The Current - The Carley Fortune effect

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

A sexy new romance novel has been drawing a new generation of fans to Prince Edward Island, and now it's about to become a Netflix series. We go on the set of "This Summer Will Be Different" and talk to the showrunners Linsey Stewart and Dane Clark. Also in this episode: We pay a visit to Mrs Dunster's — an iconic New Brunswick bakery that is becoming a national success story.

My name is Siyaya, and I live in the most beautiful place on earth. Seven months ago, I blew up my life, and a lot has shifted since then. Everyone is moving forward. I'm still working on that. And that's me. Welcome to Ice Cove. Where are the penguins? That's Antarctica. We're the other one. North of North. Stream now on CBC Gem. This is a CBC podcast.

Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. We are traveling through the East Coast, and we're talking about Canada in this moment and meeting people who capture the spirit of this place. You know, as we traveled through PEI, the talk in every little town and in the cities as well is this summer will be different. It's a novel by the Canadian author Carly Fortune, and it's being turned into a Netflix series. This is the sound of movie movies. magic being made. We're in a secret location. On set. Tents are up. The crew is hauling tables and chairs out of the truck. Get ready, Noah? Yeah, I'm ready. This is the biggest production ever to be shot on Prince Edward Island. Dozens of background actors are arriving with rolling suitcases, and they're expecting

more than a hundred crew members. I'm Noah. Noah, Noah Duran. I'm a location's production assistance. So just helping out with all this tents and pre-set-up stuff, basically. Even now, like, I watch movies differently now. And I'm like, wow, the hours that they put in behind the scenes, it's wild. Heather Campbell grew up

on PEI, still spends every summer here, and she is working in the costume department. I love the engagement. I love the interest. We show up on scenes, and we don't necessarily hard clothes is set and so people are curious and they're coming. That's been fun for everybody. There's just a lot of interest in the production. Everyone seems to be aware of it. And so that's been very fun just to be a part of it all. My name is Lindsay Stewart and I am the co-show runner and this adaptation of the summer will be different. My name is Dane Clark. I'm the other

co-show runner and we're legally married. that part's very important that. There's a last thing that was said too, which is kind of saved the best for last or something. Yeah, yeah. Just got to remind myself. Tell me about this production. Everywhere we have gone on the island,

people have talked about this. We're in tiny little towns and they said, did you hear that it was here? Did you hear that the crew is eating here? The people, have you seen anything? What do you make of that? I love it. I mean, I love the East Coast.

I went to school in Halifax. I went to Delhousie a long time ago. I fell in love with East Coast then. So when we read the book, it was just this chance to come back to this place that just holds this certain vibrance and frequency and feeling. And when I'm here, I feel that. What did you say the frequency of the place? What does it mean? It's just how I felt when I first watched Anagrean Gables, you know, in the 80s with my mom and every watch since then.

It just had a certain spirit and beauty and gentleness. And I just wanted to be here the way that the leaves wrestled and the... ocean crashed against the red sands. Like there was poetry in that adaptation. And I think there's poetry in how Carly talks about this island. And we really leaned on that when we tried to adapt it and to make sure what we felt as a reader we're trying to capture on screen as well. What did you feel when you read the book? I felt, well, I felt a simmering sexiness.

That's the kind of undercurrent that everybody kind of dances around. Oh, it's nice. No, but there's a bunch of steam in there, too. There's a bunch of steam. I felt, I just felt summer and freedom and exploration. And I felt excitement of that adventure, you know, peacefulness when you're on the road. And there's just like, when you leave Toronto and you leave these big cities, there's a release. What did you feel?

Simbering sexiness. Simpering sexiness. Yeah, yeah. But also felt the conflict of the, of Lucy, the main character, just like coming here and like in this beautiful place. But living with the conflict of like falling in love with her best friend's brother. and so it's like not totally able to get completely lost in it or like juggling both worlds of a forbidden relationship and all of the beauty within it was a lovely story.

