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Outdoor Journal Radio: The Podcast
Drawing from their experience as two of Canada’s most prominent outdoor personalities, hosts Angelo Viola and Peter Bowman explore the environmental topics, issues, and events that matter to the everyday outdoorsman. Joined by a wide variety of guests, ODJ Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Your stories, your questions, on your schedule
Outdoor Journal Radio: The Podcast
Episode 232: 191 Wildfires. 2,800 Evacuations. What’s Happening in Ontario?
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Nearly 200 wildfires. Thousands forced from their homes. Fishing camps already lost. Water bombers being grounded because people keep flying drones into active fire zones.
Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, Mike Harris Jr., joins Angelo Viola for a blunt breakdown of the wildfire emergency unfolding across Northern Ontario.
How dangerous is the situation? Should anglers cancel upcoming trips? What happens to remote lodges caught in the fire zone? And how do 700 firefighters, 120 aircraft and crews from across Canada begin to contain something this massive?
The Minister also reveals what Ontario is spending on wildfire protection, why some fires are deliberately allowed to burn and what outdoorspeople need to check before travelling north.
Plus, Ontario’s new digital hunting and fishing licence system, the rules around carrying your Outdoors Card and the mysterious “meanmouth bass” that reportedly attacks dogs and swimmers.
This is one every Canadian outdoorsperson needs to hear.
This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio is brought to you in part by the Invasive Species Center, protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom Cruise Canada, rent the boat, own the memories, and JMB Cycle a Marine, your home for all things power sports, boats, and equipment. And now, another exciting episode of the adventures of Outdoor Journal Radio. Welcome to the program. Once again, as you can see, I am uh Sans Encumbrances. My little partner's off uh, I believe on vacation. Wow. First one week he was gone on business. Next week he's gone on vacation. Who knows? Uh we'll keep you informed, though, if we uh hear of him from him. Uh wonderful program, nonetheless. Uh joining us in a few moments is the uh will be the Minister of Natural Resources here in Ontario. Uh that um former son of the premier of the province, Mike Harris. His name is Mikey Jr. Uh Mike Harris Jr. He uh was appointed in 2005. He's been on the program a couple times already, which I think might be a record, if I'm not mistaken.
SPEAKER_03Probably back to like the Jerry Willette days.
SPEAKER_00Oh, the Jerry Wallette days. He owned the show, for God's sake. Um, but he'll be joining us now. We're originally we had this scheduled because we had a series of questions that we wanted to ask him, some of them from you, the audience, and others uh from us. But uh we're gonna forego most of that because obviously uh the hot topic, no pun intended. Uh thank you. Thank you, Deany. I love that when you do that. You're right on cue on that. You knew it was gonna happen. I did.
SPEAKER_03I I could see it coming.
SPEAKER_00Uh that's Dean Taylor there on the button. And uh Nikki V is somewhere in the house. I saw him roaming around. Maybe he's in the store, uh, but I can't talk of the store until he gets back in the seat. So we'll uh forego that for the time being. And uh so, anyways, we'll talk to him about these uh forest fires and just how big they are and the implications that um while we as anglers and outdoors people are going to be facing here in the weeks to come. There is going there are going to be areas where we cannot access. Uh we don't know for how long, but we'll hopefully find out from Mike. And uh he can give us an update. Also, I'm really, really curious. This thing is so big, it might be the biggest in history uh in terms of fires here in the province of Ontario, but it's so big. I'm curious to to know like how many people does it take and how much machinery does it take to keep something like this under control? Because it's massive, man. And uh and what's it cost? Like all these questions are coming up in my head, but we'll find out here shortly when uh Mike Harris Jr. joins us in a few moments. Uh in the meantime, uh store is uh status quo, nothing to report. That's why probably Nikki uh ran out of the room when the recording light went on. But I won't dwell on that. Uh season 40 nicely underway. Uh Saturday morning's Global Television Network. For those of you who are not, who are not partnered up with the uh folks at Fishing Canada, then you need to. Every Saturday morning uh here in this part of the world, 8 o'clock. Uh Saturday morning's Global Television Network presents this product uh coast to coast to coast. Uh mind you, on the uh uh western part of the province, we are on at 10 and 10:30 in BC in Alberta. Also on WFN. Uh it's interesting uh the WFN numbers keep growing. I don't know what it is lately with the Fish in Canada show, but uh obviously our good friends, yes, our good friends uh south of the border are in tune with what we're doing up here in terms of fish. Anyways, uh hopefully that will remain that way for years to come. And uh also on Sportsman's channel here in Canada. You can watch it. I think we're on uh three or four times a day. YouTube, don't forget YouTube, you good folks who are watching it on YouTube. Uh you will continue to get the product every new show uh Monday mornings after it airs on the national broadcast goes right to the YouTube channel where you can enjoy it, consume it, share it in perpetuity. How's that? Come on now. Yeah, thank you. All right, on with the show. Listener feedback in response to our blue walleye podcast that we did a few weeks ago uh at Sky Skyote.
SPEAKER_03Skyote, uh Skyote at 5496.
SPEAKER_00You like that? Skyote.
SPEAKER_03I like the sound of it.
SPEAKER_00The old Skyote uh via YouTube uh wants to know or has to say. Uh he says, long time fans been watching uh for 30 years or so. Was a great episode a couple of years ago. They changed the rules. Oh. Uh, and you can target large sturgeon here in Manitoba. On the Red, I'm assuming, on the Red River, uh, where I'm from. People are even getting them through the ice. Ouch. Uh, on the Red River. Interesting. Um we'll go on here just a terrific. Uh, would also love to see some episodes with the young bucks targeting fish like steelhead, carp, lake trout, white fish. Well, bone uh fin from shore. Thanks for all the tips over the many years. Uh so the young guns, I'm assuming he's talking about you two, uh Nick and Dean.
SPEAKER_03Maybe Steve.
SPEAKER_00Ah, I wouldn't consider Steve. Yeah, yeah, I don't think you can stretch it that far. Um, but uh he wants to see you guys fishing steelhead. So would I actually.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I haven't done that in years.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god. I think you guys would be great on that.
SPEAKER_03Why don't we do that? We should do that. I haven't done it. I I used to fish the Skina probably twice a year when I lived out in BC, but I've never steelhead fished in Ontario ever. And I've lived here all my life.
SPEAKER_00So well then let's set it up. Yeah. I happen to know a couple of people that have got some uh some property where there's some extra steelhead uh water running through it. So we might be able to get you some private access.
SPEAKER_03That sounds great. I love this uh comment we got in then, if that's what happens.
SPEAKER_00Like VIPs, you guys are listening. Yeah. Uh carp and lake trout. Well, lake trout we've done.
SPEAKER_03I seem to catch them every time you put me on camera. I know you're the sure it's not supposed to happen.
SPEAKER_00You're the lake trout king.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like accidentally.
SPEAKER_00Uh carp? I think that'd be cool.
SPEAKER_03Carp would be very cool. I've never done that.
