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The Current Transcript for September 1, 2016

Host: Robyn Bresnahan

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

While I'm still not using the word crisis, I know that it's important for one family if a hundred bucks out of their own pocket. That's a crisis for them, and I get that.

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: That's Ontario's Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault, speaking earlier this summer. He may not be calling energy rates a crisis, but many in this province would beg to disagree. After a sweltering hot summer, families across the country are reeling from skyrocketing energy prices. We start today by asking what can be done to bring the bills back down. Then...

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And we were told that she was six months old, a spade, micro-pig. That was my [unintelligible], I'm like well OK if she's six months old and if she's this big, she can't possibly get as big.

RB: But she did get big. 600 pounds big. In half an hour, we will meet Esther the micro-pig who turned into a mega-pig and hear how she stole one family's hearts. I'm Robyn Bresnahan, and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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‘People have to choose between heating and eating’: Rising hydro costs hit Ontarians

Guests: Dorothy Wynne, Francesca Dobbyn, Rob Benzie

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Well, this July was the hottest on record, and air conditioners were cranked up more than usual in parts of the country. Now comes the hard part. Many Canadians are bracing themselves for big hydro bills. But of course, high energy costs are something Canadians deal with year round, especially as prices climb in places like Ontario, where electricity rates are among the highest in North America. Today we will discuss how skyrocketing home energy costs contribute to what has been called energy poverty. Dorothy Wynne knows about this struggle first hand. She and her husband are both in their 80s. They are surviving on CPP, Old Age Security, and his company pension, and it doesn’t add up. The only reason their lights are still on is the rent money that their adult son also pays them. And we have reached Dorothy Wynne at her home in Moosonee, Northern Ontario. Hello Dorothy.

DOROTHY WYNNE: Good morning.

RB: First of all, I wonder if you might just start by describing your home for us. How large is it?

DOROTHY WYNNE: It’s a two bedroom home, a living room and a kitchen and sunroom, and washroom.

RB: OK and no basement.

DOROTHY WYNNE: No basement.

RB: How do you heat it?

DOROTHY WYNNE: We have baseboard heaters, and in the wintertime we supplement it with a woodstove.

RB: A wood stove. And what about when it's really hot in the summertime, how do you keep cool?

DOROTHY WYNNE: Fans, fans.

RB: So no air conditioner?

DOROTHY WYNNE: Well no, can’t afford an air conditioner.

RB: Can you give us a sense how much is an average monthly hydro bill for you?

DOROTHY WYNNE: From January the hydro bill was 285 (dollars) a month.

RB: 285 a month. And how much have you seen that go up, I mean, about 10 years ago for instance, what were you paying?

DOROTHY WYNNE: Oh 10 years ago we were living in Kapuskasing, and we were living in social housing. The amount of 580 covered our utilities, so it was 580 across the board--

RB: OK.

DOROTHY WYNNE: Hydro included, which was a blessing.

RB: Right, so now it's 285 a month. How difficult is it for you to pay that bill?

DOROTHY WYNNE: Well quite a bit, quite difficult. We have to do without, besides the high cost of living, with groceries and all that, making ends meet is hard.

RB: When you say you have to do without, Dorothy, I mean, what kinds of things have you had to give up?

DOROTHY WYNNE: From entertainment, one thing, and groceries, we have to cut down on our grocery bill. You know, not so many fruits and veggies like we used to.

RB: Right, so you're not eating as much then?

DOROTHY WYNNE: We’re not eating as much, we’re not eating as well.

RB: And what about conservation? You know, we've heard about some people who have, you know, during the day they unplug everything in the house. They really try to save energy as much as they can, what kinds of things do you do?

DOROTHY WYNNE: The same thing, unplug things. And then you know, in the summertime it's a barbecue outside, cooking outside.

RB: So it’s changed--

DOROTHY WYNNE: [interposing] We don’t eat out, we can’t afford to eat out.

RB: Mmm. You were saying that before, you were living in social housing, so it's not always been a struggle to pay your bills.

DOROTHY WYNNE: No, no it wasn't. It wasn't a struggle to pay. You know, we have 14 grandchildren and birthdays come up, holidays Christmas, graduations, stuff like that, you know. And those are very meager gifts.

RB: Do you have any idea why it's so expensive?

DOROTHY WYNNE: I have no idea, because the delivery charge that’s included in our hydro bill it’s too much. You know, they shouldn't be charging us on the delivery charge. We should be the delivery charge getting paid to us because of the damming of our rivers, the destruction of the environment, it’s terrible. To be paying over 100 dollars, 130, 140, 150 delivery charge, through the southern Ontario residents pay delivery charge. They should be the ones paying our delivery charge for us.

RB: You say that the government should be paying your bills rather than you paying theirs.

DOROTHY WYNNE: Yes, because they're reaping the profit. You know, you see in the news the millions of dollars that they make a profit annually.

RB: Are you angry?

DOROTHY WYNNE: Of course I get upset when I have to pay my bills and count out my pennies.

RB: Do you find Dorothy that your situation is unique, or when you talk to other neighbours are they still struggling?

