The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - What One Canadian Lost in the Los Angeles Wildfires

Episode Date: January 18, 2025

The Agenda's week in review looked at why property taxes are going up across municipalities, an exit interview with NDP MP Charlie Angus, a check-in on MAID (medical assistance in dying) and the loss experienced by Canadian trumpet player Jens Lindemann from the Los Angeles wildfires.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Matt Nethersole. And I'm Tiff Lam. From TVO Podcasts, this is Queries. This season, we're asking, when it comes to defending your beliefs, how far is too far? We follow one story from the boardroom to the courtroom. And seek to understand what happens when beliefs collide. Where does freedom of religion end and freedom from discrimination begin? That's this season on Queries in Good Faith,

a TVO original podcast. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Property taxes are going up in 2025. Give us some of the reasons why that's happening. Absolutely. So three reasons. We've got inflation, we've got growth and related infrastructure costs,

and we've got the growing social challenges that municipalities are being asked to take on in a way that particularly in Ontario is not consistent with the overall role of municipalities. Is that what it looks like in Burlington? Oh absolutely, not just in Burlington? Oh, absolutely. Not just in Burlington, but really across the province and the country, we're seeing taxes go up. We're up 5.82% in Burlington, but it's going up every year. 30% is the increase in the costs of doing

these infrastructure projects. Those are labor costs, and those are capital costs, just buying the material. 30% inflation is a lot, and we were already stressed to start with. Enid, let me get you in here to talk about how you think the pandemic has hurt municipal balance sheets. Well, I think the pandemic when it was in full force meant particularly for larger municipalities their transit systems were you know ridership went

down by 80 to 90 percent that meant their transit fare revenues went down by 80 to 90 percent and that was the biggest hit I think for the larger cities but there were also expenditures on public health and and on you know masking and and a whole lot of other things to do with the pandemic but you know I think that's less of an impact now. So they've recovered from much, they've come back from much of that you think. I think so but I think cities are facing other challenges. We've talked a bit about infrastructure, there's an infrastructure deficit.

You know we're seeing water pipes break. You know we saw this in Montreal, we saw this in Calgary. There's billions of dollars needed to bring infrastructure into a state of good repair. We've got new things like cyber attacks, so municipalities, you know, we had the Toronto Library was hacked, the city of St. John and Hamilton, they were hacked, so cities have to prepare for preventing these attacks or responding to these attacks. Ben, cities and towns are always looking for other sources of revenue besides the property tax base.

Like what? Where else can they get money from? So the property tax is really the revenue source of last resort for a lot of cities. They know that the headline for every budget is going to be what's the property tax increase in that year. So they're going to first start with what they have to spend their money on.

That's what we should be focusing first. What are the cities spending their money on? Whether it's on support for homelessness programs, growth related infrastructure, that's what we have to be really focused on. And then we can talk about what the right way of financing that growth is, or that those services are. Be it property taxes, development charges, user fees,

grants from other levels of government. Let's separate the conversation. Let's talk about what cities should be spending money on. Then we can talk about how to make sure that we're financing that in the most affordable and effective way. And Steve, cities, municipalities, they cover everything you do, right?

When you get up in the morning, what's the first thing you do? You plant your feet on the floor. Well, the municipality has enforced the building code to make sure you don't fall through the floor. Then you go to the bathroom, skip that part, but you flush the toilet, OK? That is the municipality. You flip the light on, you brush your teeth in clean water,

all municipalities. Then you go to work. Maybe you drive on a municipal road. Maybe you take the public transit. When you're in trouble, when you need help, you need fire, you need paramedics, you need police, it's all municipal. But when we talk about, Lindsay, what you spend money on, I don't know what it's like at City Hall, but at Queen's Park, 75 to 80 percent of it is on salaries of employees of people who work for the province. Is it that way at City Hall as well?

It's, you know, the two main drivers when we look at inflation, in terms of the increases and the pressure on the property tax, is both the cost of infrastructure. So Rory's talked about that already, but also wages. So when you think about police officers or the nurses who are working in long-term care homes, or bylaw officers, firefighters. These are all folks who are funded at the municipal level. And what we're seeing right now, of course,

is a wave of bargaining agreements that is now reflecting the historic inflation that took place in 2022. You mentioned last year that it was in your intention in 2022. You mentioned last year that it was in your intention to stand down when this current parliamentary session ended or when this parliament's life was over. You said it was time to pass on the baton. How come?

