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The Current Transcript for October 1, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

AMIR TIBON: We began to hear automatic gunfire inside our community and very soon inside our neighbourhood. And soon afterwards, outside our window, that's when the fear actually began to arrive.

MATT GALLOWAY: On October 7th, 2023, Amir Tibon, his wife, and two young daughters were asleep at home when Hamas attacked their kibbutz. A gripping new book by the Israeli journalist documents what happened in the ten hours that followed as the family hid in a safe room wondering whether they would be killed like their neighbours. It is also the history of those communities on the border with Gaza. In 30 minutes, Amir Tibon on survival, war, and what happens now in the relationship with the Palestinians he calls friends and neighbours. Also this morning:

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In the back of my mind, there will always be this thought of, oh boy, there's rain, what's going to happen? We had just redone the basement less than two years ago. The water got into our floors and so everything has to be ripped up.

MG: Torrential rains in Quebec this summer caused a record two and a half billion dollars’ worth of damage. Coming up, why officials in that province have suggested banning the construction of basement apartments in flood-prone areas in the face of a changing climate. But we begin with another housing story. The debt increasingly carried by renters in Canada. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Renters relying on credit cards to make ends meet

Guests: Jennifer Smith

MG: It is known as the 30 per cent rule: your rent should not exceed 30 per cent of your overall monthly income. A significant number of Canadian renters might say, Well, good luck with that. They are bearing the brunt of the affordability crisis and paying much, much more.

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KAREN CHARMBURY: A hundred per cent of my income goes to my rent. I work seven days a week and I'm waitressing on the weekend as well as my current full time job. And we buy very little, like nothing extra. No haircuts, no clothes. I've used everything on my credit card. I'm at 2,500 and I'm trying to slowly bring it back down. And then my line of credit is also up. But there's nothing I can do about that.

MG: Karen Charmbury lives with her two teenage children in a rented townhouse in Kingston, Ontario. And with all her income going to rent, she relies on help from family and her community to help pay for groceries and other essentials.

SOUNDCLIP

KAREN CHARMBURY: To try to find a more affordable rental is almost impossible. And like, houses are so expensive right now, I feel like it's very unfair that I would have to pay 2700 in rent, but for some reason I can't qualify for 2000 in a mortgage. I just think that it's kind of like it's stacked against you and it's a trap because it's impossible to get out of living this way. I try, in order to cope, I try to think about my kids. And I just feel like for them, you can work eight days a week if you have to, and that keeps me going.

MG: Karen Charmbury’s predicament is not uncommon and it's of growing concern. Last week, Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, sounded the alarm about renters in the increasing amount of debt that they're carrying. Many of those renters are carrying a balance of at least 90 per cent of their credit card limits, and some are missing payments, as well. Jennifer Smith is a renter in Toronto. Jennifer, good morning.

JENNIFER SMITH: Good morning. How are you?

MG: I'm okay. In listening to Karen, how much of that sounds familiar to you?

JENNIFER SMITH: Like, it's scary how similar it is and just hearing the emotion in her voice. It really resonates because this is what we're dealing with. I'm also a mom. I also have two kids. And, you know, I heard you say sort of talking like that 30 per cent of your income should go to rent. So, I did the math here. And, you know, 30 per cent of what I pay is only $966.

MG: And how much is your rent?

JENNIFER SMITH: It's over 3200 a month, not including the utilities and hydro and all that fun stuff.

MG: Wow. Can you just, I mean, you mentioned, you're a mom. You have a couple of kids. Just describe the living situation that you're in and what you get for that amount of rent.

JENNIFER SMITH: So, our current living situation in terms of our house, so we rent our house. We did get lucky. We got it about eight years ago. So actually, just even in August, we were told we had two months to leave and that put us in a terrible situation. And what rent is costing everywhere now is absolutely, it just doesn't make sense, especially if you have kids and people that depend on you. Our house right now also, you know, we've got a mould situation. We've got a couple of appliances that aren't working. And then it's kind of, you know, my husband and I discuss whether or not we bring this up to the landlord or are they going to threaten to evict us. And I know the term I think is called rent eviction. And so, you know, where do we go from there? We can't, based on what the rent is costing us with the additional stuff, you know, and that's not even counting food and daycare and all that. We don't even have enough to save up to move out. So people, I know I'm not the only one. People are stuck in homes that they are just barely able to afford, if at all. And because of that, we can't actually afford to move out.

MG: I mean, in addition to this, and it's tricky talking to people about money, so tell me what you want to tell me. But debt is another issue that Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada was concerned about. Are you, do you have debts that you're carrying as well as the rent that you're trying to pay?

JENNIFER SMITH: Yes, absolutely. So, I was listening to your previous person. She was talking about her credit card and the line of credit. I'm maxed out pretty much on both. And I'm not ashamed to say that because that is the reality that, especially Torontonians, are facing.

MG: How did you end up in that situation, if you don't mind me asking where you were maxed out on both?

JENNIFER SMITH: Well, let's see here. So, after I did six years of post-secondary, I already owed 28,000 to OSAP, so student loans, and then, you know, having to move out into an apartment, I used my credit card to cover a lot of the costs. I was obviously advised about how to use a credit card. But I think when you're 21, 22, you're really not grasping what that means. So, I accumulated on my credit card. And then the area that we used to live in started to get very dangerous. So, I wanted to-- I had a young baby at the time-- move out of that area. So, I used my line of credit to get this house. And it's been eight years and I have barely made a dent in both, to be quite frank.

MG: I was going to say, how are you doing in terms of keeping up with the payments?

JENNIFER SMITH: It's-- you have to prioritise your rent, your heating, your food, over your payments. So, sometimes it actually comes down to, am I going to pay my credit card this month or am I going to make sure that my kids have enough food for their lunches? And it sounds dire. And it's a scary situation to be in, but I'd rather miss a couple of payments and damage my credit than not have a house or, you know, fed kids.

MG: How do you manage the stress of that? I mean, part of it is, as you said, trying to juggle all the balls that are up in the air. You have concerns about whether you're going to be able to stay in the place and if you were to leave the rent might be even more if you were to get into a different place. How are you managing the weight of all of that?

JENNIFER SMITH: So, I mean, that's a great question. For me, like personally, we're lucky we're a dual income house, but I'm also actively looking for a second job. I was working a second job but had to quit due to safety reasons. So, what I'm trying to do now is in my main job, I work with teenagers. I'm just trying to use my stress to educate them and let them know, okay, let's be financially literate. Let's-- you guys want to rent when you're older, let's look at what that actually costs. So, I use that to sit down with them and, you know, they'll tell me where they want to move and we look at the actual cost and then we look at, you know, what jobs, what school requirements they need to be able to afford that kind of life. So, it's very much turning a negative, stressful situation into a teachable moment for the next generation so they don't end up as badly as we are, hopefully.

MG: Why do you think you're in this situation? I mean, Tifff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, raised the alarm on this, talking about renters carrying a disproportionate amount of debt. You're in a dual income family. You've tried to figure out ways to get out of this. If you take a look at the bigger picture, why do you think people like yourself are in situations like this?

