Shaun Newman Podcast - #1115 - Dean Allison

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Dean Allison is the Conservative MP for Niagara West, Ontario. Born in 1965 in London, Ontario, he holds an Economics degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and built a career as a businessman and entrepreneur in the Niagara area before politics. First elected in 2004, he’s won every election since—securing his eighth consecutive term in 2025. He’s held key roles including Shadow Minister for International Trade and various committee chairs, and remains active on local and national issues.Cornerstone Forum 26’https://shaunnewmanpodcast.substack.com/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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All right, that's all I got free today. Hope everybody's having a great Monday. Let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is the MP for Niagara West. Talking about Dean Allison. So buckle up. Here we go. All right, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Today I'm joined by MP Dean Allison. Sir, thanks for having me in your office and meeting with me. I was coming through your area. I'm like, chances are you're going to be on holidays and this won't work. But in a very short order, we made it happen. I appreciate you sitting with me today. Oh, thanks. Thanks for taking the trek all the way down here.

I know you've come a long way, not just for me, but you're on a bit of a journey. So thanks for taking the time to this pop by Niagara. Well, you've got a beautiful area. It is. You know, I love it. You know, I grew up in London, Ontario, which is not far from here. My parents are from the East Coast, and when I first came down here for work, I drove down here, you know, these vineyards and fruit trees and lakes on both sides. This is nice.

I think this is where I'd like my family to be raised. raised. And so I, you know, made my way down here a number of years ago. And I love it. The people are awesome. The area is awesome. And, you know, like I said, it's just, it's a great proximity to a lot of things. Yeah, well, I, you know, as I was telling you, and obviously the audience knows I've been on, well, my family's been on a bit of a journey. This is day, you know, by the time this airs, it'll be later on in the trip. But I think we're at day 43 or 44 today. I'm spacing on. It's kind of like what day of the week is it. It seems. some days. But, you know, one of the things that is just benign opening, even though I

biked across the country 20 years ago, is just like how beautiful of a country it is, truly. And I say that in the summer, because in the winter months, it's a different story. But, you know, we touched on the first time you're on, just, we just glazed over it a little bit. And that was the potential that, you know, when you first got into politics, like the potential of this country is insane to me. me, right? Like when we're talking space, when we're talking like natural resources, all the different things, the lakes, the tourism, just on and on it goes, not to mention the proximity of the United States of America, you go like, man, the potential this country is insane. You've been an

MP for a crazy amount of time. I assume I'm saying nothing new to you other than you're inside of what, you know, I think a lot of us think of now as the machine, which is, you know, like How is it possible? You have all this potential and we just continue to squander it. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but I just thought we'd start there. Well, you know, I think at the end of the day, you hit the nail on the head.

I think we have the greatest country in the world. There's no question to me, and you touched on all the reasons why. But, you know, we also got one of the most highly educated citizenry, right, in terms of education. This is a place that everyone wants to come to, natural resources, water. The list goes on and on.

And yet it just seems to me like it's, you know, it's been squandered a little bit. I mean, we have so much potential. I've always said I think we're living under our potential. And what are the reasons for that? You know, is it because we have people that say we need to leave our resources in the ground? The list goes on and on right in terms of some of the stupidity that people seem to want to endure or put up with. And I just say, like, you know, if you get a chance to drive across the country,

you'll understand all those things very clearly why we have this great country. And let's never forget our proximity of the U.S. And you imagine if we were Ukraine and our border was Russia. or we were somewhere else and our border was China. You know what I'm saying? We're so lucky with our geography, and we know that because 75% of our goods go across the border. It's a great relationship. It's an economic superpower.

So strategically we're in a great location. We had a country that people want to come to and want to visit. We don't have to worry about a lot of, you know, major things that a lot of other places in the world have to deal with. Like we don't really have to worry about tsunamis, right, for the most part, right? Those kinds of things. We do have to worry about fires. I mean, forest fires are definitely an issue, but I think if we had a little bit of better fire management,

that would probably solve some of those problems. But once again, you're talking to a lot of the problems we face are human-induced. Our man-made, right? Like, I mean, forest management, I've had enough people on the podcast that talk about it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize if you're not doing active forest management, we're going to have issues.

And then we see those issues. And instead of addressing those issues, you know, And once again, you're the guy who's been in an MP, apologies for over two decades. I just sit on the outside and I'm like, when are we going to get back to common sense? That's why I'm sitting here. I'm like, you know, you're doing some things with the Allison Inquiry,

which we're going to get to that I think people have been waiting for for a long time. And I'm sure they want more. And just like Daniel Smith, they wanted more. I wanted more, I wanted more accountability. but when you talk about, you know, the forest fires in general, it's like, yeah, well, let's just fix the problem. But instead of fixing the problem, we don't seem to want to do that. We want to get into its climate. It's all these things that we cannot control.

And it's just we got to reduce carbon. We got to stop driving places. I was making the joke about MP Miller and the Canadian road trip, the family road trip, and now what am I doing? You know, it seems like we say slogans and do those instead of just going and fixing the problem. You're a business guy, right? Like one of the things that, you know, in your story, if people go back and listen to the first time you're on, you're like, this is a guy who came from business. You know when you have problems in business, you don't go, well, it just is what it is. No, you go fix it.

Otherwise, you don't have a business. Right. And Canada, as a business, we aren't doing that. And I don't know. You sit on the other side of it, you know, very much a part of it or in it, seeing it on the daily. Is there any insight you can give to the not only myself, but. Canadians? Well, you know, conservatives inherently believe that more money should remain with individuals than with government, right? So that's sort of the basic premise. There's other things

there. But we're talking about, you know, how is it that we could have a great life or how is it that we could have a life where we could afford to do stuff? The cost of living is a major issue these days and people are struggling big time and, you know, we're being taxed to death and there's a number studies. I'm not going to refer to those right now. That's for another day. But the reality is, it's common sense, right? We try and live within our means. We speak. spent way too much money. You know, when you think about what we had as a deficit before Trudeau Jr. showed up and basically he spent as much money in his government than every prime minister in the history of the country spent. So then you think, well, that happens and that causes

inflation, right? You know, too many dollars chasing two free goods, right? What are you going to do? Those dollars are going to have to go somewhere. So I think when you look at these things, I mean, common sense to me is reducing taxes so people have more money in their pockets and being able to do more with those things and then reducing the size of government. I, we could probably come up with a list just off the top of her head of bad investments, bad monies being spent, unaccountable money spends, right? You know, spending money in climate finance and other parts of the world and, you know, the big ideology around that.

