The Decibel - East to West: What matters to rural Canada this election

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

It’s impossible to get a full picture of a country as big and diverse as Canada, but audio journalist Kasia Mychajlowycz set out on a road trip to find as many people as she could to ask: what’s the most important issue to you in this election season, and why?What people answered ranged through topics like affordability, healthcare, trust in government, reconciliation, tariffs and more. But in over 35 interviews in a dozen places over seven provinces, people went beyond politics, retelling the joys, challenges and tragedies that make up all our lives. CORRECTION: An older version of this episode misidentified Al Porter.Listen to the first installment East to West: voices in Atlantic Canada ahead of the election Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

It's election day in Canada. As people across the country head to the ballot box, we wanted to get a sense of what Canadians are thinking about, and what's driving them to vote. So audio producer Kasia Mihailovic hit the road to ask people what issues matter to them. Today, we're bringing you Kasia's documentary, part of the Globe and Mail's East to West project. I'm Maynika Ramen-Welms, and this is The Decibel, and Kash will take it from here. Does anyone want to say what they hope the federal government is going to, what they

want from the federal government in this area? What could they do to make things better? Or how could they, what have they done that hasn't made things better? That's me struggling. It's 6 30 a.m. I'm at a Tim Hortons on the highway out of Dauphin, Manitoba, population about 8,000. I'm already late for this coffee crew, about eight men sitting around a big table, each wearing a different ball cap. I'm Kashima Hilevich, and I'm an audio producer at the Globe and Mail. My mission was simple, but also complicated. 13 days, traveling over 3,000 kilometers of this country, asking people what the biggest

issues of this election season are to them and how it affects their lives. I was invited to drop in on this group, but first I had to win them over. I don't care which party it is as long as the carbon tax is gone. Can I ask your name? That's Al Porter, the first of the coffee crew to offer up his thoughts. Like almost everyone here, he's retired. Were you retired? I worked for the province of Manitoba. I was an equipment operator, snowplow operator, and then I was in charge of the crew that painted the Crooked Yellow Lines, you see, on the highway.

I heard about the lives of Canadians from all over traveling through seven provinces to 12 towns smaller cities and one community with 76 residents. People tend to start off reluctantly but once we get going they're willing to tell me what life is really like for them. Here's Gary Roloff back of the Timmy's. We consider ourselves rural here, but we're in a small city. I actually fact-checked Gary on this, and he was right. Anywhere with more than 7,500 people

is considered a city in Manitoba. The way of life in these areas is quite different than a city life. So I think there's a big divide between political leaders on how if they're more Eastern or Western based and what they they see is important. The whole country is important and I think you need to look at both ends of the country to see how the rural live as well as the city people live. Well say if some of those politicians were listening right now, like what's the number

one thing you think they don't get about living here? Well, we're used to working hard and by working hard we try to afford the things we like to do and share it with others. And there's beauty in the area that we appreciate and the opportunities to do sporting events or any kind of outdoor activity here is just hugely wonderful in this area right so those things are a lot different than they are in the cities for sure so we thrive to keep those things happening in this area. I left with a box of Timbins at the gentleman's insistence.

Who buys the Timbins? Well, I'll have to do that. Is this a bribe? If it's your birthday. Before I got here, I'd been on the road in the Maritimes. People told me about patriotism, rising house prices, the new health center in Peddi Kodiak. They told me their challenges with rising food costs. Let's put it this way. When I go to the grocery store, the only meat I see is when I walk by the meat counter.

I don't stop. I just look at it. And their jokes. Well, if I'd have been a little careless, I'd have been dead by now and I wouldn't be a senior. Sorry, I'm a little slow on the uptake on that one. Yeah, catch up with me, will ya? You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. But now, I was headed west. I wanted to speak to as many people as I could in places national newspapers don't get to very often.

