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The Current Transcript for August 16, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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DWAYNE LINDSTROM: We have not experienced anything like this ever. You know? Here it is at three o'clock in the afternoon and it's dark out. All the street lights are on. It's an eerie feeling.

LAURA LYNCH: Eerie and yet for forest firefighting crews in B.C. also eerily familiar. That's the Mayor of Fraser Lake in northern B.C. Dwayne Lindstrom. For the second year in a row the province has declared a state of emergency as it faces hundreds of wildfires. This morning we'll check in, but also look to whether there's a better way to face the flames. After that, another kind of battle...

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. They are the enemy of the people.

LL: Today more than 300 newspapers across the United States, big and small, are taking President Donald Trump and his by now familiar claim head on. Journalists are not the enemy declares The Boston Globe for example. In half an hour, we check in on how the media are fighting back both in the U.S. and here in Canada. Then in an hour...

SOUNDCLIP

All of sudden the whole world opened their eyes when they saw that image of the boy on the beach. There is something in that photo to wake up the world.

LL: That 'boy on the beach' was little Alan Kurdi. And that image of the 3 year old drowned when he tried to reach Greece with his parents and brother galvanized the debate in Canada about whether to accept more Syrian refugees. Tima Kurdi was Alan's aunt; and the Vancouver woman became the unwitting voice for Syrians desperate to find refuge. A replay of my conversation with Tima Kurdi later on. I'm Laura Lynch. This is the summer edition of The Current.

How B.C. homeowners can prepare for wildfires

Guests: Tracy Calogheros, Chris Beach, Lori Daniels

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MIKE FARNWORTH: This morning based on the advice of the experts and the British Columbia Fire Service we have declared a provincial state of emergency regarding the fires that are currently ongoing in British Columbia.

LL: That is B.C.'s Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth announcing a state of emergency yesterday in response to the hundreds of wildfires burning out of control in the province. B.C. Fire Services' Kevin Skrepnek says it is a difficult challenge.

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KEVIN SKREPNEK: We've got active fires really from one corner of the province to the other. 570 active fires right now throughout B.C.; many of them considered to be out of control. And almost 50 right now what we consider to be fires-of-note so major fires that are posing a threat to communities or highly visible.

LL: Some of the province's biggest fires are now burning in the regional district of Bulkley Nechako. In a few minutes we'll hear from the mayor of one of the hardest hit areas, Burns Lake, where nearby fires are forcing people from their homes and threatening their livelihoods. But first on the line is an evacuee from another of the region's communities. Tracy Calogheros was at her cabin on an island in Francois Lake when lightning struck earlier this month. Less than a week later she and her husband were under evacuation order and on their way to Prince George. We've reached Tracy Calogheros in Richmond B.C.. Hello.

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Good morning.

LL: Before we get to the fires themselves, for listeners who haven't been to the Bulkley Nechako region, can you take us there? Paint a bit of a picture of what it's like?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Well it's a spectacular part of the province. It's heavily treed. Sparsely populated. Pristine freshwater lakes and rivers and streams. It's truly a gorgeous place when it's not under a thick blanket of smoke.

LL: And so the night the fires began what did you see?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Well it was after dark and we were sitting around enjoying a beautiful evening and dry lightning came through, and it was a heck of a lightning storm, fork lightning like mad that we could watch across the lake and in behind the mountains to the south of Francois Lake which ultimately resulted in the island lake fire amongst many many others.

LL: And you knew as soon as you saw the lightning storm what it was going to mean?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Oh, no question. It was tinder dry. The ground. The dust in the forest in the area is very dry and thick with moss and fallen needles and all the rest and as soon as we saw the lightning we knew full well that there would be fires. And sure enough the first thing in the morning you could see the first column of smoke.

LL: And then you watched as those fires grew over the next six days, what were those days like for you?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: The first six days actually was kind of frustrating. We watched this plume of smoke and it didn't really get a whole lot bigger until the sixth night, it would have been a B.C. day evening, and then the winds picked up and it blew 15 kilometers down the lake in a matter of hours. And since then I checked this morning before we got on the line and it's just about 15,000 hectares just for that fire. The Shovel Lake fire, which is the monster as well, is the other side of the lake and it's around 68,000 hectares.

LL: Give me a sense though of what it looked like.

TRACY CALOGHEROS: It glowed. Particularly after dark, in the early days of it, you could see this incredible red hue that just lit up the night sky. It was perpetual sunset really. And then as you sit and you watch the glow start and then you start to see the first little licks of flame coming over the horizon line at the mountains and then it turns into huge flames and then they start to creep down the hills. And that's really when your teeth are on edge and you're starting to really wonder where is this going? And when is it going to stop?

LL: And at some point you knew you had to leave what point was that?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Well we're across from Francois Lake Provincial Park so there isn't a lot of fighting going on at our end of the fire; in fact there's none. And so when it came that we could see the flames right on the shores of the lake, we're about half a kilometer where our cabin is from the shore, and we were getting pine cones dropping on the island and pine needles starting to hit. We were sitting and we have a tin roof and I thought it was raining. I got excited and went and looked and realised that no, the pine needles hitting us. And at that point we soaked everything down, our neighbours helped us from the north shore of the lake, and we soaked everything down with the fire hose and thought well it's only stuff let's get out of here.

LL: So you headed to Prince George, that's where you live most of the year. What do you know about what has become of your cabin?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Well from what the neighbours told me yesterday, there is still a cabin and an island; that there's two islands right there and neither one of them have caught on fire yet. Knock on wood. But I do know that the fires themselves looking at the B.C. wildfires map and the [inaudible] links it's hot right down to the waterfront so I suspect that my view will be slightly different when we eventually get back. I'm just hoping that it's burned itself out around where we're located and we're not in danger of having that spark jump across the water.

LL: The province declared a state of emergency yesterday. What do you think of the timing of that?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: You know any and all help is welcome. What frustrated me was that it's taking so long. I mean northern B.C. is literally on fire. That Shovel Lake fire at 68,000 hectares. I don't even know how to put that into words that people can comprehend. It's massive. The evacuation for the Island Lake fire alone is over 140 kilometers long. I just feel like it needed to be sooner. We needed way more support. That six days where that sat there at a small size on the Island Lake fire, it could have been dealt with then and now I'm looking at these fires and I don't think anything's going out until the snow flies.

LL: Until snow flies? That's months away.

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Well when you're talking about the size of fires and the heat, I mean they're monsters. It's beautiful. It's stunning. The power is incredible, but I don't see how you put those kind of fires out without help from Mother Nature at this point.