Why was it, and this seems like an obvious question, but why was it important to shoot it here? It's based here, but the nature of your business is that it can be anywhere. Absolutely. I mean, you just, Carly spent so much time capturing the island. We needed to do it justice and we needed to be here for that authenticity. To be honest, it was never really in question. not to shoot here. How important

is it to capture it truthfully? People love their place, right? And you can come here, but if you get it wrong, you might get cards and letters. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure that might happen. But, you know, our locations and so many people are, one of our producers is from here. It's like we're getting the ins and outs. We have a Patty Murphy jig on the beach that we had people like in the middle of the night telling us

that we have to shout at certain points of the chorus for the authenticity. of, you know, when these songs break out. And so our ears are open and we're trying to make sure we get that specificity that's so important. Yeah. We're terrified of all the book readers and everybody else of like what we're going to get wrong, but just know we have our best intentions. So the other thing, just the last thing is you both mentioned a couple of times. Yeah.

The Anne effect. Yeah. It still brings people here. You go down to Charlottetown and you will see the sign and the musical and the bus and and everything else. This is already kind of doing that. The book is starting to bring people here. but when people around the world see this on TV,

like it's going to juice that, right? Yeah. What does that mean to? Everything. I think that's so cool. There needs to be more recognition of how beautiful this part of the country is. It's not a lot of Canadians, even as close as Toronto,

don't come all of this way to the maritans for their summer vacations. But it's like, no, come to the East Coast. And if this book helps make you feel enchanted and makes you feel a certain way, and this screen adaptation makes you want to desire the Richard's Lobster Roll and the jump into the... ocean at Stanhope and all of those feelings that Anna Green Gables did and what hopefully this does, then that makes me so happy. And it's so well deserving. Yeah. And we just love playing Canada for Canada,

so the more we can show that off to the rest of the world, we're all four. Fabulous. Thank you both. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Lindsay and Dane said there was never really a question about filming this summer will be different on PEI, but the provincial government did kick in some $5 million to help seal that deal. Certainly, Netflix is a big player on a stage globally to get them to come and visualize how they can be here. I think certainly opens doors for the future, and that would be our hope. That's PEI's Minister of Economic Development. I met up with her on one of the prettiest streets in Charlottetown, Victoria Row.

Certainly these opportunities are wonderful for our arts and culture, our creative industries, but also for all of the sectors that benefit and need economic growth for PEI. Netflix doesn't need the money from PEI, right? is a big company. They could pay for this themselves without any incentives. I think the partnership is really important. All the dollars that they are spending here is really important to Islanders. The hat that I would wear is about the opportunity for economic growth. It's about the investment into our restaurants, our coffee shops. We're hearing from lots. We're hearing from our smaller communities that Netflix has been here eating. Others are here eating. And so that's really exciting.

And because of that, others are going. It's driving traffic. To have that opportunity for here is really, beneficial for PEI. We were in Victoria by the sea yesterday and everybody was talking about that, that they were there and they were shooting and did they eat here and who is eating here. It's a big thing, it's a big thing. And it puts those that work hard, especially in our tourism and film and creative industries, those that work really hard to get those accolades to see that the fruits of their labor are paying off and others are getting to see how, what the great things that they do. The other part of it is, I mean, there's like a banner for an Anna Green Gables musical. People still come here because of Anna of Green Gables. Is the sense, or your hope,

that people will come here because of the Carly Fortune effect, if I can put it that way? Definitely. I think any time we get an opportunity to diversify our creative industry to open it up to other audiences to come, to bring reasons to come here, we have the number of productions that are happening in the summer at the Confederation Center. And the Carly Fortune story is just another investment into that sector that's really important to offer opportunity to come here. Fabulous. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

My name is Siyaya, and I live in the most beautiful place on earth. Seven months ago, I blew up my life, and a lot has shifted since then. Everyone is moving forward. I'm still working on that. And that's me. Welcome to Ice Cove. Where are the penguins? That's Antarctica.