JENNIFER SMITH: I think-- at least, I can only sort of speak for myself. For me, it got as bad as it did because I wanted better. I wanted to get out of an area that made me feel unsafe, that made me feel my family unsafe. But the other thing is, when it comes to debt is, you know, people don't realize when they're making like, their credit card payments that that's not really going towards principal. So, they're paying the interest costs. And, oh, why is my credit card bill not going down? Why is my line of credit-- it's because you're paying, you know, they're not really sure... And honestly it feels like a scam because I have to pay my regular interest payments, whatever per month, but then I have to pay additional money elsewhere just to attack the principal. And then in the meantime, I'm trying to cover ridiculous rents, cost of even travelling in the city with the traffic, daycare, food, you know, again, like all the utilities and just, you know, clothes, even. And as you mentioned, like, going without haircuts. We've definitely like, you know, my husband has definitely shaved my kids’ heads because it's just cheaper than going to a barber. So, I think, you know, it's just, how are we supposed to get ahead of this debt when the money we're putting towards it isn't even actually paying it off?

MG: I'll let you go. But I mean, when you think of the future, if you were to kind of spool ahead five years or something like that, how do you see that future?

JENNIFER SMITH: You know what? I'm dead set on being paid off. I'm hoping that interest rates go down. I'm hoping that I get that second job. I think that if we all just kind of pull together, there's ways to make changes to how the system is going.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. Jennifer, thanks for talking-- again, talking about money is a really, it's a tricky thing for somebody that you've never met before, but I appreciate you being willing to go there. It's important. And it's a story that I think will be familiar to a lot of people across this country. So, thanks.

JENNIFER SMITH: No worries. Thank you for having me.

MG: Take care. Jennifer Smith is a renter in Toronto. Ricardo Tranjan is a political economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and that organization has been studying rental affordability. He is in our Ottawa studio. Ricardo, good morning to you.

RICARDO TRANJAN: Good morning.

MG: Are you surprised by the amount of debt these renters are carrying just to, you know, find a place to live, but then also carry the cost of daily life?

RICARDO TRANJAN: Unfortunately, I'm not surprised. When we talk about interest rates, we immediately think about mortgages, and we worry about mortgage holders and how they're doing and whether they're going to be able to cope with increases in their mortgages. But when we take a step back, we know that there's a number of factors that make actually tenants and low-income households much more susceptible to inflation and to high interest rates and to have less financial security all around. And so, this situation that Jennifer described to us and the figures that came out of the Bank of Canada a couple of months ago are not particularly surprising.

MG: I mentioned that 30 per cent rule. The idea that you should spend more no more than 30 per cent of your monthly income on rent. Is there anywhere in this country now in 2024, on the 1st of October of 2024, where you think that might apply?

RICARDO TRANJAN: Not really. We have conducted a study recently that looks at that and we calculate something we call the rental wage, which is how much workers would need to earn to rent an average price apartment without spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing. And we assume people work 40 hours a week, 52 hours a year, and we calculate the rental wage for one- and two-bedroom apartments. And then we compare. We compare their rental wage amount with the minimum wage, for example. And when we do that, we see that in every province, the minimum wage is lower than the one-bedroom rental wage. It's much lower than the two-bedroom rental wage. We did a calculation for 62 cities across the country, and only nine of them would a minimum wage worker be able to afford a one-bedroom apartment and stay below that 30 per cent threshold. There's a number of cities right now that even two minimum wage workers, if their combined income to try to get a one-bedroom unit, they won't be able to. They have to pay way more on housing.

MG: So, it's not just big-ticket places like Toronto and Vancouver.

RICARDO TRANJAN: Ten years ago, if you were having this conversation ten years ago, we would be talking about Vancouver and Toronto. But right now it's pretty much everywhere. Even places like Halifax have become very unaffordable and smaller towns like Peterborough or places in the Prairies, renters are facing similar dire kind of situation.

MG: How much do you think people are paying in rent if it's not 30 per cent? I mean, we heard 100 per cent from one of our earlier guests. How much on average do you think people are actually paying of what they would make to be able to keep a roof over their heads?

RICARDO TRANJAN: Well, the data that we have, this shows that the average is 31 per cent. And so, that means that there's a lot of people that are way above that average. But what we have to remember here that is important as well is that about 62 per cent of renters, so about two thirds of renters, they're low income. And so, and they're like first, second quintile in the income distribution. And that in practice means that they're earning less than $42,000 a year as a family income. Right? So, even if you take, if you stick with the 30 per cent rule, you have to think and you have to ask yourself, how much is that 70 per cent left and how much does that buy? You know, if you're the 20 per cent top earners of renters, you know, 70 per cent, it might be able to, you know, get what you need. But if you're a minimum wage worker with a low wage worker, that 70 per cent, it's not a lot. And rents go up every single year. And what we also, studies show is that the rent increases are outpacing wage increases on a yearly basis.

MG: So, what do we do about this? I mean, part of it is about wages. These are people who may be earning more than the minimum wage. You could say raise the minimum wage, but that might not impact them because they're already past the minimum wage. What else do we do about that?

RICARDO TRANJAN: Well, in 1975, when inflation started going up, one of Ottawa's first anti-inflation measure was to persuade provinces to impose rent controls. And it worked. When inflation hit 12.5 per cent in 1981, rent inflation was six point four. In other words, rents were pushing inflation down. If we look at the past year, we see exactly the opposite. Rent inflation was nearly three times more what the overhead, you know, the general inflation figure was. Meaning rents were pushing inflation up. So, we need to have a serious conversation about rent controls in Canada, including a conversation about what a national rent control policy would look like. Similarly to Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, even more recently, France under Emmanuel Macron, which ideologically was opposed to it, but eventually got convinced that that was something that was needed and now they're in the process of rolling it out. Like, a national rent control policy.

MG: That's what you think we need here? We need a national rent control policy?

RICARDO TRANJAN: We could have a national rent control policy or we could have provincial governments strengthening their policies. Ontario, Quebec and B.C. have rent controls with major flaws that everyone can point to. We have four provinces that have no rent controls whatsoever. And, you know, I think that's the biggest elephant in the room in the whole housing affordability debate.

MG: One of the things-- well, part of this is about affordability, but it's also about supply. One of the things we've heard on this program from developers-- and these are people who are in this as a business, but they say in many ways that if you have rent controls on, you will lose the incentive to create more rental housing. That it's simply not, it's not worth it for them to do that. That they could instead move toward market housing and sell the condos or sell the units rather than rent them. At a time when this is an issue of supply and demand, do you worry that putting that rent control on is going to dampen the supply?

RICARDO TRANJAN: Well, let's be honest, to ask the real estate industry what they think about rent controls is sort of like asking my kids if they want another serving of veggies or a bowl of ice cream. I know what the answer will be, and I think that we shouldn't let that answer drive our policies.

MG: But even if that answer, if you find it unpalatable, I'm not saying you don't like ice cream, but if you find it unpalatable, it still might lead to people not building rental housing. Is that not something we need to consider?

