Shaun Newman Podcast - #1117 - Franco Terrazzano

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. A University of Calgary economics and public policy graduate, he previously worked with the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Constitution Foundation. He advocates for lower taxes, reduced waste, and more accountable government, and is the author of Axing the Tax.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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I'm talking about Franco Tarasano. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Franco Tarzano. So, sir, thanks for having me in your broom closet. People can't see it, but I certainly can. I always enjoy a good broom closet.

Unbeknownst to you, this is bigger than the first studio I ever had. So good things come from small places. Hey, I like it. It's all we need, man. Right. Good company, good chat. I think it's going to be fun. And hey, thanks for having me back on the show.

Last time we chatted, I think, was when I came to Lloyd, right? so now I'm pumped that you get to come in Ottawa. You got to you and Chris were in that studio in Lloyd. And I was just saying to you before we started, like the next time you're back, then you'll get to actually see the new new studio, which, you know, it's had, I'm sure you guys are similar, right? Like you kind of go through waves.

You go, is this thing going to work? Are we going to do this? Yeah, we are going to do this. And then you start doing it. You're like, we should probably do something a little better. Yeah. So then you do something a little better. And then you realize there's a whole bunch of kinks in that.

So then you, okay, let's rarely actually do it. So I don't know. It's always cool to see inside other people's places and see where they're at in the stages of like, are we doing this? Are we not doing this? You know, I know for a lot of people following everything,

money in Canada, Franco, Chris. I keep bringing up Blacklocks reporter with you as well. I mean, there's just lots of good people doing good things. Now, before we get 200, I see the Teddy Awards, right? Yep.

Actually, Teddy Award Ontario? Wait a second. Is there a Teddy Awards for each province? For each, well, no, no, no. So what we do is there's like four categories. You have a municipal one. You have a provincial one. You have a federal one.

Then within each category, you have some nominees, right? So like Ontario could be a nominee, even though they don't win. Saskatchewan, Alberta, same thing. And then we have our most prestigious award, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Waste. And now, as a politician or a bureaucrat, you really got to go above and beyond and blowing other people's money to win that lifetime achievement award. But this year was the social sciences and humanities research council. You probably have never heard of this fund, but it's about the same cost of the CBC every year.

And it just funds like the most, some of the most craziest research ever, right? Like the government spent through this fund 100 grand studying the birth, life and death of a grocery card, spent thousands of bucks studying gender identities of online Harry Potter fan communities. Like such a waste of money, right? growing up Harry Potter nerds aren't getting laid. So I don't know why we're letting thousands of dollars into that. Thousands of dollars on the gender politics of Peruvian rock music. I mean, it just goes on and on and on.

And they've been wasting money like crazy for years. So that's why they got the lifetime achievement pig this year. Well, okay, to your bosses, because I mean, I don't know how much. I'm going to assume you have some pull. Next year, I want, I want, I want to present a Teddy waste water. Teddy, I can't even spit it out right now because I'm like, I've been telling Chris this for several years. I just want to present one. Me and twos want to present one.

We just want to get up. We'll say whatever you want us to say. We want to present a Teddy award. Okay, let's keep chatting about this because, I mean, a little offline, but we're always kind of looking for ways to make it better. Like, let me take you behind the scenes. So we've been doing the Teddies now for, well, more than what, 20 years? I don't remember the example But yeah, it's been like more than 20 years

So when I first started out Because I've been with the CTF, I think Is it coming on nine years now? It's been a while. Time goes by when you're having fun. Yeah, time goes by. So when I first started, it was more of like a media event, right?

You would do this press conference And you'd then do a ton of media afterwards, ton of radio, talk to print guys, TV, obviously. That's how it kind of was. But I don't know if you've been noticing but we've turned it into a different model now. So now we're starting to do like live events, which are kind of like a comedy show,

which is a ton of fun. It's like an hour. And we turn into a bit of a comedy show. And we still do press conferences attached with it, but like the main event is this comedy show. And it's becoming a lot of fun. This year we had another comedian on stage with me. Quick Dick.

It's unreal. It's hilarious. So we're always looking. We're very happy for Quick Dick. I'm very happy for Quick Dick. A little jealous. But I'm a little bit. jealous. But in fairness? In fairness. Well, in fairness, because like I, you know, along this

trip, I got to interview, you were asking different people I'd interview. Yeah. I didn't interview Quick Dick, but I went to his family farm and interviewed his dad, right? Big mustache out. So I got a ton of time for Quick Dick. And I've watched his stand-up routine. Actually, I've seen the different iterations of it now. He's, it's an obvious choice, right? I'm not that guy. Everybody knows I'm not that guy. I just want to present an award. That's all I want. I just want to walk up. I want to be like, you politicians suck. And this is, here's, here's what you get for lifetime achievement of sucking, or however you guys want me to say it. Something like that.