DOROTHY WYNNE: No, no they’re struggling too. I was at the bank a couple of years ago paying my bills and [clears throat] excuse me, there was another senior ahead of me, who I knew very well, and I asked her how she was doing. She says are you paying your hydro bill? I said yeah. She said it’s very big? I said no, because what I do when I get my hydro bill, I try to put in an extra 50-100 dollars so I don’t have a big bill come June. And she says her hydro bill came to 9,000 dollars.

RB: 9,000 dollars a year?

DOROTHY WYNNE: 9,000 dollars for that year.

RB: Wow.

DOROTHY WYNNE: After paying her hydro bill monthly.

RB: So I take it this is not the retirement that you were picturing.

DOROTHY WYNNE: No, no.

RB: Dorothy--

DOROTHY WYNNE: [interposing] And I can understand, very well understand now why people you know, in their 40s, 50s, that had owned property, that have sold their property, moved into social housing. Even if they are paying market rent, they’re still saving oodles of money by paying social housing market value of say 1,200 dollars a month rent. That covers their hydro, their public utilities.

RB: Is that an option for you? Can you go back into social housing?

DOROTHY WYNNE: I don't want to go into social housing. My husband built this home for me.

RB: Well, Dorothy I appreciate you outlining your story for us today. It puts a human face on it, so we appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

DOROTHY WYNNE: Thank you so much.

RB: That's Dorothy Wynne, and we reached her at her house in Moosonee, Ontario. Well, as home energy prices continue to rise, the aid organizations in place to support struggling families are struggling themselves with their own hydro bills skyrocketing. According to a report published last month, agencies in the Bruce Grey region of Ontario spent more than one million dollars last year on low income energy assistance. An example, the United Way of Bruce Grey spent one third of the money that it fundraises on bailing out energy customers. For more details on the impact this is having on its organization and the clients they help, I'm joined by Francesca Dobbyn. She's the Executive Director of United Way Bruce Grey. And she's in Owen Sound, Ontario. Hello Francesca.

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Good morning.

RB: You just heard Dorothy Wynne there. How common is her story?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: All too common. Baseboard heat, doing everything they can to reduce consumption. Doing the barbecue, you know, unplugging everything. And because of the additional fees, because of the global adjustment rates, they're not seeing an actual reduction you know, in their bill. It's not paying off for them changing their lifestyle.

RB: We're hearing about this term energy poverty that's being used to describe this phenomenon. Does her story fit that definition?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Absolutely, her story fits that definition. She's looking at baseboard heating, she's looking at you know, being a fairly moderate income person. You know, we have a lot of people that are working, it's not just people who are on any kind of government assistance. And energy poverty they can manage, we have people who walk away from their houses, because they can manage the mortgage but the hydro bill is bigger than the mortgage.

RB: The hydro bill is bigger than the mortgage? Wow.

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Yeah.

RB: What are some of the most extreme stories that you have heard?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Some of the more extreme stories. Well, the largest hydro bill we've encountered and have done some work on is 22,000 dollars. I have an appointment next week with a family who has a 20,000 bill. Part of that is that whole energy, the billing debacle of Hydro One that the ombudsman, the former ombudsman for Ontario dealt with a couple of years ago. And you know, you have all these catch up bills. So people who have never managed to get ahead on these catch up bills, from that whole situation. And then you have people who are unplugging their clock radio in the morning, the alarm wakes them up, they unplug it, because they don't go back in their bedroom. And when they go back in their bedroom that night, they plug it back in and they turn their clock radio on. All to try and reduce consumption. And it's just not happening. People are desperate to try and find rental accommodation that's all inclusive. It's getting harder and harder to find, as landlords cope with their hydro bills and go to a suite metering system.

RB: And any idea how many people you help who are actually cut off from their electricity when they don't pay the bills?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: We don't have full data for just Bruce Grey, but we do know in 2015 60,000 people were cut off by Hydro One in Hydro One catchment area, in all of 2015. That's 60,000 households.

RB: How do you deal with that? When someone calls you up and says I don't know what to do, I haven't been able to pay my hydro bill, it was just too high and they've cut me off. What do you do then?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: The challenge with getting cut off is we have to find a way of paying the whole bill. They will not reconnect again until the whole bill is paid. And that's one of our biggest challenges, because if it's over a thousand dollars, that can be really hard to find the funds from all the different agencies that we can pull together. We try and get people, call us when you're not being able to get to the bill. I have Hydro One workers who call from the road. I'm going to so and so's house, we're going to disconnect them, they're kind of flipping out. What can you do? We can put a 21 day hold on that disconnect as one of the social agencies, that gives us some time. But you know, the workers they know what's going on. And unfortunately for us as an organization, we may be working on some of those bigger poverty issues as United Ways do, but when somebody calls in and I'm about to be disconnected, they're coming tomorrow or they're coming today, we have to stop everything we're doing and try and get that support to them so immediately. And it really is you know, the crisis bleeds into the organization because that's our priority, is keeping people connected to their utilities.