LL: Well then what does that mean for you long term? You love living in this part of the world clearly. Are you going to stay there or are you're going to continue to go back?

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Oh absolutely I'll stay. And I'll raise my voice along with my neighbours and look to create some sort of a new plan. This is in my view, this is the new reality; two years in a row of a provincial state of emergency. The kinds of fires that we're seeing all over the west are not going anywhere so we need a whole new approach to dealing with them. I'm no expert. I don't know anything about fighting fires. I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks but I just feel like: myself, my neighbours, the communities around us we've been here a long time and we're not going anywhere. So now we've got to find a way to deal with what has now become the new normal.

LL: Tracy Calogheros I hope your cabin stays well and good and you get back there safely. Thank you.

TRACY CALOGHEROS: Thanks so much.

LL: Tracy Calogheros is an evacuee from Francois Lake in central B.C. and we reached her in Richmond. Burns Lake is also in the heart of the Lakes District west of Prince George. And although it is not under an evacuation alert yet itself, it is surrounded by communities that are. Chris Beach is the Mayor of Burns Lake. And that's where we have reached him. Hello.

CHRIS BEACH: Hi there.

LL: Mayor Beach, Burns Lakes is right in the middle of some of the largest wildfires. What do conditions look like right now?

CHRIS BEACH: Yeah the smoke comes and goes but for several weeks our town has been inundated with the smoky conditions and the people that live out on the lakes are very much a part of our as much a part of our community as the people that live right downtown and it's just been devastating. I mean a lot of these people have lived here their entire lives and they've had to pack up and get out. And it's hard because they don't know exactly what they've lost in terms of buildings and often livestock. Yeah it's just not a good thing.

LL: Yeah I understand hotels were at zero vacancy in Burns Lake yesterday. Is that still the case?

CHRIS BEACH: Yeah. Because people are just, you know we only have about half a dozen hotels, and people need a place to stay and a lot of people now are being told to check in with the emergency evacuation centre and then to go to Prince George that's about two and a half hours east. And Prince George has you know a city of 80,000 people so there's a lot more accommodations there.

LL: And they've obviously got experience in this because that was the same evacuation centre that was set up last year during the wildfires. What are you hearing from people in Burns Lake about what they're most worried about right now?

CHRIS BEACH: I mean obviously you know just being safe is the number one concern. Honestly you know it's not really for me and for a lot of people to talk to, it's not the new normal yet. I was born and raised in Burns Lake and I came back seven years ago to raise my family here. And you know it is just a surreal feeling like we're not used to this. People having to get up and leave their homes and knowing that they could leave everything. And it's scary. We went through this a few years ago with the fire, again just a few years ago, and I remember feeling you know just extremely scared like I'd never really felt before. Knowing that you know your town, the place where your kid goes to school, where you went to school, your hospitals, you know your grocery store, your home, you know could be gone in a day or two if the fire rips through the town. So it's an extremely scary unsettling feeling and in a way it's just surreal. It's not something that you know you normally experience.

LL: I can hear that in your voice. I mean it's not just about losing people's homes. You also mentioned livestock. There are lot of cattle farmers in that area, what are they doing with the livestock?

CHRIS BEACH: So the community has been really good. People trying to help other people out if they've got a way to help them transport the livestock out; our fairgrounds, just a couple of kilometers of the town, are just full of livestock right now. I mean sheep and cattle, and people are doing whatever they can you know to get their livestock out because there are a lot of ranchers. It's very much ranching country around Francois Lake and Uncha Lake. And so you know they're doing whatever they can and getting the help wherever they can to get the animals out.

LL: Some have been saying that it took the province too long to declare a state of emergency, including our previous guest, and to give resources that communities need. What do you think of the province's response to this year's wildfire season?

CHRIS BEACH: Well you know it is a challenging situation because there's so many fires going on at the same time. But there is a sense in the community that you know fires of this size and intensity and so many close to communities had happened you know farther south that there would have been you know a response would have been quicker and larger than it had been. But right now I'm just trying to look forward and I'm just really pleased that the province has declared a state of emergency because it means that hopefully we're going to get more resources faster to our community. And with the way the fires are now and are growing and you know we're going to need all the resources we can get.

LL: Looking forward yes. What will you be looking for in the longer term given how frequent and intense wildfires have become B.C.?

CHRIS BEACH: Yeah you know around the regional district table, with the mayors of the neighbouring towns and myself, there is a lot of talk about the catastrophic events in the Caribou last year and that you know it could happen to us and unfortunately it's happened sooner rather than later. It's happening right now. This is catastrophic for our area because we depend on the forestry you know for our economies in our town and also for recreation I mean tourism is a big industry in our region. Highway 16, the northern national highway, you know people going to Alaska runs right through the corridor runs right through Fraser Lake and Burns Lake and Houston. And this is going to have far reaching implications for our communities and for our livelihood.

LL: I wish you luck and Burns Lake and thank you for talking to us.

CHRIS BEACH: Thank you.

LL: Chris Beach is the Mayor of Burns Lake. My next guest has been watching the forests of B.C. burn with an eye to understanding why the wildfires of today are so much more ferocious than those of the past and what we might be able to do to change that. Lori Daniels is a professor with the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She's in our Vancouver studio. Hello.

LORI DANIELS: Good morning Laura.

LL: The intensity and the size of the forest fires we've been seeing these last few summers and not just in B.C., how much of that has to do with climate change?

LORI DANIELS: Well those fires that we've been seeing in recent years they are occurring under these conditions where we have extreme high temperatures so we're breaking temperature records. We have these extreme droughts that have developed and under those hot dry windy conditions those fires start. Their behavior is extreme and they move very quickly and grow quickly. So that weather component is absolutely critical. The other component though that's very important for us to keep in mind is the condition of the forest. All of that vegetation out there that's burning whether it be grasslands, shrublands, forests, that's the other ingredient to a fire. And the condition of our forests, the density of the trees, the amount of dead material on the ground, those are all factors that are contributing into these wildfires that we are seeing and experiencing.

LL: So is the way we fight fires then is that part of the problem?

