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The Current Transcript for October 31, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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I don't know that there's anybody out there that's walking through this world right now who isn't behind their eyes, carrying a lot of weight and a lot of history.

MATT GALLOWAY: The Liberal MP Mark Holland, earned a reputation in the House of Commons as a political gladiator. A take no prisoners style of politics was his life at the expense of everything else? Now Holland is speaking out about the devastating toll that took on his family and his mental health. In a moment, he's here with a call for a more humane style of politics. Also this morning, it has been a long month since post-tropical storm Fiona tore through Atlantic Canada.

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It's all ripped apart. Never went to bed last night. I've barely sleep. It's just... It's heartbreaking. And not just for me, for everyone.

MG: In 30 minutes we had to Newfoundland, P.E.I. and Cape Breton to hear about the slow cleanup and what lies ahead for life at the water's edge. We start, though, with the price of politics. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Liberal MP Mark Holland on how the pressures of politics left his life in ashes

Guest: Mark Holland

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When I lost because I had thrown my entire universe into this enterprise to the expense of, unfortunately, a lot of other things that I should have taken better care of. I was in a really desperate spot. I was told that, you know, I was toxic. Conservatives hated me. No organisation would want to hire me. My marriage failed. As I mentioned, my space with my children was not in a good place. And most particularly, my passion, the thing that I had believed so ardently in was the purpose of my life was in ashes at my feet in my career. I'm not proud to say that I made an attempt on my life.

MG: That personal revelation is not something you normally hear from a politician at a parliamentary committee. But at a hearing recently on whether Parliament should continue to allow MPs to continue to participate online. Mark Holland reflected at length about the toll that public life can take. Mark Holland is the Liberal MP for Ajax Pickering in Ontario and the Liberal House leader. And just a warning, this conversation will include a reference to suicide. Mark Holland is with me in our Toronto studio. Mark, good morning.

MARK HOLLAND: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Tell me about why you decided to be so open about what you've been through now.

MARK HOLLAND: You know, I think when you walk around after the pandemic generally, but on Parliament Hill specifically, you see a lot of people who you can tell are suffering but aren't talking about it. And I saw a lot of people who were where I was in 2010 and 2011, and and I didn't talk about that. I mean, I thought that talking about what what I was going on would make me would make me weak. And that if I came out and I said how I was struggling. So I think I really hit it. And I see a lot of people carrying an enormous amount of anxiety. You know, and I think that's what happens a lot. And this isn't just for obviously politicians and staff. I think it's it's in the world right now. A lot of us are absorbing all the anxiety around us. And and it's a lot more than it normally is. And folks aren't sure where to put it or how to talk about it. And so obviously I want to change the culture in Parliament Hill so that we can have these kinds of conversations and I think also hope that people don't make some of the same mistakes I did.

MG: What did political life do to you? I mean, because I think a lot of people were surprised by what you spoke about and how you spoke about it. So in whatever way that you're most comfortable in talking about and talk about what happened to you and what this did to you.

MARK HOLLAND: Yeah, I think at the time it was it was my purpose. I felt, you know, I felt drawn to it, and in a way that is really kind of difficult to explain. And I felt really privileged to work in it. And when I was, you know, 16, I first started really getting involved. You know, I wasn't in a good place. I was in a really rough place in in my life. And it gave me a sense of purpose. And so I think I really clung to that. And I didn't face a lot of issues behind me. I just sort of charged forward. And I gave it everything I had. And, you know, somebody said, you know, you got to be here. The community says you've got to be at this event. Your party says you've got to be that event later on, which says you have to be somewhere else. I did all of those things and as a consequence, you know, allowed a lot of my relationships to deteriorate to an unacceptable level, including with my children. And it left me at the end when I lost in 2011 with my purpose gone. At that point, I would I thought my purpose was in recognising that I had had some some misplaced priorities. And as a result, my personal life was was in a very, very difficult place.

MG: You said that you failed your family. That's a really hard thing to say.

MARK HOLLAND: Yeah, it is. You know, I've had a lot of hard conversations with my kids. You know, I made those choices earnestly. But, you know, I have to look back and say I wouldn't do it that way again. I see that now. I've spent three terms trying to live differently, that I should have created better boundaries, that I should have been there at more moments in their life and. You know, that's a lament. I can't change it. I can only try to do the job that I can do right now as best they can to be their father. And, you know, I look forward and I just think about people who are engaging in the profession with the same kind of zeal to say, you've got to take a pause and you got to create those boundaries and you have to tell people no, because you're not going to get to go back.

MG: As you say, at the lowest point of this, he made an attempt on your life. When you look back at that now, do you understand the place that you were in?

MARK HOLLAND: I do. I mean, I think one of the things that happens, like I was, I mentioned, in a very, very low place, in a very unhealthy environment as a child. And it's a feeling you touch. And when you return to it and you feel down, you understand it. And it's only when you're in that headspace, I guess, that you understand it. And, you know, I had to, I guess, face a lot of things that I wouldn't look at and I look at myself. Back then, I didn't want to talk about my weaknesses. I hated myself for my weaknesses. I hated myself for- I think generally I don't think I was very kind to myself. And, you know, we talked about the difference between humiliation and shame. It's it's you know, it's embarrassing to talk about these things, but I don't feel shame about them anymore. And I felt shame about them at that moment in time when I lost and I realised the mistakes I made and the places that I should have been and the boundaries I should have kept. And I couldn't go back. And you know, at that time, you know, because I had been such a fierce critic of the Conservative government, I was told, well, look, you'll never be hired. You're toxic. Everybody, you know, nobody wants to be associated with somebody who is such an enemy of the government.

MG: When somebody says that you're toxic and you're never going to be hired, I mean. What happens then? How do you interpret that?

MARK HOLLAND: Well, I interpreted it that I didn't have a future. So I was in a place where, you know, my career, which had been really too much the centre of my life, was now, you know, in rubble.

MG: What if people said to you in response because you have opened the door? So what if people said back to you about shared experiences, similar things that they might have been dealing with?

MARK HOLLAND: I think there's been a lot of people coming up to me who are closer and talking about dark moments in their own lives, moments when they've stared down the most hopeless times in their life. I think that the conversation generally about how much anxiety there is in the world and how much more people are carrying. I don't think there's been a time like this since World War Two. And so people are carrying an enormous amount of anxiety. And it's it feels like a little bit of permission to talk about it, you know, for to see that I don't know that there's anybody out there that's walking through this world right now who isn't behind their eyes, carrying a lot of weight and a lot of history. And I think we missed that. And in missing that, we miss compassion for one another. And in missing compassion for one another, we create a discourse that is very unhealthy.

MG: Those are lessons that could be applied broadly. You were speaking specifically to fellow politicians. And you said that the committee that that parliament needs to become more human and more compassionate. What's wrong with how we are doing politics now?