RB: What do you think is the best way to lift people out of energy poverty?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Well, I think we need to understand better that relationship. You know, the government has this consumption, reduce your consumption, you reduce your consumption. May 1st, the Ontario Energy Board came out and said OK Ontario, you've reduced your consumption enough that reducing the average usage from 800 kilowatt hours per month to 750, and we're raising the rates because you consumed too much. So when you have a government that says reduce your consumption that'll save you on your hydro bill, and you have a regulatory agency that says oh, you conserve too much, we're going to put the price up anyway. So people are making these massive lifestyle adjustments and not seeing the results. Here at the United Way itself we have a 5,000 square foot building with tenants in it. We reduced our consumption through those energy savings, changed light bulbs and all that kind of stuff, programmable thermostat. We reduced our consumption 24 per cent and our bill’s gone up 38 per cent. And they will say, well it's a good thing you conserved, otherwise it would be bigger. And that's not the answer.

RB: You heard from Dorothy at the end, I said are you angry? And she said of course I'm angry. You must hear that from other clients you deal with as well.

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: People are angry, they're frustrated, they don't know what to do. And they're being told it's their fault. There's a lot of you know, it's very similar to that whole victim blaming that we see in you know, sexual assaults. Well, it's your fault, you left a light on. We talked to a woman who was told, well, stop your kids from playing X-Box. And she was like, I don't have kids and I don't have an X-Box, I don’t even have a TV. But there's this constant the reason your hydro bill is too high is because of your actions. And yet, we hear about you know, massive salaries on the management side of things. You run into issues with the OESP, the Ontario Energy Savings Program you know, is 30 dollars. And for some people, I've met two seniors, single men, who are in tiny apartments who that's going to make a massive difference to their hydro bills, 30 dollars a month. And I've had people who said OK it just means my hydro bill didn't go up, it’s because I got that rebate. It's not actually giving them any savings.

RB: So Ontario's energy minister says this is not a crisis. Do you beg to differ?

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Oh, I totally beg to differ. It's totally a crisis. If we had you know, 30 people in our community with the measles, it would be a health crisis. We had you know, 3,000 people were sick from E.coli in Walkerton all those years ago, 15 years ago. That was a crisis. We had 60,000 people disconnected from their hydro and that's not a crisis?

RB: Well, Francesca I appreciate your time this morning, thanks very much for joining us.

FRANCESCA DOBBYN: Thank you.

RB: That's Francesca Dobbyn. She's the Executive Director of United Way Bruce Grey. And she was in Owen Sound, Ontario. Well, for a better idea of Ontario's home energy costs and how they compare with the rest of the country, I'm joined now by Rob Benzie. He is the Queen's Park bureau chief for The Toronto Star newspaper. Hello Rob.

ROB BENZIE: Good morning Robyn.

RB: What are you thinking as you're hearing those last two guests?

ROB BENZIE: Well, unfortunately those stories are not in isolation. There's seldom a week goes by at Queen's Park, at the Ontario legislature where an MPP and an opposition party is bringing up the concern that people have to choose between heating and eating. And what Dorothy said is is not unfortunately uncommon, and it's something that governments, the current Liberal government of Premier Kathleen Wynne is struggling with.

RB: So we've been focusing on Ontario so far, but how does Ontario, the home energy costs, how does that compare to the rest of Canada?

ROB BENZIE: Well, Ontario's budget watchdog who’s an independent officer of the legislature, released a report last week actually, saying that Ontario's average energy household energy bills are pretty much middle of the board. I mean, in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia they pay much more, and in Quebec and Manitoba they pay much less. So, it's in the middle but that's a bit deceiving Robyn, because people like Dorothy wouldn't find any comfort in that, because their heating with electricity and Ontario has the highest electricity prices in North America. This study was based on different energy uses. So in southern Ontario we benefit from cheap natural gas, actually natural gas prices are actually dropping. My natural gas is lower than it was last year, but my electricity bill is higher of course. And for folks like Dorothy in Moosonee, she doesn't have obviously natural gas heating, she's got electric baseboard heating, which is the most expensive way to heat your home and not efficient. And yeah, so they're stuck paying higher bills and it's colder up there, it's warmer in southern Ontario. So, it's really really hard for folks in more rural and remote parts of Ontario than in urban Ontario.

RB: And when we look at different examples, I mean, many commentators here in Ontario, they look across the border to Quebec, where people in cities subsidize rural residents so that everyone pays the same price. Would that be a better way to go?

ROB BENZIE: Well, the thing is Quebec has the benefit of excess hydro electricity from water, and we just don't have that here in Ontario. Our electricity is mostly generated by nuclear plants — about 50 per cent of it's from nuclear plants. And there aren't nuclear plants all over Ontario, they're all in either, there's you know, one in Kincardine, there are some near Toronto and the outskirts of Toronto. So, to get electricity to places like Moosonee, it's expensive and inefficient. Yes, they have gas fired power plants as well to generate electricity, but those are don't account for as big a share as nuclear power. And it's expensive. There are added expenses on your bill, such as paying off the old Ontario hydro debt. That was 19 billion dollars that had to be paid off when that utility was broken up about 15 years ago. There's the cost of renovating nuclear plants. That's borne by ratepayers. So there are lots of added charges. And now folks like Dorothy should be eligible for some of the programs, for the assistance programs the government has, but those aren't very much. It's between 30 and 50 dollars a month and that's not going to offset a 9,000 dollar annual hydro bill very much.

RB: So the big question is what is it going to take for energy prices to come down?

