Shaun Newman Podcast - #409 - Dan Behiels 2.0

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

He was a detective with the Edmonton Police Service from 2009 – 2021. We discuss pedophiles, criminals & the legalities of our system. Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcas...t Let me know what you thinkText me 587-217-8500

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Tamara Leach. This is Tom Korski. This is Dr. Robert Malone. This is Wayne Peters. This is Kaler Betz. What's up, guys? It's Kid Carson. And you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast.
Starting point is 00:00:10 Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. I hope everybody's week is moving along. Man, spring, hurry up here. Let's melt some snow, would you? Like, whew! Anyways. It's Wednesday.
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Starting point is 00:01:35 And I tell you what, if you've never done it, I'm assuming there's tons of people are like, yeah, I do it all the time, you know, go shoot an animal, hang it up in the, you know, and do all the gutting and all that stuff. Anyways, if you're not like that, though, and you're like, oh, that sounds kind of interesting. Well, the deer and steer does offer that as well. McCall 780 870-8700. Erickson Agro Incorporated, Irma, Alberta, Kent and Tasha, Erickson, family farm raising, four kids, growing food, and our community and this great, growing food for our community
Starting point is 00:02:07 and this great country. I have now met Kent's dad, and then I was in Wainwright with the three doctors that are hosting with Macchus, Nagase, and Hoff. and I ran into Kent's mom. Anyways, she was giving me a hard time because I haven't mentioned her. So, hey, I've now meant the entire Erickson family. Thank you so much for teaming up with the SMP. To all you lovely folks out there, if you're like, man, I'd like to get on the podcast as well.
Starting point is 00:02:37 We still have open spots Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Just reach out the phone numbers in the show notes. Give me a text and we'll see if we can hook up and get things sliding along. It's pretty cool to have different things. It sounds like I'm going to be in Irma, Alberta now for a golf tournament. I don't know if I'm supposed to say anything about that, so I apologize. I can't. Anyways, so I'm excited, you know, I don't know.
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Starting point is 00:03:30 com. He's a former detective with the Eminton Police Service. He served from 2009 to 2021. I'm talking about Dan Behales. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Dan Beheels.
Starting point is 00:03:58 So, sir, thanks for hopping back on. Thanks for having me. You know, for the listener, I was saying this before, you know, I, so I just passed a full year of full-time podcasting. I'm in my, I'm into my, geez, I'm into my fifth year, 29. I'm into my fifth, this will be my fifth year podcasting right now. I don't know if I've ever thought about it like that before. Anyways, but it was my first, thank you. But it was my first full year of podcasting where that's all I did, but podcasting.
Starting point is 00:04:31 So I was doing a live before, I never do lives on social media because I'm not a social media person. Anyway, so I was doing that because I'm killing time because I'm like, I'm just going to hop on with Dan. It's going to go great. No problems. And then to the listener, you know, Sean shows up right at 9 o'clock, which he never does. And what do we have for the last half an hour? Nothing but issues.
Starting point is 00:04:49 So either way, I'm glad you could make it. I'm glad that you held on when we're having nothing but issues with audio and video and, bah, you know? Well, and that's the convenience of technical. The Zoom age that we're in now is nice because you and I can connect on a day when I can't make it to Lloyd. But technology is only good when it works for you. And the commuting has been changed by technical problems. I don't know. Get it to work some days.
Starting point is 00:05:16 That's right. And I was going to say for the listener, if they're wondering who Dan is or what he's all about, go back to episode 328. You, sir, when one of my, I was chuckling because at the end of the year, I just started this. I did it like maybe my first year, but I haven't done it in forever. And at the end of 2022, I go back through and I look at stats. And I just like, oh, wow, let's see who the top 20. I was going to do the top 10. And then, you know, after you do so many episodes in a year, you're like, well, I better, like, balloon it a little bit.
Starting point is 00:05:46 And if Sean could have said that a guy named Dan was going to be in his top 25 when there's names that are like, you know, considerably larger than mine or yours on the podcast and they didn't make 25, I thought that was cool. You were in a group of 25 that ranged from Bitcoin to police to the Premier of Alberta to, you know, it just kind of branch. So if you want to get a feel for who Dan is, go back to episode 328. It was in the top 25 of 2022. I'm curious. What did you? I was like, I wonder how I'm going to get Dan back on this thing. You know, it's like, what do we do?
Starting point is 00:06:22 Rehash, you know, Eminton police surface and different things like that. It's funny that it's going to be on Lloyd Minster and probably. some technical stuff that is rather boring and everything else. But what did you think of when you saw that you were in the top 25? You know, I was surprised. I didn't know anyone really. I didn't have a lot of feedback afterwards. You know, folks that would contact me,
Starting point is 00:06:45 hey, I saw you on the Sean Newman podcast and have more questions or anything like that. I didn't have a lot of feedback afterwards. And it's nice because obviously you have a wide breadth of topics that you cover. And there's a lot of interest from different members of the public for a lot of different reasons, but I mean, I think it's important to talk about whistleblower protections, the things that we were talking about in that last discussion. And so I'm glad more people got a chance to hear it, that's for sure. Yeah, I had people reach out from the States saying this was wild that a whistleblower
Starting point is 00:07:16 was coming on the podcast. I was like, I don't know, is it that wild, you know, like maybe it is. I don't know, dad, maybe it, maybe it is a wild thing. But it was, I don't know, every episode I get well, tons of feedback. I don't know if it's tons, but I get enough people reaching out about pretty much every episode, and every once in a while, you strike a chord,
Starting point is 00:07:35 and that chord plays. Like, you just like, holy dinah. And I'm going to be honest. I was surprised about five names in the top 25. I was like, huh, I didn't see that. Because I never, like, for me, I don't go back through the numbers.
Starting point is 00:07:49 I don't do this like on a daily basis. Heck, half the time I don't even pay attention. When I hit the million downloads, I didn't even realize it. I literally was just like, you know, I should maybe like, I should maybe just look at the numbers and see where I'm at, because I learned this early on. If all I do is stare at the numbers, I will drive Sean insane. Probably drives most podcasters insane because, you know, you're like, you're trying to figure
Starting point is 00:08:09 out the secret sauce. Like, how do I get to here? And certainly, there's probably people who know that code, but for Sean, who just wants to podcast and have a little bit of fun, if I stare at those, I will drive myself insane. And saying that, I stumbled across a million because I had no idea I had done it until I did it. I was like, holy crap. And certainly when I, I, when I formulated the top 25, I was a little surprised at a few of the names, because, you know, like, there was names that didn't make the top 25, but I would have thought for sure, just on their name alone would have put them in the, you know, like Tom Luongo and Alex Criner was the number one episode. I don't think anybody, no, unless they are on Twitter and follow those two guys,
Starting point is 00:08:48 know anything about it. But then they get on and they start talking about Ukraine and Russia and banks and, like, world things happening. And it's interesting. It's compelling. You're like, holy shit. And it's funny. That's, that's, that's, you know, you're in a list of a bunch of no-nameers who come on this podcast. And I mean that in the highest sense, you know, that have come on and really, I don't know, not only propelled the Sean Newman podcast to different places, but the top
Starting point is 00:09:12 25 was an interesting little experiment even for this guy. Well, I like seeing, you talk about your secret sauce there. I don't know as a podcast listener, whether or not my opinion matters at all. But I think the, an authentic approach and if you genuinely want to find out new information from a wide range of topics. I mean, most people that are interested, have an inquisitive mind, eat that up for sure. I know I do. I like listening to a topic that I don't know anything about and hearing the real nuts and bolts of it. That's nice for me anyway. Yeah, well, your voice certainly matters. The one thing, I'm the captain of the ship. I say this all the time,
Starting point is 00:09:53 but the listeners definitely are like, I don't know, are they the jet pack on me, whatever they are, they're the one that propell it, because without listeners, I would have never stumbled on you. How would we have ever come to know one another, you know? And this is the case for all of them.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Alex and Tom, Tom is suggested by at the time, well, not at the time, still my brother. And then I interview Tom, and Tom goes, you need to interview Alex.