We're the other one. North of North. Stream now on CBC Gem. We continue our road trip across. the east coast of Canada, and pull into Sussex, New Brunswick. What you're hearing now is the sound of a multi-million dollar investment and a Canadian success story. Sounds like heavy industry, and in a way, it is. Any clues have a sense as to what's going on? This is Mrs. Dunster's factory,

and every pst you hear is a piston squeezing donut batter into the new friar. This is the stuff of like dreams when you're a kid to come to a donut factory. Yes, yes, indeed, yeah. Smells amazing. Yeah, thank you. Watch your sporting here. Blair Hisslop is the CEO of Mrs. Dunsters, and if you grew up in New Brunswick or you know somebody who did,

you probably know that logo with a smiling grandma and the curly white hair and ruffled apron. Mrs. Dunster was a real person, so Ingrid Dunster started making donuts six at a time in this cast iron pot that her family recently gave us. So this is how it started. 1968. Imagine being a female entrepreneur in 1968 in New Brunswick, and that's how it all started with this cast iron pot.

When Blair and his wife, Rosalind, bought Mrs. Dunsters 12 years ago, it was front-page news in the local papers. It's emotional for people, right? We've met, you know, people who were bus drivers, truck drivers, millionaires, billionaires, who talk about their story and Mrs. Dunsters and the brand and the impact it had had on their life. Like, it crosses all political lines, all demographics and socioeconomic profiles. It really is an emotional business to be in for people. Since they took over, Mrs. Dunsters has been growing by about 20% a year.

They are expanding across Canada, and we're also part of the recent Team Canada trade mission to Mexico. This is a brand-new donut friar. Last year we replaced, our old one was 50 years old, and we replaced it last year with this one. So we have the capability now to make 85 million donuts a year on this new friar. So this was once-in-a-generation kind of investment. How much is a giant donut friar like this cost?

This was a $3 million project. Wow. Yeah. But one of the things you notice about our donuts is our donuts don't have holes in them. So it's an old-fashioned donut. And so that's what we're kind of famous for. If we have a hole in our donut, it's a reject, and we sell it as a second. Having said that, getting a warm donut off the line is an experience you don't often get to have.

That's fantastic. Do you want to pack some donuts? If I do it, now I'm going to be responsible. I don't want to sully your company. company's good name. I have confidence in you. I like that. I say with a half.

I would check that after. Quality control. Apparently, you just can't eat donuts for free. If you come to the donut factory, you have to pack some donuts. You've got to do some work. It's like doing the dishes if you didn't skip out on your bill at the restaurant, right? It's like the Lucille ball thing with the candies coming along. This moves a bit slower than her conveyor belt.

I feel like they slowed it down for you. I'm not sure. For packing a great donut, it takes practice. You got to make sure you put the right amount in. You want to make sure that it looks good because you want your customer to have the best product possible. Look at how fast she is. One, two, three, four,

six, seven. I want to be gentle. They don't want to mash up these donuts. Eight. nine ten she's done four bags since you started

your one she does not look impressed with my amateur donut packing I can tell you that don't quit your day job buddy Matt you just got quality control there's only seven

how did I do that I don't know I told you my time as a donut packer maybe coming to an abrupt end that's 10 there you go thank you very much

that you do donut Thank you for your donut packing tips. Trust me, these donuts are delicious, and the investment and the new equipment is a big deal, but one of the keys to the success of Mrs. Dunsters has been newcomers. How you doing? I saw her. And Blair is worried about what changes in federal immigration policy

will mean for his future plans. It's interesting in walking through the factory, and just taking a look at the people who are working there. I mean, it is a snapshot of people from all over the world. You know, 12 years ago, we had one person who wasn't born in Canada working for us out of 50, and today we have 13 different nationalities, and we speak 24 different languages. And so, you know, we have a very diverse workforce. And that has really been, you know, a consequence of our growth and having to find, you know, workers.

What does immigration meant to the success of this company and the growth of the company? Well, you know, like I said, we've got more than 55% of our employees today. you know, we're born somewhere other than Canada. And I can't imagine that we would have been able to grow as a business. We're five times larger than we were 12 years ago. And we would not have been able to do that, if not for immigration. We were strong advocates for the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Project. We were strong advocates for policies on affordable housing in rural areas and other things.