RICARDO TRANJAN: We have a lot of research on this and the research that shows a clear distinction between rent freezes that were implemented during the war times, that were implemented during recessions, and they did have a negative impact on both supply and on the quality of their supply. And the argument that we hear from the real estate industry holts for rent freezes. But we have a lot of more research now coming out about what we call second generation rent controls, which are the rent controls that we have right now. They're adjusted for inflation to let prices keep up rents, keep up with the cost of leaving. And the empirical research on those rents controls, it's very clear: it doesn't have the same negative impacts. So, and there's things we can do to mitigate impacts. For example, there are now a lot of incentives for the industry to create more supply through tax subsidies to subsidise loans and those offsets. So, there are very elaborate and straightforward ways to have good rent controls. And we should not let what is essentially a self-interested argument and often, to be quite honest, a kind of a threat to politicians, you know, 'Put rent controls in, we stop building, and if we stop building, you look bad.' We should not allow that to drive the conversation because the absence of rent controls has an impact on Jennifer and Karen, but it also has a negative impact on the economy. The other sectors of the economy are also suffering.

MG: We just have a minute or so left. Is your sense that politicians are paying attention to this? I mean, there's this imbalance people will point to between renters and homeowners. That homeowners will often get the ear of politicians, in part because politicians, for the most part, are homeowners themselves. Many of them don't rent. And so, is your sense that they are attuned to this issue?

RICARDO TRANJAN: I think they are attuned to this issue. But I think the dominant discourse here that supply is the ultimate cause of the problem of affordability and that supply is also the ultimate solution is preventing us from having the other conversations. Supply is important. Don't get me wrong. We should continue to build housing. We should get rid of some zoning legislation that makes no sense. We should be working on that front. But there are other more [unclear] conversations about rent controls and other things that we should be having, too. We can't just focus on the one. Supply alone will not address the affordability question. And that's why we should be, you know, we should confront that uncomfortable truth.

MG: Talk about many things at the same time.

RICARDO TRANJAN: Yes.

MG: Ricardo, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

RICARDO TRANJAN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Ricardo Tranjan is a political economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He was in our Ottawa studio. Do the stories that we have heard this morning sound familiar to you? How difficult is it to keep rent paid and manage all the other finances in your salary? Again, these are delicate conversations, but if you're willing to share-- that 30 per cent rule, are you anywhere near that 30 per cent rule? What's happening with credit card debt or line of credit, when it comes to trying to keep a roof over your head and keep all the other, as we said, balls up in the air? You can email us. For renters, it'd be really interesting to hear from you. Email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. Your CBC News is coming up next. And then:

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AMIR TIBON: We're really sorry, but right now we can't get out of the room and we can't have anything to eat and we can't go out and play because there are dangerous noises outside. And due to those noises, we have to stay quiet inside.

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MG: That's what Amir Tibon and his wife told their two young girls on October the 7th when they were hiding from Hamas right outside the door of their home in a kibbutz in Israel. Amir Tibon's new book tells the story of what happened then, and he'll join us coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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Amir Tibon on surviving the Oct. 7 attack

Guests: Amir Tibon

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Amir Tibon describes the sound as a kind of whistle. A short, loud shriek coming from above the bedroom window. It was the only warning he and his wife Miri had that their neighbourhood was under attack on October the 7th of last year. They lived on the Nahal Oz kibbutz, a community of little more than 400 people on the Israeli border near Gaza. And that sound, the shrieking of incoming mortar fire, was so close that they had just enough time to scramble for the one safe room in their house where the couple's little girls were sleeping. The harrowing story of what happened in the hours that followed is the subject of Amir Tibon's new book, but the book is also the story of how his country and his Palestinian neighbours got to that moment. Amir Tibon is a longtime journalist, diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and his book is The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival and Hope in Israel's Borderlands. In the lead up to the one year anniversary of the attack Amir Tibon was in Toronto telling his story and reflecting on the escalation of violence in the Middle East, and last week he came into our studio for a conversation.

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MG: How are you doing?

AMIR TIBON: Well, we're speaking at a disturbing time. Personally, I'm okay. I'm alive. I'm healthy. My family is okay. But we are watching the news from the Middle East, and the war is still ongoing and there are still hostages in Gaza. And personally, my life is intact. But I worry for my country and the entire region.

MG: Go back to that morning of the 7th of October and that sound that you heard, that shrieking. How did you and your wife initially react when you heard it?

AMIR TIBON: So, it's a bit of a whistle, actually. I think that's the first line of the book. Literally, it all started with a whistle. And it's 6:30 in the morning. It's a Saturday and we're in bed. We have no worries in the world on that Saturday. Our community, Kibbutz Nahal Oz, is supposed to celebrate its 70th anniversary. And at 7 p.m., there is supposed to be a big party in the communal pool with hundreds of guests from outside the community as well. So that's the one thing that we have on our mind. And suddenly this whistle wakes us up and we immediately understand what it is because we've lived in Nahal Oz for several years. It's a community very close to Gaza. It has been bombarded over the years by rockets and mortars. And we know that we have to make a run for it, and we don't even think about it. We-- it's an instinct.

MG: And you have seven seconds to make it from where you are into the saferoom?

AMIR TIBON: In every house in these communities, there is a room that is built of thick concrete, which is supposed to withstand direct hits by rockets and mortars. You don't have enough time to run for a larger communal shelter, for example, like people do in other parts of Israel. In Nahal Oz, you are so close that if you want to make it in time, there has to be a room in your house that can accommodate you.

MG: And that room is your children's bedroom.

AMIR TIBON: That's what most families do. And I'll tell you why-- it makes a lot of sense. If there was a siren at 6:30 in the morning, for example, it will be much more efficient for the parents to run to the children's room than the other way around. We have two daughters, three and a half and just under two years old on the day this happened. We don't expect them to run to our bedroom.

MG: You say in the book that you were surprised and perhaps disoriented but not fearful and certainly not panicked. When did you start to realize that having lived through perhaps similar incidents before, when did you start to realize that this day was going to be very different?

AMIR TIBON: Only after 7 a.m. There were about half an hour during which we are in the safe room, our girls are sleeping, it's dark and we are bombarded, but we are not so worried because we've been through this before. Over the years that we have lived in Nahal Oz, there have been all these rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and they usually have a certain script that is followed. Hamas or one of the smaller terror groups in Gaza fires missiles and rockets and mortars towards Israel. Israel responds and bombs targets in Gaza. And for a few days, you have these, you know, skirmishes going on. And then at some point, there's a ceasefire, and Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, goes on television and with his baritone voice, he, you know, comes and says, 'We hit them so hard, they're afraid of us now. They're never going to do anything again.' And we can go back home, and half a year later, there's another round of fighting. And during those early minutes, that's what I thought we were expecting. There will be a window of 10 to 15 minutes when they stop firing and we can just shove the girls in the car and drive away. And after 7 a.m., when we began to hear automatic gunfire inside our community and very soon inside our neighbourhood and soon afterward, outside our window, that's when the fear actually began to arrive.

MG: What did it sound like from inside the saferoom when this was unfolding?