SPEAKER_00See, I think you you two would be yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, Nick's done quite a bit. That's kind of he's he might have done that more than any other species.
SPEAKER_00When you no, I don't think he I could be wrong. If he were here uh at his desk, we could ask him, but obviously he's not. Uh but I don't think he's been on carp shoots. He's been at the carp cop. I've taken him to uh the world carp championship in Italy. Yep. And uh I don't think I could be wrong. I could be wrong. He has been around for a long time. Yeah. For a young guy. We'll find out. Uh Bofin from shore. That one might be a little difficult.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do love them, but they're making a whole chute out of it from shore because they almost live on shore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They're right up there. So I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't know about that one. Anyways, thanks for all the uh tips over the years. Well, you're quite welcome. Uh, what was the name there, Dean? Skyote. Skyote. Skyote. Conservation corner, they're talking about carp. Now, we're not talking about uh carp as we know it, uh that is the common carp that we love to fish for and are a great sport, by the way. We haven't talked about them enough through the last couple of years. Uh, and that's because we've been more preoccupied with the invasive carp, in this case, the grass carp. And if you um are in the outdoors, if you're on water at all, if you're an angler, you need to inform yourself about this uh situation with the grass carp. The best place to do that is the invasivecarp.ca website. They have all the information you need. Most importantly, they tell you um how to identify it and what to do in the event that you do come in contact with one, whether you just see it or you actually caught it. They'll tell you exactly what needs to be done in order to keep us uh on the right side of the fence when it comes to grass carp, because they are not an invasive species that we could just sort of turn our backs on. Because if they take hold in our waters, it will change. I'm not saying it'll destroy it, because I don't know enough scientifically speaking, if that's the case, but I will guarantee you they will change the waterscape um completely uh because of their voracious appetite for vegetation, uh, up to 40% of their body weight of nice green, lush uh growth that we absolutely need in this part of the world for our sportfish. They consume it every day, 40% of their total body weight of vegetation every day. So, anyways, go to invasivecarp.ca. They will fill you in on what you need to know. In the news, brought to you by JB, those wonderful folks uh that happened, just happen to be uh one of the largest uh Princecraft mercury dealers on the planet. Uh they're uh they're wonderful folks because not only are they a great partner for this product, but they're great partners for our audience. I've talked to so many people that have hooked up with them because they heard about them on this show and have had nothing but really great experiences. The one thing I can guarantee you with JMB uh cycle of marine is that if and when you do business with them, um, it may not always go 100% right because no transaction is guaranteed. That's why places like Walmart have got a wonderful, you know, bring it on back, we'll fix you. Well, JMB isn't quite like Walmart, but I can tell you uh Rob and his team, their sole purpose in life is to make sure that their customers are happy. And that we can guarantee you. What we can't guarantee you is that it'll always be a wonderful experience. But if it doesn't turn out that way, J and B will fix it for you, guaranteed. There you go. In the news, uh kayak angler lands possible uh mean mouth bass. Do you care to explain that?
SPEAKER_03I thought this was kind of interesting just because you don't hear about mean mouth bass very often. And we I think we were talking about hybrid species on uh a recent episode. Yep. So the story, I mean, it's not necessarily that unique. Uh kayak angler Christine Fisher landed um a 21-inch mean mouth in Texas, which is like a five-pounder. Um 21 inches, five pounder? Yeah, that seems apparently. That's what it said. It's still so they they still have to um, I guess, confirm the identity of it. I think she put it back, so I don't know if they'll actually get like science scientific evidence it's going to be it. Unless it's a football. I mean, if it's a football, it could be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it could very well be. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um and she's caught a bunch of them before, so you can kind of tell. Uh, there'll be pictures up on the screen there. You can kind of tell by just the positioning of the eye in the lower jaw, because obviously smallmouth um or largemouth and smallmouth are pretty distinct. Yep. Um, in terms of where their eye lines up with the back of the jaw. Uh, these are like almost like smallly colored largies with a little bit of a different mouth. I don't know. There it you'll see some pictures here, but um they're actually not I'm surprised how the reason I put this story in, I was surprised how rarely we see these because I I have you seen one? I don't know. Like, I not that I can recall. No, but when you think about it, because I was looking up why aren't these more common? It says, well, because smallmouth and largemouth don't often share habitat, right? And that might be true in the states, but that's not true up here.
SPEAKER_00You know yourself, we've uh we've got them both I mean within within 10 feet of the the each other, so yeah, they do, and we've got some uh underwater footage of them existing together as well.
SPEAKER_03So you you'd think if there was like a hybrid cat capital, it'd probably be Ontario.
SPEAKER_00I would think maybe the conditions aren't right. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. What are the do we know? Have we done a show on this fish?
SPEAKER_03No, never. Why not? I uh yeah, like I wonder if we've caught them. And you know, our smallmouth can the coloration of our smallmouth are all over the place. Like I've caught smallmouth and eerie that are so green, like they could be largemouth. So I don't maybe I just haven't paid close enough attention to this fish. It's never been something that's really been on my radar.
SPEAKER_00Is this once again uh a Dr. Cook issue?
SPEAKER_03I think it could be for sure. I do have some information though that's kind of interesting. So obviously, they're hybrids with smallmouth and largemouth. Right. Um, they don't share habitat often, according to this article, which is why their offspring are rare. But the the the name, I've never really liked the name for some reason because it Why? Why why mean mouth? Yeah, so apparently it comes from so there's a guy, Dr. William Childers, who was studying them in the 60s, and he noticed so the the first time he was studying them, he witnessed the hybrid, it tried to attack a uh a dog that swam in the water, and then they were also chasing humans that were swimming. So he coined the name there that it's like this ultra-aggressive bass, um, which is interesting. I think maybe I have a feeling that the name might be one of those things why more people don't know of it because to me, mean mouth sounds like maybe a nickname for a smally or something like that. Um, but you'd never hear people talk about hybrids in this world, at least up here.
SPEAKER_00No, there was a time. There was a time where we believed that smallmouth bass and largemouth bass were in fact not related at all. Oh, really? Yeah. And that the smallmouth was closer aligned with um painfish.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00That same family, that same sort of uh gene.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh that was back in the 70s, 70s and 80s, early 80s. And then all of a sudden, you know, boom, all of a sudden we find out that that that that it is a cousin with a largemouth bass. So I don't know. There's something weird going on here with this. We need to look into it a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03I agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is a uh Dr. Cook issue. We we can never do it justice. But great article. If you want to see more on it, uh go to fishing canada.com and uh read the whole story because uh it's pretty fascinating. And now that I think of it, you know, a 21-inch bass, smallmouth bass, if it was more round in terms of shape, it might be between four and five pounds.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think an 18 like an 18 to 19 incher could be like a three uh three three pounder.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So it might if it if it's got that same shape as as yeah as uh uh you know a pumpkin seed or or sunfish, it might be. But anyways, regardless, fascinating. Uh, if you want to more want more on the story, just go to fishingcan.com and uh fill your boots as they say. All righty. Fan question of the week. I've been waiting for this uh because it has I guess our guest today could probably answer it if we weren't changing the subject on him and talking about uh force fires instead. Uh it comes to us from uh Caleb Fenmir via email. Is this uh qualify for anything?