Fewer than 18% of Canada's people live in rural areas, even though it's the vast majority of Canada's land. I interviewed more than 35 people and got politely rejected by so, so many more. Still, I didn't get a representative sample of country life at all. I can't make any sweeping generalizations about what rural Canadians are like or what issues are important to them. I can say that almost everyone I spoke to loved where they lived and worked hard to keep their way of life. My name is Eileen Moody. I'm Indigenous Cree from Nisuchwasi Cree Nation, Treaty 5. We are the Rocky Cree. I grew up in Brandon. We moved here when I was five years old, so Brandon is home for me. I met Eileen in Brandon, which is admittedly an urban area of just over 54,000 people and the second biggest city in Manitoba. Eileen

is an Indigenous Student Success Officer at Brandon University. We're sitting in a cozy, sweet-smelling room at the Indigenous People's Centre. She estimates that about 15% of the students here are Indigenous, and many come from smaller communities in northern Manitoba. Like it's home away from home, it's family, it's fun. So, you know, and they don't have to feel so isolated and alone in a new city that maybe they've never been to. So there's always a lot of students in here and I find, you know, and our goal is to retain them. So engage and retain. One of Eileen's main concerns is how government is honoring its commitments to indigenous people. Government is making these agreements.

So, yeah, truth and reconciliation, Phoenix Sinclair inquiry recommendations. And it's just like what TRC maybe we've completed seven of them. So it's like, oh, yeah, okay, we're fixing the problem. Let's, we sign this agreement. Here's the things to do, but then who's doing them? Eileen used to work in child welfare. She spoke about the federal government settlement agreement. It's for people harmed by discriminatory underfunding

of First Nations Child and Family Services. There's a lot of long-term effects that happened for children in homes. Foster parents, you know, not provided what they needed for the children to take care of them. I see and hear about people continuing to pass away because of the way maybe they're mismanaging their money with alcohol and drug addiction. So maybe there needs to be more services put in place for dealing with trauma, especially mental health, counselors, rehab centers, treatment centers. I think we got to get to the root of the problem. Why? Why? Why is this a problem? Why is that a problem? Getting deeper to the root. I mean, even just

homelessness. People with homelessness and addictions can't just shoo them off the street and out of the camps. That's all they have. And then you see them trying to fix a solution of, okay, well, here's an apartment for you and we'll furnish it for you. But that person doesn't know how to take care of, they don't know how to do dishes, they don't know how to take out the garbage, you know, those kinds of simple things.

So they return to the streets because that's what they know, right? That's how they know how to survive. Eileen's concern for people is political, professional, and personal. There are some familiar faces of people that I've known in past that I see, you know, just, you know, begging for change on the street. When people are just trying to survive alone, it just

doesn't seem to work. Definitely some great people in our community that work together and band together to help those who are struggling. And you see this success happen and you see this person like flourish and bloom compared to say other support services that are maybe just throwing things on top of the problems, thinking that they will fix. Are you thinking of someone you know when you're talking about a person who's flourishing? It just seems like you are. Myself? Oh really? Yeah, coming from some struggles myself. Yeah, coming from some struggles myself and how I've been able to come away from that and continue to grow versus

and compared to others who have maybe not built a community around them and connected themselves to very positive people and good role models. I just wish for others that they could have or survive and get through what I've gone through. Yeah, because you have. You're here now. You know, and what's worked for me, I didn't know there were ways to deal with things and get better. And other people don't know that too. It's a personal journey and you just have to go through the process. Is part of your work here trying to help students also know about that, what's available to them?

Yeah, just, you know, when students are struggling and reaching out for help, it's listening to them and kind of maybe just sharing my experience on what's been helpful for me. Taking part in being connected rather than isolated. You've gone through the struggles, you can recognize other people going through struggles. you can recognize other people going through struggles. I keep heading west on the Trans-Canada Highway and stop in Moosiman, Saskatchewan. Population

2,657. I pull up to Witch's Brew, a coffee shop on the main drag to meet Kara Follis. Kara's from Toronto, but moved to Moosamint in 2022 to be a family doctor. I asked her to describe the town. It is a small, rural Saskatchewan prairie town that is very much vibrant and growing. People work really hard here, mostly for farming, like grain, wheat, those are the big canola or the big crops. And there's also a mine, which is about half an hour away from

