Shaun Newman Podcast - #1129 - Garrett Melee

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Garrett Melee is an entrepreneur based in Newfoundland and Labrador who works behind the scenes on national civil-liberties projects. In 2023 he was social media manager for the National Citizens Inquiry, helping grow the inquiry and bring it to more Canadians. He’s a generalist whose involvement is shaped by humanitarian travel and a mix of business, communications, and community work. Those experiences are why he keeps showing up for different projects and organizations.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​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] Nor’East Apothecary - USE promo code SNP for 15% off your orderhttps://thepowerofplants.ca/Get your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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I'm talking about Garrett Malay. So buckle up. Here we go. So welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Garrett Malie. Aif, thanks for doing this. Thank you. Shout to Chess for giving us a spot.

People may recognize the set. I think this might be a first along the road where I've done two interviews in the same spot. Pretty incredible for 70 days on the road that I haven't had a spot where I just set up and record the same thing. Yeah. So we've been having a little bit of audio issues, right?

probably more just a new tech and trying to figure it out. I have done an interview without turning on a mic, without turning on the cameras, without all the stupid. I've done all the stupid things, Gare. And at the end, you're like,

like, why, why? How do you recover from it? Well, you put it on your pass the next day. You get up and you go, okay, don't make that mistake again. And, you know, like,

if I, I don't know about you, but if I stalked, every time I made a mistake, I would be back at like episode one. Right. You know? And that's just not like the nature of this is you're going to make mistakes. And you're like when you tell you new technology out, there's going to be mistakes because you don't get it.

Like I don't even like, oh, okay. Didn't notice that, you know? So anyways, that being said, Garrett, first time ever on the podcast. Tell not only myself. I got so many questions. But tell me a little bit about yourself. I don't know, long and short, you might as well go a little bit in your background, because I'm going to assume most people don't know who you are.

There's going to be certain people that definitely know who you are. Yeah, yeah. But that's going to be probably more of the guest of the show than the audience in, if I understand my facts correctly. So just tell us a little about yourself. Yeah, fair enough. So I was born here in St. Toronto, in Newfoundland. I grew up in Moncton, New Brunswick, came back here for university.

After I graduated from university, I actually took off, left Canada for about a year. So I got a job with an Australian charity, basically being a student recruiter, traveling around the world and recruiting volunteers to go volunteer abroad on different conservation programs and village development programs in developing countries. Came back to Canada, so I literally went from, I was living in Cambodia at the time, and I went from living in the jungle. working with elephants to coming back here and getting an office job in front of a culture shock oh a reverse culture shock for sure yeah that's what i mean yeah but it was definitely

yeah so coming back to canada i mean you know the cambodian people in general they're just such a unique culture right like they've been through a lot um in in recent history and then seeing the forgive me yeah when you say they've been through a lot like the Khmer Rouge um you know they're they're political system and I'm not even going to pretend I know where to begin with their political system but you can just tell that it's a it's a poor nation how long you spent in cambodia like you mentioned you were gone for a year abroad yeah but then you brought up Australia yeah so did you go to Australia first and then Cambodia no so I traveled around North America in Europe so recruiting you know people to go volunteer abroad and then I got the opportunity to actually be a volunteer

her lead in Cambodia. So I moved over there for about, was there about five and a half months. Okay. And then I ended up in Australia and then came back here. Okay. So Cambodia. You drop into Cambodia. Yeah. Walk me through. Like, you know, we were saying, I was sitting here with Chess and his wife, Lois, and she was talking about, you know, you got to go here and you got to go here. And you can't just come in for a few days. You got to spend time in Newfoundland to like really absorb everything that's going on. I'm like you're probably right. I'm not going to sit here and argue with you. That's probably true of Alberta, Manitoba, anywhere, is that you need to really sink yourself in. Five and a half months in Cambodia,

I would, I mean, are you going to be a guy who knows every in and out? No. But at the same time, you would start to see some things and start to be absorbed into a bit of their culture and different things like that. So walk me through Cambodia. Yeah, so landed in in CM Reap, which is the second largest city in Cambodia. I want to say there's maybe two million, three million people there. Beautiful place, though, like the people really make it what it is. It's just such a light spirit to a lot of them, despite, you know, the, I would say the challenges they've been through over the recent history, as I mentioned earlier.

But I think there's a lot of opportunity there. It almost feels like it's a bit of a blank slate in the sense where they don't have the same kind of regulations that we have here in Canada, like building a home, for example. Right? You can build whatever kind of home that you want. You can put up a cardboard box with a roof. You don't have to get six permits? You don't have to get six. You don't have to get any permits.

You want to build there? We build there. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then, you know, so it was half my time in the city. helping build houses for families that were experiencing poverty or that it may have lost a home or maybe the husband was a breadwinner and had passed away for whatever reason essentially.

So it was really to help lift people out of poverty. And then the other half at the time I was on an elephant sanctuary. I can't remember the name of the area, but it was remote. It was like three hours outside the city. Basically living in the jungle, working with rehabilitated elephants that were rescued from the illegal logging industry or the tourism industry. And so I spent half my time there, you know, building different huts for them, harvesting their food, bathing them, that kind of stuff.

Pretty cool. It was pretty cool. Actually, that's where I got my first tattoo. And what did you get tattooed? So it's this here, a friend of mine who I was traveling with for a little while. She's a graphic designer. So she actually designed this for me. It didn't really have a meaning until after I'd gotten it.

and so when I was in Cambodia, my grandmother had actually passed away. And obviously, I couldn't come back here to Newfoundland, you know, for the funeral. And it was five days before Christmas that she had passed away. So in honor of her, I decided I would get my first tattoo while I was there. I feel really stupid for that. But when you say I obviously couldn't come back, why couldn't you come back from Cambodia? Yeah, so a little bit of the nature of the work that I was doing. Also, the fact that it would have taken me two and a half days to get back.