MARK HOLLAND: I think we have to go back and ask what the role is that each of us are trying to do. I think that every politician that I know that is that is a good person. And look, there's not good people in any job that where it's 100%, but there's a lot of good people on all sides of the aisle, and they're trying to soak up the anxiety of their communities. They're attempting to make their community and their country a better place. And what they're doing is looking into the void of the unknown and taking a shot saying, I think this is where we need to go. And there's a lot of courage in that. And when we talk to each other in such harsh and uncompassionate tones, it makes people not believe the sincerity of what the people in the political field are trying to do. And then that makes the general population lose compassion for us and think that we're just in it for ourselves, and that all we talk about is our differences and fight over petty things. And I don't think that's what people want.

MG: You yourself have been in politics for more than 25 years. Right. I mean, when you look at at the culture that you're describing. And you look at your own story. How do you see your own role in helping to shape the culture that that you're in right now? Do you see that you've had a role to play in that?

MARK HOLLAND: Well, let me speak first to the role that I played improperly, you know, when I was in opposition and when this job was was pushing out and displacing so much water in my personal life, I was I was too partisan. I believed it. I had drank the Kool-Aid. But I was, you know, very harsh in my rhetoric in how I spoke. And I think opposition obviously holds government to account. But there's there's you know, there's a tone to that.

MG: I want to play something. This is from 2006. And this was you questioning Stockwell Day, who is then the minister of public safety. Take a listen.

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MARK HOLLAND: Did you push the Prime Minister for the commissioner to be released or fired? Yes or no?

STOCKWELL DAY: Mr. Owen, you have an amazing propensity for hyperbole, which is certainly your right to do.

MARK HOLLAND: Did you or did you not push for the commissioner to be fired? Yes or no? In fact.

STOCKWELL DAY: It's in the article.

MARK HOLLAND: Yes or no? I'm just asking you. I'm asking the question. Can you answer the question, please? Answer the question.

MG: You're known as a gladiator at that point. And you said you describe yourself as an attack dog in parliament. You also said that you drank the Kool-Aid. When you listen back to that, I mean, how do you reflect on on who that person was and what you were doing in that moment?

MARK HOLLAND: I think that what I see when I look back then is somebody who became very I was very, very convinced that I was right. And I would get, I think, very black and white about things. And it's you know, I was asking appropriate questions, but I have to ask, was I asking them the right way? And could have I gotten the same information with a with a different approach? And, you know, it was a gladiatorial style arena at that point in time. I think that every all parties are evolving out of that. That question period, in my opinion, is certainly much better than it was. I mean, I don't I don't know, Matt, if you've watched question period, there's still some people screaming and yelling and carrying on ridiculously, but it's a much more mature venue than it was ten years ago when I was there. I would get up to speak and the screaming would be so loud that I could barely hear myself speak. And it was viciously aggressive and viciously personal. And in some ways you felt you had to live that way in order to survive and navigate that environment. Parliament is much, much better in that sense right now that the stability of the discourse has actually improved. And I think that's heartening. And I think that, yes, it still has a long way to go. And yes, we could we could we could choose how we speak to each other. We could do a better job. But it has really improved, you know, and I think perhaps there is some insight to that because you have to ask, who is the audience for when we're being so hyperbolic and so over the top? Like, who exactly are we impressing with that? Well.

MG: People might wonder in part, because the audience may be an audience that is atomised for social media, that people are just doing things to get a clip that can end up on Twitter. But also to your point, there used to be a time when people could disagree without being disagreeable, that people might strongly disagree with partisan issues. But then after when the disagreement was done, you would go and have a beer with somebody. And I just wonder what happened to those days? What happened to that kind of politics and why has that changed, do you think?

MARK HOLLAND: I think our politics got really mean, and I don't know when or how that started, but it became a different conversation. You know, instead of disagreeing on policy, you started impugning people's motives and talking about people with whatever adjective you want to place on it to being bad people. And that's a really dangerous thing. I know very few bad people in my life and very, very small number of those are in Parliament on any side of the aisle, I think impugning one another's motives, speaking about each other personally in a harsh way, not having compassion for one another as human beings, not being able to. Well, actually, the other side revelling in somebody's pain. You know, at the end of the day, parliament is largely full of people who give more than they take, people who care profoundly about their communities and people who want to make a difference. And then we we unfortunately right now and I think you've touched upon something that is really a big problem. We don't have the time for real discourse that gets boiled down to its most simple elements.

MG: We also exist, though, in an in a highly partisan era outside of question period where and we saw this in the occupation of Ottawa, in the polarisation that people speak about in this country, where there's a lot of anger, there's real anger in the country right now. And I just wonder. Is part of you speaking. There's a personal element to this, but is part of you speaking now in this way to also perhaps try to diffuse some of that anger, to take some of that sting out?

MARK HOLLAND: Yeah, because I think what anger any time I get really angry, I'm wrong. Maybe not 100% wrong. But the anger is not a not not a it's not a productive long term response. You should have anger in a moment. Something happens and it fills you with anger. But you have to convert anger to purpose. And I think that it's easy to believe that there are villains on one side and good guys on the other. It's an easier world to navigate. And, you know, in our past we had bad countries and good countries, and now we just have a really difficult global situation. And if we if we use anger, I don't know about you, but when somebody comes and yells at me, I don't start listening to them. And so that if we actually have the objective of hearing one another and hearing one another's anxieties and one another's ideas about how we can get through this, then we have to talk to each other in a more human way.

MG: You, in your remarks, referenced your friend, the late Arnold Chan, who died in 2017. What did you take from what he said towards the end of his life?

MARK HOLLAND: Arnold was my mentor. He was a best friend, and he was somebody who had a profound passion for Parliament and Canada and in the idea of liberal democracy and. He was really worried. You know, this was his last days on earth. And anybody gets a chance to watch that and watch that speech. It you know, I'm trying to carry the flame of what he was talking about, which is we have to recognise collectively what the real threats are here. There are differences between us, for sure, but none of those differences are bigger than the existential crises that face us.

MG: Do you realistically believe that you can put the genie back in the bottle here? That that that the compassion that he talked about having more compassion for each other, that the compassion that you talked about, that that, you know, the the host needs to be more human in some ways. Can you put that genie back in the bottle in the environment that you operate in and that we live in right now?

MARK HOLLAND: I mean, I think you have to try. I believe in the moral arc of of history. I believe in where we're going. I believe that right now is a transition through something very hard to something much better. You know, in World War Two, I'm sure they were pining to go back to the 1920s. You know, we're in a really hard time right now, and I think we're pining to go back to something simpler. I don't think in ten years we want to go back. I think in ten years we'll see all of this as a transition to something much better, much deeper, much, much more profound. And I have a real faith in that. And so maybe I'm wrong, but why wouldn't I try?

MG: When you were at your lowest and you contemplated suicide, you said that coming out of that was the genesis of you seeing your life differently. How so?