Starting point is 00:10:20 And I'm like, oh, okay. So I interview Alex, right? because he suggests it. And then they're like, we need to come on together. And I mean, and it turns into your note, that's completely off of listening to other people tell me what to do. And Sean, I will say this.
Starting point is 00:10:33 Maybe at 70, Dan, I'll be like, you know what, guys, I know a lot. Just sit down and listen. But at this point in time, Sean fucks up a lot. And that's what, you know, I ask somebody, Tim McAllif from Tim and, well, now that was Tim and Friends. He used to be Tim and Sid. he said, the best questions you can ask are the easiest ones, but nobody wants to ask them because they feel like they'll seem dumb. And I'm like, well, Sean's got over that hurdle real
Starting point is 00:10:59 fast because I ask dumb questions all the time. So that's going to bring us to today's topic, because I needed somebody from the policing background. I don't know why they're so scared of coming on this thing, but maybe it's just, maybe you can, maybe we could start there. Why is it that police officers don't want to come talk to media about what is going on? I mean, they do a little bit. I mean that in jest a little bit. But at the same time, I'm like, if we got problems with gangs, with murderers, with drugs, with pedophiles, with all these things, why don't they come on and let the public know? So then the public can be like on the lookout for it instead of keeping them like out of the no. So they don't understand that bad things are going on right beside them. Without getting too existential about it. I think it's a cultural problem for sure. So I'm no longer a police officer. So I have a lot more freedom in that way. You know, I know that I'm never going to have to go back. The structure of it, of the organization for policing is order in government.
Starting point is 00:12:01 It's not more complicated than that. Policing has been around for thousands of years and has been structured a few different ways, but it's not like the organization itself is, it's not prone to transparency in quite the opposite. it. So when a police officer wants to discuss a problem, like they can have personal opinions about lots of things. In their job, they're not allowed to have that personal opinion, that those biases are wrongheaded. They ought not to have them and they have to be aware of them so they can do their job in a way that their bias is affecting as little as possible. And the command structure is very rigid. It's a paramilitary organization. There's a lot of benefits to that. I mean, we talked
Starting point is 00:12:46 about last time, and there's two sides to every coin. The good, Parts about a paramilitary organization that in crisis it operates more often than not the way that it should to manage the crisis, despite human nature, is a good thing. The bad thing is that there's no stepping out of line and there's no stepping out of line even if it's the right thing to do. So officers that might have personal opinions about things about bail procedures or things that aren't going the way that it should in their communities and they see their neighbors too. I mean, they know exactly how it works. If they're seeing a problem, the structure that they work within doesn't allow them the breadth to talk about it. And that's part of the system. It's a feature on a bug. Question then, hypothetical. From a guy who's been in the system and now gets to speak openly about it. With Alberta talking about getting their own Alberta police force, is there things you could do within that organization?
Starting point is 00:13:48 because it's not like it's a brand new concept, but for Alberta it would be a brand new force. So when you're building the nuts and bolts of a structure, you could change things before they ever get too far down the road where it's like this big machine and you just can't do anything because that's how they do things and that's how we've done it for a thousand years. Is there some things you put in place in the Alberta police force if it comes to be under Daniel Smith that could maybe start to change a couple things?
Starting point is 00:14:17 Or are you like, I don't know about that? I think so. I've come to accept things more of an incremental improvement model instead of big sweeping changes. Sure. Because most of the problem is in leadership. And if you have the right people with a really innovative view of how policing can be delivered to the community and has a good set of principles behind what they're supposed to be doing, I mean, that's where most of the mistakes happen. So if there is an organization, say the RCMP, very, very big, it covers large areas. It's quite the opposite of community policing and its hierarchy. But it also has individual police officers that are working in communities. There's only two of them, for example, in a small town.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Everybody knows them and they know everybody. So it has the entire spectrum of what some people believe policing ought to be. But it doesn't operate that way. It hasn't operated that way for a very long time. And it would take a great deal of a lot of spine in the leadership there to change that. An opportunity, if it was Alberta's choice to go forward with the provincial police service, would be to get the right leaders in there that are willing to accept, frankly, being hated for doing the right thing. And so far, we haven't seen a lot of those leaders come forward. So it's going to be challenging if they decide to do it.
Starting point is 00:15:51 I know that a provincial police service, from my perspective anyway, because it aligns with my principles. What I think is right is that government control, and it's necessary to some level, should be individualized as much as possible. It should have local control over those that go out. and use force on behalf of the government laws. So bringing it from a national level to a provincial level is a step in the right direction
Starting point is 00:16:19 in my mind. But how it happens really depends on the leaders that are put in place. And it can be a very good thing. There would be growing pains if it happens. But it could also be very detrimental if the wrong people are sitting in the seat just looking for political favor. Yeah, it sounds like what would be? We need more now than ever in every walk of life is leaders.
Starting point is 00:16:48 And you said something that I'm like, and they're going to need they're going to be able, they need to be able to be have the ability to be hated. Essentially, they're going to have to face the mob to do what is right. And some examples of where I'd see that is specifically in taking our community outreach best way to put it. Proactive policing from a principal's perspective is a terrible idea. This isn't minority report.
Starting point is 00:17:22 We can't pretend we know crimes that are going to be committed and when actions are taken to try and prevent crime in that way. And it doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on. It doesn't work out well. Timely and effective, reactive policing in situations that are
Starting point is 00:17:41 appropriate for it. And you're dealing with small problems before they become big problems is the right way to go. But a lot of people don't want to accept that because hopefully government can solve all their problems. And sadly, that's just not reality. Yeah, the idea of the government solving all problems is like, is becoming my biggest fear, right? Like I don't, I don't know how you get on, get people off that thought process. When you come back to the Alberta police force, What I think I was hearing was essentially pulling it away from a federal government and putting it into a smaller, even though it's a province. It's just instead of a country, you go to a province.