LORI DANIELS: Well fire suppression is a contributing factor. In British Columbia divide up our forests maybe into three types we have our coastal forests that tend to be wet in the winter and then very dry and burnable in the summer those dry interior forests in our most fire prone environments in terms of the heat of the summer where historically in those dry forest types there used to be a lot of surface fires so these are fires that would burn at low intensity and creep through the understory burning grasses and shrubs and plants burning off any debris that had built up on the ground and killing the small trees but leaving the live trees with thick bark alive. And so those low intensity fires they would scar trees and leave evidence of fires but they didn't kill all of those trees. Those fires are also the ones that are easiest to put out. So in our dry forest types we've been suppressing very effectively those surface fires and we've done so over a period of 60 to more than 100 years depending on the environment and as a result we have a lot of burnable material that has built up in those forests, the trees have encroached into them and we have much denser forests making a fuel load the abundance of material that can burn in those forests much greater than it would have been historically over large areas and that fuels those fires.

LL: So was that an unforeseen consequence of the way that they've managed forest fires over the years?

LORI DANIELS: Absolutely, that's an unintended consequence. Our good intention was to protect the forest and the ecosystem from fire, thinking fire was only a bad agent in our system, and so our good intent was to save the forest and the unintended consequence. In fact the paradox is that we've built up a situation especially in those dry forests where we have abundant fuels and the forests are now primed for fire.

LL: Okay. Given all of that what do we need to do to adapt to what seems to be this new reality? Let's start small, what can an individual who lives in a zone that's vulnerable to fire do?

LORI DANIELS: Well almost all of us in Canada I'd say are vulnerable in one way or another. Individuals who live in areas that have burnable vegetation near their communities and homes, even some of our urban areas where we have big urban parks that are forested those are all we're all going to be susceptible. So as homeowners, as individuals, we need to be aware of the situation with fire and the risk. We should become fire smart. I would encourage everyone across Canada to take a few moments to look at FireSmart Canada their website. They have excellent advice on how individuals can prepare their homes and be prepared in case of fire.

LL: Such as what?

LORI DANIELS: So we could be up on the roofs of our house and make sure there's no burnable debris up our gutters and on the roof because the number one way a house burns down is when embers come from an adjacent fire lands on your house and catches that house on fire. Similarly, we should be clearing burnable debris from around the edge of our house and off decks. Think about your landscaping. Make sure your firewood isn't stacked right against your home or garage. Those are all examples where we could be getting rid of quite literally the kindling right adjacent to our homes. So very simple fire smart principles.

LL: And what about at the community level?

LORI DANIELS: So this is where I think we have some urgent need for adaptation and to be ready for these fires especially under climate change. Communities can be developing community wildfire protection plans and then acting on them. Communities need to be looking at what is the condition of the vegetation surrounding their community, how much burnable fuel is there, and then thinking of ways that they can manage that fuel to create a defensible space around the community. That means thinning out the forest, removing some of those smaller trees, opening up the canopy, leaving large trees behind, trying to get rid of the burnable debris down on the ground. What that does is, changes the structure of the forest immediately surrounding the town or the city and in the case of fire burning towards the community it creates this buffer zone where there's less fuel so the fire behavior would change, slow down the fire, and really give those wild land firefighters a chance to get between your homes and community and an oncoming fire. And give us a fighting chance at putting it out.

LL: Now we just have less than a minute left. If we continue to be reactive instead of proactive, what do you see for B.C. and other places facing wildfires in the summers to come?

LORI DANIELS: Well we're paying tremendous costs already. We've spent 3 billion dollars since 2004 just fighting fires but only less than two hundred million dollars trying to be proactive. So were spending orders of magnitude more money reacting to fire than being proactive. Our communities need to be safeguarded. We need to be approaching this from a proactive perspective as homeowners, as communities, and that will give us a fighting chance to get wildfire back on the landscape where it is appropriate to do so without putting communities at risk and ensuring that we have that defensible space around our homes and communities in the big picture.

LL: Thank you for this. Thank you for sharing some information about what could possibly be done.

LORI DANIELS: You're welcome.

LL: Lori Daniels is a professor with the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She was in our Vancouver studio. We did request an interview with the Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth, we did not receive a response. Well coming up the CBC News is next. And then...

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look at all those fake newsers back there. Look at them. That's a lot.

LL: U.S. President Donald Trump is of course talking about the media. Today a number of those so-called 'fake newsers' are fighting back against the idea that the media can't be trusted. Our eye on the media looks at what happens when politicians turn their aim at the messengers. I'm Laura Lynch. You're listening to The Current.

Newspapers rebuking Trump probably won't change anyone's mind, says veteran reporter

Guests: Mark Bulgutch, James Warren, Sandra Shea

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. Still to come, the photo of three year old Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach became a rallying cry for Canadians wanting to help Syrians fleeing the war. I talked to the boy's aunt, Tima Kurdi, about her nephew and the photo that she says woke up the world. But first, is the medium the message or the enemy?

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Just stick with us. Don't believe the crap you see from these people. The fake news.

LL: The term 'fake news' has become one of U.S. President Donald Trump's favorite phrases. Just one of the ways he attacks the media. He has accused the media of making up stories, he refuses to call on reporters from certain outlets, and he's called the media the enemy of the people. Today more than 300 newspapers are pushing back; publishing editorials warning of the dangers of trying to vilify and discredit the media. As part of our series Eye On The Media we're looking at how journalists and media outlets should respond to those kinds of attacks by political leaders both in the U.S. and here in Canada. On our panel today, Sandra Shea is managing editor for opinion at the Philadelphia Media Network which includes the Philadelphia Inquirer. One of the paper's publishing an editorial on this today. She is in Philadelphia. Mark Bulgutch is a senior executive producer of CBC News. He teaches journalism at Ryerson University. He's with me here in studio. And James Warren worked for years in Washington as bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune and The New York Daily News. He is now executive editor of NewsGuard, a new service that will assess the reliability of online news sources. He is in Chicago. Hello to you all.

MARK BULGUTCH: Hi.

SANDRA SHEA: Hello.

JAMES WARREN: Thanks so much.

LL: Sandra Shea let's start with you, why did The Philadelphia Inquirer decide to answer the call of The Boston Globe and join in this joint editorial project?

SANDRA SHEA: So we didn't hesitate the minute we heard about the idea we said we were totally on board. And I think that's what appealed to us that this is an important message for the people; to remind them of the value and the importance of the free press. I can't hesitate to say that you know being in Philadelphia, our offices are literally two blocks from Independence Hall and The Liberty Bell. So this is a particularly important issue for us you know because we are reminded of the First Amendment and all the rest. Literally every day.

LL: Briefly what did you write in your editorial?

SANDRA SHEA: So we actually talked about the importance, in fact during the American Revolution information that was included in pamphlets and in newspapers was a key part informing people about the revolution. So we referenced that. But we also talked about the importance of local news and I think that people are able to see all of these editorials as they go to The Boston Globe or The New York Times. And we focused on our commitment to local news and how important that is to our community but to communities across the country.

