VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

Guests: Kevin Smith, Rob Evans, Ken McMullen

MG: We may have woken up this week to a hazy view or the scent of smoke. The wildfires that have been raging across this country are top of mind for the firefighters on the frontlines, and many of them are volunteers. Some 70% of firefighters in this country are volunteers, and it's getting harder to recruit people for that job. Kevin Smith is a volunteer firefighter at the Moores Mills Fire Department in New Brunswick. Rob Evans is a volunteer firefighter in Redwood Meadows, Alberta. Good morning to you both.

KEVIN SMITH: Good morning.

ROB EVANS: Good morning.

MG: Kevin, tell us why you became a volunteer firefighter.

KEVIN SMITH: Well, I've been at it for a long while. I guess it more or less was you just kind of fall into those jobs in the community you're in. And, you know, there was a need where I was working for a daytime driver in an environment because the gentlemen that, you know, were in the community were elderly. They didn't like to drive the truck. So they brought a radio down to where I worked and I run it through the day and my boss would run it at night. So you just kind of fall into it as, you know, a community thing. So.

MG: You say a long while. You've been doing this since 1982. Is that right?

KEVIN SMITH: Thereabouts. Yeah.

MG: Yeah. And you helped create the fire department in your town?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, no. We worked hard to keep it going. It was actually started by, in 1967, I guess we were incorporated as, you know, Moores Mills Fire Department. But there was a Gerald Gilman memorial that we go by, which was a gentleman in the community who for years before that had built and run a couple of his own trucks just as a community service. So it's been around a long while and we're very proud of that heritage and trying to keep it going.

MG: What about for you, Rob? Why are you volunteering?

ROB EVANS: I am a lifelong family tradition. I had uncles. I grew up in Ontario just north of you. And my uncles, my dad were all firefighters in town. And when I became, actually, I was 21 when I started it. So it took me a couple of years after I was able to join the department. But I actually have a media background and was out in this area taking pictures of a wildfire. And they kind of recruited me then. And the rest, as they say, is history.

MG: But you didn't need to say yes, though. They recruited you, but I mean, we'll talk about the dangers of this work. Why would you say yes to something like this? Why would you think that this would be something that you yourself should throw yourself into?

ROB EVANS: It is really in the blood. My dad used to say, and I kind of agree with Kevin where you fall into it, but to more directly answer your question, my dad used to say, and I do believe him, that I do it because other people can't. You know, the community has soccer coaches, we have hockey coaches, that type of thing. And what I do, what I'm able to do is provide a fire service. That's my interest, that's my knowledge, and that's how I serve the community.

MG: Kevin, what sort of training do you get to become a volunteer firefighter?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, as it goes, when we first, now they have what they call a level one, which is what community college in New Brunswick puts it on. Well, that's who we go through to get the books. But it's quite a, you know, I guess it's a challenging thing, as Rob knows. You know, when a new member comes to our fire department and they say we want to join, well, the first thing they're faced with is, you know, they have to be qualified before we can put them on the fire ground. And sometimes, it could take as much as a year of training. They do their WHMIS and their first aid and, you know, the practical as well as the theory through the books. It's quite a challenge, especially for, you know, a young family. And, you know, the people that you get now or probably people that are coming back, settling in your area with a young family and a new career, and then, you know, you go and you say, hey, why don't you join the fire department? You know, it's very challenging for them with all that scenario.

MG: And I mean, it's a volunteer position, but is there any sort of compensation or anything like that at all that would give you a bit of a break in doing this?

KEVIN SMITH: There's a statement for our income tax that, you know, we put in so many hours. We get some deduction off of that, but, you know, it's not a great amount of money.

MG: You do it as a volunteer.

KEVIN SMITH: It’s just a volunteer. You know, sometimes, the wildfires will pay manpower and crew, but I don't know there's anybody on our department in the last 40 years who has taken any of it. You know, we just put it back in. It's like Rob said, it's just something you do, you know, for the good of the unit. You know, people are, you know, every service club has members who are loyal to the cause. And I guess that's what we do.

MG: How often, Rob, do you get a call to go out to a fire or an emergency?

ROB EVANS: I think today is day 159 or 160 of the year. And just yesterday, we did call number 178. So we're at about 1.1 calls per day.

MG: And how does that work? I mean, you're not in a fire hall or anything. So an app on the phone or something like that or the phone just rings and away you go?

ROB EVANS: Yeah. I mean, Alberta has a provincial radio system and all of our firefighters have a portable radio. And so we can hear our tones going off from the dispatch centre in Calgary. And we also have an app on our phone that is very popular across Canada. There's three or four different apps that departments use. But yeah, we're notified multiple different ways. And one of the big issues in our area is the cell coverage. And I know governments for years have been promising improved networking or networks for cell service in rural Alberta or rural Canada.

MG: Right.

ROB EVANS: And that's a challenge for us.

MG: And you're on call, I mean, in the times, the few times perhaps that the phone isn't ringing, you're kind of on call. This could come at any time, day or night?

ROB EVANS: 24/7, 365. I mean, our guys can turn the radio off if they're out enjoying a cold beer on a 30-degree day while they're cutting grass. I don't know who would cut grass when it's that warm, but, you know, if they're out in their yard or out with their family, you know, at a local pub or something like that, then of course, we have rules that you can't respond. So there's very little guys that actually, you know, drink in our area, for example. It's volunteer to join and volunteer to… You don't have to respond. If it's graduation time, so we've had a couple of firefighters that have kids that are graduating high school and they chose not to respond that particular day. And we all knew it and knew why. And, you know, we just move on. That's volunteer firefighting.

MG: Kevin, in your small town, how many firefighters, volunteer firefighters do you have?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, in our community, Moores is more of a community in the lay out we have, but we have 19 active right now, but that's I suppose our average age. I was talking to the fire chief last night. I said, what's our average age? Would it be 50? He said, probably.

MG: And so is it easy to get new volunteers?

KEVIN SMITH: No.

MG: No.

KEVIN SMITH: Not so much. I mean, like I said earlier, there's no great colour guard other than the fact, you know, we invite people to go to your firehouse, you know, and see what's going on. And, you know, and maybe it is something for you. I don't know, people just shy away. You know, it's an interesting career. It's not maybe the safest or the most healthiest career, but like, you know, like it's just something that we do. But there's a lot of pluses to it too. You meet a lot of great people and make a lot of, you know, a lot of friends and, you know, they get your back. And, you know, that is important to me is, you know, is any part of it.