We're going to tax the weather. We're going to tax the air, right? It sounds ridiculous, but yeah, somehow people actually buy that argument, which is, which is crazy to me. And so if you think about all these things, if we could live within our means and we do a better job, we could reduce taxes for people, then families would have an easier time. How about what's happened in the last couple of years? Look what we've done in terms of immigration.

We had a decent, balanced, both sides, liberals and conservatives over the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years, half a million people a year. And then we went crazy. We're unaccountable. And so look at all these things. We bring people into this country that are actually criminals because they haven't been vetted. So then they're committing more crime, which is making our quality of life worse. Or then we've got to deal with the courts.

You know what I'm saying? It's a vicious circle. And it doesn't seem that difficult to me when you start asking. adding these things that are causing problems, well, how do you saw them? How about by subtracting the very same things you add it? So I think, you know, prior to Trudeau, too, or young Justin, days before, conservatives and liberals, for the most part, were pretty balanced when it came to immigration. That's just one example.

We got crime issues, right? We got housing issues. All these things are done because the leadership didn't bother to take the time to figure out the cause and effect. You know, you invite too many people here, or you end up with too many, people that outstay their welcome or outstay their visa, then they end up on benefit. Like you know what I'm saying?

The list goes on and on. It's very simple to do. We need to go back to what we were doing, you know, like literally 10 years ago and do more of that. I have a question as I drive through Ontario. You guys have the largest population in all of Canada in this province. And yet climate change and carbon and all these different things are talked about.

And I drive your province and I'm like, the one thing that got me was, was, I assume you remember Trudeau talking about, we're going to plant a billion trees, right? All these trees. And then you drive through the province and I'm like, I don't even know where you put the trees. I actually didn't realize how many trees were sitting here. It's incredible, huh? I knew the north because I lived there. When you drive through it, you're like, where are they going to put the trees? How on earth did they convince the population that that was something that needed to be done?

And everywhere you drive, even here, even in Niagara region, you're just like, it's so green, there's so many trees, everything looks healthy. I know there's problems with probably waste management and a few other things that are going on that need to be addressed. But I'm like, how on earth did they convince the population that we need to plant more trees? That's just one of the simple ones that I stare at where in the West I always go on the opposite. We probably like more trees, you know, we had the shop. shelter program and different things like that to help farmers because we're in a land of,

you know, you can just see your dog run away for three miles or five miles or whatever the joke is. And so more trees, you're like, yeah, we could probably use a few more trees. I get in here and I'm like, how on earth did anyone buy that? How did they sell it so convincingly? Or did they? Well, and I think when it comes to the environment, you know, three things we need to make sure we're always doing. We need to clean up our brown fields, right? Anything that's been polluted because of industry.

We need to clean up our water, our great leaks. need to have issues. Acid rain under Moorne, all that kind of stuff. And then the last thing we need to clear is the air. Like smoke and all the pollutants that are put in. Those are the things we need to make sure that we are able to do that stuff. And good forest management, going back to firefighters, going back to forest fires and those kinds of things, people need to understand that you need to have controlled burns.

We have a great logging slash industry, forestry industry. Well, then when you cut down a tree, you plan a new tree. Right. Those programs are in place and good forestry management dictates that you're going to take, you know, if you have a problem with dead and dying and decaying trees, you're going to take the most, you're going to do controlled burns and you can move through that process. But if you're in a logging or forestry situation, when you cut these trees down for pulp, paper, whatever it is you're going to do, timber, you know, two by fours, whatever, then you're going to replant that stuff. That's just taking care of the environment. That's what a real environmental should be looking at is how do we do those things. So if we got issues with our great lakes, if you think about Lake Ontario, which is just, you know,

on the other side here, is actually, I think the smallest great lake. And you probably drove by Lake Superior. Lake Superior is like, like, it seems like it's probably not 10 times of size, but it's at least three or four times the size of Lake Ontario.

And these lakes are amazing. But if they get polluted, that's a problem because this is where our fresh water comes from. So we have a responsibility to make sure that we're taking care of our water, making sure, are taking care of the land and we're taking care of the air. Now taxing the air, I don't know how that helps anybody. Forgive me, a politician giving me

the political, you know, going off in not far off directions, but I just come back. How did they convince the Ontario population? And maybe they didn't. Maybe they had full stop. They just put it through after they were elected and said, we need to plant a billion trees and we need to do all these things because we're helping the environment. Everything you just said

I agree with. I think most Canadians, I would think Ontarioans, I don't, sorry, Ontarians, I don't mean to speak for you, want clean Great Lakes, want clean water, want clean air, want all that. When I even drove through downtown Toronto, I didn't go through going, holy man, this is, so maybe 10 years ago it was. Maybe it was just a rough smelling looking place, but when you drive through it, it's actually, you know, my wife was right downtown, and she was even saying, you know, like I was expecting to see more homeless, and I'm sure they're there.

I know she was expecting to see you know some places and she's like oh that was pretty rough and I'm sure they're there but like overall we're driving through and we're like man this is this is actually quite beautiful and yet there's policies or things that get ideas get put through and is it just liberal the the liberal elected government that goes we need to do these things and actually didn't consult with their elected or electors you know like I mean I think about it and I drive through the And one of the things we heard out West forever and we talked about was all these trees being planted, which never got done. And then I come here and I just don't see it. I'm like, how on earth could you convince people? Like, is it great marketing or did they just do it and not? I think what they do is their, the liberals are great to make an announcement. There's no question about that. Right.

I mean, but they have no clue how to follow through. I think they're the worst executors on, on the planet in terms of they can talk about aspirational goals. Sure. You know, actually follow through, not, nonexistent. Let's look at homes. No different. Two sides of the coin, we're going to build 500,000 homes.

We're all going, we're only building 250 in our best year, maybe 260. And maybe now, if the economy not doing that well and all the challenges we're having with housing, that's 220 or 230, whatever that number is,

how do people believe that they're going to build 500,000 homes a year? When they've never done that in their life, it's no different than planting trees. They talk about a billion trees. Oh, everyone says, that's great, but they've never planted those kind of trees over the course of their lifetime.

And that's, and we could go through policy after policy with these guys on this issue. The only reason I bring up the trees is in Ontario, you know, I just drive the province and have I driven everywhere? No, but I mean, we've been across a good chunk of it. It's like, it's such a strange thing. The houses make sense, right? Everybody goes, look at the prices of houses, look at everything going on.

