Shaun Newman Podcast - #549 - Diana Ionescu

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Originally from Romania she moved to Canada in 1997 and calls Alberta home. Diana is a mechanical engineer and teaches at Grant MacEwan University. Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastE-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] [phone] – general sales line, ask for Grahame and be sure to let us know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Tanner Nadeh. I'm Trish Wood. This is Tammy Peterson. This is Curtis Stone. This is Quick Dick McDick. This is Carrie the Don, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday.

Yeah, a funny story. You know, the ties in silver gold bull. I'm sitting at U-9 hockey practice last night, and there's a group of us dads sitting there talking. Anyways, somehow the conversation rolls over to silver in the stocking. And I'm like, yeah. I think that's, like, would you ever do that for your kids? Would you do it for your wife?

You know, I'm just kind of like throwing around. And I'm sitting there watching this play out, and pretty soon two guys are on their phone, and they're buying silver for their loved ones for their stockings. I'm like, huh, I'm like, what a world I live in right now where you could sit at U9 hockey practice, go online to silver gold bowl, and order silver for stockings. I was just like, I was just like, kind of like, you know, this kind of like out of body moment for a second. Like, what is happening here? Anyways.

This is what happens right now wherever I travel. We seem to bring, we seem to talk about silver and gold, which brings me to silver gold bowl, which is North America's premier precious metals dealer with state of the art distribution centers in Calgary and Las Vegas. And just like one of them last last night, he's like, well, can I just order it right to, you know, like, do I got to go pick it up? I'm like, no, just go online. order it, it comes right to your doorstep. And for SMP listeners, we have our own rep, Mr. Graham. So email them at SMP at Silvergoldbull.com or just go down on the show notes.

It's easier that way. You can call there as well. Obviously, you can just go to silvergoldbull.com and order everything. You know, with Christmas just around the corner, one of the other questions says, well, how quickly does it ship? December 19th is their last day to ship before Christmas. So get in touch with Graham, ASAP. Alan Hucco, Cactus Environmental, has been in business for almost 30 years providing environmental consulting assessment and monitoring for pre-construction, construction, construction, reclamation, and spills.

Cactus environmental is also a local supplier for EM surveys that's electromagnetic as well as phase ones, twos, and threes. You can get a hold of Allen at Allen.cactus at sastel.net or give him a call 306, 821774.1. We got Unified Grassroots coming to Lloyd on December 15th. That would be Friday at 4907.49th Ave, 7 p.m. So if you're tired of being silenced, being the silenced majority, it says they have a plan. We have a plan. Anyways, that's this Friday Unified Grassroots is going to be in town. If that's something you want to check out, that's 4907.49th Ave.

one other thing we have on the menu is substack we've been taking a lot of interviews over to substack yeah just doing a little bit of an exclusive there on substack right now it's free you can pledge there and what a pledge does is lets us know in the future if if you pledge that you know if we put it behind a pay while you'd be fine paying a small sum for it and right now though it's free you just head over there. If you're already over there, make sure to share it with somebody you think that needs to see and know about it. We just, earlier this week, you got early access to Tucker Carlson tickets. Last week, Preston Manning and Tammy Peterson both hopped on for, you know, five, ten minutes kind of thing, just a little bit of positive outlook on the future, some things that maybe people

are preparing for, and that type of thing with Shane Gets when we talked about the Alberta pension plan. and there's a whole bunch. You head over to the substack, which is down in the show notes, and you can see exactly what I'm talking about. Hope to see you guys over there. Plus, you can interact, leave some comments, and we get to see some of your thoughts. So hopefully we will see you head over there,

and if not, that's cool, too. Now, let's get on that tail of the tape brought to you by Hancock Petroleum. For the past 80 years, they've been an industry leader in bulk fields, lubricants, methanol, and chemicals delivering to your farm. Commercial or oilfield locations. For more information, visit them at Hancockpatroleum.

A. She's originally from Romania, moved here in 1997. She's a mechanical engineer and teaches at Grant McEwen University. I'm talking about Diana Yoniskew. So buckle up, here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Diana Yonisku. Yeah, Yonisku.

Yonisku, yeah. I love a good name challenge in the morning, you know. It's a great way to wake up. No, this is life. I don't know, I grew up playing hockey for a long time. And I never thought I'd find a new rink, you know, a new house or building that kind of gets you amped up in the mornings. And then, you know, once I got to do this full time, and now that, you know, COVID isn't long behind us by any stretch. But I think a lot of people's, it doesn't matter where you fall on the political spectrum, I don't think anymore.

Sure, the extremes are the extremes. Most people are like, yeah, I don't care. I'm going to meet people in person. I'm going to go to gatherings, I'm going to whatever. And so once I've got to do more in person, like I encourage anyone who's coming on the podcast from Western Canada. Let's do it in person. Like, let's just find a way. I get it.