MG: Rob, what about for you? How has it been in terms of getting people to volunteer for this?

ROB EVANS: We're in a different situation. I mean, we're just outside of the city with 1.2 million people. So we have a lot of population in the area to draw from. And what we end up getting, we have 27 on our roster right now, and I would say about 12 or 13 of us are, I want to say gung ho. That glorifies it, but we're there every day type of thing. The rest are guys that are using us as a resumé builder. We use the analogy of a farm team. So they come and get training with us and get their experience, get our department name on their resume. And then two or three years later, they're on a paid department. And we've come to the realization that that is the reality of it for us. We're always going to have the numbers. But whether or not, I mean, a kid from Calgary that joins, and you talked about average ages. Our average age is under 30, I believe, right now. But you get a kid from Calgary joining us as a resumé builder. He's not there within three or four minutes of that pager going off to respond. So that's where that, you know, 13, 14 of us that are in the community, we get that first truck out.

MG: Kevin, I'll let you both go, but just last word to you. When you see these fires happening across the country and the number of people, I mentioned the majority, a huge number of firefighters, some 70% of firefighters in this country are volunteers. What's going through your mind when you take a look at the wildfires?

KEVIN SMITH: Well, you know, I mean, it seems to be the sign of the times, the ways, you know, things are changing with the climate. But I just think, you know, how lucky we are to have, you know, the volunteers do what they're doing and, you know, pray for their safety. And, you know, I guess I'm glad I'm not there, you know, like Rob would be. We would be if duty calls, I guess. That's just the way it goes. Things go aside when this is happening. You know, you don't think about you, you think about the cause that you're going to and reflect on that. I guess that's the way I always run.

MG: Glad to hear about the work that both of you are doing, the volunteer work. It's important. And so thank you for telling us about it. Stay safe and thanks for what you volunteered to do.

KEVIN SMITH: Thank you.

ROB EVANS: Thank you very much.

MG: Kevin Smith is a volunteer firefighter in Oak Hill, New Brunswick. Rob Evans, a volunteer fire chief in Redwood Meadows, Alberta. Ken McMullen is president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. Ken, good morning.

KEN MCMULLEN: Well, good morning.

MG: You have written that this country is hemorrhaging firefighters. What sort of decline has there been in the number of volunteer firefighters across this country?

KEN MCMULLEN: Well, in 2016, there was 156,000 firefighters in this country. And in 2022, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs conducted the same survey and it showed that we're at 126,000. And obviously, that's a decline of 30,000. As you just talked to Rob and Kevin about, 90,000 of that 126 are volunteer. So it's closer to 80% of the Canadian Fire Service are volunteer. So we are definitely seeing a decline.

MG: Why do you think it's so difficult to recruit people into this?

KEN MCMULLEN: You know, and again, I had the pleasure of listening to a good friend of mine, Rob Evans, who I've known for over 20 years. Kevin, I haven’t met in the past. But, you know, listening to those two gentlemen, you talk about just some of the challenges that it is facing our volunteer system. I think that there's opportunities to increase the recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters. We've been working with government. You heard Kevin Smith talk about that small renumeration and that tax incentive. Currently, the volunteers in Canada get up to $3,000 in a tax incentive. And we've asked the Canadian government to increase that to 10,000 simply for the fact that that 3000 gets eaten and swallowed up really, really quickly. And that's aside from these major events that we're seeing in the country right now.

MG: But is there something, we've talked on this program with firefighters and former firefighters about, for example, the links between cancers and the work that they're doing in terms of what they might be exposed to and that this is something they're thinking about as paid firefighters. For volunteers, is that one of the things that would give people kind of a bit of a pause if they’re thinking, you know what, I want to help my community, but there are real risks in terms of taking on this kind of work?

KEN MCMULLEN: Yeah, I would suggest it's more than a bit of a pause. There's absolutely a correlation between the more we learn about the risks that are faced by our first responders, the more that we are going to see more questions, deliberate questions and intentional questions about what are we doing to ensure the safety of those men and women. And that goes for our career, our composite and our volunteer. And I'll take that one step further because you absolutely are correct. We are seeing the increase of cancers related to the role of a first responder, particularly in this case, firefighters. Equally as important, we are seeing the mental health impacts of being a first responder. And a very unknown statistic, but one that’s staggering is less than 2% of the human population see, hear and smell that of what a first responder does every time they go out on these calls. So you think about the risks that that does mentally. We recognize that there is programs in place. However, at the end of the day, it's just not for everybody.

MG: We've been talking certainly in the last few weeks as fires have been tearing through Alberta and parts of Nova Scotia and Quebec and northern Ontario about how fire is different now. And we were hearing about some of the training that those volunteer firefighters get. Is the training commensurate? Does it match with what those firefighters are up against now?

KEN MCMULLEN: I think there's a couple of answers to that. Number one, there is training that is delivered across this country for all firefighters. And there are standards that we intend to meet, the standards put out by national organizations. What's happening right now, using the wildfires as an example, wildfires are not our typical bread and butter type of event that our fire departments respond to on an average on a regular basis. Although, our information and data is showing that we have a significant increase in weather related events, floods, fires, heat domes, etc. In 2013, up and to 2013, the Federal government had something called the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program, which was a dedicated budget line within the federal government that allowed fire departments to apply for training and equipment. And in 2013, that program ended, indicated that it had met the mandate. And the reality was we need that money now more than ever. And so as we continue to advocate and work with government, we have made that point very clear that that reinvestment in the joint Emergency Preparedness program is vital to these fire departments that need the additional training and the equipment needed for a whole host of exposures to events that we weren't typically training for 25 years ago. And I meant to mention I too started as a volunteer some 26 years ago, and here I am today and wowed things have changed since that time.

MG: Just I guess finally in the last minute or so that we have, if 70% of the firefighters in this country are volunteers and we as a nation aren’t ensuring that they are trained, that they have the equipment that's necessary, that the incentives aren't there to get them to volunteer in the first place, what's at stake, do you think?

KEN MCMULLEN: Well, I think there's a couple of things. We have an obligation. We as a country and a society have an obligation to do what we can to show the value and the appreciation of the men and women that deliver this service every single day. And I'll say that on behalf of our volunteers, our composite and our career departments. We recognize that it's going to take more than rain to put out these fires in 2023. We have to do a whole host of initiatives today to be better prepared for 24, 25, things like the tax incentive, reinvestment in the joint emergency preparedness. We've also talked to the federal government about implementing a national fire advisory role within the federal government that would look at the coordination of equipment and resources across the country to assist with events like the ones we've been seeing across Canada right now.

