saskatchewan?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, all you have to do is you have to move up higher up north and we are ready in front of it. We're trying to buy land further north, getting ready for the future.

MG: What do you do with the forests that are out there?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Well, there's only one thing to do. You're going to have to clear them now. If you don't clear them, you're going to have total reduction in production.

MG: So, you have to clear out those forests to be able to farm further north because you can't keep farming what you are farming further south.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: If you want to farm up there. But so far, we're not in the forests. We're only. There used to be grazing and so on. So, you just break that land and turn it into cropland. So far, we're not clearing forests. But in the future, you will have to clear the forests if you're going to take advantage of that. Canada and Russia are two countries in the world that may benefit from climate change. You're going to be able to grow crops for the north and you have the soils that you can grow crops in. If you look at Ontario, for example, yes, it'll they'll get more heat units further north. But what do you have? You have the Canadian shield. If you look at Manitoba, Manitoba's mostly coniferous up there and the soil is too acidic. But once you get into Saskatchewan, then it becomes more favourable towards opening up and the governments are going to have to look at that and say, do we want to cut back our total production of crops? Because you're not going to be able to grow them south and you may grow other crops. But if you get milder winters, other insects and diseases will come in with that that you never really encountered before.

MG: And to you, I mean, this is necessary to think about this. Just finally, on that, it's necessary to think about this because otherwise, well, the amount of food that we produce in this country will change.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Absolutely. And, we are reduction if you don't allow forest clearing and so on, the governments and the people are the ones that'll have to decide that. But because the crop production will diminish and that'll happen throughout the world.

MG: Do you see opportunities for a younger generation to get into farming?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Absolutely. If they want in, there's a way in. You build it slowly. But don't forget that land is not the only issue. What about every piece of equipment, modern equipment that's $1 million-plus?

MG: Well, and that's the thing. I mean, just given the amount of debt that farmers carry right now, you honestly believe that young farmers, people who are I mean, we talk about a housing crisis and this is on an industrial scale that those young farmers, you honestly believe that they would have a shot to get into this?

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Yes, they do. They could. [MG: Yeah], because you don't have to start with brand new equipment a million dollars each. There's a lot of older equipment that maybe doesn't have that technology and so on, but it produces just as well.

MG: Robert, I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much for taking time to speak with us.

ROBERT ANDJELIC: Thank you.

MG: Robert Andjelic owns hundreds of thousands of acres in Saskatchewan, as you heard.

MG: Julie Maxwell is the president of the Youth Caucus of the National Farmers Union. A small vegetable farmer herself, Her parents own a farm in Maidstone, Saskatchewan, about two hours northwest of Saskatoon. Terry Boehm is a fourth generation grain farmer in Colonsay, about an hour southeast of Saskatoon. He was also president of the National Farmers' Union about a decade ago, they've been listening in. Good morning to you both.

JULIE MAXWELL: Good morning.

TERRY BOEHM: Good morning.

MG: Terry, what do you make of what we heard from Robert Angelic there about in particular the need for farms to expand?

TERRY BOEHM: Well, I think that on many levels he's correct. There's been significant pressures to force that happening, including very stagnant commodity prices, extremely high input and equipment cost and the amount of control that's being exerted increasingly over seeds, the consolidations in terms of the mass of global power, buying our products and also supplying the inputs. And many of them are one and the same. That certainly drives a tremendous pressure to scale up because margins are very thin. And of course, farm numbers are decreasing drastically in Canada, and yet farm debt is increasing rapidly. Around 200,000 farms in Canada now carry about $1.4 billion of debt. And around the world, we're entering into a demographic crisis of how do you attract people back into agriculture? We're an ageing population, and I'm part of that statistic.

MG: I want to come back to that, and that's that succession issue that a lot of people have talked about. Julie, as I said, you're the president of the Youth Caucus of the National Farmers Union. That union, a year ago, was on Parliament Hill in Ottawa rallying, protesting large land investors. You just heard maybe the largest land investor in this country say that he's not to blame for forcing small farmers out or changing in many ways how farmers can get in. What do you make of what he had to say?

