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The Current Transcript for April 1, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: It was at least a hundred here. There was a lot of noise on the mountain. We actually jumped out of bed and came into the living room because it was the scariest night ever.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: They they live in British Columbia's smalles communities Zeballos on northern Vancouver Island at the bottom of a mountain slope. It's a landscape considered so damaged by a raging forest fire last summer that many of the properties are still under evacuation order. Some have moved back anyway and sometimes they can hear that mountain slope giving up its rocks and trees. Officials worry the mountain could give way. Residents say there's really nowhere else to go. In half an hour Megan Thomas brings us the story of an environmental dilemma. And then, flash back to April 1st, 1999.

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VOICE 1: Nunavut is here!

VOICE 2: This is a very momentous occasion you know the beginning of a new part of Canada.

AMT: 20 years ago today, the territory of Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories in an agreement brimming with idealism and optimism for the people who live there. Since that time it has seen some new and healthy industry, but there are still obstacles: housing, jobs, Indigenous control or bureaucracy. Climate change is adding new pressure and the call for self-government is stronger. In an hour, the premier of Nunavut joins me to talk about what he's celebrating and what he is trying to change. But we're starting with a carbon tax, the issue that embodies the determination of the Trudeau Liberals and the galvanization of the federal and provincial Conservatives lined up against them, as the Conservative New Brunswick premier signalled yesterday.

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VOICE: We don't need to increase taxes at the pumps, in order tonew b achieve the targets. This is just another Liberal plan, a way to put more money into the caucus and have more spending to buy votes during election.

AMT: I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Carbon tax will turn sustainability efforts into a fight for bottom line, warns farmer

Guests: John Paul Tasker, Cathy Orlando, Megz Reynolds

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VOICE: It will no longer be free to pollute anywhere in Canada. We are going to place a price on the pollution that causes climate change from coast to coast to coast.

AMT: Well after years of talk, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal carbon tax has gone from plan to reality. At midnight a levy kicked in in areas across Canada known as holdouts, the provinces that have not imposed equivalent measures of their own. On the list: Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick. As of today, they'll have to pay a $20 per tonne of fossil fuel emissions. It has galvanized federal and provincial Conservative leaders, who are rolling out their counterpunches. The federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer sent out a mass text a few days ago. Ontario's Doug Ford is planning a taxpayer funded TV ad blitz against it. The carbon tax will not be applied to Yukon and Nunavut until the 1st of July. The government says the money will be returned to Canadians in the form of rebates and that for many is where things get confusing. Neil Mccarney runs boat tours around the Thousand Islands in Gananoque, Ontario and that boat runs on diesel fuel.

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VOICE: They mention there were some groups that might be eligible for exemptions. So far it's been a very frustrating process to try and get someone in the government who can actually tell me whether or not I qualify for an exemption.

AMT: So Neil Mccarney is eager for that information. He says if he has to pay the carbon tax, the cost will be passed on to his customers.

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VOICE: I'm really starting to feel pushback from my customers. They're telling me they just don't have the budget. Honestly at some point in time, I really just feel like a glorified tax collector. My confusion really is is just what are they doing with the money?

AMT: Well Neil Mccarney asks and we're going to try to get to answers answers. JP Tasker joins me with an explanation. He's a senior writer with the CBC parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. Hi JP.

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Good morning.

AMT: Now you have some hard numbers just in terms of which kind of fuels this affects. Can you take me through that?

JPT: Yeah absolutely. So that $20 a tonne that's pretty, it's a difficult number for the average person to really understand. So we tried to crunch the numbers to see what that would have, what impact that would have on say filling up your car for example. It's four litres, four cents a litre I'm sorry and five cents a litre for light home fuel. So that translates into a roughly $2 more for every fill up of a Honda Civic for example, small subcompact car. About $3 more for filling up a Ford SUV, a Ford Explorer, if you will and then for a home, the home fuel tax, which is kind of the most important, more salient if you will in New Brunswick because that's really what a lot of people in that province rely on to keep their homes heated in the winter. That's about $48 more for every fill up of about a 910 metre model. That doesn't mean a lot to me, but I'm sure our listeners in rural New Brunswick know how often they have to do that. And if you're in Ontario for example where natural gas is more common, you're looking at about $10 more a month in a month like April where we don't rely that heavily on natural gas to keep our home warm, but of course in the winter it would be substantially more and substantially less in the summer when that demand is not quite as high.

AMT: So remind us how this tax works. Who pays it and how does the government collect the money?

JPT: Yeah. So it's actually the companies that are supplying the fossil fuels that will be taxed by the federal government directly. So think of the kind of like PST or HST there, the companies are the ones that are responsible for remitting that money to the federal government so companies like Petro Canada, Irving, Enbridge or Union Gas or whoever it is you buy your fuels from they'll pass on those carbon taxes to you the consumer to pay. But the good news is of course the federal government is also telling this thing called the Climate Action Initiative payment and they say that it's something that will make people whole for the cost they're going to incur for having to pay these carbon taxes. And if you're prompted if you've done your taxes already as I have there has an option on that form that you can check off. You can shrug off the little box on there to tell the government you're actually eligible for the rebate and so they'll send you a cheque for the money that they say will make you all for having to pay the column tax it varies on the size of your home in which province you actually live in but it's for a single persona. For example it's about a hundred fifty four bucks a month which they say 2054 54 is 198 which they say is enough to cover those those monthly charges that will incur for filling up their car for more natural gas.

AMT: And the government says families will actually get more back than they spend?

JPT: So they say, yeah. So based on the calculations they provide to us when they first announced this program they said in Ontario for example I'll cost about 300 dollars this tax year and you're going to get 244 dollars back if you're a family of two with one child. So you say Well but actually be better off by fifty six dollars. That number will go up over the course of time because that is a time for you mentioned off the top actually will go up by 10 dollars every year until 2022. So we'll be looking at 50 dollars a ton by that year and so you'll be paying a lot more in carbon tax each and every year and so will your rebate. Your rebate will go up in turn.