MG: This is important to talk about and again, something that perhaps people aren't aware of in terms of the scale of that volunteer fire force. Ken, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

KEN MCMULLEN: Thank you for your time. Thank you, dear listeners, and stay safe.

MG: Ken McMullen is president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. We did contact the Ministry of Natural Resources. They sent a statement that reads in part, “The Government of Canada has signed nine agreements through the first phase of the wildfire training fund, a $37.9 million fund designed to train and retain firefighters in communities that need that support the most.” You'll hear more about this tomorrow on CBC Radio's The House. Catherine Cullen is going to speak with Bill Blair, minister of emergency Preparedness, about whether there is a need for a dedicated agency in Canada to deal with these sorts of emergencies, the wildfires that we are seeing right now and the change in fires. You'll hear that tomorrow on The House. In the meantime, would love to hear from you. If you are a volunteer firefighter in this country, why do you do this? And what do you believe could be done to ensure that you are better supported and better protected in that work? You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. You know that fire crews across this country are helping out in battling those blazes. And this is a call that's gone out around the world as well. This week, a team from South Africa arrived in Edmonton to help fight Alberta's wildfires, and they made quite the entrance at the airport.

SOUNDCLIP

[people singing and clapping]

MG: It's an amazing scene. If you haven't seen it, you can look for the video online. Your CBC News is next. And then, grand theft auto. What is behind an increase in car thefts in this country? I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

SOUNDCLIP

[singing and clapping fades up]

CAR THEFTS

Guests: Samantha Hodder, Bryan Gast, George Iny

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: There are countless videos online, black and white security footage showing suburban driveways and urban alleys, thieves walking up to a vehicle in broad daylight, fiddling with a device and then driving away. Coming up, a surge in car theft in Canada.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL KERZNER: A car is stolen every 48 minutes in Ontario. That number is staggering and completely unacceptable. No family should deal with the loss of their vehicle and hope it is found.

MG: That's Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner announcing millions of dollars in new funding to fight auto thefts. The money will go toward creating an organized crime and auto theft team led by the Ontario Provincial Police. Samantha Hodder knows all too well what it's like to have her car stolen. She's with me in our studio in Toronto. Good morning.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Good morning.

MG: How did you realize that your car had been stolen?

SAMANTHA HODDER: I went out to the driveway expecting to get in it and it wasn't there. And the first thought was where did I leave it? What did I do with it? My first thought wasn't oh no, my car has been stolen. Did I park it up front? Did someone else borrow it?

MG: When did you realize that you hadn't parked it somewhere else, that perhaps somebody hadn't taken it, you know, with permission, that it had been stolen?

SAMANTHA HODDER: After I quickly ran around the block thinking where did I leave it and I called my husband, and then it sunk. The realization sunk in.

MG: And so you called the police.

SAMANTHA HODDER: I did.

MG: And what did they say?

SAMANTHA HODDER: I waited on hold for an hour and a half and eventually, someone said, oh, okay, we'll come around and take a look at it. In the meantime, I canvassed all my neighbours to see if they had maybe seen something. No one had because these things happened in the middle of the night when people aren't actually awake. And eventually, the first time they came over, they canvassed the neighbourhood and said, well, there's not much we can do.

MG: There's not much we can do.

SAMANTHA HODDER: You know, they looked around. They looked to see if anyone on our street had a front door camera or, you know, some kind of security footage. There wasn't anything useful. So, you know, that was that. And I didn't expect to see it. And surprisingly, about two days later, someone phoned me and said, I think we found your car. Is this your license plate? I said, yeah. And he said, well, we've got it.

MG: So back up a little bit. Who's the person who's calling you saying we think we found your car?

SAMANTHA HODDER: It was someone from like dispatch in a different division.

MG: And what did they say? Where did they think that they had found your car?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Well, that one's a bit of a story. They found it probably about two kilometres due north of where I live out in the west, nearby Ronsisvalle. It was at Keele in Western. And apparently, what the detective finally told me when they spoke to me later was that it was the next in line to get on a shipping container that was bound for Africa. And what was already on the shipping container was a number of RAV4 stacked one on top of the other.

MG: And is that what kind of car you had, a Toyota RAV4?

SAMANTHA HODDER: I have a Highlander hybrid.

MG: Okay.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yeah. And I was the first in line. And there were three or four other cars behind me that were all Toyotas that were getting, and I think a Lexus, that were bound to get on to the container. So that was lucky. That was just a lucky get.

MG: Did they say what kind of condition the car was in or anything about it?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Well, eventually, I found it. It had minor damage. I was lucky it wasn't one of the ones that was stacked one on top of the other. So, you know, they rip off the parts that they think have the tracking devices. So they ripped off the antenna and they break the door handle to get in. And then they cut through the centre console steering. So it wasn't anything dramatic. They didn't bash the window. They didn't. But all these little parts, like even the key fob, it took three weeks to get a new key fob. There's such a backlog in parts that they can't even fix the stuff that they have that's broken.

MG: Did police tell you how your car had been stolen? I mean, where was it parked, for example?

SAMANTHA HODDER: It was in my driveway.

MG: In the driveway.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yeah. And what they told me, which is based on their experience, is that they break the door handle. They kind of come with like a little hammer and just break. It's plastic. Then they get in and they… It doesn't matter. They're not canvassing my house looking for the fob thing. They go in with a new computer and they immediately program a new key. And then they use that brand new key and they drive away. And this all takes about two minutes.

MG: Two minutes.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yeah.

MG: And why your car?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Because I think it's dumb and easy to steal. It's a brand new car. It's a 2021. But Toyota, the technology that's in there is not sophisticated enough to meet the demands of the criminal ring.

MG: And so having got that call saying your car was there next in line waiting to be stacked up, it wasn't put in that shipping container or wasn't sent abroad. Did you get your car back?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Eventually. It took about two months to get it back because I had to get it picked up by the police from the pound and then the insurance had to get it to the collision centre and then the collision centre had to get the parts. So all of this took about two months.

MG: That's not the end of the story. I'm not going to say goodbye to you just yet. What happened? This was in October.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yes.

MG: What happened in April?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Well, similar story. This was a Saturday morning. We were going out to get into the car to go to the provincial volleyball tournament very early in the morning, and the car just wasn't there. And this time, it was like, oh, not again.