And now we're strong advocates sort of against the undoing of all of that. Let's talk about the undoing, because the federal. government cut New Brunswick's allocation of permanent residents, and that Atlantic immigration program means that bakers, the changes to it means that bakers no longer qualify for that, is that right? Well, so, you know, what's happened is the workforce in Canada is 20 million people. Two million of them are on work permits that expire this year, 1.9 million on work permits that expire next year. And the government's current policy is largely to not renew many of those. So what that looks like for us is, you know, we're going to lose 10% of our workforce are on work permits that expire this year that are going to be sent home.

Now, these are people that have been here for a number of years. They've been working. They've been paying taxes. They're in housing. Their kids are in school. They've been promoted. Their experience. They're adding value to our business.

You saw it downstairs. And we're going to have to replace them with newcomers who's work permits expire a year later or two years later. So it's this sort of turnover by design, by policy, which makes no sense. In an era where we're being told we need to be more productive, we're losing 10% of our workforce every year and having to replace them with people who don't have any experience. What was the reaction in this company? And I want to talk a little bit more about who is working here. But what was the reaction in the company when those changes came down?

Oh, I mean, culturally, it was basically a standstill for two weeks as people, you know, emotionally calling home trying to explain to their parents why. you know, they're going to have to come home after they've sacrificed, sold land, borrowed money, you know, made sacrifices to come to this country in the hope of becoming permanent residence. So the morale in the business, you know, when in the toilet, attendance dropped by 30, 35% while people got their heads around, you know, the challenges associated with that. Even the people who aren't affected directly this year that are affected next year or the year after are now suddenly terrified for their future.

and, you know, I had one young man who, you know, told me his father calls him every night from India and yells at him for 35 minutes, you know, try to do something more, do something different. I had a young man on the weekend who, you know, his father passed away, his mother took out a big loan to send him to Canada to go to school. He's been here for three years, and he was basically begging me to do something to help him because his work permit's not going to be extended. And the family has leveraged everything and made a big bet on him. And he's currently supporting the family from here. And he's 22 years old. And his whole future was in front of him. And now it's all coming, crashing down.

So the impact on him, on his family back home, and on the people he works with every day in the bakery is insurmountable. How do you understand how the mood broadly in this country around immigration has changed in the last little while? You know, I think there's a lot of misconceptions around immigration. And I think, you know, immigrants are barrens. the brunt of people's frustration. What are the misconceptions? Well, one of them is that employers are paid or wages are subsidized by the government, federal government or provincial governments, you know, for workers,

and that's our motivation for doing it for hiring them. It's not true. There's no programs in Canada, provincially or federally, at any scale that support that argument. The other thing that, you know, in New Brunswick, in particular, in Atlantic Canada generally is different than the rest of Canada. We need workers. We have one of the oldest populations in the country. You know, in New Brunswick, we have 15,000 people entering the workforce every year and 30,000 leaving.

So we have a net deficit of 15,000 people in the workforce every year. There's also an unemployment rate, though, of what, 7% in New Brunswick, just over 7%. Yeah, it's 7%. But, you know, in the last five years, we added 100,000 people to the population in New Brunswick, and our unemployment rate went down. To that point and the statistic, people will hear you say that you're losing employees and they're going to have to hire people who are going to be on permits that are going to expire next year or the year after. And they might say, well, why aren't you hiring people who are here?

Why aren't you hiring people who are from New Brunswick? Yeah, we get that argument a lot. And there's a couple of answers to that. One is less than 2% of our applicants come from people that were born in Canada. 98% of our applicants come from newcomers that are either here or want to come here. The answer to the general question around 7% unemployment is, you know, 4% unemployment is basically normal turnover and is considered really full employment. So then we're left with the 3% on top of that.

And, you know, this is a very, you know, in Atlanta, we have a lot of geography and no people. So, you know, the 3% is people in Bathurst and Camelton and Fredererton, and they're not going to move to Sussex, New Brunswick, and or they want a career that's maybe not packing donuts or mixing bread. So there's a mismatch in terms of skills and experience. And, you know, what most employers will tell you in New Brunswick is their biggest struggle is finding enough people to work. And our business is going to double again in the next

three to five years in the context of us losing 10% of our workers each year. I don't know how we're going to do that. When I was here in the province, I guess it was a couple of years ago just before the last provincial election. This was a real issue, the issue of population growth and what population growth has meant to health care and access to health care, to schools. And parents try to figure where their kids are going to end up in school and what the schools are going to look like and portables scattered throughout the playground because there weren't enough spaces. Do you worry about the impact of more people coming to the province on the services that people in the province already depend on?