SPEAKER_03No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00Because of email? So how do they have to qualify?
SPEAKER_03We need people to start commenting on YouTube. Well, we we do have great people who comment on YouTube. There's lots of you out there. We just can't keep rewarding the same people. Uh-huh. So when it's the same people over and over, I have to dip into the emails and uh well, could we change it up temporarily?
SPEAKER_00You know, things are meant to be changed, right?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's up to the higher powers. I think that's even above your head, apparently.
SPEAKER_00I know, but all right. I would say, you know, if if emails are hot right now, we should start Yeah, we should reward them. Reward emails, but we will not reward uh Caleb nonetheless, because I don't have authorization for that. But I'm gonna look into it. But, anyways, uh Caleb says, hey guys, I recently realized I didn't have my outdoors card with me while I was fishing, even though my fishing license uh was still active. What are the rules around uh this in Ontario? Can an officer look it up or could I still get fined for not having the card on me? Well, let me tell you, it's kind of like uh your driver's license. Uh technically, uh the letter of the law says that you must carry identification on you at all times, uh, qualifying you to be a licensed fill-in-the-blank driver, angler, hunter, pilot, whatever it is, if you're licensed to do something and you get pulled over or stopped, the loss is that you have to have that on you. Now, there are extenuating circumstances, I suppose, where where you could um convince the officer that for reasons you know uh beyond your control you don't have it on you, and then I guess he couldn't exercise the law at that point. But just saying, oh geez, I f I forgot it. No, if that officer wants to fine you uh on the spot, he can. And in terms of the legality as it pertains to fish and wildlife, it's even more severe because technically not carrying your license on you uh is is a let's put it this way it's a more strict violation of the um wildlife act than it is a driver not carrying his license on him on one of our highways. So the answer is absolutely you don't carry it, you don't have it on you, the officer had a bad day or you pissed him off, yeah, it's uh it's not a good it's not gonna be a good day for you. The outcome is gonna be bleak, so you do. But having said that, I know in some cases where if uh the circumstances were all good and you weren't being an idiot about it, and the officer was having a particularly good day, then they will allow you to um I shouldn't even say that because I don't want to put any any notions out there. It is illegal to go out fishing and hunting without your license on your body. I don't know in terms of electronic means. I believe the new um fishing regulations, and don't don't know about hunting, I believe that they have a provision in there where your license will be on an app. We'll find out later on in the program from the minister. But as of right now, yeah, you gotta have it, man. You gotta have that license on you. You can't say, oh, oh, forgot it. Because they they will take action in most cases. Uh that's from my own personal experiences. This episode is brought to you by Sale. Sale is proudly Canadian and stocked with over a hundred Canadian brands you know and love. From rods and reels to sonars to kayaks and every last lure you've seen on the Fish in Canada show, Sale has all the gear to get you on the water. Drop into one of 12 stores across Ontario and Quebec and talk to the real fishing specialist or gear up online anytime at Sale.ca. Sale, the ultimate destination for your outdoor adventures. All right, let's bring them on. Without further ado, the uh Minister of Natural Resources, uh Mr. Harris, Mike Harris Jr., for those of you who don't know, uh Jr. because son of former Premier Harris, uh, who uh ran this province for a number of years. Uh welcome back to the program, Mike. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01Good to see you, Anch. Good to be back.
SPEAKER_00Uh I would say uh how's it going? But I have a pretty good feeling that I know uh these are difficult times for your ministry, man. Uh I don't wish it on anybody. And I don't want to intrude and you know get into the minutia and the fine details of it. But uh, can you give us a sense of what your office, your department is going through right now?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, listen, it's it's been a pretty busy week. Week and change, week and a half at this point. Um, last sort of Sunday, Monday, we had a pretty substantial storm system roll through northwestern Ontario and really touched on. Off a very, very delicate situation with lightning strikes across the region. We were upwards of over 190 fires at one point across Ontario last week and early into this week. But thankfully, uh weather conditions have really helped out over the last little while. Um we're down uh down to about 185, I think was last counted about noon today. So we've uh we've seen some new fires start. We've seen some uh fires be extinguished by our incredible teams on the ground. And uh it's certainly been a very, very challenging situation. Uh I was up in uh in Thunder Bay over the weekend with the premier, had a chance to meet with uh with some First Nations leadership, municipal leadership up there, and of course visit our fire base and get to talk firsthand to some of the folks who have who have been out there on the the front lines of these fires, and whether that be pilots of our our helicopters and water bombers or or the folks that you see running around in the bush with the orange shirts on that do some incredible work. So do we it's been but we're but we're doing our best.
SPEAKER_00Do we have a number? Um, like can you give us a number of people that are involved in this whole process?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we we have about 120 or so aerial assets that are available at any given time. Um roughly 80 or so of those are suppression aircraft. So that's your your CL415 water bomber that we that we see all the time on on the news or on social media. We've got uh light, medium, heavy helicopters that are available to us as well. That's what you see with the the suppression tanks on the bottom. Or sometimes you see those those long uh basically they look like buckets on a long rope. Um they hold about 4,000 liters of water and uh they can vacuum that out of a lake, a swamp, a pond, uh, a river in about 30 seconds, which is pretty neat. So um from an aircraft perspective, yeah, we sit around about 120. Um, there's some obviously some support aircraft as well that uh move equipment and and crews around. And at any given time, we've got probably, I'm gonna say about 700 people from that firefighting perspective, the boots on the ground perspective. Um we have about 155 crews. They're sort of a four to five person crew, uh, and they're they're out there running hose lines, setting up what we call values protection. So that's all the sprinklers and pumps and things you see around at some of the uh the camps. Um, obviously online we've seen quite a bit over the last little while. So we've got a pretty big contingent of people out there, and we've actually brought some help in as well uh from Alberta. Um, we've got about 80 or 80, 90 firefighters here from Alberta. They've just uh landed and are going through orientation right now. We've got uh some folks potentially coming up from Mexico, uh, which is which is great. Um we've partnered with them previously, had some reciprocity agreements where we've had some people going back and forth. And we've also got some aircraft here from uh Alberta and the Yukon and also a little bit of help from New Brunswick. So we're we're pushing forward, doing everything we can, uh, very delicate situation, and we've got the right people and the right team in place to get the mission done.
