BTC Sessions - Bitcoin For Truckers - Outline and Updates ep236

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

A discussion with BTC Sessions, Greg Foss, Benjamin Dichter & Nobody Caribou regarding the Ottawa trucker convoy & Bitcoin fundraiser via Tallycoin.    Twitter accounts to follow:  https://twitter.com/BTCsessions  https://twitter.com/FossGregfoss  https://twitter.com/NobodyCaribou  https://twitter.com/BJdichter  https://twitter.com/HonkHonkHodl  Donation link: https://tallyco.in/s/lzxccm/ 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shakepay is the easiest way to buy Bitcoin in Canada Sign up now and get $30 free after your first $100 purchase! https://shakepay.me/r/BTCSESSIONS LEDN Bitcoin backed loans –  get $10 free with a savings balance of $75 or more for 15 consecutive days! https://start.ledn.io/btcsessions Get Wasabi wallet for Bitcoin privacy https://wasabiwallet.io/ Keystone Wallet: secure your Bitcoin! http://bit.ly/KeyStoneSessions BillFodl: get your wallet backups in solid steel. https://privacypros.io/btcsessions Bitrefill: use Bitcoin to purchase gift cards, earn sats back while you shop. https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/?code=O04UMic9 BITCOIN tips: https://strike.me/btcsessions

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. A little bit different this week. Normally, I do just my general news roundup today. But there's a lot going on. And, you know, I figured it would be good to kind of chat about current events in and around the Canadian truckers that are in Ottawa and other places throughout the country and about what's going on there and how Bitcoin and the guests on the show are involved in that. And so we're going to kind of detail as much stuff as possible, you know, as much as we can. We're going to kind of talk through kind of the finer points of everything. I picture this as a way, if you're watching this and you're supportive of what's going on, then that's wonderful. but this is also catered to people that are either on the fence or just totally against it. Because I think it's important that we take a look at, you know, from individuals that are actually involved,

some of the actual sentiments. Because I've got to say that what I've seen in a lot of articles and a lot of news coverage is not reflective of what I've seen from people that are. there that I know. And so I think this is important conversation to have. So we're going to talk about it. We will get into the Bitcoin stuff as well, kind of near the end, detailing what's going on there.

But, yeah, I don't know what else to say. So we'll just get this rolling. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. All right. Before I bring in everybody, I will try to be very brief with sponsors of the show. I'll just try and rattle them off really quick before we bring everybody in.

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And, of course, backups are important, too. Steel is fantastic to backup any hardware wallet. So Bill Fottle for Privacy Pros. You can check them out. But I will all, you know, sorry for the brief thing here, but we're just going to get to it. Okay. So I'm going to bring in Greg Foss. I'm going to bring in Nobody Caraboo.

We're going to bring in Benjamin Dictor. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. How are you guys doing? I've been better. I started my day with surgery. So if I look like I'm lazy and just chillaxing here, it's because my leg has to be up in the air for the next three days.

So I apologize for the unprofessionalism. Oh, thanks for being a trooper and making it here, man. I appreciate your time. This is more important than my leg. Well, we hope your leg does well too. Yeah, yeah, but whatever. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, we have a lot to talk about.

I've got a list of topics that I want to get through. but obviously it's been in the news unless you've been on a rock you're probably everybody watching is aware that there's a large at this point kind of cross-country protest depending you know in different areas a lot of it in Ottawa but some border crossings things like that as well have popped up and so I want to start with a key point that has been brought up a lot and and typically of maybe people that have kind of watched some of some of the news and read some of the articles and aren't clear on what what the actual issue and ask is from the protesters and the truckers that have gone down there. So maybe I might defer to BJ here. Do you want to

speak a little bit about what is the actual ask? What are people asking for? It's pretty simple. Despite some of the news reporting that we've seen, which I've been pretty vocal on, there's really two main things. And those things are we want an end to mandates of the COVID vaccines. You know, we're 90% of truckers are apparently are vaccinated from what I understand. Oh, you cut there, BJ, your sound. Yeah, my thing keeps...

I'll keep an eye on it. So the first thing is we want an end to the mandates. And the other thing is we want an end to the COVID passport system to reenter Canada. We're worried about what... Oh, you cut again. Sorry. Okay, well, but if your sound comes back in. I think we got you.

I don't know why he keeps doing that. But anyways, I may go. Anyways, whatever. So the point is, you know, I explained on a TV show a while ago that when I first drove across the border with a COVID passport, I held up my phone with a QR code to the border agent. And he said to me, it's okay, I don't need to see it. And this was on the second phone, by the way,

that was not on the cellular network. It was just hooked up to my U.S. Wi-Fi. And he said, when you drive up, we can determine where your phone is within a certain radius. And all your information pops up on my screen, your passport, and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, you think about, well, what's next? Do they start putting that in all government buildings and in all major urban centers? Like, this is a dangerous precedent. And so the mandates is one issue.

that people should have the freedom of choice, whether we agree or disagree, people do have the right to freedom of choice, and this what I call a draconian tracking system that can lead to no good. So it's mandates and passports, and those are both federal. So let's just really quick chat about the difference between federal and provincial, because there's a confusion around that. a lot of people outside of Canada asking what the difference is. Federally, if you want to get on a plane or train, or I think boat, is boat included there as well, you want to get on any of those types of transportation,

you are required to have a vaccine passport, which requires at the moment both shots of whatever vaccine. and then so we've got the passport and then do you want to speak about the other aspect the passport and the other topic that you're mentioning well okay so from a federal perspective the the oh god it doesn't like you today maybe uh Nick do you want to jump in on on federal what's what's required I think we got them back Okay. Yeah, I'm just keeping, it keeps triggering. I don't know why.

So there's a distinguish between the provincial passport and the federal passport. The federal passport is an app called Arrived Can for Canada because it's federal. A lot of people are confusing that with the provincial passports to go into restaurants and businesses and whatever. That's a completely different passport system. that's not under federal jurisdiction, so we'll deal with that as the time comes. But that has been implemented basically at the behest of the requirements of the federal government for transfer payments to the provinces and all that sort of stuff. So it really starts at the top with the federal mandates and the federal passports.

Okay. And right now, there is a mandate in place where effectively, like this initially obviously started with the truckers, but, you know, you can't cross to or from the U.S. border without the passport. Now, the mandate still stands, even if it were removed in Canada, would still stand in the U.S., but, you know, there's still this push to remove that mandate. It effectively means, though, if you are not fully vaccinated, because the U.S. is our only land border, you cannot cross that with a vaccine passport. Yes, but there's something about the U.S. to explain from the political inside of what it has been going on

over the past several years. So our governments meet all the time. They're always lobbying one another for different policies and ideas or whatever because it's such an open, transparent government, right? These are governments. Apparently from what we're hearing from people in the United States, in the current administration. The Biden administration had no interest in this passport program.

It was only the liberal government lobbied and requested the U.S. government, the Biden administration, to implement it. They really had no interest in it. And you can imagine that sort of system would go over like a lead balloon in the United States, given their culture, right? And so some sort of deal was struck. We don't know what it is. I couldn't find out.

my contacts couldn't find out. But some sort of deal was struck that we don't know if they're trading information, if they're tracking cross-border passports, and that's going to the NSA. Maybe that's hyperbolic, I don't know. Or maybe there's nothing. Maybe they just said, you know, but yeah, like in. No, I know. It could be, again, like, from a privacy perspective, there's obviously, there's obviously concerns there.

And we've seen that out of the Canadian government and admissions that there has been overreach and unchecked or rather unrequested breaches of privacy in relation to a lot of this stuff. So that's unfortunate and not something that I want to see. The point that I wanted to get to in regards to the current mandate and the federal mandate is that if you are unvaccinated, you are effectively not allowed to leave the country. Because of the way that transportation works, you cannot cross the only land border that exists, and you cannot get in a plane to go into any country that may not have a mandate that requires that of you,

that maybe just goes on a negative test or whatever it may be. You cannot go to those places because there's no phone of transportation that permits you to do so, meaning that you're effectively forced to either, get vaccinated or submit to or basically just stay at home. Now, on that note, I think it's time to bring up, is this an anti-vaccine movement? I'm going to be direct with right at BJ. No.

For example, by way of example, I am double vaccinated. And I usually get the flu vaccine every year. So, you know, I remember science class and the importance of vaccines, how this 300-year-old medical process has allowed our society to thrive and cured polio. But in the example of polio, when the polio vaccine was developed, I spoke to a doctor who I'm friends with. It was messy. Unfortunately, in the beginning, when they're trying to figure it out, you know,

some children unfortunately lost their lives. but they were losing their lives to polio. So, you know, medicine, as I understand it, is not a binary on-off. It's science. It takes a while. You've got to refine and process. Anyways, so no, we're not by no means vaccine against vaccines. There are some people who are who have joined the convoy and volunteer.

