Shaun Newman Podcast - #357 - Jocelyn Burzuik

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

She is the president of Sundance Construction. We discuss her long drawn out battle with the Manitoba government in trying to build on her land.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

I'm Alex Craneer. This is Sarah Swain. This is Terry Clark. This is Tom Corsky. I'm Trish Wood. This is Dr. Peter McCullough. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Wednesday, hump day. Hope everybody's week is cruising along. We got an interesting one on tap for day. And they're probably all interesting. Who am I kidding? But Jocelyn, obviously, she's been on the show multiple times. And a very interesting lady out of Manitoba. But before we get there, let's get to today's show sponsors,

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For the past 80 years, they've been an industry leader in bulk fuels, lubricants, methanol, and chemicals delivering to your farm commercial oil fuel locations. For more information, visit them at Hancock Petroleum.com. She's the president of Sundance Construction. I'm talking about Jocelyn Berziac. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Jocelyn Berwick, and you are listening to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Jocelyn Berziak. So first off, man, thanks for hopping back on. You know, it's fun. Listeners are always telling me to have reoccurring guests. They want to have people, you know, they find somebody interesting, and they're like, you've got to have them back on. You've got to have them.

And then that list continues to grow, and you're like trying to, you know, wade through that, you know, trying to make it interesting and follow the stories that are actually relevant and everything else. And I don't know, you fall back in my lap, so to speak, and I'm glad to have you back. John, how have you been? Well, it's been up and down. Last time we talked, it was a great talk.

And then a whole bunch of other things happened. So in the meantime of while we've been talking about all the things that, you know, the indigenous issues and things like that, I've been trying to build. I've been trying to do what builders do, and that's build. Let's maybe for one second, Jocelyn, before you hop into that, you know, I'm always forgetful that there's going to be people who have no idea who you are. You know, the podcast continues to get new people tuning in. And if they haven't listened to your first episode on the show

or even the roundtable that we did with Western Standard, maybe just a quick, quick ground on you. And then by all means, let's hear what's going on out in your world. So I'm Jossum Berwick. I'm the president of Sundance Construction. And I'm a builder. I'm an indigenous builder here in Manitoba. And I build out of the interlake primarily,

but I work all over. I'll work in the north. I do water treatment plants, sewage treatment plants, lagoons. And most recently, I've been working on residential housing and a project that I've kind of had going on in the background for about four years right now. And this particular project, which is supposed to be easy, it's supposed to be a no-brainer. It's just been absolutely mind-blowing. So I have a background in building across all the realms I've worked. in like marine-based projects, water, sewer, commercial, industrial construction. So I cross a lot of different industries. So I just get a really big background when it comes to all of that.

And then I try to fit all of that experience into what I do now as a builder in my local area in Manitoba. Well, absolutely. And while you're talking, I'm like, man, why didn't? look back. I'm trying to remember when you were on the podcast the first time. That was a while back. Like it feels like it wasn't long ago, but geez, then when you start looking back through episodes, you're like, oh my goodness. I think it was a year ago. Yeah, like it is a long time ago, Jocelyn. I didn't realize it was a time had flown by like that. Well, let's bring everybody up to speed on on what's going on in your world. You know, you talk about construction. And the last time you're on,

we talked about, um, I'm going to use the word ineptitude of the government. And, and now, frustrating it was for you. And it feels like, you know, in our emails and certainly if anyone falls you on Twitter, it feels like it's boiling over at this point. And yet it's, you know, you're just like the email you said, I wrote this doubt of all the people you're dealing with. And this claim involves, and I highlighted this, the province of Manitoba's Department of Environment, so there's one,

climate parks, two, the minister for ECP3, the Minister for Municipal Relations, the Department of Municipal Relations, the RM of Gimley, and the Municipal Board itself. That's seven entities. I think I got that right, but in, and all I could think of is twos going like, oh, my goodness, the bureaucracy is big and that and oh my. Like, anyways, I read that and I'm like, oh, my God, this is going to be an interesting little hour we have here as you try and break down what on earth you're trying to do and what the roadblocks have been for you jocelyn so yeah so i'm dealing with all of this so earlier on in the year i think it's actually maybe about a month ago a month and a half ago pierre paul bell vera started talking about um how he wanted to make provincial

governments and local municipalities uh responsible to the approval process for projects not just for housing but for projects in general. And he started putting out a framework as to, you know, how how he would do that and how he would create some accountability. And he tied that to the approval process. So depending on how municipalities and provincial governments did in terms of issuing and following through and closing out permits, they would be eligible for federal monies. And I started looking at this and thinking, oh my God, I'm a poster. child for Pierre Polivere right now. He could come in and look at my project and he would say, bingo, this is why we do this. And Doug Ford, Doug Ford recently saw the very same problem in terms of

the environmental conservation departments within the provincial governments. And again, Doug Ford could use me as a poster child here in Manitoba because I would demonstrate why we need this type of check and balance in terms of municipal and provincial approvals. I'm going to even getting into the federal stuff. I'm just talking about what happens on the ground for a local builder, a local homeowner, a local private property owner, and the roadblocks that they face. So that's where I'm at right now. So long story start in 2019, as COVID,

was hidden. I figured this was the perfect time. I was going to start my subdivision project. And I own property. It's private property. It's agricultural property. It was a former homestead. It's been a homestead, a farming homestead for like, I don't know, 100 years. And I have the bulk of that former homestead on the land that I wanted to turn into a single dwelling bareland condo project. So I started this 2019, really started getting in through the, going through the approvals, learning what subdivisions were all about. And I went through the process and I got the subdivision approved. So I'm an approved subdivision, 26 homes, Bairland condo, rural, energy efficient,

the first type of condo or first type of subdivision in Manitoba that they know of, low flow, 44, 45% less energy use. I produce about 45 to 50% less actual effluent. We would operate off-grid from all municipal infrastructure. We don't touch any of it. We're private roads. We maintain all those roads ourselves. So basically, this was a no-brainer for the RM. This is the idea of, hey, here's a developer. They're not connecting to any of our infrastructure. That's falling apart and we don't have to do any work in order to expand our existing services. They're not going to put any load on the municipality at all. Let's approve and they did.

It took a little bit because I had some pushback in my area. When we first went to public hearing on this, a lot of it was I was going to, because I'm an indigenous builder, I actually had people at public hearing say is that I was going to create affordable housing for the poor indigenous families and things like that, or maybe I was going to take in Syrian refugees, and they just kind of threw things at me that really shocked me in terms of why you would push back on this? Why would you even do this? So I dealt with all of those naysayers. When you mean they talk about bringing in the poor or Syrian refugees, they didn't want those folks in their area, is that you mean?

Exactly. There was one particular group that said to me is that Gimli is more diverse. Gimli is better suited to that diversity, but our rural community south of Gimli, you know, we don't have the same type of diversity, which is not true. But what they weren't talking about was the diversity in ethnicity. They were talking about diversity of economic bank account, a bunch of people who are not in my backyard type people that, oh, you know, we don't want that economic class, you know, too close to us. So I had to battle some just, and this is what developers go through all the time. We call them the Karens of the building world because, oh, that sounds really good for an urban center. It sounds really good for this area, but we don't want to hear it away from me.

Yeah. So I did all that in 2020. I battled all of that just garbage and just pushed it out there and said, is that, hey, this is, you don't know what we're doing. We're off grid capable. If emergency happens, grid goes down. We're up and running all of our 55 plus homeowners who are downsizing. and opening up housing for families,

three, four bedroom homes in the area, they're going to be okay. We don't have to worry about them. They're going to have backup heating. They're going to have backup energy sources. And so this would be a community that is totally private, totally maintained on its own. We do all the maintenance and the upkeep and all the services provided.

And literally our surrounding community, doesn't need to do anything to support our community, we would be completely off-grid. And so I started working with the province of Manitoba to try and bring this forward. So we did all the engineer. I got the first one built. The first one's built. It's beautiful. It's exactly what I said it was going to be.

And it's up and running. But now I got to get through the process. So after you get an approved subdivision, you get a letter that comes from the municipal relations and this is the same very similar for every single province and during the approval process the province and the rm get the ability to make comments on your subdivision they say is that we approve this subdivision but you need to give us a drainage plan you need to give us a we need to see the engineering for your office of drinking water or you need to go through archaeology and and heritage and make sure that there's nothing of archaeological, historical significance on the property.