AMT: Now small businesses and institutions won't necessarily get back the same kind of money on rebates? There's some rebate, it's not the same. It's

JPT: Yeah I mean this is a really consumer driven program .obviously as the premier of New Brunswick mentioned they're to favor with voters and they figure that by passing on the taxes to small businesses and corporations and then giving them money that is collected and turned to consumers it will make the tax more palatable and more popular with people who were who are willing to change their apparence their consumption pattern to actually drive down those greenhouse gas emissions. That's the end goal after all.

AMT: And what confuses a lot of people, if the government takes the money and then gives it back, why do they take it?

JPT: Well they see it's supposed to be revenue neutral entirely. So what it's trying to do is encourage you to use less gas. It's you know throw a few less hot dogs on the barbecue, use less propane in the summer don't heat your pork waders during down the heat turning on their natural gas consumption the winter is trying to incentivize you to use less of these fossil fuels that are really producing the greenhouse gas emissions that's causing global warming. And so the best way to do that is to give you the money upfront to encourage you to actually incur less carbon tax so you're better off at the end of the year if you're going to actually get all this money upfront and then in theory at least they're hoping that you'll use less of those fuels so that you have more money in your pocket at the end of the year.

AMT: This has really galvanized Conservative opposition, not only federally, but provincial.

JPT: No kidding. Yeah I mean we have to go back to the liberals have been trying to round this sort of plan for years if indeed the former Liberal leader in on the green plan and all of you remember that one. But there was hugely unpopular with voters because the conservative opposition managed to paint it as you know a tax on everything and it's been a winning strategy ever since then. You just have to look at the Ontario provincial election the last one we had Doug Ford essentially ran on one message in one message alone that was kill the carbon tax in Ontario. Kathleen when had put in a cap and trade system so a bit of a different thing but it didn't really matter with voters who you know new taxes and popular with anybody. So it's it's certainly something that concerns have had some success so far and they definitely plan on using their message again in the federal election coming up in the fall under Shira's said he wants to make that 2019 campaign, a referendum on the carbon tax.

AMT: And so what are the polls saying about how Canadians see these taxes?

JPT: Well I don't have the exact numbers it's hard to pinpoint exactly how people feel, but generally when they're asked about the environment, they're supportive of action to take you know taking action against climate change because there is a concern about global warming there but of course as I said no one really likes to pay more each year but it says the federal government announced its plan to give those rebates back to people to make people or so they save for the carbon tax it's actually the people who are supportive of taking climate action has gone up at least in a general sampling of polls that looked at this morning. But we have to look for British Columbia for example it's the only jurisdiction of the country that's actually gone ahead with the carbon tax of any sort for any substantial period of time. Initially it was very unpopular with voters but over time we've seen it's actually grown in popularity because people understand the program more they understand that it's actually having substantial impact on climate change where we've seen GHG emissions drop by about 10 percent in the last 10 years despite a growing economy. So people are seeing change on the ground, they're more supportive of the program.

AMT: So it becomes a battle of message huh?

JPT: Absolutely.

AMT: JP thanks for your time.

JPT: Thank you.

AMT: JP Tasker, senior writer with CBC's parliamentary bureau. He is in Ottawa. Well depending on your view, Ottawa's carbon tax is either a triumph for the environment or bad news for your bottom line. We have two divergent views on today's tax. Cathy Orlando is a climate activist. She founded the Canadian chapter of the group Citizens' Climate Lobby. She joins us from Sudbury, Ontario, from our studio there. Megz Reynolds is a grain farmer near Kyle, Saskatchewan, a town in the south western corner of the province and we reached her at her farm. Hello to you both. Welcome.

CATHY ORLANDO: Good morning. This is Cathy from Sudbury.

MEGZ REYNOLDS: Good morning.

AMT: Hi. Cathy, frst of all, what are you thinking as this tax comes into effect across the country?

CO: Well I think today is a good day. Canada is now going down a path that will protect my three daughters of all children and all life from climate breakdown. It's a policy that just three weeks ago three thousand five hundred eight economists in the United States, including 27 Nobel Prize winning economists actually support. So today's a good day. Thank you.

AMT: Megz Reynolds, what does today symbolize for you?

MR: Well it actually symbolizes insecurity in my business and you know at the end of the day I want exactly what Cathy wants. I have two beautiful young girls and I would love to see them be the fifth generation farmer. If they're able to if they would like to do that and bringing in a carbon tax into an industry like a culture where that tax can be passed on we were appraised takers. That really jeopardizes our future as a family farm and for the first environmentalist we have been constantly pushing for sustainability constantly pushing to lower our footprint. We have no evidence of regenerative agricultural practices that we have put into place without pressure from a carbon tax or without pressure from the government to try to push us to become more sustainable.

AMT: So Megz Reynolds, just to be clear, I know from your writing you are not denying climate change and the problems it brings. What is it about this price that bothers you so much? This this specific instrument.

MR: Thank you. I am not a denier at all, nor do I think that we should twiddle our thumbs and sit around and do nothing. Like I said in agriculture we have been pushing extremely hard to become more sustainable. I have a couple issues with the current tax. One is income redistribution. You're taking a tax and then you're giving 90 percent of it back to what they have right now and they're saying they're using that other 10 percent to help offset industry whereas the administration costs about 90 in 10 is 1 percent. So what is that administration costs going to look like. But also Canada is an explanation that is the reality of our situation and we're competing in a global market we're competing against countries that do not have the carbon tax. And I can mention in agriculture we cannot physically pass our tax line so that that tax is going to be passed on to me and mockable over my bills whether that's bringing my input out to the farm to make fertilizer and macam a common seed whether that is getting my green support which for me is fifteen hundred kilometres to get my ring. All of that is going to be passed on to me. I cannot pass that on. We're looking at 90 per cent of farms in Canada being family owned and operated that are already dealing with low commodity prices trade issues affecting every single crop that I grow. And now you want to bring on a tax on top of that that could push a lot of family farms over the edge and make them not sustainable moving forward.