Yeah. Like, to me, it just, I was saying before we got going, like, oh, my audience is fantastic. We engage a lot. There's a lot of people that get involved in their communities and everything else. It's just, you know, Tews and I, when we started the mashup, we wanted something that was fun. It doesn't mean that some of the topics are fun because they certainly are not. We have to find a way to engage Canadians. again because it's just there's so many that are they've tuned out they think they don't have the time

whatever it is well what are they actually saying this there's nothing there that engages them and so we've done something to try and at least have some fun with it some people don't like twos for that but that's what twos does and what it does is it engages people back into what matters there's stuff going on in our country and the teddys are another wonderful way of doing that and that's exactly why we do stuff like the teddy's right we have some other stuff that we do as well like we have massive debt clock because like look one of the most there's so much going on right now and and i don't want to just say like oh it's just taxes or debt but it's pretty huge right you worried about inflation well what's a cause of inflation money printing to finance massive deficits

massive borrowing from governments okay so this is pretty important but you know i i just understand that people are so busy with their lives right if you have kids i mean you're just busy getting them to school, you know, get them to soccer, hockey, baseball, whatever. Even if you don't have kids, like a lot of people my age, although some of my friends are starting to have kids now, and it's pretty awesome to see them kind of change their role. But I mean, you're just trying to make ends meet, trying to save up for a home. You get a home.

Then you got to renovate the home. You got to fix it up. So people are busy, right? And I can understand why some people, you know, they're just like, oh, tax is debt. It's important, but I don't want to pay attention. And that's why we do stuff like the Teddy's. That's why we do stuff like the debt clock, this massive truck with a digital. digital display showing the deck going up in real time, right? Because you have to make it engaging,

right? You have to. You have to come at it with a little, you know, a sense of humor, a sense of mockery, show people the emperor has no clothes. Like that's, that's the reason that we do stuff like the Teddies. That's the reason that we have these like mascots, whether it's Porky, the Waste Hater or we have, we have Fibber as well, right? Whenever politicians lie about something on the campaign, for example, we bring out Fibber. So it's a good time. It's engaging. and it's, we're always looking for ways to just, you know, show people in an entertaining and engaging way how they're getting soaked and what they can do to fight back. You know, with now over 1,100 podcasts recorded, that's not even to add in the mashups,

folks. I get asked a lot, you know, what have you learned, who's your best guess, all these different, like, little questions. I'm curious, nine years with the Canadian Taxpayers Foundation, Federation Foundation, looking at government waste, right? Watching this machine do what this machine has done. And over the last nine years, they have not been dull. Have you, like, what's some of the takeaways, you know, for Canadians that you sit and go, like, listen, folks, here's like two or three things I've learned over the last nine years.

Yeah, okay. So I just did the math in my head. I started in September 2018 and what we're coming up on September 2026. So I guess that's actually eight years. my bad. Okay, eight years. In the comments, just, Franco, you can't do math. Okay, man, I wish I had some more time to think about this because that's actually something I should sit down and think about over my career. The first one is I just love meeting people. You know, like, because you do events, right? And we do events as well, maybe not on the scale of like, I love the one

that you did in Calgary. Cornerstone. That was unreal, right? So, I don't want to pretend like I've done an event to that scale, like just ourselves, even though we have done some pretty big ones. But, man, sometimes it's, sometimes you kind of get down, right, because you just feel like you're banging your head against the wall. And then you go to these events and you just meet people and like you just remember why you're doing it, right? You're at least the way I think about it, like just fighting for people who work so hard

and the government's taken so much from them, making it so much harder for them to get ahead. And when they come to events, when they, you know, shake, shake our hands, meet us, you just be so appreciative. It's like, man, this is why we do it for people, right? And, you know, I think the biggest thing that I might have learned over my course here at the CTF eight years, because, like, I did have a little small career before, right? Like, I worked at a couple other places before as like a career, but, like, really I've come

to age with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, right? I probably, I mean, yeah, it's been eight years. It's been the bulk of my career. but when I came here, you know, everything was kind of more, you know, policy or, or, you know, the theory of taxation, blah, blah, blah. But then you realize, like, no, man, it's about the people. It's about just trying to help people save more of their money to keep it away from these politicians and bureaucrats who are soaking people and blowing it on some ridiculous stuff. And you're just there trying to help people. And, you know, let me tell you a personal story, one that I think about a lot now, um, is,