And, okay, that's their thing. And I'm very pro free speech, like a free speech, absolutely. they should be allowed to voice their opinion, and we should be allowed to agree, disagree, challenge, ignore. It's up to us, right? But most of us are vaccinated. And you know, it's funny, the people you think, you would think are not vaccinated, are vaccinated.

And the people who aren't, the people who aren't vaccinated, you would have looked at them and think, oh, well, he's vaccinated, of course. It's really, it's really, but I don't go around asking people because it's none of my business, really. I wanted to show one thing. This was from Verge earlier today. Oh, I saw this.

Oh, my God. The verge, the anti-Baks Canadian truckers wants to talk to you about Bitcoin. Now, the funny thing about this article, and I don't talk about my medical stuff, because it's, to be honest, none of anybody's goddamn business. Yeah. And I'm probably going to get some flack for this right now, but I think it's important to bring it up. because, um, because again,

it's, it's important to point out when people are just blatantly being disingenuous. And, uh, I also am double vaccinated. I,

and that's, that's, I don't feel that anybody should need to explain either way. Because it's a personal choice. People should be able to do whatever the hell they want with their own bodies, especially in the,

context of how much has changed over the last couple of years. But I wanted to throw that out there and say that, again, when people try to smear people for being anti-vax and, you know, you've got you and me sitting here that are vaccinated, then, you know, that argument goes out the window. Regardless, what about this being portrayed as it is? on the ground. I'm going to go to Nick here. We've seen some, we've seen in the media a lot of

different things pointing out, you know, some shitty things that people have done, right? Like we can't say that nothing shitty has happened. Obviously, there's been a few things that have not been the greatest. And, you know, that and that's kind of shitty. But it's also in my opinion, not reflective. what's pervasively happening there. So Nick, you are there. You've been out every day. I want to get

a little bit of a pulse on what you have seen. Maybe you can share a little bit. Yeah. And that's all I can speak to, right? Is from my experience, what am I observing? I can't be everywhere at once. I can't see everything. But initially, I was going twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon because the evening, when the sun sets, it's a very different energy and mood and there's a different group of people that are out. And it's kind of really cool to see that contrast. But when I'm walking around, I'm basically power walking around the entire perimeter and through every area to get a pulse on. Where are the different food hubs? How well supplied are they? Are the volunteers doing okay? Are the truckers doing okay? Who needs propane? Who needs fuel? All that

kind of stuff. I'm trying to get a pulse on like what are the immediate needs. What has changed since yesterday. And so basically my head's on a swivel. I'm trying to take in as much data as my brain can process. I've seen, you know, these whole things of like flags and swastikas and whatever. I've seen none of that. And it's not because I'm not looking because I'm looking everywhere and I'm going to the fringes of like where this, where it's centered. I'm going around all areas. So all I've seen is really happy people that are celebrating the fact that they're all taking a stand to claim their freedom. That's all I'm seeing. I'm seeing kids and grandmas and families and barbecues and smiles and hugs and tears of joy. That's what I'm seeing. And it's really a weird, it's hard to reconcile

the dichotomy of I see what I see what's there when I'm there in person. And then I go on social media to try and figure out what are other people seeing in virtual land. And I see the dichotomy and it's so hard to reconcile, right? And the only thing that gives me like peace of mind is like if anyone goes down there, they will immediately be confronted with so much cognitive dissonance of what is being told to them and what they're seeing that they're going to see how blatant and obvious these lies are. And yeah, I mean, all the confrontations I'm seeing are peaceful. They're reasonable people letting each other speak, not speaking over each other at each other, speaking to each other.

And they're having conversations, right? Like today, I witnessed the conversation between an Ottawa local who was upset about all the noise and all that kind of stuff. And then there was like four or five people that were there for freedom. And they were having a conversation. And it was polite. It was very nice. Right.

They disagreed. And I think we should disagree. If we agree on everything, then we're maybe not talking to all the right people. But we have to disagree in good faith. Right. And we have to be respectful. And that's all I'm seeing.

I haven't seen anything different. And I really think it's odd that they put out one picture, which may, I'm not saying that, you know, one thing I want to get clear is like, the people who are waving around any flags that could be considered racist are not people that are part of this movement. I'm talking to these people that are there for freedom and they're on this

aligned perspective of we are here to reinstate the Canadian Charter of Rights and get back to living because enough's enough. Those aren't the kind of people that go around waving flags that piss people off or that are offensive. And so those people, the people I'm seeing that are there, condemn things like that. If they see it, they will condemn it, they will shame it, they will ask the person questions, confront them respectfully. And so it's really weird how you see one thing and then everyone tries to get painted with the same brush. When I see a police officer that's doing something that's kind of sketchy, I don't assume all

police officers are bad. I assume that one person made a decision and that's that person. So I think we've got to be careful to lump everyone into the same boat. And I think that's what media tries to do, but it's not what I'm seeing. So I'm going to rapid fire go through kind of some of the main like, you know, things that people have seen and then and just kind of show what others may not have seen. And if you haven't seen some of this stuff, then all I want you to do is just maybe consider the fact that if you haven't seen these opposite sides of the spectrum, what I'm about to

kind of show here, maybe ask why. Perhaps it could be that if you only search one type of media, you're only fed that type of media. And before I show all this stuff, I want to talk a little bit about that because in, again, full transparency, in 2015, I'm going to get shit for this too. I don't care. In 2015, I voted for Trudeau. And let me explain why, because it's exactly relevant to what I feel is happening now. 2015, there were two main things that really turned me off about the current administration at the time.

One of them was scientists were prevented from saying certain things. They were effectively told, you can't say this and you can't say this. I don't like the idea of anybody telling anyone else what they can or cannot say. So that was a big turnoff. The other thing was using a group, a specific group of people to, stoke fear and create an other and and drum up you know there's a few different tactics that were used to specifically one of them was the the headdress and stuff like that for Muslim women and it was used as as a fear tactic to create kind of like a something scary and hopefully

drum up support it backfired you know I didn't agree with the way that they did that. I thought it was a non-issue. And I felt that it would, I, I didn't approve of that type of messaging. I'm now seeing, again, this, this move towards kind of preventing or or trying to diminish certain types of speech or people talking about certain things. And I also see another creation of an other, a specific segment of the population as the people that are the bad people, right? And just kind of painted with broad strokes. And it's, it rhymes, for me, it rhymes with 2015 when I voted for Trudeau. But now he's doing that again. And again, it's not a specifically political thing as I align with this side or this side. The, what I want,

wanted to convey here is that I've been on both sides of the political spectrum. And what I've realized is that when you search for something and you want to see more of the same thing, you will be fed that and you will be starved of the opposite position. You will not see the opposite. So I quickly just wanted to show something. All I wanted to show was, okay, Confederate flags. I was, and again, I, sorry, this is weird, but it'll kind of show, I know it's kind of colorized there, but anyways, there's a guy and he had a Confederate flag down there and immediately protesters, first of all, he's got a balaclava and he's got like sunglasses on, everybody else, you know, faces showing and everything.

He immediately gets confronted. People come up and say, what the hell are you doing? This can't be here. You need to leave. And they make him leave. So, you know, not a lot of people, a lot of my. friends, you know, went and shared that, you know, and I think that's a positive thing. People don't want to see that stuff there, okay.

The Terry Fox statue, people put a hat, a flag, and a sign on it. That was immediately removed when people were upset about it. And, you know, Terry Fox is a legend, absolutely. And protesters then went and just scrubbed the thing and made it pristine and new. Okay. So today when I went to the Terry Fox status, you. I couldn't even see the base because there were so many flowers and cards. Like it's totally different than what people think.

Yeah. The other thing was the war memorial. I guess somebody peed or something. And then somebody was dancing on, you know, the unknown soldiers grave or something. You know, in turn, people saw, you know, what had happened. And they were upset about it. And they went and they're shoveling the place. again, flowers all over the war memorial, nothing but respect there. I know that people can do things that are distasteful, and whether that's out of malice or whether it's just out of ignorance, it's a thing that happens,

but the vast majority of people are trying to do their part to help out. And again, like people shoveling around the war memorial, cleaning it up, Nick, this from you, you know, leaving flowers and everything, making sure everything looks pretty, Christine. And so that's something that a lot of people haven't necessarily seen. And I want to show one other thing here. And this is, I uploaded a clip here. Now, I'm going to say, I enjoyed this video, but also I know some people that that don't like what's happening, they're going to hear the music and they're going to think, oh, this is some sappy, crappy, like, you know, polarizing thing. Okay. Forgive the sappy music that's in the background here. But I want you to take a look at the number and the type of people that are in this video, the diversity of people.