JULIE MAXWELL: I respectfully would disagree with a lot of what he had to say. I think it's pretty clear that land speculation has played a huge role in driving up the price of farmland. And even beyond that, I just wanted to talk about the power dynamics, like whoever controls the land, controls the food system, controls the economy, controls the country, and it's just entering into dangerous territory the more and more that we allow our investors to take over our farmland. So for us, it's a lot about that balance of power that's scaring us as young farmers. But also, yeah, the land speculation is pricing us out of the market.

MG: Who's being priced out, who can't get into the game?

JULIE MAXWELL: I would say anyone that wasn't born on a farm or born into some kind of wealth can't get into the game right now. I talk to young farmers all the time who want to start farms, who dream of farming. Like, I think there is a bit of a misconception that nobody wants to farm anymore, and I always try to say that's not true. There are so many people who dream of farming, but they just don't see how it's possible or how it's viable, or they've tried and it hasn't worked. And a lot of these folks don't want to produce commodities and do the style of farming that you've mostly been talking about. A lot of these folks just want to feed their communities. They want to have small farms where they, you know, grow livestock and vegetables and food for communities. You know, just simple, noble goals aren't feeling possible for most young people.

MG: Terry, tell me about your farm. How long has it been in your family?

TERRY BOEHM: Well, it's, my great grandfather arrived in Saskatchewan around 1903, started with the typical homestead of 160 acres and then slowly built up farms. When I became engaged, I've, I guess I've more than doubled, almost tripled the size of the farm. And I have another business in order to finance the purchase of land that I worked very hard at and slowly built up. So currently, it's a green operation that's just a wee bit shy of 4000 acres.

MG: How difficult is it to stay afloat, if you don't mind me asking?

TERRY BOEHM: For myself, I'm basically in a holding pattern as I'm kind of nearing the end of my farming career. We're subjected to extremely variable grain prices. Currently, we're in a down cycle. Even when we were in a high-price cycle, it wasn't actually that high. Given that my father in the '70s could sell canola or flax for around $12 a bushel. Currently, that's the price right now. And the costs and expenses have increased astronomically. If I was starting out now, it would be a drastically different picture and much, much, much more difficult. But, you know, when you look at currently a bushel, number one wheat, you might get $8, $8.50 a bushel. That'll produce about 90 loaves of bread. A bushel of barley, malting barley's about $5 that will produce about 300 bottles of beer. The price of our commodities are a very insignificant price of the end product.

MG: Julie, given that, and your parents have about 1000 acres of land, could you imagine taking over the farm, you or your siblings, as part of your future?

JULIE MAXWELL: I have tried to imagine it. I've thought about it quite a bit. [MG: And?] My siblings are city kids, so really it's up to me. But we're all very attached to the farm that we grew up in. We all want to be able to maintain a connection to that land. And for us, honestly, you know, we're the lucky ones or I'm one of the lucky ones that has access to land when so many aspiring farmers don't. But what I don't really have is community. And when farms scale up and up and up and rural populations decline, you know, our rural communities erode. And I'm really lonely out there on my parent's land. So for me, that's really been one of the biggest challenges, is just feeling a sense of community, having access to markets, because I'm a direct market farmer and I guess you asked me if I would be willing to take over the grain farm. And really, my heart is in vegetables. [MG: Yeah.] I've thought about grain and yeah, for me, vegetables is much preferred, but I don't know if it's possible out in that, out in that community. And, you know, I don't, I don't really have any friends out there. I just talk to my dog all day.

MG: I'm sure the dog is happy for your companionship. But I know what you mean. I mean, like the community that you might have wanted to lean into, isn't there?

JULIE MAXWELL: Exactly. [MG: Yeah.]

MG: Terry, you said you're coming toward the end of your farming career. What happens to the farm when you retire?