LL: James Warren how effective do you think an action like this will be in changing how journalists are treated by The White House?

JAMES WARREN: Well probably not at all, by The White House. I think the antipathy is so significant that I can already imagine Trump tweeting about some fake news consortium and how there is somehow all these money losing papers are trying some theatrical act or something. So I have little thought that it is going to impact Trump and those people around them. I think as needed and as forthright and as eloquent as some of these editorials are, particularly at a time when there is you know in the States certainly not necessarily in Canada but clearly declining approval ratings for the media. And there's no doubt that a primary cause of that has to be Trump. If you look just two years back when Pew Research Centre asked both Democrats and Republicans about the press, their views were pretty positive and about the same amount of folks in the mid-70s percentages again even Republicans thought that the press had a valid so-called watchdog function; about a year later when I started looking back at the data, that on the Republican side had dropped in to 40s. Astonishing drop. Though Democrats stayed the same. Actually a little bit up. So I mean the problem is there, what the solution is not I'm 100 percent sure, it certainly includes more education in the U.S. and more of a sense of kids, [inaudible] lot of kids like my own about the role of free press all the more so in many of these local markets where you have declining media resources.

LL: Now not all American newspapers are on board with this today. For example The Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia while not condemning the actions of other newspapers saying that this is not the way to go because Trump's anti-press rhetoric is toothless and should be of little concern. He hasn't done anything to weaken the First Amendment. And second there's this kind of unified editorial campaign will do as much harm as good as by confirming his supporters believes that most of the news media is unfairly arrayed against the president on matters and issues. Mark Bulgutch do you think that that is the case? That this will just reinforce in people's minds that it is a unified force against Trump?

MARK BULGUTCH: Let me just before I say anything, you called me the senior executive producer of CBC News. Of course I'm former.

LL: I'm sorry I missed that. I feel like you're still here.

MARK BULGUTCH: Yeah. I had no opinions when I was here.

LL: I skipped a word forgive me.

MARK BULGUTCH: Look I think people who read editorials in newspapers probably aren't the people who are on Donald Trump's side generally speaking. So we're talking I think to the converted, which is a real big problem especially in the United States where people only listen and watch and read news they agree with it because news certainly on cable television is not news anymore. It has become opinion. And people gravitate to the opinion they already agree with. It's almost impossible now to watch cable news in the United States and find out what the news is. Most of it is opinion. It is panel after panel after panel. And that has no value to watch what you already believe. So it might satisfy some urge when Don Lemon on CNN attacks Donald Trump and you say yeah he's right, I feel great about that because I agree. Or if you watch Fox News I guess you watch Hannity and you say yeah that Donald Trump is the greatest thing ever happened here. And you agree and you walk away okay. But you know the traditional role in the media that I kind of followed for a long long time was trying to tell people what was happening, put it in some context, and let you decide what you think about it. And that gone. It has just gone.

LL: Is the fight back that Sandra Shea and her colleagues are doing today is that the right thing to do?

MARK BULGUTCH: Well I don't disagree with it. I think you can't let Donald Trump and his ilk get away with the attacks on the free press. So yes I think you should stand up against it each and every time and call it out. But you know will it actually do anything? Will it persuade anybody who already might support Donald Trump or who is neutral? Will it change any minds? You know it's hard to say that it will.

LL: Sandra Shea what do you say?

SANDRA SHEA: Yes. Thank you, because both of you were talking and making very good points about whether or not this will have an impact on The White House or even on the supporters of Donald Trump. And I have to, since I actually wrote the editorial that we ran today and what I oversee the creation of editorial every single day, this one in particular there was no that oh we're going to write this then change the mind of Donald Trump or change the mind of his supporters. This was a message I believe we were trying to communicate to the American people and again in Philadelphia to Philadelphians of a reminder of the importance of the free press. Of the importance of what happens without a free press or what could happen without a free press. So we were not trying to make our case to The White House; we were trying to explain and remind the American people of the importance of what we have. This is one of the key institutions of our government. The free press. So that was our motivation.

LL: James Warren what do you say to that?

JAMES WARREN: Well I say good for Sandra and colleagues. I think I disagree with the folks in Richmond. I have no doubt that Trump in his inimitable fashion will portray us as a bunch of [inaudible] whiners, if he brings this up at all. But you know also might say too, even though I think a vast majority of the criticism is of us as unfair there are some self-inflicted wounds and if you want to see one of my favorites it's one that I participated in for years when I was with The Chicago Tribune and most recently New York Daily News bureau chief in Washington sat in The White House press room; and that is the very theater of the televised White House daily briefings which I think are you know perhaps in some ways the most vivid example Americans have of the press interacting with their government, certainly The White House. And I think as does Mike McCurry who was the spokesmen for President Clinton and was the person who decided to allow cameras into the session and allowed TV to go live, that that was a mistake. That one now has a daily theater with regular posturing and the amount of news a real policy understanding that result are minimal. And I think there's too many antics by folks in the press who want to show up the spokesmen and I just think it's a mistake and it would have been great if we stayed with the old briefing which was you know kind of medium substantive but was not on camera.

LL: And I want to turn the focus to that a little bit more, precisely because of what you're referencing. Some journalists have been fighting back. This is not in the press briefing room but this is a recent example. This is Jim Acosta from CNN shouting questions at President Trump following a press conference last month.

SOUNDCLIP

Mr. President will you stop calling us 'the enemy of the people' sir? Will you stop calling the press 'the enemy of the people' sir? Mr. President will you stop calling the press 'the enemy of the people' sir?

LL: Now you can hear Jim Acosta saying "will you stop calling the press 'the enemy of the people' sir?" And recently in a White House televised briefing Jim Acosta walked out when the press secretary refused to say the press was not the enemy of the people. Mark Bulgutch what do you make of how Jim Acosta is trying to handle things?

MARK BULGUTCH: I mean he's in a tough place I guess. And they don't want to talk to him and the principle he's standing up for is the right principle. So here you know do I like journalists kind of making a name for themselves and becoming the news? No. Do I like a president who calls the press 'the enemy of the people' which is a more serious crime here? I think the latter. I think a president calling, in a democracy, the media 'the enemy of the people' is so beyond the pale that anything else a reporter does pales in insignificance. To think that in a democracy the media are the enemy of the people, I mean think of what that means in countries where governments really think that the media is the enemy the people, what life is like there. I mean give your head a shake. And so what's worse? It's certainly the original crime not the reaction to it.