SPEAKER_00Is there like a uh a headquarters or a forward base that they set up uh to run all of this? Because the the logistics involved is something like it's mind-boggling. I'm trying to think of all those planes you just mentioned. Where the hell do you fuel them up? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01So so yeah, so our our our fire headquarters is in Sault Ste. Marie. Um, that's where uh a large portion of our our sort of fire management teams work out of, but we've got bases scattered across Ontario. Pretty much every major north uh northern airport has a fire base attached to it. And then we do have Ford attack bases as well that are quite frankly in the middle of nowhere. And uh I actually had an opportunity to uh to quickly visit one last summer um that's probably, I don't know, it'd be 50, 60 kilometers north of Red Lake. Um it's uh just a small little map dot out in the middle of nowhere, back lake. And uh we've got uh helicopters flying in and out of the air all the time. And um it's pretty neat to see how how this operation works from a logistics perspective. We've got we've we've got we've got a lot of folks spread out all over, obviously the Northeast as well, of course, Timmins, um, North Bay, Sudbury. So it's uh it's quite a large undertaking when you really look at it.
SPEAKER_00Uh that on its own would be a handful, but um I I do want to just jump into one point that uh has been big on the news as of late, last few days, and I want to make sure that everybody listening and watching this is aware of it too. One of the biggest problems you have, I mean, the fire is the the deal, but people, right? Once you move people out of an area, you know, whether they self-evacuate or you've evacuated them, the importance of keeping that area clear of humans, maybe you can just touch on that and why it's so important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's a great point, and I'm I'm glad you bring it up. Um, so so when we have an evacuation in order in place, it's obviously for a good reason. Um, we have active fire in the area, we have crews in the area, we have water bombers overhead. And if we have people that are, you know, going back to visit their camps, their cottages, their tourist, uh tourist outposts, different things like that, it makes it really, really hard for um namely our our our aerial assets, our water bombers, helicopters to be able to operate safely. So we we actually can't drop water out of the planes if we see uh folks on the landscape that are not part of our fire team. So it's really important that that you really keep an eye on the orders that are in place for your area. I know a lot of people want to go and uh check things out, see what, see what's going on, see if they can get back into their camp. But please, you know, if you have any questions, contact your local district office or regional office uh with the M and R. They'd be more than happy to walk you through some of the procedure. Um we've got some great partnerships as well with the OPP who are doing a lot of work to make sure that we're getting people evacuated from areas safely. So really just need people to be aware of what's going on. And please don't fly your drones into the fires. Um again, we've actually had to stop fire suppression operations because people are flying their drones in to get that, you know, that great little shot to get their 15 minutes of fame online. And uh, we just can't have it. We can't have it. Um safety of our fire folks is paramount, number one. And uh if we have to stop operations because uh, you know, you think it's cool, you want to get that quick video of a fire, I mean you're jeopardizing the safety of not only our firefighters, but folks within the area too, because that means we can't get in, fight that fire, set up our values protection operations, and it just throws a whole wrench into everything.
SPEAKER_00It's funny how drones have all of a sudden, you know, become a major part of our outdoors, right? Because everybody wants to get that shot that you just said, whether it's a sunrise, sunset, a moose walking across the water. But yeah, you never think of them posing this kind of a challenge. I I know that uh that there are air domes uh uh in place where you cannot fly a drone or certain with it within a certain distance. Uh, but even if there isn't an air dome uh involved here, it's just a matter of of folks up there fighting fires in the air, and they can't have drones running around. We're scheduled to uh next week we're scheduled to uh go in from horn pain and then fly north to a camp. Um and and right now we're on kind of pins and needles because we don't know whether we'll have access or not. But it's funny because one of the conversations has been going around, even if we get in there, can we fly our drones? And the answer is probably gonna be no uh by the sounds of it.
SPEAKER_01So very important you have to keep keep keep an eye on the regulations, right? I I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think it's something like uh three, three to four, three to six kilometers within that within that fire where there is a notice to airmen or no tam that they call them, um, have to be uh cognizant of that. Um outside of that, you know, you're you're more than welcome. Business as usual. Um, but we just ask you to be really careful.
SPEAKER_00So that brings me to my next question. What's happening to the folks that own lodges and properties up in these areas that do business? Um how are you dealing with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's a really tricky situation, right? A lot of these uh outpost camps are quite remote, as you know. You've been to a lot of them up in northwestern Ontario. Um, we're we're working as collaboratively as we can to make sure that people are getting the right information that are understanding what fires are in their area, um, what what we're looking at from fire behavior, how they're how the fires are moving, what direction they're going in, what kind of weather patterns we think we're gonna see over the next little while. And then uh unfortunately, there has been some instances now where we have actually lost some some camps. Um, it's just it's such a terrible situation. My heart breaks for these people. I mean, you know, you know me, I'm I'm a huge fisherman, he's a huge outdoorsman, and um, and I'm a I'm a business guy prior to getting into politics. So um it's just such an awful situation. But we do have teams that are going in um where we can when the smoke allows and when the weather conditions allow to set up what we call values protection. I know it's a bit of a funny name. Um, but basically we install hose lines, pumps, large sprinkler systems to just saturate the area with water, uh, whether that be buildings, vehicles, boats, docks, um, just the general area, any trees, shrubbery around the property, anything that can act as fuel. So um there's been our our teams have been hard at work doing that over the last few days to try and make sure that we're able to save save as much property as we can, but it's tough. You know, we had um a couple days ago, we had 191 fires on the go. I think we've been up to 195 thereabouts. Is that a record, by the way?
SPEAKER_00Is that a new record?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, listen, it's it's definitely a record for this time of year. Yeah, um, we're not uh you know, we're not out of the woods yet by any stretch, but we like I said, we've seen some better weather coming through that's that's really helped uh our teams on the ground be able to work the fires a little bit better. Um we'll see what the next few weeks have in store. It's it's definitely gonna warm up a little bit. Hopefully we get a little bit of some sustained rain later in the week again, potentially, and and maybe some lower winds, lower heat, really helpful. Um, but uh it's it's tough. This is an unprentid precedented, unprecedented situation that we're in right now. We've never seen anything like this. Um, certainly, you know, I've got folks who have been on our fire um uh fire ranger team for somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years, and they don't remember seeing anything like this.
SPEAKER_00So it's not pretty just pretty job. For the record, so we have it clear. Um the majority of the fires were caused by lightning that we know of, or or is there you know a percentage of yeah, so so in this case, the overwhelming majority we believe to have been caused by lightning.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh sometimes um there are cases where human interaction on the landscape does does cause fires. You know, we've seen obviously the odd campfire that goes astray, or someone's walking through the bush and flicks a cigarette butt or something like that. We've even seen um we've even seen uh rail cars cast sparks off into the uh in into the you know the shrubbery on the side of the the rail lines that that can then start fires. So um usually it's about kind of a 50-50 mix when you really roll it in. Um, but but in this case it's predominantly from a storm system that moved from west to east um Sunday and into Monday that really caused the the headaches we're seeing now.