TERRY BOEHM: Well, that's something that I'm grappling with. I'm at, and I'll rent the land for a period of time. I, I think that, that question is really difficult for me because there are current practices that I think are probably folly in the long term that allow the scale up of farms to operate, including the spraying of crops just before harvest. That's become a relatively common practice. This is something I really steer away from reliance on, on large scale chemical applications. Also, I do use herbicides, but on a much reduced level. So, the possibility of sort of finding somebody with my own mindset is probably fairly unlikely.

MG: But this is a big deal, though, right? There's about 40 per cent of the farm operators that are set to retire over the next decade. We talk about this farm succession crisis. That's a real, it's a real concern.

TERRY BOEHM: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't have any real answers, other than you have to ask a basic question: What will it take to attract people into agriculture, and to make it possible for them to thrive, and for communities to build? And there, one has to think about the risks, the financial burdens that one takes on, the isolation and the thin returns. So then, you have to start to ask what kind of food system are we operating in? In Canada, it's, you know, basically the biggest driver is to increase agricultural exports, but there is very little credence given to those that are producing that and what the end outcome is. Even somebody like Mr. Andjelic, you know, he talks about the only 2 per cent of land having very little influence. But if you multiply 2 per cent by 50, you have 100 per cent. You know, it's an unlikely scenario, but if you have 58 owners, and one of the largest cream producing areas in the world, I think we need to ask some really fundamental questions about agriculture.

MG: Julie, to your point, I mean, the myth that young people, this narrative that young people don't want to get into farming, you said is nonsense. You hold this retreat for young farmers across the country last week, and you talked about how people want to get in and they want to get in at a scale that allows them to feed their community. What has to be done to, to make that happen?

JULIE MAXWELL: Yeah, all of these young people just need a little bit of support. And I think Terry, you know, he got into it when he talked about how our government really only supports large-scale farming and like commodities. Like I've heard it said, we don't really have an agriculture policy. We have an egg export policy. And I really feel that as a, as a small-scale farmer, I don't feel very supported by the government. You know, I don't have access to crop insurance programs or extension services that I know of. So, I think a good start would be more support for small-scale direct marketing farmers. There's a million things that the government could do, but that's, that's a couple of them.

MG: Are you optimistic that they'll do any of them, any of the million? Because it's a negative, it feels like an existential thing. This is about how we feed ourselves.

JULIE MAXWELL: Yeah. And I don't want to end the interview on a, on a downer, but I don't know if I am that optimistic. Just the way that the political scene is moving in Canada and in Saskatchewan. There's a lot of support for, you know, big business rather than the people. And what gives me hope is participating in the National Farmers Union, its incredible group of people who are so smart and so engaged and, you know, farmers on the ground to build policy together and come up with solutions together. And that gives me hope.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you both about this. I wish you both the best of luck. This is an important subject to talk about, and I'm glad to have you here. Thank you very much.

JULIE MAXWELL: Thank you for having me.

TERRY BOEHM: Thank you.

MG: Julie Maxwell is the president of the Youth Caucus of the National Farmers Union, small vegetable farmer herself. Terry Boehm is a grain farmer in Colonsay, Saskatchewan. And that is The Current from Saskatoon for this Tuesday. I'm off to host our live event at the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon tonight. You will hear that program tomorrow. It's going to be a dandy. We have some great conversations lined up to celebrate this city, but also dig in to some of the wicked challenges that it faces. If you want us to come to your city next, this is a thing. We're travelling across the country, going into places, telling your story to the rest of the country. Where should we go next? Should we come to your town? Send us an email: thecurrent@cbc.ca. We want to hear what's special about where you live, and what the rest of the country needs to learn from that place, and needs to know about that place. Email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. I'm going to leave you with some music from the Saskatchewan country star Colter Wall. You think that last name sounds a bit familiar? It's because it's the son of the former premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall. This is from his album, Little Songs. [Music: Prairie Evening/Sagebrush Waltz by Colter Wall fading in] That's Colter Wall and Prairie Evening/Sagebrush Waltz. I'm Matt Galloway in Saskatoon. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Music: Prairie Evening/Sagebrush Waltz by Colter Wall]

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Tuesday, November 26, 2024 Full Transcript

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