LL: Sandra Shea what do you think of Jim Acosta's behavior?

SANDRA SHEA: I can understand his frustration but I totally disagree and disapprove for one thing he is in those kind of outbursts you know clearly he is speaking personally. He should be thinking about the fact that he represents his news organization. These kinds of outbursts strike me as you know someone who is you know obviously personally offended by these claims and clearly frustrated. He is showing up in these White House press briefing I can't imagine how frustrating that must be day after day. But it's still troubling that you know he is making himself part of the story and that to me is problematic.

LL: We're starting to see similar anti-media messages from politicians here in Canada. This is Lisa MacLeod who is Ontario's Minister of Children, Community, and Social Services speaking on the floor of the provincial legislature.

SOUNDCLIP

We did not break a promise and that fake news that was in the news today totally mischaracterizes what we're doing.

LL: Mark what do you think when you hear that kind of comment on the floor of a legislator?

MARK BULGUTCH: Because we're on radio you can't see me crying. It is appalling that so early in a government's, this is a new government, they pull out the fake news canard when the media was reporting facts. They broke a promise; I mean it's in writing. It's in writing for goodness sakes, that they wouldn't do what they did and they did it and they could have done a million things; she could have just said you know now we're in government we've had a look at the policy more closely we've thought about it, we want a review blah blah blah. And that would have been fine. They have a right to do what they want to do. Why did she have to say it's fake news? It's terrible.

LL: Okay James Warren the fake news canard as Mark calls it, came out awfully quickly for this government, what is it about that phrase that politicians like to use it so much?

JAMES WARREN: Oh it's cheap and it's effective and I mean I don't think its very defensible. But it has had political resonance and at a time you know in this country when people are frustrated about a lot of things when the supposed booming economy is really not booming for a lot of folks, I think there's a natural tendency historically to look for scapegoats. And we're an easy one. We can sometimes you know hurt ourselves with self-inflicted wounds by engaging publicly in the way that Jim Acosta has which is you know just I don't think it's the way to go. I don't think our role is to engage in such fashion. Our role is to do stories the best we can, to report whether it's a provincial legislature, or Mayor of the City of Chicago or a county board; whatever it might be go do our work and let the results speak for themselves. I'm just sorry that in this day of declining newsrooms for obvious economic and competitive reasons that a lot of folks who pick up the daily paper or look at the local TV news cast don't make the connection between news that you know they take seriously and the folks who were not getting up and yelling at politicians who are dutifully doing that work, doing the reporting, doing the editing, cutting the video, and putting on air what's important to them.

LL: I just want to get another piece of this discussion in there because it is so big at the same time that there is a question about whether the climate that is being created by the political leaders is increasing the chances of general hostility toward the media. And I just want to play you one more piece of tape. At an anti-racist anti-fascist demonstration in Toronto over the weekend a veteran photographer for The Toronto Sun newspaper was assaulted by a protester. And this is that photographer Stan Behal.

SOUNDCLIP

STAN BEHAL: Well Saturday morning I was assigned to cover the anti-fascist rally that may happen at City Hall.

VOICE 1: I want to begin by greeting you all with peace. As-salamu alaykum.

STAN BEHAL: It was Toronto against fascism was what it was built and there were multiple groups there.

VOICE 2: We are not divided. We are united in saying that White supremacy and racism and Islamophobia has no place in our city. And whenever it rears its head: we will show up, we will shut down, and we will do it together.

STAN BEHAL: It was the counter argument to the perceived fascist.

VOICE 3: We are here both to protest the presence of fascist and racist groups and also to celebrate that many of them backed down.

STAN BEHAL: The anti-Muslim group did not show up. There was a group there that had their faces covered in either black or red bandanas and they were clearly much more aggressive in trying to get their viewpoint across. In the absence of the anti-Muslim group the focus quickly became the police. They were vitriolic in their denouncement of the police and of the few media that were there. I was traveling with my partner Sue-Ann Levy, columnist for The Toronto Sun, who is allowed to have an opinion. I technically do not have an opinion. I'm a journalist and I am unbiased and I was their to capture the story.

[Crowd chanting]

STAN BEHAL: Once they determined that I was with Sue-Ann and that I was with Sun Media, the temperature changed.

VOICE 4: We know that you have an editorial agenda. You're talking from The Sun.

STAN BEHAL: All of a sudden out of nowhere, a man lunged. I saw an arm swinging towards my left temple. I manage to block it partially. He did hit me. He did grab with his right hand my left arm pulled me towards him and with his left arm he proceeded to pound the top of my head, grab my hat and my hair and pull it off my head. I think the intention was to hurt me. I don't think it was as simple as swiping a hat and being playful.

VOICE 5: Can you arrest him for assault? Assault right there.

STAN BEHAL: Once the assault happened and he pulled away, I pointed at him and directed my attention to the police to identify who that person was just in case they didn't see him.

VOICE 6: Officers can I get one of you guys to be proactive.

STAN BEHAL: I said would one of you be proactive and arrest this man. That was an assault. And one of the officers said to me and you can hear it on the video, we're not going anywhere.

VOICE 7: You're harassing us.

STAN BEHAL: So I guess the police and I don't fault the police, I guess they have to make a risk assessment. The guys wearing bandanas were clearly ready for battle assuming that the right wing group was going to show up but an officer did come to me and said are you interested in pressing charges? And I said I would. Because in a civilized society this shouldn't happen. You know I fear for journalists future on the street. You what the President of the United States says regarding the media as being 'the enemy of the people' my fear is that that attitude if it becomes pervasive, it's a real problem and it's a threat to democracy. I think we have a function and an important one. I think we need to be safe on the streets covering important stories. And I think if the message gets out there to anyone that they can strike anyone without repercussion. I think that's a danger.

LL: Now Sandra Shea I want to come to you. What do you think of that experience of what he had to say?

SANDRA SHEA: We share that concern and I mean this threat of violence is very real. We unfortunately saw that play out not too long ago in a newsroom when a disgruntled member of the community came and shot up a newsroom. I think this kind of violence is going to potentially increase and it is so disturbing.

LL: James Warren do you think that this is an unintended consequence of this kind of rhetoric? Or is this foreseeable?