here. So those are the industries that are predominant. And then healthcare. That's like the shining star of Moosamun. I was really lucky to join in with the group here. But the reason, like I think a lot of the reason why Moosemen is a growing town in comparison with some of the other surrounding areas is the fact that their physician base has been very stable over the last 30 years. So that's like when people talk about Moosemen, that is definitely something that comes up as a highlight. Coming from a big city, I'd never thought of it. Even though the shortage of nurses and doctors is felt across the country, a town or small city having a rural hospital with an emergency department like Mooseman does, turns it into a hub for the area. People come into

town to see the doctor, then they pick up groceries, get a coffee. I asked everyone what it is that people don't understand about where they live. Kara comes from a big city too, so she had kind of an outsider's eye when she answered this question. There's very little understanding for the way people vote and think and the decision making for very like political issues in small towns and rural communities. Things like guns, for example. It's a very like rational, normal thing to have like hunting rifles and have guns. We also talked about the slowly increasing diversity in rural Canada.

I presume that a lot of people who live in cities think that the only really diverse places to live are cities. And truthfully, yes, there is still some subtle, I want to say, racial prejudices. And I think that that would be appropriate to say like racial prejudices and I think that that would be appropriate to say. I do think that there is a lot of welcoming of immigrant communities, people from like lots of people from the Ukraine, lots of people from the Philippines here in Musman. Immigrants are very welcome, like overtly and are thriving. It's like a very, I think it's an easier transition to go to a place that's affordable. Like if nothing else, like there's jobs here in farming, there's jobs here at the mine, always.

And you could actually realistically work towards owning a house. So that's awesome. But then there's, there still is like separation of people. Usually when I go out to a Filipino event, and I'm like one of like maybe two white people. There's not that many mixed families. I asked Kara why this is an important issue for her. That one's simple, because my family's a mixed family. And I think that it's really important for kids to grow up and see people that kind of look like them. It's easy for a kid growing up in a small town

who only is seeing other white people to think, I want my eyes to be blue. I want my skin to be pale, right? And you always want your kid to love who they are. So that's just important to me. Down the street from the Witches Brew Cafe is the Mooserman Library branch. I was working away as kindergartners had story time about bees and asked the librarian for an interview after.

So my name is Megan Nielsen. I'm the librarian here in Moosman. I've been here for over a decade. I actually grew up just 20 minutes away in Wapela. I call this job my side hustle because I also farm. So that's where we make most of our money. And then this is my fun job. Megan and I had a long conversation on many topics. Being a librarian, she's well-read and she

considers herself an independent thinker. Megan told me that her politics differ from her friends and most of the people in her town. I asked her why that is. My parents were always very open about talking and listening to points of view that weren't their own, right? So, and I think that made a big difference. Also, like I have a physical disability and it is something really rare. So that makes people treat you a little bit different. And so I think that helps you kind of not think like everybody else because they don't treat you

like everyone else, right? It's different, but as a whole, we all recognize that this is, as we've been saying, this is going to be our third recession, probably. I'm like, I thought recessions were a once in a lifetime thing, but we're going to roll into our third probably here in my lifetime and a pandemic. Like, what else? What else can we throw at us? We're about the same age, so I can relate to Megan's jokes about the world events we've lived through. But even though I do remember hearing about it on the news, one event hit home harder for Megan and other farmers I spoke with. In 2003, the arrival of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Canada.

It's more commonly known as mad cow disease. Cattle prices dropped to like nothing. Right? So most of our income came from cattle. My dad was actually just retired from the mine. So he retired, we had BSE hit, and then the markets dropped. So, you know, like, just like a perfect Bermuda triangle of that. So I feel like the mid 2000s were just traumatizing. Right? Like, so extra money that we may have had to help pay for stuff for university like housing, food, books, disappeared overnight. And I knew that. So I just withdrew from school. I knew it was

happening. So and I didn't want my family to struggle. Megan now worries about the bird flu pandemic sweeping through the continent and how it could affect the birds on her farm. I asked her why she still farms, knowing that an event that she has no control over could upend her life yet again. Because we love it.

It's as simple as that. I think farming is, farming is a way of life. And you either love it or you don't. And if you don't love it, you don't do it. And if you've ever grown something, if you love it, you understand that, you know, you nurture something and it grows and then you can share it with others, right? And that's what we're doing. We're sharing.