my mom, right? And I think she's probably been one of the most important people in my life, like raising, you know, myself, my brother, my sister, both of them are younger than I am. And like sometimes she's had a pretty big struggle with some of it. And, you know, she finally has a home and stuff like that. And the thought of the government putting its grubby paws on like my mom's home, you know, because they've been flirting with this home equity tax, BS, that drives me insane. drives me nuts. So anyways, long-witted answer, but I think one of them is

that this really is about people and people first, and it's just awesome to meet our supporters. When you first came in to the into the job, right? You started, like, I just think back to when I first started podcasting, and then when I started to enter into politics,

naive is probably an understatement, right? And then you're kind of learning by trial by fire and you know okay that didn't okay that doesn't make sense okay and you just keep going when you when you started talking about like the government is fleecing you they're they're trying to take everything you have wake up although you get to meet a ton of the people right and and you're like it's it's you know like there are wonderful people they listen to the show they follow you they they get involved in your communities and on and on were you surprised how hard it's been or maybe it hasn't been hard i don't know i just assume it has

to try and break through some echo chambers or some people who just turned off and they're just not interested, even though they're the ones getting fleeced too. You're like, you know, you just just pay attention a little bit. Like, this is, there's some things going on here. Yeah. Okay. So I'm glad you kind of segueed into this because in my head when you, when you ask me like, what's my biggest takeaway? I wasn't sure whether to give the answer that I gave or to give this answer. And this answer, it's, it's crazy how things seem like they're not happening until they do.

Okay? And let me just give you, because I mean, this was probably the fight that I've been involved with the most. This is why I talk about it was the carbon tax, right? And last time we chatted, I think it just released our book about the carbon tax. You had. Right? So, but think about it this way, okay? You looked at 2025 and you looked to the unraveling of the carbon tax.

There was that Atlantic Canada carve out under Trudeau. You even had liberal MPs speaking out against the carbon tax. Remember after a while? Of course, Mr. Polyev, he was doing a lot to rail against the carbon tax. So, you know, from the outside, around 2025, it would have seemed like the carbon tax was always destined to fail. But that wasn't the case. Man, we've been fighting it for more than 10 years. And if you go back 10 years ago, there are only two organizations, formal organizations that I can think of in Canada that were aggressively fighting carbon taxes.

Okay. One was the wall government in Saskatchewan, and the other was the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. But you had provinces bringing in their own carbon taxes. I mean, dude, look back to 2021 election when the Conservative Party under Aaron O'Toole ran on a carbon tax. Right? So like I remember when I first came, I remember when I first came to Ottawa. I went out for lunch or for dinner with a couple friends. One of them was, you know, not in politics, but his job was around politics.

And he was, like, conservative, right? And I remember him telling me, like, hey, man, like, you know, you're doing a great job, but come on, the carbon tax, you can't be fighting the carbon tax. And that was only a couple years before it was gone, right? If you were to tell me that a liberal prime minister was going to end the carbon tax that the liberals had bragged about in charge for years, I would have thought you're crazy. but you can kind of see how just like for so long you feel like am I getting anywhere and then all of a sudden you realize man yeah the fight the fight worked does that does that kind of make sense yeah well I think it's a bit of a no no no I think it's a good

reminder for folks too when you're you're pushing for things or uh you know and it can feel like you're going nowhere it's funny you every once in a while you should just take a look back on how far we've come and realize we are making some progress may not be all the progress because you know and because while there's multiple fronts going on on different things, that's, yeah, I absolutely remember when you're coming through with your book. And we were joking that it might be obsolete by the time, you know, because of how much things had changed, right? Like, I mean, pretty crazy how, you're right.

It can feel like nothing's going on, and then all of a sudden lots of things go on real fast. But that's the thing about politics is always frustrated me. Everything is so slow moving until it isn't. And that is politics, right? We've seen lots of things move really. fast. And yet the machine itself wants things to move really slow, especially on changes that seem just so evident. Like we need to get rid of that. Also usually like whenever you hear a government

announce anything, you know, one thing I like to say is like who benefits, right? When a government announces anything, you know, who benefits, follow the money. That's another reason why I believe like the CTA, like the taxpayers federation and looking at taxing and spending is so important. because whenever there is any government announcement, any government policy, you have to ask who benefits. Okay, so that explains partially why things move so slow in government. Because if something is brought in, there's interest who benefit from that thing that is brought in and is currently in play. Right. So that's another reason why some things move so slow is because people are benefiting from the status quo. So under Kearney, you know, like, you know, for most of your career, it was Trudeau.