MARK HOLLAND: Well, my job is now the fourth most important thing in my life. You know, I see my life very clearly. There's, you know, who I love. There's who loves me and there's what I love. And that's my compass. And, you know, sometimes my life will be as small as my immediate friends and my family. You know, like when I lost my career. I think the other thing I focus on is, you know, when I grieve what I lost and I get angry about what I lost. You know, I was in a sort of space of depletion, so I shouldn't have allowed myself to get there. But I think it also misses the point that I was given something to mourn. And so I just refocus now on what I have instead of what I lost. And I think that that's that makes all the difference. And then the second side of it is, you know, I wake up and I just try to follow what my mom does now all the time, since she's had her own journey through darkness, which is to focus on what is good, what is light, what is positive, what do you have gratitude for? And then that last point of just making sure your needs are met, because I think when you're every bad decision I made, every mistake that I made, it all came from a place of depletion, of ignoring what my fundamental needs were, because I thought that to have some other thing, I had to suppress them.

MG: And how are you doing now?

MARK HOLLAND: I'm great. I'm great. You know, I love my life. I love my work and most importantly, I love my family.

MG: Mark, thank you very much. I'm really glad to. This is difficult, but it's important to me. Glad to have you here. Thank you very much.

MARK HOLLAND: Thanks for having me back.

MG: Mark Holland is the Liberal MP for Pickering, Ajax and Liberal House Leader. If you are having suicidal thoughts or know someone who is, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Helpline. You'll find that at 18334564566. The CBC News is next. And then.

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This debris is going to take forever to fix up and then it'll be the winter. So everybody's got a lot of work to do. I guess we survived, I guess is all we can say.

MG: A little bit of music in the background from the Barra MacNeils they played last night in Glace Bay at a benefit concert, raising funds for those who have been impacted by Fiona. It's been more than a month since post Tropical Storm Fiona tore through Atlantic Canada. Destruction, as you know, is catastrophic homes, businesses, infrastructure all washed away. The rebuilding has just barely begun. It is a long and difficult road ahead. The next hour of the programme will be talking about that road, about what people are doing to try and piece their lives back together, but also what the future of living at the edge of the ocean will be like. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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Frustration in Atlantic Canada as storm Fiona cleanup drags on – Pt. 1

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: We're coming up for the next hour. We are going to hear from people across Atlantic, Canada. They are recovering and rebuilding after post-tropical storm fiona. One month after the storm ripped through, there is still much to do in a long journey back.

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So Friday I had a I had a meltdown, a very big one. I think it was well deserved. I nobody can justify that there wasn't justifiable because it was.

MG: It's been one month since Fiona blew through Atlantic Canada and swept a lot of people off their feet. This morning, we're checking in on some of the places hit hardest starting in Cape Breton.

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The trauma is still there. You know, a month after the hurricane.

MG: In Sydney, there is still a daily line of people stretching the length of a motel waiting for Red Cross relief.

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VOICE 1: What are you looking for?

VOICE 2: Whatever they can help me with. Everything had gone. It's gone.

VOICE 1: Horrible. It was horrible.

VOICE 2: It's been very hard for everyone.

MG: A lot of people in this line on the day that were there, they're carrying little scraps of paper and the paper has numbers scratched along it.

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VOICE 3: My registration number and my ticket. I'm looking for relief. I had tree loss. I had food damage. I had to throw all of my meat and it was terrible. And I even cut trees down and I almost fell on the holes and everything.

VOICE 1: You had to do it all yourself?

VOICE 3: Yeah, pretty well.

VOICE 2: Well, we have six trees uprooted right out of the ground. Big holes. So we got all. We done a lot to clean up.

VOICE 1: How much do you figure this storm cost you all?

VOICE 2: Well, more than $100 that they're going to give us for food that you carry in one bag or to the grocery store to get trees removed. I mean, that and and my parents don't even cover because the trees didn't hit our house or hit a vehicle now.

VOICE 1: So are they still there? Are they still in a boat?

VOICE 2: Yeah, we are. They're in the back. That's my story. And, you know, you suffered through something. I never thought I'd ever go through something like that, but I did. I did.

MG: These are the stories shared by a lot of people in Cape Breton right now, one month after Fiona. There is still a huge mess to clean up. The Mayor Amanda McDougall says her community has been left pretty much alone trying to pull itself out of the mess.

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So now we're working through things like, hey, there's $300 million from the federal government, but we we're not sure how that's going to roll out yet. And the disaster financial assistance from the province, but we're not sure if trees are included. So it's just so infuriating because people need help right now. Just stop with the bureaucracy. Get on with the action.

MG: There are still giant trees down and lots of places, some of them still leaning on crushed houses.

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People are struggling outside of disastrous events like what we've seen with Fiona. And so adding something like this on to an already vulnerable and struggling household is just a recipe for disaster. You know, I was at that military kind of command centre with Nova Scotia Power and all of the wonderful service workers that came here to help on that first morning at 530 in the morning, I had my oldest son with me too. It was just amazing. That gave me so much hope. But then to see things slowly dwindle and not have any information as to why my staff here reaching out to the provincial coordination team only to get an email back, an automated response saying, Oh, we've closed down their command centre, it's no longer needed. And you're left thinking like, Fiona is not, oh, this is still happening. Could you have not given us a heads up that you're shutting down your provincial command centre on this weather event? When I thought everybody was coming together to help, it just kind of fizzled away.

MG: That's Mayor Amanda McDougall in Cape Breton. One of the worst hit neighbourhoods in her area is Glace Bay.

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Never seen something like this before. 90, 90 years old.

MG: The neighbourhood, nicknamed the Hub, made up mostly of old coal mining houses, still called company houses.

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It's surreal, like you don't realise what it's like to be homeless for 30 days. But I look at my neighbours and they're not doing any better.

MG: In The Hub it's clear that even if you're one of the lucky ones with insurance, your luck is out when it comes to trying to hire somebody to fix just about anything. CBC producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh spent the day there, starting in Kimberly Losier's front yard.

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KIMBERLY LOSIER: I come down here every day to try to clear out the water, open the windows, air it out, try to prevent more damage from happening while I'm waiting to find out what's going to happen.

MG: Kimberley and her teenage son have been staying at a friend's place since Fiona ripped the roof off of their house. And though she tried to have it tarped, it's been raining inside, on and off since the storm.