So you need to do an assessment. So they give me a set of conditions that I need to do. And then that plan can be registered and then I can actually transfer titles and people can get mortgages and stuff like that to do a builder's mortgage. That's how the process works. But I'm approved. So during this whole process is that the RM of Gimley can actually issue me a permit. to build at any point in time, as per their bylaws, because I don't connect to all this

municipal infrastructure. And as long as they do a developer's agreement, which is a pretty straightforward document, if you can read, and if you have an IQ greater than room temperature. Apparently, that's not always the case with local government, which I've learned. So. So I can't get this thought out of my head. because I wrote it down. So I'll just throw it out there and I'll see what comes of it. So are all these business owners, homeowners, et cetera,

then lobbying their local government to basically throw, just to basically ignore you, to try and get you to go away, or to draw out the process so long that it costs you so much money, so much time, and maybe they just, like, that's what they're hoping? Because when I read the document, Jocelyn,

And I'll be honest, what I saw was they went over the time limit on a lot of different things. You could probably talk to that on, you know, they're supposed to give you response on, let's say, 60 days. And you can certainly clear this up. And all of a sudden, it was 90 days, which is illegal, but that's what they're doing. Or if it's 60 days, it's on the 60th day. They're giving it to you. They're drawing out the process as long as humanly possible because they've launched you there. Or am I misinterpreting this?

Yeah, there's a certain segment of the population that absolutely is adamant that housing projects in our area don't move forward. I was actually told as that you have a beautiful tree piece of property with agricultural components. We love looking at it. I'm like, but I own it. I've owned this land for a long time. and I want to create something beautiful in here, and I want to expand my private land into something that is going to provide work, income for my family, and my family is huge,

and then for the guys that work for me, and I want to provide an income and stability for those families that live in the area, and I want to provide housing for people that live in the area. So I had that pushback and I had a couple of key people in different areas that actually physically lobbied the previous council with the arm of Gimley to literally slow walk my project. So development permits. So about a year ago, two years ago, we had something coming in Manitoba called the Red tape Redemption Commission, which identified how government is supposed to. to interact with developers, homeowners, people that need to interact with government departments. Now, what it says is that they need to be accountable, transparent, and provide written documentation

as to why a decision isn't made or why it's a negative decision. They need to do that within 30 days or sooner. With the Planning Act, that was amended in 2021, and that actually gave homeowners and private owners some teeth and it said is that if you under various sections of the planning act you're a homeowner you're you're a private landowner and you need to get a permit for something and say it's a subdivision or it could be any type of development but you need to have a decision in writing within 30 days you need to have approvals for starting say a subdivision process you need that from the moment you start, the moment you end, they have 150 days. That's their time limit. They have 150 days

to get through the initial circulation. So government departments have 30 days to respond to anything that's put forward. And then we have on the other side of that, the RM has 90 days to do a developer's agreement. They have got 20 days to issue a development permit. I asked for a development permit. So I was approved for my subdivision on May the 5th, 2022. I asked for, and I did the draft review of all the developers agreements provided all of our initial engineering, all those things. I did that on June 3rd. So within 30 days, I had everything reviewed through lawyer, through engineering, comments, everything that we sent it back. I didn't get a response back until from June the 3rd, from the R.M. McGimley, I didn't get a response back until July 27th. Almost 60 days later,

and now we're at the end of the period. I applied for building permits on July the 13th, and they said, we can't do this. You need to finish the whole entire process, and you need to do this, and our bylaws say this. And I'm like, okay, I went and I read the Planning Act. I went back and I read all the bylaws. I got legal advice as to what the bylaws actually say. And everybody was saying to me, well, this makes no sense. Even the municipal relations is saying is that permits can issue it at any time. It's called a conditional use or variance. You just apply for it. Make sure you have enough votes through council in order to have it approved. And if it's already on approved subdivision, you're going to get the ability to build your homes. So we had had people that we were told

that we would be able to build. And then they stopped us from building. Now I've got six families without a house right now. So we started lobbying. We started saying, okay, this is what the bylaws say. This is what the Provincial Planning Act says. So we started, we went to our municipal board in Manitoba. And for the first three phone calls that we made, they would give us no information. They said there's nothing we can do. You have no legs to stand on, everything else. But then I talked to my MLA and I got some more information because he was actually the minister for municipal relations prior when these planning amendments came through and got Royal Ascent.

And he said, hey, actually that's not the case. You can ask for this. And so I called back to the municipal board and I actually had to cite the legislation and a section under which I would file an appeal under the municipal board and I said, oh, oh, Jocelyn, you know the planning act. And oh, okay, yes, yes, dear, yes, we can file an appeal, dear. 90 days after the first time contact the municipal board. And I said to them, I said,

why didn't you give me this information in August, September, October? And they said, well, dear, you didn't know the legislation. You didn't know what section you were going to file under. I was like, what is the municipal board for? They said, well, it's not our job to educate the homeowner or the developer. That's up to the municipality. And that's up to the department to educate them on what these new Bill 37 amendments mean. I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you serious? So that was just the municipal portion of the crap that I was faced with. At the same time, I'm dealing with our version of conservation in Manitoba, which is called Environment, Climate, and Parks. And I got to put a drainage plan through them. I have to put office of drinking water through them eventually. I have to go through them to them to go through them to.

to get a drainage and water license and to do any ditching and all these things that we need to do. And at the same time I'm doing all this, Manitoba flooded. We had that huge flood this spring. We were approved under disaster financial assistance for some assistance and we were allowed to mitigate a whole bunch of the flooding on site. So we did.

So what I did was using the engineering that we had on the ground and LIDAR and help from the department of highways for the province of Manitoba. were excellent as a provincial department. I have to say they got their stuff together. I'm happy. But Environment Climate and Parks is a dog's breakfast. They literally do not have the people qualified to be able to review these drainage

plans, provide these licenses, and they're not doing their homework. Or if they're told to slow walk something, they slow walk. Or if they don't like something, they can stop. your building cold and they did that to me. So here I am flooding. I need to mitigate the flooding. I'm told by EMO, pump, Jocelyn, do what you need to do, mitigate the flooding on your land,

but don't do anything that's going to create problems for other people. So I didn't. So what I did was I had this old cattle dugout in the center of my property. So I just directed all the water to the cattle dug out, expanded it, kind of did what I needed to do. And then we did a timed. release out to the ditch, which is exactly what anybody else would do. And climbing and parks came back and said to me, you're dug out there.

That's now a wetland. I'm like, what? And so started this crazy 11th hour after my subdivision is all being approved. Climate and parks comes back and says to me that you've got a class three wetland. you need to give us $30,000 before we're going to approve your drainage plan to allow you to continue building on your approved subdivision. And we're going to withhold any licensing that we give for your subdivision.

So we're going to prevent you from registering the plan with land titles. And we're going to prevent you from getting any funding for your subdivision. We're going to do all of that. We're going to block it all. And they put it in writing. were going to block it all until I paid them $30,000 for a wetland that doesn't exist. So then I started this big journey into Ducks Unlimited, Manitoba Habitat and Heritage, learning about wetlands.

I brought on experts that are wetland, experts in other provinces that work in our province with Dux Unlimited and other outside organizations and started learning about wetlands, hired some really phenomenal people and they came back and they said to me is that Dawson your property is a farm right it's agricultural it's al it's been altered through human activity and you have soil samples right and I said yeah you say it's not a wetland a wetland is a very specific type of land it's a very specific type of soil and so we started going through this process and I provided the evidence we had An archaeologist come out prove that we're a farm. We had the historical document showing we're a farm.

We have aerial photographs showing the barns and everything else. We have on the ground stuff where all my cultivators and everything else are still on the property. You can go and walk through and see all the old horse barn and everything else. And the Environment Climate Parks and says, we don't care. It's our decision. We can hold up your subdivision as long as we choose to. and they did that. And they're actually, believe it or not, they're still doing it.

So normally when you are interacting with the department, so say for my drainage plan, they had 30 days to get the drainage plan, review the drainage plan, make the comments, get the comments back to me, and turn it around. But it took them just to get me, and I'm talking rudimentary engineering comments, 90 days. 90 days from the date that I submitted to give me basic rudimentary comments. And I said to them, I said, okay, I said, you have engineering comments. And it looked to me like it was cut and paste. I can tell that.

And I said, let me talk to the engineer that reviewed. He can talk to our engineers and then we can walk through how we did our drainage plan, the road design, all this other stuff. And we can answer any questions that he has directly. And we could probably resolve it in about 30 days, or 30 minutes. So then they said, no, we're not going to give you access to our engineering. Okay. That really sounds bizarre, doesn't it?

So then we started asking, so then I went to my MLA and I said, hey, my MLA is Derek Johnson. I said, this doesn't sound right. We're farmland. We don't have wetlands. We are still currently zoned to AL. We have evidence, archeological governance that we're a farm. what is going on here? Why all of a sudden do I have these wetlands over a cattle dugout?

And so I started going through this process. I go to my MLA and then I go back to the senior resource office. And I asked to speak to the section, the director for drainage in the province. And that guy's name is David Hayes. Non-responsive. Okay. Like non-responsive. I mean, when some...