And, you know, like his policies, where the money was going, all the time. things, you know, you spend a lot of time. Now you've gotten, what are we coming up on? I suppose we're coming up on almost two years, though. It's over a year. Yeah, it's well over a year of Mark Carney. Who's been benefiting from his direction? Okay, yeah. So in some respects, there's been a little bit of difference from Trudeau, like some tweaks around the margins, right? So look, I mean, Carney canceled the consumer carbon tax. I mean, we've been fighting that for years. Now, Carney didn't end all carbon taxes, right?

He still has this fuel regulations that are in place that Trudeau brought in and that are increasing every year. And then he's got this industrial carbon tax, right? That's been all over the news. I know in Alberta, that's been a big part of like the MOU. It's only on like 50 companies, though. It's not a big deal. Well, it is a big deal, right? Especially if you work for one of those companies who could just take their business to the U.S.

it is a big deal right you look at oil and gas you look at fertilizer you look at steel it's it's a huge deal because you just go just south of the border are they charging carbon taxes no if there's a democrat in the white house are they charging carbon taxes no so it is a huge deal right um but so again so he cancels the consumer carbon tax which is something we've been pushing for but then he is cranking up the industrial carbon tax you have this fuel regulations okay he cut the he cut the what the lowest income tax rate by a percentage point, 15 to 14. Okay, income tax relief is better than no income tax relief, but I mean, for some people who are paying higher payroll taxes this year, it's almost a wash. Okay? There's been some sales tax relief on homes. So look, he's cut

a little bit of taxes some places. I mean, industrial carbon tax still a problem. Payroll tax is still a huge problem. But then on the spending and the debt, I mean, You look at projections from Trudeau area for these years, and Carney's borrowing more than Trudeau projected to over these same number of years. So, I mean, the debt is a huge issue. It's a huge issue that politicians don't want to talk about, because then that means they actually have to cut spending. They have to go toe to toe to with union bosses.

And look, they can be rewarded for being honest with people and cutting spending. Look at what happened in the mid-90s. Look at what happened in Alberta with Ralph Klein. Remember 2004 holding up the sign paid in full? Well, that was years following hard work and some tough fights. If you don't have the tough fight and you keep going down this road of growing the debt, where do we go, Franco? Oh, I think you got to ask former Saskatchewan, well, I just think you got to ask the former Saskatchewan NDP government.

What happens? Okay, so this is, and, you know, Paul Martin, when he was finance minister in 95, like he even said this in his budget speech is like, look, deficit and debt, it's not an invention of ideology. They're facts of arithmetic. Okay. The more you borrow, especially if interest rates tick up, the more money that you're wasted on interest payments, right?

It just, just more and more, bigger and bigger hole in your budget. And eventually, eventually you don't get to make the decision as a politician. Eventually those decisions are forced on you, right, where it just becomes so expensive to keep borrowing, guess what has to happen? Well, talk to the Saskatchewan NDP government, which shows you that like the biggest threat to government program isn't ideology, it's not the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, it's the interest on the debt.

So Saskatchewan in the mid-90s, or in the early 90s as well, I guess, for years before then, they'd just been borrowing and borrowing and borrowing like crazy. Okay, things came to an head when you had then the NDP government in Saskatchewan, what do they do? Close down dozens of hospitals across the province.

like do you think the NDP wanted to do that? No, they were forced to. Like so, and this is what I say, like eventually like you think your politicians are going to even have like the opportunity to make a choice? No, eventually the math just doesn't math anymore.

And they're forced to make some pretty huge spending cuts. Can't get around it. If you were, uh, while you are talking to the everyday person and you, like, you go, okay, we got to keep pushing for government to, um, to stop spending.

Don't print the money. Like, let's get, like, obviously that's what Franco is going to sit in that chair and do. Now, right now, as the government continues to do the opposite,

to the everyday person, do you have any advice on, on some, on some things you could be doing? Like for just anyone who's just like, they've got like their normal nine to five or, or whatever, and they're not involved in politics and stuff like that.

Well, I mean, obviously they can, you know, Chris would sit here and say, you can write emails. You can make phone calls. You can push on them.

I go, okay, yep, like check, let's get involved politically. You know, I'm just a guy who, you know, one of the things that I like about people who can look at dark times and see not only the darkness, but opportunity. It's like, oh, yeah, well, don't get me wrong. If they're going to keep doing this, this is going to happen over here. But on the flip side, you could be doing this on the other side and be living life. in a better way. I don't know if that makes sense. Well, look, I wouldn't dismiss Chris's advice.