Yeah. So as an entrepreneur, when we reach a capacity issue, you know, in our business, you know, we looked at where we need to invest to increase the capacity to make more donuts or bake more bread or do whatever. That's what we do as entrepreneurs. I think the issue is the government increased the population without thought to the capital investments that need to be made in education and healthcare and so on. So obviously we got behind. And so I think that's a real issue and it's a real concern. This has become a really emotional

issue across the country. It's a business issue, but it's a people issue too in some ways. So what would you say to the people who are making these decisions, particularly around immigration, about what it means in a community like yours? I would say that, you know, the immigration policy is designed to alleviate, largely alleviate the burden in the large cities, Toronto, Montreal, all Vancouver. In rural Canada, certainly in Atlanta, that is not our circumstance. We need more workers where our workforce is shrinking every year. There's not a premier in Atlanta Canada that thinks that we need to send people home. Everybody here really understands the issue. I think we're dealing with a federal policy that's been designed based on the circumstance of largely a central

Canada. And that also creates division in our country. We're going to meet one of those employees who arrived here and faces an uncertain future. In the meantime, I've done interviews in many places. This is one of the tastiest interviews. I've had the pleasure of doing. Thank you very much. Awesome. Thank you. One of the people affected by the changes to Canada's immigration policy is Amarjit Kor. She's 23 years old, originally from India, and started working as a baker at Mrs. Dunster's last summer. So there have been big changes to the immigration policy here in this country, particularly reducing the number of people like yourself who would have that path to permanent residency. When you heard that about those changes, what went through your mind? It was all like

uncertainty that came to my mind, like what I'm going to do, what my friends are going to do, whose permit is expiring very soon. And that time I was like unclear. Like everything was like, oh my God, now what to do? What we are going to do? Because when we came to Canada, we had a plan that we will study, we will gain Canadian experience, then we will apply for permanent residency. But when we listen to the new changes or anything government making, then it just all come to mind like, okay, now what we are going to do? We have invested our time, our savings, like our family have invested, like, so much money on us. You have a permit that is expiring?

Yeah, my permit is expiring in upcoming 10 months. And there have been people around me at my workplace whose permit have already expired last month. And some of them have taken again studies. some of them are going back to India and seeing them like in that condition makes me feel like so sad for them and for myself. Even I don't know like what will happen next year. Like government is changing rules like all of a sudden. We don't know what to do next.

What do you think you'll do? 10 months is a long time and it's not a long time. And it's not a long time exactly. So basically right now the government have made French a priority, healthcare a priority and construction. So some of my friends, they are looking for work in health care or construction. And some of them are working on French, even I'm working on French. But learning a new language, it's not that easy. So you're trying to learn French to increase the possibility that you will have a higher score for your PR? So that I can apply for my permanent residency.

If, and I hope things work out for you, but if you don't get the score and your permit expires, what are you going to do? then eventually we have to move back to India. We don't have any other options over here. And earlier, like, government used to extend the permits, but now everything is, like, unclear. Like, they are not giving a transparent policies. Like, we have to move back to India.

That's the only option we have. What would that mean for you to move back to India? I don't want to move back to India. Like, it's very hard because it's not only me. I have seen people, like, coming from India. India. They have sold their lands. They have, like, sold their assets, and they have taken a very, like, big amount loans from Indian banks. And they eventually came here to have a better future. So they have sacrificed so much of their families. So moving back to India is not an option for us. Does it feel like home here? Yeah. Like, it's been almost three and a half years. Now I can say I can call this country a Canada. That's why I don't want to go to India because I'm used to here.

I have developed relationships here. I know, like, my friends are here, my coworkers are here. I have learned so many skills from this country. So that's why, yeah. I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Yeah, nice to talk to you. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Amherjee Kora works as a baker at Mrs. Dunstress. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.