MG: Perhaps with stronger language.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Maybe. Maybe there are some four letters in there. So at that point, my first inclination was where is my car? Because by now, I had put two air tags in there.

MG: These are like that Apple kind of tracking devices.

SAMANTHA HODDER: That's right. And I hid them really, really well in a place that you, my worry was that they were going to demolish the car looking for these things. So not a place that was well enough that I realized I'd have to just buy a new one. I couldn't get it back to replace the battery when it died. So I called the police and said, my car has been stolen and it is at this exact address.

MG: You could see it on your phone where the car was.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yes. And it was on a random street in East York.

MG: On the other side of town.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yeah. And so this was probably about 7:30 in the morning, and it said that it had been there since 5:30.

MG: And what did the police say then when you tell them you know where the car is?

SAMANTHA HODDER: That got a little trickier. They said, okay, thank you, because I just called the dispatch and then I was watching and tracking. So then in the meantime, they said, well, you have to get Toyota to release the GPS data. So there's a security. So I did that, which took another period of time. And then I called the police back to say, okay, I've given you the clearance, but now I'm looking at it and my car's moved. And they said, oh well, where has it moved to? And I gave the new address and the dispatcher on the phone said, oh well, that's because it's now at division five. We've already come and gotten it.

MG: So they got the car.

SAMANTHA HODDER: They got the car. This time, I didn't even get a detective assigned to the case because I think this is in, what I've surmised from talking to many other people who've had their car stolen is the new technique is they put them in a cooling off period. They steal them, then they leave them somewhere to see what happens for a couple of days. And if it's still there, then they go back and get it. In the meantime, there's no accountability and they're never found. They drive away with gloves and masks and there's no way to catch them.

MG: So having had your car stolen twice in the space of six months or something like that, do you now have the car back again?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Yesterday, I picked it up.

MG: What will you do? And part of this, it's not to blame you for having your car stolen, but are you thinking, is there something that I could do to ensure that this doesn't happen again? Maybe, I don't know…

SAMANTHA HODDER: Oh yeah. Well, I'm now.

MG: Sure. What are you thinking about?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Well, I'm more than $1000 into this, this experience. I now have a driveway camera that records events. And yesterday on the way home, I stopped at Canadian Tire and I got a wheel lock, which is like kryptonite lock, except it's for my back wheel.

MG: Mm hmm.

SAMANTHA HODDER: So now I have to remember to take that off before I drive away. And after the first time, I got one of those clubs that goes on the steering wheel. But they must have a master key for it because they just unlocked it. And they didn't cut the steering wheel. It was just there. So, you know, what am I to do? I want my car. It's the car that I need and want. I don't want have to pay another chunk of money to buy a new car when I just bought a brand new car.

MG: Do you think that the manufacturers should have some sort of responsibility to try to make sure that it's more difficult to steal your car?

SAMANTHA HODDER: Absolutely. Your phone, if that phone gets stolen, it's hundreds of dollars. You can brick it and no one can ever touch it and move it. My car, which is worth tens of thousands of dollars, why can't it have a technology that's similar where it can just stop working or you can go and find exactly where it is and you can… Why is this technology that's there so basic when there's definitely the availability to have more advanced technology in there? It feels like an inside job because if you get your car stolen, the insurance company buys you a new one and, you know, they're not at loss.

MG: Quite a sensation every morning now looking out to see whether the car's there.

SAMANTHA HODDER: It's not good things for my blood pressure, I tell you that.

MG: Samantha, thank you.

SAMANTHA HODDER: Pleasure to be here. Thanks.

MG: Samantha Hodder had her car stolen twice in the last year in Toronto. A new report by the not-for-Profit Équité Association says that car thefts across this country are reaching national crisis levels. In Ontario and Quebec alone, last year, the thefts went up by about 50%. Bryan Gast is vice president of investigative Services at that organization. It's working with the insurance sector to fight fraud. Bryan, good morning to you.

BRYAN GAST: Good morning and thank you for having me.

MG: How typical is Samantha's experience, perhaps not having her car stolen twice in six months, but coming out not knowing where the car is and then having to try to track it down through police?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah. Everything she mentioned from the method of theft to how they get the vehicle and cool enough ultimately trying to get it destined overseas is all too common, especially for that vehicle.

MG: I said in the introduction that a car is stolen in the province of Ontario alone every 48 minutes. Why are so many more cars being stolen now?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah. So if you look back over the last two or three years with the supply chain issue globally for used vehicles, organized crime is taking advantage of that. They're targeting Canadian vehicles, particularly the GTA of Ontario and Quebec, and stealing these vehicles for the purposes of export and profiting significantly from these stolen vehicles.

MG: Is there something about the specific vehicle that she had? She had a Toyota, and she said that the cars in that first theft that were stacked up ready to go into the shipping container were all Toyota's as well. Is there something specific about those sorts of vehicles?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah. Really, if any vehicle was a push button start, it’s about being able to find vulnerabilities. Obviously, there’s a vulnerability when it comes to that, any convenience type thing. Criminals look to find vulnerabilities. So any push button start does have a vulnerability for theft. And the way in which her vehicle was stolen would have been a reprogramming theft. And that's simply plugging into the onboard diagnostic port. And it has its intended use. It's meant for when you have a problem with your vehicle, you take it to the garage, the mechanic plugs into that same port, does a diagnostic to determine what's wrong with the vehicle. Criminals also have a device that can plug into that same port and reprogram a key fob.

MG: So help me understand this a bit more because in the old days, you had to hotwire the car to get it going. How easy is it and how quick is it for a thief to steal a vehicle? And how do they go about bypassing the security system and what have you to get the vehicle unlocked and going?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah. So since 2007, Transport Canada mandated all vehicles sold in Canada had to have an NHS device on board, OEM. Since then, technology has advanced and really, there's only a few main methods in which they're being stolen. The route reprogramming is one way that they're bypassing it. Relay attacks is the other.

MG: And what is that? What's a relay attack?

BRYAN GAST: So a relay attack is where you see somebody at the front door of somebody’s residence with what looks to be an antenna. They're trying to intercept the radio frequency between the key fob and the vehicle. And what they're able to do is intercept that, start the vehicle and direct drive it off. So that's where we talk about the Faraday pouch, something to protect that radio frequency. And obviously, it's just not at your residence you have to be concerned with that. And I'm not trying to be an alarmist in any way, but even at the malls, if you turn around and make sure that your vehicle is locked, if there's an intercepting device in the vicinity, that relay attack can be successful there too.