The funeral, like the funeral would have already happened. by the time you get back. Right. And I would have had to gotten on a plane basically the same day that I landed and head back because I also had work obligations that I had to do over there. So you come back, so you do a year abroad, you come back to Newfoundland, been here for how many years then since that trip? 10 years now.

10 years? Yeah. Okay. As of now, yeah. And what have you been doing for the last 10 years in Newfoundland? Yeah, so I ended up getting a job at the university here. I was a recruiter for the university. trying to get students to obviously enroll.

So very on brand with what I was doing prior with the charity. And then in 2019, going into 2020, I saw that the university, they released an MBA program. It was specialized in social enterprise, sorry, social enterprise and entrepreneurship. And I was really interested in the entrepreneurship side. So I decided I would apply to that and then COVID hit. but the the whole application process it went through it got accepted and ended up on you know

we're sorry end up in essentially what we called the COVID cohort so it was all online no remote but yeah all those fun things all those fun things yeah um I don't we've been touring around St. John's and we've driven by the university a couple of them I assume it's a pretty good university like yeah Like what is its big claim to fame? Is there a big claim to fame on Newfoundland? I'm sure there is. And, you know, I should know this after working there and speaking about the university so much. You know, we have a good medical school, nursing, engineering, things like that.

The business school was pretty great as well. I was saying in my kids today as there we go, we were driving by, I'm like, you know, you decided to come here someday. You know, if you choose to go that path, and your mom wouldn't mind coming out to me. the East Coast every once in a while, right? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I can just imagine me 18. I'll be like, Mom, Dad, you're not coming here.

I'm getting away from you. And then, of course, you go to a place that, Mom and Dad, I mean, I've, I've really enjoyed Newfoundland. And I mean, the short period of time here. Yeah. You know, it hasn't been that long, but it's a beautiful place. I can imagine winters here are a little interesting.

They can be, for sure. You know, you're probably used to Alberta over. If it's snowing, you get real snow. It's just, it's white, fluffy, stays on the, the ground possibly. Okay and what do you get here? Just a slushy mess most of the time. Yeah, I mean, you know, being, you know, on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it does somewhat moderate our temperatures. But when it snows, it could snow and rain and then be freezing rain and go back to snow. So we get a slushy mess here. Oh. Yeah, gray slushy mess. So then winter is like cold or

not that bad? I mean, obviously it's cold. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, What you're talking about sounds awful. Right. Right? Like it would cut right through the bone. Yes. The wind helps to do that for sure. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Generally temperature-wise, like you're going to hover around minus five to plus five. And that could happen all in the run of one day. But yeah, it's just gray, cold because of the wind and the wind chills. And yeah. So you get tied into one of the, I don't know, probably. should be standard reading of anyone in Canada, if not the world. And that is the National Citizens Inquiry, right? I've interviewed, you know, like it's funny, like I interviewed Chess

and I'm like, I don't even know if I asked him about the National Citizens Inquiry. I think it came up. Right. But like, you know, like Sean Buckley, Ken Drysdale, I'm spacing on about 17 other names. You know, obviously Dr. Laura Braden. But like just I go through what they did and I got the, I was telling Trace, I got the book in the studio, right? Like, pretty important piece of work in Canadian history. Absolutely. Documenting and going through and capturing that all. We got the Allison Inquiry would have just wrapped up folks at the time of recording this.

And, I mean, like, that's an important step as well to hopefully, like, shake loose whatever apathy from society. I don't have this. I don't know if I'm that optimistic that it's all of a sudden. sudden going to break loose a ton specifically in Canada. Yeah. But it still is important to see it happen at our, you know, with our government. How on earth do you get, you know, a recruiter who, you know, went to Cambodia and other places, recruiting people came back, started working at a university.

And then, you know, starts taking an MBA, COVID hits, you're doing it remote, all of a sudden you're part of the National Citizens Inquiry. I'm missing something. Yeah, so I mean, you know, when COVID hit, I was so skeptical from the beginning anyway. I was actually in Alberta when, you know, lockdowns were starting to get announced. I was up there for work and, you know, just kind of seeing the reaction from people around me at the time. And, you know, I'll admit at the time when it was fresh, you're a little bit unsure. You're a bit wary about, you know, what's going on, right?

Now, I'm a bit skeptical in general as it is. and, you know, look around and see what's happening, right? And, I mean, you see things on the news. Like, obviously, you know, everyone's aware of what we saw in the news during that period. People dying in the streets, flopping. Yeah, yeah. All the videos. Yeah.

And, you know, I came back and work had asked me to, you know, stay home for two weeks. And I was like, awesome. Okay. For me, that was like, truth. Yeah. And then while I was home, you know, Newfoundland announced that they were going to lock down. And, you know, so I was. I was seeing how the other people around me were acting, you know, people washing their groceries.

And I did it once, once. And I got home, I was like, this is foolish. You know, I don't, first of all, I don't want to be buying Lysol wipes all the time just to wipe down a stick of celery or the outside of a package of bacon, you know. So, yeah, which is stopped doing that. Yeah, which is kind of wild that we got there, but regardless. Yeah, right. But so anyway, I guess just through seeing everything that was happening and I had mentioned before, we started recording how I met Dana Mechaff who got me involved in the National Citizens Inquiry and she had asked me if I wanted to get involved to help out with social media and she said it would

just be you know a couple hours a week it wouldn't be any I had a substantial amount of work so I said sure why not you know I mean we were still kind of back and forth in and out of lockdown at the you know at that time still certain restrictions being unvaccinated I had to stay home anyway when was that when was this national citizens inquiry so it happened in 2023 so I got involved Wait, you guys were still in lockdowns in 2023? I think, yeah, I think it was... Because 2022, maybe. 2022 is when the convoy happens.