AMIR TIBON: I've heard gunfire before in my life from various instances. Like most Israeli Jews, I served in the Israeli military. I was not a combat soldier, but I had to go through basic weapons training. Sometimes inside Gaza, people use guns to fire into the air during weddings and other family celebrations. So, gunfire by itself is not something that I'm not familiar to. But I have never heard the sound of bullets hitting a wall inside my house while I'm in the room next door. We have a group, a cell of five Hamas terrorists standing on our front porch. The door of the house is locked. The windows are all shut and the blinds, electric blinds are rolled all the way down and they are firing through the window into our living room, trying to break the glass and the blinds so they can get in. And that is a very, very strong sound.

MG: As this is unfolding, I mean, you're part of a community. And so, people are trying to figure out what's going on and there's a group chat about what's happening. And then the group chat, one of the things that comes up is, is where is-- you know, why is nobody coming? Why is nobody here? What was it like getting those messages and exchanging those messages with people who are in similar situations as you wondering, who's going to protect us?

AMIR TIBON: When we speak of a kibbutz, we speak of a small town really, that is built on socialist ideals of, you know, communal life and collectivism and things like that. So, you know everyone, and it was a very, very worrying situation to sit in our saferoom, hear the gunfire, and at the same time see these messages from our friends who are all writing, I have terrorists outside my house, some of them saying they have broken into my house. They're trying to break into my saferoom. And you worry for your own life and your own family. And at the same time, you worry for your friends and neighbours. And most of all, you realize that something big is happening. That this is not some, you know, local Hamas cell that somehow made its way into the kibbutz and within a minute or two the military will be here and take care of them. You understand that there is, this is an invasion, really. That is a very scary thought.

MG: You're in that dark room with your girls and they're sleeping. And then as kids do, they wake up and they want things. What was going on with your kids and how did you-- you have to kind of arrange a bunch of different things in your mind as this is unfolding in real time. What was happening with your kids?

AMIR TIBON: From 63:0 to 7:15, more or less, they were sleeping. Because my girls, Galia, at the time, three and a half years old, and Carmel, back then, just under two years old-- they were born and raised in Nahal Oz and they were accustomed to this reality of explosions and sirens. They don't mind it. They're used to it. So, at first they're just sleeping in their beds. And what wakes them up is the gunfire. And there is this combination of fear: what is this noise? And the normal behaviour of a child waking up Saturday morning at home with their parents wanting to go out and play.

MG: What did you say to them?

AMIR TIBON: Well, the most important thing for us was that they will stay quiet and calm because we were analyzing very, very quickly the situation. The terrorists outside our house had one big advantage over us: they had weapons and we did not. They cannot see us from outside the house and we cannot see them from inside the saferoom. So that's, let's say, a tie. Right? We're even, but we have one big advantage over them, at that point. We can hear them and I understand Arabic from my military service. So, I understand what they're saying. They cannot hear us. And if they can't hear us, they can't necessarily know there was a family in this locked house. So, our number one mission at that point as parents who are trying to save the lives of their children is to keep the girls calm and quiet.

MG: You don't turn the lights on because you don't want to alert people that you're there. And so, you...

AMIR TIBON: At first, we don't turn the lights on because we don't want to, but then the electricity falls. So, we can't turn the lights on anymore. It has to be dark.

MG: You had these glow in the dark pacifiers that you'd given your kids and that was allowing you to see in this room.

AMIR TIBON: Well, we had from the cell phones, but we also wanted to save battery. And then at some point, yes, the pacifiers were the only source of light. And we have these two young girls. And my wife, Miri, she's a social worker. She works with children with autism. She's a very, very patient and sensitive person, and she understands children very well. And she just approached the girls very honestly and told them, girls, we're really sorry, but right now we can't get out of the room and we can't have anything to eat and we can't go out and play because there are dangerous noises outside. And due to those noises, we have to stay quiet inside.

MG: You called the girls your heroes.

AMIR TIBON: I think all the children who were there on that day are heroes. And I write about many heroes in this book, The Gates of Gaza. I wrote about the soldiers and the policemen and the members of the local security team of the kibbutz and my parents, a lot of people who did heroic things on that day. But the children who survived this attack and had to stay quiet for long hours in the dark in a very scary situation and had to listen to their parents, to me, they're the biggest heroes.

MG: How did you and your family end up living in this kibbutz?

AMIR TIBON: We moved there in 2014. On that year, there was a very long-- well, relatively, very long. Our standards have changed since then. But there was a two months long war between Israel and Hamas. And Kibbutz Nahal Oz , because of its proximity to the border, was officially the most bombarded community in Israel during that war. Hamas realized at some point-- and they're very smart-- that firing rockets toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is very good for headlines, but there is a 90 per cent chance those rockets will get intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome, the missile defence system that we use to take them down. Natural causes so close to Gaza, that Iron Dome does not cover. And they just started bombarding this community. Four days before it was all over, in Nahal Oz, a mortar launch from Gaza killed a four year old child by the name of Daniel Tragerman. And I had visited the kibbutz several times to write about it as a journalist. And then with this, you know, tragedy happened. And I heard that a lot of families were leaving this kibbutz in the aftermath of the death of this young child, simply because they couldn't tell their children why their friend from kindergarten will not be coming back to open the school year. My wife and I made a decision that we're moving there. It was an ideological decision based on our Zionist ideals. We believe in the importance of a strong and secure state of Israel, and we believe this state needs to have clear borders. One of my criticisms of Israeli governments over the years is that they have failed to define borders for Israel. And this is the ongoing issue of the occupation and the settlements in the West Bank, where basically we are not putting up a border and we are not allowing for the creation of a different country next to us. But in Gaza, it's a different story. We evacuated all the settlements in Gaza and all of the military forces that were stationed there in 2005. And we went back to the original border from 1948, from the year Israel was established. And the of a community like Nahal Oz , which is not some disputed settlement on occupied land, but a community within Israel's borders, would be abandoned because the terrorists murdered a child, seemed to me like just the wrong thing. And we took a decision that we're going to move there and strengthen this place and become a part of this community.

MG: Your friends thought you were crazy.

AMIR TIBON: Maybe they were right. But we didn't know at the time that something like October 7th could ever happen. We thought we would move to this community and we would take certain risks upon ourselves in order to live in this place and support this ideological commitment to securing the borders of Israel. But we did not imagine that something like October 7th could happen because that entails a complete collapse of all of the systems of the Israeli state, the government, the military, the intelligence. Everything collapsed on that day.

MG: As you were locked inside the safe room as this is unfolding, you told your wife that it was your fault in some ways. You said that, "I should have never brought us here." Did you worry that that decision, I mean, that your friends thought was crazy, you thought maybe was crazy, but that that could have enormous consequences?

AMIR TIBON: I think that a lot of people who had moved to Nahal Oz and other communities along the Gaza border in the recent years, it was a thing that was happening in Israel in the last decade-- that families from other parts of Israel came to communities along the border with Gaza out of this commitment to strengthening them and helping them get on their feet after the 2014 war.

MG: But there was also a relationship with people in Gaza. I mean, you refer to them as neighbours.