JAMES WARREN: No I mean I think it may be unintended but I think it's also foreseeable. I mean it has become you know this hashtag and rallying cry you know a group of syllables that have some political at least some short term political impact. You know it comes ironically from a guy who gross hypocrisy so craves the imprimatur and the acceptance of the mainstream media. Nothing more he'd like than to be loved by The Washington Post and The New York Times; that not being the case, he will go and attack them. And I think it is very naive about the potentially onerous impact, even violence, that this can set off at a time where again they're just not have enough people fully aware and fully sensitive to the role of the media in a democracy. So make no mistake this is a very unusual and tenuous period of time.

LL: Mark Bulgutch?

MARK BULGUTCH: Well completely normal looking sane people who you see being interviewed at these rallies agree with the President that the media is the enemy to people. I imagine ninety nine point eight percent of them are not going to find a gun and shoot somebody. But you know what I always remember, I always think of a guy named Bill Stewart who was an ABC reporter in the 1980s who went to Nicaragua to cover their civil war; and he went up to a national guard checkpoint and left his cameraman you know about 100 meters behind and just asked for permission to take pictures and the National Guardsmen told them to lie down on the ground and he shot him in the head. Killed them. And I think you know we are not there certainly but I think there is what happens when you demonize people. And we have history tells us when you reduce.

LL: But that's extreme Mark.

MARK BULGUTCH: Yes it is. But when you reduce a group of people to enemies of the people, I mean I don't know what was in that guard's hit, I don't know what was in the guy who shot up the newsroom in the United States.

LL: Well you know what was in the head of the guy who hit the ground the Toronto Sun photographer.

MARK BULGUTCH: Yes that's right. So if you demonize people, and that's what this president is doing, he's demonizing a whole group of people. That is a dangerous thing. History is full of examples of groups of people who were demonized. I don't want to call anybody a brownshirt. But think about how these things start. They start with words. Every single time they start with words. And if you start bringing people into a state of consciousness where they just think this group is bad, evil, what can we do with them? Maybe I'm helping society by eliminating them. We're not there. We're not even close to there but that's the danger.

LL: Sandra Shea we have about a minute left. It seems as though in the U.S. the left and the right are staying in their own news bubbles these days. They watch cable channels that reinforce their political viewpoints. They look at web sites again that reinforce their viewpoints. Won't big segments of the U.S. always be hostile to the media no matter what you do?

SANDRA SHEA: Well honestly we think about this we struggle with this every day because we very consciously, again I preside over the editorial pages which include commentary and opinions, and we constantly are looking for finding a balance in our pages because we do hear from our readers. We hear from our audience or at least people who used to be our audience and they say well you're too biased, you're too liberal. We’re not going to subscribe any more. And you know while opinion can bring in a lot of different voices and that's what our job is, it's very difficult to have a 50/50 balance on our pages. So you know it is something that we think about a lot. It is something that we strive every day to try to find that balance; to try to give voice to as many different opinions as possible. But I think you're right in your characterization of this. People gravitate toward the voices that they are familiar with.

LL: We're going to have to leave it there. We are running out of time. I thank all three of you though.

SANDRA SHEA: Thank you.

MARK BULGUTCH: Thanks.

JAMES WARREN: Thanks so much.

LL: Sandra Shea is managing editor for opinion The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her paper is one of more than 300 that published editorials today criticizing Donald Trump's attacks on the media. She's in Philadelphia. James Warren is a former Washington bureau chief for The Chicago Tribune and The New York Daily News. He is now executive editor of NewsGuard, a new service that will assess the reliability of online news sources. And Mark Bulgutch is a former senior executive producer of CBC News. He teaches journalism at Ryerson University. He's been with me here in studio. I'm Laura Lynch. You're listening to The Current.

Boy on the beach: How Alan Kurdi's family are turning their grief into a fight to help refugees

LL: I’m Laura Lynch and you’re listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music]

LL: Somewhere in Turkey, a few years ago, you might have heard this music playing on a tinny cellphone, from the sparsely-furnished apartment housing a family of Syrian refugees. You might have heard a father, a mother, and their two young sons clapping, dancing and singing along to the boys' favourite song. That family was the Kurdi family, one of the millions of Syrians who left home when a revolution that began in 2011 morphed into a war with no end in sight. Abdullah, his wife Rehanna, and their two boys, Ghalib and Alan, left their families and everything they knew behind to try to make a new life in Turkey when it became too dangerous to stay in Syria. No one knew this family's name then but on Sept. 2, 2015 the body of one of these children, 3 year old Alan Kurdi washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. He became an immediate symbol of the human cost of war and a global refugee crisis. As that photo spread around the world, one woman was especially shattered to see it from her home in British Columbia. Her name is Tima Kurdi; and she realized with horror that the boy was her nephew, Alan. The boy's father, Abdullah, is her brother. It wasn't long after that she faced the cameras to speak of her brother's ordeal.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: He text me he said "We’re leaving now.” And he said "The water was so calm, crystal clear, and that's what I know it's safe to do it, put the life jacket on them." And Alan was so excited, so happy before that trip. “We're going to have fun daddy.” He said "Where are we going?" He said "To Europe." There were 12 of them. He was upset with this smuggler. He said "I'm paying you the double what the rubber boats will pay for. You can't put 12 with us. It's too heavy.” The smuggler said "Don't worry about it, we did it 100 times and it's very safe. So when the big wave hit the boat and flipped it upside down, so Abdullah right away can't catch those boys. He tried so hard from as much power as he can to take them up from the water and screamed "Breathe, breathe. I don't want you to die.”

LL: In her book The Boy on the Beach, Tima Kurdi tells the story of how her family's lives were shattered by the war and how she became an advocate for refugees after suffering the loss of her nephews and sister-in-law at sea while they attempted to flee to Europe. I spoke with Tima Kurdi in April and I began by asking her what it was like to hear that music and to hear herself in those terrible days after Alan's death.

TIMA KURDI: It's heartbreaking to go back to this memory because that music, to be honest, I never heard that after the tragedy because I can't until now, two years after. I just went back, imagining them, jumping on the couch, clapping their hands, happy like any child could be, and his family and everybody. It's very emotional.

LL: I'm sorry that this is raising strong emotions for you, but I know you've written the book because you do want people to understand and remember and one of the things that you say about little Alan was that he was always a really happy boy. Tell me what you remember about him.

TIMA KURDI: I always when I used to video chat with him and his brother Ghalib I can always see him in the background, you know, always laughing, loud. And I remember Rehanna sometimes - the mother - she would say to me, even them; they are surprised how this boy is happy. She said "I went to the grocery store and he always waved to people goodbye or hi." And she said "The grocery store some time if I buy anything from the grocery, by kilo, they always give them even more, like to add more, and they thought she was [unintelligible]. And they say in Turkish, I don't know the word, but its meaning for a beautiful angel. You know his words always in my mind no matter what every single moment. Their voices for me give me so much guilt that those voices disappear. And it's real. They won't come back. I try so much to let it go because it's hurting me so much; hurting my brother also so much.