ROB BENZIE: That's a very good question, and if I had the answer I’d do it. I mean, the government is struggling with it. Interesting thing is the new Energy Minister of Ontario Glenn Thibeault is the former head of the United Way in Greater Sudbury. So he was just sworn in as minister earlier this summer. So he's no stranger to poverty issues and to dealing with folks on low and fixed incomes. So, I presume he will be more sympathetic than maybe some of his predecessors were. However, I don't know what he can do. It costs a certain amount of money to generate electricity and it costs a certain amount of money to get the electricity to the north. And there are all sorts of other you know, associated things that have happened that are raising your energy bills, such as the cost of green energy rebates and subsidies you know, wind turbines and solar panels that are quite costly that are subsidized by Queen's Park.

RB: But is it all a matter of proximity to resources and development of infrastructure? Or back to that question, can Ontario learn from provinces that have lower rates?

ROB BENZIE: I think yes. I think Ontario can learn, and I think there are things that they can do to help folks. But again, it's a very difficult situation. And other utilities are expensive for folks in remote and rural areas as well, and you know, they try rebates. The best they can do is probably increase the rebates. They can't make the electricity generated for much cheaper.

RB: And just very briefly, I mean, how much does this translate to voter dissatisfaction? For instance, in Ontario do you think it’s going to be hydro that eventually brings the Liberal government down here?

ROB BENZIE: Well, it could be. It's a pocketbook issue. There's a byelection today for example in Toronto, where a Liberal seat’s up for grabs, and hydro rates are a big issue there. And that's in Toronto, where people have choices in the sense that they can be on natural gas, or they can you know, use electricity less and so on. So it remains to be seen whether that kind of an issue will translate across the province, because in some bigger cities it's not as big an issue. But certainly in places like Moosonee it is. And the government hears about it, because the opposition parties do a pretty effective job of bringing it up and bringing stories like Dorothy's to the forefront.

RB: OK, Rob we appreciate your time today. Thanks very much.

ROB BENZIE: Thank you Robyn.

RB: That's Rob Benzie, he's The Toronto Star’s Queen's Park bureau chief. And he was here in Toronto. The Current also requested comment from the Ontario Energy Board, it sent a prepared statement which reads in part quote, “we help control costs for all customers by limiting rate increases by Ontario Power Generation, Hydro One, and local electricity distributors through a rate review system. We encourage all consumers to get involved. We also make funding available to ensure that cost is not a barrier to participating in our proceedings.” End quote. Well, now we want to hear from you on this one. Do you struggle to pay for your home energy bills? How have rising costs affected your household budget? Let us know, you can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or you can also go to our Facebook page and comment, or you can send us a good old fashioned e-mail by clicking on contact us at cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Robyn Bresnahan, and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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ENCORE: How Esther the Wonder Pig is changing lives

Guests: Steve Jenkins, Derek Walter

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Hello I'm Robyn Bresnahan, and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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[pig grunts]

VOICE 1: Hi, Miss Pig.

[pig grunts]

VOICE 1: Are you having a good day? Okay so far?

[pig grunts]

RB: Well, say hello to Esther, that's her. Yes, grunting slowly, reluctantly waking up from her nap. It is a warm day in Campbellville, Ontario and even warmer in the barn. And Esther, a truly enormous pig is sprawled out on a bed of hay. Outside the barn, goats and sheep are grazing, piglets are frolicking, not Esther.

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[pig grunts]

VOICE 1: Esther got up from her king bed in the house at around 9:00, came out and had breakfast, mulled around for a bit in the barn demanding more breakfast. [chuckles] And then she's put it down in the barn for a morning nap.

[pig grunts]

RB: Well, as you may gather, Esther is no ordinary pig. For one, there is that king size bed in the house. Then there is her celebrity sized social media following. When her owners, well actually they prefer to be called her parents, first took Esther in they did not see any of this coming. They met Esther when she could fit into the palm of a hand and they were told that Esther would be a micro-pig getting no bigger than a medium sized dog. Today she weighs in at nearly 300 kilos or about 650 pounds. Which brings us back to rousing Esther from her nap.

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[wrapper crinkling]

VOICE 1: The magic noise around the farm, you can get anybody's attention. Oreos, yes, secret weapon. What's this? Come see. Oh, come on, let's go! Let's go for a walk, Miss Pig. You want some of this?

[pig crunching loudly]

VOICE 1: Oh, she loves her Oreos.

[pig crunching loudly]

VOICE 1: You want to get up and go for a walk? Come on, let's go for a walk.

[pig crunching loudly]

VOICE 1: Pigs are so smart, like, she's outweighing all of her things now. She's like, well, it's kind of humid out and it's cool here in the barn… and I only saw one row of cookies there in the bag, so it's not as big of a reward. Okay, come on Miss Pig, let's go! They're always thinking.

RB: Well, you can see an Oreo eating Esther with all of her charm on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Her parents Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter, have written a book about their experience raising Esther. It is called Esther the Wonder Pig: Changing the World One Heart at a Time. And Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter joined Anna-Maria Tremonti in Toronto in June.

AMT: Welcome.

STEVE JENKINS: Thank you so much for having us today.

AMT: She loves those Oreos

DEREK WALTER: Sure does. There's not a whole lot she doesn't like, to be honest. [laughs]

AMT: And you call her Miss Pig.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah, we have lots of pet names for Esther: Bubba is a popular one…

STEVE JENKINS: Monkey.