And when I see this, it doesn't come across as a bunch of Nazis. All right. So again, excuse the cheesy music, but I do think it's important to see the diversity of people that are all supporting this. Amazing! Let's say But... This is the time we've all been waiting for. The sense of togetherness and pride and joy.

I said to my boys, we're going to Ottawa. We're going to be with our people, with our Canadians. This is about every Canadian standing up for their families, for their future. And we are all together. We are all Canadians. We are all trackers. We stand up for our people in Nunavut And all over Canada and the whole entire world and our children, this is the sound of change. When we've been there, bright shining, who made that this free.

It didn't look like a small group of white supremacist to me. There's a lot of different people here. There's a lot of different people that think that it's time to return. to the way things used to be. I think it's important to note that. So with that, and again, I know there's going to be some people being like, it's most of the music, but Greg, go ahead. Oh, you're muted, buddy.

Let me, uh, I think he's frozen first. Oh, there we go. Yeah, we got you. Did it come on? Hi, guys. Yeah, I, that video was spotty for me. I'm not sure if it, uh, it was breaking up for you guys. I had never seen it before.

I just want to give a little background on myself because, you know, I'm 58 years old. I grew up in Montreal and three things already hit home for me. First of all, Terry Fox actually ran right past my house on the West Island in Montreal. Okay. So Lake Shore, Lake Shore Boulevard. I was a young man. Probably, I don't remember when Terry died, but would it have been around 1980 something, right? Like in the early 80s.

He ran right by my place on the West Island. Montreal. I have nothing but respect for that effort. And I recently drove across Canada with my daughter. We drove from where I currently live in Toronto all the way to Western Canada. And then we passed the spot where Terry had finished his effort to run across Canada. So talk about choking up. You know, he, that is not what this movement is about. This move, it's about unity. And so I grew up in Montreal, I've seen my share of, you know, events where Canada is not unified. And I'll tell you, in Montreal right now, you're seeing a level of unity that I haven't seen, and I'm not in Montreal, but my friends are telling me. And Canada, those flags, the last time I've seen this many

flags being waived is when we won the gold medal, right? In the Olympics, I mean, it's, this is a pride of being Canadian. So that's the one thing, Terry Fox, pride, unification. The second one was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. So my granddad fought in both World Wars. He was a fighter ace in World War I. I grew up with a German machine gun off of a German airplane in my basement. And I can tell you why that story. But he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for honor and bravery, one of 800 non-British citizens in the world that have ever been awarded that. And he fought for freedom in both world wars. He would never, and I would never desecrate the tone of somebody who fought for our country for freedom against tyranny. So those are two

things that came out. And then third and most importantly, okay, we care because I have three children. You guys have three children, I believe. I've heard. And the point is this, we're doing this. We're taking a stand for our kids. As a 58 year old guy, I've seen a lot in Canada. A lot of extremely good stuff in Canada. But some things that I'm not as happy about. It's not, oh, that's what I want to say. I'm doubly vaccinated. I'm fine with it. I'm also would be had very difficult decision if my daughter was trying to get pregnant and she didn't want to take the fax and I'm supposed to tell her she has to take the vax. That's a tough thing for me to do. So all of this to say, I'm Greg Foss. A lot of people have painted me as an anti-vaxxer.

No, I want freedom for our great country. I'm a fifth generation Canadian. You want to know a little bit about my history? My family started the first automobile in Canada. It's called the Fosmobile, look it up. And my great uncle made, my great uncle made one of them. Henry Ford asked him to go into business. And he said, no, this thing's never going to catch on.

This is true. This is how deep rooted my family has been in the history of Canada. We actually landed in the USA and emigrated to Canada. Maybe before the regime of order, because it was before the before the

independence USA independence so long story I'm sorry I said I wasn't going to talk much but that movie brought some tears to my eyes because I feel so deeply for this country and the unification that I've seen so sorry guys I was going to try not to talk but man

I'm a I'm a true believer in Canada it changed me when people want to this great country because this is one heck of a great country. So over to you guys. Can I just tack on a couple of small things to that? There is another

video as well. There's a Canadian artist that, a similar video, she's written a song just about... Muted. You got muted, dude. She's written a song that was put to a bunch of videos

and like I'm not a terribly emotional guy, I guess. I have to admit, many times started breaking down to tears watching that because I know I was in Alberta before COVID and saw how their lies and economies had been decimated. And those were all the same people from all different backgrounds because, you know, we are, we overuse the word, but it is true. We're diverse in Canada.

It was so amazing. I still get shows watching it. But on, and on the topic of the tomb, the unknown soldier, that's something that I can't believe people haven't considered is the high number of truckers that are either veterans or come from veteran families. And when some of them found out that, I mean, the story kept changing. First, the media reported a truck parked on the tomb of the unknown soldiers, the war memorial. Then somebody walked on top of it. And then three days later, somebody urinated. They took a picture of a puddle.

It was water, I don't know. And, you know, these things are often disingenuous and to paint a narrative. Who knows? But it was relevant because the truckers were so upset. Like many of these guys witnessed their friends die in war, in sometimes meaningless wars and they were gutted. So that's why they immediately went,

shoveled the snow, cleaned it up, cleaned up any sort of garbage or scraps in the remote area when they went out, bought flowers en masse, and then they set up a team that would take shifts protecting it and guarding it 24-7 because for them, that's how they honor their dead friends and their dead families. So it was just, it was amazing that people couldn't understand that.

And as for Terry Fox, you know, when I, listen, I may have a little bit of a dark sense of humor, things don't really bother me. But when I saw Terry Fox with a Canadian flag and a sign that said mandate freedom, and people were saying that's desecration, I don't know who thinks a Canadian flag is desecration. Maybe I'm wrong, but I would have assumed Terry Fox would have been in favor of the very freedoms that allowed him to run across the country, which is what we're trying to restore and revive. But maybe I'm wrong. I think Benjamin, well, to be fair, I think that the flag was hoisted upside down on the statue to symbolize, you know, that Canada's a bit upside down right now. So I saw the upside down flag.

And I only saw the one drank around his neck. Oh, I saw one on a, yeah, it was held in his hand, if I'm not mistaken. And it was now, it could have been Photoshopped because I wasn't in, but it was upside down. And that's not that, I don't stand for that. So. For sure. Right. And again, we're, it kind of also speaks to the fact that everybody is going to have a different take on lots of different things.

And, um, I want to. I want to kind of shift gears here for a moment. And I'm going to directly address my friend that is watching. His name is Matt. And he said, just pretending that COVID is now done because it sucks. And it's been a shitty few years. And throwing the vulnerable to the wolves is not the answer. And so I want to talk a little bit about the science and kind of what the world is doing right now.

So obviously you always have Trudeau saying, you know, everybody's fed up, especially our workers in the front lines. We owe it to them to keep listening to the science and supporting each other. And so I wanted to chat about some things we've seen recently. In particular, let's look directly at the World Health Organization. And this is their update as of the 19th of January 2022. In regards to what would be mandated federally. they modified their recommendation around travel. Modified.

Point six, lift or ease international traffic bans as they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to the economic and social stress experienced by states' parties. The failure of travel restrictions introduced after the detection of reporting and reporting of Omicron variant to limit international spread of Omicron demonstrates the ineffective. of such measures over time. Travel measures like masking, testing, isolation, quarantine, and vaccination should be based on risk assessments

and avoid placing the financial burden on international travelers in accordance with Article 40 of the IHR. And the second point, this is point seven, extended, do not require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 for international travel as the only pathway or condition permitting international travel given limited

global access and inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, state parties should consider a risk-based approach to the facilitation of international travel by lifting or modifying measures such as testing and or quarantine requirements when appropriate in a quarter, according with the WHO guidance. So they basically said that it's been ineffective. And so when you're saying, let's follow the science, I mean, the world is beginning to. we see relaxing travel restrictions. Countries that are already open to international travelers

are moving to further relax entrance requirements through Europe. Though Europe is the regional leader in new COVID cases, according to the WHO, countries such as Greece, France, Portugal, Sweden, and Norway have announced plans to draw up incoming test requirements for vaccinated travelers, though some apply to EU residents. Last week, islands of Puerto Rico and Aruba enacted similar measures, Other places are moving in the opposite direction. Obviously, we see places like China where they crack down a lot harder.