Who have you pissed off, Jocelyn? this this story is I don't know insane I hate to bring up what we've been living through the last two years but it's like no but here's the here's the stats but here's more stats no no we don't care but here's some more no no we don't care we we died like this is this is insanity is it not it is I mean so I do what's normal you ask like you ask to speak to the engineer no you you you they're they They missed off the wrong woman is what they've done. They did not realize who they were getting in a brawl with. And if there's one thing the listener and the follower on Twitter knows is Jocelyn isn't one to just, oh, no, I'll just move on with life and carry on. No, you pull out the handbook, you read the damn thing, and then you go, okay, well, where do you find this? And then you bring in everybody else. You brought in a bloody archaeologist.

Like, what? Yeah. So I did, I went to the, I did everything by the book. I bring in all these people to verify. I bring in wetland experts. I bring in the people that actually do this for a living. And they all tell me the same thing. They said, Jocelyn, we've done the soils testing.

We've done the soils analysis. Your farm, you have loam. You have peedy soil. You have no wetland. And they won't accept it. So I go to the section head. He's non-responsive. Then I go and I initiate to my.

MLA and I said, hey, he's non-responsive. I need your help. And he tries to initiate a ministerial inquiry. Now, a ministerial inquiry is really, really, it's really important. They actually have to, they are bound to respond within a timeline. They have to respond back to you. So I initiated a ministerial inquiry with climate and parks. That minister, Jeff Wharton, today to this very day, is non-responsive. Not even an acknowledgement of the minister inquiry, not even a call back from the minister's office directly. Not from the deputy minister, nothing. I initiated a minister inquiry with the municipal relations, Eileen Clark.

After about 90 days, I got a response back, which was basically, hey, continue to work with climate and parks. Talk to you later. That's a non-response. That's like, hey, you know what, we're not going to do anything to help you. So I go to two ministers, my MLA, my MP, which is James of Bazan, and I said, hey, James, everything that Pierre Palaver was talking about on a federal level, I'm actually experiencing, as one of your constituents, I'm experiencing this.

So he goes, and he says, hey, I have a constituent that is going through this. Can you do something? And he speaks to his conservative colleagues here in Manitoba. and they're like, so? So then we start looking at this, and I'm not the only developer and I'm not the only contractor that has seen this same type of pushback,

but I'm probably the only one that's seen it to this level. So I've gone through two ministers. So then I went to Ombudsman. Ombudsman at this time right now is still non-responsive. They've acknowledged they've received my complaint, but they have lots on their table, and they'll get to me. And who is that?

Who is that? The Ombudsman. So that's the guy you go to when government departments don't behave the way they're supposed to. So the ombudsman is the top level. That's the guy you go to when there's no transparency. You know what's funny about that? They're really busy? No shit.

I bet you they are. All government doesn't seem to be working the proper way, doesn't it? It is falling apart. So municipal relations is non-responsive. Climate and parks is non-responsive. And then when they do respond to something like the water resource officer that I'm trying to deal with, she sends me responses that are cut and paste. And one of the engineers that I was working with, we read the latest response about the type of soils

that I apparently have and don't have. And she actually said, based on provincial soil mapping for the general area, which is very coarse, and it's just kind of a guideline, and based on our aerial assessment, we believe you have these types of soils present on your land. Therefore, and she called it a Fyella series,

which basically means it's land that has been disturbed by agriculture, which is not a wetland. type of soil. And she said, based on this being present, we think you have a class three wetland. And I said, hey, we submitted to you detailed reports showing all of our soils analysis, our on-site testing. We gave you samples. We gave you photographs. We gave you actual soil composition and particle analysis for the areas in question. And we did it across the whole property. And that's not good enough. And that type of engineering is not good enough. And I said to them, I said, I'm not going to accept this. I'm not accepting this.

You're not getting any more money from Jocelyn. I'm not giving you a check because you haven't given me terms of reference. So I asked the question. I said, okay, if I have a class for wetland, I give you the money and I do this, I expand my my naturalized retention area to create a type of wetland, a naturalized wetland like they do in Alberta, who actually does it right, by the way. Then we, what are my terms of reference? Who determines whether or not I've built it correctly? What are the engineering standards that I'm building to? What's the time frame for all of this? And I said, so who's going to determine that I've done this correctly? And I said, because are you guys engineers? And I said, I'd like to know who I'm dealing with on the engineering side.

what their qualifications are, what assessments they're using, what soils they used, when they took those surveys, when they did those assessments, as is my right under the legislation. And they can't provide me with anything. Well, then I go back and I start doing some digging about what is this resource officer actually sending me? Well, she cut and paste from a soils classification done in 2010 that's posted publicly to the problem. of Manitoba's soil mapping and the closest, the closest soil sampling that she has to me and where she's listing these type of soils are in Arburg, Manitoba and I am south of Gimley, which is like, I don't know, 50 kilometers away. We're not even the same, the same area of soils.

And you're basing this on this. And I said to them, I said, come to sight. You know what, guys put down the paper put down the pencil get off your phone come to site come come come meet me i said that to the mLA to the MP to the minister both ministers to the senior resource water um the senior water resource officer to the engineers and said come to site come take a look and they're like no no no can't come to sight can't come to sight because you'll prove us wrong so This is where I'm at. So what I'm literally having is I have an approved subdivision where properties and houses need to be built. And they're blocking the housing from being built until I satisfy some type of imaginary need.

Or they're just using it as a form of retaliation against my prior whistleblowing activities to do this. So Pierre Palaver and Doug Ford, they said, is that we're just using it as a form of retaliation against my prior whistleblowing activities to do this. is that we cannot let these conservation departments. We can't let them have final say over housing subdivisions, especially if it's marginal lands. So if it's agricultural lands, if it's marginal class one, class two type of wetland area that flood maybe in the spring

and then they dry out in the later on the fall. We cannot let conservation departments, environmental departments, block housing subdivisions, which are approved from moving forward. We need to take away the control from them to be able to do that. They need to do their due diligence. They need to do their licensing. They need to see the engineering.

But we cannot allow them to block anymore. But in Manitoba, that's not what's happening. So I go to the Ombudsman. Then I said, okay, this is the problem. So I'm actually a paid PC party member. So I figured, okay, there's accountability issues, transparency issues going on. So I go to the PC party headquarters in Manitoba, 23 Kennedy. And I called them up and I spoke to Katie Redmond and I said, hey, this is, something's not right here.

What is going on here? And I said, as a party member, I have rights to seeing some type of accountable actions on part of, you know, people, it's the PC party that is in government right now. something going on there is there something not right so then they're basically non-responsive they listen but they never call me back then i get a hold of the manitoba pc party caucus i talk to them they never call me back i asked to meet with the chief of staff for hather steffinson our premier and they blow me off they're not talking to me so now i have gone municipal municipal board ombudsman mLA member of parliament Minister for Climate and Parks, Minister for Municipal Relations, and up to the Premier's office. How the hell am I supposed to get anything built when all of these departments are non-responsive?

So as a Manitoban, I have a right to be heard. And if I have done the engineering correct as per the requirement for my subdivision, And my engineering has actually all been approved. The watershed manager for the southern end of the province looked at my drainage plan finally, and he said, hey, I asked my engineers a few questions. 48 hours, they sent back the kind of the modifications that he wanted to see, and he reviewed it. And he said, I got no issues.

He goes, Jocelyn, you've exceeded the standard required. I have no problems with your drainage plant. I have no problems with your road design. I have no problems with how you want to move forward in terms of the rest of the building. Now, people think I'm building these massive, ugly, disgusting buildings. I'm actually creating a 26 separate residences

for 55 plus in general, but it can be any age, but they're only two bedrooms set within a wildlife managed area because I am continuing to keep all of that woodland there. I created 2,000 lineal feet of bioswale, which will prevent the property from ever flooding again, creating basically a creek that will bring wildlife in, a retention pond that would act as a dual source watering in, kind of like. drawing more wildlife for the area dealing with my sewer on site dealing with my water on site and doing this all in a way that is low impact low energy and contributes absolutely zero

outside chemical or pollution to the outside community and to the outside world this is the subdivision this is a project that every province says that they want i'm it i do the engineering i funded all myself. It's all out of pocket. I've spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get to this point. And now they're saying is that we're just going to keep blocking you. So my question is, why? It's clearly not the engineering. It's not the engineering. It's not the plan. It's not the housing I'm going to provide. It's not the benefit to the environment that I'm going to provide? What is the problem? I'm not building ugly side-by-side buildings. These lots are, you know, 120 by 200 or bigger. These are big, nicely laid out homes that will provide for our aging population.