MG: So just to be clear, this is enough to pick up that signal between the key fob. I don't have a key anymore. I have just the thing in my pocket so that when I push the start button, the car starts up. It's enough to intercept that not just from the front door where you might have the key hanging, but if you are in the mall just locking your car in the parking lot?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah, correct. So they're trying to intercept that. They're trying to trick the vehicle into thinking that the key fob is closer than it is to be able to start it. And that's exactly what they're doing, is they're using that signal to do that start.

MG: How quickly can you do that?

BRYAN GAST: So depending on the method. I mean, she talked about two minutes or less. There's technology that they’re still perfecting now, but within about 15 seconds, a vehicle can be stolen. And that's a concerning part is how quickly and effectively they can do it. It used to be between 2 and 3 or 4 in the morning that these were happening, but now, it's so quick and they're doing it in the middle of the day as well.

MG: Who is they? Who is involved in this?

BRYAN GAST: Yeah. So this is largely organized crime groups domestically and international targeting Canadian vehicles. And I'm not talking necessarily traditional organized crime. I'm just talking three or more people working together to commit a crime. Essentially, that's organized crime in Canada. They are very organized, they have a network, they have the individuals that are paid to steal the vehicle, they have individuals that are paid to get the vehicles to their drop off point to have them exported, groups that are paid to have them exported, and then once they're received overseas, to receive and then deal with whatever they're going to do with that particular vehicle once it’s at its destination.

MG: And so you heard at the beginning of this conversation the solicitor general in Ontario announcing millions of dollars for this new fund to help create a team that will be led by the Ontario Provincial Police. What dent would that make in this theft that we're talking about?

BRYAN GAST: And I think that's really significant. And I'm very, very hopeful that those be some positive results. No one organization is going to be successful. So having a coordinated team, especially in the province where you have the largest population number of vehicles being stolen, all the police services working together. There's many police services that are doing a great job. York Regional Police, Peel Regional Police, Toronto has announced an auto theft unit, so with the OPP organizing all of the larger going after the organized crime groups that are behind this. But I think what's most significant from that announcement is the dedicated people that are going to be attached to that team looking for prosecutions and sentencing that reflect the seriousness of these crimes. They're not just victimless crimes. They're not just financial crimes. These are crimes that are facilitating organized crime. They're funding terrorism and they're much more than just vehicles that, albeit inconvenient, There are extremely serious consequences that are happening with the use of these vehicles once they're stolen.

MG: Bryan, thank you very much.

BRYAN GAST: Thank you.

MG: Bryan Gast is vice president of investigative services at Équité Association. George Iny is executive director of the Automobile Protection Association. He's been listening in. George, good morning to you.

GEORGE INY: Good morning.

MG: What's going on? Why are so many more cars being stolen?

GEORGE INY: Cars are easy to steal.

MG: It's that simple.

GEORGE INY: Well, that's how it starts. And also, I guess on the enforcement side, because cars after the 2007 protection came in and auto thefts actually dropped quite a bit, we got lazy. You know, the police have to direct their resources. They have to prioritize them. And typically, property crime is, you know, a distant second to crimes against person.

MG: So what is it that a car owner could do to prevent their vehicle being stolen?

GEORGE INY: I think that's the wrong question.

MG: Oh!

GEORGE INY: I think we've got to start with what is it that the car makers should be doing, especially when they know that their model, you gave the example of one brand that, you know, continually is at the top of the list. There are other brands as well who have one or two models of Ford F-Series pickup trucks, for example, that are consistently near the top of the list, Honda CR-V, that is the most stolen vehicle. At least it was two years ago, a year ago. And some of those manufacturers have a decade long, decades history of not doing anything until the rules get tighter or their vehicles become very hard to insure.

MG: Okay, so start there then. What is it that the automakers could do to make the cars, if they're not theft proof, then more difficult to steal?

GEORGE INY: People love keyless. We didn't. We were quite worried when we saw the disappearance of the mechanical key there, a piece of metal that goes into a slot, the thinking being that it removed one line of defence and you could work completely electronically at that point. So maybe one option might be to reintroduce a key and allow you to defeat the keyless system on your car temporarily somehow so that the technique at least of capturing a signal at a distance wouldn't work. You would put the remote part of it to sleep. I think car makers and maybe the public wouldn't like it because then, it wouldn't be automatic anymore. When you went over and walked over to your car, the lights wouldn't go on. It wouldn’t greet you and say hello because you pushed a switch.

MG: People like that. I mean, there's a bit of a magic feel to it, right?

GEORGE INY: Correct. But it comes at a price. Another thing that should be considered is maybe tracking. I mean, there are different tracking systems. They’re not all designed around theft. You know, they’re designed around in some cases emergency calls, for example, to locate the vehicle quickly so a first responder could come. Maybe consider upgrading that feature and making it standard. We have many examples over the years where theft protection didn't improve really systematically until the government intervened and introduced new rules. And good on Canada for that 2007 rule. It wasn't 100% picked up in the U.S. It was one of the few times that we regulated vehicles ahead of them. And if you look now in the States, there's a rash of Hyundai and Kia vehicles being stolen using, I don't know, simple supposedly USBC cable. And it didn't happen here. And to our knowledge, that's because the required electronic theft protection here wasn't. You know, they saved maybe $2 a car, maybe $4 by not putting it on in the U.S. because it wasn't required. So I would like to see better standards.

MG: I was going to say the global automakers of Canada, when you talk about standards, says that if you mandate that all vehicles in Canada have better theft deterrent devices, and these are their words, this would lead to higher prices for Canadian consumers. New training and service requirements to repair vehicles could mean that it could be difficult if you want to move to the United States and take your vehicle with you. What do you make of those arguments against that idea of higher standards?

GEORGE INY: It's whimsy. It's whimsical. I don't know. They just make stuff up.

MG: They just make stuff up.