AMIR TIBON: I'll get to that in a second. But I just want to finish saying that I think a lot of families in the saferooms in those long hours had these feelings that I describe in the book, of regret and guilt toward our children, because we signed up to this project of being part of the Zionist commitment to hold the border. Our children were just born to a beautiful kibbutz where they enjoyed growing up. And this is a serious issue. And regarding the relationship with Gaza, which you mentioned, this is really amazing. And I have to say, honestly, when I began writing the book, I was not aware of how rich the history of relations between Nahal Oz and people in Gaza used to be. How strong it used to be. And I write about things like weddings in the kibbutz where there are guests from Gaza. And I write about people from Nahal Oz going to Gaza on a regular basis for shopping and for, you know, beach restaurants. And I write about this mind blowing event, which I was not aware of before I began the research for the book, in the 1994 Nahal Oz Peace Festival, during which hundreds of guests from Gaza arrived in buses to celebrate the peaceful, optimistic atmosphere of the Oslo process of the 1990s. And that happened 30 years before October 7th.

MG: As this attack was unfolding, I mean, you heard things outside, but you were also getting information on your phone about what was going on. There was live streaming of the attack happening, and you weren't looking at the streams, but you were seeing some of the images of what was coming up on those live streams. [AMIR: Yes.] What was that like knowing that that was unfolding?

AMIR TIBON: My cell phone reception was not very good because the saferoom is built of thick concrete and has this, you know, iron door. And so, it blocks a lot of the connection. I was able to connect maybe five to ten minutes in every hour and actually, you know, find reception. And when I did that, I was flooded by, well, kind of stupid messages from people asking me, Are you okay? I didn't answer. But I was also seeing some really disturbing things, including these freeze frames of videos that the terrorists were filming within our community with families that they had taken hostage. And you see, for example, the Edan family, they live on the other side of the kibbutz. The terrorists went into their home that morning, they murdered their 18 year old daughter, Maayan, who used to work in the kindergarten where my daughters went every day. And they loved her. And I still haven't told them what happened to her. A year later, I just can't. I can't do it. And then they kidnapped her father, Tsahi, who still, as we record this interview, is in the hands of Hamas in Gaza. And you could see in the freeze frame the rest of the family.

MG: One of the other messages that you got was from your family, from your mother and father who were not there. They understand eventually what's going on. Tell me a little bit about your dad, in particular.

AMIR TIBON: My dad is a retired general in the Israeli military. He's 62 years old. He's been out of the military for nine years now. And my mom, she's also 62 and she's a former high school principal. I like to say that for many years, her job was more dangerous than his because she worked in some challenging schools and was always very beloved. But basically they just understood that something very, very bad was happening because I told them at 7:15, we have terrorists on our doorstep. They're trying to break into the house. And knowing the history of Nahal Oz, they knew that in the 70 year history of Kibbutz Nahal Oz , which is situated so close to Gaza, there have always been security threats, mortars and rockets and ambushes and whatnot. But there has never been a terrorist inside the community. Never. And when they hear from me that five terrorists are encircling our house and nobody's coming, that's when they realize that something very wrong is happening and they just decide to come there themselves.

MG: To try to rescue you?

AMIR TIBON: Yes. They take a pistol, which my father has at home. They take their jeep. My mom is driving. He's trying to text people in the military to see if somebody can send forces to our kibbutz. And he realizes that that's just not going to happen. Nobody's replying, and they just speed from Tel Aviv toward the Nahal Oz.

MG: This is an incredibly risky thing for them to do. And at one point, they stop and they're trying to decide whether to go forward or not. They don't know whether it's-- not worth it, but the cost of going, whether they'll actually make it to you. And your mother says, "What if I told you," she's talking to your father, she says, "What if I told you about a couple who are less than ten kilometres away from the home of their son and two granddaughters and they can go to try to save the family, or they can stop and wait at the side of the road for someone else to do something?" When you heard that, what went through your mind, that your mother had said that?

AMIR TIBON: Well, it didn't surprise me because she's a very brave woman and always has been. And I know how much she loves her granddaughters. And they were very determined to get to Nahal Oz. It's an hour and ten minute drive on a regular day. On that day, it eventually took, for my father, at least, who arrived to our home-- 8.5 hours.

MG: What happened when he got there?

AMIR TIBON: So, he entered our kibbutz shortly after 1 p.m. and he joined a group of soldiers which were basically the first military force to come to Nahal Oz. And he started scanning the kibbutz with them, going from home to home and knocking on people's safehouse doors, telling them you're safe now. You can go out, you can get, you know, a bottle of water, you can use the restroom and then go back in until we tell you that, you know, we're organizing to get you out of here. And close to 4 p.m., they arrived at our house. And then we hear this knock on the window of the saferoom. Like a bang, you know, with an open hand. And we heard his voice. And then, Galia, our older daughter, the three and a half year old, she just said two words. She said, "sibea kan." Grandfather is here. And then I went out of the saferoom for the first time that day. I opened the door of the house. He came in. Soldiers came in after him. We hugged for a minute. He went to see his granddaughters and in the saferoom, and Miri, my wife. I organized all the food that we had in the house and I just made a big pile on the table. And I offered it to the soldiers because they had been on their feet for hours and they hadn't had anything to eat or drink. And there were a few minutes that we were very happy and relieved. But then the most difficult part of the day began because my father had told the soldiers, well, listen, you have more houses to scan here. I'm staying here and start bringing families over here. I'm watching here. I got a pistol. And so, they started bringing the neighbours to our house. And that's when we started hearing the stories of what happened to our neighbours on that day. And those are hours that were even worse than the morning hours because of the pain that we were beginning to experience.

MG: What have you learned in the months since, and in the work that you have done about why you didn't get more help? About why, as I said, in that group chat, why is no-- where's the army? Where's the army? What have you learned about that?

AMIR TIBON: I learned that on the morning of October 7th, there were about 400 soldiers along the entire 40 kilometres of the Israel-Gaza border. And Hamas came in with more than 3000 of its fighters. It's a very lopsided battle. The military, big chunks of it were in the West Bank, where there were many terror attacks in the weeks before. And basically Hamas laid a trap for Israel. They increased their attacks in the West Bank. Israel concentrated a lot of forces over there, you know, in and around the settlements. And not enough forces were left in other parts. Some parts of the military were up north because there was concern that maybe Hezbollah from Lebanon would attack Israel and Hamas was dismissed as not as dangerous. Some of the military was home because it was not just a Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath, it was also a holiday, the holiday of Shemini Atzeret. And you had 400 people, not all of them combat soldiers, by the way, protecting this entire border region. You know, more than 20 communities along the border and an army of terror on the other side waiting for an order to come in.

MG: But you say this is also a story of betrayal. Who betrayed you?

AMIR TIBON: The word betrayal, which I use in the subtitle, I leave for the reader to interpret.

MG: Who do you think betrayed you?

AMIR TIBON: I leave it to the reader to interpret, because this is something that a lot of people are asking me.

MG: But you...

AMIR TIBON: You need to read the book to get that. And by the way, I've heard all kinds of different interpretations. Some people tell me, Well, it's the betrayal of the Israeli government of its own citizens.

MG: You say that yourself.

AMIR TIBON: Some people tell me, Oh, it's the betrayal by the people in Gaza who had all these relationships with these kibbutz and visited there and worked there. And there are other interpretations. And I tell everyone, read the book and decide for yourself.