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KIMBERLY LOSIER: You just look at every single house in this neighbourhood and every single house has been damaged. Every single one on my street. There's not a single house that you look at. Like that pile that's sitting in that yard is somebody's roof. There's just piles of debris. So I end up waking up that morning to two doors in my yard that are not my doors. They were to like metal screen doors. One flew into my back door and left a small area, like a small bit of damage. And the other one hit my back window. Believe it or not, though, where you got so lucky you didn't break the glass. Like somebody is looking down on me. So if you can see on that corner, there is building materials up in my yard that are not mine. So somebody comes looking for them, they are there.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And people who are listening won't be able to see what it's like when you turn down on your street.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: It looks like if you've ever watched movies where it's like a war and something blew up and you see the damage to sides of houses. That's kind of what it looks like because the houses are like missing chunks, like there's sections of people's houses just like ripped right off. Like when I say like a roof, I don't just mean a few shingles. I mean, like, the whole entire structure of the roof is gone. It's sitting in someone's yard. Like, I don't think you can be intimate until you look at it.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And we see people on all sides of us right now working.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: Yes. And these are just like friends being able to help out because there is nobody to do any work. Nobody you can call any contractor. They don't even ask you your address. They just tell you straight up they don't have anybody. So I don't even think they care. Right now where you live, there's just nobody to do anything. It's Cape Breton. We're pretty much kind of sheltered out here. I think. It doesn't matter where you live on the island. If you're on the island, you're not getting anything done. All right. There might be a funky smell. And be careful. There's probably water, at least in some areas. On the main floor, you have some kind of ripped up stuff so that we can prevent the mould from growing underneath. And this is where the door cracked my frame so my door doesn't closed properly. My son and I decided to sleep downstairs because I heard that it was going to be bad and somebody said that it was going to be similar to one in the winds with one when they were in Halifax were so bad that they could fill windows shaking. And so if we were on the main level, we would probably be a lot safer. So my son and I set up down here, which was probably the safe thing because this is the one room in the house that did not get any damage because that sound, when your house is being ripped apart, is a sound I hope nobody ever listens to. I don't ever want nobody to know what that sounds like.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So you two are sleeping down here and then what happened?

KIMBERLY LOSIER: Well, my son was sleeping down here. I was awake because I was just listening. You couldn't sleep through that sound. The sound was. It was incredible. And then that sound, it was like, I guess like Velcro shoes and that sound was, like, multiplied and it was just so loud. And it was being- that's the sound of your roof being ripped off. It's like that tch tch sound. And it just it came flying off. And then when the chimney came down, the big boom that it made. All I know is I went I looked outside. I could see the roof of the front. And I woke up my son and I told my son, I said, as soon as it's safe, we have to go. We can't stay anymore. It's there's no way to leave because there's power lines down everywhere. Like you couldn't drive down the street because there's power lines everywhere. Like, I don't know how you were going to drive around that. There's roofs in the middle of the road. Then once you get off the Hub, there's trees down everywhere in the Stirling. Like there was no way to get anywhere until the emergency crews got out and at least made the roads passable. It was overwhelming. Like I just try to keep it together because I have a 14 year old like I can't fall apart because he needs me. It was our home. It wasn't much. It wasn't glorious. It wasn't. But that view, that's $1,000,000 view if anybody can't see it. It's the Atlantic Ocean and it is gorgeous. The sunsets, superb. So it's a company. So what that means, it's kind of like a semi-detached or a duplex, however you want to look at it. But they're old. They were built here when the coal miners came. So I had neighbours that were attached to me and over the course of years they've neglected their side and they neglect it to the point where they abandoned it. And when they did, their pipes burst. And I suffered an immense loss like. I had to fight hard to get that other side removed, and I had to try to rebuild everything piece by piece. This is my son's bedroom. And like I said, his room doesn't- while there is some damage here, all down here. But this is where his window imploded. And you can see all of its cracked and come down because the window literally. Shifted and came out of its frame. I am beyond stressed. For the first week, it's like, okay, you're kind of. But now you're. It's old, you're tired. And. You just want to go home. But I don't have a home. At least not one I can be in. This is where the chimney is behind this wall, and that's where it came down behind you. And you can literally see the ceiling is hanging, drywall is broken up and blistered everywhere. And the smell in here is very musty. It's definitely not a room you want to spend any time in right now. I need. I need someone to come and do the work. I need the insurance company to step up. And it's not just me. Cape Breton needs help. We need people to work. We need contractors, construction workers, electricians, mercenaries, plumbers, heating and cooling guys. We just need people to come here who actually want to work because it's not like they're not getting paid. Like there's people like me and my friend across the street. We have insurance. They've said, yes, your claims have been approved, but 30 days later, nothing's getting done because there's no one to work. The bathroom was fairly untouched, which we are very lucky. For me to book an Airbnb for a month, that's five grand. Do I look like I have five grand available on a credit card? No, I don't. And I'm sure a lot of people out here don't either. No, it's. So get the money in their hands so that they can call their credit card company. They can say, Hey, I'm putting that payment through because I have to book an Airbnb, because that's the only thing that people can find right now. Like, I can't see, I'm lucky. It's just me and my son. And I see that because there's families out there with four or five children and what are they going to do, stay in that one room that I was offered? How how would you put a family of five in one room indefinitely? Like they are telling me, it could be three months, five months. Nobody knows how long I'm going to be like this. And like I said, I'm very lucky I have somebody that was willing to let me live at their place with my son. Not everyone's lucky like me right now.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Do you think there's people here who are living in places that look like this?

KIMBERLY LOSIER: I know they are. I know they are because there's people with company houses that don't have insurance, that don't have the option to say even go to their insurance company so they can't do the repairs on their own from finding friends to help them. They don't have a choice. I might put it up, but it's still every everyday. That's Jojo's house. Hey, Jojo. Hi. Can she ask you some questions?

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So, is this your place?

JOJO: That's my place.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Tell me what happened.

JOJO: Fiona, huh? We were just laying in bed. We heard a noise, and we came downstairs and didn't sound like much. Went to sleep. When we get up in the morning, we looked out the window because it was pitch black night and we seen all the debris. So took the roof of both the homes and just threw it. There's part of it there. The rest is all over there.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And who's going to clean this up? How are you going to.

JOJO: Well, look, I'm 66 years old, lived here all my life, and I can't start over again. So I'll stay here. Whatever.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So where are you staying?

JOJO: I stay here ever since I've had. And no water, no electricity? No. My wife and I have...

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: [Unintelligible]

JOJO: Well, the chimney, the roof, the chimney, the stack. Everything blew up. That was in the home. Everything was gone.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And do you have insurance?

JOJO: No, no. Pretty trying, but we're tough people around here. We stick together and help each other and we get treated.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: Like electric heaters. And I was like, I only got one because I don't got a house to use it in. So it was more than I'd give given anything like if I could.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: I'm going to take your picture. What's your name?

JOJO: My name is Edward Spencer.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Nicknamed Jojo.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: Jojo. Oh. I didn't know that was. Your name was Edward. How's your name Edward?

JOJO: My wife was really devastated. She was kind of in shock, and she's still a little fearful of, like, when she goes up to bed at night and she hears any sound, that kind of it still shakes her up a bit.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: What's that over there?

JOJO: Right there. That's the other part of our roof. I think it's a double room.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: It came down a month ago. Why is it still there?

JOJO: Oh, because we're just waiting to see who's going to clean it up, who's responsible. So I'm doing most of it. Like I got all the balls off. And as you see, I like I piled it up there what I could do, but like I'm not even supposed to be doing this stuff, but I do.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: I'm just hoping that help is coming because, yeah, they got people's power restored. But what about people who can't turn the power back on so they can't have heat? Like Jojo didn't have a chimney. Like I have so much water damage in the walls that if I turn that power on, boom.