Starting point is 00:18:25 And then within the province, you're saying, I think, that although it's under one command post, having it decentralized so that Lloyd can operate the way Lloyd needs to, and sure it parked the way it needs to, and left bridge the way it needs to, and, you know, north or into Hinton and into Grand Prairie and all these different spots, allowing them to operate, I mean, under the same rules, but the way they can operate so that they don't have to be taking orders from one person across the entire chain. Yes? Well, yeah, and part of it is having that culture propagated across it. I mean, obviously the culture of policing in Grand Prairie is going to be different than downtown Calgary. And anyone who's ever been to those places knows that. If you, if you're looking at small town responses, well, we, uh, I sent out that tweet there about the mass casualty commission that a rural response to a problem that urban officers, for example, train for regularly, is an entirely different beast. And if that culture that is somewhat rigid and, you know, you shall follow the order and there's a good reason for that is the same. It's homogenous across all these different.
Starting point is 00:19:40 Everyone sees that that doesn't work. So some organizations adapt very well. And in some ways, I don't want to say like I hate the RCMP organization. I don't. I mean, there's a lot of good work that RC&P officers do, especially frontline officers that are in small towns and have to learn to talk their way out of situations instead of use force. So often it's a great skill.
Starting point is 00:20:03 But the culture itself on a larger organization is homogenous. It's built by the leaders. It's rewarded by the leaders. those that adhere to that culture end up getting promoted so it kind of perpetuates itself. If you end up with smaller organizations answerable to the community where essentially a community member can come in and yell at the sergeant for something going wrong, it will adhere more to the culture of the community than to the organization. And that's why I think it's better. I don't know if that's what we'll have with the provincial police force, but I would hope so.
Starting point is 00:20:37 and you think that that's an interesting thought you answer to the community instead of you know uh i go back to man covid always come why do i have to bring it back to covid but i'm going to bring it back to covid i remember trying to get different people from the community in the first like two weeks of lockdown well not lockdowns just of like stay home and buckle up because it's about to get wild i remember reaching out to different people to try and get them on the podcast just to like not to like honestly to be like okay let's just take some of the fear out of it and let's just give people information if you get sick this is what you do blah blah blah blah blah and none of them would come talk so the only person that can talk is in regina sastatin
Starting point is 00:21:25 rigena whatever it is the head of shtha SaaS health authority I'm like well that sucks how the hell that they know what's going on in lloyd minstron in the meantime everybody's freaking out like i was mad about it. Like it didn't make sense to me. Like, why can't you come on now? In fairness, I understand like they wanted to put out one message as they tried to understand the situation. They didn't want 20 chiefs talking in different spots and really bungling things up. Except, you know, what eventually happened was, uh, as people started to stray from the message, they allowed all those people to go speak to their communities. It was like, this is such bullshit, my opinion. Right? Like, let's let's talk about what's going on.
Starting point is 00:22:08 So I bring it back to the police force. And I go, you know, I don't know what's going on in Calgary. Frankly, I don't know if I care. Like I do and I don't, right? Like I want Calgary to be healthy, but I want my community to be healthy. And I go, why won't, won't cops come on and talk? I've been trying to get one. I have put it out there.
Starting point is 00:22:28 So maybe this will spur on something. Maybe this will light a fire under someone's asked. I put it out like 16 times. We can talk about mental health. We can talk about what you guys want to talk about. I'll make it so like. just like toss you softballs in a sense just to like come on and talk about what's happening in this area because I think it's really needed and people will touch it they're like uh I don't know
Starting point is 00:22:50 you're that's extreme guy who uh you know I'm putting words in their mouth nobody said that it's just the call doesn't get answered and I laugh about it I'm like well why what what's so terrifying about coming on and just saying hey we got some problems in the community and if uh community members want to step up and here's a couple of things we could do Geez, wouldn't that be something? And I think it's interesting because, well, I don't think you, you don't hide any of your preferences toward support for convoy or the different, your approach on lockdowns or anything like that.
Starting point is 00:23:22 But I talk to folks that are far left on a very different, plane, have a different view of how things went there. And they still see police accountability as valuable for them, their families, their communities. it's something that really what some people might say far left and far right both agree on. And that's strange to me because there seems to be nothing else that those two groups agree on. It's funny. I think there's a whole lot that both sides.
Starting point is 00:23:54 I can't speak to the far right and the far left because you get too far off either side. I don't know if there's any talking to you. I think a whole bunch of us are like lean a little right, lean a little left, but we're all center, right? Like I think and I don't think we realize how close we actually are on a whole bunch of It's like do you want a safe community to let your kids grow up in? Yeah, it's like oh okay I go wow that's something okay you would you like a cop to come on and just to be like hey yeah we're having issues with you know XYZ maybe tell your kids not to go straying here after this point in time I don't know I'm I'm like acting like I know I don't I just go like when there's no communication this is where problems arise this is what happens people start to make up stories
Starting point is 00:24:35 because they don't have the full picture. And I'm like, I would really like it if a cop or two would just come on once a month. Well, I think it'd be very beneficial. And now, maybe they have their sources they already talk to in this area and I'm giving them a rough time for no reason other than I've tried talking several times. Anyways, I'm meandering here
Starting point is 00:24:56 and I'm going to Dan, I'm putting you in a rough situation, I feel like, because you're not from this community. You can't answer those questions other than you've lived the life of a police officer and you probably are like, well, they can't just come out and they got to get approval from XYZ. I just don't understand why. Like I understand if you're the boss, Dan, of you're the sergeant, you're the, whatever
Starting point is 00:25:17 the chief, whatever term we're putting at the top. And I should probably learn my different parts of the structure. Why do you not want your employees going out and talking about some of the things going on? Is it confidentiality with, um, um, um, um, suspects and things like that. Is it, is it like ongoing investigations or is it like just in a real sense like insurance purposes and like listen, if you say the wrong thing, even though in the right way you're trying
Starting point is 00:25:49 to do it the right way, if we get sued now it's on the whole organization, is it something as simple as that? Fear generally and specifically all the things you mentioned. So right now we live in a world and this is more of a, philosophy component. Sure. There is nothing that we can do to prevent radical transparency. Anyone with a microphone and camera can get out and share information widely. And if that information is desirable, it's something that people want to hear. It's going to get out. Individuals that are working within certain bounds, like you can't talk about the Youth
Starting point is 00:26:30 Criminal Justice Act, for example, you can't publish a youth accused's name. for example, that's just one thing. And if you do, then yes, there are ramifications more so than just getting sued. But the principles of the Youth Criminal Justice Act are there for a reason and you want to make sure they're adhered to. So fear that that is going to happen in a world where radical transparency is now a technical availability for everyone. It causes a lot of fear. and then that results in a stronger pushback from leadership. At least that's my observation. So like you asked me about a specific case there in Lloyd.