Well, I think when I went to parliament, I made a decision to always remember that the people of Timmins James Bay sent me there. And one day I would return to Tim and James Bay. It's been a real honor. And it's a hard decision. But in the next election, they've changed my boundaries significantly. My riding is bigger than the United Kingdom. I fly into many communities in bush planes because there's no roads.

I've traveled by freighter canoe. I've had to try fly by helicopter to cross rivers during break up and they added an extra 20,000 square kilometers to my region because I guess our region is somehow over represented in Parliament. Many about a dozen more communities and I realized I can't physically take all that on because I can't do politics long distance. I have to be in these communities. I have to be at their events. I have to be at their weddings. They're mostly their funerals and region events. And so to take all that on would not allow me to do some of the things that I

think are really important to do now. So to be able to go out on my own terms and to be able to pass the baton to a new candidate, I feel that that's as good as it gets in politics. When Jagmeet Singh won the leadership of the NDP, who came second? I came second. Okay, so we're gonna revisit this now. Do you think the NDP would be in the same shape it's in today had you won? Well I had a vision for the New Democratic Party that I felt was really important. I felt that as a social democratic party you have to be rooted in the grassroots. We came from a party that was really built on our writing associations and our local organizations and our local chapters

who've met and debated and volunteered. And you know the way politics has moved is much more leader driven, leader image. Our grassroots seems less important and that to me was really important. But I wasn't chosen. I did come in second. So second guessing what I would have done or where we would be is something maybe on our third glass of scotch on a Friday night we would talk about but I'm certainly not going to revisit it because I wasn't chosen.

Well you did say when a party believes that better Instagram tricks or gala planning is the path to success we lose touch. Did I say that? You did and I presume you still believe it. I absolutely did. So I mean I'm inferring from that, that you think that Mr. Singh is a little more focused on his suits and his wristwatches

and not enough on grassroots politics. Fair assumption? I think when I was running against Jagmeet, and I have enormous respect for him. I love his energy. I love his optimism. But I am rooted in this notion that you have to be really in with the grassroots.

You have to build from the grassroots. If you're a social democratic party, it's different for liberals and conservatives. They can do the big wash. We don't get that. We have to build it at the base. So I was very committed to that. And in my time, and I think people in the party

will agree that I've always tried to be a positive member of caucus. But to remind people, why are we doing this? What's our objective at the end of the day? And if our objective at the end of the day is to build a notion of politics that people can believe in, then I'm still very much rooted in the grassroots. Here's what you said when you were running for the leadership,

and Sheldon, I'll ask you to bring this up. We are, you said, a party of dreamers. We're a party of doers. Sometimes we butt up against each other, but we need the dreamers. We need the people who say, let's dream big. And then we say, how do we do it practically? I think I have a foot in both camps.

And I think that's what Jack Laitin offered. He brought the dreamers together with the doers, and that's what we're going to do. Where is your party today on this dreamers versus doers continuum? It is the continual fight within the New Democratic Party. I mean we are a party of people who see big vision, big vision, and we have others who are very like, well how does that, how does it work for for Mrs. Jones when she goes to the grocery store? And I think that that tension is an important tension in politics.

So it's a moving thing. You know, like look at this past parliament. We managed to get a national dental care program in place. I remember door knocking in 2019 and 2021, and housing projects in Timmins, where like answering the door, you know, mother and her kids, and she was holding her hand in front of her face because she didn't want me to see her broken teeth. And she said, why should I vote?