LL: What was it that drove your brother and his family to leave Syria in the first place?

TIMA KURDI: I was in Turkey in September 2014 and all of a sudden we heard in the news that ISIS is going to invade Kobanî and so we got the phone call Rehanna and she's panicking and her father. Most of the Kobanî people they have to flee as soon as possible. I remember exactly how we were very stressed out. Every few minutes she will tell us it just to update us she's alive, the boys are alive. So finally they managed to flee and I come to Canada. I miss them for just a few hours when they enter the border.

LL: Right, you had to leave Turkey before they actually arrive.

TIMA KURDI: Yes.

LL: So they were they were living very difficult lives there. They had no job security. They probably didn't have enough money to live on. At one point you're trying to help your family, you send the money from Canada all the time. But at one point you offer Abdullah money to get his teeth fixed. Tell me what happened.

TIMA KURDI: In 2012 he was captured by some group of rebels or gang. Back then nobody know about ISIS or anybody. So when he told me the story in 2014 I cannot take it off my head. I said to myself I promise I want to give him his teeth back because watching him, cannot eat or chew food. Even a cucumber, when he was joking with my dad, he can’t even...

LL: He couldn't eat a cucumber.

TIMA KURDI: He can't. How he going to chew it? It's the gum. Only gum. So I decide I really want to get him help, like even dental, even implant, whatever. Abdullah always, as a father, you don't put yourself first. You know you want to look to give something better for your own children and the family. So after many times talking about it I want to send you money and I want you to eat like everybody else. He kept rejecting it and said like “You know are you crazy? I'm not even worth a $1,000. Honestly if you want to help me help me with something else.” So my family again like thousands of other people their hope was they had enough of struggle. Their hope was in the other side of the world in what they call it Europe.

LL: Europe.

TIMA KURDI: Europe.

LL: Yeah.

TIMA KURDI: And all the Syrian refugee or the refugee themselves always talk in a circle. You know the only option everybody's doing to go there. So one day Abdullah said to me “If you can give me just $2,000 and I can go to Europe and then eventually I can bring my family with me.” But again after talking together with my family, you know, he has a small kids and Rehanna, how's she going to survive in Turkey? I'm not a rich person. I can send her the rent, but I cannot — this is another guilt you know. I could've. I could've. So I thought about it. I talked to my husband about it and I said to him “How much the smuggler wants?” And he said “Because my kids goes for free, if you could send me $5,000.”

LL: Then the whole family could go.

TIMA KURDI: For the whole family can go instead he can leave her or send her back to the refugee camp where her family is. And this is what happened.

LL: But at the same time you were starting some efforts to try to get Abdullah and his family and other siblings of yours and their families to Canada. What happened? Because it didn't work out. Something went wrong. What was the holdup?

TIMA KURDI: You know the restriction Canada has for refugees almost impossible. Every turn, every turn, I went through. It's just a block front for me.

LL: At one point you get in touch with your local Member of Parliament, Fin Donnelly, from the NDP and he offers to take a personal letter that you write to the then-Immigration Minister Chris Alexander. He does that. He delivers your letter. What response did you get from the minister?

TIMA KURDI: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The funny part is that Chris Alexander he knows about the letter. He knows the Kurdi last name because I'm sure he read it. But the excuse is was that there is too many letters — thousands of them. But at least something they could do, right? Something. Respond. No we can't. The response I get from the official, from the immigration, it was like almost a slap in your face. They will send me to response what is exactly on the website. But why do you even bother to refer me to the same road what I know for months every single day?

LL: Such frustration. And by this time Abdullah is telling you that he knows you're doing your best. But he's given up on Canada. He's decided Canada doesn't want him so he's got the money; the family goes to try to make this crossing. It took many attempts. I didn't realize how many times until I read the book to finally make the trip across the Mediterranean. What was he telling you about what was going on in the lead up to their actual departure?

TIMA KURDI: So imagine for the whole months almost if it’s not every day, every second day, you pack your stuff, your kids, their sleeping, and you run to that hope and you come back. So that's the challenge was like everybody else. My family, it's not the only story. It's still thousands of other family stories.

LL: So after all of these attempts he texts you August 31, 2015 to tell you he's making the journey that night and we heard you in the tape earlier describing those harrowing details. He was worried about that boat before he left, wasn’t he?

TIMA KURDI: Of course, everybody.

LL: Tell me about how you found out what happened?

TIMA KURDI: I would never forget moment when I found out about that tragic news. I remember of course after that text message I could not sleep. We didn't hear from him. I was so tired I almost fell asleep. And the minute I opened my eyes it was 4 a.m. I am in bed and I'm just thinking like I want to go to help and stuff; it took me a while to get up. But everything almost like a butterfly in your heart that you have to run to your loved one and something's happening. I was panicking. When I opened that cellphone, when I saw a dozen phone calls, not text messages, phone calls that gave me the sign that I just I want to bury myself almost because definitely there is something wrong.

LL: Who were the phone calls from?

TIMA KURDI: It was from my sister Shireen in Damascus, my father in Damascus; from my family, Maha and… in Turkey.

LL: So what did you do?

TIMA KURDI: I phoned Shireen. The first thing, I'm shaking, and she sounded crying, and to make it even harder the phone line was so not clear. All what I heard from her Abdullah and the sound like she's crying. And I screamed as loud as I could "What's wrong with Abdullah? Tell me what's wrong. I can't hear you. I can't understand you. What's wrong with Abdullah?” And so I was shaking. I dropped the phone and I was screaming. My husband came running into the kitchen, my son came from the basement, imagine how loud I was. And I just dropped to the floor and start pulling my head and I said “What's happening? Something’s wrong with Abdullah.” And he said "Well call somebody else.” And I said “I can't. Find me their number. I can't. I'm shaking. The minute I called Mohammad's wife. She was crying and she said to me “Abdullah's kids and his wife, they drowned.” I said “What? [Sobbing] I will never forget that moment, never in my life. When I talk about it, I just want to scream to the world that it's not fair. It's not fair that the people who suffer so much that the world denied them and we almost don't even want to help them. [Sobbing].

LL: The next hours for you, the next couple of days, they go by in a bit of a blur. I know you spoke to Abdullah and he was having a very difficult time and you could tell that. And then I think it was your son who showed you a photograph. And that's the photo the whole world saw of Alan washed up on the shore. When you saw that photo, what did you do?