AMT: What have you done to reduce your own emissions, Megz?

MR: So on our farm personally we use autosteer, which means that we don't do any more pases in a field than we need to. There is literally an inch overlap between my apass has done for some using less fertilizer and using less fuel to do that. I am a no toll farmer, which means I only disturb the soil when I feed into it. So I am keeping that carbon sequestering that carbon that organic matter and Im actually building it in my soil. We have smart technology we have biotechnology and the crops that were growing to require that were soil sampling tissue sampling to come up with that recipe that fertilizer recipe that we need to grow that crops so that we are not using any access were not putting down access that well gas are we being very specific about what we do and were constantly coming and pushing to be more at a level you know. But in order to do that I need to have margin in my business where I can afford to keep bringing new technology and new ideas into my operation. If I am at the point where I do not have a profit margin then my ability is going to get capped because Im suddenly going to start looking after my bottom line and that will not allow me to be able to bring in new equipment that is maybe standard emission protocol or maybe that's in your seed that's going to require less fertilizer. So all of these things cost money and in order to do that I need to have a margin that allows me to adapt and if I'm taxed beyond that point.

AMT: Okay. I just want I ask Cathy Orlando, you live in Sudbury, that is an industry heavy town. How was the reaction in your city?

CO: Its been pretty, it's been good. I'm a lucky environmentalist to live in a community that has been there done that with reducing a pollutant in the atmosphere that was damaging the world's environment. It's sulfur dioxide and acid rain. So when I was trained in 2008 by Al Gore to be a climate spokesperson I was told by six people at that event of 250 Canadians that they were expecting great things from me in Sudbury and when I got back to my community support for climate action and even putting a price on carbon pollution was quite well received. Obviously there are naysayers. I am I am listening intently to what makes this seeing and you know I live in a community that you know often doesn't feel heard by Toronto or Ottawa or the big Montreal or Vancouver. I totally hear you and I'm not a policy maker, but I do know that there was two years of negotiations to make the penned Canadian framework and clean break in climate change and I know that climate instability is also a great threat to our farming system and I do support the idea that we need to support farmers for their regeneration of soil. I think we need to start looking at policies that do support that fantastic work that Megz is doing but we also need to cut emissions. And one thing that Canadians could consider is in the United States there is a bipartisan bill called the energy and innovation and carbon dividends act, HR, oh I'm forgetting it, anyways and they have made farmers exempt from charges of the carbon tax on diesel fuel. So I would hope we could keep working together. Going forward, we need to cut emissions and like I said previously this is the most effective way to cut emissions.

AMT: Okay so let me ask Megz. if you were exempt for the costs of your fuel for farming, would that make a difference?

MR: Currently under the current federal backstop, I will be exempt for my fuel that's burned on farm use, but that is like I said a small piece of that picture. The carbon tax is being touted as a vital step to grow our economy and protect our environment. Right now those two ideas where we are cannot go hand in hand to create a tax that is going to boost economic growth and also grow protect our environment. So right now we're looking at basically shutting off a switch which would be those are two of yours. This needs to be done in a matter that is gradual over time especially in rural communities. You're looking at a large number of what fuels that community coming from the oil and gas sector coming from agriculture. And if you're suddenly tackling them and saying okay stop you're doing you need to change your methods, you need to change the fact that in Saskatchewan you have a lot of that power being generated by coal. You cannot just put that brake on and expect everybody to adapt overnight.

AMT: So let me ask you Megz, I mean this conversation has been going on a long time and people say gradually over time, but leaders political leaders have have refused to do anything. You know there have been political leaders who have limited knowledge climate change until very recently. So when you talk about gradually over time, who's leadership are you're looking for?

MR: It's everybody's and it isn't just their political leaders as well because look at when the 3R program came into recycling and everybody said awesome, I'm doing my job, I'm protecting the environment, I'm recycling, I don't need to do anything else. So personally I grow most of my own food, I also raise most of my own meat. My girls have a flock of laying hens. I have done a lot in my personal life to reduce my footprint to reduce my greenhouse gas emissions and people need to think about what that means for them. It's not just about being taxed at the pump and thinking oh great I'm doing my part and it's also not just Canada saying that we're going to put this tax in to please pat ourselves on the back it's about the global picture. What can we be doing to help countries that are going through their industrialization come online in a way that has a smaller footprint than when we did. I feel like the carbon tax is a way for Canada to say look we're doing something and to step back from the picture and leave it there.

AMT: Cathy Orlando what do you say to Megz as she raises these issues?

CO: Well 20 percent of the world's economy is now under a carbon price. There is an organization called the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition for which Canada is the high level coacher. The aim of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition which is a huge coalition of industries, governments and energy is to have 50 percent of the economy under a carbon price by 2025. Canada is a world leader in carbon pricing. I see this when I go to.

AMT: So how do you convince her? We're almost out of time. We know that. What do you say to her?

CO: Okay. So it is a gradually rising price. It's starting out at $20 a tonne and going up only $10 a tonne per year. We need to get this price up. This is the recommended model and thank you.

AMT: We're going to leave it there. We're out of time. Thank you both. I'm not sure you've convinced each other, but it's important hear your point of view. Cathy Orlando, International Outreach Manager and Canadian director of the Citizens' Climate Lobby. She's an Sudbury, Ontario. Megz Reynolds is a farmer near Kyle, Saskatchewan. We reached her at her house. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, the CBC News is next. Wildfire season is approaching in B.C. and one Vancouver Island village is still coping with the fallout from last year. We'll bring you their story. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Stuck in a 'really bad bind,' Zeballos residents defy months-long evacuation order in wake of B.C. wildfire

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, Nunavut at 20. We will explore how the Nunavut of today lives up to the hopes of its creation two decades ago. But first, a B.C. village on high alert.