So Chris has had the pretty fun career, right? Like, we think of her as a CTF Alberta director, but she's had a pretty awesome career, man. Like, we're pretty lucky to have her. I mean, first of all, the CTF, in my opinion, is a great organization and I love working here, but I just mean she's a great person and she has unreal experience, right?

where she's been on like all angles of this fight. Now she's at the CTF, you know, an advocacy organization, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, but beforehand she worked, she was like a decom for a minister before, or maybe even during that she was in a media. Most days I'm pretty sure she laughs at me because I'm sure she sees the youthful exuberance

and then goes, yeah, but you're missing this part. Because her career speaks for itself. And it spans, what I'm trying to say, it spans so many different areas of the, political world. Yes. Right? So she's kind of seen it

from all different angles. So the first thing I would say to you is like don't dismiss what Chris is saying. And I can tell you just firsthand so I'm not going to give away any like private meetings that have had with people

because private meetings are private meetings but I can tell you firsthand like I know that staffers, politicians when they are feeling the heat on something when people are reaching out to them when people are giving them an earful. Look, politicians, what's their number one job?

To get elected? Get elected. Once they're elected, what's their number one job? To get elected. To get elected. Okay. In a democracy, to get elected, can they go against the wishes of the people in their constituency? No. Not on hot-button issues, right? You don't believe me. And let me just go back to the carbon tax again, because not that we have to hammer the carbon tax, but even it just shows you how electoral change can happen, right? So Ken McDonald, a liberal MP from Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't know if he's still, I don't know what. happened in the last election, but before the last election, when it was still Trudeau, okay, he was the one who had the conviction because he, I guarantee you, now I don't know for sure,

but why do you think he went on even CBC? Why do you think he voted, um, to, you know, against the carbon tax in the house? Because I can guarantee you he was getting an earful from everyone in his constituency. Okay, so in a democracy, if everyone in your constituency is like, hey, you keep charging me at carbon tax, you're going to be out on your butt. What do you think you do? right so don't underestimate the power that people have when they get engaged and when they give members of parliament in earful okay so caucus meetings a lot of time caucus meetings for the different parties will happen on a Wednesday right or let's just say whatever day of the week it doesn't matter okay if all weekend they've been getting emails they've been getting their ear chewed off these MPs go into the caucus meeting and they tell the leader what what they've been hearing right so all I'm saying is don't dismiss the advice that Chris gives Because even though you can't, and she always says it this way, it's like a duck, right?

On the pond, it looks, you know, just like it's floating around. But underneath the surface, what are the feet doing? They're going crazy. Right? So just because you don't see anything above the surface, it doesn't mean that your pressure isn't working. And in fact, I know when they're getting emails on all these kind of things, when their phones going off, ringing off the hook, they feel the heat. And eventually, if they want to get reelected, they can't just keep going against the will of their constituent.

yeah well i i think of i think of um politicians or that class for human beings and i know how i get when people start reaching out to me and blast me with and like how many people need to do that not that many right so if it's a couple hundred and actually and actually and if i'm being honest with with like let's say somebody's doing something great you should interview this person i get those all the time and all it takes is like i've had dates is where the same text with the same, not the identical thought, it's not like it was copy and pasted, about the same person comes through in about five different ways. And I'm like, it makes me stand out, makes me take notice and go, who the heck is this person, the five different people

that don't know each other have all texted me about? Now, politics is going to be a little different. I don't think five coming in is probably shaking the, uh, the hornet's nest just enough. But you're right, a hundred come in. You at least pay attention. You're like what the heck. I think a lot of people through COVID were upset by politicians because there were hundreds and hundreds go through. And what MLAs told me in my area was you think hundreds and hundreds from one side, there were hundreds and hundreds from the other side. It was such a contentious issue that they were getting hammered from both sides. Whether that's exactly on the up and up, I don't know. But regardless, Chris's advice is sage wisdom.

I mean, she comes on and every time I ask, she says the same thing. and you go, it's kind of like people in prepping. I remember I've told the story lots, but I had a preper on, and I was thinking he was going to tell me to dig a bunker, right? And I was bracing for it right now. Okay. You know, what are you got to do?

You got a bunker? This is why. And he goes, you got booster cables? And I was so deflated. I was like, booster? Booster cables? Yeah, I got booster cables. You know how to use them?