And nobody can give me an answer. And I know my stuff. So what the heck is going on here? Hmm, that is a large question. You know, the first thing, I think two things. One is you either pissed off somebody really high up there. Whether it's in the area, whether it's in government, I don't know. Because, listen, I think at this point, you know, the list is going, I wouldn't want to get in a tussle when it comes to, you know, what you're talking about with Jocelyn.

I don't. I want you on my side, Jocelyn. That's what I would want. The other thing I think is like you're pissed off a system that doesn't want to be exposed. They want you to pay the $30,000 and carry on. And then you ask all the questions and they don't have answers to it, obviously. And instead of just being like, ooh, those are good questions. Hmm, I haven't thought of that or we can't, whatever. It doesn't matter. You're exposing part of the system. So it's either a person or it's people protecting the system, right?

I think. Like, that's what it seems. Maybe it's both. The reason why I say it's both. In 2019, August of 2019, I filed a lawsuit against the province of Manitoba, the beginning of 2019. And this lawsuit stemmed from projects that had happened in 2015, 2016.

And one of the key parts of that lawsuit was, was whistleblower retaliation because the province of Manitoba had actually physically retaliated against my firm for speaking out about what was going on in a couple of northern communities under provincial guidelines that had drinking water issues. And these departments that I'm dealing with today were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing. And when I caught the minute, And I questioned them on it. I had the hammer brought down on me. And they did everything they could to physically bankrupt my firm.

And they told me this actually in a meeting that they would make sure is that I would never be able to work in the North again. And I would never be able to do the type of work that I was doing. And I said to them, go ahead and try. Try me. Push me. See how far you get. and they tried to break me. And I just, I retooled, I fought, I prevented them from forcing my company into bankruptcy, and I have been on their ass every single day since then. I will not allow any

province, I don't care which government is in power. I will not allow corruption and a lack of accountability and whistleblower retaliation, I won't allow that to happen. Not on my watch. If you're going to do that to me or you're going to do that to somebody I know, you're going to face me. And as I recently told some fellow lawyers that we're looking at this is that I am not, I am not the witness that opposing counsel ever wants to see on a stand. I can whisk. down days of cross-examination. I have a photographic memory. And I know my source material. I can cite this shit backwards and forwards. So our province for the last five years has decided is that they wanted to pick a fight with Jocelyn and they wanted to hurt innocent,

innocent families, six families at the moment, by preventing them from having their homes built. That pissed me off. That's pissed me off. That's pissed. me off and now I'm on a mission. I am on a mission because if I can put concrete evidence together that the province of Manitoba has engaged in whistleblower retaliation and that's what this pattern because this is a pattern now one or two times coincidence three times four times now we have a pattern now we have a trend and that's what I think is going on here I think we have a a combination of I've pissed off people that are in the right places or the wrong places for me, apparently. And this is kind of a part of that. Now, interesting to note, in 2015, 2016, as I'm trying

to bring the issues to all of this stuff to come out, in 2019, February 5th, 2019, actually, I reached out to my current MLA at the time, Jeff Wharton, and said, I need your help. I need to be able to bring all of these actions, I need them to come out. I need our government to be accountable. I need you as my MLA to do some advocacy for me because I'm your constituent. And he ignored me, no refused meetings with me, everything else. So what I did was I protested outside of his office in Gimley. And he actually brought in armed car hurts from the legislature because he felt that I was a threat. And here I am standing on the streets of Gimli

as this woman saying, we need clean drinking water in our communities. We cannot continue to shuffle this stuff under the table and we can't break the backs of the people that are talking about and trying to expose it. So he refused. He refused to have any accountability. So you know what I did in 2019?

because he refused to do his job as my MLA, I said, I'm going to run as an independent against you. And I did. I ran against him as an independent, and I door knocked. And I went and I talked to people and I explained to them why I was running and I said it has nothing to do with politics. I'm actually a conservative. It has nothing to do with politics,

but it has to do with accountability and transparency. And now, lo and behold, he was a former minister of, of municipal relations. Now he's the minister for climate and parks. I bring a claim against the province for whistleblower retaliation and what they did in the north with two water treatment plants

and they are pissed. And who was the AG when I filed? Heather Stephenson. Our current premier. So you've pissed off the right people or the wrong people who have all the power of Manitoba, essentially, in what you're trying to deal with. I think so. I think that I have pissed in everybody's cornflakes. I have made their day go completely sideways.

And are they going to win? No. They're not going to win. They're not going to win because I'm cheap. I mean, obviously, you know, you're another, I chuckle about this podcast, Jocelyn, and I'm sure you do at times as well. How many people I've stumbled into through Twitter and the people of Twitter kind of feeding me different ideas, and certainly that's how you come across my view. And I think there's a lot of people rooting for you, because, I mean, I listen to what you're going through, and I'm like, this has to be the most frustrating thing in the world when you're trying to do. everything by the book and yet they're basically saying we hold the power and we'll decide

and we're not going to no matter what you do and i'm like all i can think of is my head and what is wrong with politics not politicians politics like which obviously is politicians i get it but like that is the murkiest fucking world in any industry or maybe this goes on a whole bunch of industries folks i just don't know it but like when i i keep hearing you know what I go back three years, four years, Jocelyn, before I ever started talking these stories. I don't know what world I lived in. It was this world of like, the sun is shining and we're all, uh-da-da-da-da-da-do. And now, oh my God, like, it's time to take the trash out.

Let's figure some shit out and let people go back to work and get some things going the right way and stop, like, attacking our own citizens. And it just keeps happening in a bunch of different, um, areas, but all in the same ways. Really strange, where everyone's going, it makes zero sense anymore. I don't know how many times I have to hear people say, it makes zero sense anymore,

and we're all just kind of like marching along, going, well, it'll eventually get better. No, it doesn't eventually get better. It takes people like yourself and others to stand up to it, to probably sue the pants off of them at some point, and so they realize we can't do this, because this sounds insane. I'm already doing it.

So I've already filed for two. You know, the Planning Act gave us some teeth. It gave us some legs to stand on. So I'm pursuing that. But if you don't mind for a second, how long is it going to take for that to get, you know, if there's anything about the law, it's not like snap a finger in there, sued the pants off and away you go. Like, I assume this is going to be drawn out for a long time.

Yeah, the municipal board will take. 30 days just to get to hearing. And then at that point in time, if I win, which I will, because I'm that well prepared, then I can actually go after both the RM and the province for costs and costs, anything that has delayed us, anything that's a reasonable cost that has created unnecessary delay for the builder, I'm now going to go after that and I'm going to get our costs back for my homeowners for myself and we're going to get that money. But you know where we have to draw that money from? We have to draw it from taxpayers.

So it's going to come out of the rate pairs from R.M. Gimley and it's going to come out of rate pairs for the province of Manitoba. Now I have the second claim for the like going back to the original one for the province of Manitoba. And that one is actually just headed for discovery in January. So that has been 2019, 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022. So it's going to be three plus years by the time I even get from the point of filing to the point of discovery. And then we'll start looking at that and maybe we'll see something come out of that.

But again, when I win, because I'm not losing. I am so well prepared that my lawyers have said to. me when they look at everything I put together, timelines, all the documentation, because I keep everything. I don't start anything unless I'm, unless I know that I can go to court for it after the fact. So when I win, that dollar figure will come out of the ratepayers in Manitoba as well. And this happens on an ongoing basis. So, I mean, am I going to win? Hopefully I keep my shorts long enough to win because in Manitoba, if you don't have the funds to litigate, there is a law in the books that came in about 10, 12 years ago that says that you have to

post security in order to litigate unless you can fight against and show that you have the means to do it and things like that. And I've actually had... So just to hold you there for a second. What you're saying is only the rich can fight. Am I putting that in the right way? You got it. You got it. That's how much. Manitoba law is now, is that unless you have means, you're up, you're the little guy. Yeah, nobody cares. Yeah. We don't care about you.

So when they're drawing it out, Jocelyn, as much as they are, they're seeing what you're worth. Yeah. Well, what they're seeing what I'm worth, but they're seeing, can they, the idea is that can we bleed her? Yeah. Dry. Can we bleed her dry so that she can't litigate? Well, guess what, guys? I'm smarter than you are

and I got some lawyers that are so amazing. I mean I look at my lawyers and I look at their competency and I look at what they've done with me and how we're able to communicate back and forth and all I have to say is that

they're top notch. They are so good at what they do and they encourage me to continue to do all the background and the prep and everything that in order to keep my costs down and to make it easier on them. But I mean, my lawyers are stoked. They're like, we can't wait. This is going to be fucking awesome. Let's go. And so every time I have opposing counsel say to me, well, Jocelyn, you know, this is going to be long and this is going to

be difficult. And I'm like, let's go, buddy. I'm ready. I'm ready. You want to go. You want to go. you can go to war with me. You've been, you're kind of, you know, almost like, I don't know why Muhammad Ali comes to mind, but, you know, you kind of been training for this for a long time. It's like, all right, let's get in the ring. Let's start smacking each other around so I can, you know, because right now you're just, you're not even letting me step in the ring. And I've been, like, at night, do all you do is read?

