♪ >> Hello everyone.

I'm Jim Deeks.

I'm delighted you've joined us for another episode of Canada Files .

Our guest this week is Zita Cobb.

A remarkable woman who comes from one of the most remote areas of Canada.

She has forged one of the most remarkable stories of success, perseverance, community spirit and good will in the 21st century.

If you're a regular viewer of 60 Minutes on CBS, you might have seen a profile they did on Zita Cobb, just before last Christmas.

Yes or no, I'm sure you'll find the following conversation fascinating, heartwarming and inspiring.

>> Zita Cobb, welcome to Canada Files .

>> Thank you, Jim.

>> I just introduced you as someone who comes from one of most remote areas of Canada.

But I didn't say where it is, or its name.

I thought I'd ask you to tell us.

>> That's my favourite thing to talk about.

I'm from a place called Fogo Island.

Fogo is the Portuguese word for fire, by the way.

Nothing to do with fog and it's not that foggy there.

We say it's far away from far away .

It's off the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

>> Fogo Island is as remote a place as you can find in Canada.

For the 2,700 people who live there.

And now 100s of tourists every year.

Almost everybody loves it!

You grew up as the daughter of a fisherman and his wife.

Living in a cottage with no running water or electricity.

From all accounts I read, you loved it as well as you grew up.

You finished high school and decided to move away.

Why?

>> We thought that was a house.

I now realize it doesn't look anything like a house.

"We've come up to Canada", as we say.

Because I was born in 1958.

Being born on Fogo Island then means you need to get ready to live in 3 centuries.

All in a very short time.

I was really born into the conditions of the 19th century.

In this little house.

It was a pretty perfect life.

We had this gift of place.

I lived in a tight community.

Where people had a deep sense of ecological and social logic.

There was no money...at all.

Then arrived the 20th century, really quickly!

It seemed to us overnight.

We were in-shore fishing people .

Then these enormous factory trawlers arrived from every country on the planet.

>> That was the only economy at the time--fish.

>> It was the economy.

We worked in the truck system.

Which means we traded our fish for the things we couldn't fish, hunt or grow on our own.

So we didn't have a big concept of money.

When these trawlers arrived, it was shocking, of course.

It took no time at all to take every fish out of the water.

My father, and others like him, really tried their best to understand the logic system that was at play.

My father finally said they must be turning the fish into money!

He followed it with, "You'd better grow up and figure how this money system works because it's going to eat everything we love."

>> When you left... and later started your career in high technology, did you think you would one day come back to the island?

Or did you just want to get out of there and never think about it again.

>> I never wanted to get out of there.

A small island is particularly difficult to explain how people attach to it.

Farley Mowat, may he rest in peace, said something like, "Outport Newfoundland has a charisma that cannot be explained."

It's an island, a comprehensive totality.

You can know it, spend a lifetime... generations trying to know it more.

It's like a way for instant meaning.

So I didn't want to leave.

I didn't have a concept that I would come back.

I went to study business, as my dad had said I should.

I didn't think there would be an opportunity to come back.

When I left in the mid-70s, the fishery was still in decline.

Over the years, Fogo Island has adapted to other species.

Because we have a co-operative on this island that owns the fishery.

We now fish for crab and shrimp but all of that came later.

I didn't think going home would be a possibility.

>> You did leave and got a business degree.

You started a career, ultimately got into high tech.

Working with a company called JDS Fitel.

Which later became JDS Uniphase.

You became the Chief Financial Officer.

I'm fast-forwarding here.

You made a lot of money.

Around the time you achieved that pinnacle, you decided to pack it in.

What happened?

>> Remember I worked in fibre optics.

I worked with physicists and engineering physicists.

A team working on inventing optical devices that could create what Gill-Chin Lin called a global network of intensely-local places .

I actually thought what we were doing were going to strengthen places, communities, link us all together.

Create that global network of intensely-local places.

I didn't realize at the time that the opposite happened.

The internet became this platform that is controlled by a monopoly that ended up flattening places.

As opposed to what the dream was.

I felt I was working on the same thing... with all these brilliant people.

My job was to do the easy bits, so they could do the hard bits.

>> Ultimately, yours is a rags-to-riches story.

Because you made a lot of money along the way.

You did take off and go sailing for awhile.

Then you could have come back with your wealth and decided to live on a lovely estate in Florida.

Or maybe a villa in the French Riviera.

But you didn't do that What did you do?

>> I jokingly say being a sane person, I took the money and went home.

I did what my father told me to do.

When he said they must be turning the fish into money.

Well then, we should be able to turn money into fish!

How do we use money to invest in real development?

Strengthen community economies so we can give cultures a chance to carry on.

Money can do that-- anything we ask it to do.

Besides I grew up on the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

I don't really like warm weather that much anyway.

That was no hardship to decide not to go to the French Riviera.

I think it just made so much sense!

>> You came home.

It made sense to come home.

Did you see yourself coming home to save Fogo Island?

Or was it more, I want to get out of the fast lane and I can probably do something to help.

>> It wasn't so much that.

I may be the first Fogo Islander that you've met.