Right, that's right. So maybe we weren't, but we were still kind of fresh, you know, it was still fresh in the psyche. No, but in fairness, like BC, they lasted with a ton of stuff longer than Alberta or Saskatchewed. Right, right? Yeah. Well, I hadn't really... Might be wrong on the dates, too. Well, actually, because I'm going to have...

I can just hear people talking to their radios as I go. Yeah, true. I'm like, okay, National Citizens Inquiry. When was it? So it happened in 2023. I just don't know about the last lockdown in Newfoundland. I don't know if that was... Well, we're going to find out.

We're going to rock this hard. There you go. Because I'm like, I kind of want to know now, right? Like, when was the last... So the National Citizens Inquiry, the main one was March to May, 23. Yeah. Okay. When was the last COVID?

Once again, folks, you're like, get with it, John. Lockdown in. I'm kind of curious the timelines, because, you know, like, it's funny. The reason I find it so curious, I'm on a border city, right? Right there. So half is Saskatchewan, half is Alberta. Yeah. We're governed by Saskatchewan.

Okay. Even if you're in Alberta. Interesting. So I remember the day before Alberta let go of all restrictions. Yeah. Saskatchewan, I believe it'd already done it. Yeah. No, Saskatchewan was doing it the next day.

So I was in an Alberta restaurant. I'm mixing up. Alberta let go of restrictions. Saskatchewan was doing it the next day. I was sitting in an Alberta restaurant, but we're governed by the Sask health authority. Right. The lady asked you my vaccine card or whatever, and I said, wow. I mean, I'm literally in Alberta.

Yeah. They're done with it. And tomorrow is Saskatch when it comes off. And she looked at me, she's like, I don't even really care. And she just walked away. That's a spirit. That is the spirit. Now, this says it doesn't give me.

No. It doesn't give, it doesn't, it says the mandates ended March 14th. I don't know if that's true or not. 2022? 2022. That's what Grock's saying. It's possible. It's possible.

Okay. I don't remember the timelines. You know, the dates. Well, it's all fuzzy now, right? I was just going to say. It's all alert. The only reason I remember certain parts of it is I did my first live show. March of 2022.

I'm sure in Alberta it had to have been, if not the first, the second live show after all the stuff dropped. Right. Because I, when the convoy went, I was supposed to have 400 people coming. to Kid Scotty Alberta. I actually don't like talking about it. It doesn't matter anymore. But I had 400 people coming, one of which was Daniel Smith to talk.

Okay? Yeah. And that was probably going to get me arrested when I think back to it. And we had to cancel everything because everybody, minus Daniel Smith, if I remember correctly, ended up in Ottawa.

That's no knock on Daniel Smith. Yeah. It's just all the other speakers ended up in Ottawa for the Freedom Convoy. Yeah, yeah. You know, so we just cancel everything. And when I came back in the end of March, we put on that event in Lloyd and had Daniel Smith, Shane Getson, Andrema Murray, and Dr. Eric Payne all on stage talking about COVID. And I mean, I think about it.

I'm like in some places, we're still in the middle of it, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, it's 2026 and some people still think we're in the middle of it. Yeah, it's hard. It is. I can't imagine living.

And that kind of fear. Yeah. stop yeah yeah no um sorry ncii dana mackoff yeah yeah so you know what i've met dana it's probably a year before no it's probably in 2021 i met dana yeah um so then january 2023 she contacted me and said do want to get involved you know he'll be helping out social media uh communications that kind of stuff and i said sure why not so were you doing anything prior like in the middle of covid were you doing things on social media? Like, do, or you were just hanging out and just kind of hanging out.

I mean, there were a couple of things that Dana was doing that I was, you know, trying to help her with. I wouldn't say I was really involved too much on the social media side with what she was doing. But I guess she just thought that I'd be good at it. Sure. Okay. You know, so I said, all right, cool.

Let's try it out. So at the time, the NCI, they already had their accounts established, but, well, most of them, they had, you know, their Twitter at it. the time, Twitter account. So I had set up their Facebook account, Instagram. I think they had YouTube as well, but they had maybe 80 followers. And we were, you know, the end of January, early February. And we knew that the inquiry was going to start March. It's like, well, how do we build up awareness of this? You know, we have maybe 80 followers. We have no content to share. We have, you know, nothing out there. How did we build it up? So anyway, it worked.

We built it up on the Twitter account out about 40,000 followers after it. But it wasn't really until the inquiry started. And then we had content that we could share and actually start clipping videos, which I didn't know how to do, but I learned how to do it pretty quick. So just clipping content, getting it out there and just spending a lot more than a couple of hours a week sharing testimony. But you quickly saw how relevant and important it was becoming to people, to viewers, to the people testifying, to the experts. And I think, you know, in general, just to society, it was such a valuable, as the spokesperson would call it. It was an exercise in our democratic rights and democratic process.

Well, I mean, you got to witness, did you go across with it or you just worked from here, clipping things? Worked from here. I was in the last, I was at the last set of hearings in Ottawa, though. How much of it have you watched, like all of it? Because I assume you're clipping and near like. Yeah, yeah. I've pretty much watched every single testimony. Yeah. Now, I don't remember a lot of it. I mean, you're just taking in so much information, you know, but yeah, I would say I watched at least 98% of it. When you have somebody go, oh, COVID wasn't that bad? Is that just like a trigger in Garrett's head? Because it's like, okay. It depends. COVID wasn't that bad in what sense? Right? Like, you're right, COVID wasn't that bad. Our response to it was bad. You know, the things that we did to each other, the policies that came down, that was bad. COVID itself, I don't think was bad.

I don't even think I had COVID. And I know people did. Don't get me wrong. I know people were seriously impacted by getting sick, just like you would most other illnesses, right? But yeah, so it was challenging, though, seeing all that and then having even like friends and family who knew I was involved in, I'm sharing with them all these different stories of, you know, what are the experts saying? What are these people saying?