Why even ask? He's like, you know how many people don't know how to use booster cables? And if you get into like a bit of a bit of a little, a jam, that's going to be, you know, you can't start your car. I'm like, okay, fair enough. And I tell you what, driving on the road for 50 some days, I wish I had just a little bit more mechanical knowledge, but I'm working on it because we've had things break down. And Chris, you go back to, how do you change the world? You know, you want to, it's like, well, we need to get the savior elected. You just need to probably talk to your MLA and really harass them and get your friends to harass them and go

join a board and harass that board and make the change that you want to see is probably what you're coming back to that is or i mean uh jordan peterson dr peterson uh make your own bed keep talking right i'm i have i have a gift for i'm i'm curious okay so i'm getting a gift i don't know what it is uh i'm excited the anticipation well i'm curious i you know what's funny i might have given you guys one of these when you were in lloyd But a guy who stares at money and inflation and all the things, right? I go... Oh, yeah.

So in Lloyd, if you come to the studio, you get a one ounce silver coin, right? Silver gold bull. And I was thinking, I only got so many of them to give out on the road trip. Right? So I can't give them out to every person because normally it's whenever somebody comes in person, which doesn't happen every interview, so I don't have to worry about it. But on the road trip, every person, like, I've only done one virtual since I left. That's cool, man.

Oh, it's been super fun. But I'm like, okay, I'm sitting here and I'm like, I got to give Franco a coin. I got to give him a coin because you stare at the money. And one of the things since I started giving out silver coins, and I've told Daniel Smith this a lot. When you first became a premier, I gave her one. And I went back and listened, and it was roughly $42 at the time. Yeah.

But when I first started buying, even just trace amounts of silver, it was like $28 an ounce. Now, it got as high at the start of this year. year is $150 an ounce. I'm talking Canadian. Sorry to the American listeners. Now it's dropped back down to $80-some dollars.

And there's a whole bunch of things with silver compared to gold, and I get it. But you look at what you're talking about with where the country's heading unless they do some serious things. Your thoughts on precious metals. Because I assume, you know, you've looked into these things. So first of all, thank this.

I appreciate it, man. I really do. I get like you're on the road so only some people get it. Yeah, I just want to say thanks. I mean, my thoughts on precious metals, so I don't know, like I'm not an investment advisor. And, you know, I'm not an investment advisor. I just want to let people know, right? So just because, you know, we're at the CTF, we talk a lot about government spending

and taxes and debt and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I'm personally a huge fan of precious metals, right? I also understood that, you know, I mean, look, we're so far away from a gold standard or anything like that. I'm not even advocacy. I'm just saying like those types of standards when they were in place were a way to constrain government spending and borrowing, right? The hard asset. But yeah, no, I mean, I'm a huge fan of precious metals. You know, I huge fan of that.

I'm just also a huge fan. personally in my own life and I'm just always trying to do better is like you okay remember how we're saying you're talking to this prepper right and he's talking about like how well like do you just have cables right right like for me the way I think about my own situation is like the most important thing before I even think about investing like where I should put my money the most important thing is that I actually save money right so for me the most important thing is that I just don't consume more than I make so that I could just save money first, right? Like, and then, then I kind of start to think of like, what do I do with my different

money? But at least for me personally, like, um, okay, like one of the books that really changed my mind and I read this like 10 years ago, I think it's, is it the richest man in Babylon? Yeah. And it's just like, it's so simple. So you know what I'm saying? It's so simple. That is a, I thought it was going to be a dumb book. No, it's unreal. It's unreal and it's so simple. I just read it on the beach. I was on vacation like years ago. Save a penny. Yeah. And then buy another goat and then you get some more goats and you, you, you, you, you know, you know, and you can sell more and then you can buy more. And it's like, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Yeah, and that's just how I think about my own personal finances. I can't believe you've read Richest Man of Babel. Of course, yeah, yeah. And so, like, at least personally, I'm just like, hey, like, the first thing you have to do is you just have to make sure you're saving money. You can't be consuming all your wealth. You've got to pay yourself first. And I think that was the lesson from that book.

That's, yeah, that's super cool. I thought the first thing you were going to say, the first thing you're going to do is you got to pay down your debt. I thought for sure that's what you're going to say. I mean, to pay down your debt, you have to not consume more than you may. So along the road trip, Mel and I, we've had lots of different chats. It's been super cool. And one of the, you know, we play this game.

It's called The And. And once again, maybe too many personal details, folks. But regardless, the end is just a card game. It's a card starter game. I bought up for our anniversary a few years back. And then it was it was geared towards like couples dating. and the cards didn't really, you know, you had to be careful on something. And you're like, why would you ever ask somebody that?