SPEAKER_00Give us a sense, Mike, too. Uh I mean, obviously the flames, the the burn is the biggest issue, but uh give us a sense of the smoke issues as well. Uh what's the is there a safe distance? Is there and once again, maybe for selfish reasons, because we're looking at the possibilities of going into one of these areas to shoot here in coming days. Is there a distance that one should keep from a known burn area? Uh, because not just the flames, but smoke as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I I I guess at the end of the day, we recommend that you stay as far away as possible. Yeah. Um, but but obviously there's there's circumstances beyond everyone's control. It's Mother Nature. You know, we've seen Southern Ontario uh a few days ago be blanketed uh with a pretty thick carpet of smoke. It all sort of depends on on what way the wind is blowing that day. So um generally, too, as the fires are are burning and are more active and they're moving more quickly, they'll they'll create more smoke because they're also they're consuming more fuel. So um, you know, it if you're gonna be in and around areas, you can always mask. It does help. Um, we we do have air purifiers that we've moved into some communities and scrubbers to try and just help alleviate some of that that pressure on the respiratory system, but but it's it's tough to deal with, and there's not really much that uh that can be done from the smoke perspective. And it's actually um during the initial phase sort of of of Wednesday, Thursday last week, there was so much smoke in the area that it actually made it very dangerous for our crews to operate because from an aircraft perspective, um, you couldn't see anything. So you're kind of flying around blind, so to speak. So um it creates a lot of challenges from an operational standpoint, but also from that um that that health standpoint as well. So certainly cognizant of it. Um, you know, we want to see these fires as small as humanly possible, and we work to we work to do that. And obviously, it's been a little uh a little tough with some of the smoke and smog that that folks have faced over the last little while.
SPEAKER_00You you said you were in in the Sioux last weekend or this past weekend. Thunder Bay. Thunder Bay, sorry. What was the the air quality like there?
SPEAKER_01It was pretty smoky. Um it was it was much smokier than than down south. So I live in Kitchener. That's where I hang my hat on a regular basis. Um I was up in North Bay, uh cockering Capas Gasing as well uh a little bit last week and um did see some smoke up there. And as you got further over west in uh in Kappa Scasing, there was actually some ash that was falling. Um I heard some yeah, some people talking about how they had a little bit of ash on their trucks in the morning when they were heading off to work. So um Thunder Bay, you know, I I hate to say that they're used to this kind of thing. It it's still, you know, a terrible, terrible situation. But I think communities that are in the fire zone, um, you know, they're they're used to it a little bit. They see this. Um, but we've had some fires that have been pretty, you know, close to town. There was one fire um just west, sort of, I guess it'd be west-northwest of Thunder Bay in Kneebing, um, that was actually moving pretty close to town. That fire's now out. We've we've completely extinguished it. We've uh devoted a lot of resources to it, obviously, because it's very close to the community of Neving and Thunder Bay. Um, lots of houses, cottages, all kinds of stuff, camps in that area. So the team's done an incredible work. Um, absolutely incredible work to deal with, like I said, an unprecedented situation.
SPEAKER_00Just to get back to the evacuation part briefly, how difficult has that been? Are there a lot of areas, a lot of people, a lot of communities that just say, no, we're gonna be fine. We've been through this a million times. Don't worry about us.
SPEAKER_01It it's it's an interesting situation because yes, there are a few that that have that sort of sentiment, but I think then once they realize what's really happening, they're like, hey, um, I think we'd like to get out. So at this point, I believe the uh the list today was 13 different communities. Um, some are unincorporated townships, uh, obviously in the Northwest, some are First Nations communities. Uh, we've been partnering also with the Canadian Armed Forces to leverage some of their um their larger scale and craft or larger scale aircraft, um, short takeoff aircraft, Hercules type aircraft, those sorts of things to be able to move larger amounts of people um in and out of specific areas. I think the counts somewhere about 2,800 people. Um, and and generally we would we would evacuate them from their community into Thunder Bay just because it's the closest large-scale airport. And then from there, some have decided to stay in Thunder Bay, some have some are staying with families, some are staying in hotels. Um, and we've also got some great host communities in other parts of the province. I'm just thinking kind of off the top of my head. Um, Barrie, Toronto, Mississauga, Niagara Falls. Um, I know here in Waterloo region, um, they put up their hand to say um that they're happy to help as well. So we've got people you know looked after as best we can. We also work with Indigenous Services Canada um to uh to to make sure that our first that that First Nations communities here uh in the province as well are looked after. So there's there's certainly a lot of moving pieces. We work very, very closely and collaboratively with one of our ministry partners, the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response, headed up by uh Minister Jill Dunlop. And uh they they handle a lot of the back-end logistics uh and coordination and and what happens once those people are actually evacuated from the communities. And then usually it's the MR folks that are sort of the the uh the people that will bring the planes in, um, work with the communities to coordinate um any uh any other sort of assets that need to be protected. Again, similar to what we do with those camps, we also set up uh values protections in those communities as well to make sure that we're doing our best to protect uh property and critical infrastructure so that there's something to come home to.
SPEAKER_00You said that uh we're no stranger to this uh in this part of the world. We have we have fires burning every year at this time, obviously not to the magnitude of this particular situation. Uh so and I only mentioned that because I'm sure that there's a budget that you guys have to come up with every year, look through the crystal ball and say, based on this factor, here's how much we put away. But can you give us are you at liberty to share with us a sense of just how much more this one is financially in terms of the financial burden on on the on your department?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So when we took office in 2018, um the the sort of base budget for wildland firefighting here in the province was about 70 million. And then they would sort of top that up as needed as we went forward. So uh when we took office, we actually over doubled uh the amount of of the base budget. So that sits a sort of fluctuates year to year a little bit, but it's about 150 million a year. Uh, and then then we'll top up on top of that. So last year um it was just shy of about 300 million by the time it was all said and done. Yeah, it's a it's a pretty substantial number. Yeah, holy smokes, exactly. Pun pun intended, pun uh unintended for sure. Um but uh but it is substantial. Uh and and you've heard Premier Ford say we'll spare no expense to make sure that we do everything that we can to keep people in property safe. So we've actually gone ahead. Um, this was last year, prior to um this fire season. We're we're procuring um six new CL515 water bombers. Those are made here in Canada by De Havilland. Um, and we're also in the process of procuring five new um medium helicopters that uh we'll be able to use not only for fire suppression, but also to move uh crews and equipment around the landscape as well. So that stuff's all in the works. That that total, I think we're about 650 million all in on the uh on the 11 aerial assets. So we're we're doing a lot of work, we're doing what needs to be done, we're making the necessary investments. And we've uh we we've even looked at some compensation models where you know we we're we're working on uh we've increased compensation for our pilots, for our aircraft, uh maintenance engineers, as well as we've now brought our crew leads. So those are the people who are sort of in charge of those four or five-person crews. Um they were sort of considered seasonal employees. We've now made them full-time and and looked at some some different uh bonus and retention stuff for them as well. So there's a lot going on. Um, we're doing everything we can. We've got a great team in place. And uh, as you can, as you can tell, um, I think you know, the total, if you look back to 2018 since we took office, Ange, we spent over one and a half billion dollars on wildland firefighting. So it's uh it's a lot of money, but it's it's going to the right place.