GEORGE INY: Yeah. I mean, we're not asking them to mandate stuff that doesn't work is inconvenient and makes it impossible to export your car. We're asking you to make the car a little bit harder to steal. And what I just described to you, which would be simply a defeat for your remote, it wouldn't cost anything almost to do and certainly wouldn't make the car less compatible with other markets. But there's plenty of other things they could do that don't. You know, the government at one time, they fought etching certain vehicle parts when cars were being stolen for resale locally in parts. This is the chop shop thing where they'd steal your car and then part it out using crooked recycling yards. And then government for over a decade in the U.S. tried to ask them to mark the VIN number on, let's say, 10 critical car parts, fenders, the hood and a few other parts around the car. And they fought that standard. They said it was too much, it would increase the price of cars, la, la, la. When the standards finally came out, they started using stickers. So they found a way around it.

MG: If there's a will, there's a way.

GEORGE INY: Yeah. The difficulty is that the car maker gets to sell another car when a vehicle is stolen. So there is actually a slight benefit for them. And they don't pay any of the social costs involved in the justice system and they don't pay the insurance costs. There's no consequence for having an easy to steal car.

MG: Let me ask you, we have a minute and a half left, two things. If the auto manufacturers aren't going to do this, for people who are worried that their car is going to get stolen, a couple of things that people could do. One is you'll see, you know, the club, the thing that you put in the steering wheel to prevent the wheel from being turned. Does that work?

GEORGE INY: That's sort of like a virtuous thing, but it's not really very effective. And eventually, you get tired of using it. So it sits in the back seat one time and then it will get stolen.

MG: And then they check your car.

GEORGE INY: It's not really very good. A tracking device, particularly one with a professional company that has a team of people that might follow the car, that could be very effective. If you have junk in your garage and, you know, you leave your car outside in the summer because it's more convenient, clean the junk out, park it indoors.

MG: What about not keeping the key or the fob at the, you know, people just hang it inside the door on the hook there because that's easy. It's right there. You're not going to forget it. It's right by the door. Should we be putting that further away, you know, back at the back of the house or something?

GEORGE INY: Yes, you should be. Or in an envelope that interrupts a signal, the conversation between the fob and the car. And there are locks as well you can get for the OBD port. That's the port under the dash that was referred to earlier in the show. That would require somebody with a drill to go in there and remove the lock before they can access that if that's the way they're stealing the car.

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

GEORGE INY: You're welcome.

MG: George Iny, executive director of the Automobile Protection Association. Have you had that sinking feeling coming out the door and the car is not there? Email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up after your regional update, we’re going to talk about the feeling that many people had in this country and in the United States, orange skies filled with smoke across much of this country and in cities like New York. In 90 seconds, coming to terms with solastalgia. If you don't know what that word means, we'll tell you. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

SOLASTALGIA

Guest: Madeline Ostrander

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: It's a little nerve racking for sure. It's feeling like this is one of the first tangible things that we're feeling in Toronto about climate change. Like it's very much here. It's not 20 years away. It's happening right now and we can see it. It makes me worry about my future kids.

SECOND FEMALE SPEAKER: I come from a country where this is the weather all year long, so this is why we live here, right? For so many reasons and also how the weather is, how it's fresh.

THIRD FEMALE SPEAKER: Today, I had no traffic. There were no people on the streets when I left in the morning. Definitely, it's giving me anxiety. But what can you do?

MG: What can you do? It is that feeling of helplessness that you hear from people as they describe breathing in smoke from wildfires. Millions of people in Canada and the United States have been under air quality alerts this week and in weeks and months before. And it's just the start of wildfire season. Along with that anxiety you just heard, there is a sense of grief and it turns out that sense has a name. Earlier this week on the program, one of our guests used the word solastalgia. We wanted to learn more about it. Madeline Ostrander is an environmental journalist and the author of “At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth”. Madeline, good morning.

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Good morning.

MG: What is solastalgia?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Solastalgia is a word that was coined by an Australian scholar for the kind of home sickness that we feel even though we haven't left home. So in other words, we're living in places that are starting to change and develop in ways that we don't always recognize. You know, here in Seattle where I live, we're starting to get more and more heat waves where Seattle has always been a mild place. You know, millions of people across the U.S. and Canada are experiencing wildfire smoke in a place that they've never experienced before to this degree. So solastalgia is the sort of sadness and anxiety and heartbreak to some degree that we feel when these kinds of things come up in our homes.

MG: How do you feel and why do you feel that that word captures what so many people have been feeling right now?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: I think more and more, we're starting to experience the impacts of climate change in the places that we live in, and those impacts can be really alarming. I think smoke is especially alarming. The idea of home is partly a sense of safety, right? So there's few things that feel more unsafe than not being able to breathe the air around you, and wildfire smoke is just as profoundly unsettling, I think. So, you know, I think we're having this shared experience of feeling like home isn't quite the same place that we knew before.

MG: It's really quite something, that idea of feeling home sick even though you haven't left your home. Something is different, right?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Mm hmm. Yeah. A tremendous amount of uneasiness. And I think it also acknowledges how connected we are to our homes and our communities and the places that we care about. I think we sometimes don't acknowledge how profound those connections are and how much they matter to us.

MG: You heard the person on the street that we spoke with at the very beginning of our conversation talking about how for her, this was the first real visible impact of a changing climate. I mean, people know that this is happening, but it can be abstract unless you are right there at the frontlines of this. Why do you think that that, I mean, it sounds obvious in some ways, but why does that trigger such an intense emotion?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Again, I think part of it is the immediacy of it. I think the less distance we have with an impact from climate change, the more access. But I think also, again, you know, we have a lot of personal connections with a sense of place, a sense of, you know, where we live and what that's supposed to feel like. And when that gets disrupted, it's very upsetting. And I think it's, yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of other studies about it and studies about how we're experiencing emotions related to climate change. A huge percentage of Americans and Canadians and people in other countries, especially young people, are experiencing what's sometimes called eco anxiety or just fear and angst and concern about climate change. But I think that that becomes much more palpable when we experience these impacts right in front of us.

MG: It's important to give it a name too, right? I mean, whether it's this name or whether it's eco anxiety, to acknowledge that it's something, to acknowledge that people are going through something.

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Yeah, I think in a way, if it can be getting a medical diagnosis, sometimes, that's a relief for people to know that there's a name to what they're experiencing and that it's not just something anomalous or something strange. I think it also helps us realize that we're feeling something shared. And I think there's a lot of power in noticing a collective feeling. A lot of social movements have grown out of collective feelings. The same scholar that I mentioned from Australia, Glenn Albrecht, also came up with another word called Solaphilia, which is about the shared sense of joy and unity and connectedness and solace that we can find when we come together and try to do things to protect our communities and our homes. So that same sense of connectedness to home can be a source of anxiety and grief when we're experiencing these impacts that can also be a source of strength when we're trying to figure out how to respond to these crises.