I'm in the middle of nowhere. But to have you do the drive, I really appreciate that because this is like, I don't know, 10,000 times better than across a virtual meeting, which I mean, I think we're all sick of by this point in time. Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Sean. I definitely enjoy the drive, as I said, thank you for offering me the possibility to drive in the morning and see the beautiful prairie sunrise. It was a nice drive, very simple, very easy. We have weird weather these days, so weird for us,

but good for other people. So the road, the drive was beautiful, actually. And ever since I worked in the corporate world, I tend to be addicted to driving. it's like I'm in my own space I can I own my time and I can do everything I want and I can think everything I want in that space now that I sit in here every day of the week

I got to go to Calgary two weeks ago and I just like downloaded so many podcasts I'm like and then I got the bug and I downloaded an audio book and I'm like now what am I going to find the time again so you walked in I was listening to Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones because I still haven't watched it I'm like this is insane these two guys are giants I got to find some time, so I was trying to squeeze it in before you got here.

I haven't quite finished it. But regardless, yeah, there's something about being in the vehicle, especially when you got clear roads, right? Like, if you don't live in Western Canada, you just don't understand, right? You go to Ontario, I live there for three years and like the whiny road. You never get like this, just flick on cruise and, you know, because it's constantly whining animals, etc. We've got animals here too. But like right now, like it just, yeah, it's, it's, you flick on cruise. You get to watch the sunrise.

You kind of lean back. You just get to enjoy this giant straight road for two hours straight. Exactly, yeah. Funny you said audio books because last month I took a trip. I took an off-season visitor type of tourist vacation break from everything. So I went to BC. And funny enough, I downloaded before Matthew Mahoneyhay. Green lights.

Green lights. And for some reason, I kept on listening to that. that and even when I was driving locally, I was listening to that. And then all of a sudden it ended. And I said, one more is like leaving a friend behind, right? So it was really a nice book and really, really a little bit, you know, because he's an actor and he has a little bit of a theatrical approach to it. But it was enjoyable.

And the audio book being read by him was like, yeah, like you're just at the end. That's amazing. Yeah. It lead me, I wanted to interview. Like as soon as I got there, I'm like, so you've had, you know, in my mind, when you read that book. He's had like, how many times does he talk about going across the world because of a dream, specifically a wet dream? But I mean, like, he's talking about a spiritual encounter and then flying across the world to go figure out what that means. And I would, I haven't heard an interview where

anyone's asked him about it. I don't even understand. Like, how can you read that book and not stare at those things? Go, what is that? Well, I guess what I could relate to his book was mainly because I, I find, I mean, of course you relate to it because internally you may feel the same, right? So I'm 10,000 kilometers away from the place I was born. So it's a journey, right? So everything is a journey. So what makes you go places? The question is, I don't know, maybe the risk-taking, maybe the spirit or the curiosity. I think human curiosity is one of those most beautiful yielding state of mind because obviously I'm talking about the curiosity, hmm, where is this road taking me? As in just driving by in British Columbia, I was encountering all sorts of forest roads, forestry type of roads

and just took one, went to the top of the mountain, had snow. My dog was rolling in the snow. I tried to, I got to test my vehicle, my new vehicle, a wrangler, and hey, it was all enjoyable. You go new places. It's like you open up new possibilities, you open up new ideas. You see different things. You see different smells.

You get different temperature or the humidity on your skin. So we are all walking computers who register all sorts of things, but we have that soul that actually gets to the point where we perceive these things. And then, I don't know, is it God? Is it? I don't know.

creativity that gets in and we get new ideas, we get new states of mind. So that's how I look at it. I'm not 10,000 kilometers away from home where I was born. I'm home everywhere, whatever I can make it, right? So home is where the heart is. Where the heart is and not necessarily so, where you feel the connection with that specific piece of land and where the family is. But isn't the connection the piece of land through the heart? I guess, I don't know. So, for example, when I moved to Edmonton, I lived nine years in Toronto,

so I came in 97 in Toronto. And when I came to Edmonton, one of my first projects was with the, at that time, Petro Canada, refinery. And the moment when I got to, I parked and I got out of the car, it was that home smell because I grew,

I was born by, by the refineries in the oil regions of Romania, right? So definitely it kind of triggered some memory, and I felt comfortable. But I have felt comfortable before in Edmonton anyways, because I came before not necessarily oil-related, but I did some fabrication in Edmonton in year 2000. I was living in Ontario at the time. So I came a few times here, quite a few times here,

and to Calgary as well, and the mountains, of course. Well, let's talk about Romania. You know, you've got a beautiful plant. You know, you sent, for the, for the listener, most people ask, you know, like, how are we going to talk? When are we going to, you know, and they kind of like, okay, should I bring some notes and, you know, this and that? I'm just going to pull it across to me for two seconds. Sorry. She's laid out this, like, map.

Brain map. Brain map. There you go. And it's like, it's detailed on exactly what she wants to get across to you today. And I'm like, well, I'm enjoying the ride. I mean, to me, I know exactly what's going to happen. happen. I'm going to start picking on it and then we're going to get stuck and bogged down and whatever else. Either way, though, I'm really, I've never seen that done before for a podcast.