SPEAKER_00So I have to ask the obvious, or at least it's obvious to me. This is a big deal. Every year, you know, not as big as this year, but every year you're faced with this, you know, you are gonna have fires. There's just no ifs, ands, or buts. Is there anything, or are you folks doing anything sort of being a little more preemptive in terms of okay, we know that that it's going to happen. So let's come up with something that might prevent it from getting to the magnitude that this one did, obviously. When I say this one, I don't want to make it sound like it's one fire. Just no, but this event. This event. Yeah. Are there things that you can be working on, or maybe you are, and I don't know whether you can share that with us or not, that that can preempt this from growing in the future? And what would that be?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's there's there's I guess there's sort of two parts to the equation. So number one, it's it's what we're doing with with our aviation, forest fire, and emergency services. So um we'll call that AFFES just so it rolls off the tongue a little bit better. Um, but but we're working in the kind of the proverbial off season, I guess you could say, um, in a few different ways. Number one, we talk to other jurisdictions, not only in Canada, but across North America and around the world to see what people are doing, what they've been facing, um, if there's any new new practices out there or things that we can do better. So we're always evaluating it from that perspective. We're also working with um partners uh collaboratively across Canada to make sure that sharing of um of personnel, of aircraft, uh, of of equipment is as seamless as possible. So depending on who's facing what kind of fire season, we'll we'll transfer, um, uh we'll transfer our fire crews, we'll send equipment where we can, uh, even water bombers and helicopters. So for example, Alberta right now um is is seeing a little bit of a lull in what's happening uh over over there. Thankfully, you know, they've had a couple of very tough fire seasons over the last few years. So we've got some assets imported um from them. So there's there's sort of that notional aspects of things. And then we're also working for um working towards uh prescribed burns for example where we'll control a burn through the forest to try and clear out any fuel that could be uh around a community or looking at ways that we can if if we can sometimes pinpoint fire patterns there are areas that are more more prone to fires so we'll we'll use different techniques to be able to um to try and dissipate the fuel there. We'll also uh we'll build fire breaks, we'll use heavy equipment, uh we'll work with landowners, communities to try and make their areas a little bit more safe in the offseason as well. There's also of course part and parcel to that is everything that we do with uh our great partners in the forestry industry. So uh looking at at logging or or you know cutting certain areas certain types of trees working with them to make sure that that they're sort of fulfilling their end of the bargain too that any scrap wood gets cleaned up it's not just left around on the landscape. Another huge challenge for us right now particularly in the northwest is spruce budworm. So it's you know a little pest that gets itself into the tree and just slowly starts to kill it. So there is some biological sprays that we can use it's kind of like a pesticide I guess you could say to actually go in and we can we can look at some ways that we can clean up some of those areas where we have particular groves of trees that haven't necessarily been affected yet so that we can keep them good and healthy and green and strong and then they're less susceptible to fire. So this isn't like a glyphosate or you know anything like that. There's there's a lot of obviously questions around around that as well. And that's you know another piece that we're working towards to see if that's something that we'd be able to long term phase out here in the province. So there's a lot of good things you know from that forestry perspective or that offseason perspective that we're always working on. But this season in particular it's just the way that it it came so fast so hard it was just it was real trouble.
SPEAKER_00Real trouble one minute we're fine next minute we're not I mean that just is quick you mentioned the the uh forestry industry itself they must be you must have them right at your shoulder working with you on this stuff I would think and if not you should have because they probably stand to lose as much as anybody else in this game right because that's their inventory that's burning out there.
SPEAKER_01So I would think that they're um they should be a fairly uh good partner during these things though these events both in terms of financial assistance and also you know boots on the ground I would think anyways is that true or yeah they're yeah they're a great partner to work with um we we we have uh an incredible partnership with the industry association as well as lots of the um you know the the smaller uh smaller foresters that are out there on the landscape always working to be as collaborative as possible as possible um you know the term hand in hand gets used a lot but it truly is right it's it's that kind of relationship where where we're actually working very very closely with them to make sure that we're trying to again eliminate as much fuel out there on the landscape in in certain areas. Now I want to be very clear you know that there's there's also this misconception of you know we have to put out every fire. Like this is also Mother Nature's way of regenerating the boreal forest. Okay. And it is it's a very natural thing that happens um and you know if you think about it a hundreds or thousands of years ago before there was really any people around here this was something that happened all the time and it it was unchecked right yeah so um so we monitor you know of of those uh 191 fires that we have on the go right now there's there's probably only about maybe a dozen to maybe two dozen that are actual um actually problematic most of them are burning um in the the far northern reaches of the province where where there are no First Nations communities no unincorporated communities um there's really no one around so we just kind of keep an eye on them um make sure that they're not getting close or growing too big that that they can't be controlled. And uh it's it's a it's a scary number when you hear 191 but realistically most of that is condensed into about maybe 20 to 30 fires that are that are of significant concern. So if it wasn't for the fact that that there are communities involved we probably wouldn't even be aware of it right you would just let them burn mother nature's way of clearing making room for the new new growth but uh when it starts affecting uh business people businesses communities then obviously everybody's made and and you know and I don't want to say this is a fact but media has a lot to do with it too right I mean once they get their teeth into something like this this is this is uh money making news for the media so it sometimes they do blow it out of proportion you know what sir I think we we all have a role to play here and making sure that the most correct factual up-to-date information yeah um is is out there for for people to be able to see and understand um whether it be mainstream media whether it be folks like yourselves uh who are out there on on social platforms and and different stuff like that it's extremely important like we're not here to politicize stuff no this is people's lives you know people's lives people's livelihoods we need to make sure that everybody is is moving in the same direction in lockstep understanding the challenges understanding um the real things that are going on not not spreading uh yeah I'll use the term misinformation I think that's really kind of the best best way to look at it and and it we we don't want to cause hysteria we don't want to cause more issues than are than are already out there right so it's important that that we get that that factual information out to the public.
SPEAKER_00Ah man it's so refreshing I gotta tell you that's why I'm smiling right now and and you won't appreciate because you have no idea what uh the real point I'm trying to make here it's so refreshing where we can reach out to folks like yourself ministers governments and get the goods on what's happening for a number of reasons. The transparency issue obviously that's the main thing but just for peace of mind even if it's devastating just knowing about it somehow comforts people right there's there's nothing hidden here it's it's happening it's important and and and that's that's what I've been sort of saying over the last couple of weeks now is that we we we want you to have the right information and to understand everything that's happening.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing hidden behind closed doors here we're we're open we're transparent about it because like I said it's this is real life this isn't just some video game or folks sitting behind you know some boardroom desk making these decisions this is this is real stuff.