Like, you know, I applaud you because I know myself, along with a ton of other people, see like the government documents and you start reading your eyes. For the listener, Jocelyn sent me an email with two documents. I forget how long the one was. Maybe eight pages. It wasn't that long. And halfway through, I had to take a break because I'm just like, this hurts my head.

And I don't know what it is about. And it wasn't even bad. I was just like, this is just so frustrating, just reading it. I'm like, this is insane. And yet there's certain people, such as you, yourself. You know, I always think of Peter McCullough whenever I have a fun, where he can just rattle off like 18 states. I'm like, what does that guy do for fun? Just read? And I go, Jocelyn,

what do you do for fun? You just, you just, you grab the textbook and you're like, well, fine, we're going to, we're going to argue this. I'm just going to read it. Like, is that the way you're wired? Yep. I, I have a, my secret weapon is that I have a photographic memory. But it's not just a photographic memory, is that if I read, I understand it. So I retain the understanding of what I've just read. And I've been doing this for years and years and years. So as I keep adding to my collection in here, I'm able to put things together and I'm able to kind of see things three-dimensionally.

and I'm able to figure out where I need to get to. So I can see three, four, five, six, seven steps down the road and what my roadblocks are. So six months out, I'm like, this roadblock is coming up. And I know that this is where they're going to go. So I need to do this now to get around that. So that's literally my job. So if I'm not on the job site running a machine or helping the guys build, then I am in here and I'm doing this.

And I research constantly. I sleep for about three and a half hours a night if I sleep. And then I... Three and a half hours? A dumb question. You know, I'm going to get an off topic. But I, you know, I'm going here for closing on an hour. I think people understand it.

So I'm just going to throw you a curveball here. Three and a half hours of sleep. Don't you worry about, you know, and I'm going to have listeners text me because I'm going to have somebody who's like, that's exactly what I do. But, you know, like, there's a ton of different people. talking on different podcasts, doctors, etc. about the importance of sleep. You don't need more than three and a half?

Oh, no, I need way more. I, trust me. I would love to sleep for seven hours, or I would love to, but my brain gets so wound up, wound up that in two o'clock in the morning, and people sometimes, as they follow me on Twitter, Jocelyn be up at three o'clock in the morning because they can't sleep, and all of a sudden I'm scrolling through it.

I'm like blasting something off. So, yeah, because I've been fighting for five or six years, my brain doesn't shut down, so all I do is research to fight. And I'm hoping the fight will stop soon because I have gray hair and I'd like to sleep. I'd really like to sleep and be able to just enjoy life and not have to be fighting the way I do. but these types of fights, if I'm experiencing them, and I'm just one builder, other builders are telling me is that they're seeing the same things. And so when I was talking to,

I was talking to somebody from Dux Unlimited, who does work across multiple provinces, and they've recently done in Alberta. And they said it's that Alberta actually does this right. They actually look at all of the different, say you've got a development and you've got what they consider wetlands or lands that would be prioritized. They actually go through and they said, okay, this is the area we want to develop. Let's put the highest priority on the pieces of that development that we want to see maintained in some way.

And let's focus on what we're going to do with our priority areas. And then you guys do what you need to do to actually develop. And let's come up with a way to be able to mesh. those two priorities together. And they will give the builder in exact terms of references to how they do it and work with them to get to that endpoint. So again, another example, Alberta doing it right.

Ontario, I think they're at that point now where they've realized is that they're in such a housing crunch that they need to start doing it right as well. in Manitoba, we do not have the leadership in our, and I don't care which party you're looking at. There's no leadership in this box here in Manitoba that will take us from point A to point B. Like if we don't have a Danielle Smith here in Manitoba, I don't know what the solution is, because there's simply not anybody here that has the ability to take all of that vision and be able to streamline it into something to make our province work better.

Manitoba shouldn't be on the borderline of being a have-not province. Like we're have, have-not. We shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be as far behind in terms of engineering, building, all these other things that we are. We're really in a mess. but we're in a mess because our provincial government, the entrenched civil service, they're obviously not doing their job and they're understaffed in terms of quality. I'm not talking manpower because I'm sure we are so overburdened in terms of how much staff we have.

It is the quality of the staff. We don't have the quality of the staff anymore. And I read an article by somebody that just retired from Environment, Climate and Parks. he was there for 24 years. His name is John Arthur. And he has recently become a consultant for landowners that want to fight the department because he saw that decline in quality.

And so he's somebody that I'm going to be reaching out to next to say, hey, you know, what is my next step other than suing the government? Going public is probably the best thing I could do because I need to make people understand is that this is not about rich developer. I fund my building through a line of credit secured by my home. I am not a rich developer.

We work for our money, we pay for everything in cash. That's how we do business. And so we're not, we are hardworking. If we need to get something, we work twice as hard in order to achieve the end. So this is not about somebody with unlimited means because by no means do we have that. So I don't know how we do this other than making getting Manitobans to the point where they have the education and they have the knowledge to say provincial government, you need to be accountable in all these provincial parties.

They all have in their party constitution because I just read the provincial party constitution since I'm a paid member. And the first page, accountability, transparency, is listed on the very front page. And I'm like, where does that exist? You know. They're just words, Jocelyn. They're just words, right? Like, people need to carry that out and hold, you know, and hold each other accountable

to those, you know, those values. Other than just words on a piece of paper. And that's exactly it. So if we bring in the national strategy, when I talked to my MP, James Pizan, and he said, is that, you know, this is what Pierre would do if he were coming and everything and then. I'm like, that's great. And I applaud that. I said, but as my MP, what can you do for me now as your constituent?

And I get the sense that a member of parliament or an MLA, they, I don't know what they actually do for us. I mean, if I had an MLA like Danielle Smith, I know that, I know shit's going to get done. But the rest of the MLAs and the rest of our MPs, what do they actually do for us? Who's actually making the decisions? And the fact that my MLA, who is also the Minister of Agriculture, hasn't been able to, to do anything for his constituent in terms of advocacy. What does that mean about accountability at the top end?

Like, is the, does my, you know, does Jeff Orden, is this like that, what do whatever I want to call it? Like the little Napoleon syndrome? Does that make sense? Is that he is so upset that I would have challenged his, his, you know, his rule in the riding, is he so upset that therefore he's never going to allow me to succeed? Is it a personal attack? Is he using the office as a minister to carry out a personal attack? I don't know. I can't, I haven't got to that point where I've got enough evidence, but I'll find it. So if it's there,

I'm going to find it. So, but the pattern. I mean, you're dealing with people, right? pattern is there you're dealing with people in a place of power yep and if if they feel you know all of us are capable all of us are capable of pretty terrible things jocelyn and i you're just dealing with people and and then on top of that uh government that is obviously not operating the proper way or i don't even know if that's the right way to put it because you know it just feels like it's being used against you. Yeah. I mean, so for the average person, so if you're a constituent anywhere in any place and you

have something that needs to be addressed, my experience shows me that you can, that there are all the checks and balances that should exist within our system of government are broken or can be easily broken. Can it easily be broken. And so it's either you're going to follow through on the process because you are ethical and you're going to follow through because that's what's inside of you to fall through and do your job as an MLA or you're not. And my whole situation in terms of this, this is a technical issue. I mean, well, it's something that should have been solved.

as a technical situation. It could have been solved simply by bringing out engineer from the province, an engineer from my end, maybe two engineers, myself, Deputy Minister, maybe the director for the drainage section at Climate and Parks. All of us get together on the job site. We look at the situation.

We look at the aerial photographs together. We look at the soil samples. together and we're like, okay, this is a really easy way to solve this. That seems very reasonable. And I asked for it. I've asked for that exact same scenario multiple times in writing. So where I say, hey, as per my rights, is somebody in this process, you need to do this. And there is timelines attached to this.