But we see a move in reversals of lockdowns. And we see a lot of countries opening up that have much lower vaccination rates than Canada. Here's a list of some of the most vaccinated countries on the planet. Canada is there in number seven, if I'm counting correctly, maybe six. And there's countries that are opening. up that have far less vaccination rates. And so when I see that we, you know, we're 80, you know, somewhere between 80 and 90 percent vaccinated in the country, what is the answer? 100 percent? Because is that ever going to happen? And if not, do we just do this perpetually?

Because we are going to be living with this. And beyond that, if I can find it here, We have, if I can find it, did I just close it? Maybe not. We had the report from John's Hopkins talking about lockdowns and international travel restrictions. It found that it reduced mortality by 0.2%, which in the context of Canada over the past two years, that is 70 people. in people that I've known in my immediate kind of circle of friends, family, stuff like that, knowing one person that, again, this is anecdotal, but I'm just kind of giving a picture of, you know, why people may feel certain ways.

I know somebody that has died of COVID. I know somebody that has died of an overdose because of depression. I know somebody that had two children and committed suicide. because of depression. I know somebody that died because they didn't get checked up and had cancer and caught it late. I also know people that have lost, you know, somebody who is trying to get pregnant, was going through therapies because she was having a difficult time getting pregnant, did not want to get vaccinated while that was happening,

and subsequently lost her job of many years. I've seen a lot of people negatively affected by the lockdowns. I've seen a lot of different things. And so it's not, I don't think that we should be discounting a large swath of the population for having a different opinion, even if it's a minority opinion. I think that we should still have body autonomy. And the last thing I'm going to say here is I'm going to show a clip of a woman on CNN. And I was very surprised to see this clip the other.

other day because she was perhaps the most hardcore supporter of extreme lockdowns and extreme measures over the course of these past two years. And a lot of times I did not agree with her. And she went on CNN to talk about if she agrees with the move to start lifting restrictions. And here's here's the full clip. Do you agree with the move? I do. There was a and is a time place for pandemic restrictions, but when they were put in, it was always with the understanding that they would be removed as soon as we can. And in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also, the science has changed. We know that vaccines protect very well against Omicrom, which is the dominant variant. Everyone, five and older, have widespread access

to vaccines. And we also know about one-way masking, the idea that even if other people around you are not wearing masks, if you wear a high-quality mask, that also protects you, the wearer too. And so in this case, I'm not saying, I don't think anyone really is saying that no one should ever wear masks, but rather that the responsibility should shift from a government mandate imposed from the state or the local district of the school. Rather, it should shift to an individual responsibility by the family

who can still decide that their child can wear a mask if needed. You know, take New Jersey, the case of New Jersey, for instance, their new case average is just over 4,000. Is that an acceptable number to do this, or are they projecting out to March 7th at this point? I don't think we should be looking at case counts at all at this point, especially when we're dealing with a milder variant and when so many people were exposed to Omicron and therefore have at least some level of protection either through vaccination or immunity. The key number that we should be looking at is hospitalizations. If our ICUs and hospitals in that particular region are not overwhelmed, if they're not. overcapacity. We can set a number, for example, 75% or 80% full. Then we should be able to relax

all restrictions. And I actually believe that we should be starting to, with the first restriction removed, should actually be the restriction on children. Because while for adults, you could say, well, what's the harm of adults masking when they go into a grocery store, there actually is a harm that we should be discussing of children continuing to mask. That doesn't mean that masking doesn't have its place for children when there are very high rates of hospitalization. If we get a new variant in the future that children are particularly susceptible to, we may want to bring masks back. But we should also be intellectually honest and say that masking has had a cost,

especially for the youngest to learners, people with English as a second language, children with learning disabilities, there has been a cost to them. So the risk-benefit calculation has really changed. So I just wanted to show that because it's, again, it's not just a bunch of fringe people that are anti-vaccine that are pushing this direction. It seems the world is moving the direction and we have not seen federally even a willingness to speak about next steps. And that's kind of disappointing.

So I'm going to kind of flip this and continue. I want to talk about the fundraising efforts. And so what I'd like to chat about first and whoever wants to take this, I want to talk about a little bit about what has happened with GoFundMe and as we started airing, without getting into too much detail, but more just a general, you know, money was raised. what are some of the problems that we've encountered with legacy finance. So I don't know, BJ, if you want to speak to that. Where to start?

Not only did we, I mean, everybody knows about GoFundMe on the surface that of the 10.5, 10.1 million dollars were initially raised that a million was sent over to us. and the rest was initially going to be confiscated and given to a charity of GoFundMe's choice. And then the senator, I'm sorry, the governor of Florida and the Attorney General in Florida decided they would step in that this warrants a criminal, you know, criminal, fraudulent investigation, whatever it is.

All of a sudden when they made that announcement, it became, well, we'll just return the money to the people. and we're getting so many emails from people. A lot of people have been getting their money back, and a lot of people have not. Maybe there's just a backlog, because there was something like 150,000 transactions. So we'll monitor it and we'll see what happens.

But that's what everybody saw. There was other stuff behind the scenes where we finally got an initial transfer of a million dollars, and this is not our money. We don't want it. This is for the truckers. This is for fuel. The cost of the journey.

DPF failures. Censors failures. You know, these trucks need to be maintained. And there's some people who've had to have on-site repairs. So that's what this is for. And that can really, you know, start to mount up. But the money was transferred to our bank, a Canadian bank. I won't out them again.

Hopefully they will, you know, wise up. But they then froze our funds. we didn't get any rational reason for just we're getting the runaround back and forth so finally our lawyer stepped in and said look we're going to move the funds into our our firm's escrow account or trust account and we'll be administering it on behalf of the board of directors that we created you know to formalize everything and into a non-profit and all that sort of stuff that money as far as last night still had not been transferred and it was supposed to be there two days ago Then the most recent thing that's happened is, or should, let me backtrack after we left GoFundMe as you know, we went to this organization reached out to us, GIFSENCO. The CEO Jacob directly reached out to us and said, let us help you. Dave Rubin as well reached out to us a little bit a couple days later and we're in the process of setting up our locals. he wants to help out too. But Givesendgo, being the first one there immediately,

set up the exact same fundraiser. And we got, I hear all sorts of numbers, who knows what the actual number is, but I thought I saw $1.5 million in the first 12 hours. I read somewhere that it was $4 million in the fourth 24 hours, maybe. I myself couldn't get on the site for seven hours because they were, according to Jacob, they were getting 5 million DDoS attacks an hour

on top of an unprecedented number of donation requests and people trying to access the site. He said, we just didn't have the bandwidth and the infrastructure. I think they were using, I don't know, I don't which web service they were using, but it just far exceeded. So they spent all day putting out fires, fighting off attacks, and trying to get donations in. And even with that, they managed to process $1.5 million in the first 12 hours. So the response from people has been shocking and overwhelming.

And those people seem to understand that the message is about freedom, that we want normal. that we have, you know, we have, those of us, right now, us, the four of us talking, we have differences. Of course, I'm sure we do. But we talk to each other, right? And we respect each other's differences. And we learn from each other's differences, right? And everybody just wants to go back to that. And, I mean, it was amazing to see all those Quebec flags with Canadian flags and Albertans hugging each other.

And I tell this story, this was amazing. I got to tell it here, too. where one of my friends, she ran out for coffee for us, and to Tim Hortons, because I have this broken leg right now. And she said, she's in line. She's talking to these two guys in front of her. They're clearly friends. Like they've known each other for a little bit.

It's not like they just met each other in line. And they're joking and they're laughing and, you know, pointing different trucks and whatever. But they're talking to each other through Google Translate because one doesn't speak English and one doesn't speak English. and one doesn't speak French. Because one guy was a Quebecer, and one guy was from either Alberta or Saskatchewan.

I don't remember which one she told me. That's what this is about, that we've buried all the baggage that I've grown up with, my whole life in Canada, that all these distinct regions, they only care about themselves, whether it's, you know, the West or the Maritimes,

or everybody's dropping all of that and realizing we're all unified in the basic principles of freedom. And guess what? We can talk to each other without maligning one another, even when we disagree with our opinions. You know, it's a beautiful thing. And can I add, that was great, Benjamin.

I, you know, again, I grew up in Quebec. I've seen when we were right on the verge. I've seen when we, you know, separation. I grew up with Reni Levac, 1976. It was a very severe time. And, you know, I'm very happy that Quebec stayed in our union. but I understand the cultural differences. My wife is French-Canadian, okay?