JOJO: It was a lot worse. But it's starting to come now. It's like we're cleaning up ourselves and doing as much as we can.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Who's that?

JOJO: Oh, he's just one of the guys that's doing some contract work. Stephen. Hey. Do you want to do an interview?

STEVEN: Steven Resnick, helping people in the Hub who needs to help.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Tell me what the last 30 days have been like.

STEVEN: Just finished. Roof rack on the inside. Insulate now residing in the roof from that place. Put a door run down the road the roof over there.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Are you tired?

STEVEN: No, I'm used to it.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: I'm the one that lives in 116 hill office suite. That's my friend Charlie. There's no workers. Yeah.

STEVEN: That roof, that lane between yours and Joe's, that your roof. That's Jojo's over there. So, neighbours. And what's there on the road?

KIMBERLY LOSIER: It was mine. Well, not all of it. And some of it over ended up over in Jane's yard.

STEVEN: But I went over there. I told her, like, just feed me every day because I grew up in the Hub down there. 32 years old. You know, these people here, you know, they don't have no one.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: I want to get a pitch roof put on.

STEVEN: Pitch roofs are not always the best. It's going to get better.

KIMBERLY LOSIER: My insurance is not going to cover all the damages. I'm still going to be out of pocket. So regardless of what I do. They just estimate all the damages to my house. $58,000. I'll have, you know. Where are you? You called Roof Guy. My phone. Were you up there yelling at me? Yes. Okay. Because I just want to be home and I've been homeless since because I can't stay in there is literally flooded. So me and Steven were talking outside and he asked if he could come in and have a look at my house and see how bad it was. And so when I showed him, he's like, You've got to go. Everything. Like, it's waters everywhere. And now he's going around measuring everything to get estimates. So maybe, maybe you'll be home by Christmas. Now there's just some guy walking around and measuring everything in my house. Like I did not expect this is how my day was going to end.

STEVEN: You need some plywood, some two by six fascia soffit, and you're going to need six, 13 rolls of...

KIMBERLY LOSIER: Like I'm the lucky ones. Like, I may not have my home to go to, but me and my kid are okay and all I want is a new roof. And to come home, that's all I want.

MG: Kimberly Losier, who lives in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, she and her neighbours were speaking with CBC producer Mary-Catherine Mackintosh. That's a bit of the Barra MacNeil's performing, Mademoiselle Gallant. They, along with many other Cape Breton acts, played in Glace Bay last night for the Rise Together fundraiser. All the proceeds from that night went to the Canadian Red Cross's Fiona Relief Fund. Well, the Newfoundland and Labrador, the area around Channel Port of Bass, was hit, as we know, very hard by Fiona. Three generations of Shauna Baker's family live there, and it was her parents that Shawna was most worried about. They've lived right on the coast in the same house for 60 years.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAWNA: My dad watches the news. He was watching all week about the storm that was coming or approaching. Normally, I would have to convince them to leave. But this time he lived on his own.

MG: They all went to Shawna's daughter's house. And in the end, it was a good decision.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAWNA: There was one wave that came in and it covered my parents house, and the house just disappeared. And the wave did land in a driveway across the street at a neighbour's. And they they said that soon as the wave was going back out, they were jumping in their vehicle and leaving the area.

MG: Her parent's house was destroyed, along with pretty much everything inside. And they're now living in a local hotel.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAWNA: They don't have any of their things around them, you know, like their pictures as are being destroyed and family pictures, you know, the rocking chair that they would sit in, that's that's not there. Yeah. Well, you know, we talk about it. What's the future look like or where they're going to live in the future? Because they really don't know at this time what's going to happen. The unknown is very stressful. Yeah. Not knowing, you know, if they're going to have a house again or if they're going to be living in the seniors complex or they really don't know what the future looks like.

RENE: So this must weigh heavily on you as well, worrying about your parents.

SHAWNA: They're strong.

MG: The interview ended there. Shawna Baker was speaking with Rene Roy from Wreckhouse Press. It's a local news organisation in southwest Newfoundland. That kind of emotion that you heard in her voice is running just below the surface, right through port, a Basque. Frank Spencer Live is on the tip of town in East End Channel.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANK: I must look like a dozen pictures and posted on Facebook of different sunsets and like a lot lived. I'm having a little bit of difficulty getting the passion back. Matter of fact, I get the negative of the passion. When I look at the window now, I just see destruction. See, my bedroom view is just a little bit of not a nightmare, but a little bit less than a dream, to put it that way.

MG: Frank's house is mostly okay, but Frank is a mechanic and he owns his own shop. He's sitting on a battered leather couch in the waiting area. He's washed his hands, but his clothes are covered in grease.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANK: A bit concerned about that because winter is coming on and I'm not enclosed around the basement anymore. The wind and snow is going to be under my business. The water must have taken some cars. I had done back some parked cars and it took them, pushed them in the basement and broke down the back wall. Sun shines in my basement now when it shines. But you know, I've got to try to get some clothes in them because the land behind the garage is gone. And like any significant storm now is going to take the rest of it. And that's going to compromise my business.

MG: Out front are two of those cars that had been pushed into the basement. They were destroyed. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon. But part of Frank's job involves him driving around town.

SOUNDCLIP

FRANK: Everybody seems to be going around in a bit of a daze and really absorb the performance of the thing, like the results of the incident. There's still hoses to come down, which I fear is going to affect the mental health of more people because the scene is changing right in front of them daily. The community has gotten stronger and that has pulled together, but it's divided with emotions. And people were talking about the storm only. I keep seeing new devastation. I find if I concentrate on the devastation, it interferes with my mental health. So I avoid the devastated areas. When I do test driving, I stay away from those areas because just to get it off my mind.

MG: The mood in the town is something that Edgar Reed has noticed as well.

SOUNDCLIP

EDGAR: It's almost like a ghost place. There's no movement of people, you know. Of course, the traffic around town is almost down to nil. One time you stood at the window and watch traffic go by, but you don't see that anymore. It's like it's really changed the way people are moving around and talking to one another. And so I guess there's a lot of anxiety of their people who been displaced and so on.

MG: Edgar hasn't been displaced, but his deck is completely gone. There is damage to his siding and windows and he's got a kayak under his patio that washed up. It's not his he's hoping to find the owner of said Kayak. The land itself sustained the most damage. There's a new trench between him and his neighbours that's three metres wide and they used to be six metres or 20 feet of land between his house and the ocean.

SOUNDCLIP

EDGAR: I have two feet now. That's all that's left of the land. I think it's going to take a while to get back to normal. That's a way of putting it normal. You know, you feel good. You feel good. You were near the ocean, but not anymore. I guess that's what oceanfront property now is going to be hard to sell. I guess you don't feel the same about the ocean. I'm not. No, I don't think I'm scared. The ocean? No. I have no fears of the ocean, but no knows about these storms.