When you meet others, you'll realize there isn't a Fogo Islander that feels they need saving.

If they do need saving, they can save themselves.

It was to create some economic assets.

We still have a fishery and the reason is, it's the most important thing on our island.

Because it is our relationship with the sea.

It's the continuity for the centuries of fishing on the North Atlantic.

The fishery is essential to culture and economy.

But it's not enough for every kid that's coming out of that high school.

It's not enough to keep the population engaged and forward moving.

My brothers and I who set up this organization called Shorefast, a registered charity of Canada.

We were thinking how to grow another leg on the economy and do it in a way that strengthens culture.

We didn't open a call centre.

We can talk about hospitality... it's a rich conversation.

We wanted to do something that was owned by the community.

Because Fogo Island is a hotbed of community ownership.

Because of the co-operative which owns the three fish processing plants.

Our model is different.

It's a charity but with a mandate to serve that community.

Indirectly, the beneficial owners of the inn, as an example of one of the things we've done, are the people of Fogo Island.

That was the idea.

>> When you started the foundation in 2008, did you always see the idea of building an inn?

That is the most tangible and visible manifestation of the Shorefast Foundation.

The inn that costs over $40 million to build... and has been operating for 8 - 9 years.

Was that part of the original Shorefast Foundation's vision?

To build tourism by building an inn?

>> We were helped by the then-mayor of Joe Batt's Arm, who really had a lot of experience in community economic development.

He advised that first, we should figure out how asset-based community development works.

He looked at me with great suspicion saying, "You came out of the business world."

" Be careful, you could do more damage than good."

"Because you want to go too fast!"

So we slowed down which was not easy coming out of my world.

We realized what are the assets here?

What do people care about here?

The questions of asset-based community development are what do we have, know, love, miss, and what can we do about it?

When you go through that exercise on Fogo Island, you realize quickly this is a people predisposed to profound hospitality.

Without a platform to practice it.

>> It's what Newfoundlanders are known throughout the world for.

So it was a natural manifestation of the personality of the people on Fogo.

>> Exactly...that's a nicer way of saying it was a product of an asset-based community development exercise.

When you think of hospitality, it is how you know a person.

How you are welcomed.

How you receive strangers.

How do you feed, care and put people to bed?

That's the root of hospitality--love of a stranger.

When you start to build an inn, you realize what beds, furniture and food.

All of that starts to give rise to other forms of economy.

That led to a different business which was a furniture business.

Then a textile business.

It's like pulling a thread on a sweater.

Before you know it, you got to keep going.

Knit a new sweater, in a way.

We didn't start with the business.

That's the thing that's often forgotten.

We started with art.

We and I see art...a shared thing among my colleagues... as a way of knowing , that comes from original sources.

The world of globalized business is a reductionist world.

Art is a resistance.

It always questions.

We were interested in contemporary art in particular.

We started Fogo Island Arts.

We built studios for visiting artists.

That program has grown, with visiting artists, exhibitions, publications and dialogues.

Around the big question of how do we live together better?

>> I know a number of people who have been to Fogo Island and stayed at the inn and absolutely loved it!

But they have pointed out that it is not as inexpensive as going to a lovely country inn in Newfoundland might be.

The room rates start at $2,600 a night.

Which would give a lot of people sticker shock.

Let me ask why the rates are so high?

Are you trying to keep the riffraff out?

Is the experience truly worth the cost?

>> I will leave it up to our guests to decide if the experience is worth the cost--it's their decision.

Let's ask what we were trying to achieve with the inn.

To achieve a meaningful transformation to the economy of Fogo Island.

To create a dignified form of employment and careers for Fogo Islanders.

And great experiences for guests.

If you think of any business model, start with its scale.

The typical hotel, or inn, is very expensive to build.

Because of the infrastructure and planning... it's a remote rocky coast to build on.

You add as many rooms as you can so you get your money back.

The first thing about tourism-- it's a dance with the devil.

Many communities turn to tourism because it is a way to preserve culture and economy.

If it's done properly.

The two things necessary to be sustainable are-- the scale has to be appropriate to the community size and it can't be your only industry.

Or you'll have your granny selling trinkets on the corner.

>> And it's very cyclical.

>> We looked at this situation and say what is the appropriate number of rooms?

We listened to a woman on the island who cuts through it all to say as it is, "We're only 2,500 people."

"We can only love so many people at a time" That came down to 30 rooms.

We realized that's not a prime number.

We have an affection for prime numbers, so 29, because it's open and there's always room for someone else.

If you make a 29-room inn on Fogo Island, what does it take to pay people properly?

To practice true cost pricing.

We aim for no negative externalities... on the environment or the community.

That doesn't come with a small price tag.

When you take all into account, the price gives us only a 15% profit.

Most hotels' business model for people who work there, that cost is around 30%.

For the inn, it is 50%... so most of the money goes to the people who work there.

The business model has integrity.

We're not selling insulin.

There are people, not super wealthy, staying at the inn.

Because they enjoy the experience, where the money goes and it matters who owns what.

There are others who stay at the inn and have a lot more money.