MG: Amir Tibon is the diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. His book is The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands.

[Music: Theme]

MG: We'll continue our conversation after the regional update, and we'll talk about the factors that led to the October 7th attack on the kibbutz and his views on the ongoing war. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Fades up]

MG: Hello again, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. We'll continue now with my conversation with the Israeli journalist Amir Tibon. He, his wife and two young daughters were living on a kibbutz near the border with Gaza last October 7th when Hamas attacked. They hid in a safe room for hours until they were finally rescued by a team that included Amir's own father, a retired general. He tells that story of that day in his new book, The Gates of Gaza. But it's also the story of the history of the region and about a relationship between neighbours, the Israelis on the kibbutz and the Palestinians living so close by in Gaza, who at one point even travelled across the border for a festival of peace on Amir's kibbutz. I asked him what happened to that relationship leading up to October 7th:

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AMIR TIBON: That's one of the questions I tried to answer in the book. What happened? What happened between 1994 when we have this festival on the main lawn of the kibbutz and there's an Israeli flag next to it, a Palestinian flag, and children, Israelis and Palestinians, are playing football together or soccer, I should say, in this studio, actually. And then three decades later, which is not a huge amount of time in historical terms, you have this massacre that then opens the door to this destructive war and thousands upon thousands of people die. What happened in those three decades in between? And I try to answer that question. You know, a lot of events happened. There were terror attacks by, you know, Palestinian groups like Hamas, and there were attacks by fanatic Jewish extremists like the massacre in Hebron in 1994 and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. There was the second intifada, the failure of the peace process. There was the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the subsequent Hamas victory in the Palestinian election. There were the many years of Benjamin Netanyahu holding power in Israel in his attempt to divide and conquer the Palestinian political scene, isolating the Palestinian Authority and pampering Hamas in Gaza. A lot of things happened. And the result eventually was what we saw on that day.

MG: How would you-- I mean, and I ask you this as somebody who lived through this, but also as a journalist who has covered politics as a diplomatic correspondent-- how would you describe what's motivating Benjamin Netanyahu right now as he navigates the war in Gaza, but also a tinderbox of a situation in the West Bank? Where parts of the West Bank are being flattened, there is an extraordinary increase in violence there. You now have a situation in Lebanon, as well. How would you describe what's motivating him?

AMIR TIBON: One world: power. He wants to remain in power. Above all, that's what's motivating him. For him, that motivation is also impacted by his legal situation because if he loses power, the indictments against him, I believe, you know, the trial that's been dragged for years will go much faster all of a sudden, because today he's using the situation as a pretext to delay and delay further and ask for more time. And I believe that as long as he's holding power, some people are afraid to turn against him and say the truth. And once you lose power, sometimes people will feel more confident to come out and speak against you. So, for him, this is about personal survival.

MG: Where does that leave people broadly in the region? Not just in Israel, but more broadly?

AMIR TIBON: Well, broadly in the region, sadly, this is nothing new, this kind of behaviour by leaders. This is an entire region where there is only one democratic country, Israel. All the other countries are ruled by kings and dictators. Some of them are at least attuned to the public opinion and the needs of their populations, and some of them not even that. Israel is unique for being a democracy where the government is supposed to serve the people.

MG: And yet there have been demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people on the streets.

AMIR TIBON: That's part of our democracy. But it also shows you the crisis of our democracy and the sense that many Israelis feel that Netanyahu sees himself perhaps as an equivalent of some of these other rulers in the area and not as a Democratic leader who is supposed to serve the interests of his country above all and give them more of a priority than his own personal interests.

MG: You describe in the book one of your visits back to the kibbutz, and you go to a cemetery, which is at the top of a hilltop, I guess. And from there, you have a view...

AMIR TIBON: Of Gaza.

MG: Of Gaza. And you describe the scale of the destruction that you see as a result of a year of war. When you look at that, what goes through your mind?

AMIR TIBON: Logically, reasonably? I understand why Israel had to do a lot of it, let's say. And I supported the war from the beginning. I thought that we had no choice but to go to war. We were attacked in such a way that we had to fight back and we had to remove the army of terror that had been built on our border for all these years. Emotionally, I find it very difficult.

MG: Because you also say in the book, you find it difficult to countenance the level of destruction in Gaza and wonder whether it will lead to peace or more violence.

AMIR TIBON: That's true. Those two things don't contradict each other. On a logical, reasonable level, I understand that Israel had to fight back. But when I look at the destruction, I don't feel happy about it. I do not feel any joy when I see so many people who have lost their homes and lost their lives. And it does make me wonder in the long term, what's the plan? Where are we going from here? How do we make sure that ten years from now our children have a better life in Israel and specifically in the Gaza border region? And I don't believe that living next to a country as devastated as Somalia, for example, is in our interest. I do think that we need to aspire for a better reality on both sides of the border. It cannot include Hamas. They are a, you know, murderous terror organizations. And one of our biggest mistakes to begin with was that our governments tried to do business with them all the time. But the people of Gaza are not going anywhere and they're going to remain our neighbours, and we need to think about how we create a better future for us. And it will not be possible if there's only hell and suffering in the future for them.

MG: The title of the book comes from a eulogy that was delivered for a former resident of your kibbutz in 1954. I just want to read part of it.

AMIR TIBON: 1956.

MG: 56', pardon me. It says, "Let us not cast blame on the murderers. Why should we question their burning hatred of us? For eight years, they have been sitting in refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes, we have been transforming the lands and the villages where their fathers dwelled into our estate." How do you respond to those words now, given what you've been through and what the region has been through?

AMIR TIBON: That speech by Moshe Dayan, you know, the most famous general perhaps in Israeli history is a seminal speech. In that speech, Dayan lays two arguments. One argument is what you just read. Basically, he says we should not have any sense of surprise that the Arabs are trying to murder us after what we did to them in 1948. Dayan says we took their lands. We're now building new communities on those former lands, and they want revenge. It's the most obvious thing in the world to him. And you could almost take that speech and turn it into an argument for peace, you know, to come and say this will only be resolved once the injustice is fixed. But no, he takes the completely opposite direction, and he says, because they will always want to take revenge on us, there will never be peace in this land and we always have to be alert. We need to live with the sword in our hand or else we will not have anything. And that's a very dark and pessimistic speech. And ever since he gave it in Nahal Oz, in 1956, there has been an open-ended argument between Moshe Dayan and the young men and women who founded this kibbutz in 1953. They didn't like that speech. They wanted to believe that one day there will be peace with the people in Gaza. And we're almost 70 years after that speech and the argument is still ongoing.

MG: Is that something that you believe? I mean, having moved there, having lived there and then having gone through this, do you believe that that idea of peace-- those people on the other side, will they be your neighbours again?

AMIR TIBON: Peace is a problematic word right now. I don't know how we make peace after October 7th and after the war in Gaza. I think the level of hatred, the level of, you know, desire for revenge is very high right now among Israelis and Palestinians. But in the long run, you have millions of Jews and millions of Palestinians in this land. Nobody's going anywhere. And if we don't find some way to share the land, we'll just keep killing each other forever. Maybe that was Dayan's vision, but I think there are a lot of people who can imagine, in a more distant future, something else in this land, something better for our children.