Starting point is 00:27:11 I don't know anything about it except as public, but I can explain processes that occur within the justice system and individuals that want to talk about processes within justice system are just as afraid to talk about those in case they receive some negative pushback from their command structure. So I mean, I really do. I feel for any of the officers that might still be serving, and I no longer am. Because these problems are quite a, they're obvious to anyone who's watching.
Starting point is 00:27:43 So. Well, the, the case we're talking about, and this is public knowledge, this is in the papers. Brent Adair, Abbottler, Saskatchewan, RCN, P, are warning the public about a 45-year-old, former Prince George resident who is at high risk to reoffend on March 13th. He was charged with committing an indecent act at the Lloyd Minster swimming pool and then arrested on the same day. Well, arrested again with breach of conditions, they found him out front of a, oh, goodness gracious, a daycare. And, you know, he appears in court actually tomorrow, right? So by the time this was released, he'll have appeared in court.
Starting point is 00:28:24 I just go, why can't they just... it's like is that is that not enough uh to hold him is it i i just i i guess i look at and i go like what is i i don't know i that's what we're talking about as a parent it just it just it hurts my brain that he can get caught doing something around children assumably i'm assuming things here so i should put that out there and then get caught again in front of a daycare which i don't know maybe there's a bunch of adults in there, you know, I'm just like, but we know there's a whole lot of young kids there. And it's like, it's pretty self-explanatory. And yet, he's out on bail and they issue warning, parents, beware, it's probably high risk to reaffend, blah, blah, blah,
Starting point is 00:29:13 and you're like, uh-huh, but he's still walking about. It's like, I don't know. I just, maybe it's because it's kids, probably, that really irks me, like on another level, Because as parents, as law enforcement, you know, as you know, you're there to protect human beings. But I mean, when it comes to kids, it's like it's on all of us. So we see this going on. And yet it's just like, well, he's in the pool now. Well, I mean, it just drives me nuts. I'm hoping you can shed some light on it of what you've read at least.
Starting point is 00:29:49 Yeah. And I only know what's public. But something you mentioned there is that why can't we just deal with it when we know he's done it? It's an allegation still. And I don't know the guy, and I don't know the circumstance. I'm not at all defending him. But he is innocent until proven guilty. If we don't remain on that principle of innocent until proven guilty,
Starting point is 00:30:09 then we don't have it at all because it only matters when you're falsely accused. And I don't know the circumstances of what evidence indicates this guy is guilty. I mean, he wouldn't be charged without a reasonable and probable grounds to believe that he did commit the offense. Charge wouldn't be there. But it doesn't mean that he's guilty until he's convicted. And that's something that we really ought to have the patience for even when it is the most heinous of offenses. And I know that everyone feels that way when the victim is a child. Children should be protected.
Starting point is 00:30:47 Absolutely. That's why he gets conditions not to go around kids. And that's why if he were to be near a daycare, if that was what happened, that he's promptly arrested. That's an appropriate response. But I'm not sure whether or not we can take the impact of the offense into question when it comes to considering bail. Because there are three grounds for that. Whenever someone's brought before a justice for bail, there's the primary grounds, which is a judge has to consider evidence from the Crown and from the defense lawyers as to whether or not he's going to attend court.
Starting point is 00:31:27 They have to know whether or not he's going to repeat the offense. They have to know whether or not his identity is actually in question. If we know who is before the judge is in fact the name on the docket and whether or not any evidence needs to be preserved. Those are your primary grounds. Yeah. I was just going to say on whether or not he was out front of a date. The article reads, after being released,
Starting point is 00:31:51 Haveller was found outside of daycare in Lloydminster on March 14th, police said, this was a breach of his release conditions, and he was charged with breaching conditions. So, and then he was, he appeared in Lloydminster court on March 15th and was released again. So he's got, you know, it goes on to talk more about it. It's easy to find. Like, I mean, just search the name and it's everywhere. And probably, you know, some of my, you know, being from the region, It was only a few years ago in Hillmond, which is the small town north of Lloyd
Starting point is 00:32:26 Westminster where I'm from, where they had an issue of some kids being, I don't know the word to associate it with, but let's just say a grown man exposed himself to young children and there's probably more to the story than I care to share or maybe no. Then only like a month and a half ago, Lashburn, which is about 15 minutes east of Lloyd, they had at the hockey rink again another man pull a young girl in to a room and do something that, you know, I don't know the full story. And then you have at the at the Lloydminster pool, it happened again. And then he's released and again. And I just like, it actually gives me, I don't want to talk about the subject.
Starting point is 00:33:12 I hate it. It gives me such a pit in my stomach talking about this. It almost brings me to tears because I'm a grown-ass adult. don't know what to do about it. Like all of us are supposed to be protecting kids and yet it just happens over and over and over again. We hide behind, well, we have a justice system and this is supposed to be how it acts. And yet I'm like, I don't get this. I do not get this. I'm supposed to protect all the, like my kids and certainly look out for people's other kids and everything else. And I'm like, I just don't get it down. I'm like, what are we doing? And it's like, well, if you
Starting point is 00:33:47 don't catch him, how do you know? Okay, fair. Like, I get it. But at some point, like, the writing is on the wall here. You know, the one article I shared with you is from, uh, um, where is it from, Prince George. And he was charged back in his 20s. And then it all got thrown out and it was a big sham and whatever else. And here, here we are, you know, 20 some years later. And like, it seems like it's pretty self-evident. Now, once again, you're right. I don't know the guy from the hole in the ground and everything else. I just go, like, as a fall, of three young kids, I'm just like, it's unnerving. And it's unnerving to talk about. I don't, I was saying to somebody before I came on, I just don't want to talk about it. And yet,
Starting point is 00:34:27 if we don't talk about it, it continues to persist. And we don't need that either. Like, we don't need something really bad happening. Bad things have already happened. I shouldn't say that. Like, bad things have been happening. Like, there's some families that lives have been thrown upside down because of one man, or maybe it's multiple men. And I don't know the full stories of you. each of the occurrences. But I do know that as far as I know, nobody was charged in Helmont. I don't think. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong there.
Starting point is 00:34:54 I don't know of anyone who's been charged in Lashburn. Once again, maybe I'm bungling this up and I need a police officer to come on and set it straight. But like, it's like getting to the point where this is like, what are we doing? Yeah. It's a reasonable response that you want whoever did this to be punished. You want retribution. That's part of the justice system as well, that you,
Starting point is 00:35:17 You agree not to go out and be a vigilante yourself as long as the justice system does retribution on your behalf. We'll detain him, put him in jail, do what's necessary to punish someone who does something this heinous. Of course. You want to make sure that Habitler is the person responsible. So what I'm talking about is the systemic view, the structure that we have in place to have enough confidence that he is the person responsible beyond a shadow. of it out. And if he is that the justice system does punish him appropriately, because that's the contract that we have with the, with the state now, that we agree not to go out and do violence ourselves as long as the state punishes him. So I agree with you. I'm just talking about the
Starting point is 00:36:03 difference between is Habitler, the person who did do it. Did he do the things that he's accused of? So there's a difference between bail, whether or not a guy gets let out, when accused of a crime, and then how he's punished after he's convicted. So there's two major structures behind that. And it sounds like right now he hasn't been convicted. So we're talking about the bail structure. I'm curious, do you know the history of why we have innocent until proven guilty? Oh, so going back, way back to the Magna Carta is the idea behind most of the tenets of our English justice system. But really, I mean, different structures, ones that aren't the British tradition and justice procedure, include a few things. It's like, if you brought a man before the king and you claimed that he stole your sheep, there wouldn't be a whole collection of evidence component.