MG: Tell me more about that and how, I mean, this plays out in your book, how you have seen people find something that gives them, I mean, I’ll use the word from the title, a sense of refuge as the earth changes.

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Mm hmm. So, for instance, there's a community whose story I follow that's been through a series of really huge wildfires, including one that destroyed a lot of a town in the Pacific Northwest in inland Washington. And it was a very tight knit community. And because of their sense of connectedness to one another and how much they cared about one another, that enabled that community to come together and raise money and help each other rebuild and dig ash out of the backyard and, you know, put up houses for each other. And that community is called Pateros now. And they've formed what's called a long term recovery group that's become a model for communities across the nation that are trying to recover from disasters. So that same sense of connectedness and caring about home can also be the strength, some of the core strength that lets us get through some of these kinds of disasters or, you know, on a less, somewhat less dramatic level. If we're dealing with smoke, you know, perhaps that can be a way that we come together and talk about how are we facing these impacts? And then also what do we do about climate change? I think ideally, this new kind of awareness that we all find could be a starting point for a lot of new conversations.

MG: It's a hard place to get to for some people, though. I mean, I think for a lot of people, the immediate reaction is the sky is filled with smoke. And to your point, whether it's young people or the parents of those young people, they wonder what their future holds. We talked about looking into, you know, the crystal ball and is this going to be what we're going to be living within in summers ahead. How do you get to that place where you can find something not positive, but where you can find something motivating in that moment?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: I think you do have to acknowledge the grief and the fear and awfulness, honestly, of some of these impacts. Living through smoke and wildfire and hurricanes and, you know, being displaced from our home is traumatic. And I think we need to be real about the traumas that people are experiencing. One thing that I've found in talking with scholars who deal with grief, grief has often been the territory of faith-based groups and religions, but, you know, fewer and fewer Americans and Canadians are part of organized religion these days. And so I think we need to create more shared spaces for people to talk about grief. Grief isn't actually just an individual thing that you should deal with only, you know, with your therapist or only with your friends or, you know, only in your own particular space. It is a shared feeling, and I think processing it collectively is actually really important.

MG: And then turning it into some sort of action.

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Right.

MG: Yeah. As you live through this moment, I mean, you mentioned that you're in the Pacific Northwest and so there have been heat domes. There has been smoke that has come through your sky. Where are you finding a sense of refuge in this?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: To some degree, I feel like that's part of why I do the kind of journalism that I do. It puts me in touch with people in my region and people across the country, scientists, community organizers, sometimes just, you know, people who cared about the community that they lived in and that often becomes the basis for them to take action. And I see that everywhere. In Seattle in particular, we have a very, I feel like we have a very strong sense of place in this region and a sense that we care about the Puget Sound and we care about salmon and orcas. And I think that that gives me hope, that sense of caring that leads to conversations about how we keep these places safe and how we navigate the kinds of transitions we need to make to be able to make the climate crisis less severe and also be able to adapt to some of those impacts.

MG: And so for people, I guess just finally, who were experiencing those emotions over the last several weeks maybe for the first time and maybe didn't know that there was a word that was applied to it and now have learned that word solastalgia, what should they do from that moment? What should they take from that word?

MADELINE OSTRANDER: I think one of the biggest things they can take from that word is that they're not alone in feeling this sense of uneasiness. And I think also, we can recognize that while we feel this pain and this grief and this fear, we're not just hapless in the face of these kinds of impacts. There's a lot of things that communities can do to prepare themselves for the impacts of wildfire and the impacts of flooding and other kinds of things that we're facing because of climate change. There's a lot of things that people can get involved in in their community in terms of like ecosystem restoration. There's a lot of, for instance, here at West, there's a lot of forest conservation strategies that can actually buffer us against the wildfire. And if we can put those into place across the west, we might be able to, you know, change what the outcome is, what our future looks like. Of course, we also need to reduce emissions all across the country and all across the world. I mean, I realize that that's a daunting thing to think about when you're dealing with a space of grief, but I think just reaching out and connecting to other people who are feeling this and talking about it is a huge step toward figuring out what we do next.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you about this, Madeline. Thank you very much.

MADELINE OSTRANDER: Thank you so much for having me.

MG: Madeline Ostrander is an environmental journalist and the author of “At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth”. And that word that we were talking about that perhaps you did not know before, solastalgia.

FAZIOLI REPAIR

Guest: Oliver Esmonde-White

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

[water dripping]

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: This is the day after the fire. And the concert hall is completely devastated, completely destroyed.

MG: The list of what was destroyed when a fire swept through Montreal's historic Monastery de Bon Pasteur is considerable. This beloved concert hall in the chapel, as well as a residential unit, day-care, offices of community organizations, all of that destroyed. It took firefighters some 42 hours to put out the fire. And at the end of it, water dripped and pooled with debris on the floor. But incredibly, two items in the chapel did survive: an antique harpsichord and a piano. Piano technician Oliver Esmonde-White has cared for that piano for 28 years.

SOUNDCLIP

[water dripping]

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: That is the magnificent piano, fazioli piano. And look where it is.

[piano playing]

MG: Oliver Esmonde-White, good morning.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Good morning.

MG: This is a beautiful scene and a terrible story with a twist in it that I think a lot of people would not see coming. Tell me about that moment that we just heard. What was going on there?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Oh, you just hit me. I hadn't listened to that for a couple of weeks. What was going on was walking through a stinky mess, a somewhat dangerous thing, a little bit of plaster falling from time to time from the ceiling. We were in with the firefighters. And obviously, it was an emotional time for everyone there, but certainly for me. And then when finally I pulled the cover off the piano and tried it, I thought for sure the piano was gone because water was literally streaming over it. And much to my shock, it's escaped largely. We don't know just how well it's escaped, but as you mentioned, it's close to miraculous. But what can I say?

MG: Can you describe, I mean, for people who don't know, describe this space before the fire. I mean, just what was it like?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Well, first of all, it's a bit mythical, the place. It goes back 200 years. The architecture is stunning. The stonework the sisters put up way back then is beautiful. The space has been available for the last 40 or so years to the general public for listening to concerts free in the best possible listening conditions, intimate, wonderful, best instruments, best musicians. And so that's quite incredible in and of itself, along with the social housing and all kinds of other interesting things going on in that building. So and on top of that, normally, in social housing areas, you won't find the rich and famous coming in to rent it. But indeed, very well-known people would come in and rent the chapel and from the foundation, which would then in turn encourage more concerts which were free. And the combination things really, really worked. So the space was a magical, wonderful place that not only the rich but everybody could come to and did come to. The place was always packed.