So when I asked municipal relations about, you know, adhering to the timelines. and she said, from municipal relations said, is that, you know, those timelines are kind of like they're for you guys, but in terms of government, no, no, dearie, we don't have to follow your timelines. We don't have to follow the legislation. We don't have to follow red tape reduction commissions. You know, yes, we know Bill 37 amendments say this, but, you know, we'll do it in our own time and so I've actually specifically asked, can you give me a timeline? And they're like, nope, no timeline. So I said to them, I said, okay, and this is what I said last week. I said, based on all the above, it's not the engineering, it's not the the wetlands. It's not, you know,

any of this. I say clearly this looks to me like this is based on personal attack or whistleblower retaliation. And I said, if I'm wrong, you're going to respond back to me and you're going to give me some ideas of how we come together to resolve the issue at the lowest possible level and hammer this out. But if it's whistleblower retaliation, I said I'm either going to get A, a non-response or B, you're going to give me a response at 424 p.m. on a Friday afternoon when I have no ability to be able to deal with it for yet another week. and true to form this request to be able to resolve at the lowest possible level was ignored

by climate and parks by the minister ignored by David Hayes the director for the drainage section ignored by the senior resource officer and ignored by everybody else so I sent it out to my MLA again I said hey

you realize I said is that Jocelyn is escalating. Jocelyn is escalating the situation and I said this is going to look bad. This is going to look bad for everybody involved because it's going to make the government look incompetent. I would much rather not get to that point and I'd much rather just deal with this reasonably. And you know, the response I got was you know, my MLA is aware of it. He is trying to solve it. He is trying to find out if this is going to be resolved and it's going to get looked at. And in the meantime, nothing.

And so I put together all my homeowners and have said, hey, you know, so one of them is a disabled vet. And recently retired from the province of Manitoba as an employee. So he knows the shit that I'm going through. Another one is, again, just retired. He was in an accident. He is on disability payments, and he's waiting for his house as well because he needs a specific type of layout for his mobility. And the other four, they're all over 60.

All over 60. So all six. They are all people that came from professional backgrounds or from the government or sometimes. of situation like that and who would have normally believed that our government operated on a fair level my homeowners have been my advocates they have gone and they so not just me making phone calls they are calling all the provincial departments they are calling the mLAs they are going to the association of management of municipalities they are going to the arm of gimley they are going to the

municipal board they are going to the the the drainage of the sections for Environment, Climate and Parks. They have gone to the Ministry for Climate and Parks. Guess what? Every single one of their phone calls, their emails have been ignored. And what they say is that our families are being impacted. And climate and parks, their response was, we don't care. We just don't care.

We don't care that you don't have your house. So where do you think we're heading then, Jocelyn? You know, in my brain I go, like, I wonder if this is just a, you know, like they talk about, you know, the old adage of strong men create weak times, week times create strong men, blah, blah, whatever. I'm but I'm butchering it, but you get the point. I'm like listening and, you know, I just go back to like six years ago. I used to ask like, why don't the top business people go into politics or the top athletes or the. athletes or the top whatever, right? Where they're just like, you know, because I'd heard

probably about seven years ago, I said, what's wrong with politics? And one of the things that always stuck in my mind is a lack of vision at the very top. Yep. And so I'd ask, well, why don't people go into it? And people are like, oh, they don't pay off, they don't want to have them. And my brain always went, well, eventually

though, you reap what you sow. So eventually you have a point you're at, a business owner who wants to go make, you know, an awesome project, but there's going to be money involved, right? And you're going to make money off of building this thing that the people want and everything else. But at the point, the government that is ballooned will not allow it, even if you have everything documented and everything else. So is the next logical step is a whole bunch of people get involved in politics to pull back some of the red tape and everything else so that business owners can go out and actually do what

they're supposed to do, and then eventually you fall back into the cycle. is it something worse where a place like climate and parks has been given an exceptional amount of power to just be like no and this is something that needs to really be addressed so that we don't we don't get into

and I don't know how to do like who addresses it is it the is it the courts because the courts you know haven't at times given me a whole lot of faith in you know like in anything at this point right like I mean And at this point, it just feels like unless you can get public opinion on your side,

where the people are like, Jocelyn isn't right, climbing in parks, you need to back off or whatever. That's part of it. That's part of it. But I think the other people, you have to do kind of like what I've done is that my attitude was, is that in July, when I knew that I was right, and I knew that I needed to get houses, for three of my clients in particular and I needed to get far enough along so that I could manage this come winter if they did delay me. I actually asked the questions. I actually asked the questions legally. What happens if I go ahead and I start building in advance? And I was

told the same thing as that, you know what? Don't know. But they did say is that if you were going to start building in advance, do it right. Get it engineered. Get it inspected via your engineering, get it signed off by a professional engineer certified in the province of Manitoba, dot your eyes, cross your teas, and then let her fly. So I did. I actually started three homes. I poured foundations for three homes. I had them scanned to verify. I had them inspected. I had them signed off and everything else. And then the RM at the time was like, Holy! You did what? I'm like, you heard me. You heard me. You see. I did it.

You do something about it. I pushed the envelope. I pushed the button. And I forced it. So now, because I had an approved subdivision, I don't connect to municipal infrastructure. It was engineered to meet and exceed national building code and building standards here in the province. in San Manitoba, I said to all of the planning districts, and I said, is that, why do you exist? Do you exist to make sure the building codes are met and that we pay our permit fees? Or do you exist to be a roadblock? You tell me. You tell me what your job is, because I know what your job is.

And so I challenged, I challenged them. And so now I'm at the point now where, in less than 30 days, I will have a permit to build nine and to continue building the first three that I started included within the nine. Why? Because I don't connect to the municipal infrastructure. It is engineered. I have exceeded the building code. I have met or exceeded the standards that are required of a builder.

So how I fight this is by telling the institutions is that do your job. do your job. Otherwise, people like me are going to say is that you no longer are functioning. Your NES, non-effective strength, if you want a military term in it, you don't matter anymore. And we'll continue onward. I think that is probably how people say is how does Jocelyn do a Freedom Convoy protest? I do that on the ground by doing what I am doing. I take that protest and I put that into my business and I do it right.

And I challenge. I challenge them. And I did. And I'm still challenging them. They want to go toe to toe and they want to try and stop us from building. You better come with a lot of bloody firepower because I'm doing it right. And if you aren't doing your job and I can prove that you're not doing your job, then you're going to be in trouble.

So my messages to other homeowners, private owners, get educated, know what everything is in your area and figure out how you can challenge. How can you challenge the status quo? How can you challenge it legally? And how can you challenge it in a way that pushes buttons? And you're able to push it further down the road because that's what I had to do.

I had to push. I had to push and push and push and push in a situation where I never should. I should just simply say, hey, I need a permit. Here's the engineering. Here's the drawings. Here's your $2,000 and start building. Come and inspect. But that's not the way it is right now. And it's so it's we're seeing as that the system is broken so that the only way we fix the The system is that if we as builders, as as homeowners, as private land owners, as constituents, we need to do it right and push ahead, push through the obstacles and force them to deal with us. Well, I think you said it best by get educated, right? You know, I joke about not being able to be an eight-page document, but you need to read those.

things. You need to understand what's going on, what the rules are. And I think as a society, I hope, maybe I'm a little optimistic on this, but I feel like there's a ton of people doing that now, right? There's more and more and more and more. And then as an industry, you're right, you've got to hold them, you know, you got to hold them to the fire, not just Jocelyn, but the entire industry, because it affects all of you. You know, I think that's, that can be extra, well, universal. It can go across the board to not just what you're dealing with, but pretty much, you know, any industry, any, you know, when it comes to different, I got our MLA coming on in January. I'm waiting to hear the date and I'm actually, now that I think about it, that's probably as soon as to get off here,

I've got to make that call again because I'm pretty sure they have a date for me. And I'm excited about it because you just brought up things that I've been thinking about. I'm like, well, what do you, like, it sounds really, really dumb, you know, and I mean, and I say that a lot on I am dumb when it comes to this. But I like to learn. It's like, so what do you do? Like, you know, like you're supposed to represent not only me, but thousands of other people. Like, what is your day job?

Like, and how do you get things done? How do you, you don't speak to the layman because at the end of the day, you know, there's a whole bunch of people that want to get society moving in the right direction. But that goes across a lot of different. That isn't just Sean. That's a lot of different spectrums. a lot of different worldview, et cetera, et cetera. But I hear story, Jocelyn, and I hope the audience, you know, well, I know they, I've enjoyed

this, so I highly doubt what they haven't. I wish you the best of luck. And, I mean, obviously, we'll stay in touch because I'm curious to see where it goes. But before I let you out of here, we should do the crewmaster final question. It's funny, I've had you on, it was, if people are listening and going, man, I wonder what she's talking about with the whistleblower and the water wells and all that. It's episode 267. I chuckle about that.

It feels like a year ago, but it was May 18th. This episode is going to be 357, if you can believe that. I've been pumping a few out a few episodes out. Anyways, if you want to hear more of Jocelyn's story on water walls, go back to

episode 267. Now, in saying all that, the final question I'm going to is, I'm, you know, as we close it on Christmas, I'm kind of optimistic. I'm hopeful. I want to. So I'm curious. What is Jocelyn optimistic for in 2023?