The people have been injured by some of the policies. What's happened to them? And it's just being brushed off. You know, it's like, frustrating. Here's all the alarms are going off. You know, the red lights are flashing and you're just like, oh, no, it's fine. That's kind of how it felt for me.

Which is a very peculiar thing, isn't it? I mean, like, you're like, all the information is here at your fingertips. But I've shared, you know, like on the flip side, so when I was interviewed, people in the middle of COVID. Everybody probably thought I was like the most ardent. But I was. I was interviewing them and then going back to the pressures of society. Because I was working a full-time job and the pressures of society were absolutely there.

And it wasn't until I just went, okay, I need to go look at the numbers myself. Because they're all readily available, right? You could go on Alberta's website. Canada had their data up. I remember picking someone like the, the free places or the places with high numbers. I forget how media put it, but I remember South Dakota, Florida, Sweden in particular.

And just like everything was sitting there. You know, just type it in, and then look at the numbers spit out, you're like, what the heck are we doing? Yeah. Like, it doesn't make any sense. And sometimes just doing the work yourself is the most important part, which seems like a leap, but it's actually so easy in today's age. Yeah, but then you were.

you know, people didn't like it when you were doing your own research. Well, you became villainized for just doing your own research. I think that's what was tough at the beginning because everyone's like, oh, you're listening to some guy and what's his degree? Right. And you're like, okay, fair point. Yeah. But what is he talking about?

And doesn't that raise some questions? What became frustrating as long as it went on is you could have the most decorated doctor. Yeah. and they would find a way, well, he's got a lawsuit against this and this. I'm like, at this point,

if you're talking about anything, you've lost just about everything to just say it. Right. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know,

like you watched that. I was just watching part of the Allison inquiry. Like, some of the doctors there have almost been like brutally smeared through, well, they have been,

smeared through everything. Yeah, yeah, it's cruel what people have done to them. Yes. Right? It's cruel what we did to each other, I think,

during those times. Collectively, of course. I've been wondering, a guy who works in the background, right? You're a guy who just sits there and brings everything together, and maybe you have no answer for this. But I've been wondering, you've got all these brilliant people. Brilliant. Why can't they work together?

Isn't that a question for the ages? I wish I had an answer. I think in part there's ego involved. I think given that it's, I'll call it a small community, it was, and I know it's growing hopefully because you have the silent majority and that kind of stuff. It's kind of, you look at social media nowadays, everyone's fighting for attention, everyone's fighting for being the most relevant for whatever it is, right, to capture people's attention.

And I think that trickles into that, into that kind of. community as well, right? Like you have it is yeah sorry it's just really unfortunate that all these brilliant people if they came together they would I think and we've seen it with the convoy be able to change the direction of Canada and for some reason you can't put them in a room together to discuss anything. Well it's so easy well I don't know I shouldn't say it's so easy I just, like, I try to remove myself from the, um, the ongoing feuds that are happening. I don't know. I talk to everybody.

Some people get mad at me for talking to somebody and other people that cheer you on. And I'm like, I don't know. I just, I just trying to, you know, have a enlightened discussion and bring all these people on that have something to say. And usually people that have something to say want to butt heads with somebody else who has something to say, which is totally fine. Yeah. You get things like the Freedom Convoy, which was like, just mind-numbing success. Just like, wow, here it is. And then you know the opposition force is going to find ways to put people in there that can make it explode.

But sometimes they don't even have to do that much. Right. It's just a little thing, and all of a sudden it just falls out. You're like, the heck is going. The amount of people in the freedom movement, freedom group that are suing one another, hate one another. I know is you just you sit and you scratch your head

and you're like how do how? Because when I listen to them all I'm like man you're brilliant you don't have everything right but who does and yet you can't be in the same room as the other person

because you're suing each other and like this isn't just doctors and lawyers and professors and stuff like this is media this is everything it's just like what a

what a strange place to be in it's almost like it's turned into Lord of the Flies right Isn't that a good analogy? Yeah. And I don't know what it is. Because for a little while, until it stopped being peaceful within the freedom world, I'll say. And I don't even like calling it that, but for a lack of a better term, it seemed like everyone was getting along.

We had a collective mission. We had a collective direction we wanted to go away. Is that the problem? What? When we were in the middle of COVID, we had one mission. and that was the government of Canada slash COVID in general, everybody put aside everything and just was like, that's the thing.

We have to get out of this. Yeah. It's kind of like during wartime, right? You kind of, you band together. You know, neighbors who you might not have gotten along with. You band together and you're on a collective mission, right? So it was kind of like that. And then maybe you're right.

Maybe that is what has happened where, you know, I won't say mission accomplished, but we, you know, accomplished some things, and then people just started kind of branching off. They had different interests within a broader freedom spectrum, I would call it. And, yeah, just started button heads. And I don't know. Like, I do think a lot of it's ego-related. Maybe there's some bad actors intentionally planted.

I don't know. It's really hard to... Well, both could be true. Both could be true. Yep. You know, like, when we first touched base, you're asking, you, you know what do you I'm like well I've been talking lots of Canadians about Alberta in the referendum coming out yeah and the further I get away from Alberta the more disjointed

it looks yeah which is like kind of funny because I love it like I don't love to do I wish everybody could get around the fire and sing kumbaya and you know lock arms and and yet like freedom is messy it just is of course you know discussing things arguing about things yeah I don't know right that's that's what you do so from the further you get away the more messy it looks. And I mean, don't get me wrong. In the middle of it, I'm sure it's a little bit messy too. But is ego a part of it? Oh, for sure. Has the, like, has mainstream media slash the federal government slash anyone who doesn't want Alberta to separate, have they used every, we have Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney joined arms to try and like forever Canada? I didn't know that.

What a, what a strange world we're living in. Right. Collective mission. Collective mission. We don't want Alberta to leave. And yet on the flip side, it looks at times, it can look disjointed. But that's kind of freedom. You know, it's a messy business trying to unpack the problems of the world. Of course. And, you know, me as a Canadian who, I mean, I'm very removed from the Alberta separation, the referendum, all that stuff. I don't want to see Alberta leave either.