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AMT: Another wildfire season is on the horizon in British Columbia. The past two dry hot summers have resulted in the most devastating fires on record for B.C. They forced the evacuation of cities and towns and burned tens of thousands of square kilometres of forest. Experts say warming temperatures brought on by climate change are a contributing factor. Even coastal communities surrounded by temperate rainforest found themselves battling flames. The tiny village of Zeballos on northern Vancouver Island, at the base of a mountain slope, was among them and what residents could not have predicted then was that the fire of 2018 was only the beginning of their problems. About two dozen properties there remain under an evacuation order and officials worry the fire damaged mountain could give way. The CBC's is Megan Thomas travelled to Zeballos to learn what that means for its residents. Here is her documentary, After the Flames.

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MEGAN WILLIAMS: Just a few steps from the door of her home on Vancouver Island. Christina Lepore launches her kayak into the water. Water laps in her yellow gumboots and a red baseball cap tames her wavy shoulder length hair.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: It's quite, it's got fresh air, it's got beautiful scenery. It's very relaxing. We have no cell phone coverage, which some people find awkward and some people find it unnervously refreshing.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: The village of Izabella sits at the head of a calm inlet that cuts between tree covered mountains.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: I showed up here in 1996. And met my husband here because we like kayaking.

DAN O'CONNOR: Now look around you. You don't have a view like this, do you? And it has a great history. It's the site of the second largeset gold rush in history is right here.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Zeballos is a hard luck resource town, from gold mining to logging it went from boom to bust. With a current population of 107 people, it's the smallest municipality in B.C. Its economic fortunes are now tied to the remote beauty of the place.

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MEGAN WILLIAMS: Christina opens the front door of the village's only hotel. The solid wood beams and lofty ceilings in the main hallway speak to the error that it was built.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: This building here was built in 1937. It was. A hospital for local gold miners.

DAN O'CONNOR: I'd say it's the oldest building in town.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Her husband Dan O'Connor's well-worn jeans are a testament to the work the couple has put into the place. It later became an inn but was mostly a camp for loggers. Christine and Dan bought it 16 years ago. They had other ideas on what it and Zeballos could be, a home for their growing kayak and wildlife tourbusiness.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: We needed a place to put in our eco tourists. They had ordered to stay there to bind up in my front room looking for coffee.

DAN O'CONNOR: The fellow we bought it from had doubts that we were going to be able to pay for it because he was in the camp business down.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: And we were greenies.

DAN O'CONNOR: And we seen it coming. We seen the fall down going and argue industry and everyone was told it was coming. Like we showed up with a couple of kayaks on top of our car. We didn't show up with a chainsaw. Greenies, kayaks, logging camp.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Tour groups have been coming here for years from as far away as Europe to experience the wild west coast until everything got turned upside down last summer.

DAN O'CONNOR: It sounded like a warzone.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: That forest fire was super loud and it was.

DAN O'CONNOR: It was like living in a jet engine. Then this helicopter would show up every now and then and drop a few buckets and go away till the next day. It kept burning and burning.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: And we had cinders and ashes falling on our building.

DAN O'CONNOR: Just the air rushing in it. Really it was kind of surreal cause nobody was saying anything and you could just hear the fire.

FELIX MICHAEL: The ground was burning back here. Like you could see it through the trees. That's the fire came to our house.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Walking down his gravel driveway, Felix Michael points to the towering trees that climb up the steep hillside. He and his wife Rosanne had a front row seat when lightning hit the mountain and sparked the fire. The backyard of their brown bungalow is nestled right up against the base of the slope. By morning smoke was rising from a spot just outside of town.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: And it started off small and we assumed when the helicopter showed up that they were going to be putting it out. But that wasn't the case. They just to me it seemed like they just allowed it to grow. It was so small they could have had it put out in the first two days.

FELIX MICHAEL: It would've taken half an hour. It was just one tree on fire for four days and it was just smoldering for four days and it was probably like not even a kilometre from here, maybe three quarters a kilometre where it started.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: It wasn't the only fire burning. That same storm sparked dozens of wildfires in northern Vancouver islands.

VOICE 1: British Columbia is struggling through one of the busiest most dangerous wildfire seasons in history.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Much of B.C. was already burning in what would become the worst fire season on record for the province. Wildfire crews monitored the fire inear Zeballos for several days, but soon that small fire, it wasn't small anymore and it started creeping along the mountainside behind homes.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: And we could hear, logs, like trees coming down. It looked like a huge bonfire. It was burning pretty hard and everybody in town was basically just watching you all day on day. We could actually feel the heat in our house because it was kind of warm and you could kind of smell smoke and I had to get out as soon as I could. I wasn't going to wait for an order.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: I took myself and the dog out because we were having breathing difficulties from all the smoke. The smoke was so thick that no one could actually breathe very well here and seniors were advised to leave. And you know of course our hotel was pretty full of people, we had to tell them to leave.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: The slope was too steep for crews to fight the fire from the ground. Eventually buckets full of water from helicopters and some marine as well was enough to douse the flames. But residents would soon learn the charred hillside would pose a new threat.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: I was happy when their fire spread out and then later I realized that while they should a disclaimer bearing down on them kind of hoping we get another fire this summer so it does burn down.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Christina weaves through the filing cabinet to find a document that has put so many lives in limbo.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: What it says it has by the village of Zeballos due to immediate danger to life safety due to potentially debris, falls or slides.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Due to the risk of falling trees and burnt debris 27 properties in the village were placed under an evacuation order.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: We got the evacuation order and used it a good for one week. It's an imminent danger and I'm going faiir enough we don't know. But it's been six months.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: That evacuation notice has been renewed every week since last September.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: ThecCamping was fun in the beginning and then after three months we had enough.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Rose-Ann and Felix moved into their trailer with their 20 year old son and their dog Shadow. But after months in cramped quarters and no luck finding somewhere to rent in the tiny village, they decided to move back home, despite the evacuation order.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: Well it was scary like we know there's risks involved, but yeah we just don't have another option.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: At the village office the evacuation order weighs on Mayor Julie Colborne.