You do the numbers. You go, yeah, we need more houses, but how are you going to get there? Especially when we, everything you just said, it's like on our best year, maybe we hit 300,000. You're going to save 500,000. Exactly. And then you talk to any builder and they talk about the amount of regulation in order to do things. And they're like, we can't,

even if we wanted to, we can't do that because we've got to jump through all these hoops. Red tape. Right. Red tape, right? And so like... Which is at the municipal level. Has nothing to do with the federal level. The feds can write a check for a billion dollars how they want, but it's a municipality in every part of the country that dictates how quickly homes will get built.

So on the houses then, and the municipalities, I've heard this from a few different people that are elected. Are you pointing to, like, municipalities have way more control than I think the average voter realizes. And if you want to see real change in your areas, getting involved in your municipal elections and that type of thing is, like, of the utmost importance?

Municipal provincial. I mean, all flows down. I mean, the provinces give the direction to the municipalities. But the reality is, is that, you know, how quick you can build homes, or how much they charge for development fees, or how much property taxes are, all flow out of the needs for the municipality, right,

in terms of what they're doing or what they can do or what they can hold up. And so the challenge is, what I find at every level of government is mission creep, right? They get into areas they shouldn't be in, and the federal government should not be in housing. That's not what they do.

They may help with homelessness, which is something different again or affordable housing, etc. But the reality is it's the municipality at the end of the day that creates the ability to get things done. And I think when you start asking the government to do more and private sector to do less,

it's never going to be done as efficiently. It's never going to be done as well. And quite frankly, when government gets involved, they easily screw it up. If we could go back to a simpler time, what should the federal government do then? They do their big things. National defense.

They do revenue. They do immigration, right? they do foreign affairs, right? They do national defense. Like the list goes on, there are things that the government is supposed to. But the big things. The big things, right? The things that involve the whole country, right?

You know, who comes into this country? Okay, the federal government decides who it is in consultation with the province. What do we need for workers, you know, entrepreneurs, all these other kinds of things? Absolutely. You mentioned red tape. I know years ago you were part of the Red Tape Red Tape Red Tape Commission. Now, I don't fully understand. how much was that just looking at ways we could reduce red tape.

Every time I hear reduce red tape, I'm like, I just feel like you should be able to walk in and go, well, that's a bad policy and that's a bad policy. Let's just get rid of these from the federal level. I assume that's not as simple as what I'm making it out to be. But can you give me an insight on that? So it is that simple, but it isn't. You know, the reality is that everything government does

has an unintended consequence, right? legislation we solve, we want to put this in place, and we end up messing something else up. At the end of the day, regulations are like that. You want to look at regulation. You want to consult with industry. You want to consult with the provinces and figure out. What is it that makes sense? Every level of government has got red tape.

As a matter of fact, a red tape commission, in my opinion, should never be one and done. It should be an ongoing process because bureaucracies, you know, bureaucrats love to create regulations. And so I can deal with all the regulations. For example, we had suggested we had a one for one. If you're going to add a reg, you had to take one out. Right. So you couldn't just keep adding these things forever and ever. I would venture to say that every level of government should be looking at this. And this should be a permanent part of their culture where they look at how they can deal with regulations that either don't make sense or outdated or quite frankly they just actually hinder entrepreneurship and growth. On the red tape commission, what were some of the positive zen

that you think it was accomplished? Well, you know, and some of those things may even be undone by now, but I know that we're one of the challenges, let's take CRA. You know, you can call CRA and you can get 10 different people on the phone at 10 different times and maybe get 10 different opinions, right, without them being willing to actually put that stuff in writing. And I think at the time, one of the things we'd ask them to do is make sure those things got put in writing so you could go back and say, it wasn't just, I wasn't just dreaming this up. something that was the case. Like I said, this is something that's got to be ongoing. This is not a

one and done scenario. And I think as we look at, you know, look at, we just talked about municipality. There's so many regulations of red tape around building homes. People are going like, why is it that I can go to the U.S. and a community and I can get a building permit in like, you know, 20 or 30 or 40 days? And here it could take literally months and potentially even years. Those are the kinds of things we've got look at and it's got to be at all levels of government. Are we doing that? No, we're not. No, we're not. So the province here in Ontario has done that. They have done that from time to time. As I say, like, what we do today is great, but, you know, it will continue to creep. I was telling you, regulations just seem to get added over time, right? You know, legislators, what do we do? We make

laws. So when you make laws, do we get rid of other ones or do we change them or do we just keep adding layer on top of layer? And that's, like I said, the laws of unintended consequences, We always got to be mindful of. You know, when you create a law, does it affect something else in the orbit of where we're at? Or is it actually clean and it deals with the issue that we're trying to get at? Here in Niagara West, correct? Correct, yes. You guys are like a stone throw from the U.S. border at all times.

In today's climate, I was curious. You know, like, I was telling this before. I'm married to an American. Anytime we start like bantering on about how evil America is and everything else, I'm just like, you're full stop with me. Like that doesn't make any sense because I go down there quite an often. I have family down there now. But your constituency where you sit is maybe not unique to all constituencies,

but to certainly to a lot. No, it is unique for sure because, you know, and I don't want to preempt here, but there's so many relationships back and forth. Yeah, well, that's what. Family relationships. Yes. families that live across the border that live here. There are spouses.

There are family members, there's mothers, dads, all that kind of stuff that are right across the border. And so, you know, the U.S. is about relationships. So, you know, you can dislike any president at any time for any reason. But the reality is it's the people. It's the people that matter. And, you know, the reality is when we send 75% of our goods across the border, they are our partners in a huge sense.

So to think that you can just say, we don't need these. guys, we don't want these guys, we're not going to do. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. And we, I mean, and even if you wanted to take the stance of like, we want to be able to have a better positioning position at the bargaining table, well, then you have to start doing things right in your own country to put you in that position. Right now, I'm like, 75% I'm like, what are we going to do? Like, you can talk about all the trade deals you want elsewhere in the world. We don't have the infrastructure as far as I understand to do that. We aren't set up. We've been hindering a whole bunch of things. We talk about the regulations around everything. You go,

if you were going to do that to try and turn the U.S. into a bit of a combatant, like, you know what, we're going to be the, you know, the stern guy at the bargaining table, that would take decades of preparing your country in order to do that. Right now, we're not sitting in any position like that from my standpoint. Well, you know, when we were in government, we had a bunch of free trade deals that we got in place. We ended up one with the European Union, right? Huge partner. Once again, Carney has talked about, you know, pivoting a bit to the European Union.