MG: And so much of that space I mentioned, the concert hall, the residential suites, the day-care, the offices of the community organizations all destroyed in many ways in this fire. There under the cover in this space is the piano. You walk in, you take the cover off the piano. What did you expect to see?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Well, I actually thought it would be pretty much destroyed. 40 hours of water streaming on a piano is not a recipe for, I think, an instrument in good shape. And I was quite astounded at how nice it was considering what it had just been through. And from that moment, which you heard a little improvisation, then kind of panic set in with me. I was waiting for the movers. We had to get the piano out of there. And so that was the next thing. All kinds of emotions hit you in those devastating times.

MG: But your first instinct was to play the piano.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Yeah. I wanted to find out how it was. I needed to know what was going on. Yeah.

MG: And the water streaming down from the ceiling as you stand there. What did you play?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: An improvisation.

MG: What did it feel like to play the piano in that moment? And I ask you this because you have a relationship with this instrument that I want to get into.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: I was tearing up at the time. It was not the easiest thing. I felt like my friend had come through a battle and was coming out the other side. So we still don't know whether the piano was going to come out 100% intact. And certainly, there's lots of rust and things like that that have to be dealt with, which we're actually getting to next week, at least the beginning part. But it was an absolutely devastating situation. All the people that had just lost their jobs were moping around in the front door. And indeed, I was feeling that way until I touched the piano. And when I got to the piano, it was like hope and astounded and all kinds of stuff that you just aren't prepared for when you're in that kind of a situation. I've seen pictures of soldiers in bombed out buildings, but the piano, well, it kind of survived, but this piano came through pretty well.

MG: You describe the piano as your friend. You've been working with and caring for this piano for 28 years. Why is this piano, this particular piano special?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Well, on many fronts. I believe that it is the first concert grand that Paolo Fazioli built. I believe that to be correct. You'd have to double check with Paolo, but that already makes it a special instrument. From the beginning, it was very controversial because it cost money. And people, you know, in government, well, the typical political fights were going on and the arts community had to protect itself from, well, we can get something that only cost, you know, $10,000 instead of the 60,000 that it did cost. And now, those pianos are up to 300,000. So there were all of these controversies, a competition which piano would win to be purchased by the hall, etc., etc. Right from day one, it's been a very spectacular and unusual instrument. And that has just grown over the years for me because I think it's four or five rebuildings, major rebuildings that I've been privileged to do. And I've done it, by the way, with other piano technicians who I’ve invited to join me for the restoration next week. One from Toronto, one from Quebec City and myself and a guy from Montreal, wonderful technicians, as well as the crew from my rebuilding shop. And we’re going to do it together.

MG: How do you think this thing survived? I mean, there is, you know, some speculation, you used the word miracle earlier, that there might have been, there are nuns that are buried in a crypt underneath this building and that perhaps… How do you think this thing survived?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: You know, we're not a very religious society anymore, but really, your guess is as good as mine. It is. It is kind of a moment where you speculate on miracles. The devastation was total, and yet this came out really, really well. So, you know, I don't know how it survived, but it did.

MG: What do you do now? I mean, as you said, however many 40 hours of water plus pouring onto a piano is not good for any piano, let alone a $60,000 grand monster of an instrument. And so what will you do now to try to restore this thing?

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Well, the first thing we did was stabilize it and allow it to dry out and support the soundboard and the bridges so that they don't warp as the drying out is going on. The legs and the pedal layer have suffered and the polyester is cracking off those. So that's at the very bottom of the piano. But it's not structurally important. We'll only know this winter whether or not the structure has taken a beating. And then this week, now that it's dried out enough, we'll get around to doing the action work. And I am assuming for now that the piano is going to come back. My attitude is it's going to come back better than when it started through this fire. So that's what my goal is. It’s nothing less than that.

MG: And you're committed to this. I mean, again, you referred to this instrument as your friend. You have a relationship with this thing.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Yeah. The number of mornings I get up or evenings where I spend time alone with the instrument in this space lends itself to a lot of personal reflection. It is a chapel, and you do go through the kinds of thought processes and meditation while you're tuning pianos. And in that space, it really does lend itself to quite an experience, you know, a personal experience. So, you know, the piano is very much a part of my life, an important part of my life now.

MG: Hope is an elusive thing, particularly in the wake of a fire. We've just been talking about wildfires across the country, the sense of smoke that's hanging in the air and the feelings that people have of loss. In a building like this, in the wake of a fire like this, hope is an elusive thing, but there's some power in that too.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Yes. As far as I'm concerned, I have all the hope in the world. To me, this is our, in Quebec, a Notre Dame cathedral moment. If the people that can do so take this opportunity, we can have this as a symbol of hope, restoration, rebuilding. The best of what humanity has to offer itself is embodied in that place. And the emblem of that place is the Fazioli piano. So I'm really hopeful that the politicians and the bean counters will say, this is up and above just a numbers thing. This is about what we heard about the fires place sense of community. It's all of those beautiful things that are embodied in this particular place and instrument.

MG: Oliver, thank you very much for this.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Well, you're most welcome. I'm really honoured to meet you. So thank you very much for your interest.

MG: I'm excited to hear what the piano sounds like at the end of the restoration, and we'll check back in with you. Thank you very much.

OLIVER ESMONDE-WHITE: Okay. Thank you very much, Matt. It's been wonderful for me to meet you.

MG: Oliver Esmonde-White is an inventor, a piano technician, and the man leading the repairs of the Fazioli piano that survived this fire in Montreal a couple of weeks ago. That's The Current for this Friday. Q is up next. We're going to leave you with the sound of that piano before the fire. This is from a live recording at the Bon Pasteur Historic Chapel in Montreal in February of 2022. It's the Canadian pianist Bruce Liu performing some of the first movement, the Piano Sonata No 2 by Frederic Chopin. Bruce Liu had won first prize at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition. This was his first performance in Canada after the achievement. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you on Monday.

[Music: “ the Piano Sonata No 2” by Bruce Liu]

The Current Transcript for June 9, 2023

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS

CAR THEFTS

SOLASTALGIA

FAZIOLI REPAIR

Friday June 9, 2023 Episode Transcript

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