And then I found that they made a new one for longer, basically married people that have been together for a long time. And one of the things we were talking about happiest moments in our relationship. Of course, kids and getting married and different little things like that. But one of them that came up was paying off loans. Just getting out of debt and how proud we were of like we were, okay, this is a problem. How are we going to get there? Yeah. And then taking, it's not going to happen.

overnight because we don't make billions of dollars right it's like okay well here's what we're gonna do over the next five years and we're gonna get out of this and and you like work together like as a as a couple right yes yeah so cool it was it was um it was once again maybe a be careful i don't give it too many i don't know if i care it was her student loans right and once we were married that becomes my debt too in my eyes right so we looked at it and well how are we going to get out of this we're going to take our time and we're we're going to pay it off this way. And, you know, and there's little things like that you can see,

if we just get to here, then that becomes, you know, an ease. Part of the reason the year-long trip is possible, we rented our house for a year. And so we don't have that. We don't have these giant loans out for everything. We just, we don't believe in that. We, we, it's why I stare at the government, Frank. I'm like, why are they doing this? This is so ass backwards.

Yeah. And, and then you go with the precious metals. The reason why I'm like, Like, I'm going to give Franco a coin. You appreciate, like, we just need to start doing financially smart things. In my mind, I don't know if precious metals ever go to the moon, right? There's lots of guys who say they're going to... I don't know either.

They're going to go 50 times up. I go, I don't know. I do know if government keeps spending money and printing money and everything else, they have no choice but to go off. And it's also real. Yeah, it is. It's like a tangible thing. And that's why it was money for so long, right?

because it's, you know, when money was, I mean, one of the things is that you're, it's actually backed by something. Okay. And okay, so let's talk about, because we've been talking about our own personal stuff. Sure. And that's cool. And to be honest, I'm in this part of my life now where, you know, work is still so important to me just because I believe in it. Obviously, like, I think. Okay.

Well, so then if you were to say to the Canadian audience specifically, but I mean, there's listeners all over place. Yeah. Today, as you're sitting here, what are some of the things the government has just done that you're like, you've got to know about, like they just spent this on this. No, but the first thing you have to know, folks, like for the Canadian audience of 100%, but even like around the world,

the Canadian federal government in 10 years doubled the entire national debt. What? Okay, so, you know, but 100 plus years, the Canadian government adds $600 billion of debt. Now, for the American audience,

just understand our population is way less than you, so you might hear $600 billion a debt, Franco, blah, blah, blah. I get it. Canada's just a much smaller country. Okay, so over the 100 plus years that Canada was a nation, our federal government adds $600 billion a debt. In just 10 years' time, under Trudeau, another $600 billion a debt.

Okay? So in just 10 years time, the federal government doubled the entire debt in 10 years. Okay? So your kids, your grandkids, great-grandkids are essentially going to be making payments on that debt for the rest of their lives unless something changes. Okay. But not just that. Look, okay, so we have a federal sales tax here in Canada.

Every single dollar that a Canadian pays in federal sales tax. So you're in the checkout line, blah, blah, blah, you're going to go pay. You have this huge sales tax bill. Every single dollar you pay in federal sales tax is going to pay interest on the debt. Every single one. Okay. That's how much of a problem that we're in. Maybe I can break it down.

Maybe I can break it down even a little bit more for people. Imagine this. So the government is essentially taking $1,400 from every Canadian this year, and that money is going to pay interest on the debt. Okay, so, you know, let's say you have a family of four. Okay, that's like what, more than five grand taken from your family this year just to pay interest on the debt. So the number one thing that, like, look, the government,

our federal government waste money like crazy. I know in the U.S., like Doge was like this, like it kind of was big at the beginning of the Trump administration. They were pointing to all this like crazy examples of waste. folks, the Canadian government like, okay, let me give you some examples 8,800 bucks on a sex toy show in Germany, right? The title of the show was

like, whose jizz is this? Don't get mad at me. This is the government spending the money. Another crazy one, they spend, what, 12 grand so seniors in other countries can talk about their sex lives in front of live audiences? Huh? Outsourcing old people sex stories is what the government of Canada is doing. Look, we just caught an unelected senator

because in Canada, senators are unelected. Okay, so they represent nobody but themselves. Well, the Speaker of the Senate, Ramon Gagne, her and her entourage in what three years since she's been in that role, spent 900 grand on international trips. An unelected senator, right? One trip to Japan to make a courtesy call to their foreign minister cost taxpayer six figures. How about you pick up the phone? Okay. So that's the Senate.