So look, but I wanted to move it back and move it up a level to my friend and good supporter of freedom in Canada, Jeff Booth, okay? Jeff and I endorsed this campaign before we even knew what was going to happen with GoFundMe, okay? And we reached out to Nick. And Jeff is a true patriot, true Canadian. He and I share many similar views. agree on everything, but what he want, what I know he would want me to say, and he hasn't coached me and saying anything here,

is that imagine, whether or not you agree with the truckers, imagine if it was a situation that you supported something so dear to your heart that it was taken away from you. Okay? So I, this isn't his words, these are mine. I went to high school when the seal

hunt was a huge thing. And I can just imagine if all the young students in my high school had put together a huge amount of funds for the Save the Seals efforts. And you guys probably remember the badges, well, not the young guys, but the, you know, Benjamin, I'm not sure how old you are, but you remember the Save the Seals badges and everything. I know, I know, I learned about it in high school, yeah. Well, anyway, this was crazy. This was, I graduated high school in 1980.

Okay. So this is important. And this was a big thing. And of course, this is before the internet and everything. But it was a big button with a white seal pop on it. And it said save the seals. And imagine if, and I don't know whether our high school did this, but imagine everyone in the high school raised money to help this population of baby harp seals.

And it was confiscated. And not just was it confiscated, it may have actually been directed potentially to the adversaries. Now, I'm not against Newfoundland fishermen who went out on the ice flows to earn a living. And I agree those seals were nice, beautiful little animals. but the point is if you're on the other side and you don't agree with the truckers, well, try and flip the fence if it was something you truly did agree with and your funds were confiscated.

And these are Jeff Booth's words. He's one of the wisest people I've ever met in Canada. He's wrote the best book I've ever read in my life. And this is not because I think that, you know, I'm trying to gain favor with Jeff. The price of tomorrow is absolutely the best book I've ever read. and he's a proud Canadian, a genuine deep thinker, and he supported my request to bring legitimacy to this fundraising effort. I'm not saying we saw that this was going to happen with GoFundMe,

but it certainly represents the problem with centralized distribution platforms. So put yourself on the other side of the fence. Don't know what you could have raised money for. and if it happened to you, you can understand the frustration of the people whose hearts are in this for various reasons. And we do have our differences.

This isn't about trying to bring a government down. This is not about this. It's about freedom to do with your money what you want to. Monetary energy. And it's over to Nick because he uses that line so, so well, monetary energy. I think, you know,

On the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we have the freedom of expression to express ourselves. And money is how we express value. And I think the only people who are against freedom are the people who wish to oppress others. Right. Like if you're fundamentally, I think everyone is pro freedom. I really do. They might get distracted by differences of opinion on specific things. But at the end of the day, everyone having the personal sovereignty to decide what is best for me to do with my body?

Where do I want to send my money? Who do I want to support? who do I want to speak to? Being able to do that unobstructed is a fundamental right in Canada. And really what this is about is the politicians, and I think we talk about the politics a lot, and I've never even really understood politics. I always use the term governance, right? We need some people to make the big decisions on behalf of all of us, right? Just like an executive and a company makes big decisions that trickle down to everyone. So I think there's nothing wrong with governance. But when we make this false dichotomy and pretend like we have to pick teams,

when in reality we really should all be playing on the same team, right? And we agree on way more than what we disagree on, but politicians like to focus on the disagreements. And I think it really just distracts away from what we need to do. Because at the end of the day, Canada, strong and free, it's literally in our national anthem. Canada is a free country. It was one of the freest countries. We've gotten away from that. And this is just the people taking a stand to say, we want to go back to a free Canada that we came, you know, a lot of, I've spoken to a lot of people downtown that literally came from communist countries to Canada because they were tired of being controlled. I spoke to a Polish lady and she's like, I came here to get away from communism and I witnessed communism begin to show

here. She's like, I smelt it. I witnessed it. I knew what it looked like because I lived it when I was a kid. And so I really think this is really just about everyone having the freedom to assemble peacefully, which is fully legal, the freedom to express themselves, the freedom to gather, to travel throughout Canada and to leave and reenter Canada, that's our right as a Canadian citizen and it's being infringed on. And that's really the subject that we're all here for. It's not about vaccinations. It's not about anything else. It's about freedom. And we're not actually, it's not a big ask, right? Let's get back to honoring the giant document that is the foundation of Canada's legal system, which is the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And I think everyone should read that. This is one thing that I think is important. In order to assert your sovereignty and to claim your rights, you must know. what your rights are. Otherwise, it's very easy for you to be manipulated. And if everyone actually, if we went through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in school and kids knew what their fundamental rights were, we would be able to create generations of kids that take responsibility because they can assert the rights that they are now aware of. And I think if everyone reads that document, they can get a really good grasp on, wow, these things are not being honored. We are reminding the people who we elect and who work for us that we are in charge because they seem to have forgotten

that. And we're going to do it peacefully, but it's not a negotiation, right? The few cannot have asymmetric control over the many for long. Eventually the many say, well, no, no, this isn't how it works. We need to remind you. And that's what this, that's what, that's everything I've seen. That's what it's about. And it's cool because you're right. All the differences have essentially fallen by the wayside. Everyone downtown is a Canadian. They might be a Canadian from Quebec or a Canadian from Alberta. They might be a Canadian, a Chinese Canadian, a black Canadian, an indigenous Canadian, but we're all Canadians. And that's what this is about. And the people in power who use divisiveness to try and manipulate us to play this game of politics are pissed because we've

seen through the game. And once we see it, we can't unsee it. And we are here until it gets restored. The order of things must be restored. And that's what I'm seeing. Awesome. Okay, I'm going to shift gears one more time, kind of we were on the topic of the fundraising effort and the problems with legacy financial system in that, you know, you can effectively freeze things because, you know, obviously a Silicon Valley, B.C. will, will easily freeze things rather than have to deal with, you know, a government telling them otherwise, right? So this is kind of where Bitcoin comes in, right um i you know there there was there was desire to to raise funds via bitcoin for uh the truckers i think because a lot of bitcoinsers you know lean heavily towards self sovereignty and the idea

of freedom and and and kind of separating minimizing the role of government as much as possible so that people can can choose how they live their own lives. And so the topic of Bitcoin came up and people started asking, okay, how can we do this? We want to accept Bitcoin. We want to be able to use on-chain and lightning. And how can that be possible? And so what was started and I'll share my screen here. And I apologize again because it tends to show up kind of like grade out. I don't know why that is, but regardless. So this account was created, Hong Kong Coddle.

And it is a Twitter account. By the way, that was all Ben. Ben is the master of branding behind this. It's brilliant. Thank you, Ben. I thought it was a funny name. But regardless, this Twitter account was started and it was basically a way of saying, you know, if you are sympathetic to this cause,

then this is, you can kind of get information here. and there would be a fundraiser attached. This is a website called TallyCoyne. And so what TallyCoyne does is it's effectively the same kind of function as GoFundMe, except for there is no custody of funds as a middleman in between people that are giving and people that are receiving. And so the way that this website, site works is you can do it a couple different ways. The simplest way if you're an individual.

And I should stress that this isn't like in its most basic form. This is not a complicated thing. And literally anyone on the globe can do this. And this is kind of the thing I want to stress. This is available to the world. And even if this website wasn't up, Bitcoin still functions, right? You can still just toss a QR code up anywhere and and receive tip. or donations from anyone on the globe instantaneously. Regardless, this page was started, and effectively what was done is there's a Bitcoin address associated with it, and it is also associated with a Lightning Network node, which means that any person that goes to this website and says, you know what, I believe in this particular

cause, I'm going to send a little bit of Bitcoin. When they send it, it does not stay with tally coin. It is never in the hands of tally coin. It goes directly to the recipient. So what is eliminated here? Well, let's compare to something like GoFundMe. The donor, the person donating is trusting that their bank will first let them send the money in the first place. If that happens, the funds then go to the centralized third party that is now holding

the money. So there is now trust in that centralized third party on behalf of the sender and the organizer of the cause that that centralized third party will release those funds, as we've seen, which doesn't always happen. And then finally, of course, and this is something that you can't really get around, it's trusting the organizers of said cause to make sure the funds get allocated properly. And, you know, in that case, it's difficult to eliminate that unless it's, it's, you know, individual people, uh, utilizing it directly for their cause. It's the disbursement is, is separate. But you eliminate that pinch point in the middle. You, you directly connect the individuals and you do it in a way where, uh, the receiver has immediate ownership of the funds.

There is no, there's no and zifs or buts about it. It, it lands in that wallet or, you know, through that lightning node immediately and is accessible to them. So what has happened here is over the past, I don't know, how long has it been guys? It's been not this Monday, but the Monday before is when it started. Okay. since that time, roughly 16 Bitcoin have been raised. What is that Canadian dollars? It's 884,000 Canadian dollars.