We also had one with the Trans-Pacific partnership, right, dealing with some of the Asian countries as well. So it's something that's been on a radar for some time. We did those trade deals like, you know, 15, 20 years ago. And at the end of the day, we always know we need to do as much as we can to diversify your trade. but our neighbor, I mean, it's like from my office to the U.S. where we're sitting right now is half an hour to 45 minutes away. It's not that far.

So to talk about selling stuff to China or selling stuff to, you know, some place, Brussels. Or oil landing in Japan this week, or I guess last week now, the first, you know, you go, well, that's good and great. But I mean, 75% of what we do and make goes to the United States. Correct. Because of proximity. And we need to do all the above, right? Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah.

It's not that we should never sell anything to Japan or anywhere else. I think at one point, and obviously, you know, years ago after free trade, we were at 85, 90% trade. We've worked it down to 75% but it would take decades. And even at decades, I don't think it's possible because the largest economy in the world just sits 45 minutes away. And why would you want to, will it down to 20%? We want to do that and you want to do more. Yeah, you want to have good trade relations. So is that a, I don't know, I'm, you know, like in different pockets and different conversations I've had.

Some on the podcast, some definitely not. There's a lot of antagonism toward the United States. And at times, rightfully so. We've seen some of the comments from Donald Trump and everything else. But like, realistically, in your area, do people just look at whether it's Doug Ford or former Prime Minister Trudeau? or Carney or anyone else talking about different things with the United States and just shake their head because of your proximity towards it? Or are people in this area like, no, we're not going across the United States

because they've done us wrong? Well, it's all the above, right? If you talk to liberal boomers, they're saying we're never going across us anymore, but they're probably fully pensioned, their houses are paid for, etc., etc. If you talk to businesses in my writing, it's a different story. They do business in the U.S. And every day the U.S. is trying to get them to bring their business across and do business there.

And when there's uncertainty, they start saying, well, if we don't have certainty, we don't have a deal, if it doesn't get done, we may need to look at investing. We already know the stories. You probably even talked about it

on your podcast that there are people that are actually moving their businesses right now. Lots. So that's a challenge because those businesses, especially if they're manufacturing, these are high value, high paying jobs. And that's a problem.

Yes, if you go down the street, half an hour, you're in Niagara Falls, great tourism destination. it's phenomenal. They do a great job, but those are tourism jobs. So great jobs are fine, but the manufacturing jobs pay double that, you know, or considerably more. And it's tough to raise a family in some of these things.

So we have to have a mix of all these jobs. We just can't have tourism jobs or hospitality jobs. We need to have manufacturing jobs. I see a real challenge and a real threat if something doesn't get solved soon and get solved for the long term, that most of these businesses, have been holding on, we'll end up going like the rest of them, which is saying we need certainty or else we're going to have to close our shop. Well, you know how many people being married to an American have asked me on this trip. You're married to an American? I go, yeah. Why are you

still here? I love my country. I love my, I love Alberta. I love, I love Canton. Like, this is, this is home. All my family's here, right? But they're looking at it from what the business side of it is. It's like, yeah, but look at the freedoms you gain. Look at what. I mean, they've got their problems for sure. But, like, you know, you can go to some of the states and your tax burden just drops crazy. You think of the weather is the further you go south. You know, the opportunity for just the population there

and how, you know, goods and services, the amount of people you're servicing, right? There's a whole bunch of things, not to mention the regulations in certain states are just way, ridiculously way less than what it is here. They're offering people to come down and pay no taxes. certain places are offering to throw money at them to help them build facilities, depending on where you are looking,

what state will vary on the incentives. But I have talked to manufacturers all the time. They said this is what, you know, they're offering us tax-free, property taxes for like five years. I think it probably goes without saying, but conservatives,

I feel like, would be talking to the business community. One thing, and I don't know if you know. We are talking to them. We want them to stay, exactly. Right.

Well, and I don't know if you can answer this question, but do the liberal side, of government. Do they do that? Like, do they hear the complaints coming from businesses going, like, what are you guys doing? Are they? Well, if they're having a conversation, they're certainly not listening because I, there's not a business person I've talked to that does trade with the USA. If I'm a Canadian business that relies on the Canadian market, probably not affected me. It may affect them in terms of their cost of goods, right? Well, for sure it is. Yes. But I'll tell you,

if you got a business that exports to the U.S., you are concerned. You are very concerned. And, And if liberals are not listening to that, then I've got to wonder, why are they playing these kind of games? Is it for political reasons? I'm being facetious now. No, no, no. But why are they doing this? You've been an MP for 21 years. 22 years. 22 years. Apologies. Over the 22 years, I just assume, and you don't have to have any names, that you have

friends or colleagues on the other side of the floor from you. When you bring up these things, do they go, oh, yeah, you're absolutely right? Or are they just like, ah, you're worrying about nothing, D? Well, I think that, for starters, I'll just say that things changed when Trudeau got into power. Things became more divisive. So, you know, COVID also caused, you know, divisive. Yeah. So we ended up not spending this much time.

You get to meet people from across the aisle if you're traveling on committee, etc. You know, we were doing stuff by Zoom, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that the reality is that there will be there. There'll be people that agree to these things. but they'll be said privately, not publicly, right? And we're also remember where you're coming from. There's a lot more, I call them radical climate extremist in that party, you know, the Giebos of the world, which don't care about business at all,

that are more ideologically bent. So they don't have any appreciation for business. So, you know, where's your perspective from? I'm a business person. So I think in terms of jobs, creating jobs, regulations, red tape, all those kind of things. But if you show up after you've spent a couple degrees on climate and the environment and you don't know anything about business, there's a disconnect, is what I'm trying to say. I think you're experienced where you were before. You know, we have a, we're a party that

has lots of farmers, right? So they understand some of those things. I don't understand farming, but I have lots of farms and I talk to them. So if you don't come from that kind of appreciation, I mean, let's be honest, the liberal party, for the most part is a party of cities, not as much rural, and that they will win where they win when they do that. But we had this opportunity to talk to people that actually produce goods and services and all these other kinds of things. So you always get a different perspective. So I think the challenge is the kind of type of people

they attract that may be lack that. I'm not saying there's no business people over there. There is, and they're awesome people. But I think the reality is you'll end up showing up and being, you'll know what you know and what you've always known as opposed to how do you create jobs? How do you create wealth?