JULIE COLBORNE: These are the council chambers where we make all our decisions and have had a lot of roundtable discussions in the last little while.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Around December people started moving home into the evacuation zone.

JULIE COLBORNE: There are people for the risk for them. It is acceptable. And so we have declared that the risk is unacceptable. And as long as they're aware that we have done that there are going to get an order. Then there is no we're not going to keep people out of their homes. We're not going to call the RCMP in and reinforce that. It's just it's just not. It just doesn't happen. The line is drawn it children they know that there is at least two families who have children that there is no going back for them when their children are with them when they can't make those decisions for themselves. You have to abide by the order.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Families which are moved to other towns to find housing are receiving some emergency financial support from the provincial government but others can't if they can afford to. Their jobs are in Zeballos.

JULIE COLBORNE: Most of these people all of them I'm assuming have read the report and know that the added risk is there on the mountain side up here has always had some risk in some homes more than others. However this has dramatically changed that risk. The perimeter is a crater 4 feet tall. So every time you hear a tree fall in every time you hear a rock fall and there is some significant movement. It's it's really concerning. I've lived here for 25 years and I have a very. I love the place and I love people and so it makes it really personal for me. They're just like family that are inside that evacuation zone. So of course it weighs heavily on my mind.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Felix pulls his boat up to the village's dock after holing up some of his prawn traps.

FELIX MICHAEL: I got a few prawns, a few pounds.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Orange spot prawnsabout the length of your hair and fill the bottom of the bucket he sets down on the dock. He and Rose-Ann are trying to carry on with everyday life. Their jobs are Zeballos. She's Chief of the nearby Ehattesaht First Nation. He's a logger.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: We did have one scary night, was in December or January. It was blowing at least a hundred here.

FELIX MICHAEL: 100 plus. Probably 150 kilometres an hour. Something like that.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: There was a lot of noise on mountain you could hear. We actually jumped out of bed and came into your living room because it sounded so close and that happened for about four hours through the night. Just all night till the morning. IT was the scariest night ever. We just hoped that we're still here in the morning.

FELIX MICHAEL: For the most part it's not bad unless I mean it blows like storms hard here. I don't know it's I guess there's always a risk there. It seems like nothing is being done. I don't think anything is being done anyways so.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: We can't even sell our house if we want to move cause who's going to buy a house that's basically worth nothing because you can't you know be safe in there.

CHRIS SEABY: Yeah I'm just moving into the area so I'm hoping for the best.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Chris Seaby just bought the house next to Christina and Dan's hotel inside the evacuation zone. Where others saw risk, Chris saw opportunity. He runs into Christina walking her dog Loki at the edge of the forest above the hotel. Pulling up in his blue pick out, he's a friendly new face in the neighborhood.

CHRIS SEABY: I don't know if I'm supposed to tell CBC what I paid for it. I paid what the lots worth. So even if worst case scenario the place totally demolished, if I still have the lot, I still have a future home hopefully.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: he's optimistic the order will be lifted soon enough.

CHRIS SEABY: I mean everything takes time. I mean sure I'd be better. Better sooner than later for everybody. Everybody here I'm pretty sure taken a big hit because of this and their value of their property has gone down a lot but we only hope for the best.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Hopeful, but not naive about the potential risk to his new property.

CHRIS SEABY: That's always a concern right. There's always some new year that's threatenings or I think the people in charge are taking making sure that the proper steps are taken who are going to be down rates. Hopefully they can fix the evacuation area and they think their proper procedures to do it. There's just too many things in life to worry about your bottom line rock the may come down and be there. That's my day. I mean we are guaranteed government as much as we don't want to look at it but if that's the way it's going to happen for me that's I'm more than happy with. that. Have a nice day.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Since the fire, wild rainsstorms have battered Zeballos, but no trees or rocks have fallen in the yard of the inn and that's led Christina and Dan to question just how real the risk really is and whether enough has been done to properly assess the slope.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: Okay we've got six months of extreme weather like the rest of British Columbia. We've had winds that were hitting a hundred and 69 kilometres an hour. Which is a pretty stiff breeze. It blew down trees all along the main drive including two trees off this road. But nothing came down off the hill. We've had over 200 millimeters of rain on a 48 hour period. Which is a bit of water coming down the hill. Nothing happened. How imminent is this thing? Why has no one made a decision on it?

MEGAN WILLIAMS: With bills to pay, they've reopened the hotel.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: There's telephone hydro those the gas people there is insurance happy enough thousand dollars a month insurance on here. I managed to work out an arrangement with the people I pay a mortgage too, but that's not going to last forever.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: They say many of the guests they see year after a year haven't hesitated to book but they want the cloud of the evacuation order lifted.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: I feel that in a village of less than a hundred people, whatever, whoever may be on council lacks resources to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. And it should have been promptly turned over to a regional district or some other level of government. The people on council they're all great people, you know wanting to do something for their community, but they don't have the resources.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: The village is working with the province on a geo-technical assessment of the mountain with the results are expected sometime this spring. The fire damaged slope is Crown land outside of the village boundaries. There is hope the province can do something to stabilize it or if it is eventually declared a disaster zone evacuees might qualify for some sort of compensation for their unusable homes. In the meantime they wait in limbo and listen when the wind blows.