MG: And is that something you can imagine for your kids?

AMIR TIBON: On some day. On some days I can. Yes.

MG: It's a remarkable story. And I'm glad you're here to tell us about it. Thank you very much.

AMIR TIBON: Thank you for having me.

MG: Amir Tibon is the diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. His new book is The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival and Hope in Israel's Borderlands, and he joined me in studio last week on a visit to Toronto.

[Music: Instrumental]

Banning basements in the face of climate change

Guests: Craig Stewart

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio. My name is Matt Galloway. When torrential rains struck Toronto over the summer, even Drake-- even Drake-- was not spared. The musician posted on social media images of gross brown water gushing through his fancy home with the caption, "This better be espresso martini." For people of more modest means, floods are nothing to joke about. Maja Vodanovic is the mayor of Lachine, Quebec.

SOUNDCLIP

MAJA VODANOVIC: It's a catastrophe to a lot of people, especially the people who live in basement apartments. It's a life drama. I mean, they've lost, some people have lost their their life savings.

MG: The disaster of this past summer has Mayor Maja Vodanovic calling for a ban on new basement apartments. The Montreal borough of Ville-Marie has already brought in restrictions for its flood prone areas. And my next guest says, well, it's about time, but that the rules don't go far enough. Craig Stewart is vice president of climate change and federal issues with the Insurance Bureau of Canada. He is in our Halifax studio. Craig, good morning.

CRAIG STEWART: Good morning, Matt.

MG: In the wake of these storms that roared through not just Montreal, but many parts of Quebec, do you think that bringing in restrictions on basement apartments is the right way to go?

CRAIG STEWART: We think that the comments that have been made by the mayor of Montreal and other mayors in the region looking at restricting basement apartments is a start. We think that's the sort of local leadership that we need to see in other places. Listen-- the amount of rain that fell in Montreal and in Toronto back in July, you know, was high. But it's only a sign of what we're going to see. And we're going to need to make some tough political decisions about how do we make sure we protect people going forward.

MG: I want to talk about those tough political decisions and how far they should go. I mean, the basement apartment ban that the mayor of Lachine is suggesting would apply just to new construction. Considering the damage to existing basement dwellings over the summer, you could go through the streets after the storms and you would see people who had just taken everything out of the basement and were leaving it at the side of the road for the trash to pick up because the water had ruined the contents of their basement. Should those rules be more stringent?

CRAIG STEWART: Unfortunately, yes. I mean, we've got-- we have attention now. We've got a housing crisis where we don't have enough places across the country to live, and basements are an easy solution to stuff people into existing or into new basement apartment. But those are going to be the highest risk areas when you have intense rainfalls like what we've just seen and you don't want, we don't want to be putting people's lives at risk. We don't want to be putting their financial stability at risk. And so, there has to be a trade-off, We need to be thinking much more carefully about how we address the housing crisis. Not just simply, you know, build baby, build all across the country.

MG: So, what are you saying? I mean, part of this is about new basement apartments. But are you saying that there should be restrictions on existing basement apartments? That the basement apartments in these flood zones should be closed, removed from the housing pool?

CRAIG STEWART: We're saying that we should be doing a much better job of predicting where high levels of rainfall are going to pool, where water is going to pool, and if that puts people's lives at risk, yes, we should make sure they're not living in basement apartments in those areas. And we should be, in fact, restricting homes generally-- new homes from being built in those areas.

MG: There's a huge number of questions to deal with there. One is the rental issue. The other is the fact that many people who are homeowners rent out a basement apartment so that they can afford to have the home in the first place. I mean, how do you square all of that?

CRAIG STEWART: Well, let's just think about the numbers and, you know, so downtown Montreal received 240 milimetres of rain. Toronto areas around Toronto received 220 milimetres of rain. We saw the devastation that that caused. Right? Some areas around Montreal received up to 200 milimetres. But our reference point in this country is Hurricane Hazel. So Hurricane Hazel, you know, October hurricane back in 1954, 214 milimetres. So, you know, more. Much, much more than what we saw in Montreal and Toronto. Now look at what just happened this past weekend south of the border. So, the areas, the communities around Asheville, North Carolina, received over 750 milimetres of rain in 48 hours. And that is a mountain town, those are mountain towns that are 500 kilometres from any coast. So, if that could happen in Asheville, the question is, could it happen here? Probably. And if we received that much rain, what would that mean? Right? If-- even if we received 300 milimetres as we received in Nova Scotia a year ago, what would that mean in an urban area like Toronto or Montreal? So, we shouldn't be planning for what we've seen, you know, in the past. We should be planning for the future. And when people's lives are at risk, we need to make some difficult decisions, which is what the mayor of Montreal is musing about right now.

MG: These politicians have a lot on their plate, and making those difficult decisions is a tricky thing. Have a listen to the premier of Quebec, Francois Legault. He was asked about this issue in August while he was visiting the flood stricken community of Louiseville.

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FRANCOIS LEGAULT: We'll have to look at what will be the impacts in the next ten, 50 years. Should we live in a basement or not? It's kind of questions that we'll have to ask ourselves. But short term, we don't see needing to a table a bill like that.

MG: He says, short term, we don't need to table a bill like that, Craig.

CRAIG STEWART: So, I represent obviously a suite of insurance companies across the country that have just paid out eight billion dollars in claims over, you know, the year to date. That's ten times what we would pay out, you know, in the early 2000s on an annual basis. It's, you know, twice what we paid out last year. And the number seems to just keep going up. So, if Premier Legault is suggesting that this is a future problem, we would disagree.

MG: What does it mean for your industry? I mean, eight billion dollars is a lot of money, no matter how you look at it. What dies the increased risk of basement flooding in particular mean for your industry?

CRAIG STEWART: Well, there's several issues at play here. One issue is insurability. Insurers are going to be taking a much more careful look at where homes are built and how they're built in low lying areas. These aren't even floodplains. These are areas that, you know, where rainfall is just going to overwhelm any storm water management system. The second issue, and I'm sure this is what municipal mayors and councillors are considering, is the liability issue. When you see this amount of water pool, if you allow or permit new homes to be built in these areas, you're opening the municipality up to liability. And this is not a-- it's not, I mean, the future is now. We're already seeing it across the country.

MG: And yet again, in the face of a housing crisis where it's difficult to find anywhere affordable-- we just spent a bunch of time talking about people paying upwards of 100 per cent of their income on rent. The basement apartment is, for many people, the most affordable place to live, whether you are a student or somebody later on in your life who might not be able to afford something above ground. Where does that leave those people who are already struggling to find somewhere to live?