DEREK WALTER: Monkey Lips is another one.

[all laughing]

STEVE JENKINS: She's got these little lips that she pries the food away from you, but yeah, we've got lots of pet names.

AMT: And she's got that cute snout.

DEREK WALTER: Oh, she does, yeah. It's about the size of a tea saucer, it's not that little.

[all laughing]

AMT: We have a lot to talk about, but Steve, you better tell us the story about how Esther came into your lives.

STEVE JENKINS: Yes, it was a message online: Facebook of all places, actually, from a friend I had gone to school with and hadn't spoken to in years and years and years but remembered me as being an animal lover. So she wrote me and said she had this mini pig, and it wasn't getting along with her dogs, and she had just had babies, and needed to find it a new home and asked if I was interested. So I am a bit of a sucker and was immediately intrigued, and then she planted the seed very shortly after that saying somebody else wanted her, so I had to decide right away. And I hadn't had a chance to discuss it with Derek, but panicked and agreed to meet her the following morning. So it was about maybe 12 hours from initial message to picking up Esther at my office, offsite so Derek didn't see her.

DEREK WALTER: [laughs]

AMT: Okay, she had this pig. She had a micropig, right?

STEVE JENKINS: So we were told, yeah.

AMT: What's a micropig?

STEVE JENKINS: Well, they're made up, to be totally honest.

AMT: [laughs]

STEVE JENKINS: They don't exist, so-- But we were told Esther would be about 70 pounds, so this thing that people refer to as micropigs are minipigs is a breed called Juliana pig, which grows to about a hundred pounds or so; and then there's the more common pot-bellied pig, which I think a lot of people associate with pets. They're a little bigger, about 250 pounds. And then there's Esther who's, as you said, 650 pounds. So we got taken for a bit of a ride.

AMT: Regular old farm pig.

STEVE JENKINS: Regular old farm pig is what she turned out to be.

AMT: So Derek, you weren't so sure about this. How did you react to the initial presence of Esther in your home?

DEREK WALTER: Well, he tried to butter me up. He made sure that the stage was set when I got home; he made sure that dinner was made and a glass of wine was going and candles were lit.

STEVE JENKINS: [laughs]

AMT: So right away you knew something was up.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah, that was-- yeah, my stink alarm was going off for sure. [laughs] So my initial reaction: my hands were full, I had my rabbit carrier in one hand in my dress clothes in another hand- I'm a professional magician, or I was at one time. Yeah, I immediately recognised the office door was closed and it's never closed. And our two dogs were poised sitting outside the door looking in. And I just immediately flew down the hallway and into the office and there she was. And I remember just painting the house in profanity. You know, like, I was bouncing around because about eight months previous he brought home Delores, a cat.

AMT: And so you already had two dogs and Dolores, already.

STEVE JENKINS: Two cats.

DEREK WALTER: We already had a cat.

AMT: And two cats, right, okay. Two dogs, two cats.

DEREK WALTER: A roommate, and the roommate also had a cat as well, so it was a busy house.

STEVE JENKINS: It was in a small, thousand-square foot bungalow in Georgetown.

AMT: And then he brings home a piglet with nail polish on it.

DEREK WALTER: Yes.

STEVE JENKINS: Oh my god, she looked terrible.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, she-

STEVE JENKINS: She was so sad. When I first saw her, her ears were all sunburned and she was, like you said, you could hold her in the palm of your hand. So I mean, she was-- she just looked very sad. I mean, I felt for her the minute I saw her. And of course I was terrified that if I said no, I was going to take her, what would happen.

DEREK WALTER: And we were told that she was a six months old spayed micropig.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah.

AMT: What, was it Derek? When did you fall in love with her?

DEREK WALTER: It did not take long. I mean, she's got magnetic energy like that just draws you in real close. She, you know, I'd like to think it was about a week, because I wouldn't allow even entertain the thought of naming her. She didn't have a name.

STEVE JENKINS: It was Kijiji for a few weeks.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, I named her Kijiji, that's what I called her.

[all laughing]

AMT: As in, that's where you're going.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah, that's where we need to start posting an ad. So I had come up with the idea that we would, you know, transition her out of our house and into another house. But it didn't take very long at all, and I was like, come here, you know, come, come come come.

AMT: So what were the early days of pig ownership like? Pig parenthood like?

STEVE JENKINS: It was kind of weird, right, I mean the first little bit, that whole, I guess they call it the honeymoon phase, right, when you first got her, it was all great, it was all amazing. And it wasn't until we went to the vet, of course, that first seed of, oh no, what have we done kind of got planted, because Esther has a cropped tail. So her tail is only about an inch and a half long, and the vet said to us that's a sign that she was actually a commercial pig and from a commercial farm. And that was the first, you know, we might have a potential issue here, but he immediately said if she is six months old and all this other stuff you're telling me is true, she won't be as big as we think.

AMT: Maybe she's a runt.

STEVE JENKINS: Exactly, right. But he immediately told me there's no way she'll be 70 pounds. He said 250 if you're lucky, probably bigger.

AMT: Derek wasn't in that conversation, was he?

BOTH: No.

AMT: Just checking.