MG: Edgar Reid, from Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland. Thanks again to Rene Roy from Rico's Press for recording those interviews for us. Well, coming up after your regional update, we stay in Newfoundland and Labrador and speak with a man who's hoping to clean up after Fiona. He's on the water and we'll hear from him. We'll also visit Prince Edward Island, where the fishing and farming communities are still picking up the pieces. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. We're back in 90 seconds.

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Frustration in Atlantic Canada as storm Fiona cleanup drags on – Pt. 2

Guests: Shawn Bath, Allan Coady, Margaret Barrett

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. As we heard just before your regional update, the southwest coast of Newfoundland and Labrador was hit particularly hard by Fiona. Nearly 100 homes destroyed. Many of them just swept right out to sea. And much of that debris is still lost in the water. Shawn Bath is the founder of the Clean Harbours Initiative in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland. And his team has been helping tackle the cleanup. Sean, good morning.

SHAWN BATH: Morning.

MG: That it's good to talk to you again. You and I have spoken a number of times about the work that you are doing in hauling trash out of the ocean. Where are you working now in the wake of this storm?

SHAWN BATH: Right now we're working from Birdsville to Stephenville. That's our targeted area. We've concentrated most of our efforts in a little town called Burntisland so far and some important assets.

MG: And why was it that you felt you needed to head out there to be part of this work?

SHAWN BATH: Well, I mean, that's what we do. We are Clean Harbours Initiative, and we've been training for this for four years. We've been accumulating the equipment needed to do this on a larger scale than what we had been doing it. And the people [unintelligible], we are obligated to help pay it forward, I guess, and return the favour for all the generosity that the Newfoundlanders have shown us. So it was a good fit for us. Unfortunately, it was a bad thing for all these people, but any way we could make it a little easier on them, we certainly want to do it.

MG: Hmm. I was saying in the introduction that, I mean, these homes swept out to sea, many of them. And the bits and pieces, the debris, everything that was there is still bobbing around in the water. What are you seeing there right now?

SHAWN BATH: Right now we've removed in three weeks, we removed 80,000 pounds of debris. And most of that debris was pieces of people's houses, pieces of people's roofs, steel, shingles, pieces of their sheds, walls, windows, doors, their walls, their stages. And so every day we go out, we bring in a couple of at least two boatloads, some days, five, six boatloads of what have you. And it's always someone's personal belongings or a lot of clothing, like snow suits and life jackets. And anything that was in the stages or sheds near the water was washed out. And some of the stuff, of course, was their houses as well.

MG: And so this would be like personal effects from people. The things if their house was swept out to be like everything that was in their house would be there.

SHAWN BATH: You know, everything needs to be. Some of these people lost their houses. I mean, it was bad enough to lose your house, but at the same time, your house took all your worldly possessions offshore when it left and some people lost their houses, their vehicles the same time. So, I mean, everything these people own in the world, after a lifetime of working, was taken away from them in an instant. So to go out and have to remove some of this debris, knowing that we're removing this guy's house or a part of his older part of his work or whatever, and here it was, his clothes on the bottom here are all tangled up into part of his house. And I need to say, it is quite emotional. It's quite heartbreaking.

MG: Tell me more about that. You say it's heartbreaking. What is it like to see someone's someone's life essentially out there washed out to sea?

SHAWN BATH: You know, maybe when you're recovering some of that stuff, you know, there's somebody in a hotel room or somewhere with nothing left to the world [unintelligible]. And it is everything they own is right here. Underneath our boat are spread out all over the coastline. So it's underneath your boat here and you're talking on the big pieces so you can tow to shore and you're dipping over, gassing up the small pieces. So you try and return some of them. All right. Well, I mean, for the most of that, once within water, it was destroyed by the sea state and all the debris that was entangled into [unintelligible].

MG: And so you're able to return some of those items back to to the people who owned them.

SHAWN BATH: A few things. Most that we return was fishing gear. That was pretty much the bulk of it and not a lot, to be honest with you, because a lot of the fishing gear was destroyed as well. I mean, some of these people had their houses taken away from their cars, their trucks, their clothes, everything. They were left with nothing. And on top of that, then their means of making a living, their livelihood, their fishing gear was gone as well. So, I mean, here you are. I know you just lost everything you own. And now you've got to try to figure out how you going to make a living and rebuild. You know, you want to make money to feed yourself and clothes off for another year.

MG: And so how are you hauling this stuff out of the sea? Just describe the work that you're doing.

SHAWN BATH: Basically it's a couple of dollars per boat. We steam across the harbour. One guy jumps out into the water and the guy aboard the boat basically takes a proposal and stands in would pose the board. And if it's a big piece of debris, like I say, a half a roof or something that you just find a hole in it. You tie a rope through it, and you use your boat to tow back across the harbour. When you get in there, you put it ashore with your boat and the guys operating the equipment, the excavators, they drag it up the slipway and they just demolish from that small to fit into the dump trucks as it's being [unintelliglbe] away.

MG: Tell me about the urgency to get this stuff out of the water. In part in this speaks to what you and I have talked about before when it comes to the old nets that you've been pulling, this this, if it stays in the water, can have a real impact on the environment.

SHAWN BATH: Yeah, well, I'll give you example. We had one golf and it had [unintelligible] and it was about a half a net. That's what was left. And it was in the water approximately five to 10 years based on the amount of coral that had grown on the plastic floors. So that one, it had six lobsters into it and most of the lobsters had chopped the clothes trying to get out. But unfortunately their tails were tangled, their legs were hanging out. So they were just there forever until they die. And we removed that and it picked six lobsters out. We released them. And right now, in most all these small towns, there's all the stages. They're probably 50 to 100 nits and rate. There's probably four or 500 nits in every little harbour. So if one nit can kill six lobsters, you've got 2000 nets in water, you know, in a year, it will probably kill a hundred lobsters per minute. So you look at 100,000 lobsters being destroyed in these little harbours and these guys got a very robust lobster fishery over there. That's what they depend on for Maine fishery. Now, you've lost everything you know and your lobster fishery, your livelihood, even if you're fortunate enough to get new pots and new gear in time for next season, there's possibilities. These nits aren't removed, there's been going be enough there, fishery.

MG: As you say, you think you've hauled out about 80,000 pounds of debris. How long do you think you're going to be there doing this work?

SHAWN BATH: Right now, we're working with the provincial and federal government to try to get funding to keep us there four months. We figure in four months we should have done what we can do with our equipment. So equipment we've done a lot of this stuff is never going to be recovered because it's too heavy, it's too big and it's already washing, deep watering.

MG: What sort of response have you had from people in the community when they see what you're doing?

SHAWN BATH: We've had a tremendous response. We've had people come up to us and give us food and give us money. And just when they would start the gas off their local gas station there, and this gentleman came up to me, him, his boyfriend, and he was in tears like trying to say thank you for coming. And they were so grateful that we had come over there to help out. And to me, it's like it was my obligation to come over and help. But these people were seeing off coalminers and really appreciative saying, so that's great.