JULIE COLBORNE: It's when it's those blasted it's so there's not a fall on sustained wind that it's really obvious and you can hear the crackling and the. There have been some some moments where you out on the street having a conversation. Obviously I know when gas comes through and you hear crack crack and then a boom and almost like a reverberation. So really scary in the valley exogamous am here. So you think was it far was it near and it's really hard to tell just by hearing yet we're at wires so there's always those few minutes of you know hurried in your heart in your throat and you go OK. Close how far. Did it get everybody. It's really hard to be out in that low level or stressful situation 24 hours a day seven days a week and that's what it is it's really damaging to mental health to be in that position where that low level stress is just always in the background.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: The uncertainty has put retirement in doubt for Dan and Christina.

DAN O'CONNOR: We're getting close to 70 so sooner or later you're going to retire.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: The Inn was their nest egg.

CHRISTINA LEPORE: Your bookings and sales may be very good, but the value of the property has dropped.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: But they're trying not to think about it.

DAN O'CONNOR: I got blood pressure to worry about, cholesterol levels, they always nail you with. You know always try to stuff some drug in you that you don't want.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: That's one of the reasons why we left Zeballos is we get access to fresh seafood.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: Rose-Ann throws a frying pan on the stove and Felix snaps the heads off the prawns he caught earlier, but the mountain outside their kitchen window is never far from their minds.

ROSE-ANN MICHAEL: And I think think now I think it's still going to be years before we find out answers and you know what's going to happen with our house or if we're ever going to be live in it again like permanently.

FELIX MICHAEL: It is what it is. It's kind of this mountain is ruined and it's ruined kind of our lives kind of somewhat, that fire did anyways. Because it changed the structure of this mountain and in everything that's on it and the stability. We're stuck in a bind.

AMT: We have been listening to the documentary, After the Flames, produced by the CBC's Megan Thomas, who's based in Victoria. The Current's documentary editor is Joan Weber. Preliminary results from a study on the stability of the mountainside above Zeballos are expected this spring. Meanwhile beseems wildfire service is gearing up for what may be another difficult year. Some parts of the province are already experiencing drought conditions. The wildfire budget has been raised to one hundred one million dollars an increase of 58 percent over last year. The minister responsible forB.C. forests says the extra funds will mean more firefighters water bombers and helicopters stationed around the province. Some of that money will also go to helping communities such as the Balas recover from wildfire damage.

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Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq on progress, ongoing challenges on territory's 20th anniversary

Guests: Joe Savikataaq

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from celebrations in Iqaluit on April 1, 1999.

AMT: Lots of delight there as fireworks celebrate April 1st of 1999 in Iqaluit. As of that night, Iqaluit was the capital of Canada's new Northern Territory dividing the Northwest Territories into two. It was a dream for many in the eastern Arctic. The culmination of decades of negotiations and promised a better life for the Nunavummiut, he people of Nunavut, Inuit who had long felt left out on their own land. On this 20th anniversary of Nunavut's creation, I'm joined by the premier of Nunavut, Joe Savikataaq. Hello.

JOE SAVIKATAAQ: Hello and I'm glad to be here to keep my message out about our 20 year anniversary.

AMT: Happy anniversary. When you hear that cheering in excitement from 20 years ago what does it take you back out.

JS: I was still living in that world but people were joyous too. People were excited and happy to have their own territory with their own name. It's always been a dream I believe because when there was back in the beauty days there are as far as the government government being so far away and now are kinda disconnected to the smaller Inuit community. So I think everyone was quite happy when we got our own territory. The Inuit were more in control of their own destiny.

AMT: So what are your hopes then for what it would mean to have an event.

JS: I think most people's hope was that it would be an Inuit-led government would have Inuit Values are incorporated into the government system now would be their homeland and people would prosper more.

AMT: So you grew up, can you tell us where it is? What would I see if I visited?

JS: You'd see it's pretty flat. There's no trees it's flat it's windy a lot and what it is is most people know where Churchill, Manitoba is. It's next town north up from our Churchill, Manitoba on the West Coast of the Hudson Bay.

AMT: And how do you get in and out of there?

JS: Like all Nunavut communities, it's fly in and fly out only.

AMT: And what was life like for you when you were growing up there?

JS: It was a happy time and I think I got kids one you got nor more bigger issues and bigger problems are most people child are happy in you play out a lot this summer and go to school because there no. I was adopted by my grandparents so I guess maybe my siblings were my nieces and nephews. There are a lot of us and their worth while there is a lot we thought there was a lot of people in town there. What I think is probably about 700 people I think back then when I was growing up close to there.

AMT: Give me a sense. How old are you?

JS: I am 58.

AMT: Okay so growing up did you feel really isolated or like were you really isolated?

JS: Well ifyou used today's standards we were. Like I remember when they first got telephones in town. I remember when they first got TV in town and when they first got telephones it was just a two digit number. I remember that there was very many more people didn't have phones who just walked over to their house to go tell them what they need. Tell him to go visit him there was a lot less communications on the phones. And then remember the first time I watched TV while there was used to go on Sunday at 4 o'clock I remember that high that it was pretty neat. I wasn't sure how I'd really picture come out of the TV but at that it was pretty neat. Then there were some shows that I watch and but I still played our hotel a lot with friends.

AMT: Yeah. And you said you were adopted by your grandparents. Can you tell me a little bit more about your family? You said it was a happy time.

JS: I was adopted by my grandparents and we live out in the land until I had to go to school and then I went in to at that time was called Eskimo point and went there and started school.

AMT: What happened to your parents?

JS: One died of I believe cancer and another one died of TB. TB was brought in with contact with people from the south.

AMT: Did you grow up with a strong connection to the land?

JS: Absolutely. As of today I still do I still rode in the land quite a bit every chance I get. Now I enjoy being on the land is just nice and peaceful being there an Indian hunting Kottaras is still there trapping culture still there so people still hunt and trap a lot down we gourd hunting in a wicked country food for us and share with family and friends and its fun for myself. It really soothes my mind when I am out there.

AMT: The word Nunavut means our land doesnt it?