STEVE JENKINS: No, he wasn't. So I censored it a little bit and went home and explained everything to Derek about the new 250 pound maximum weight. [laughs] And went from there. So I mean, we kept holding on to this she'll be smaller than we think thing, and then litter became the biggest problem with training her. So the first few months were okay, we had her pretty good. But she got to a certain size.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, we were living with the fairy tale that she was going to remain smaller than our biggest dog.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah.

DEREK WALTER: And so yeah, we started litter training her, because pigs are very smart and they'll go to the same place, and so we started to litter train her. And she started growing at a pace that was, you know…

STEVE JENKINS: Like a pound a day.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, she started growing real fast and outgrew our various litter box stages till the very end…

AMT: [laughing]

DEREK WALTER: When the litter box…

STEVE JENKINS: What was the last one, a kiddie pool?

DEREK WALTER: It was like the size of the couch and it was a kiddie pool and she had it all down. She would get down, she would go into the litter box and do her business. But as she got so big, her hind end is, she's working supposed to be, but she's peeing outside of the litter box then. So once we realize that yes, we indeed did have a big girl on our hands, that we took the litter box away and we started to train her outside.

AMT: Where are you living at this point?

DEREK WALTER: So we're--

AMT: You're in a regular place, regular house.

DEREK WALTER: Regular town in the suburbs, I mean, we had a little bungalow in a subdivision. You know, we had a fifty by hundred foot lot. Neighbours on all four sides, you knew what the neighbours were doing.

AMT: And okay, so you had a couple more challenges. What else was going on? Because it wasn't all fun.

AMT: And that's to the farm that we just heard at the beginning, where you've gone to.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah.

AMT: There other animals there, too.

STEVE JENKINS: That's right.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah. So I guess at first, at that point, it wasn't a farm, that was such a farfetched dream. You know, it was just we need to get out of town and into the country. We were just going to carry on doing what we were doing, but right around that time just before Christmas, we'd started the Facebook page. So it was only a few weeks old at that point, but it went crazy and within 80 days of starting that page it hit 100,000 followers. And it was around then that we had started looking at property and came back to the page and said, you know what, you know, we're looking at farms and thinking we might open a sanctuary. What do you guys think? And the page responded unbelievably positively. So we jumped and we started a crowdfunding campaign and went out and found this farm in Campbellville. It was unreal, unbelievable.

AMT: So when we talk about Esther changing lives, she's changed your lives, as well. What is it about this pig? She keeps growing.

BOTH: Yes.

AMT: She's clearly not a micropig.

BOTH: Yes.

AMT: She's snuffling through your house, she's doing all-- and yet, you just, like, you get a new house, you get a farm. Like, you just keep on going. What is it about her?

STEVE JENKINS: She's like a four legged person. I mean, she's got so much character and personality, and she's so clever and so sensitive and funny. I think it's, I think that's the thing I find with Esther the most, I mean, she makes me laugh to this day on a daily basis. She can't talk to you, but you can almost read exactly what she's saying just by her facial expression or the noises that she makes. And she's so, like Derek said, magnetic, I guess, is the right word for her. She just draws you in when you meet her. And she likes certain people but doesn't like others.

AMT: Oh, tell me more about that.

STEVE JENKINS: Hilarious. Well, one of our friends, he'd come to the house all the time. Esther's met him God knows how many times. And it's better now, but there was a while there in Georgetown that anytime this friend of ours came to the house, she would chase him round and round and round. He could have arrived with a group of four people, the other four were totally fine. Him? Nothing to do with. Don't know why, don't know what the reason was for it, but we always thought it was hilarious.

STEVE JENKINS: Well they are, and that's-- say, when you get to know a pig, that's what was so life-changing, I think, for us, you know, was to see these animals that we thought on such a different level. And then to actually get one in our house. And I mean, just so you know where we were at, I mean, even-- when she first arrived home we were meat eaters. You know, big time, and I remember Derek saying to me one of the early days, you know, I don't think I can eat bacon anymore. I'm like, oh Derek, don't be ridiculous, she's a different kind of pig. You know, like I had that kind of mindset. And then all of a sudden to find out that she was that pig, you know, the bacon pig or the pork chop pig, and to see her have so much affection. And like I said, such this larger than life personality, and then to think of where she would have been if she wasn't with us. You know, that was the most devastating thing. And that's the big reason we kept her, you know, because where was she going to go?

DEREK WALTER: We only had one of two possibilities. It was a sanctuary, a farm sanctuary, and all of the farm sanctuaries locally to us are filled beyond belief. You know, there's no more room at the inn. And then the next best thing is, you know, the inevitable, which is slaughter. You know, that's-- anybody would want to buy her for that reason.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah.

DEREK WALTER: And those are the only two reasons that we were presented, you know, the only two things that we were presented with.

STEVE JENKINS: Those were our options.

AMT: What do you say to those people who go, she's a pig and she's a commercial pig.

DEREK WALTER: You've never met her.