MG: Why do you say it's your obligation to come out?

SHAWN BATH: Well, first off, I think all of our obligations as Newfoundlanders to step up in any way we can when there's an incident like this. But like I said before, everything Clean Harbours owns was pretty much everything was donated by the people locally and some through the government, which ultimately is the people's tax dollars in the end. So, yeah, it's definitely we're obligated to step in whenever we can to help out in these situations. I'm hoping in time that we can get enough gear and enough funding so that when an incident like this happens, whether it's here or down, you know, in states or wherever, we can afford to go and be of assistance for an extended period of time.

MG: Just finally, you spend your life on the water and you know how powerful it is. What is a storm like this and the debris that you've seen, what does it tell you about about the strength of the sea and what people are up against in those communities?

SHAWN BATH: Yeah, well, times are changing. The tides are changing. We're getting bigger seas, more wind. So I think we've got to realise a lot of things that we did in the past. We probably can't do anymore. We've got to like, for example, have mastheads them close to our stages, or having our niche stored and our stages and sheds down with the water. I think we got to start looking at keeping things that's deadly or dangerous to the sea. A little further back on shore, just in case this one thing happens again.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you, as always, about the work that you're doing. It's important and we'll let you get back to it. Take care of yourself. And Shawn, thanks a lot.

SHAWN BATH: All right. Thank you. Thanks for helping bring awareness to this and have a good day.

MG: And you take care. Bye bye.

SHAWN BATH: All right. Thanks.

MG: Lot. Shawn Bath is the founder of the Clean Harbours Initiative. He was in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland and Labrador. And as he was just saying, Fiona did enormous damage to the fishery industry in Atlantic Canada. Allan Coady fishes lobster for a living and joins us now from Cove Head, Prince Edward Island. Allan, good morning to you.

ALLAN COADY: Well, good morning to you.

MG: How are you doing? Well, I'm well. Where have we reached you? Because Shawn was talking about the importance of stepping up and helping out. And I mean, you're in the middle of doing that right now.

ALLAN COADY: Yes, I am. I'm just helping a farmer out here are so short of hands to drive the truck to get the potatoes out. And it's getting late in the year. So I volunteered. I did. I have another fella I do that with, but we finished up a week ago, so I volunteered to come out and help this well out.

MG: Good for you. Let's go back to the storm. Take me back to when you first saw the wharf that you fish from after that storm. What are the damage look like?

ALLAN COADY: Well, the damage is horrendous. I was there the next morning, well, about noontime, because it was a safe to be on the roads and the RCMP advised against anybody being on the roads. And there's a good reason for that. But I did get down there and the video is on CBC, what the wharf looked like the next morning with the water still running over the wharf and into our sheds. And our sheds are probably 250 feet off from the wharf itself.

MG: How what was your reaction when you saw the scale of the destruction?

ALLAN COADY: Oh, I was devastated to what it was two days before that. The last time I was down. It's unbelievable. A buildings completely gone for about a half a mile across the back there. They just floated away. Three of them that we had for buying stations at the wharf were, I'd say, a half a mile away. We had a fuel tank there with about a half a tank of fuel in it. It was ripped right out of its station in the complete morne of of a concrete barrier. It was ended up with those shacks a half a mile away.

MG: That's incredible. And so it is incredible. What is this going to mean? I mean, the season you fish in the springtime so that your season is you know, it's not as far away as people might like to believe. So what do you need to do now to get ready?

ALLAN COADY: Well, the Governor General of Canada, was down yesterday. We had a meeting with her. She seen it firsthand. And she was just amazed at what what the sea could do to that port of ours. And we're going to patch it up beautiful and small craft harbours, and we're having a meeting next week and to see if we can get it patched up. Well, we will get it patched up for next spring, but then after that, the major work has to start on it. We'll get by for next spring. We'll make it work. Cleanup is going to start here within the next two weeks. They get the buildings all knocked down. We had about a dozen sheds there and eight of them are demolished, completely gone and things like that. But we'll get that cleaned up and we'll be back in business for the spring and then we'll do the patching up after that.

MG: A couple of things that play in that. One is paying for this. The Federal Fisheries Department said $100 million is going to go to immediate harbour repairs. Is that going to be enough, do you think?

ALLAN COADY: Well, you know, it's a certainly a good start to get everybody out of 100 million. No, I don't believe that would work. But any money is good money. And the Federal Fisheries Minister was down about three weeks ago. I had a good chat with her. Joyce Murray, a lovely lady and the money is there. They're going to get us started here and if we need more. She pretty well said there would be more money if we need it.

MG: The other part is just getting people to finding people to do the work. The thing that I've heard from folks on the island is that there's a real labour shortage when it comes to contractors and just being able to get the people to help rebuild what's been lost. What's that going to mean for you?

ALLAN COADY: Well, that's correct, Matt. We had three bids come in for the for our project here, but they can't start it at all because they're booked up solid. And like you say, time is running out, freeze ups coming in. But when they get a chance, they will be here. But and it is a real labour shortage and everything doesn't matter if you're a farmer or working in a restaurant or in the fishing industry. I'm fortunate my two children work with me, so I'm not too bad off. But a lot of people can't get help at all even in the springtime.

MG: How many people fish off that wharf?

ALLAN COADY: There are six of us at us at Cove Head Harbour itself.

MG: So that's a huge impact. I mean, we'll talk about your family in a minute, but on the whole community, when you have that many people whose lives are disrupted.

ALLAN COADY: Oh, yes. And it's not only that, like Cove Head Harbour is a very famous tourist attraction for P.E.I.. It's probably one of the most visited harbours on P.E.I., like the cruise ships come in to Charlottetown and automatically they come to Cove Head Harbour. It's in the park itself. It's a beautiful place. We have restaurants there and a lot of the local folks work there. The cooks are waitresses, there's deep sea fishing and tourist shops. It is a big impact and it affects a lot of people in our.

MG: Community and for your family as well. As you mentioned, you fish the whole family.

ALLAN COADY: My son and my daughter fished with me. They have for quite a few years. Yes.

MG: Yeah. And so what's it like for for you and your family to go through all of this together? I mean, does it help that that it's a family thing and that you can rely on family as as you're in the midst of this or.

ALLAN COADY: Oh, yes, yes. Like like I say that with the shortage and not people are scrambling all the time to get it's a two month season, but, you know, you have to prepare and a couple of weeks before that and a week or so afterward. And it's just hard to get people to commit to that time. So with my son and my daughter, it works out very well for me and other other fishermen have a son or a daughter work with them also, Matt.

MG: What have you seen? Just finally and I ask you this, you're out in the field right now helping out neighbours in terms of the way that people have banded together to try and help each other out.

ALLAN COADY: Well, it's funny you ask that reference. He asked me that yesterday and I said, everybody is coming together very well. It's a sad situation, but there was no lives lost. There was a lot of damage. But like I say, their government, the federal government and our provincial government, small craft harbours and all that are coming together very, very well, very pleased with the way everything's coming together.