Starting point is 00:37:09 You wouldn't have to, that's habeas corpus, that you have to present the body in Latin, that those components weren't part of the justice system before the English tradition. And they haven't been part of any other justice system. So that's why it's, I guess, so prevalent. It's worked more in an experimental view. That's why the Americans decided to adopt it. That's why it's been adopted in many areas around the world. So, yeah, it reaches back hundreds of years.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Well, I was just curious why, you know, why that is better than maybe the Wild West of like hang him high, you know, like just the mob rule, you know. We've watched, I don't know how many movies I've watched of maybe a guy like Wyatt Earp, you know, standing up and saying he will have due process. and if he's convicted, he will hang. And instead of, you know, like you mentioned, I can't remember if I read it. I think you said it, right? Why we all say, or I mean, I think you said it. I think I said that right. Wow.
Starting point is 00:38:08 Why you said, this is why we trust our justice system to do its right so we don't have vigilanteism and different things. We allow the process to do what it's supposed to do, so it gets it right and these things happen. why is that better? This is probably a real simple question, but you know, it's funny when we get talking, you always joke,
Starting point is 00:38:29 well, it's a little more philosophical look on it. I'm like, Dan, I like philosophical. So let's, if we've got to go there, I'm totally cool with it.
Starting point is 00:38:35 Why is, why is what we have now? When, you know, people are talking about, you know, if you go on a wider spectrum, instead of zoning right into where I'm, I'm talking about,
Starting point is 00:38:45 you know, you got different convicted people who keep getting out of the justice, you know, aren't in jail, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then go on to commit, you know, heinous crimes and terrible things. Why is what we have now in your thoughts better than something closer to the Wild West? And I don't know what that means to you, just that, you know, lots of people are very frustrated with our justice system right now.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Sure. I think it's better mathematically. It doesn't have to be much more complicated than that. the vast majority of the offenses in our society, those that are hurting other people, are committed by a very small percentage of our population. And then they repeat those offenses. That's the criminalological research that goes into it
Starting point is 00:39:34 is pretty clear on that, that you're going to have about 1.5% of the population doing all of the crime. And then a bunch of good people that do dumb things or have impulse control issues that are isolated. If that's true, and 1.5% of the population does most of the damage, then what we can afford as a society is to not catch them every day, but deal with them in a structured system that prevents the other 98.5% of people from being harmed by the justice system. And that's exactly what we have. I know it's not perfect, and I get frustrated with it. a regular basis. There's a lot of cops that are terribly cynical, that there's no point in doing
Starting point is 00:40:20 the work because they're just going to get let out anyway. I think that that's a skewed version of it because the repeat offenders are more often than not in our system dealt with. And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive for improvement. I think we should. And there's some pretty low-hanging fruit ways that we can't improve. But the reason it's better is because we have 98.5% of our population that doesn't deserve to be hurt by the system. that's trying to help them. And it's hard for us to get around that, just looking at the numbers. When you say low-hanging fruit in your mind, what's low-hanging?
Starting point is 00:40:57 What do you think are ways we can improve the system immediately, I assume, because that's what I take from low-hanging fruit. Yeah. So right now, talking about the bail system specifically, the primary grounds that I just talked about, the considerations that a judge has to make when deciding whether or not to let a person out prior to their trial, because it's pre-trial detention. That's what we're talking about when there's a bail hearing. It really need to be considered.
Starting point is 00:41:28 And then we must have some level of accountability for the judges that aren't adhering to those principles. Right now, there's a vast breadth of power that judges have in Canada that isn't in balance with our other branches of government. So the legislative branch right now, one example is mandatory minimum sentencing. So that's post-conviction. But mandatory minimum sentencing was struck down by the Supreme Court. So you have a mandatory minimum sentence on a drug conviction, for example. You're trafficking kilograms of heroin or fentanyl. And there's a mandatory minimum sentence that the legislative branch put in place. And the Supreme Court of Canada said that that is cruel and unusual punishment. If you read those judgments, you can see that many of these justices don't like
Starting point is 00:42:25 having their power restricted. And that comes out in the language of these judgments. And it's just one guy's opinion. I'm not a lawyer. But I've seen these in practice as well, that if an individual has a mandatory minimum sentence for a conviction on an offense beyond a reasonable doubt, I fail to see how that's cruel or unusual. And I don't know that most of the population actually agrees with the justices that made that judgment. So if we had judicial accountability, that's the low hanging fruit, I would say. And when it comes down to bail applications, that the structure that we have in place today, those primary grounds are one of them.
Starting point is 00:43:09 The secondary grounds are a consideration as to, I'm going to get distracted here. Sorry. The tertiary grounds are the ones where it affects the opinion of the public. They have to have confidence in the justice system. And if the public loses confidence in the justice system based on a decision to let a specific offender out prior to their trial, that's a consideration that a judge has to speak to. They have to accept evidence from the crown as to whether or not the public has confidence. confidence in the justice system based on a specific file.
Starting point is 00:43:47 Oftentimes it comes down to notoriety. So if you end up having, for example, a child go missing and someone is arrested for murder of a child, for example, and then there's a bail hearing, it would bring the justice system into disrepute to let them out prior to their trial. And there's a lot of reasons why that might be. But the Crown would lead evidence in those cases about how much public attention. it's gotten, whether or not there's people standing outside the courthouse calling for his blood, for example. These are things that the crown would have to present his evidence as to whether
Starting point is 00:44:21 or not the public would lose confidence in the justice system. That's rarely done. The tertiary grounds are rarely spoken to for bail hearings. And when they are, it's quite often, there's not a lot of transparency to it. And I'll talk about Habitler, for example. I called the courthouse in Burmell. and ask if there was a publication ban on the contents of the bail hearing and there isn't. So that's a good thing. But more often than not, the defense counsel will, on the grounds of trying to get a fair trial, prevent the public from seeing what happened during a bail hearing. And more often than not, it's granted.