How do you employ people? Like how do you take risks? that's something that not every member of parliament understands because of what they did before they got here. Yeah, I've had lots of off-air conversations with Canadians as we go on this trip, right? And they don't know who I am and it's perfect because I just get to, you know, I just get to ask questions.

And I've ran into NDP, I've ran into Liberal. And, you know, I think when I ask, just, surface level questions and you just kind of start digging in a little all of them are concerned about the same thing conservatives are concerned about and yet they feel almost powerless to change any of it which is surprising to me because of well I mean like when we come together there's a huge possibility to change things across the board that's why I ask about not specific names of MPs on the other side, just the conversations, because I'm always curious, like, at some point they have to be looking at things, or is it just such an isolated place that they just aren't impacted, especially

if they're not having the conversations, but what they're doing to people, right? Everybody cries about the cost of living and everything, but this has been going on now for years, and it's only getting worse, and then they create the enemy out of the United States, and any rational person and just sticks back and goes, is this going to make us like things in Canada better or worse moving forward? All you got to do is go listen to a few different people. Even contemplate it yourself, you know, it's only going to make it worse. It's not going to make things better.

And that's just a very simple thing of cost of living or standard of living. Like those things, and I wonder, you know, with liberal MPs, man, I should try my best when I'm in Ottawa to see if I can't get one. Just come on and have a lot. conversation, whether or not they'd do it. I don't know, Dean. You'd probably know better than I. It's just wondering all the conversations when your colleagues are sitting there, they don't, I just wonder if there's more and more of them starting to wonder like, what is going on here? After 10 years of all the ideologies playing out, if they just don't get it and don't realize

some of the harm they're causing on the Canadian people. Well, like I said, you know, one of the things I appreciate to appear so much is how much he's talking to people all the time. Like he's out there pound on the pavement and if you go to any one of his stops, you'll find people waiting an hour or two potentially to meet them. Sure. So he talks to people. And the reality is that what we experience in Ottawa is not the real world. What we experience in our riding talking to farmers on the street,

as you said, talking to real people is what matters. I think sometimes MPs, I'm not saying everybody, I'm not saying the case get caught up with what's going on in Ottawa versus what's going on in reality. Sure. And that's one thing we've always got to be careful of is that when people stop to forget what people are struggling with or what they're dealing with, we've lost the narrative. And I think that's that's the challenge right now is sometimes people think that because they're in Ottawa and the Ottawa discussion, whatever it is. Sure.

You know, choose your topic is actually the thing when that's not actually what we're hearing at the doors or on the ground. And I think once again, I think Pierre does an amazing job of meeting people talking to people. You understand. It's like, you know, what we did better with the youth vote in the last election. Part of that was talking to young people that are struggling to figure out how am I ever going to own a home. I'm still in my parents' basement. I can't find a job. Well, that's not, that's not making stuff up.

That's a reality. Stats prove that out. But if you were talking to people on the ground, you'd also find that out. Well, and I would also position to young people. You have feet, go where the opportunities are. Because, like, out west in Alberta and Saskatchew, There's opportunity there. And cost of living, yeah, it's still a kick in the nuts.

Pardon enough. But like there is, you know, human beings got to stop being victims. Canadians need to stop being victims. We can't rely. This is myself saying, you know, like we just can't rely on MPs and elected officials to governor lives. As soon as we do that, we've already lost. So if you're complaining about cost of living or no jobs, there are jobs.

I mean, I come from a place where if you're competent, you show up on time, you will have a very good paying job. And so all you've got to do is go where the work is. And that has been true for a long time, longer than me. And I think this victim mentality that's seeped into our society needs to end. That's not an easy thing to say or an easy switch to flip. But if we're going to criticize the government, some of it has to come on us as human beings, as individuals. to just rectify our situations. I mean, I know you've got a beautiful area here,

but if there's no work and you're living on, I don't know, Pogi in a summertime job, you can find different things where there is work. I was just in the northern part of your province, Knorr area, and I got asking a bunch of people around Lake of the Woods. They're like, oh, tons of work up here,

but nobody wants to come here, which is crazy to me because Lake of the Woods, I know the winters, folks would be brutal. I flipped there. Yeah. But the area is surreal. And if there's work and they're saying that, some of the everyday folk have to rectify their own situations

and not wait for government to step in and do it as well. Well, if you think of the oil sales, for example, and how that's, you know, anyone that's been willing to travel there has done very well. And, you know, there are literally plain loads of people that are coming from the east. Yes. From all over Canada, quite frankly. And if you think about that, you know, talking to people in the East Coast that are working maybe in those two weeks in two weeks in. I don't know what the rotation is.

You go in and then your work hard. And these guys have brand new pickup trucks in their driveway and they're doing well. And so that they've made a conscious decision to say we need to move provinces to where the work is. And I think, you know, that's the interesting part of our country is mobility is not super easy. You know, it's possible. but at the end of the day you think of how many people have done very well because of working in the resource sector in Alberta.

There's lots of Canadians that have done very well. Yes. And they still need people. And they still need people. We're short everywhere on competent people. People that, you know, my dad and two brothers are in a trucking company where I'm from. And they're always looking for people

that just want to show up to work. Sure. I mean, that's not a, I'm not talking about being a, a rocket scientist, I'm talking about show up to work and do your job. That's in short supply, you know, because there is opportunity. There's opportunity there. Now, I've pulled you into my economic theory.

Economic discussion, I should say, because I'm just curious, because you lived here, you were a businessman, you live so close to the U.S. I just like, I just got, you know, my curiosity on your thoughts on it. The Allison Inquiry, September 8th to 11th. You know, the first time we talked, we talked a lot about that. It's coming quick. And, you know, you had Dr. Charles Hoff on one of your press conferences. And I've known loosely, Dr. Charles, for some time.

Got to meet him way back now. And very credible, in my opinion, very sound mind, brilliant guy. And just, you know, says his convictions. He gets on stage and he's not mince and words. You're meeting with him or the press. conference, the lead up to this, just your thoughts on the Allison inquiry that is set to go once again September 8th to 11th. Your thoughts for the people. So I think, you know, we sort of chatted before how difficult it is to actually raise this whole topic, right? People have been injured.