JS: Correct, yeah.

AMT: And you went to work in conservation?

JS: That's what I did for just about 30 years yes I spent a lot of time on the land both for pleasure and for work there and I had one employee. Says he doesn't understand says when you work you go the land and you go on holidays you go the land he says why do you even go on your holidays he says.

AMT: So how has your community changed in the 20 years since Nunavut came to be?

JS: Well the population is I think it's somewhere between 2800 and 3000 now so it's grown a lot. Communications is completely different now than what it was back then with the Internet cell phones and reliable communications. Back when I was growing up most of the communications with other communities were through. I think their call a single sideband radio the reception was a hit and miss. The one thing that hasn't really changed a whole lot is were still low flying can really destroy everything is still flown in but the planes are bigger more frequent seems to be more reliable so everything has changed quite a bit and you are the fifth premia and you know it correctly you don't belong to a political party. No no no. And Northwest Territories. We used the same intensive style government. I guess that we're explainers every email is independent so when election. Are there run it not affiliated with any parties. After all the Emilie's are elected and Kirtley this 22. Now they're 22. First thing they do is pick a speaker and then they pick their premia and then they pick cabinet ministers in every one of the MLAs have a vote.

AMT: And none of the major political parties have wanted to try to change that and hone in?

JS: I haven't heard about it. I think the way this system works right now is is very good. It's a system where youre more accountable to the employees who are accountable to their electorate, so I think it's a very fair system.

AMT: And it does it compliment the sort of the certain sensibilities of the Inuit people from before the Canadian government was imposing its own views in that part of the world?

JS: I think so. Like I said its content style here its one disadvantage. Maybe its harder to get stuff done because everybody has to agree to their budgets and all that. Theres no. Its not like Southern governments where you have a majority and whatever you wanna do as a government you can get done because you have the majority vote in and its contents as a government.

AMT: Some might argue thats the best kind of democracy.

JS: I believe it's the closest thing to a true democracy.

AMT: And as Premier you have a good view of the whole territory. Has Nunavut lived up to your hopes and expectations?

JS: I think so there's, most people were hoping for it to be further ahead I think they we are here today but we've done I think we've done very well. Our graduation rates have gone up since we became our own territory. We have official language acts in place and any policies or regulations or acts that are going to be passed, they have to align with Inuit society values. Mining has picked up. There's four operating mines here.; three of them are gold and one is iron ore. Mining brings good high paying jobs. And now each of these mining companies are indeed owned land so they have targeted figures of the percentage of year we do have to hire them. So there's more being employed in terms of minerals are on own land and that organisations get royalties from that. GDP has bizarre ways. On the plus side on the higher side compared to other provinces. So I think we've done good in some sections and other areas we still have our challenges.

AMT: Well I want to ask you about a few of them as well. Students were supposed to be educated in Inuktut as well as English by this year 2019. Did it happen?

JS: No it didn't. We just amended the act so that we wouldn't be in contravention of our own act and we're having a tough time getting enough Inuktitut-speaking qualified teachers. If you can't get the qualified teachers then you can't offer the bilingual education. We have bilingual education up to believe it's Grade 4, but by July of this summer it was supposed to have been up to grade 12.

AMT: Why can't you get the teachers?

JS: I can't say exactly why we can't get the teachers. Inuit have a choice in what they want to do or what careers they want to take, so we can't be a dictator and tell people 'Okay, you're going to be a teacher.' So we have lots of Inuit teachers that become teachers but it's in terms of they teach for a while then they may go into a different career or there's not enough of them enrolling and we're having difficulty getting enough Inuit to go into that teaching program. We were obligated to offer bilingual education but we have no control and we can't force people to become teachers so we have a now we're having challenges with having enough teachers but it's an issue that's all across Canada. I mean I watch the news too. Now here are other Southern communities who have a tough time getting the number of teachers or we're on the same same boat there. But as you know the more complex in terms of VAA we have to get qualified teachers. You have to have a qualified teacher. You just cannot have someone that can speak Inuktitut to become a teacher. Our students are our future and we want to make sure they are trained properly.

AMT: Because I saw something that would at the rate you're graduating teachers now it would take more than 100 years to get there.

JS: That's correct. Are you losing patience.

AMT: Well no. We can't lose out because that then you know you lost the battle. No we just keep plugging away at it and we'll go for recruitment drive but we'll do our best to try it in case some degree become teachers this day teachers so that we can now have enough qualified to speak in teachers.

AMT: There was also an expectation that 85 percent of government jobs would be filled by lead. And it sits at about 50 percent now in the middle and upper level professional jobs it's about 20 percent positions that are held by Inuit. Why the struggle there?

AMT: It's a challenge that we've been facing. I think one of the key issues is education the higher in management to go to more qualified and more experience you have to be. But even though their number has been staying there at 51 percent the number of unemployed who now has more than doubled we have in 1980 knowing we had nine hundred something workers in that year and now we have I think it's known to you how little it's just the number of jobs are Varkey ploughmen up to provide the services so the number is staying there but the number of Inuit working for their governments has more than doubled.

AMT: I guess the whole reason for that was so there wouldn't be people from the South running government departments and having the decision making power. Can you explain the consequences when you have.

I mean you still you know at this point in leadership positions I guess if someone comes from the south they don't have no perspective. The things that they just don't know because they're not from that area.

And when it comes to things like housing and mental health and how much power does your government have to push things forward.