What would you guys ever do? And I said, we're going to get you national dental care. And we came in to push the national dental care program and we got laughed out of parliament. We literally got laughed out because, I mean, Mr. Trudeau, with respect to him, wasn't going to do it. The liberals weren't going to do it The concertists thought it was communism. But we got it. So we went from this big promise to actually doing it and that's

that to me is is the real great thing about being able to take vision and making it a reality and I can go back to people who were never able to get their teeth. I mean we think it's a little. It's not a little thing when you're living in constant pain in your mouth. A dental care program to me was one of the great, one of the great things that I've been involved in. ["Dreams of a New World"] James, would you be concerned if more people

were choosing to do MADE, not because death was certain or because they were in significant pain, but rather for poverty reasons, for mental health reasons, for loneliness reasons? Would that be a problem for you? Well, so those aren't actually, number one, those aren't the reasons outlined in law that would make one eligible to receive MADE, secondly. And I think you're going to go into the data as well to show that that's not actually the

reason people are getting MADE either. I think you have to recognize that poverty, loneliness, these are all major sources of suffering among Canadians. If we're concerned about those, we should be, and we should be focusing on ways to improve, to narrow the mortality gap and the illness gap between Canada's wealthiest and Canada's poorest. We should be trying to support our marginalized communities a lot more than we currently are. But again, the idea that, and again, the data certainly shows that people receiving MAID are certainly not disproportionately represented among these populations, quite the contrary.

And that comments like loneliness or self-perceived burden and things like this that people are flagging are actually as common or often more common among people who are not seeking MADE. So I think that's really important to recognize. Rebecca, can I get you to comment on that? I mean, the fact is, it is not a provision in law that you are allowed to take your own life because you're

lonely or because you're poor. So what's the concern on your part for that? Well, the Health Canada report does reflect the nature of suffering. The data collected shows that a considerable number. And I think one of the concerning things is that it shows that an increase over last year's numbers do identify social isolation and loneliness as a source of suffering, as well as the perception of being a burden. We really don't know from the data how these play

out in terms of ranking, but the fact that there is this social suffering that is part of what is recognized in the data collection process, I think should make us look very carefully at the supports being provided to people. And we do know that there are people receiving maid who did not receive palliative care, who did not, who required but did not receive disability supports. And actually the number of cases of that in particular grew two times the amount last year, almost over 400 people were identified as having required but not receiving disability care.

So all of these things again, should give us pause and should, I think, focus our attention on alleviating the suffering before we are providing an assistance in dying. We need to provide assistance in living. Fair enough, but Sonu, let me make sure we're crystal clear on this. There's nobody in Canada getting made because they're lonely or poor, is there? Yes, there are.

There are. There are. You know I think it's a bit disingenuous for it to be suggested that loneliness and feeling a burden are not fueling made requests when nearly half of the people, nearly half of the people on track two identify feeling a burden. Nearly half of the people on track two identify feeling lonely as suffering fueling their made requests. Over 40% on track one, by the way, identify feeling a burden. And over one in five on track one identify also feeling lonely. They identify that, but that doesn't give them the right to do it, does it? But that's an artificial distinction you're making.

And I think this is part of the dangerous reassurance that people have been provided by frankly what I would call some whitewashing of some of the dangerous reassurance that people have been provided by, frankly, what I would call some whitewashing of some of the data. Because there are actually signals in the data that show people are being driven to seek made by those considerations. The one thing I would agree with Dr. Downer on is that the total number is not what the big issue is. It's the reasons fueling people's suffering leading to their made requests that we should

be looking at. Sandy, can I get you to speak to that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I actually couldn't agree more with the comments about intolerable suffering and how we have to address it. You know, when I hear a patient say to me, I want made, I actually hear them say, Dr. Buckman, my life is intolerable. Help me.

That's my cue to go in and investigate their intolerable suffering in all its domains. You know, physical, like pain, nausea, vomiting, psychosocial, cultural, the loss of being the caregiver or the breadwinner of the family, and of course, spiritual and existential suffering. So it's a key.

And in assessments of any part, it's not just, oh, you want made? Here you go. No. It's a deep investigation and addressing of their intolerable suffering. And loneliness, social isolation, many of these things are key.