About 400 kilometers west, I got to Asinaboya, Saskatchewan and met Madison Chubb. I am a fourth generation farmer in southern Saskatchewan located outside of Asinaboya. We own and operate Stonehenge Organics and Stonehenge Global Seeds. We farm just over 6,500 acres. Family business, I farm with my father,

two, three siblings, two brothers and a sister. And we live on the farm with my wife Shay and I've got three kids under six so it's a busy lifestyle. The Chubb family farm also changed with mad cow disease. Mad cow hit in 03. We had 1,300 head and that kind of borders closed and markets crashed and because we had 5,000 acres it didn't have any chemical or synthetic fertilizer on it. The organic movement presented itself and we haven't looked back. It's been very, very good. Madison's land stretches out

exactly as flat as you expect Saskatchewan to be. The joke here is you can watch your dog run away for three days. He took me on a tour. Even having me ride in a giant tractor pulling wide cedar equipment behind it that made neat rows as it dropped the oat seeds in. But thanks to the whipping wind that is a feature of the place, we spoke inside the processing factory that sorts and cleans what he grows. Madison says family farms like his are disappearing in favor of bigger operations with more capital funding. The trade war doesn't affect his products yet, because they're covered under the Canada,

United States, Mexico free trade deal. What affects farmers in this area are the tariffs imposed by China. You know, these EV tariffs that they're putting on China, while China retaliates with a canola, a pea, and a seafood, well, those are the only three things that don't affect Ontario. And how do you protect your Ontario auto industry

and then hurt the eastern seaboard and the whole western prairies? And it seems like they're unfazed by the China retaliatory tariff because it doesn't affect Ontario. But the threat of Western separatism is because we haven't had what the West feels like, and I speak for myself,

but we haven't had someone that looks out for us on the global export of the egg industry or the oil and gas industry. This China retaliatory tariff has dropped canola prices into the tank, pea prices into the tank, pea prices into the tank, but I feel like everyone was so up in arms about the 25% U.S. American tariff,

but don't really flinch at the Chinese tariff because it only affects the West and the Eastern seaboard. All across Western Canada, I heard there's a disconnect between the East, or really Toronto and Ottawa, and the West. There was a sense that the West, their industries, their concerns, were being forgotten. The topic came up again when I arrived in Vermillion, Alberta. It's about 60 kilometers west over the Saskatchewan border. It was a Sunday so the cute main strip was completely deserted till I ran into a group of women who were going to a

felting class. I asked if I could join. They said yes, and then said I should really meet Toland. My name is Toland Cochran. Kind of a long convoluted, I guess, story in terms of what do I do? To condense it, Toland grew up down the road, was a carpenter, and now has a construction and development business with his wife. They own a few stores in town, including the clothing store we're sitting in. It's in a big brick building. Bricks made with a red clay that gave Vermillion its name. He's a big booster for this town of about 4,000 people. Toland said that the economic health of the town and the West were on his mind, and what

the trade war with the US meant for us. Part of my concern is that if this talk of tariffs just completely disappeared tomorrow, that the vast majority of Canadians would just go, oh, well, good thing we dodged that bullet and let's move on with life. Well, no, we should really look at why this was such a dangerous predicament that we got into. And how had we better figure out how to make sure that we don't get into that predicament again? Until we make a concerted effort to grow our economy in a more diverse direction, we're still at the Americans' beck and call.

And that's on us to a certain degree. Alberta's oil and gas sector is reliant on the U.S. The states buy 90% of Canada's crude oil, flowing through 31 pipelines that cross the border. But there's only one, the Trans Mountain Pipeline, going east to west that can bring Canadian oil to markets in Asia and further abroad. And on that is, this is where the other part of it is, is that the separation talk in Alberta. By separation talk, what Toland means is the idea of becoming the 51st state.