Starting point is 00:45:03 Again, low-hanging fruit, I think it would be much easier if we had more transparency in the justice system instead of less, especially when the weight of the way to a fair trial. It should be more based on the facts than opinion. If the evidence covers it, and you have no trust in a jury to make a decision based on the facts, then why do we have jury trials? That weighs heavily on me, I think. But these sorts of changes, I think, would be our low-hanging fruit, again, mostly on judicial accountability, doing their jobs that they already have. You know, if I've, I don't know if I've, once again, correct me if I'm wrong. But what you're saying about judges, the law, the justice system, the legal system,
Starting point is 00:46:07 reminds me of politics. And the reason I say that is, if society says, don't release that person. The judge has to take that into account. Just like, and I don't know if this is the right example to give, but politicians are going to put in laws until the society says we don't want that. The majority of it pushed back against it, and all of a sudden things happen real fast. And you go, so is it the right? So I come back to, is it, is it the laws? I always think in my brain works like if it's written there, we follow this. Okay, fair. But what you've just put in there is unless majority of people say, we're in doing that. And then the judge has to interpret us that, well, it might be a danger to his or her life, so we'll keep them locked up.
Starting point is 00:46:56 But that's entirely opinionated off of what he sees. So if you get a mass of people that do not want somebody running around society, and I'm actually thinking of, honestly, the person that comes to mind is Tamara Leach, right? They could interpret it like, for her safety, we're going to put her in solitary. confinement because we don't want anybody to hurt her. I mean, you know, and I, I chuckle about that, except the lady was, you know, in jail. What was it for folks? 48 days? I think it's 48. Where she was, you know, put away from everybody. And I go, I wonder how much that actually played into it. That seems so odd in a system where you think it's like, if it's written on a piece of paper, that is law, except the laws are only as good as long as the people that are supporting it,
Starting point is 00:47:44 support it. If they don't, it means nothing. And you're kind of like the law system, it seems like and kind of the same thing, not totally, but certainly when you're talking about bail, certainly, right? Yeah, it's certainly a component of it. But there's the reason why that that's the last grounds, the least important that are considered during bail, because if, and honestly, I don't know the evidence that was presented in the Tamara Leach bail. I don't know. Sure. But if a person's there for mischief, it doesn't have to be Tamara's file either.
Starting point is 00:48:20 But if a person's there for mischief, I think it would be hard to make an argument on the tertiary grounds because that's the. But what if you had, what if you had 10,000 people off front? I'm not saying this happened. But let's just, let's just hypothetically say, Sean gets thrown in, goes to his hearing for mischief. Okay. And outside is 10,000. people screaming for my head. The judge might go, I think it's your best interest if you just stay behind bars for a few bit and we'll just keep you safe. Right. Maybe I didn't explain that
Starting point is 00:48:49 right though because it's it's not for the accused safety. That's the case. The judge has to say, okay, there's 10,000 people screaming out front for, you know, to lynch Sean. Sure, that's a consideration. That's not what the tertiary grounds are. It's whether or not those 10,000 people out there are a representation of the public that that just, that that judge has to serve. Because those 10,000 people may very well still be a minority of the population. And those 10,000 people might be saying, yeah, we want to kill Sean. Okay. But if he's let out on bail based on the evidence, would it affect their view of the operation of the justice system?
Starting point is 00:49:31 And whether or not that's something a judge has to consider and whether or not he puts his own biases into it is a big thing too. but what's most important are those primary grounds. Look, if we know that Sean Newman is the person in the docket, okay, so identity is not an issue. Can I compel him to court? Like, do I have any reason to believe he's going to flee to Oklahoma or wherever? And then is there evidence that he has that I can't find? And that normally comes up in things like an ongoing complex. like drug investigation or a missing person's file or something like that, that's where that would come up,
Starting point is 00:50:12 is that there's evidence out there. Police have yet to go collect. And this guy, if I let him out, can go destroy it or has indicated that he would. And then there's the repetition of the events. And maybe that's what might apply in a situation like Habitler's allegations there, is that if he had, and then he breached. And the allegation is that he goes and he does it again, if we let him out, then that's a consideration the judge has to make. And part of that responsibility, it's not all on the judge. Part of that responsibility is on the police that are willing to look in a defense and collect the evidence necessary and then bring it before court.
Starting point is 00:50:53 So that's the first, like we'll call it an on-ramp. That's the first opportunity where, yeah, it's a law that's on the books, but is it being enforced? And then it's up to the crown, the lawyer that the prosecutor that presents the case, that they take this evidence and they actually, argue that, hey, this is what's important and presents that evidence to the judge in a way that's not only understandable, but effective. And then, of course, the defense lawyer will make counter arguments ought to. And only then does the judge get to make a decision. So you have really two different on-ramps before a judge ever gets to see it. I find, and this is just my
Starting point is 00:51:31 subjective opinion, that there are more police officers and crown prosecutors that choose not to do the work, then there are judges making bad decisions. But that's just from my sample of what I've seen, because whether it's a bit of a cynicism from a police officer, there's no point doing the work anyway, he's just going to get out. Well, then you don't collect the evidence and you don't put it before a judge. So how would you ever expect a different outcome? And at Crown Prosecutor, oftentimes with bail, they get together with the defense lawyer beforehand. They talk about what the primary, secondary, and tertiary grounds are for that file.
Starting point is 00:52:13 And they decide what happens. They do what's called a joint submission. So they get together. They make a joint submission to the judge saying, hey, you know what? He's already on bail. He's been released 17 times in the past. And he's reoffended throughout a 30-year career of crime. But you know what? I think he's going to be good this time.
Starting point is 00:52:30 And the judge actually doesn't have much power to deny that. There's a very small sliver of that that he can consider. And what it has to be presented to him isn't even his full criminal history, which kind of goes back. I don't know if you recall some time ago, there was an RCMP member that was shot at a casino in St. Albert there, then died. And his name was Wynn, trying to remember his first name. No, it's on the tip of my tongue.
Starting point is 00:52:58 There was a big push federally to put a law in place where it would be mandatory for crown prosecutors to read in the criminal history of an accused, even when they're doing a joint submission. And functionally, I don't know if that would change too terribly much, but the guy who shot Constable Wynn, he had had a long, lengthy record. He was on three different releases at the time. and it was unconscionable that he would have been out at the time that he murdered in our CMPI officers. So that was the impetus for it. That was kind of what catalyzed putting together a new law at the federal level. Unfortunately, it was struck down in 2017. So it isn't law.
Starting point is 00:53:41 Yeah. So when a crown prosecutor and a defense lawyer get together and do one of these, what they call a joint submission saying that whatever, on whatever, a $10,000, his own recognizance bail, they're both agreeing to let this guy out. the judge has very little latitude on what he can do to deny that. He basically has to accept a joint submission when it's brought forward to him. Then he gets a copy of the accused criminal history. I have a paper copy on his desk
Starting point is 00:54:07 when they're making the decision. But it isn't read into record. So I think any person who's, even if your job is entirely administrative, I think you can sympathize with the reality that the judge isn't really reading it every time. What Winslaw was structured to do, even though it wasn't signed into law, was to have it mandatory for the crown to read in the criminal history. So if you have a crown then functionally,
Starting point is 00:54:36 this is what it would do. If basically the crown has to stand up and bring up eight pages of this criminal history for a guy and start flipping through the pages, start reading it out line by line, oh, we have to break for lunch and come back, it would stop at least that from happening because it would be embarrassing to do and it would slow down courts so much that functionally a crown would simply just start opposing bail when there's a long criminal history. So it's actually quite ingenious in that way. It was written well as far as I'm concerned. But yeah, in 2017, the liberal government wasn't on board with passing it.