And also have a good experience.

>> Do you wonder what would have happened to Fogo Island?

If you and your brothers had not started the foundation 15 years ago.

Would the island have survived?

>> We have a very successful fishery...still.

That's not something to be taken for granted.

There's peril in that every day.

Not just because of decisions that fish make, but because of decisions people make.

It's unknowable.

Maybe something else would have happened.

It's hard to know.

I haven't thought of that deeply.

It's highly complementary to the fishery.

They work well together.

It's been a good path.

>> The Atlantic region has been economically challenged for decades including Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

Fish have been the basis of the region's economy for decades.

Tourism and off-shore oil has helped.

But the Atlantic region is a relatively depressed area of Canada that has counted on the revenue-sharing process of the rest of Canada.

Would the Shorefast model work for a region as large as Atlantic Canada?

Could you extrapolate what you're doing on Fogo Island to Atlantic Canada as a whole?

>> We could extrapolate it further!

It's not just about rural or remote regions.

What we're doing is thinking differently about investment.

Not all investment is development.

This idea, said about Fogo Island many times, "Well, there's nothing there!"

Maybe a few old people, some fish and that's it.

It depends on what eyes and value system you're looking at the place.

I look at many communities across our country that are struggling and many are.

I see potential everywhere.

Not potential as someone looking in a reductionist, traditional economic or financial planning model would see.

We humans are strange creatures, in a way.

We're both jailor and prisoner.

We've created systems that we're trapped in.

One is the way we think of a deeply-extractive economy.

If we flip it around and say we have money and resources.

Let's properly develop a place, in Atlantic Canada, like Fogo Island.

Not with this investment lens but invest to develop.

In Canada, we're just beginning.

Atlantic Canada is one of the richest parts of the country.

We have a tyranny of assets.

We just don't see them properly.

>> There are 3,000 billionaires in the world... more than 50 billionaires in Canada.

When you came back to Fogo Island, you weren't anywhere near a billionaire, but look at what your dedication of a significant portion of your funds has done for your community.

Does it turn your stomach to think of all the wealth that exists in private hands, around the world and think, if some of you billionaires could do with your funds what my brothers and I have done in Fogo Islands but it's not happening.

Because people hold onto their money.

Maybe it's greed, or they don't have the vision you had.

Does it frustrate you that so much private wealth could be used for such good purposes?

>> For sure, I get up every morning and think, we could do this or that, all these things.

All of us collectively have the means.

To get us on a better path.

Most people would agree our species is not on the best path.

We're on the wrong foot and we have to get on a better one.

Where do you start?

For sure, money, if we ask it can solve a lot of these challenges we have.

Along the way... someone's got to give up something... in the way of money, if we're going to solve these problems.

>> You've been awarded with four honorary university degrees.

You've been inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

Been appointed to the Order of Canada.

That's your lapel pin.

For your work as a social entrepreneur and as a business woman.

Do you feel at your relatively young age that you're done and your focus is just on Fogo Island?

Are there other dragons to slay for you?

>> As my friend, Pete Decker says...

I'll be done when they pat me on the belly with the shovel.

Not yet.

No, I won't be done until the road ends.

Until then, we are starting work around community economies.

We have a pilot project with five Canadian communities, called, Community Economies Pilot .

To distill, share and sharpen good and best practices for strengthening community economies.

How do we localize the economy?

That concerns all of us.

Andrew Potter is right when he said we have a collective action problem .

We're not properly organized in the country or on the planet for the problems we have to solve.

Because people are working in silos.

We need communities, governments and businesses to come together to tackle these things.

We can do it.

It's not easy to figure out.

But infinitely figure-outable.

That's the work that gets me up early and keeps me late.

And Fogo Island--it's home!

Joseph Strauss, whom I worked with, says every morning, "The most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing."

>> Infinitely simple... but when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

You would describe yourself first, as a Fogo Islander.

But you have travelled around the world and recognized as a Canadian.

Let me ask you the standard Canada Files' question.

What does being Canadian mean to you?

>> It's about geography.

I was born in 1958, as I said.

Newfoundland and Labrador joined Canada in 1949.

When I left home in 1975 to go to university in Ontario, everybody of my parents' generation said, "Oh, you're going up to Canada!"

So Canada was new to me.

I have travelled across, up and down the country.

It's about geography.

Joe Clark said, "It's a community of communities".

I think it's a place of places .

Canadians, more than anyone I've encountered on the planet, understand and have this foundational relationship with place .

Culture is nothing more than a human response to a place.

We are the sum of all our places.

That bond with geographic place always reminds me of the Mariners' Prayer .

"Oh Lord, help me because the ocean is so big and my boat is so small."

Our country is so big and we are so few.

That's what makes us reach out and hold hands with other places.

We know we need each other.

We have a shared fate.

We feel it.

Ours is not a benign geography.

>> Zita, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us.

Continued success with the inn and all the other projects that occupy you on Fogo Island.

>> It's been fun chatting, Jim.

>> Thank you for watching.

We hope you'll join us again on the next episode of Canada Files .

♪