When Donald Trump said it, Canadians got mad. But Western alienation isn't new. We've heard about Western separatism before, like with the Wexit campaign. It's a do-or-die scenario for us. If we do not get the access to these markets for our product, then there's only one direction to go in terms of moving product, and that is south through the border, through the states. And right now, we are not the states, so they can take advantage of us in terms of the price that they give us for our product by moving it through that border. A lot of people would say, and I personally, on an economic front I can see it, is that

if this region became part of the states, then all of our product, all of our whole lifeline is a North-South lifeline. It isn't East-West. So if we took away that trade barrier, which is the national border, economically that potentially could make a lot of sense to our area of the country. That's just straight economics. I'll admit it, I flew over the Rockies. I couldn't imagine driving through there alone in the unpredictable month of April weather-wise. So I arrived in Kelowna and headed north on

winding hilly highways and eventually ended up in Merritt, BC, which definitely has a kind of punchy country-western vibe. There are murals of country music legends sprinkled around town. My name is Mike, or Michael, Gets. I am the mayor of the city of Merritt. What brought me here in 1977 was Mines. I was a miner, I was a son of a miner, I'm a third generation miner and I came to work at Craigmont Mines, it's copper mine. That has long since shut down. And tell me about Merritt. Merritt is a beautiful little community that is nestled in semi-desert, we're semi-desert here, and we have a population of about 8,500 and we're the hub of semi-desert, we're semi-desert here, and we have a population

of about 8,500 and we're the hub of BC, we call ourselves, because we're right in the middle of the, all the Coquihalla highways meet right in Merritt. So coming from Vancouver, from Kelowna, from Kamloops, and then out highway to Spencer's Bridge, we're right in the middle of it. LESLIE KENDRICK Merritt was devastated by flooding in 2021. And I had just come from interviewing someone who'd lost their home to a wildfire last year. And I had just come from interviewing someone who'd lost their home to a wildfire last year. So I asked Mike if he'd seen the effects of climate change. Yes and no. When I moved here in July of 1977 it was very hot. We

still get that. One of the things that we're not seeing is the snowpacks are much lighter now than they were years ago. much lighter. We're just not in a position where the snow packs are going to carry us through. But the climate change is, you know, we're seeing a lot more wildfires, a lot more wildfires also because of the situation of the pine beetle in the station. It killed a lot of trees that are still standing. And once those catch fire, they're pretty hard to put out. So yes there is some climate change, a hundred percent there is, I'm not going to say there isn't. I asked what role government played in protecting the city from a wildfire or another flood. Well you have two levels of government, provincial and

federal, and when you're dealing with let's say the dike repair. As a community we bring in about ten million dollars on our taxes every year. The repair of the dike area is about 160 million, so there's virtually no way as a community we can afford to do that. So we've been lobbying the provincial and federal government. Now the provincial government has come to our aid of about 130 million dollars. They repaired our bridge that was destroyed and we just two weeks ago got 60 million dollars for two dykes to repair the two dykes. And they've helped us out with several other things as we've moved along. The federal government, unfortunately, has not been. They have not actually entered into one penny to us to help us.

Mike has a message for whichever party forms government that smaller communities need more than just promises. They need real action from the federal government. We need to make this community safe. Don't come here for photo ops. Get a slap on the back and then leave and forget what you were here for. As the mayor, Mike is a politician, of course. But just because it's politics doesn't mean it's not personal.

You've got to remember people lost things. My home was flooded. It took me 12 months to get my home back in order. And I didn't see my family for three months because I had to send them somewhere because we'd had an accident. And in the flood evacuation, my granddaughter was killed in the evacuation in a car accident. My other granddaughter was severely injured. And so was my daughter. We didn't have a city that was operational. So I couldn't bring them home. My home was underwater. Hospital wasn't working. Our water and sewer plant was still underwater. So I had to fly them to Vancouver.

So my granddaughter, who was recovering, she almost lost her arm in the accident. So it was a really tough time. From Truro, Nova Scotia to Spence's Bridge, BC, I was truly amazed to see the variety and vastness of the land in Canada. So it makes sense to me that people's priorities are different from place to place and can sometimes feel like they're at odds.

What everyone I spoke to had in common was that the proudest and the most difficult moments of their lives informed their politics. It can be easy to forget that the government we elect really does shape our lives, that it can help people heal or keep their way of life. And the people I interviewed all understood that, no matter who they voted for. And they all told me that's why they were going to vote. That's it for today. I'm Maynika Ramon-Wilms.

This episode was reported by Kasha Mihailovich and produced by Tiffany Lamb. Adrian Chung is the decibel's senior producer and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you tomorrow.