You know, I don't want to see Canada in general broken up. But that's also at the same time, it's clearly. a sign that something's not working for Alberta or Albertans if they're considering that. You know, and I think that's what the democratic process is for, right? I mean, it's not up to me, and in my opinion on it shouldn't even matter, right? If people, if enough people think Alberta vote that they want to separate, well then that's a reflection of both how Canada has failed Alberta, but also what Alberta wants to do going forward.

That's an evolution that, you know, we're not used to seeing that, I think, in our lifetimes, but it's not uncommon in the broader spectrum of the world. You know, countries separating, splitting up, falling apart, that's human nature. I know lots of Easterers have said, well, my opinion, doesn't really matter. But it's funny, I'm like, I'm so curious what people actually think about it, right? People back in Alberta, for the most part, don't care what anybody else thinks. They're pushing forward. But it's funny, the media,

And the elites, the political sphere, they do care. Of course. And so to find out what the everyday person thinks is interesting to me. Because you're right. I sit and I go, the first thing I get east, what I keep telling people is, you know, is obviously Alberta has a problem. Right. I think a lot of Canadians have a problem with what's going on in Canada. They should.

It's concentrated in Alberta because they have what looks like to me. and maybe you can add something in or disagree with me. Totally fine. The further I go east, the less of that there seems to be. It doesn't mean it isn't there. I mean, you're talking about Dana McHaff and yourself and others. Well, with the National Citizens Inquiry. That is what Alberta has, right?

Like, they are championing, like something is wrong with Canada. A lot of them got woken up, myself included, in the middle of COVID, to what is going on? Yeah. You know? And then once you start digging, you don't find good things. You find more like, how do we fix this? Right. How do we get out from under this tyranny, these bad, you know, like you watch the liberal government

and some of the bills under Trudeau specifically that were being tabled and trying to be rammed through everything else. And you're like, this spells the end for Canada. And I find so many brilliant people chest sat right there and told me he was putting Canada surviving at 25%. I'm like, wow, if you flip that around, it's 75% chance for scoop. You know, so it's like, I don't think any Alberta wants to leave. I think there are people who want to leave. I just think a lot of Albertans, a lot of Westerners, feel like Canada's abandoned them. Right. And so what do they do with that?

And I think as a Newfoundlander, a lot of Newfoundlanders would feel the same way over, you know, the history of our Confederation. I'm not even going to pretend that I'm an expert on the history of Newfoundland and how all that went. But like I can sympathize, I guess, with how Albertans are feeling, you know, feel like Canada's abandoned them or just using Alberta for its resources and funneling it all back to Ottawa, maybe Quebec to make them happy. But to me, it's obviously just a clear sign of something is not working. Something needs to change.

And if it takes even just the threat of Alberta leaving and maybe enough votes where it becomes a real possibility for something to change in Canada, well, then let it. You know, again, I don't want to see Alberta leave. In fairness, I don't think majority of Canadians want to see Alberta leave. And a lot of Alberta, well, a lot of people think, oh, that's because of the money. It's like, well, that literally destroys the idea of what we've had since I was a kid. Right. of what Canada is supposed to be, right? Yeah.

It's a hard thing to come through. I know borders change all the time, right? Yeah, yeah. But that's often a far off land. That is in Canada we're talking about. Now it's Canada. And it used to be Quebec. It'll never come here.

And you used to be, oh, those selfish Frenchies and all the things, right? Now it's Alberta. Well, you can call them rednecks all you want. Oh, selfish or, you know, not you. I just mean in general. It's just, it's interesting. When you say Newfoundland and Alberta, I meant to ask Chess this, too. Or similar.

What similarities do you see from Newfoundland in Alberta? You know, I think in terms of our resource economy that we have here in Newfoundland and what Alberta has as well, I think we are definitely exploited by the federal government. And again, I'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on this topic at all. It's just, you know, me as a citizen living here in Newfoundland kind of seeing this. You know, but there's just so much potential for Newfoundland to be a half province, and we are largely a have not province economically. You know, I mean, we have gold, oil, we have mines, iron ore, we have wind, like you wouldn't believe.

You've probably seen that. You heard me today at Signal Hill when you're like, I didn't even hear you. It's like, that's because the wind is absolutely nuts. Yeah. You know, we're just a very resource-rich province, and it feels like we're very much, locked down in why is I'm curious about because you know as we're

you know as we drove in and you know I'm once again I biked it 20 years ago a small portion of it right I can't act like I've been across it when you when you drive it and once again the small portion we've driven like man this is this isn't

a little tiny rock like this is a big rock potential is a word I've used for all of Canada yeah sitting here Newfoundland you just rattled off I'm like well I think the world needs pretty much everything there so why hasn't that been developed in Newfoundland not that you're an expert on it just like from you're sitting here you're going I don't know like you rattled off a whole bunch of things why haven't they developed what's the

reasoning right it's really hard to to say I mean I'm sure there'd be arguments made that oh it would just take take too much to build the infrastructure or you know too much of an investment is not worth the pay off or you know what I think there's, I don't know, a lot of the resources are getting sold off to, you know, for national corporations, right? So there was, and I don't, I can't remember the name of them, but one of our fishing companies was bought by Greenland, right? So like now Greenland basically owns our fishery other than, you know, your family owned fisheries, but on a large scale, right? So like all that money is going back to Greenland rather than staying here locally.

and I don't know if it's necessarily, I don't even know what I'm trying to say here, you know, it's not necessarily if there's malintent, but maybe just it has never been recognized or maybe the, yeah, maybe the potential just hasn't been fully realized or there's just, like there's hurdles for sure, right? You're a rock in the middle of the ocean, right? So like getting your goods to market already there's there's definitely a barrier. Right. But it's not like there's the ships there. It's not like ships aren't coming into this bloody place all the time. I mean any ship going from Europe to North America passes by us. Right.