Furthermore, behind the scenes, there's an individual that is trying to rally a handful of people. And he said, I will donate one Bitcoin myself if nine other people join me. last I heard he had eight and so there may be another 10 Bitcoin going there and to further add on to this it's not just that Bitcoin is going to a simple Bitcoin wallet

it's going to something known as a multi-sig now I'm going to spare some details because you know security wise I think it's important that nobody knows where the keys lie in particular, but just know that, you know, BJ knows that there's a corporate structure and there is, you know, it's not like someone, one person can run off with the money is the point.

Multi-sig means that you create a digital vault that requires multiple keys to open. So perhaps you have a vault that has. five possible keys and you need at least three of them simultaneously to open. It's a little bit like in those old movies where they have like the nuclear codes and they both have to turn the key at the same time or whatever. It's kind of like that, but for money. And so what this means is it spreads out and mitigates the risk of an individual running off with the funds and it forces cooperation to move them.

It also protects from an individual being forced to move these funds. And so everything that has flowed into the tally coin or, you know, gradually everything, the majority of that is now located in a multi-sig. And none of those funds yet have been dispersed. Okay. That's important to note none of those funds have yet been dispersed. And there's reasons for that. but what I wanted to do really quick is Nick,

I wanted you to talk about the needs on the ground. What you're seeing in terms of, you know, people obviously want to support and that care about this have wanted to support in a multitude of ways. So my question to you is, and what a lot of people have been asking, is this, you know, what is needed right now? What are you seeing that is required?

What is being provided for? I'll let you take it. Yeah. So I think it's important to note that things change very quickly from day to day, sometimes even from hour to hour. And so I do my best to have, I have these different kind of teams of people, you know,

people that are overseeing food distribution, people that are overseeing fuel, coordinating fuel. And I do my stops around these like little hubs where there's a bunch of supplies. And so I kind of try. and keep a pulse on like what's needed. Do you currently have someone providing that? How urgent is it? And so just trying to kind of get an idea. Because at the start, someone would be like, we need propane. I'm like, perfect. I spend that afternoon finding propane. I go the next morning

with a propane tank. They're like, yeah, we got four tanks. So it's like everything is kind of happening very quickly by a group of people that aren't really being centrally controlled, but everything's getting done. And so I think, you know, we talked about the legal element where these truckers are legally using their charter right to gather peacefully. And they're taking a bunch of flack from the city of Ottawa, which has kind of turned its back on the people that are there, even though they're respecting the city in a radical way. They're cleaning the streets. They're cleaning the garbage.

They're shoveling the snow. And so a lot of times, like right now, the immediate supplies in terms of food, we have more food than we can even eat right now. But, you know, I'm trying to keep a pulse on things that are needed. There's no immediate urgent need. The biggest urgent need right now is to make sure that we can provide legal protection to make sure that these lawful Canadians are able to continue doing what they do. Because the city and the police and all the legal jurisdictions are essentially

presenting them with friction to stop them from exerting their charter right to peacefully gather. And so there's the legal side. I think the big, you know, I've been trying to think of this from like a zoomed outline. It's like, okay, there might be urgent needs that some funds will be used for. And we can, when that, when we come to that bridge, we cross it. And we'll be transparent with that. But there's also this notion that, okay, there's already a system in place for the Gibson Go whereby every trucker that's registered with a road captain and shows that they have made this

journey and have made a sacrifice, gets disbursements to cover the cost of their journey. So there's already this manifest being organized by, you know, a lawyer, accountant, bookkeeper. what if at the end of this, all these truckers that are making sacrifices and covering things out of pocket each receive an equal portion of sats from this pool that we're collecting? And essentially thank these people financially with the hardest money the world has ever seen, thank them for the sacrifice they've made to come here and fight for the freedom of all Canadians. And I think that's the fallback. And I really don't think we need to rush this, right?

Like I said, I will keep a pulse on what are the urgent needs? Is there anything that's absolutely urgent right now that we need that no one else is getting? if so, we make use of some of those funds. But in the end, we can disburse this to all the truckers in a very unique and effective way because Bitcoin is natively digital. And all the truckers have to do is download an app and they can have their equal portion of sets sent to them. And we can use it as an opportunity to educate all of the truckers and hopefully all Canadians

about the power of freedom money and why freedom money is essential for true freedom. I was going to say, I think it's important to note too that I know that people in the chat are talking about, you know, what's going on with Gibson Go. I, you know, I can't even really comment right now because, you know, as we're coming on, things were kind of coming out. So, again, I think we'll probably wait on talking about what's going on there. But I think it's also important to note that the Bitcoin that's sitting there is out of all of the funds, the most difficult to censor and or seize. And so it becomes kind of this hedge against these centralized third parties. Because in an instance where every other centralized donation gets basically cut off without, you know, full due process, then, you know, the Bitcoin is still there.

The keys are dispersed to a number of parties. And so at least it becomes, you've got to jump through a lot more hoops in order to, you can't just stop it and then and then argue about it. You have to argue about it beforehand. And Ben, an interesting thing at this point, I think we need to take issue with the Globe and Mail report that came across today. Yes. Which was, listen, I hate to call out.

horrible reporting, but that was absolutely shameful. We need to. Well, here's the thing. You know, your efforts to contact me were non-existent. I will say that I talked with a reporter from the Toronto Star, which is a much more left-leaning publication. And Alex McShane at a young lady at the Toronto Star put together what I thought was a very fair commentary on our efforts.

We are only focused on Bitcoin. We are focused on freedom. She got the line in there, fix the money, fix the world. Okay. She is an example of an investigative reporter that actually did her work versus this absolutely elementary or very intellectually lazy report from the Globe and Mail that said, we're raising all sorts of cryptocurrency. There could be unverifiable amounts of half a million dollars of alternative coins in our

efforts. I mean, this is the problem with mainstream media. If you're that lazy that you can't even actually try and get in touch with me, when I talked to a publication that I knew doesn't always align with my train of thought, but I wanted to get the word out, what we were doing. and yet the Globe and Mail, a paper that I have read in my 30 years of finance in Canada, it was my go-to newspaper, not anymore. That was an embarrassment.

And that report that said that they tried to reach out to anybody on our team, that's a flagrant, well, I'll just say it's very misleading. So we're focused using this as Bitcoin. And Bitcoin is different than every single, other digital asset out there. And not only is it showing its value in this case as being non-censurable, it can actually fix Canada as well. Because when you have the CEO of a company that goes on air and says something like

a budget will balance itself, you've got to be very worried about the CEO of that company. But when a prime minister of a country says it, we're supposed to accept it, I got three kids. I don't want to pull forward all of the future gains at the expense of my children just because we have to live in the here and now and the budget will balance itself. After spending 30 years in finance, I promise you, as an international lender, which Canada needs to stay afloat or finance our deficit, if you hear the prime minister saying stuff like the budget will balance itself and forgive me if I don't care about monetary policy. Guess what? An international lender says, I don't need that. I'll go somewhere else. Capital goes to where it's treated best. And if you have someone that just assumes that that money is always going to be there, guess what? Sometimes it's not. And I don't like that. So Globe and Mail, rather than calling me out or not even trying to, how about you call out the prime minister for things like the budget will balance itself? That's not what financial markets.

need to hear and that's not what canadians need to hear we are in a serious financial situation right now can and bitcoin can help on both sides okay so sorry if i got emotional this is about my three kids it's about bitcoin being able to solve so many things in canada as well as the jam that we're in with a centralized platform not distributing funds that they were intended for i just want to say one thing. And that's anyone who dislikes Bitcoin, who is against Bitcoin, Bitcoin is censorship resistant, transparent, honest, hard money. So anyone who is against that has to be against a lot of those things, right? Has to be against transparency. Has to be against, it has to be pro-fridom or pro-censorship, rather. So I think Bitcoin is only threatening to those who are used to

having full control to be able to see everything we do financially, which is really a deeply personal and intimate form of censorship. If I know where you spend your money, I know where you travel to, I know what you buy, what kind of things you buy, where you're buying things. I know a lot of things about you. And so this whole idea that Bitcoin is bad or Bitcoin's for criminals, it's like Bitcoin is simply letting people know that there is a Bitcoin is the embodiment of freedom in monetary form. And if you are against that, then you are fundamentally against freedom. And we can disagree about that, but the people who are against freedom should maybe not be making all the rules. Something I just want to tack on to that if I could.

You know, aside from trucking, I've been involved behind the scenes politically for a number of years now. And, you know, everybody talks about the price of Bitcoin. I didn't buy Bitcoin for the price. I bought it for the freedom. The price to me is irrelevant. I care about how many stats I have. That's all. But what I have been doing over the years, much like my friends and family, I've been, some might say, annoying people with my advocacy for Bitcoin and for freedom.