MG: I'll let you get back to work. I'm glad to talk to you, and I wish you the best of luck. Allan, thanks so much.

ALLAN COADY: Well, thank you. And you have a good day.

MG: And you take good care.

ALLAN COADY: Thank you. Thank you very much.

MG: Allan Coady in P.E.I.. He was in Cove Head, Prince Edward Island. Farmers on the island have also suffered losses and now the insurance claims thousands and thousands of those claims are being filed, a process that's leaving a lot of people in limbo as they wait to rebuild. Margaret Barrett is a dairy farmer and the owner of Ocean Brae Farms. She's in Belmont, P.E.I.. Mark, according to you.

MARGARET BARRETT: Good morning.

MG: Tell me about your your farm and what happened to the farm during the storm.

MARGARET BARRETT: Okay. Ocean Berry Farm is a fourth generation dairy farm. We were mixed farm for a while doing some potatoes, and we still have a smaller simmental herd. But our mainstay is our milking shorthorn cattle. And my husband and I are now farming with our son Matthew and his wife, Chandler. And this has been a family farm, too, for generations.

MG: And so when the storm rolled in, what was the damage on your farm?

MARGARET BARRETT: Well, it was tremendous damage. Now, when we heard the news of the hurricane approaching us, they spent days in preparation, battening down the hatches and getting as prepared as possible. And my husband was very, very worried. And he said this could be the ruination of my life's work.

MG: Oh, my goodness.

MARGARET BARRETT: And the horrific storm took down our only four year old barn. It was a cover all tarp barn and had been engineered. And we had been assured that it would withstand the gale force winds of Prince Edward Island. And it did not. My husband and son went out in the early morning, as soon as daybreak, so they would be safe to go across the yard, into the barn to see if the cows were all right. And they could tell the soon as they entered it was an unsafe structure and they stepped out and the big thing collapsed. So they came out with their lives and there were no lives lost on the island, in the farming community. I understand, and we're very grateful for that.

MG: How are the cattle?

MARGARET BARRETT: And and especially that our dairy cows came out alive as well. So that is what we're tremendously thankful for.

MG: So where are they now, now that the barn has collapsed?

MARGARET BARRETT: With the overwhelming generosity of four other dairy farmers. They have been moved to four different farms. And we call them foster farms. And that's where my husband and his father are this morning, relaying some cows that are about to carve up to a farm in Fox River and picking up the coast that are coming off the end of their milking season.

MG: You said the overwhelming generosity. I mean, tell me a little bit about that and what you've seen. This is same as what I was talking to Allan about in terms of people helping each other out in a really desperate moment.

MARGARET BARRETT: Well, as soon as the winds were died down long enough or well enough to be out and start picking up debris, our friends and neighbours came to help with this horrible cleanup. We got a crane operator and a lift and my son and brother in law worked up in the lift and the fellow farmers from the community stopped by and they helped pick up the torn tarp, the metal, everything they could and helps in the tear down for three or four days.

MG: You also. We have a busy farm and in addition to that, there's crops as well. You have corn as well.

MARGARET BARRETT: Yes. And we do have to have both forage corn and seed corn. And so that just had to wait until it was what we could do to clean up the the barn site was done and now we're waiting for construction. And so then my son, Matthew, and he does most of the operation of the corn chopping and my husband does the piling and that and that, we had to turn our attention to that and get that cut. And it has been more challenging, of course, because the force of the wind tangled the corn and made it tilt and made harvesting a challenge.

MG: What does this all mean? I mean, farmers live on a knife edge when it comes to a make or break season. So what does all of this mean for your livelihood, if you don't mind me asking?

MARGARET BARRETT: Well, for right now, we have no dairy income, and we won't until our cows are back milking at our facility under our own quota. We have some we sold a several tanks of barley grain for some in putting into our cash flow. And we're hoping that the grain corn, which we're going to be harvesting this week, will come at the cash crop as well. And we are awaiting insurance to come through to help us in our reconstruction.

MG: What's that been like? I mean, I mentioned in our introduction that, you know, there are thousands and thousands of insurance claims. You can imagine there's a backlog. What's the process been like for you?

MARGARET BARRETT: It's been very challenging and frustrating, and we do understand that our company has over 7000 claims, but the whole process has been quite stressful and we had to ourselves find quotes from different vendors and contractors to submit to support our our claim. And that too was challenging because they are all very busy people having many people looking for the same information. So it was a difficult and slow, tedious job to gather the information to submit and now it has to go several processes through the chain of command in the insurance world, and they too are all overwhelmed and overworked and understaffed. So we are still awaiting anyone.

MG: Is what is the most pressing thing for you to get sorted out now with winter just right on the doorstep?

MARGARET BARRETT: Well, that's the thing. We would desperately like to get started and hopefully this network will start this week to have our we're going with a traditional frame burn with reinforced steel into concrete buttresses to make it hurricane safe, as we hope. And our goal is to have the exterior of the building erected by the end of December so that then they can turn to work inside to the worst of the winter. And we hope and our goal is to have our dairy cows back with it by April.

MG: Just before I let you go, you said that this has been quite stressful. This is the fourth generation family farm, as you mentioned. It's a way of life for you, much as like when we heard Allan talking about that as well as as a fisher, what how would you describe the toll that this has taken on the family? This is a lot that you've been through in the last month.

MARGARET BARRETT: Well, yes, indeed. I know my husband and son have had many, many sleepless nights and we've all been trying to cope our best with the challenges. Every day seem to have a new challenge attached to it, and there's lots of balls in the air and lots of pressing needs. Of course, we also had trees down on fence lines and cattle getting out and having to be gathered back up and and damage to other buildings along the farm and as well as keeping up the daily need of, you know, we have cattle here, young cattle calves we fed. And so the daily chores are still there. And they have themselves been spending a lot of time doing the rest of the tear down and the preparation for the build. Now, my 19 year old father in law is out with Fred this morning, going on on the trip just to see the cows at this one foster farm. And he's very much still very current and involved in the concern and the worries that the farm and my son or I and our son ride with state of our has been a tremendous help and now helping us prepare for submitting to government programmes that might be of an age as well. And our daughter. Sarah Jane is married to a beef farmer and they too withstood some damage. But they were very much here to help us out as well. So it's our family and friends and community are essential in the farming world.

MG: You have been through an awful lot and you've got a road ahead of you as well. I appreciate you taking some time to talk to us, and I wish you the very best of luck, Margaret.

MARGARET BARRETT: Oh, well, thank you very much.

MG: Take good care. Margaret Barrett is the owner of Ocean Brae Farms. She was in Belmont, Prince Edward Island. That's The Current for this Monday accused. Up next on CBC Radio One, we mentioned that there were benefit concerts through Atlantic Canada, raising money for those who, like Margaret, have been impacted by Fiona. Tim Baker, singer songwriter from Newfoundland, performed in St John's. Here's Tim Baker in all hands. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

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Monday 31 October, 2022 Full Transcript

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