And the last few years, as people felt, I'm not actually welcome to talk about this stuff. You know, it's hard. And so the reality is if you're injured and you feel like you're alone and you can't chat about these things, how do you, how do you get help? How do you, how do you reach? out and figure out that, you know, there's, the community is not a bad place to be. You can talk to someone else that's dealt with something. Maybe they've been able to figure it out or get treatment, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, I think the primary focus of our inquiry, and there could be, we could do so much more.

We could talk about lockdowns. Kids, kids left out of school that fell through the cracks. Over 100,000. Well, business. 125,000 kids exited the education system. I've got a guy named Irwin student who's a phenomenal PhD, smart guy that documented this stuff. It happened all around the world. So there's a ton of things we could talk about.

But as a member of Parlo, what I do is I talk to people every day. People come into my office and they look to me to get help for a variety of programs. So I've heard these stories. I heard these stories going through COVID for people that didn't want to take the vaccine. I've heard this story from people that were injured after the fact. We want to get people permission to tell those stories because if we don't give people permission, none of the healing can start. The second thing we wanted to do is make sure that people get access to the program.

Once again, it's been documented. Research has been on and say like $55 million, like $25 million, like two-thirds went to overhead. We've got to do a better job. They realize it because they actually pulled it back, right? And now they're trying to revamp the program. I would suggest to them two things. They need to increase the funds by a considerable amount of money and make it easier for people to access.

Where Dr. Hoff comes in is that he talked about how difficult it is to actually recognize people's injured. Like during his press conference, he said, listen, I got 14 people. that I've, he works in a small First Nations community, has over 1,100 patients. He's had these patients for like 20, 30 years. He knows these people intimately. And so these people came in, they were fine. And then they took the vaccine and there was an injury. And he documented it.

And then they sent it back and said, we don't accept that. Well, how do people get help or how do they get compensation? If you're censoring your doctors, you're not allowing them to see what they know. I think he would know his patients, right? His guy that's been in his community for like 20, 30 years. So these are the challenges that we have had, and I think it's important to be able to converse about these things because there's no way we can change any of these things

if we don't have a conversation. I see an increasing amount of censorship in this country, and it concerns me, which means that if topics are difficult or topics are taboo or we're not allowed to talk with this, and you know this, because you've been talking about this stuff forever, and you've told me stories about how some of your stuff was censored. So we have to keep pushing back. We need freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly,

all these other kinds of things. But if we start saying what people can talk about or not talk about, we're in trouble in this country. And I feel like that's the direction we're heading in. Every piece of legislation, not every piece, but at least a dozen pieces of legislation that has come out since COVID, have had increasing amounts of censorship attached to it. Yes.

Right? Think about it. You can't share the news on Facebook. Well, people are on Facebook. Where do they get their news? You know, oh, we'll make sure you can only get it from the mainstream. Once again, I go, like, in the, when you're sitting around with other politicians, not conservatives, because I'm assuming conservatives speak and think relatively like you do, in saying that, I feel like, Dean, you're in a small group of conservatives who, I think have like this thing called backbone, where you're willing to do the Allison inquiry. And I'm like, I can just imagine the amount of people that have text called, whatever, and, and say, what are you doing?

and I assume the opposite is true where there's been tons of people applauding this journey. But like, when you go down the road of, what do the other side doing? What are they thinking about? And do they care? Or they just live in the bubble in Ottawa. They just don't think the real world exists.

Or they don't care what the real world or do they look down on part of the population? I don't know. They dismiss. They dismiss. Right? And that's the worst thing. people have told me they feel abandoned.

Guess what? If you create a culture in this country where you can't talk about certain things, if people don't talk about them, then all of a sudden, how do you fix the problem? You can't fix it because no one's having the conversation. So if I'm a doctor and I think you were injured and I can't write you were injured,

well, how do you get healing? Like, how do you start the process to heal and get treatment if that's not the case? And so what we've heard in talking to a bunch of doctors is that absolutely doctors have been censored across this country. And they take one or two people, and you've probably talked about them on your show,

and they threaten, they suspend their licenses, they do whatever, and that sends a chill amongst the rest of the community. And so you think other doctors are going to say, I don't think I want to do that because look what happened to Sally or Crystal or Bob. Or Charles. Or Charles, right?

He was one of the early ones. So that's the challenge, right? And I think, you know, once again, as members of par of my job is to listen. and then it's to advocate on behalf of that. So even the government admits that people were injured, 60,000 people injured, right? You know, 11,000 seriously.

I think the number's more because I just gave you the story about doctors weren't even allowed to do it. Charles figures he's got at least 36 people. He stopped trying to fill out the forms because they kept getting rejected. One, and I'm just, I know I probably am now with the podcast in a different sense. but I just talk to everyday people.

And talking to everyday people, I know the number is way higher because I run in these stories all the time. And then the thing is, is the censorship, the vilification, everything. People don't want to talk about it because they don't think anyone will believe them or hear them out or all the different things.

And sitting where I sit, obviously that's not true because that's what I do as I sit and I listen to people and talk to people from not only in Canada, but elsewhere. And you realize it's way higher than that. But for five years, it's been looked at, dismissive. I think that's a good...

Abandonment, right? And so let's just say it's the government's numbers, right? I mean... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's what the government... That's their numbers. From where I sit, that's the government's numbers, which we know means it's worse. 60,000, 11,000 serious, 3,500 in the program, 3,000 accepted, 252. 0.4 of a percent got compensation that were injured.

Once again, their numbers. We're not even talking about... I talked to some friends and I think I was injured by... but, you know, whatever. I'm not even talking about those people. I'm talking about people that we have. And once again, John, the difference is if you're talking to people in your community, you're going to find these things out.

But if you say, I don't want to hear it, is someone going to come up and talk to you? If you're not approachable, if you are dismissive, if you think they're nuts, that's the difference, right? You know, if you want to, if you want, it's like the boss saying, hey, I have an open door policy. Come on in and see me. But every time you show up, you're yelling at him. and you're giving them a hard time. No one's coming to talk to you anymore.

That's what I think the culture has been created in this country. It's so many issues. But certainly not at the very least it's been COVID. And people that have been injured with vaccines from COVID. How many people, I don't know if you know this or not, but with the Allison inquiry, how many people are set to testify? Yeah, how many people? Yeah, so we had over a thousand, over a thousand.

Think about that. Over a thousand people reached out to the website in the last couple months. Also, we had a bunch of people said, hey, I was injured, but I don't want to, I don't want to speak publicly. That's totally cool. We get that. And we are probably going to have around 50. It's going to be 55, whatever the case may be, because we can't have everybody. Right?