Starting point is 00:55:13 I think that if that was something that was done, even individually, even at provincial levels, I think that would be very helpful. Why didn't they want that? Why did the federal government, do you remember, what did the, what did the judges say? Why are they like, no? Yeah, it's still online right now. So it was, it was part of parliament refused to pass the law. And when it went to committee, a lot of the evidence that was brought forward is that this would slow down the justice system so much that it would be unworkable and will no longer be able to have a justice system. I'm paraphrasing, of course. And that's what was accepted by parliament when they struck it down. And so in 2017, I think it was still a majority liberal government. The evidence that was brought forward, I think, was pretty well balanced. It's still online if you want to go read it. I wouldn't suggest it.
Starting point is 00:56:00 It's boring. But the Senate review of that law was quite skewed to the fact that, hey, our justice system is broken. Again, I'm paraphrasing. We have no interest in fixing it. So doing this is just another labor intensive step to a system that already can't handle it. And again, I'm paraphrasing all that. that, but the idea behind it is sound that if a guy has such a long criminal history that it would slow down the justice system to the point where it breaks, perhaps we shouldn't be letting
Starting point is 00:56:34 them out on bail. So again, whoever wrote it was very, was very astute in that way, I think. I don't know in my brain you go you go like if they have a giant criminal history heck if it's only three offensive but if they're serious offensive
Starting point is 00:56:55 I don't know I don't know I guess I'd have to sit back and really like think about this but it goes like you know the first time you know I think we can all agree with the longstanding tradition of I mean like innocent
Starting point is 00:57:08 till proven guilty it's like yeah that makes complete sense I think you don't want to get into the sense of minority report where it's like you're grabbing them before they ever, you know, they do anything, right? Like, so it makes a lot of sense that way. But at some point, you know, when they got, I mean, what was, how many counts that the, and I'm forgetting his name, this is terrible, Sean. We've been dealing with some audio issues and Sean's brain is stuck there right now, you know, hoping that the connection stays smooth. But I mean, go back to the murders in Saskatchewan. How many offenses did he have?
Starting point is 00:57:45 It's like 30 plus, I think. You know, it's like at what point, at what point do we just, you know, put them in? And I don't know where it goes from there. Probably need to have somebody on from, you know, the jail side of thing to explain different things there and everything else. And, you know, you talk about it being boring and nobody wants to learn except I think for too long, we've all just said, yeah, it's too boring. I don't want to know. Except now we're seeing the problems that we're going, what's going on?
Starting point is 00:58:13 And now everybody wants to know. I want to know. I'm like, let's wade through some boring stuff because to me, the boring stuff is killing us. So sentencing post-conviction, it's a different beast. It really is because you're no longer looking at whether or not you're preserving evidence and you're not looking at the opinion so much of the public at large. It is definitely structured in a way that retribution has gone down the list. So rehabilitation is one of the objectives of sentencing.
Starting point is 00:58:47 You want to make sure that this guy, whatever offense he's committing, has time in detention to rehabilitate him from his wrongful ways. And that's a tenant of our sentencing post-conviction that is considered quite heavily. The component that we all agree to is retribution. That's what we want the justice system to do on behalf of victims because they're not allowed to do it on their own. And I would say that that's self-evident. We don't want people going around constantly going back and forth. It ends up being like a gang war.
Starting point is 00:59:20 So no, I don't think that's the right thing to do. It should be in the hands of some sort of centralized, organized government. But retribution is so far down the list now that it's not fulfilling the need of victims in today's society. And oftentimes, there was a case in Edmonton where a fellow had, he was leaving a bar drunk and he ended up driving through a patio and killing, I believe it was a two-year-old child that was sitting there. A terrible case. It was awful. And this is all public as well. And the family, allegedly, took the accused later, abducted him and cut off his thumb and did some terrible things too. again with this file the way that it was structured is that the guy was let out on bail a two-year-old kid is dead the sentencing was in the family's view much less than it ought to have been and then the family chose to take it into their own hands to get retribution for a
Starting point is 01:00:19 dead kid and I don't think anyone anyone with kids certainly can't sympathize with that Yeah. But what does the world look like when we keep trying to take each other's eye out, you know? So if the justice system is failing in that regard, if the justice system is not doing retribution effectively, we can expect to have more incidents like that for sure. And I don't want to see a world where that happens. I don't know how likely it is or how quickly it would happen. but I know that the emotional response to it is what we're trying to, we're trying to civilize that emotional response by having a justice system in the first place.
Starting point is 01:01:02 You know, a buddy of mine always talks, Vance Crow talks about the mob, you know, and how dangerous the mob is. I mean, just go back to the French Revolutioner. You go back, you know, you can go back to these different, different atrocities or moments in history or whatever you want where mob rule takes over, right? It's like there's an emotion there. And certainly, you know, when you bring up the story of the kid, I think any parent can sympathize.
Starting point is 01:01:33 It's like, I cannot imagine being those parents. It's not even remotely fathomable to lose a two-year-old that way. I mean, to lose a two-year-old at all as a parent of three young kids really breaks my heart. Like, you don't have the words. What can you do? Yeah. But, you know, having, you probably just realize how fragile of a system we have when you hear stories like that. Okay.
Starting point is 01:02:02 Well, there's always going to be failures, right? There's the point of diminishing returns. We can keep throwing money at it. That's our health system right now. Keep throwing money at it and hoping it gets better. But really, there's a point at which that it's not doing any good. We can keep throwing money at it will still be just as shitty as it was yesterday. individual problems with the justice system, for example, I think are slower.
Starting point is 01:02:25 And that's where it's a good opportunity. Maybe that's me being optimistic. But it's a slower creep towards vigilanteism. And we have an opportunity to intervene in that when we start seeing individual failures, different cases that are the foundation of our justice system is the legislation and then the case law. So different cases that go in a way to offend our sensibilities, moral expectations. And then we bring some level of accountability to it through the first legislation,
Starting point is 01:02:54 I would say that if there's a legislative solution, like, for example, Wins Law that we explore that option. And then next through political pressure, certainly. And judicial accountability, which is non-existent today, I think would be very helpful. It doesn't have to be as dark and negative as it looks all the time because a slow-moving problem is no emergency. And that is our justice system. It is slow moving.