And so it's curious to me because, you know, like in Manitoba, Manitoba is a different province. With, in my opinion, a similar problem. Right. Right. Right. Like sitting in Alberta and growing up in Saskatchewan, I heard a lot about the Port of Churchill, right? Why have they never? And then, you know, so we're getting into Manitoba.

I just kept asking the question of everyday people and some really brilliant Ken Drysdale and me had a really interesting conversation on it. And everybody said, oh, it's too difficult, the permafrost, the this, the that. Ken Drysdale, in my opinion, put that all the bed. He also put to bed for me, Port of Churchill. He was like, Port of Churchill isn't the one. It should be Port Nelson. for everything going on in the world today with the size of ships and everything, that makes way more sense and it's easier to get to. I'm like, either I am the most brilliant podcaster in the history of man and figured it out in like 10 days or anyone with a mic walking around talking to people can figure that problem out in a month or less.

Right. Okay. Then you've got to go find investment in all the things or the province has to put forth it. Fair enough. Right. You know, lots of people ask, would Alberta or Saskatchewan use it? And I'm like, well, I can't speak for companies. Because once again, it's kind of like, well, you're saying, well, I'm just an everyday guy.

But I go, well, I mean, BC isn't really playing ball. So our only way of getting goods to market is through the states. Right. So if you opened up a port in Manitoba through trucking, rail, building pipelines, different things. I'm like, yeah, I think that would become a huge success over the next 20 years, let's say. Absolutely. So when you look at Newfoundland, I go, I drive it. You go, there's got to be a ton of industry sitting here.

The world needs, including the eastern part of Canada, oil and gas. Gold, I mean, Canada sold all our gold. So, I mean, we could probably start those back up. That would probably be a good idea. You know, I'm sure there's more hoops to it than that. It's just funny. Like, Newfoundland's more than fishing. Right.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I think the only, you know, it's the red tape that's holding us back. It's not for a lack of interest or, you know, realizing the potential or even knowing where it is on the island or even in Labrador. I mean, Labrador is a whole different beast of resources. But I think there's just a lot of red tape, you know, at a federal level. And this, I think, would also go back, you know, to go full circle back to Alberta, probably some of the pains that Alberta and Albertans are feeling with the red tape to develop your resources or to keep your money low. or what have you, right?

Well, one of the strong arguments against staying in Canada, or strong arguments for staying in Canada, is if you left, you'd be landlocked. That would be a poor idea. And I think it was Keith Wilson that said it first, and forgive me if it was somebody else, because I'm sure it was. But that's where I think I remember hearing it the first time.

He's like, oh, we're already landlocked. We're landlocked by all the red tape. Like, are we kidding right now? And I'm like, yeah. It's true. I mean, you know, when you go back to your Cambodia, story. Must have been wild to just like, wait a second. So you want to build a house and you just start plopping it in there. Yeah. Like yeah. And then somebody would say, well, we got things

underground. I'm like, yeah, we got line locate. I mean, we can do that. But like the amount of regulation to get things done in this country is insane. We have red tape reduction ministers for Pete's sake. Yeah. You know, like what is silly position? Just start cutting things and let people go to work. I think that's what a lot of oil companies are saying out east, West, sorry. In Newfoundland, is there a big contingent of like First Nations and stuff like that too that got to sign on to all the agreements? Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know if they're... Once again, I'm pulling you into... Yeah, yeah, I know. It's stuff that I really don't know about it. You should have chest. Yeah, Chesa no. Yeah. I mean, I know that there is a big indigenous population in Newfoundland, Labrador. I don't

know, you know, it's probably the same across most of Canada in the sense of, you know, you do need to consult with them, you know, kind of sign them in on it and stuff like that, for sure. Yeah. So you're part of the national citizen, I'm, you go, sorry, I'm all over the place, welcome my life. Yeah. You go to where you're like every day, all day, just as hard as you can go for that entire journey. And then you just, I'm out. Or have you been doing things since? No, I've been doing stuff since. So, I mean, you know, first of all, when the inquiry wrapped up, like when we finish our last round of hearings in May,

obviously we were waiting for the report to be written and then released. There was still a lot of work to do on getting the information out there, interviews that were happening, clipping up the videos, and just really trying to make it as relevant as possible to more Canadians. You know, and then in 2024, I would say, you know, we decided to, I'll be diplomatic how I would say, wrap things up. And, you know, there was people went their own ways and started their own initiatives. And, you know, so we decided we would just kind of wind things down a little bit. But I've been involved still, you know, since then. So I'm involved in CanConnect-19, the Canadian Citizens Care Alliance.

I was helping a film producer in Toronto, you know, get her a documentary out about COVID as well. And then outside of that, I also do consulting and fractional management for just nonprofits and charities in general, which is an interesting world and in part why I stay behind the scenes because a lot of my other clients that I work with are just your everyday, you know, organizations, charities, you know, and then so I'm kind of like, you know, one foot in each world and trying to walk that fine line. What is it about charities or non-profits that world that's, you know, like I go back to when you first year abroad, like, what is it about that that sucked you in, like that you enjoy? Yeah, it's definitely not the money.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, you know, that experience abroad in Cambodia, like, just really seeing the impact that you can have with helping people. recognizing the need, you know, that some communities have. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people that work in that space for the most part. They seem to be their own just community or their own demographic or style of person.

You know, the corporate world for me was never something that really appealed to me. It was never, I'm not competitive in the sense of like trying to work my way to the top of a corporation to make the most money or, you know, be the most relevant. in a company. So I really like just the sense of community that you find in, in charities and nonprofits. Curious your thoughts on this. Okay. Okay, you went to Cambodia, right?