STEVE JENKINS: You've never met a pig, you know, because we thought the same thing until we met her. You know, I was always one of those people that if anybody laid a finger on my dog, you know what I mean, you would have hell to pay. And you know, it's I think a lot of people are like that. They're fiercely protective of their pets and their companion animals. Launching campaigns about the dolphins and the dog meat festival, and all while enjoying their steak and their pork chop. I really think it's only because you don't know them. And if you, the way we learned from Esther and getting to know her, and like I said, at the same time having her in front of us and then having to think in the back of our mind where she would have been if she wasn't with us, was all the motivation that we ever needed to change our lifestyle entirely. And I think that's what's happening online with people, is that she's helping them connect to an animal that we've always discounted. I think we all look the other way when that truck goes by on the highway and we all want to ignore what's happening, and she made it impossible for us to ignore.

AMT: If you missed our conversation in our last half hour you want to find it on our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. They've been talking about life with Esther, a pig, which they were told would grow no bigger than a dog. Well, Esther is not a micro-pig, as there’s no such thing. She is now about 650 pounds. Raising Esther changed everything for Steve and Derek. They have quit their jobs. They own a farm now in Campbellville, Ontario, an hour outside of Toronto, and they take in other animals at the Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary. So I'm going to continue. Steve Jenkins, tell me more about what you do at the farm and the animals you take in.

DEREK WALTER: We have requests daily. I mean, the need is huge.

STEVE JENKINS: And from all over the world, right.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, from all over the world. It's not just—

STEVE JENKINS: It’s a funny situation. Because of social media, yeah, we get inundated with stuff from Asia, Mexico, the United States, Europe, all over the world.

AMT: What do people tell you?

STEVE JENKINS: I’ve got 600 pigs in Mexico that need a home. What can you do? [Laughs]

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah.

STEVE JENKINS: That’s insane.

DEREK WALTER: Or sometimes it's farmers, like, industrialized farmers that are having a change of heart. Like, where they go, I have this runt pig and I can't kill it. I know that—

STEVE JENKINS: I brought it into the house to raise it.

DEREK WALTER: I brought her into the house and I can't keep it anymore. And so we get a lot of people changing that way. So that's where some of the animals come from.

STEVE JENKINS: Which is the most mind-blowing thing too, when you think about it. These farmers that dedicate their lives to raising these animals-- and that's what they know, so, I mean, I'm not saying these farmers are bad people-- but then all of a sudden they bring one into their house that needs extra care and they rear it and raise it and then they see this personality and this character that, even them, somebody who's been working with these animals for so long, because they've never been in such close constant contact with them that they don't see those little flashes. And then when they do see them, like Derek says, they're calling a sanctuary saying, oh my god, I can't possibly do to this pig what I do to the hundreds or thousands of other pigs—

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, you know. Penelope. We can’t do that to Penelope.

AMT: And you've got another pig who lives on the farm called Bear.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah, big Bear.

AMT: Let’s listen to Bear.

SOUNDCLIP

[Bear softly snorting]

STEVE JENKINS: Hey, Bear Bear. Bear sure is a chatty boy.

[Bear softly snorting]

DEREK WALTER: So, Bear has severe arthritis in his hind legs, which means he can no longer walk. And what that means for the sanctuary is we give Bear all of his needs. We clean under him two to three times a day so he's not laying in wet or laying in his filth. He gets fresh straw. He’s got lights. He’s got a fan. He’s got a projector there so we can turn on TV and put something on so to keep his curiosity and interest alive.

[Bear softly snorting]

STEVE JENKINS: Yes. Good boy, good boy. What are you doing today? Hm?

DEREK WALTER: This is his masseuse that’s shown up today to give him his weekly massage.

VOICE: I just massage him because he uses his front end a lot more, right. So then he gets really tight in his shoulders and neck and then get circulation, I guess, more so into his back end. I just kind of do a little reflexion work, so I mobilize it a bit even though he can’t use it. But at least if it’s kind of moving a bit then I get some circulation in there too. Hey, buddy?

[Bear softly snorting]

VOICE: Hm? I know, I know.

[Bear softly snorting]

DEREK WALTER: Good boy, Bear. Enjoy your massage, buddy.

[Bear snorts]

STEVE JENKINS: Enjoy your massage. We’re out of here.

AMT: I love the snorting.

STEVE JENKINS: Their noises are hilarious.

AMT: Yeah.

STEVE JENKINS: And they’ve got so many. Another neat thing, they’ve got, I don’t even know what number it is, of different vocalisations pigs have, but they all mean something different. Like, we can hear Esther, we know which one of our animals, whether she's talking to one of the dogs and which dog she's talking to, based on the noises that she makes.

AMT: That’s incredible. And, you know, a lot of farmers listen to the radio as they do their jobs. If there's a pen of commercial pigs that catch this, they’re going to say, wait a minute, wait a minute.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah, yeah.

AMT: Wait a minute.

STEVE JENKINS: They’re telling a different tune. We want to listen to them.

AMT: Yeah, because you’re telling me how clever they are.

STEVE JENKINS: You won’t hear those noises coming out of a commercial pen, though.

DEREK WALTER: Yeah.

AMT: So how tough is it for these animals to find a sanctuary? Like, you’re taking some in.

STEVE JENKINS: It’s incredibly tough.

AMT: How much is going on like this?

DEREK WALTER: Well, so, we take—We’re in a unique position because of how much online presence Esther has and how much world presence she has, so we get you know a lot of people reaching out from different places that we might not even be in a position to help physically.