SPEAKER_00So anybody that's uh looking uh to fulfill a lifelong dream of going up into the northern part of the country in northwestern Ontario in particular and it's booked and it's coming up what do you what do you suggest to them? How do you what what sort of message do you want to give them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah I think the the number one thing is is keep in keep in touch with your your toist tourist operator or or whoever's organized your uh your excursion up to the northwest and and we do have some fires in the northeast right now too so it's a good idea reach out email um do you want to mention do you want to mention those because you know really that that part hasn't really been talked about in most media we do have some fires to the right of us maybe you can just uh tell us a little bit about that yeah there there is a little bit of of action going on up in the northeast um primarily out of sort of the the Cochrane district I guess you could say right now so so a little bit further up past Timmons um there are some smaller fires that are kind of dotted around the landscape uh right now you know we're not overly concerned about uh the majority of the fires up in the northeast um so we've we've we've still got assets deployed we've still got folks doing good things there we've actually been able to put several fires out in the northeast which is great um but but predominantly most of the action is is sort of in the northwest right now but just to kind of back up to that that point you had made earlier um talk to your camp operators talk to the folks who are organizing your trips uh keep an eye on the ministry website um or ministry socials as well for the most up-to-date information on evacuation orders or or where we're seeing areas of concern um we certainly want you to to have fun we want you to explore the north we want you to have a great time but we want you to do it safely and and that's that's the number one priority right now for sure is is safety. So just check in make sure things are going okay and I mean if it's uh if you're if you're unsure you know maybe look to reschedule or or find a time later in the year when you're able to make it up. Yeah most importantly listen to people that are there listen to people who are on the ground and take their advice right don't uh yeah exactly because I know years ago uh when it came to fishing and and spending time in the outdoors sometimes we would ignore uh people are telling us no don't do that but uh this is not one of those times all right can we uh can we just sort of ease off on that topic for just a moment because I would love to I've been talking about for the last week and a half the reason we were originally bringing you on here is that we had some things we want to talk about not the least of which is the uh digital licensing that Ontario is uh looking to launch here in the near future bring us in on that one yeah so um we're getting close we're getting close we're hoping to target a uh a 2027 launch on our our new we'll call it sort of digital digital platform and uh you'll be able to download the Huntfish Ontario app onto your your phone or um other assets that you might have uh be able to purchase uh fishing licenses but not only fishing licenses but also uh game tags register for draws deers moose all that stuff um it's gonna be a a great new tool that we're gonna have here in the province um fully usable offline which is also very cool so if you are out in the bush or you're you're on a lake where you might not have cell service you'll be able to still pull up all your licenses and everything have a look um if you're stocked by a conservation officer uh certainly that option's there available for you so it's gonna be a great new tool uh in the toolbox as I said but I want to caveat this with we'll still have you know the same old outdoors cart paper copies for folks who don't necessarily have access to that so don't fret um the sky is not falling when it comes to that and uh it'll be business as usual if if that's the way you prefer but there's some really neat really neat things that we want to be able to to integrate into the app as we move forward to uh geolocation where it can actually like bring up the rules and regulations say for this specific uh uh wildlife management unit you might be hunting in or fisheries management zone you might be angling in so um it it'll be really neat to see how that works sorry I got the dog jumping up on my lap sorry get him up get him up but yeah um but uh so she's she's she's wild and crazy she needs to go back upstairs uh so for those of us who might not be doing somersaults over the announcement of moving this to digital um you know those with a few more years than yourself it's okay and and you can just say that you're not gonna use the digital platform it's okay okay that's what I wanted to bring up because it came up in a conversation here at the studio uh regarding uh being able to get particular uh zone information on the fly on your on your phone and I said what good is that gonna do me I'm not gonna access that will we still have access to the traditional ways of knowing what's legal what's not legal etc absolutely 100% so you'll you'll still have the you know the the the book that gets published uh with all our fishing regulations funding regulations we'll still have uh you know the the the paper tags we'll still have your outdoors card we'll still have the traditional way of doing everything but one thing that we've heard is that people are looking for more online tools so this'll be this will be great for the folks who are looking for that folks who want to just keep the status quo certainly available to you as well. Okay that's now I'm I'm feeling better about that whole deal now to be honest with you um so they're gonna be able to find out all the details that they now can access via either the website or the paper nice little book in your hand paper is uh but they'll also be able to carry an app on their body that they can actually use so it's nothing but win-win the nice thing you know the nice thing with the app right is that um it's on your phone and it can work offline so even if you don't have a cell signal you're still able to pull up all the information as long as your battery's charged right so yeah you're talking to a guy that's a whole other that's a whole other issue a whole other issue because because we just uh experienced something like that earlier on this year with uh an app supplier that was supposed to uh you know be able to work it offline and it would work my well believe me once you get off the grid nothing works we we are doing some some very rigorous testing and and the nice thing honestly that I think some people will appreciate too is that we're doing this all in-house this is all designed by folks on our team um at the Ministry of Natural Resources and also working with the Ministry of uh oh my gosh we'll know it better as government and consumer services anyways but um it uh it's all being done in-house and uh I think that's really neat.
SPEAKER_00So our our teams are are all over it lots of testing um we've got conservation officers testing it we've got uh we've got folks out on the landscape testing it out as well so uh rest assured that that it will be it will be ready to rock and roll give us an ETA uh well we're targeting 2027 um we want to we want to try and have uh everything kind of sorted by the time the the new rules and regulations get printed so late late this year we'll we'll probably have a better sense of when we'll actually be able to to fully release it but but 2027's the target target sort of year um i i just i'm not sure visibility wise where we're at as far as uh if it's gonna be earlier in the year or kind of mid mid-year and of course this will lead to all kinds of other really beneficial things too once we get this in motion and get old folks like me off the grid and uh uh we should be able to get some really good uh I think anyways a better handle on uh wildlife management inventory uh numbers of you know what I mean if we can report back through an app like this our our own experiences and maybe the numbers uh of fish or wildlife that we come in contact with it's got to help you guys out on that note can you give us a a sense of what you believe is happening in the fishing more so than hunting community now are we growing is it stagnant are we getting new users coming in as the old guys drop out are we recruiting new folks into fishing based on the information that you have it's actually a really good question.
SPEAKER_01So we we do monitor that obviously um I I think at last check there was I think maybe if it was last year or the year before I'd have to double check the numbers but I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 1.2 to 1.5 million licenses fishing licenses that were issued um so it's it's pretty substantial um fishing contributes uh a a pretty pretty big chunk of the GDP um and and the thing that I think most people will love to hear is there's still a lot of young people that are picking up the sport but you know what the really neat thing is now is we're actually starting to see a lot of folks who just might be a little bit older maybe they're college students maybe they're maybe they're my age maybe they're your age but they've just they've never had an opportunity to really get out there and fish and we've got some really great programs that we run through the Ministry of Natural Resources with partnerships with uh groups like OFAH for example um we've got some incredible learn to fish programs and and we're we're seeing a lot of young families uh coming out now where maybe they didn't have grandma and grandpa who taught them how to fish maybe they're um newcomers to Canada and they really want to integrate with a lot of our customs and cultures so there's there's a lot of younger folks a lot of younger families and and just folks who are really interested in getting outdoors I think there's there has been sort of post-COVID there's been a big movement to to get outside and and enjoy and and what better place to do that than here in Ontario.