You got to see impoverishment, people struggling, lots of things going on there. I had Sylvan Charlebo on food professor, I don't know, when I was in Quebec, forgive me on, it's all blurring together now. And he was talking about going and seeing third world countries and, and like realizing how good Canada has it. Had it. But yeah. Well, I didn't know what to say at the time because I was trying to spit out and I was trying to work through thought of like, you know, you can have a good, but you can still mess it up.

And we should strive not to mess it up. And like, if we're strong, we'll make other places strong. Right. If we're weak, then, I mean, well, we're seeing what's going on. You come from Cambodia, coming back. your thought on that thought process of like you know like they're living in poverty we have it so good here yeah and sorry sylvan i'm not trying to just that that thought i was like i was trying to wrap my brain around that of like we yeah we have you know and running water and yeah and lots of

you know great things yeah but as a culture as a society we're really struggling yeah yeah so And that was kind of, you know, in part the reverse culture shop that I had when I came back here from Cambodia because I remember being over there and the children, for example, you know, like you're working at some schools and the children you can tell they come from poor families because a lot of them every day are wearing the same clothes, dirty. And they're just so grateful and so happy amongst each other, but also that you're there and they'll give you the only toy that they have to their name as like, you know, something to remember them by. And, you know, I think of kids here who, if they don't get the newest iPad or iPhone for Christmas, that kind of hell that they put their parents through, you know. It's just like, I'd love to just pick some up and, like, bring them over to Cambodia, experience what their life is like, and then be grateful for what you have over here. Because we are, like, we are very fortunate to, like you said, you know, have the running water.

And we do have, obviously, a standard of living here in Canada. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for, a standard of living that's, you know, everybody in the world with love. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, it will be a standard of living that we miss if we don't try to turn things around or redirect where things are going right now. I was in an Uber today.

And it was a guy from India and he spoke broken English. Yeah. And, you know, as we're going, I'm going back and forth with them. I finally had to pull out Google Translate because I was really comfortable. confused what he was saying and then we finally got to the bottom of it and he came here for a better life now I'm sure there's a thousand things I missed in what he was saying but he was talking about he was saving enough money to go back and I'm like what you're gonna go back to India where you oh yeah I'm like but I thought you said you came here for a better life he's like I did yeah but you're

gonna go back yes I'm like so it wasn't all it was built up to be and he's like and that's where like there's just you can tell that there's a long answer that he can't fully express his thought? I'm like, how wild is that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of my friends are actually immigrants, and I would say most of them are probably surprised at how life in Canada is not what they thought they were being sold before they came here.

I think just cost alone is really what's getting a lot of them, you know, feeling like they can't get ahead. I mean, your viewers, I don't know where the majority are based out of it, but gas just went up 8.1 cents. I know. I know. $2.11. As we sit here today. $2.15 up by my house.

And it's been higher here. You know, back in 2022 and even earlier this year, but back in 22, it went up to, I think it was like $2.30 a liter. For my American audience, just so you understand, that is $9.20 a gallon at $2.30, roughly. You go like, that is insane. It is insane. well, just, you know, kind of put it in perspective. So I live about 45, 50 minutes away from where we are right now.

It'll cost me $50 to drive in here and back up, just and gas. Well, I appreciate you spent on 50 bucks. You know, like money well spent, you know, but yeah. Well, it just, it just to cost, it shouldn't. It should cost maybe $20, right? When you realize. Especially in a gas rich province. Well, I think of Alberta.

Yeah. you know is it the third third largest reserve on the plan i heard fifth the other day i thought it was the third regardless it's top 10 there's a lot you know and you go how are we not how is gas not close to free yeah right and i i get it it you know like i get there's other things that are going on there right like at the same token you are so rich in a resource and yet it's hindering your your your people on how expensive it's got you know like here in newfoundland you know like you'd think there'd be but i mean i assume this is up north too like where you become you know it's isolate and they can sell a story of how while it takes this to the and everything and you're like okay

but i mean so is it just going to go to six dollars a liter someday then like is that where gas is going well and the thing with newfoundland too um you know for people who have never been here most don't realize So we have a really poor public transit system here in Newfoundland. So St. John's being, you know, the capital city of Newfoundland, Labrador, is really the only area that has public transportation. You know, it's just buses. And even the buses aren't that reliable, you know, and a lot of people, Newfoundland's a big island,

it takes about nine hours to drive from one end to the other if you want to get the ferry on Portabas. You know, so we are very heavily reliant on fuel and gas here. You know, we can't just hop on a, a train or or anything like that and even even the bus system go across the island right so like we are very heavily reliant on vehicles and uh you just can't afford to go anywhere now what is it like in your conversation people because you guys are liberals correct uh voted in liberal relatively provincially PCs and what would what are they talking about doing because like

the the the big kerfluff right now is your deal with Quebec And once again, I've talked to several people about that and I'm like, okay, I kind of understand. But, you know, like, what are they, what is the government trying to sell the people that they're like, yes, this is a good idea? In terms of Quebec or? I just, no, well, it could be Quebec. Yeah. It could just be affordability in the province, right? Like, do you have any control over your destiny?

Are they just like, well, we're just kind of. I think that's just kind of the natural cycle of any election, right? You get sold a promise and they deliver the lie or something like that. Oh man, that's it. I like that line. Right. Sold a promise and they deliver a lie. Yeah.

I mean, and don't get me wrong. That has nothing to do with the individuals in the positions. But I think it doesn't matter who you go for. The government still gets in, right? And it doesn't matter if it was liberal or PCs, you know, based on my experience right now, it's still just kind of progressing. Like it's trending downhill. You know, I mean, the big focus right now I know is on health care.

And of course, they're, you know, the government is, they're proud of this MOU with Quebec. Do you understand the MOU? Like, could you give it a Western audience, just a 10,000 foot view of what's going on? Yeah, so, I mean, I'll try my best. Again, it's not my area of expertise at all. But essentially, you know, the development of new hydro in Labrador. and I guess the renewal of the original contract, you know, from the 60s between Newfoundland and Quebec, where I would say we, to put it gently, we were sold out, right?