CRAIG STEWART: Well, part of the answer has to be that governments need to support municipalities. Other orders of government, provinces and federal government, need to be able to support municipalities with basically investments in storm water systems, better storm water defence. The mayor of Mississauga recently called out the federal government for a lack of investment. You know, if they want to solve the housing crisis on the backs of municipalities and encourage them to build more homes and allow basement apartments in areas of potentially high risk, then they have to also, with the other hand, provide funding to municipalities to help protect. Invest in stormwater management, you know, where it will make a difference. Investment in flood diversion. You know, there's there's a-- that's not going to fix it everywhere, obviously. But at least we need to be carefully thinking through, you know, both sides of this. How do you build more homes? How do you allow basement apartments? And at the same time, if you're going to allow it, if they're at high risk, how do you protect them?

MG: A lot of people who look at the weather forecast with trepidation these days, when they're worried, when they see rain cloud and they're looking at, you know, the rain accumulation on the app when it says this is how much rain you might be getting, if you are a homeowner with a basement that you are renting out right now, what should you be thinking about?

CRAIG STEWART: You should be thinking about whether your tenants are safe. I mean, pick up the newspaper and look at what happened in West Hants Nova Scotia a year ago, where four people tragically fled in the middle of the night because they had no idea that they were, their homes are about to be inundated with ten, fifteen feet of water. And tragically, as they tried to flee, they lost their lives. And, you know, they had no idea, no idea that that much rain could accumulate where they lived. And so, if you're a landlord, you probably should educate yourself.

MG: It doesn't sound like something like a sump pump is going to be enough.

CRAIG STEWART: No, no, no. A sump pump... when you're seeing this much rain, a sump pump isn't going to make, isn't going to make enough of a difference.

MG: But what about for the tenants? Just finally, what advice do you have for them?

CRAIG STEWART: Be careful where you rent. Try to go to the municipality to determine if it's a low lying area. Determine if you are in an area of high flood risk. You know, you should be aware. And certainly, pay particular attention to weather alerts if we're looking at a system. I mean, we knew in Montreal and Toronto both of these events that there was a fair amount of rain that was going to come. Environment Canada had the warning. You know, pay attention.

MG: Craig, good to talk to you because thank you very much.

CRAIG STEWART: Thank you. Thanks, Matt.

MG: Craig Stewart is vice president of Climate Change and Federal Issues with the Insurance Bureau of Canada. He was in our studio in Halifax. Any thoughts on this as a landlord or a tenant, perhaps living in a basement apartment? We'd love to hear from you. Email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. This is The Current. My name is Matt Galloway. If you were listening to the program last week, you might have caught the conversation about the Quebec delicacy poutine. Pronouncing it poutine--poutine. This was the subject of discussion on the program. I'm going to say poutine. Justin Giovannetti Lamothe was here. He is the author of a new book, Poutine: A Deep Fried Road Trip of Discovery. As it turns out, some of you have had your own journeys discovering poutine. Karin Marley, senior... I've never said poutine as much as I have just in that sentence. Karin Marley, senior producer of The Current is here with some of your mail. Good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. I'm going to join you in saying poutine. I don't know that I can get the other pronunciation quite right. So, let's start with someone who has memories of the very early days of poutine. This is from Adrienne Pollak: "From 1955 to 1965, I lived in Shawinigan, Quebec. Le Pharmacie Sauvageau on the main drag there had a soda bar style counter which acted as a social hub for young teens after school. The most common order I heard called out was 'frites.' Occasionally, I'd hear 'frites et sauce.' Then, I was hearing an even rarer, 'frites, sauce et fromage.' That seemed to catch on and soon the kids would ask for a 'la poutine,' (the usual mess.) Yamachiche, home of today's La Chaudière cheese factory was a 30 minute drive from home and our own three children squealed for us to stop there for the delicious squeaky cheese curds they made. We were happy to accommodate them. Curds were more nutritious and less messy in the car than chocolate. I can't provide the precise date of the first call for poutine, but as Sauvageau’s soda counter back in Shawinigan became more crowded, the orders were often for 'la même chose' (the same thing.) I have no solid evidence to date the birth of la poutine beyond sharing my lived experience from that wonderful decade in La Belle Province."

MG: Mark Dewairy writes from Dundas, Ontario: "On a road trip through B.C. during the summer of 2023, our family was passing through Kaslo in the Kootenays. After a lovely hike along the Kaslo River Trail, we headed to the town for dinner, only to find that all the restaurants had just closed. We were all feeling dejected when a friendly passer-by mentioned a food truck around the corner. We eagerly walked over and ended up having an incredible meal of fish, burgers and poutine while talking and taking in the spectacular vista of the Selkirk and Purcell Mountain Ranges. The poutine was the best we'd ever had, and we weren't surprised to learn that the owner of the food truck, Serge, was a Quebecois who had settled in Kaslo. We spent quite a while there talking to other patrons as well as to Serge himself, and we learned that his food truck was an establishment of Kaslo where people gathered. It was an evening we still recount and will never forget."

KARIN MARLEY: Paulin Stanislas was listening in from Rothesay, New Brunswick, and writes about a first poutine experience: "It was January of 1983, and I was in Montreal for a Habs game in the old forum. I later stopped in at a Harvey's and was about to order a burger when I noticed poutine on the menu. Being an Acadian from New Brunswick, I presumed that it was poutine râpée, and ordered two. The server asked if they were to go, seeing that I was there alone and I said I'd eat them there. Are you sure you want two of them? she asked. And I said, Of course, expecting two bottles of combined grated and mashed potatoes with pork in the middle. Instead, I was served two plates of French fries with gravy and cheese curds. What's that? I explained. To which she replied, des poutine, monsieur. I told her that I was expecting poutine râpées, to which she replied, What's that? Anyway, being a lot younger than I am today, I ate both plates and thoroughly enjoyed it."

MG: Well done. And finally, DM Stover writes about the three versions of Poutine, starting with the Acadian version we just heard about. Number two is "Poutine in Quebec. May be quite a fine snack, a treat, maybe an occasional meal. However, it must be a far better presentation coinciding with fine flavours than I have seen in the Atlantic. Sauce or gravy is what is poured all over french fries before adding cheese curds. Then it may be stirred before serving. And for me, the gravy never looks like the real thing, as in traditional gravy made of meat juices and vegetables. I often find poutine gravy disappointing and too salty." Number three in the list of poutines is: "A very interesting and tasty variation in my area: Donair Poutine. Imagine this: fries, thin sliced donair meat, highly processed, but if going to hell, one may as well run! Donair sauce topped with chopped tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley." And then, DM Stover sent a photo as well, just in case we weren't hungry enough, and talked about this. You can see the photo. Thank you very much.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: Driving out to Nova Scotia along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence, you have to stop at whatever casse-croûte you see, and poutine is the only order that you want. And I'm sure there's other things, but if you're in at a casse-croûte, that's what you need. Karin Marley is the senior producer of The Current. Thanks for all your mails. Hope you're hungry. If there's anything that you hear on the program that you want to comment on, do get in touch. Email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. That's The Current for this 1st of October. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Kris Kristofferson gets the last word this morning. The legendary country singer, incredible songwriter, road scholar as well, died on Saturday at the age of 88. Here is the mighty Kris Kristofferson, Help Me Make it Through the Night. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and I'll see you tomorrow.

[Music: 'Help Me Make it Through the Night' by Kris Kristofferson]

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Tuesday October 1, 2024 Full Transcript

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