And particularly with marginalized people who are suffering with poverty or are having housing, they're in a housing crisis, what have you. Food insecurity, yes, we do see that. Those absolutely have to be addressed. And it's incumbent upon clinicians to begin to get all the services, mental health services, counseling, everything in place,

whether it's a track one or not. These things are common in the illnesses that we see. And as an assessor, I'm not granting eligibility on the basis of social isolation or loneliness or poverty. Well, that's what I wanted to check. If somebody comes to you and says, I'm desperately depressed, I'm lonely, I don't want to live anymore, I want made, are you granting it under those circumstances? I'm not granting it under those circumstances until I've assessed what if they meet the

eligibility criteria. And remember it's again about autonomy. That patient actually has the right to refuse. They can be depressed, but if they have the absolute capacity to understand and appreciate their situations, then they have actually right. I might do my damnedest to try to get them

that mental health care that they need, but they actually have a right to refuse if they have capacity to make that decision. ["The Last Post"] How much time did you have to essentially gather whatever you could gather in that amount of time before leaving? Well, again, the idea is normally

that you should be prepared at all times to leave and have a kit to prepare to leave a mountain in case of anything like this. But you're not really thinking that way. The actual window of time, once we realized we couldn't leave the mountain and we're getting quite nervous for a few hours, when we did get an emergency signal saying that they were going to escort people out of the mountain, off the mountain rather, five to seven minutes you ran through your house and grabbed the last things you really thought.

Now this was urgent, it wasn't just your passport and your papers, I mean anything that was important to you or thought was important within five minutes you had to make that decision. Okay, as promised, let's take a look at some of the video and still pictures that you sent from after the fires took place. Sheldon, if you would, let's roll it.

This, I don't know. Jens, can you see this and can you talk us through it? I can see it. This is literally across the street from where I live. And right behind that house is the canyon, which was shooting up with flames. And you can see the helicopters dousing water on it. But it was too little and too late.

So that's all gone now. That is that is that ridge is all gone. Yes. All right, we're gonna continue to look at some of the still pictures as well. That looks horrifying. What's going on here? Steve that picture was taken five minutes after I walked up the road to take a first picture and it was just a small cloud of smoke and then it became that roaring inferno within five minutes. I really don't know how to describe it.

I know it's an overused description to say it seemed like a scene out of a movie except that you were living it. That picture was the first one. It was fairly quiet. I know it looks almost ominous, but this is not an irregular occurrence. But the breakout of flames, that was something nobody has ever experienced up there.

And the last one we have here. That one's difficult to look at, Steve. That is, that was my home, and that was our view, and that's where we built so many memories. It's so much more than just stuff. I know people have said that there are things that you can rebuild, but there's something that is taken from you that I haven't been able to quantify yet in my heart and soul. Jens, when you know that you have basically five minutes to gather 25 years' worth of whatever you can get your hands on.

How do you know what to pick first? I have a collection of about 35 trumpets. I managed to grab eight of them. The very first one I grabbed was this one. It was given to me by one of my heroes and mentors, Doc Severinsen. And interestingly, the second trumpet I grabbed was my Canadian brass trumpet, the one that I played when I worked with the group for six years. You just grab the things that they mean something to you in a way that you can't really describe.

And you don't even know why you're grabbing them. It seems surreal because there's still a side of you that thinks, well, I'll just be back up here later to pick up the rest of my stuff. And this is just an exercise. And then when you realize there's nothing left, you start dealing with the emotional and literal reality of what that means moving forward. And it's all too, it's still too fresh.

It's just been a couple of days, and we're not ready to quite address that yet. I guess we should say for the younger people watching us right now, Doc Severinsen, who I think is probably almost 100 years old right now. 97 years young and still at it, and he was a mainstay of the Tonight Show band, a trumpeter extraordinaire with incredible flamboyance. We played with him while I was with the Canadian Brass, and he's a hero to all of us and was since I was a kid.

And that's why that particular trumpet was the first thing I grabbed. Now, I can't help but notice you've got your snowflake on. As we mentioned in the introduction, you've got the Order of Canada. Did you have it on when you left, or did you have to grab it, or what? I didn't have it on.

It's interesting that you should ask that, because I grabbed this coat. The Order of Canada is easily the most humbling moment of my life to have received such a distinction. And I'm very proud to wear it wherever I go. And people will often ask me about the little snowflake on the lapel. Stephen, it gives me a chance to talk about Canada. Canada has given me everything. My education, my upbringing, my friends,

everything about Canada is what I now represent moving forward. And it's interesting, yeah, the trumpet, this blazer, and that's it. Beyond that, a couple of papers and passports. Yens, do you have like a storage locker where you have other stuff collected? No.

No, Steve. It's all gone. All the things that we have, it's just rubble.