Okay. The National Capital Commission, which essentially Canada's Parks and Rec Board on steroids, spent $8 million dollars building a barn. on Rito Hall, the Governor General's estate. $8 million building a barn. Okay? Governor General, former Governor General Mary Simon, spent what? $70,000 on limo services in Iceland

during like a four-day trip. The main hotel was a 10-minute walk away from the conference center. Or how about Prime Minister Mark Carney, who routinely bills taxpayers tens of thousands, if not six figures, on airplane food when him and his entourage travel abroad. Okay, there was one trip where they took to Italy. Him and his entourage dropped like 93,000 bucks on airplane food.

The year before, Trudeau, famous for spending like crazy, spent about $40,000 on airplane food. Okay, so Carney spent twice as much as Trudeau on airplane food to about the same destination one year apart. So the guy who keeps promising to spend less, just spend more money than the guy who's famous for spending far too much. So I can go on and on and on about the crazy ways of taxpayers' money. here in Canada. But the single biggest waste of taxpayers money is the interest on the debt. The single biggest. The single biggest. Okay. And now interest on the debt is, is costing taxpayers more than what the federal government takes through its sales tax in a year or, for example, what it sends to the provinces and health care transfers. You know what I love doing,

winding Franco up and hearing about how ridiculous our country is, right? Like I mean... So when I say you're getting soaked, you're getting soaked. And let me just add one other part because it's the flip side, right? So why does it matter that the government's spending like crazy? Well, a couple reasons. Number one, what's the inflation tax. And what you saw during the pandemic was the inflation tax, right? In the heart of the pandemic, you have the central bank, the bank of Canada, print hundreds of billions of dollars right out of thin air, drop it into an economy that was going through revolving lockdowns. Okay? Literally hundreds of billions in the heart of the pandemic. Okay, so look, you have the central bank printing up new dollars at a thin air. What can't you print up out of

thin air. Well, you can't print farmland at a thin air. Can't print gasoline out of thin air. Can't print a silver coin at a thin air. No, you can't. And this is what I was talking about before. Okay, so you have the central bank essentially printing up money what looks like the finance auto was massive deficits, drop it into an economy that was going around, that was going through revolving lockdowns. So the government created the perfect storm for inflation, too many dollars chasing two few goods. and that is why you saw massive amounts of inflation. Okay? I mean, look, you can have different types of regulations.

You can have different types of shortages that affect relative prices, right? You have a shortage here. That might explain why a price goes up over there. But the steady drumbeat of higher prices throughout an economy, when does it happen? When the money gets crazy, the inflation tax, the money printing. Okay? So that's one reason. Number two on the flip side, we're now in a point in Canada.

And especially for the Canadian audience, I don't know if, like, the Americans understand, like, how bad the housing crisis is here in Canada. But your Canadian audience gets it, especially if you live in Toronto, you live in Vancouver or something like that. But even as expensive as housing is, it's still not the single biggest expense for the average cane family. It's not housing. It's not the home somebody lives in. It's not the food they eat. It's not the clothes they buy. the single biggest expense for the average Canadian families, the taxes that they pay to all levels of government,

whereas more than 42% of the average family's budget goes to taxes. Right. So essentially, take your paycheck, rip it in half, one half's the tax man. And why is your tax burden so high? Because they're blowing your money like crazy. And this is what just fires me up. It's not their money. Right?

So they either don't nor they don't care how hard people work for the money they earn and the taxes they pay. I was going to say the housing crisis. you'd point to Toronto and other large centers. I come from Lloyd Minster, and you're starting to see it there, right? It's happening all across Canada where housing is going apocalyptic, like the prices.

It doesn't mean there isn't ways to get around it and do the smart things and everything, sure, but it is starting to go everywhere. But you're here, you know, like the biggest, like I'm sure there's some people listed this that aren't from Canada and are going, how much you pay in taxes? It's like a lot.

It's a lot. you know like but we're told we got free health care we're told we get all this free stuff and you go free just look at your paycheck none of it's free is being it's being spent very unwisely or poorly or or right i take your your choice of words i'm sure people have some stronger words than uh than i have franco uh any final words before uh we let you out of here no man just want to say i appreciate you hey thanks for having me having me on i just always enjoy our conversation thanks for the uh the silver coin that's pretty cool folks like the only maybe i'll just end on this like you're paying too much tax because they're

blowing way too much your money and it's your money okay don't forget that thanks franko for doing this and for everyone listening what we do now or what we've been doing on the road trip is we're going to keep franco for 10 quick questions which will be over on substack so if you're interested in that head over to substack we got some bonus questions some fun ones hopefully for franco and we'll see you there