Starting point is 01:03:22 So I think we have a real opportunity to fix these areas. Files that don't come out in a way that certainly the majority of us or any of us feel are right. We can fix that. Once again, probably a little more philosophical than direct a yes or not. Do you think you can, you know, I look at whether we're talking the political structure of Canada, the legal system, the RCMP, all these giant organizations that are truly machines. Like they are big, big structures. Do you think that, you know, you see the failings and everything else, do you think it's like you're one good person away from really having some little changes made that overall continue the structure? down the course for another, I don't know, 100 years, 200 years, who knows how long I'm
Starting point is 01:04:21 talking about? Or is it just inevitable, you know, like that eventually they're going to kind of fall apart and you're going to have something kind of come out of the ashes of it? And that's such a large question. I'm just, you know, I'm kind of curious because I'm like, I, you know, you want to do things that are good for humanity, good for society, the ultimate good, but it's like over time, you see the the rotting of different structures. And Sean acts like he knows, but he doesn't. He's just talking about different things with different people. And you're like, you know, it's like, what do they last? Do they last another hundred years? Or do they slowly chipped away at so that the public trust is gone and different things are gone?
Starting point is 01:05:06 And how do you get that back? I don't know. Yeah. It has helped me, at least, you know, for the concept of trying to remain sane in sometimes high pressure situations, and especially with the, you know, stuff that I've been dealing with over the last couple of years. But if I can look at the physical standards that our world is built on, so the, an idea in physics is entropy that every organized system will eventually dissolve or disintegrate. And there's different experimental, experimental options for that. But if entropy is, a law of the universe that everything will dissolve. And that the answer, as far as our observable universe goes,
Starting point is 01:05:53 is the answer to entropy is life, that it develops organized systems, no matter what, every system of life does, whether it's, you know, e-coli bacteria or herd of cattle. It organizes itself, and that's a good thing. We can look at our systems either all negative, where it's only entropy and they're only going to decay and break down. or we can look at it that it's kind of a balancing act constantly, that we always have to maintain it.
Starting point is 01:06:21 We always have to look at these systems that we've built and have done amazing things with. We went to the moon. It took a whole big organization to do that. And for some reason, our whole species doesn't introduce it. Oh, the US went to the moon. It was we went to the moon. Weird.
Starting point is 01:06:38 Like all of us look at it as a contribution of human civilization. It is a balancing act. We can't give up on it. I'm a big proponent of looking at a system with obvious problems and working within it to improve it incrementally and being satisfied with those incremental improvements. Because every day you can win, you can lose. And as long as you're winning more days than losing, then that's a good thing. But it isn't something that if we give up on it, that it will ever. improve. And I know that, well, for example, our justice system I think is more fundamental.
Starting point is 01:07:17 That's why I spent so much my time on it, that we can't work together to have massive engineering projects. We can't have real moonshot ideas without a system that allows us to work together and civilizes our more primal urges for things like retribution. That's why I think the justice system is so important in that way. But it will always be a balancing act. It will always decay and we will always need to rebuild it. That is always the case. The work will never be done.
Starting point is 01:07:51 I think if we accept that, then it's okay. And if that isn't an interesting way to end it, you know, I love the little positive twist. Just in the way you're looking at a problem. That's the way I look at it. You know, I always come back to, you know, like, there's pro-human. there's anti-human. You either think we're net positive or you think we are net negative,
Starting point is 01:08:20 which means, you know, eventually we're destroying the earth or we're interacting with the earth in a positive way and we're going to solve our problems. And there's always going to be problems. There has always been problems and we're just going to continue to solve them, right? Somebody's going to push an issue and we're going to figure it out and we're going to move that way. And when you put yourself in that mind frame, you start to see the world in a positive. It doesn't mean there isn't negative and heck evil things out there. Oh, there certainly is. And if you look back through history, that has been the case. Like I mean, overall for the last thousands, well, the last thousand plus more thousands on top of that years,
Starting point is 01:08:56 we've been dealing with issues that in your lifetime are the biggest issues you will face, which is very true of every lifetime because they're forced with very complex things. And if you take it from the positive way, like you're saying, well, that's a pretty hopeful attitude. And I'll say this, Dan, it's not too often, you know, Sean's got to be careful because Sean can get cynical. Sean can get very emotional. John can get a lot of different things. And, you know, I was just saying on live before I came on here, you know, somebody asked if I'd do a comedy show again, you know, because I did one in November. I was like, well, I was terrified of that because I'm like, but I thought it was really needed. I just thought people needed to laugh. People need to be.
Starting point is 01:09:38 encouraged that there's still, it'll always be there. There's always hope. There's always great people. There's great human beings everywhere. As George Gronen told me, 97-year-old man who lived in Holland during World War II and was in a cattle car and I don't need to go much further with the story set. Truly believe there is more good people than bad in the world. And I'm like, if that guy seeing what he's seen can say those words, I'm like, I think it's time we all saddle up and tossed on some, uh, some, uh, positivity glasses, some rose-colored glasses and seeing the world from a little, just a twitch. And I appreciate you doing that here at the end. So I guess this is the way
Starting point is 01:10:19 we're going to end here. We're going to do the crewmaster final question. So shout out to crewed master. And, um, I want to know if you could see, this is selfish question, but if you could see Sean have somebody in his top 25 for 2023 that has is not the name Don Cherry or Jordan Peterson or whoever
Starting point is 01:10:45 who would Dan, who does Dan follow that he's like you should you should interview this guy. So I've been going down a bit of rabbit hole in the last week. So this is recent for me. But have you been following any of the advancements in
Starting point is 01:11:01 artificial intelligence there? GPT4 and all that coming out? Yeah. Yes, it hurts my brain. Yeah. Well, it hurts your brain, but I think this is, maybe this is a positive thing. There are several different, most of them are physicists, but the mathematicians that are doing work on AI right now, any of them would be just world changing, I think, because what I'm
Starting point is 01:11:25 hearing and what I'm reading from them and when I go through GPT and have it lead me down the garden bath. We're in a position right now as a species where we're giving birth to something entirely new. And like all new parents, we're not ready. We don't know all of the terrible sleepless nights we're about to have. And I think that if all of us, even like right from podcasters, police officers, you know, software engineers can all get on board with the reality that we are going to have to face the philosophical questions of AI very soon.
Starting point is 01:12:05 That would be a good thing. So yeah, I could give you a list. There's a whole bunch of them, but any of the AI developers there, and there's quite a few here in Alberta, funny enough, that I think would be worth talking to. Oh, man, you just spoke my language.
Starting point is 01:12:18 I tell you what we're going to do. After we get off here, I'm going to be texting you like a madman, because if they're sitting here in Alberta, it's like even better. That means Sean gets to do face-to-face, hopefully, you know, Lord Will and they're like, oh yeah, that sounds interesting. Let's do it, you know.
Starting point is 01:12:32 Well, I appreciate you coming back on. And, you know, I never know where a conversation's going to go. But I appreciate you, you hopping on with me, Dan, and exploring this topic at least, or at least opening the gates for Sean to explore it. Either way, I look forward to the next time we cross pass because I'm sure it will happen here at some point. And thanks for hopping on. Any time. Thanks for having me.

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