And I can tell you, I know for a fact that I know some of them, MPs and MPPs on the provincial level who hold Bitcoin. And people very high up, very quiet about it, but they are slowly onboarding and understanding this. So it's not just, and they have the same worldview as, you know, Cynthia Lumas in the United States, right? Remember, she said she was the treasurer for Wyoming. She was trying to figure out how she could deal with this two to three percent inflation every year for her state budget. 7.5. Well, yeah, exactly. And, you know, she spent a lot of time researching it.

Like, I did. Like, I spent a year learning about this first. And she came to realize that. This is the hardest form of money in existence today. And that's why she bought. And we're talking about somebody at the state level, a treasurer who is now senator, who comes from a financial background,

you know, like you, Greg. So this is not a, you know, it was, until recently was getting painted with the fringe brush. But that seems to have subsided over the past few years. And to the point where my boomer parents, I love them dearly, their snowbirds in Florida, they hold Bitcoin.

Yeah. It's, I've got to say that, you know, it's, it's becoming easier for average people to use. I, I guess what I can talk about a little bit here as we kind of get closer to the end here is people are like, well, what if, you know, what happens if they like don't allow you to use it? Like, or how would you even use it if you were trying to get supplies to people or, you know, how would that work? There are a lot of great Canadian companies and stuff like that that you can use it, assuming, you know, that there wasn't some sort of a freeze on those. But then there's alternative ways to. So, I mean, the first and best is finding individuals and companies that you can go peer to peer with, right? That's kind of the ideal way to utilize Bitcoin as peer to peer, having companies and individuals

reach out and say, hey, we'll accept Bitcoin for this good or service. That's awesome. But in the absence of that, there are kind of these ways that you can kind of, it's an extra hoop, but you can use it for basically anything. So I've got to give a shout out to, of course, bull Bitcoin in Canada with Francis Puglia. and that effectively allows you to pay direct to any bank account, credit card, or Canadian biller anywhere in the country. So if you have a hydro bill, if you have a cell phone bill or a cable bill or internet

bill or really anything, or if you have a fine, you can actually pay it with Bitcoin. So there's one way. You know, I mentioned off the top of the show, a bit refill for gift cards, but there's also another Canadian option called coincards.ca. Same thing. You can use Bitcoin and buy gift cards for fuel, for food, for really anything that you could possibly need. You can get gift cards for them and use your Bitcoin for that. There's also a company that I mentioned at the beginning of the show, Shake Pay. And they have, you can basically, if you have the app, you can obviously get Bitcoin there. But if you have Bitcoin and you need to use it, you can

send your Bitcoin back to the app, convert it to dollars, and they have a digital visa card that you can use on your phone. You can tap that at merchants and pick up whatever you need to get. So there are a lot of different ramps. And then barring that, let's say everything totally goes to shit. And that's just not allowed anymore. Well, there are peer-to-peer exchanges that exist. There are things like BISC. There are things like hoddle, hoddle, and these allow people to exchange Bitcoin for dollars or whatever currency and whatever country they're in peer to peer. And so, you know, for every hurdle that is introduced, there are solutions that are built. And we're getting to the point where the world needs to understand and grapple with the fact

that there is money that is as difficult to censor or even more difficult to censor than speech. because And Ben So Ben That was beautiful And let's talk about What is going to happen Because of institutional

asset managers Like the very well respected fidelity Okay I'm sure you've seen that report Ben And also Benjamin maybe But

That report That was a thing of beauty That was a thing of beauty That basically they think that Bitcoin will become an institutional asset, meaning it'll have a sleeve within any asset allocation manager, much like equities, alternative assets or even private equity, let's say leverage bonds, supersinger structures, all of these sleeves, they figure by 2026 Bitcoin will have its own sleeve. And most importantly, they point out the difference between Bitcoin

and all the other digital assets in the universe. So we're not doing anything with NFTs here, you guys. We're not doing anything with Dodge coin. We're not doing anything with Ethereum. We're doing stuff with Bitcoin that we might. But here's what we might emphasize to the truckers. I'm very confident that if you hold on to this in an endowment, it could be worth substantially more than it's currently worth right.

now. And everyone says, oh my God, it's gone from, you know, 800 bucks in 2016 to $40,000 US now. Hey, this is the tip of the iceberg. And if fidelity is right, and this becomes an institutional sleeve within a diversified portfolio of investable assets, I'd like the truckers to know in five years that they made a heck of an investment by keeping this in some sort of endowment potentially. So all of these things are on the table. from the financial background, 30 years in finance is a junk bond trader and a capital structure arbitrage. Canada would be really smart, like Ali, our friend at Reelah Tehini said, get some of this on your balance sheet, Canada. It could also help us dig ourselves out of the hole that our politicians have very, very well dug for us by saying stuff like, well, we'll print ourselves to prosperity.

You don't pinch yourself to prosperity. You punish the people and the future generations. And that's what makes me very upset. So remember, you can spend it or you can save it because it's the most beautiful form of monetary energy that humans have ever created. I have to go in. Go ahead, BJ.

I just want to add something tangentially. You guys know this. Some of the people, you know, from my end, don't know this and this will be the first time they ever hear. So I'll make it very quick. We have been spoiled until recently in North America and in Europe and Western nations with stable currencies. Now I have lived, you know, much of my life's body in Latin America and you, to explain what Bitcoin is to somebody who lives in Argentina, a Brazil, a Colombia, a Mexico and the devaluation of their currency,

I get halfway through the sentence, and right away they get it. They understand that it's hard money, because we don't understand in those countries, people buy cars and televisions and toasters and whatever as stores of value, because it is impossible to bank in Latin America. People don't understand how difficult it is.

But what Bitcoin has done, and Al Salvador is the perfect example, it's banking the unbanked and we don't understand in North America that there are people who cannot get bank accounts. But I had friends in Colombia that didn't have bank accounts. They'd have to live their lives with little pieces of paper and whatever assets they buy. But now since Bitcoin has come to the forefront, they now have bank accounts because Bitcoin can operate both as, a currency and a bank account. And North Americans, it's difficult for you guys to understand that.

I get that. But with a rapid rate of inflation, I'm hoping we're all now a little bit more open to the idea that our currency is not an absolute and that fiat currencies often go to zero. And this might just be a way of hedging your bets, but it's going to change the rest of the world. Those 4 billion people on the planet

who don't have banks because they're subjugated from their financial system, they're now going to be on an equal footing for the rest of us. And that is going to change our world for the better. Awesome. Yeah. I've got to head out in five minutes, but I'd like to just say two things. Number one is we are creating a template for permissionlessly receiving funds. So if someone is in Egypt and their government won't let them

have a bank account, but they need to raise funds for human rights reasons or whatever it might be, and they're in an oppressive regime. We're setting a template to be able to do this permissionlessly and that can't be censored. So anyone anywhere in the world can send someone in Egypt, monetary energy, the best monetary energy that's available today, and no one can stop it. And we're kind of showing the world that this is possible and it's not even that complex. That was point number one. Point number two is like this whole idea of creating an endowment that can give, like, this went through my brand the other day. What if at the end of this, we have a list of all the truckers.

They are all entitled to their portion of the sats that have been accumulated. What if we told them that from year one now and then five years, you can remove your sats at any time. If you choose not to remove them right away and you have a low time preference, we will hold them in a secure custody strategy. And you have the option to be paid out this freedom dividend, which you earned through the sacrifice in 2022, at any time. And maybe truckers that aren't confident or comfortable taking the sats right now,

leave it there, right? It's secure. It's under a, you know, a nonprofit trust that's overseen by an accountant and a bookkeeper. And whenever they want their sats, they contact it. They get walked through like an hour session to understand how to do this and they receive their sats. And I think something like that is really, it allows a much more expanded horizon of what is actually possible with this. And I think we have a chance to show this. and we have a chance to write a playbook of how this can be done in a way that can't be disrupted and in a very creative way that at the end of the day, we have a financial storm coming. Everyone who has a life raft is going to do much better.

Bitcoin is the life raft. I don't know anyone that deserves a life raft more than the people who sacrificed to take responsibility to defend freedom for our entire country. So it blows my mind sometimes how powerful this really is, not just from the perspective of being able to do it without permission and be able to coordinate it with a group of people. But just from the fact that this is going to be a really important, people don't know how the important this is right now. And because we don't, we don't need it in North America, right? Like if you're in Venezuela or you're in Argentina, you need hard money. You understand it.