SPEAKER_00I think you would be hard pressed I'll go out on the limb and say I think 100% of people um let's say let's pick an age you know from from from 20 to 40 years of age who have never experienced the outdoors I'm not talking about walking around the block I'm talking the outdoors I think you'd be hard pressed if you took a hundred of them and exposed them to it I think you'd be hard pressed not to get a hundred percent return on that adventure because once it touches you you can't there's no going back it's probably the most addictive thing that we've got uh at hand because it really is that powerful and you you can and you can ask my wife because I I'll come home with new fishing equipment she's like Mike what are you doing you already have 10 rods in the garage why do you need five more because I do um and and so to folks listening that have got people in their circles listen we run into them all the time we just did a thing earlier this year with a group of um uh gentlemen business people in the uh Toronto metropolitan Toronto area uh builders contractors that kind of thing and we took a group of them out and I would say that three quarters of them had at best a passive experience with the outdoors uh and fishing uh there were you know that that handful of them that who had been brought into it by their fathers and their father's fathers but the majority of these guys didn't and I gotta tell you the most enjoyable part about that week that I personally had there was to to watch these guys go from zero to a hundred in a matter of twenty fours once they got exposed to this it just it you just can't help but get a smile on your face when you see it there's not there's nothing like it there really there really is nothing like it it is it is such a passion um for me I I I think I've told you this but I think I started fishing when I was about two years old yeah and I'm I'm 41 now and and it is any any chance I get to go fishing I am all over it.
SPEAKER_01Well it whether it's in you know the the smallest little water body down here in southwestern Ontario or getting out on on Lake Nipissing where we do we do a ton of fishing with my kids. They love it lake Ontario I I've got the bug for saltwater too and come on I'll tell you that that is that is something special I actually I you know I I don't share it a lot but I I do love to saltwater fish and I actually caught my first blue marlin last year. Oh man I know you're cool because I actually have a giant blue marlin tattoo that I've had for about 20 years right here. So well we can we can we can give the viewers a quick a quick sneak peek if you want but it's it's pretty I've had that my my staff are going to watch this and they're gonna be like oh my god minister what are you doing showing off tattoos yeah why not why not uh yeah I I actually caught my first blue marlin last year so I I was pretty excited I mean once once you go down that road it's it's I I'll sit I'll sit I'll get done my day and I'll sit down with a beer and I'll throw youtube on and I'll watch saltwater fishing till the till the cows come home. So I probably decide you are correct. I probably asked you this before but you'll forgive me my age uh dictates how much of this stuff I remember but I probably asked you before in the process of putting ministers in place does the premier the premier's office do they do any background check do they do they do they well in your particular case did they find out every every yeah I mean I've I've made it no secret um that I that I'm a huge passion passionate outdoorsman and and I've always um if the opportunity arose would always love to to be able to be in this position but absolutely the the premier and the and the team that that surrounds him always look at the the different strengths of uh folks within government and um sometimes you want uh somebody you know completely different that's going to be able to bring some new ideas and different things like that to a ministry but sometimes uh sometimes it's a we'll say a perfect fit and you know I feel right at home here and um it's an incredible about year and a half um at this point we Done some amazing things with our ministry and uh I couldn't be happier or more thankful to be in this position.
SPEAKER_00Uh you did you make the cut for the for the next shuffling, do you know, or can you let us in on it?
SPEAKER_01We uh we haven't even talked about it, and and I won't find out till it's all done. We uh we serve at the pleasure of the premier and the people of Ontario. So if the time comes, um, you know, I'd I'd love to stay here. Um, but if if they feel I'm better suited to serve in another role, I'm I'm happy to take on that challenge too.
SPEAKER_00Mike, as usual, uh breath of fresh air having you on the program, not just because uh you're the minister of natural resources, with which obviously we're we're we have we're in that arena every day. Uh, but just as a human being and the passion and love that you portray and and ooze uh out about the love of the outdoors and and having the opportunity in this incredible jurisdiction called Ontario that that and and listen, I've taken advantage of it all my life, and I still don't realize how fortunate we are here to have what we have in terms of fish, wildlife, forestry, and all that stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_01Um it's an incredible place. Incredible place.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, my friend. Uh listen, uh keep up the good work in uh this current situation. I'm sure you'll push all the right buttons and pull the levers and um and get us through this mess. Uh any any idea? Are you guys looking at the crystal ball and saying, hey, by September 15th, we should be clear.
SPEAKER_01It's impossible to predict. It is um it really all depends on the weather patterns. Um generally, no, I'm saying this very broadly and very generally, usually by the end of September. Should we start to see things really cool down? You know, we're getting those that cooler weather, those those longer sustained rains, um, without the storms, right? So as long as we don't get the lightning and we get the rain, that's it's a it's a happy day. So um we certainly want to be mindful over the next few weeks as as things are still a bit precarious, but um generally trending downward right now, but that could all change in a matter of seconds. So just be careful out there, Michael.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. If things change drastically, uh let us know and we'll keep an eye on things. And if uh we need to get you back on and talk to folks again, we'll be right there with you. All right, buddy. Thanks, Ange. You take care of yourself. Uh, Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, uh, the honorable um Mr. Harris, Mike Harris Jr. Uh boy, what a what a perfect fit. And I know, I know I'm being greedy because it's nice when we have somebody that is in that position that speaks our language. Um, but damn it, yeah. Maybe for purposes of greed, I hope he ends up being there for another, I don't know, 100 years. It's fantastic. Um, wow. Uh did I uh miss anything there, Dino? Did I ask him the right questions? Like uh tell me how do I that was excellent.
SPEAKER_03I he's like so non-government, if that makes sense. Yeah, just when you talk to him. It's uh it's pretty amazing. Just it sounds like it's just such a casual conversation to get caught up on stuff that normally isn't treated very casually.
SPEAKER_00And this is a guy who's sitting at the desk that's that's right now, I would say, and I didn't want to use the term because it would have been corny. I mean, it's the hot seat right now, right? To be the minister of natural resources and force right now, that is the hottest bone of contention in uh in at all government levels. And yet you saw him, you just saw him. He's as cool and calm and open and honest and forward as you could possibly ask anybody to be. Uh, very fortunate of us. Very fortunate. All right. Uh, did we do uh bonus codes, no bonus codes?
SPEAKER_03We decided that earlier. So anyone who skipped the whole interview just to hear that, you missed it. You're out of luck. Well, no, they can't. You can go back. You should go back and look at it.
SPEAKER_00All right, on behalf of the whole crew, uh Nikki over there and Dean over here, I'm Angelo. Pete will be back at some point, maybe, if we let him back in the door. Did somebody confiscate a security passcode or something? Did I hear that? I think he might be stealing the next or something try to get back to me. Thanks for joining us, folks. Uh, we'll talk to you next time. Take care. This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio has been brought to you in part by the Invasive Species Center, protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom Cruise Canada, rent the boat, own the memories, and JMB Cycle a Marine, your home for all things power sports, boats, and equipment.
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