So for that perspective. But if you think about it, over a thousand people reached out to us and said, I want to tell my story. And then if I look at some of the posts I've made on social media through Facebook or extra stuff, there's also people on there telling me their stories. They're sad stories. I'm telling you right now, I should start printing out a list of these stories. It's just like I was reading them the other night and I was choked up. I was like, I'm like, I'm dying listening to these stories thinking about how people's lives have been affected in such a way.

And then for a government to say we have no responsibility when we know for a fact most people, some people actually had a chance to, you know, they wanted to take it. That's theirs. They wanted to do their part, but there's also a whole bunch of people that said, I can't work, I can't travel, I can't see grandma if I don't. And so those are the other people that, you know, we're talking about and we're dealing with as well, right? Well, I think it's laughable for a government. I'm talking about the liberal government to say they had no part when they wouldn't let you leave the country. They wouldn't let you get on planes, trains, automobiles, pretty much,

unless a certain thing. And then they waited for all of society to adopt it, and they just kept pushing it. And they kept saying this thing. Safe and effective, safe and effective, safe and effective, safe and effective. It got to ridiculous levels when it only took a guy with a mic and others, I might add, to go and talk to everyday people and realize it wasn't safe and effective. And all those stories got censored and got pushed away and got removed from different platforms and pushed out of it and demonized and everything else.

it's my dislike a government and the current one to be particular is at an all-time high and I try not to I don't really dwell on it because you know I'm traveling with my family and there's lots of good days you know absolutely lots of fun memories are awesome yeah it is but when you see the rhetoric come out of out of the current government it's just my biggest concern as we go forward is going to be censorship ongoing censorship of thoughts, people's, platforms, et cetera, et cetera, like I said. So how does the everyday person help with that? Well, and the problem with everyday people is that they don't always pay attention to the Medusa. I mean, before I was in politics, I didn't really pay attention what was going on.

People are trying to earn a living. I get it. They're taking their kids to sports. They're busy. They don't have time for that. And then there's also this notion. Yeah, but then I step back in and I'm going to say, yeah, but you have time to go to every sporting event under the sun. you know, you know, Connor McDavid's goal total, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm harping on sports people, but it goes into every aspect. We need. But that's my point. We need to be engaged. That's exactly my point. You've got to make a conscious decision to get involved. Conscious decision to understand. It doesn't mean you have to go knocking on doors or you got to put your name in your ballot.

But maybe you should. You should, well, I would encourage people to get involved, but at the very least you've got to understand the issues. And when any party, conservative or liberal, tells you this is what the thought process is, it's your duty as a citizen to look in and say, are they telling the truth? Like, you need to ask the questions. You need to do your homework. You need to look at all sides of the issue.

And it's not good enough just to say, well, they told me this. I will just accept that. And I think that's important. I would tell people, getting involved really means getting educated. Like that's the most simple basic step you can do is people say, I don't know, you know, what layer governments what, I don't know who looks at.

You know, you think about it. you know, people don't know what a municipal government does or provincial or even federal. Those are the basic, you know, civics 101. I'm experiment one or whatever, call me whatever you want. But like five years ago, I didn't either. Right. And I just, I think we're...

And that's why I got involved in politics. Same thing. I'm past the point of going, well, they're busy and everything else. Because we make time for what matters. Correct. And we always look at the United States. Why are we so different than? Why are the Canadian voters so apathetic?

I have to stop saying, oh, it's okay, you're busy. We're all busy. And we have to take a little portion of our time to do the things that make life what it is. And if we don't, then we're going to get more of the same. Absolutely. And being educated on what's going on is of vital importance. If you don't want to be censored across the board in the near future, you need an educated populace. Well, how do you do that?

Well, I mean, in my role, I can certainly. try and help. Sure. But I'm certainly trying to educate myself more. I remember when Daniel Smith got elected the leader of the UCP, but she wasn't a sitting MLA. I'm like, how is that even possible? Exactly.

And then I went and talked to people who knew more about it. And then you learned, oh, so when Carney came in and did the same thing, I'm like, oh, no, that can totally happen. Right. I mean, you just need to, but so many people were caught off guard by that and outraged about it when it's just part of what happens. It's part of how the system works. People make assumption how the system works, they don't really know.

And me being, you know, coming from a hockey background and love loving hockey and loving, loving the sport. I'm like, when I put my mind to it, politics is very much similar to it. It obviously isn't identical, but it's similar. You have, I hate to say it, but teams, because people get so bought into the teams, but they need to educate themselves.

And once you do, you start to learn the rules are, I'll be a different, Dean, but when you're looking at the NHL, for instance, there's rules in place there, and we all know them. You know, that's what can. You know, the NHL has a draft. We have an election, right? There's a whole bunch of similarities, right?

Yes, there is. Why they work. You know, you've got one team that will believe this and do this, it'll be their philosophy. I always tell people, even when I go in schools, talk about politics. I said, you need to figure out where you stand on a bunch of issues, and then you need to go find out who supports those issues.

Like, I mean, there's a challenge, you know, if I believe in bigger government, and the government's right, and the government knows everything, you know, what am I going to do? I can keep saying, you need to understand the way the system works, generally, but you would probably be a liberal or maybe you'd be an NDP.

And if you believe in free markets and entrepreneurship, and like you said, if I need a job, I'm moving, I believe in personal responsibility. Well, then I'd probably be a conservative. So I always tell people, you've got to understand that. But at the same token, if you're, you know, making money, I was talking to my daughter the other day.

And probably a couple years ago, and we were talking about taxes and stuff. It's like she's working for the first time. And they're saying, how come they take all this money? I'm thinking, well, you know, I had the same thought when I first started working. It's still you start paying taxes. You don't know how it works. And then you have kids in a whole bunch of new things enter your world because now you have

to decide for somebody else what they're going to see and do and how they're going to interact and expenses and all the different things that come into it, what you're putting in their bodies in their minds, right? Like, you know, that's a responsibility that if you don't have kids, then you'd never know it. And so, like, different life events happen that are going to change the way we look at things. And by the way, no one minds paying their share taxes. We all understand that we need to, but it's when we feel like we're excessively taxed. And they're not doing a good job with our money that we should pay attention.

Well, I think that's what happens. You know, how much should we be taxed? And then when you see the money that is being blown everywhere, you're like, what is going on? And you just bring up the vaccine injured thing. It's like, so we spent 50 some million? Okay. You know what? Okay.