Like you said, BJ. And I don't think it's going to be that long until Canadians actually realize that they need it. Right. My parents don't realize that they lost 20% of their wealth in one year. They don't realize that because they see their house going up in price and they're like, great, we're getting more rich. Like, actually, your house didn't get any better. Your money got 20% worse. And you're not factoring that into your retirement plans. And at a certain point, you're going to need to confront that.

And I think Bitcoin is so important for so many people right now that don't realize the problem that they have. And, yeah, it just makes me feel real good knowing that all the people I speak to during the day that have come from all over Canada because they had most of what their lives consisted of, stripped away from them are going to be rewarded with the world's hardest money because they're the ones that deserve it. So then thanks for doing this. I got to run. Thank you guys. Can you can you stay one sec, Nick? Because I just want to, can you hear this? Buddy, I love what you're doing. And we're so thankful I met you when you had your podcast and we met each other 12 months ago or whatever it was. Okay. This is how the Bitcoin community comes together to work as a group. So if you have to run, go. But I want to say one last thing. This is the first time

that a lot of Bitcoiners have ever spent money or spent their monetary energy. Okay. I'm telling you the truth that a number of comments that come across, I didn't think I would ever spend my monetary energy. But this is a cause that I believe in. Okay. And you read the different comments that are coming from all over the world, particularly places that have had problems with government censorship or whatever.

These are in the comments on tally coin and it's a beautiful thing. And finally, please. You are a well-spoken person, Nick. Benjamin, you are a well-spoken person. All we're asking for as a group of Bitcoiners is for Mr. Trudeau to sit down and listen to the rationale from the other side of the table. No disrespect to drama teachers, but you don't get all the education you need about financial markets in a drama class. Please, sir, sit down and understand this is about the few. of the children of Canada.

And if you haven't passed Go ahead. Greg, remember, he said he doesn't spend any time thinking about monetary policy. That was the statement. That's not good. That is not good because my children are going to bear the burden

of that irresponsible statement. Okay? And we need to help him understand that mathematics is the base layer of language. And please, Mr. Trudeau, you have the future of our children in your hands and you are not acting responsibly by pretending this problem doesn't exist. Thank you so much, Ben.

And not just Mr. Trudeau, the other members of the Liberal Caucus, who we know some of them are uncomfortable, we know some of them want to speak up, we know some of them want to talk to us and put an end to us, and haven't forgotten liberal values and that we're all Canadian. that nobody is nobody's the enemy here we're all on the same side we want a better future so mr trudeau yes we want you to talk to us but the rest of your caucus we want to talk to you as well our doors are open well i think i'll i'll leave it there guys thank you for uh joining i really appreciate your time

and i'm you know maybe we'll do it again sometime soon um as it oh not can i say just one more thing Can I just say one more thing? If it weren't for you, Ben, Ben, you were the first YouTube bitcoiner who taught me everything. And I sent you one of the first videos I ever watched and I looked. It was your seventh video. If it wasn't for Ben, I wouldn't be in Bitcoin. I was interested, but I had no idea what to do. Then I find this guy from Calgary who doesn't give any political nonsense either because I hate when everything is politicized.

and just giving great introduction video. You did the ATM video. You taught me about wallets and Exodus and all this sort of stuff. I watched them all. And thanks, man. No, seriously, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here. At least I wouldn't be here. Well, thanks, man.

And thanks to Greg and to Nick. Guys, I really appreciate it. Obviously, we'll be chatting again. So thanks, guys. That's good. Much love, y'all. Ciao. Love you.

Thank you to the whole Bitcoin community as well. Thank you. Yes. All right. Everybody, thank you very much for watching. Just some final thoughts here from me. Bitcoin is for everybody. I know that gets said a lot, and I know that there's plethora of articles out there currently because of this current fundraiser. But Bitcoin is literally for everyone. When I first started getting interested in Bitcoin, I read a book, by Paul Vinya and Mike Casey. They were former journalists at the Wall Street Journal.

I think Vinya's still there. But they wrote a book called The Age of Cryptocurrency. And the very first chapter in it outlines a woman, a girl at the time, Roya Maboub in Afghanistan. And so I read about her story. And she in Afghanistan ran the women's robotics team. And the thing in Afghanistan at the time was, as a woman, you are not allowed to have a bank account. A man must manage your money. You are not allowed to independently interact with the

economy in any way, shape, or form. So she was prohibited from using money. So she had no way to pay her girls that were on the girls' robotics team there. So what did she do? She used Bitcoin. She used Bitcoin and was able to pay her girls. And that's powerful. And one of the most exciting moments for me ever was I went to the Human Rights Foundation, Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami last October. And I got to host a panel. And I got to meet Roya. my first

my first inkling of understanding of how important Bitcoin is the first story that I came across that really hit home with me and I got to meet the person that I read about all those years ago in 2014 whatever it was

and that was pretty powerful and alongside her I met other people from around the world in places that were using Bitcoin to escape whatever it may be, hyperinflation. I met people from Venezuela.

I met people from Argentina. I met a really great guy named Fode Diop from Senegal. And he used it to escape the economic imperialism that was happening in Senegal. And effectively,

what happened there? and I believe across at least 13 other African nations, they still have their currency created by and controlled by France. And the way it works is France has deals with them where effectively you are not allowed to create your own currency. It has to be through us. And on top of that, France gets first bid. on every, every resource that gets produced in that nation. And if they want to buy it, they can.

And they're more than welcome to print money and debase the currency of that nation in order to purchase those goods. So they get first dibs on everything that. And they're basically bleeding these African nations dry. And so Fode recognized the value of Bitcoin in escaping as, you know, as an alternative currency escaping the restrictions and the, because you know, you're not allowed to convert through official banks and official means to outside currencies beyond a certain amount. So he was able to use Bitcoin to escape that monetary colonialism that was happening.

And that's a very powerful thing. And there's plenty more stories out there like that. And so I guess, again, I want. to stress that Bitcoin is for everyone. And even if you watch this whole thing and you thought, this is a load of bullshit, I don't like the cause. Don't dismiss Bitcoin because as I just laid out here, the, it's, it prevents people from being silenced. It allows them to put their, the fruits of their labor where they see fit without somebody telling them no. And I think that's a very powerful tool for the world to see.

Other couple things I'll say here is, of course, if you're interested in seeing everything that's going on, you can follow the Twitter handle, honk, honk, hoddle. You'll see some updates there. Twitter handles for everybody is down below. You know, if you're new here, you're not super familiar with Bitcoin. You literally just came here because you were interested in what's happening with the truckers, but you want to learn more about Bitcoin. I mean, where can you start?

You can read the Bitcoin standard. That gives you a pretty good litmus test against bullshit. It gives you a good base of why Bitcoin's important and will hopefully start steering you in the right direction and not exposing you to do much noise. Be cautious of a lot of the other scammy garbage out there, a lot of the stuff that's trying to capitalize on the success of Bitcoin. while sacrificing decentralization in the process, just get a good understanding of the how and why Bitcoin first start diving in. If you want to start learning about wallets and all that,

and you're new on the channel and you haven't seen anything, I literally just have tutorials for every possible thing you could do. So if you need help with a wallet, anything, you can tag me on Twitter at BTC sessions, and I will search through and I will find the necessary tutorials to start get you moving. And you can go through the catalog. There's a lot of stuff there.

It can be overwhelming. But if you start, take baby steps, you'll be okay. Outside of that, I'll just say thank you guys very much for watching. You know, do the usual stuff. If you enjoyed this, like, subscribe, share. All that stuff's important. You can hit up the sponsors down below if you really want to help shake, pay, leaden, bit refill, Keystone, Bill Fottle.

They're all down there. But more importantly, end of the show, I typically say you can leave a tip at a page that I have. But more importantly, if the tally coin page and the trucker movement is something that you align with and you see fit to drop a few sats there, you can absolutely do it. The page is linked in a pinned tweet on the Hong Kong hoddle Twitter page. And yeah, it's pretty simple to use. There was also a two-minute tutorial that I put out the other

day kind of specifically for within Canada, but it'll apply to anybody that has access to any basic Bitcoin exchange. It shows you in a two-minute video how to swap dollars or local currency for Bitcoin, get it into Bitcoin wallet that you control, and then send it to this or any other cause that you may see fit. And if you don't, if you don't agree with the cause, again, obviously that is totally fine too. So with that, I will say again, thank you guys. so much for watching. I will be seeing you tomorrow. I do have,

we'll kind of bring up the energy level tomorrow a little bit for Why Are We Bullish? I've got a great panel on, and I can't wait to see you there. So I am Ben with the BTC sessions, and I'll see you next time for your daily session. Toddled to Bitcoin.