I think, believe it or not, I think that the recent new management at Twitter, I think that that is going to create a whole new conversation. I think that new conversations are coming. I think that people are going to realize. is that I can actually say what I feel and do it in a reasonable civil way and have those conversations be had. I think that 2023, I think 2023 is about us finally all getting together and having a conversation.

And you know what? I think is that 2023, people got to get lit. They have to get lit right up. Get lit. get into the conversation, start talking. Don't be afraid to speak out. I mean, because it is terrifying. It is terrifying putting it out on there because I'm public, right? My name is public. My business is public. And I say some harsh things. But it comes from a place of where of trying to get people thinking about different things. So I am really hoping that this Christmas and 2023 is going to be the year of the whistleblower.

I really hope that those conversations are going to be had. I want to see, I want to see all those barriers broken down. I want to see it get lit right up. That's what I'm looking forward to. Well, you know, it's funny. At the end of every podcast, I should probably bring up what Elon Musk has tweeted in the last little bit. So this will date, because by the time this airs on Wednesday, it'll be a day or so. So here's the latest from Elon Musk, okay?

So obviously they've been doing Twitter files. They're on part four. It's all about de-platforming the president about Donald Trump, right? So you should stay in the clear. You should dig into that because what he's doing there is really, really interesting. But his one from, I think yesterday was my pronouns are prosecuted Fauci. And geez Louise did that absolutely blow up on Twitter. And you just think, I mean, what was it?

we're both people who are on Twitter. I was saying to Tuesday the other day, like in the middle of COVID, I was losing people. And now everybody knows me on, probably. I'm not this outspoken guy. I pretty much remain in the back scenes. I threw out a couple tweets here or there, whatever. But I mean, I was losing people.

I was losing follows in the middle of Twitter. As soon as Elon Musk hopped on, it's been the opposite way. And I'm not sitting here blowing smoke. I, you know, if I get 10 followers in a day, that's pretty good. But it's been 10 a day now. for like 20 days or whatever it's been. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is new. Because, you know, when they talk about Shadow Band,

like nothing of mine got anything, anywhere. And we all know. At this point, I joke, well, I'm removed off YouTube. I mean, pretty much everybody who says anything on YouTube is getting removed or penalized. Yeah. And Eric Payne, a pediatrician from Calgary, he was on, and he was talking about EHS

and how they transcripted the entire podcast, me and him had. So his initial call with AHS was about the Sean Newman podcast and him and my tradscript. I'm like, oh boy. Like I am on some lists Jossum, which is rather and unique to think about, isn't it? But Twitter is a fun little space

since Elon took over because everybody who's, I mean, don't get me wrong, there's some crazy stuff being set on there. But it's nice to see things coming through instead of having to really pry open the door to try and even find them. And it's crazy how many people got suspended or removed.

across the board. Like, it is insane. There was, before there was, it was like, the whole message on Twitter is pretty homogenous, right? It was homogenous on the left. It was homogenous on the right. And there was, there was, and that was it.

And there was none of those interesting stories that happened in between that happened in what I call the gray zone. And none of that, that stuff was going on. And none of it was happening. And now it actually is, and really good stories are, happening. And I absolutely love what he did with cracking down on child sexual exploitation because I think that ties into all the other stuff that we're seeing with the, just all those

other conversations. So I think it's a really good thing. I think that we're going to start getting back to, I think, how the bulk of us actually really do think, how we really do talk, how we do feel, how we feel about our kids. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be just I've been saying for the last year for sure it's we've lost a tool and that's how to communicate with one another about things we agree on and certainly Twitter at times is not the appropriate place for certain things but allowing both sides to talk about things when they come up is a start and and we got to find we all got to find that skill again because that's been lost for the last it might even been before COVID it might have been.

it might have been well before that. Well, before. We weren't paying attention anymore. But that's a tough skill. Yeah. So the last one I read of him just in the last little while was about woke. His set. We don't have.

We don't get through this unless we get rid of being woke. The idea of this woke life, this is woke conversations. That needs. to end if we're going to have a better world. We must get past that. And that is so true because in this woke narrative, real journalism dies. Whistleblowers have no voice because they're outside the narrative. People that need to bring real stories forward don't get the exposure that they need. And it's only right now that the big media platforms are realizing is that, holy crap, maybe Julian Assange shouldn't be locked up. Maybe this is bad for business for us. The tweet you're talking

about, Elon was the woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters. That's what he tweeted. It's at 367,000 likes and 60,000 retweets. Like, I mean, give the guy credit when it comes to buying a platform and making it relevant all over again. I know we all fun each other on there, but for a time, it was not really a fun place to go at all. It was just, it was, ugh. And now Twitter has become,

me and two's joke about all the time now. Like, it might become our platform because it, you know, like YouTube is an amazing platform. Loved YouTube. You can find anything there. And it's so user-friendly and everything else. But you mentioned the word,

what, COVID right now, vaccine, like, it's a couple of those. And there's more. Listen, I always bring up COVID because I know it inside and out, but you bring up those ones. Done, penalized. Hell, you might even bring up Sean Newman and you might be penalized at this point. Like, it's just gotten, it's on both sides. It isn't just targeting what, it's like, it's an algorithm, it hears a word, boom, penalized. And then you do it too many times, you're gone. You don't get no say in it. It's like, this is wild. And Twitter at least has come back. to allowing words to be said again. Wow, what a crazy thought.

Like, I never thought that I would end up using Rumble more than I use. I know. I hate Rumble, and I've come all the way around on it, Jocelyn. I've actually started to the listener. If you want to watch the videos, obviously it's on Spotify, but it's now back on Rumble. It airs on Twitter. It airs on Facebook for the time.

We'll see how long that lasts. And I hate it Rumble because you'd type in my name. and you couldn't find me. I'm like, how can you have a platform where I put up videos with my name on it? You type in the search engine, Sean Newman podcast, and nothing comes up. I'm like, this isn't for me. And I'm like, as so many others, I've come all the way back around on it. Because you can't say things on YouTube that you can on Rumble and the Rumble and the, the Rumble rams and what happens in the chats and things like that. I stayed away. from Rumble until I started watching Redacted.

And when I started watching Redacted, then I went over to Rumble to watch them on Redacted. And they were actually the only ones that I watched Viva on Rumble, and I watch Redacted on Rumble. And I'm like, okay, now, you know, this is a little bit of where I can actually get out there and that. But I swear to, I swear to God, I am seriously, considering doing like a daily Sundance rant where I can just get up and lose my mind. Do it on Twitter.

And I might do that simply because of all the things I experience on a daily basis. I think, you know, the lady that comes to mind right now is Nadine Ness from Grassroots United. I think I'm saying that right. Sorry, Nadine if I got that wrong. Anyways, Saskatchewan. She hosts, and there's going to be people who are like, ah, I don't go on Twitter. And that's fair. but she hosts Twitter spaces, I think it's about once a week,

and they get a ton of traction. Now, she's got some wicked guests that go on it, and they talk openly about, you know, different things. I think right now, actually this week, I want to say, is Alberta Sovereignty Act and the Saskatchewan one, whatever they're calling theirs. But regardless, and she's got a bunch of different, and I go, if you have a Twitter phone,

falling, which you do, uh, seeing a Twitter rant on there or what have you, uh, honestly, an update, I think would go over extremely well. Uh, that's my own thoughts, right? Because that's where I follow you. That's how I know what you're doing. And I remember, um, listeners when I was suggesting when I, you know, when I did the, the nine episodes with Western standard, I was like, well, do you want me to air it on the podcast? I just want me to put it on, you know, like, and I got a resounding. We follow you on the podcast. We don't follow you on social media. We don't follow you somewhere else. Everything you do put on here. I'm like, oh, okay. So now that's why I'm at episode 357 with you in less than a year from 267, right? Is because everything I do lands on the podcast.

So people, if nothing else, know where to go. And I think for, you know, long rant over, but I think for Jocelyn, if you're going to do something, Twitter would be lovely. I know everybody wants different platforms and everything else to expand their audience, but Twitter is where I owe you. So my vote, you do it on Twitter. And I might do that. I might just be a short video, but what is the rant and open it up to what's going on there? Because business owners in Manitoba, they're all going to do the same thing.

and what i what i say on a rant like my guys like my guys come in and they hear me on the phone or they hear something going on or they see something going on with me they're like man i love my boss she is just totally crazy she is awesome and so they they hear me and i'm like i there are sometimes where i get so um i have so vocal shot you're in my you get vocal you get vocal you get vocal No, no. If you heard some of the things that I have said and where my guys are like, what did you just say?