But then you go two thirds of it was spent. on... Administration. Right, on nobody that was hurt. Yeah, there's a... Big disconnect there, but huge disconnect. Or some nefarious people. You know, I was saying,

I hope to run into Blacklocks report, you know, Tom Korski, because he's always taught me follow the money. It'll tell the story and what this government is telling a story. Absolutely.

Now, I've been asking everybody, as a young kid, I watch a Quebec referendum from afar, the other side of the country, essentially. Alberta has it, I know you sit in a unique spot, so I don't mean to pull you into the discussion. Just more, I'm curious what Canadians think about what's about to happen in Alberta on October 19th. Any thoughts on Alberta and its referendum coming up, the independence question or separatism, if you prefer?

Yeah, listen, first of all, I believe we're a lot stronger Canada with Alberta there. Sure. But I also think that Alberta has been ignored in a bunch of fronts. You know, we could talk about representation, you know, constitutionally in terms of, of seats, population growth, et cetera, et cetera. We can talk about the whole equalization formula, right, at the end of the day. So there's a couple fundamental questions that Albertans have been asking, that quite frankly, they've been ignored for too long.

When Alberta says, hey, listen, we write a big check. Could we sit down and have a conversation about this? And the federal government says, go away, just keep writing your checks. I can understand why there be some frustration. So I think what's important is that when people are feeling like that. like they're not being heard or they're being ignored, your first step is probably sit down and listen to what they're saying. And I don't think the federal government's done a great job with that in this particular issue.

Well, it's just another front of, you mentioned it with a bunch of different examples when they're not listening to the people, not listening, and people feel unheard. I can tell you, Albertans feel like nobody cares. And so one of the things I was curious about going across Canada is, I'm like, I wonder if people care what's going on in Alberta right now. I know you don't speak for everybody in your constituency, but is it even a conversation topic? Do people bring it up?

Do people stare at what's happening in Western Canada and worry about it? Yeah, I think like most other issues, there will be people that are engaged in politics and understand. And most people that don't know who picks up their garbage. That's unfortunately. I mean, it's particularly important to me because I have lots of friends and family in Alberta, and I really want Alberta to be part of this, you know,

Confederation. I add so much value, right? It's not just because you write big checks. It's because of the way you guys think, the way you guys are, and how unique you are. You're much better as part of our country. Are people frustrated? I do also know that because I talk to friends and family from Alberta that are totally frustrated. I completely understand that.

But, man, I would hate to see you guys go anywhere. We would want you to stay strong in Canada. But it would also be nice if the federal government would spend a little bit more time listening to some of your concerns. The legitimate concerns that need to be aired, And I think it would not take a lot. And maybe I'm being naive because you guys have been ignored on so many fronts for so long. It wouldn't take much, I would hope, if people started listening. It's not just listening.

You have to do something about it. Yeah, you got to do something about it. But the very, very first step is like, you know, we need to do it. The third thing I didn't mention is getting your resources to market, right? So I talked about, you know, seats in terms of representation. I talked about payments that are, you know, transfer payments. The last thing is getting your resources to market. The fact that you guys are landlocked and have an issue around that.

and the federal government seems to control all these things. So they have. Well, why wouldn't you be frustrated? Because we're actually hampering the ability of Alberta to do a great job, not only for Alberta's sake, for the rest of the country. It's always funny for me now because under Trudeau,

they said there was no business case when all these countries came. How many countries came? And now a dozen countries came looking for natural gas. And now we're all like, well, we've got to get away from the U.S. And you're like, what are we doing? Like, we could have open up a whole bunch of new markets. All these countries looking for LNG. All these countries.

countries. There's no business case. And now people are looking at what happened in Russia and what's going, like it's insane to me that we wouldn't take what we've been gifted. We've been naturally gifted all these natural resources that we wouldn't, as we have responsibly developed them.

It blows my mind. On a family road trip, right, for the year and interviewing people as we go, I've been asking pretty much everybody, I think, do you have a favorite road trip, whether it's, you know, in your later life, early life, um, or camping story, certainly you come from very unique, you know, like we took the kids on Made of the Mist on the American side, um, but took them into, to the falls and, you know, just to watch them,

you know, like, this is it when it's first starting and they're all annoyed and then it's start, you know, and then you get, oh, where's everything? And then they get into the, the falls. And they, you know, they were dancing and everything else. It was just really cool. You come from a part of the world that has, you know, something that's so unique, but maybe you have a different camping story or road trip story that sticks out to you.

Yeah, so two come to mind. So my parents are from the East Coast, Nova Scotia and Nebraska. So every other summer, we would drive out east. So we drive usually through Canada on the way out there and we drive to the U.S. on the way back. And I've got to tell you,

it was the greatest experience of my life to be able to go out there. We would go through Quebec, we'd see what's going, like, you know, all the way through, and then we'd be out on the East Coast. Great memories, awesome memories my whole life. The other time was I had a chance to drive back with my father-in-law from B.C. All the way back. So I got a chance to drive across the country, which I always said I wanted to do once.

By the way, John, I think once is enough to drive from B.C. to Ontario. Because, you know, when I finally got to the Ontario border, you know, I didn't tell you. Lake of the Woods back here is a long drive. So I would say those two, I would encourage anyone and everyone to try and cross the country at least once. Like I said, I haven't driven to. Oh, that's a different idea than the Lerprose. Well, yeah, I know exactly. But I mean, like I said, I remember, you know, my head and uncle lived in PEI.

He's down in Alberta. I remember getting on his place, getting a ferry and driving to my home, you know, in London or Oakville or wherever I was at the time. Literally in one day. I mean, it's like 14, 15, 15 hours straight through. BC is not straight through. But I encourage everybody to drive across this country. We've got an amazing country. What I have not done is drive a car and take a ferry over to Newfoundland.

Of course, I've been to Newfoundland. But I would encourage everybody to cross this country at least once. I think it's incredible. I mean, it's a commitment to drive from BC. You've done, BC to Ontario is a long drive. The trip out east is much easier to do. Thanks for doing this, Dean. Appreciate you.

Let me come and grill you a little bit. And just to meet you in person, I've been saying this almost every episode, or I think pretty much every episode. It's cool to just meet people in person. Doing it through the screen, what technology today offers is amazing. But the human connection, getting to sit across from you, even be in your office, just appreciate you sitting down and doing this. Well, listen, I welcome you all the best.

Encourage you as you continue your traveling journey, you're going to have some great family memories. And I look forward to hearing about them. Thanks, Dean. Thank you.