AMT: Yeah. But how do you fund it?

DEREK WALTER: We've created a charity called Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary and we just got the charity status just this past August. So it's completely funded, 100 per cent, through online donations.

AMT: It's interesting because you're talking about the people who contact you specifically about this, but you're also getting letters and you're getting contacted from people who are learning more just by watching what's going on with Esther. Tell me a little bit about...

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah. We’ve gotten so many different messages from people about different things. You know, we had one from a mother a little while ago that just said, I wanted to thank you for teaching my four-year-old son that it's okay to have two dads. You know, things like that, that you would never think we would have that type of an impact. Or a lady that wrote to say thank you for making my mom smile. You know, she's in hospital with dementia and I haven't seen her smile in months and we were watching Esther videos and she had a smile from ear to ear.

DEREK WALTER: And people come to Esther with problems too. They feel like it's a safe space to open up and they just pour it out.

STEVE JENKINS: It's interesting. You know, if a message comes through addressed to Derek and I, it's going to be a fairly standard message, but if you get a message that's addressed, you know, Dear Esther, it's where you usually have to sit down and brace yourself for something heavy, that somebody will be, I guess, opening up to Esther in a way that they don't feel they can do other people. It's very hard to explain.

AMT: How do you respond to that?

STEVE JENKINS: I usually sit and cry for a while. [Laughs]

DEREK WALTER: Yeah. We weep a lot.

STEVE JENKINS: And then we get it together and then we come up and formulate an answer. But that's been I think, for me anyway, the hardest part, is I find it incredibly overwhelming sometimes to think of the reach that she has and the level that she's impacting people, you know. It's on such a deeper and more meaningful way than either of us ever anticipated. And it's really scary, to be honest to step outside. You know, we're so busy all the time with the farm and with Esther and everything that's going on that rarely do we have a chance to step back and say, okay, what have we done? And what have we accomplished? When we do, I know for me, when I have those minutes to reflect on things, I scare myself, because so much has happened and so much is happening and I never in a million years thought that I would be controlling a Facebook page that reaches eight million people a week. Like, that just blows my mind that she's seen and known by that many people and that they care for her the way we do. Like, people are fiercely protective of her online and they're fiercely protective of Derek and I.

AMT: Do you consider yourself activists?

DEREK WALTER: Accidentally, yes, for sure.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah, didn't set out to do this or to achieve any of this. And we've done nothing but ride the wave as it's come. I think, to me, it's incredibly satisfying to know every time we get those messages from people that whether it be something about helping a member of their family smile or they've given up pork as a result of Esther or whatever it is, you know, those are huge major life changes for people and to think that we've had any part in influencing that decision is incredible.

AMT: Well, I was reading that some people have criticized you for not being strident enough. How do you…?

STEVE JENKINS: It drives us both crazy.

DEREK WALTER: We applaud small change. We realize that the end result we would love if nobody ever ate animals again. But we know that that's not going to happen overnight. And the same way that we were educated with pigs and finding out on our own and then other animals quickly followed suit. We were on our own journey.

STEVE JENKINS: Yeah. Nobody ever told us to go faster.

DEREK WALTER: And to think that we would have snapped our fingers and be this different person, that's balderdash. There are mid-steps in between.

STEVE JENKINS: With Esther, right, it was because of Esther. It wasn't because we had somebody at our back saying you need to hurry up or, what I mean you're giving up pork and not cows? She helped us figure out all of that, right, and our first step for both of us was that's it, no more pork, and it spread so quickly from there to everything else because once you give up or you have that one thought, it’s triggered something in your mind. You're going to want to know more information and you go looking then for information. You go looking for these documentaries and for all the stuff that you would otherwise avoid watching for so, so long and then once you watch and once you actually want to know why people are so passionate about veganism and you see what's going on it, becomes such a no-brainer. I mean, I completely understand and, don't get me wrong, if I thought that me standing on top of your building right now screaming at everybody to go vegan would actually make a difference, I'd be up there every day. But I know it alienates a lot of people and it alienated me for years. I didn't want to watch that. I didn't want to respond to it. I’d cross the road if there was a demonstration. I didn't want to see it. Esther made me want to see it and that's what we're trying to replicate. The people that were like us, that had she not come around chances are very, very good this never would have become our lifestyle.

AMT: Thanks for coming in. Thanks for your story.

STEVE JENKINS: Thank you very much for having us.

DEREK WALTER: Thank you so much.

RB: Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter are the owners of Esther the wonder pig. That’s also the name of their new book about her. You can check out our website at cbc.ca/thecurrent for photos and videos of Esther, and other animals at the Happily Ever Esther farm sanctuary. Steve and Derek spoke to Anna-Maria in June. And over to you now we want to hear about the ways your life has been disrupted, the way Esther the wonder pig disrupted the lives of Steve and Derek. Send us your own moments of disruption, whether it is something that happened because of an illness, an eviction, a lottery win, something that you did not expect that totally changed your life and how you view the world. And we’ll feature your stories on The Current throughout this coming season. Send us an email on our website at cbc.ca/thecurrent and make sure to put personal disruption in the subject line. That is today’s edition of The Current. I’m Robyn Bresnahan, thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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September 1, 2016 full episode transcript

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