Are we get our funding we're going airborne. I think it's 90 or 95 percent of our funding from the Feds so we're almost completely reliant on the federal government transfer agreements to fund the operation of Nunavut and part of that is to build houses. And we are falling way behind on the need for housing. Currently right now we need roughly 3,300 houses to meet today's demands. Again the funding that we just got for 2019 to 2020 is enough to build 83 units. If you do the math, we won't even be called up to today's needs for many, many years. And we can get adequate funding to build enough houses plus our construction costs are so high that the money we get doesn't go as far as if it was down south. It costs us half a million dollars to build a basic house and there is nothing fancy about the house being build. It's a one, two, or three bedroom apartment with four walls and a ceiling. You've got to get the materials up there, then the construction company has to build it and you can only bring the material up in the summer on sea lift, if it doesn't make sea lift then your whole project is delayed by a year, so it's not as easy to do business Nunavut and it's more costly to do business in Nunavut.

You know in a CBC just featured a family of five living in a library room tucked in families living in tents. How how is that. That must be so hard given where you are in the Arctic how. How did you or what do they do in the meantime.

Well I think homelessness in NOLA is is different then down south because of our inbred values here and that's where they're at. That's why there's a lot of crowd and people taking their relatives or their friends then it's when you look at someone's living room and that's bad but it sure beats sleeping outside at minus 40. It's a sad reality that we just don't have enough housing because a very rude values people take in more. But there's a downside to overcrowding there is many negative issues that come mouldable overcrowded house which are mental health issues actual health issues school attendance issue family violence there's lots of negative stuff that comes out of a crowded house and it's one of the challenges that we have but it's the same challenges that we had back in 1999 just seems to be getting more severe as we get to higher birth rate and our population is just growing faster than almost anywhere else in this country.

And you mention mental health suicide and addiction struggles. There's still not treatment facility in the territory.

No there isn't but in this last budget of 2019 there is money committed for us ah ah ah ah ah ah notation out to build. Addiction trauma treatment centre within inner Woods there a very good news that we heard from the budget.

We have to remember it's such a large territory it's so spread out it's hard to get to what Canadians need to and about about that in the investment of government in the north.

Well I think Canadians should understand that all 25 Nunavut communities are fly in and fly out. When you live in the south you could just take it for granted, you can drive to where you want to go. If you want to go visit your relatives in the next town that could be as few as 50 miles away, you have to fly there. Every product that we use is either flown in or shipped in by the ship in the summer. We can't just get it. It has to be flown in; all our groceries our flown in. We have the highest cost of living and food insecurity because everything has to be flown in and so therefore it costs so much. As I think most people in southern Canada know, airplanes are one of the most expensive moded of transportation.

Are you seeing change with climate change as well.

Yes we have. It's it's it's real and it's coming in. It's here we see it in permafrost we see in the thinning of the CIA some people bowhunting people lose to the storm Bilston some clams there all their lives when they fall through the waters where their parents are not as predictable anymore and we have more seemed to have more extreme winds than their elders says Sporkin some relatives that used to be able to predict the weather not in terms of equipment just by luck and that the clouds in the skies. And now it's very hard to predict the weather any more.

You mentioned the permafrost and there are already high cost housing construction. The permafrost issue plays right into that as well.

Correct. Yeah. Not only new construction but same with existing construction that's there whether it's the houses shifting because the permafrost is way more active or the roads and the runways are shifting because the permafrost is more active so it's ah it's an issue that we're dealing with we can control it but we are doing the best we can to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change.

With all of these issues that you're raising that we're talking about some new leaders think we'd be better off under any wheat self-government. What do you think.

I know that none of would have incorporated past the motion this far seeing the one study at all. Find out exactly what it might mean but I think were to that here we have pointed to Emilie's and ah but to our Lenawee I myself was a premium is every nook and all the cabinet ministers are in it so it's are other people might think that's not true in government but it's the closest thing to how does self rule I think.

So when we talk about the struggles that you still face I'm wondering what benefits none of it has bright. What are the things you want to celebrate on this 20th anniversary.

Well, a celebration means positive stuff so.. In general, Nunavummiut are very resilient and Inuit, a lot of times, take stuff as it comes, and adapt and go from there with their positive outlook and I think people are happy that we did get our own territory and that we have the realisation that we have Nunabut and we just want the rest of Canada to know that we're up there. It's not just a big hunk of land with nobody there. It's sparsely populated. I think there's are 35,000 people living in Nunavut, but it's almost one third the mass of Canada. That's a huge chunk of -- I guess you could call it real estate that's part of Canada, the land mass. And we just want Canadians to know that we're up there, were proud Canadians and we're happy to be part of Canada. We just are so lacking in infrastructure that we need help to be on the same footing as the rest of Canadians.

AMT: How has Nunavut changed how Inuit feel about their future?

JS: I'm not sure in theory here and in government we are more in control of our future. I think most people in the communities sometimes dont realise that we just dont have the money and the resources to do everything that we need to get done as a government we get a block of funding and will going to make tough decisions on where this money is going to go. And its not going to meet the needs of on would. So there is disappointment at times that we cannot provide all of the money for all that they want but the individuals I believe they're happy you haven't and have never believed this will happen do happen. We just can't give them all that they want and need because we don't have the resources to do that. I now believe that 20 years from now and once someone sitting in the same chair that they'll have a much are they'll have a positive story to tell of living and their Canadians and it's I believe the future is good.

AMT: Premeber Savikataaq thank you so much for speaking with me today.

JS: Thank you that you could have me tell my side of the message here and that I'm very happy and very proud to be the premier on the creation of our 20 year anniversary.

AMT: Thank you again.

JS: Goodbye.

AMT: Joe Savikataaq is the premier of Nunavut. And a sad note, Friday the speaker of Nunavut's Legislative Assembly died. Joe Enook was 61-years-old. That is our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Tom Power will talk to the acclaimed composer Danny Elfman. You've likely heard his music in movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas or on a little show called The Simpsons. We're going to leave you today with another voice from Nunavut though, from its thriving music scene. You likely already know the work of the Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq or the Jerry Cans, the band that sings mainly inInuktitut. There's also a band putting a northern twist on the blues and so we'll leave you with them. Jeff Maurce from the band, the Trade-Offs. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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Apr. 1, 2019 episode transcript

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