TIMA KURDI: I honestly, that moment — sorry my husband Rocco he has that photo. When he showed me, “Do you know anything about this photo?” I looked at it even though it was facedown. I don't know why I had that feeling that boy belongs to us. I said “I think this is Alan, Abdullah's son.” I wasn't sure to be honest. I just remember that t-shirt, the shoes I bought him a year before, exactly, when I wasn't 100 per cent sure I sent it back and she's still crying. And she said “Alan. This is Alan.”

LL: What you didn't realize was how that became such an astonishingly powerful image. It became a momentum for a shift. Germany agreed to take in another 50,000 refugees. You were invited to meet with the UN Human Rights body with the European Union. Your brother Abdullah was given a flight back home a place to stay. He had police escorts. Suddenly the lack of papers wasn't a problem anymore. What do you make of that belated goodwill and resources that came to you and your family because of that photograph?

TIMA KURDI: Yeah, honestly, the photo, I don't know what to tell you exactly. All of a sudden the whole world opened their eyes when they saw the image of the boy on the beach. There is something in that photo to wake up the world. Everybody was touched by it, moved them to help the others, finally, and everyone promised to do more. And well how long did it take? What? A few months, two months, or three months. This is how politics works. They show you they are, you know, all of a sudden they feel sorry for the people who struggle. They're trying to help. They want to show the world they are good people. After two months everybody went back to sleep, went back to business, and they forget. So these images continue to today, for example, people are still drowning, people still dying, innocent children dying. But it doesn't move them anymore.

LL: And yet you and Abdullah both in the midst of all of your grief decide there's something that you need to do. Tell me what you decided to do?

TIMA KURDI: To me, I felt there are thousands of other people going through what my family is going through. So I want to speak up.

LL: What you and Abdullah are doing started with a very simple gesture of taking diapers to a refugee camp. Tell me about that.

TIMA KURDI: The diaper, his idea, I was like "Why you want to buy diapers?" And he said "Because I don't want any baby, any baby, in the world to go through what I couldn't buy for my own son, Alan. I could not afford that for him." Rehanna used to use a cloth and plastic wrap around it and he was had a rash. So that's what Abdullah, it mean a lot. And I remember I give him $500 for diapers. We bought a van full of diapers and the minute we went to the refugee camp and all what I see is Abdullah smiling when he see those babies, the family, and they have babies, and he just hands it to them. It means the world to him. That’s why we opened the Kurdi Foundation actually. To Abdullah that’s what he wants the rest of his life. The Kurdi foundation to focus those affected by war and hopefully he can help, he really wants to do it. He wants to deliver everything by his hand.

LL: In terms of hope when you look at what's happening now in Syria the situation seems to be escalating. What do you see as a way forward for your own country?

TIMA KURDI: It's very sad that I think Syria for the last almost eight years have suffered enough. There is nothing left there. And the dying continues, the bloodshed, like how much more can the world can see? We need enough voices, enough people, to actually talk about peace, to bring peace to Syria. You know we're looking now about the military action in Syria, I honestly, it's a big mistake. We are not helping the people themself. I think the only thing we should focus on is political solution to bring peace to Syria. Syria has suffered enough.

LL: And just to be clear your family throughout this conflict has refused to align themselves with any group, is that still the case?

TIMA KURDI: Absolutely we are not any sides. I am with the people. I witnessed so many stuff and stories from refugee camp from people on the street. I heard both sides story. I cannot rely on one side of the story. So I am with my people. I am with those people who suffer in the middle of this conflict.

LL: Tima Kurdi, thank you very much.

TIMA KURDI: Thank you for having me.

LL: Tima Kurdi is the author of The Boy on the Beach. She and her brother Abdullah now run the Kurdi Foundation to bring aid to children in refugee camps. I spoke with her in April. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for q. Toronto's Great Lakes Swimmers will stop by studio q for a special strip down live performance of songs from their upcoming record The Waves, the Wake. They'll also speak with guest host Laurie Brown about the record and how it was recorded in the 145 year old Bishop Cronyn Memorial Church. Well earlier in the program we talked about the wildfires ravaging B.C. forests and the effects of those burning forests is being felt hundreds even thousands of kilometres away from the hot zones. In cities across the west the summer sun is filtered through an eerie orange haze. Francis Reece is the senior project engineer with Metro Vancouver's air quality and climate change division. We asked him to describe the situation and that's our last word today. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANCIS REECE: Well certainly the air in Vancouver and the surrounding areas is very visually hazy so the normal mountain views that we expect here are definitely not in evidence in fact it's hard to see the mountains at all. Just the sheer number of fires that we have burning right now sort of up and down the British Columbia and Washington state mean that almost whichever way we get the prevailing weather patterns coming from we're likely to have smoke sort of moved across our region. Fine particulate matter is one of the air pollutants of greatest concern to human health. It has significant impacts not just sort on the obvious things like breathing but also cardiovascular sort of heart health circulatory impacts. And so for people who have pre-existing heart or lung conditions, people with diabetes, and also infants, and the elderly find particulate matter does pose a pretty significant acute health risk. In comparison to let's say cities in China or other developing countries you know always somewhat hesitant to make that comparison one thing I would say is that you know compared to the levels of particulate matter we normally experience here in Vancouver you know we're seeing levels that are ten times or more higher than normal. And I'm also aware that yesterday Seattle experienced the worst 24 hour particulate levels that they have ever experienced in the time that there has been modern air quality data recordings. Certainly the last four years we have seen significant forest fire smoke impacts in three of those four years. So 2015, 2017, and 2018. With 2017 last year basically producing unprecedented degree of impact. We had 19 days under air quality advisories last year which was more than double the number of advisory days that we had ever had in the history of Metro Vancouver's modern air quality advisory program. Calgary and Edmonton today are both being seriously affected. In fact I was looking at time particulate matter measurements in Edmonton today and they are significantly higher than anywhere in B.C.'s lower mainland right now. So there's a really big slug of smoke from the fires burning in the Tweedsmuir Park area and then up to the area west of Prince George and that smoke basically is now sort of clouding a huge area of the prairies. And so yeah these fires are having a far reaching impact. In fact we were looking at some satellite and smoke modeling data I think produced by NASA that was indicating that there is a blob of smoke from this set of fires that is sort of partway over the Atlantic and may ultimately end up washing over the U.K. and Europe in the next couple of days.

Thursday August 16, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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