I'm like, I don't even know where that came from. That came from. That was like an out of body experience. Somebody just took over my body and I'm just like, boom. And everybody are like, holy, that is like, that is crazy. But it's effective. And I just, I say, I tend to, when I'm going to go on to a rant, I tend to say exactly what I'm,

I'm feeling, exactly how I say it in, in real life, whether I'm on the phone. How about it could be called Berziac blows up? Hey? Can you imagine? Oh, man, that would be like my Monday, my Monday was one of those. And my lawyers had said to me, he said, you know what? He goes, I have, in 28 years, he goes, I have had five clients. He goes that I would put you into a category of being this well prepared, this wild, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, in this class.

And he goes, you're by far. He goes, they're the most interesting. Well, um, quick dick, uh, you know who QDM is. Yeah. Uh, he does it with humor, but I, he always amazed me, amazes me at how well versed he is, right? Because it isn't just that it's humorous. It's smart. Like, he's very, very smart on what he does. And you think about Quick Dick, he has used social media to rise to a level that I don't think anyone thought a Snapchat handle would go to there.

And now, is he worldwide? No, he's giant in Saskatchewan and certainly he's growing. But, like, he has found a way to use humor cleverly, smartly, to get really ridiculous things in politics, the average person to listen to. and I'm not saying you could be quick dick because I mean quick dick has a way about him but at the same time I'm like if you can

add something to the conversation because you were so well versed that a guy like me can pop on and listen to it that makes a lot of sense honestly because there's just there's very you know I go back to Peter McCullough he can find a way to analyze 500 paper and for a guy like me to listen to and go

oh, oh, that makes sense. And, you know, there's probably a few others that I'm forgetting right now. I don't know why I can't think of it. But any time you have somebody who can go in, disseminate information from way too much because so many of us just don't have time, can't focus that long. I don't know the answer. There's a lot of answers there. And you can add to it, all the power to you, Jocelyn, that's my thoughts.

I'll be looking forward to the first Berziak blows up on a Twitter space or a Twitter video or what have you. Either way, I've really enjoyed this, Jocelyn. I wish you best luck. And I know at some point, I keep saying this to everybody, our paths will cross again. And who knows, maybe today I'll be, I've been pondering for 2023. I want to do an SMP road trip. I haven't done one since 2020. 2020, I went out to Vancouver, interviewed Jim Patterson and Judy Reed and a whole bunch of cast characters. And I've been contemplating on where I go for the next SMP road trip. And, uh, I know whichever way, if I do stay in Canada, whichever way I go will be a ton of fun because there's a ton of people that I've met now across the podcast waves.

They'd be cool to meet in person. And if I ever get your way, I'm certainly going to buy a beverage or two. Oh, yeah. Here is that, like I said, where we have Sundance and it's kind of like a great big, huge, sprawling, it's not a compound. It's more like a big sprawling type, ranch type property here that we have. and it's it's it's going to be going to be crazy but yeah you'd you would have some exciting times here you never know what you're going to get faced with i mean you know maybe i'm throwing something that

day it's funny uh you know if i go to manitoba i got yourself i got uh i think shadow davis is out there you got um uh wayne peters is out there i've already been bugging early up north to take me hiking next year right like here in alberta and i'm like man i the the the the cast a characters this podcast has seen is is is uh is quite eclectic i think eclectic is maybe the right word either way um yeah i get your way uh we're certainly going to sit down and have a conversation to be a lot of fun either way thanks for doing some time this morning yeah well i mean love it to sit down with like shadow davis and a few of the all the manitoba ones all together because i think he's really cool like i've spoken to him and and he has have you have you done shadows show us once once yeah i did

Once when my son was not allowed to go to his electrical trade training at Red River because of the mandates. Tax pass, yeah, mandates. Yeah, so I fought it. I fought it. And I got him into his training for that year, for his level for that year. He had to do it all online, but he wasn't going to have any type of a vax for him because he can't. And so I fought it. And I was, I was vicious.

I was vicious and he wasn't going. He wasn't, but I said, you're not going to deny my kid. You're not going to deny him the ability to be able to go to school. You want to take on Mama Bear? You just thought it. There must be people in and around your neck of the woods. When they see you walking in, they're running for the high hills. Nope, nope, out for vacation.

I'm sick today. Like the list of reasons why they don't want to meet with you must be endless. my boy said that when they were going to school, their teachers were terrified of me. So my kids were, before I took them into homeschooling, they said, I ate at a night in grade seven, he said to me, he goes, mom, he goes, please don't make my teacher cry today. Mom, please. Why, Johnston, did you homeschool? What was the final straw for you?

What was the final straw? I was doing the, the Méti, my boy is like, I'm a Métis, so I was doing the applications for the boy. and I had taught my boys both how to read and write even before they entered school. And then I'd asked the boys, they said, okay, guys, come over here and sign your applications for your matey. And my boys said to me and Aiden said to me, he goes, Mommy goes, I can't remember how to write my name. And he went to print it.

And I'm like, what? I said, you can't write your name? and I looked at that and I was already on the road with construction and everything else and had my own business and my other son same thing he could write but his penmanship was so terrible and I my boys at you know kindergarten grade one grade two had beautiful penmanship and then they told me is that they don't teach it anymore and I was like you're kidding me and I pulled them out of school I said if you cannot teach my child the basics you can't teach my child the basics I'm going to teach my child the basements so on the job site

it came to it came with me a high school apprenticeship program Connor ended up in engineering at NGAP plus doing trade training aiden is working on his trade as well he's been roofing and doing other things with me continuously. Both boys are super smart, super well read, love to read, and they can both write their name now. So that's why I homeschooled. I homeschooled because I was furious.

I just, I lost it. I lost my mind. It's funny, you know, one of the things about growing up, you know, I went to school. I married a teacher, right? And I didn't realize how many homeschooled. are out there. Like, I, I should look up at the stats of how many homeschool in Canada, but it is a ton.

And somehow, this podcast has found a lot of them because that's something I didn't realize about you. I mean, you know, there's probably a lot. I don't realize about you, but, you know, there's a lot of people that have pulled their kids from the system and don't like a bunch about it. And I say that lightly because I always go back to my wife's a teacher. My kids are in school, and I think they're a lovely. job where she's at and where the kids are at and I've had zero issues, right? But that is not the case

for a lot of people in this country of ours. There's a lot of people that are very at and have pulled their kids. And a lot of them, obviously through COVID for a lot of the different mandates that came in. That's a, you know, that's a, that's a huge topic that maybe someday or maybe someday soon I'll have to broach and I'm sure I'll get some texts about it. But homeschooling seems to be at the top of thought with a lot of parents. Yeah, but you know what I would do is that, and I've already talked to my son, because my son, I have a grandbaby now, and I have that granddaughter is on the way in February. And then I have a four-year-old and a five-year-old granddaughter as well. And what the kids have talked about doing right now is they're going to hire their own teacher.

They're going to do a homeschool pod, and they are going to hire a professional teacher, and we're going to do it maybe. Yeah, like a one-room schoolhouse. Yes. There's a couple of those out here that I've heard of been, they've done exactly that. And that's where we're headed. And that's, I think, where, I think that is going to come into play so that we can have, and this way we can pay those teachers really well. Like, I mean, if you have 10 families and their kids are in there, that teacher can have a good salary.

but also maybe teach, get back to the basics of teaching and really get to enjoy their job again. And so I'm already looking at that. So my kids, the grandbaby is 17 months old now. Well, we're like, okay, well, we're going to start doing this homeschool pot. I think we're going to start by the time he's two. Two and a half, something like that. And we'll start that early pre-education right away. I mean, I was reading fluently by the time I was four.

So, I mean, why not? my first book you're going to laugh at this my first book my dad on my fourth birthday my fourth birthday my dad my mom got me uh my first book i was reading before then but my first book was dr jekyll and mr hyde at my fourth birthday really i don't i've never read that book before i don't even know what he was thinking but that was my dad was it do you recommend that book drossel um yeah Yeah, yeah. Actually, I do as being one of my first books. So I've been at that age, do you remember, like, do you remember reading it and everything else? Everything. Everything. My teacher thought that I was the strangest child because of what I was reading and how soon I was reading.

Because you were carrying Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde into the classroom. That's probably why. I think that became my persona. Is that I hear him this, this quiet, me, person on the appearance and studious and everything else and then all of a sudden that switch goes and I like this monstrous entity so maybe maybe it stayed with me my whole life oh man the things you learn in the conversation jocelyn I appreciate you giving me some time this morning I look forward to like I say winter has cross again and best of luck and hopefully this you know hopefully this helps, you know, get the word out about some different things and everything else. But, you know, I always appreciate having people on and you're no exception.

It's been a really enjoyable, well, close to two hours. I mean, it's a fun little chat here. Thank you so much, Sean. And I'm going to keep you guys posted and I'll keep sending out the emails and showing you where my mess is at. And hopefully I have a really good Christmas present. Absolutely. Yeah, wouldn't that be something? Yeah, for sure. Thanks again.

Okay, no problem, Sean.