So, I mean, Hydro, Quebec obviously made a lot of money over the years on our energy resources where we haven't prospered like we should have. I think we're paying something like three to five times more for, like that. electricity than what Quebec is paying. I don't know the exact stat or the number. Well, this, so this is, so this is what Girox says. So take this with just a smidge of salt, okay, folks, just a smidge because we all know AI is not brilliant, but, you know, the well-known MOU between Labrador and Quebec is the energy partnership between Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec, over hydro power on the Churchill River in Labrador, Labrador. Labrador is part of the province of

Newfoundland, and there is no separate Labrador-C-Government MOU. Thank you, Brock, for analyzing my question. The original 1969 Churchill Falls contract led Hydro-Covecquebac by most of the plants power at a very low fixed price, about two cents per kilowatt hour until 2041, and that deal has been long-running source of resentment in Newfoundland and Labrador. So somebody signed you into, how many years is that? Somebody to do the math on that. 30, something like 60 years?

70 years? It was like a 60 year contract or something, but yeah. Well, 2041, that's 70, 73 years, 72 years. It's a long deal. It's a long deal. And not to be a fixed price at 2 cents. Yeah. So, I mean, going back to the, you know, we're speaking about gas and it should be nearly free in a place that produces it.

Same with electricity. I mean, for Newfoundland, like what we have in Labrador, like we should, shouldn't be paying anything for electricity here. But that's not the case. That's not the case. Insane rates here. It says the previous, um,

premier, Andrew Fury. Is that previous? Yep. In Quebec, signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding. Oh, yeah, great non-binding. To end the 1969 contract early and raised the price paid for existing Churchill

Falls power from, or around 5.9 to 6 cents and rising over time. A whole bunch of other things in there. It says bring large new revenues to Newfoundland, said at the time of order of $225 billion over the life of the deal, about $1 billion a year starting soon after. I don't know. Once again, this is foreign to me.

I bet you if I'd asked Chess, he would have been quite animated, I'm sure. Yes. The, I don't know. I just, I'm trying to figure out as I've gone off, you know, like Newfoundland is getting close to, I've got to go back through Nova Scotia because we kind of just skipped through to get to Newfoundland. So it's kind of becoming the last province.

But I look back at Alberta and I go, we got lots of things that we dislike with the current government and lots of things. At the same time, there's lots to be like, okay, that looks like it's kind of going relatively in the right direction. Right. Well, there's lots of provinces that's not the case. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, it's funny. I mean, I've, for a while I thought I was kind of, you know, up to speed on a lot of what was happening in Canada. Sure. The more I, you know, listen to, like, shows like yours or we're here what's going on in other areas, even in, you know, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, I realize I really don't know what's going on, you know. I mean, it just seems like we're just bombarded with issues all over the country. that shouldn't be there. You know, like affordability crisis, health care. Like, where did that go wrong?

Where's the root cause of that just like going way downhill to the point where you have people sitting in an emergency room for four days without seeing a doctor? That was unheard of even 10 years ago. Yeah, I would say just before. Seven years ago. Right. Yeah.

I mean, don't get me wrong. There's problems before that. But certainly in the last. 11 years of liberal rule, everything's the outwears. Everything went down. If you were putting on your recruiting hat, right? You were trying to recruit the A team to change Canada. Change Labrador and Newfoundland.

Okay. Let's go smaller. Yeah, yeah. You think there's a winning formula? A winning formula. Yeah, well, maybe. I mean, I think a big part of it is just like, you know, let people just live and let live you know i think there's just so much attempt to try to control

almost every aspect of of culture and society and policy and you know where you're allowed to go and who you're allowed to meet like there's just so much control right now for attempts at control um so i think you know the whole philosophy of just live and let live would be a good place to start and then we could maybe go from there and look at where are all these restrictions that we're imposing on ourselves for no reason. And where can we start eliminating some of those? You know, it doesn't have to be an overnight change. They don't expect it to be.

And I think where we are right now as a country has... It wasn't an overnight change either. It's slowly kind of encroached on this until, you know, like a frog in a boiling pot, you realize, oh, shoot, we're boiling. You know, so then we're at that boiling point right now. And, yeah, I mean, I don't know what the formula itself would be. And I don't know who all the very things. people would be to, you know, to get in there. I think it's possible. You know, I think there is

hope for Canada, for Newfound, for Alberta. But I do also kind of look at it as almost a natural evolution because whatever Canada looks like next, you know, I know a lot of people say that they miss the Canada that they grew up and don't get me wrong, I do too. There's a lot of parts about that. Clearly, we're going through a rough patch to put it gently as a nation. But it's also a sign that we're evolving as a country. So hopefully whatever this metamorphosis we're going through, whatever it looks like at the end, hopefully is something that's way better than what we had before.

And that makes all these challenging times worth having gone through all the winter. Yeah, I hope you're right. Yeah, we do. Before I... I'll be back in Cambodia soon. Before I let you out of here. Yeah. You know, it was a guy who stayed in the background.

Yeah. and doesn't get in front of the mic a whole lot. Is there a question you wish I would have asked that you're like, I really wanted to talk about this? That itself is a good question. Not really. I mean, you know, I came into this. It was Laura had suggested that we speak.

Very nervous. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, it's my first podcast, really. Hey, all right. Yeah, so, you know, go big or go home, I guess. but I just was right up until I walked through the door very nervous and I just feel the fear and do it anyway so I didn't really have any any questions or anticipating you know any specific questions from you or hoping that you would have asked certain questions I'm grateful for the experience to be able to sit down

and speak with you yeah well we're going to have a little bit of fun on substack then because I got 10 quick questions that are going to come on substack So we'll end it here And then for the audience If you want to hear a little more Garrett go to substack Because we got a couple bonus questions Okay

We'll pause and we'll head there