You're a first for me. I'm like, well, this is, this is interesting. There's been a lot of thought going to coming and sitting across from me. For the, for the listener, they probably have no idea who you are, not saying if you don't, certainly there will be, but you grew up in Romania. Let's, let's, can we just start there? Because, you know, like talking about Tucker, he was just over it, well, it's been a few months now since I think he was in Romania, but it wasn't that long ago he was talking to a crowd and you, ma'am, have lived there, grew up there, and are now over here in Canada. So let's just start with your background, who you are, and how you get to sitting in this chair. Oh, well, the simple answer is because you invited me, but I am

definitely so a very honored to be here. So I did grew up in communist Romania, I was educated and even my studies were done in communist Romania. My parents were my father was an oil engineer

and I'm actually the third generation that works in oil related type of work. My mother was an accountant and what do you get by mixing an engineer with an accountant? A project manager or an engineering manager, which I was for a number of years in Canada,

for which I'm really, really grateful to have been able to be given the opportunities and use those opportunities to expand my career in engineering here in Canada. I wouldn't have been able to do it in Romania because of the economic conditions. So I came to Canada in 97, and ever since I'm here. here, living in Ontario for about nine years and a half, and then moving out west, finally, when I feel like home. So there is not one time when I drive in Edmonton and I look back that I'm not, and realize that I'm not in Ontario, in Toronto area, then my heart is filled with joy at that moment

in time because I know what traffic is, really. So especially when, as a matter of fact, when we had the second child, I decided in my heart that I cannot possibly live in Ontario in Toronto specifically and have a career in consulting engineering and be able to pick up to kids by 6 o'clock from daycare. So that was. And maybe, I don't know, maybe other people feel differently, but once you buy a house, you're stuck in one spot and then whatever you go. you go. So that's Toronto. And for example, to give you an example, and I think now it's probably worse, but if I would leave work at 4.30 to 440, then everything would be good. I would start my day earlier, right? So at 7.7.15 and then leave early. I would, it would take me probably 45 to 50 minutes to get home, to get to pick up the kid. Actually, that was my primary focus.

then if I would leave 10, 15 minutes later, it will take me an hour and a half. So just for the same stretch of highways, right? So definitely not a life, not the quality of life. So coming here, the quality of life definitely has increased tremendously. I feel it in my bones. You know, Lloyd Minster, we argue about getting across town in 15 minutes, you know, from end to end. But it's funny when I came home for my first year of college, I lived in Erudery, so on the north side of Calgary, and we worked on the south side.

And I remember, you know, back then I was in college, so not married, no kids. And I remember being at work and just being, oh, we might as well work another hour because we're going to be stuck in traffic. At least we're getting paid. And so, you know, if you left late, you get stuck in traffic. You left early, you got stuck in. It just seemed like you're always stuck in traffic. It's one of the things that I'm not like, oh, I got to be, you know, I always bring

it back, why Lloyd, why not move to, you know, people are always like, why not move to Emerton or Calgary? That way you can, you know, all these big guests are sitting there. I'm like, I don't know. I'd rather enjoy Lloyd. And the drive here, once you've done it, you're like, man, that's, as long as it isn't a giant snowstorm, you know, and I get it then. But overall, it's a beautiful drive you get here, and it's just the pace of life. And I know Lloyd's busy, but folks, compared to, like, Calgary, I don't even think I need to explain this, but Calgary, Eminton, you go to Vancouver.

Oh, my God. It's just like, nah, I think I'm okay. Well, I do believe you're right, because it's, it's. It's not only the traffic, it's the spirit of people. So for example, when I first came to, I moved to Edmonton, and of course, being in consulting, engineering, you can, you need to go to Calgary for the occasional day trip and whatever meeting for whatever project, because the client is in Calgary or whatnot. So then I took a break to revisit a little bit the downtown of Calgary because I did visit

it before. It was not my first time in Calgary. But when I was at the traffic light And there was this focused lady Running on the spot on the same spot Waiting for the Green Line to turn on And there were lots of cars around it And I said, lady, you are going to be a lot of a healthy

Monument, you know, you are very focused And it remembered me so much about the rat race in Ontario That I felt That was not even funny, it was like throwback really A bad throwback because it took me two months to decompress and get when I moved to Edmonton to decontress from Ontario to kind of I even had a colleague you know passing by in front of my office and said you look different no differently now yeah I said yeah I know I look different isn't that wild yeah I mean it makes complete sense to me

but you think of how many people are just stressed to the nine stuck yeah wherever they are trying to get out and they just you know it's the rat race and I'm actually the embodiment of getting out of the rat race and corporate race and whatever race whatsoever, because, you know, coming here, as I said, I'm a mechanical engineer. I didn't say I'm a mechanical engineer, but I'm a mechanical engineer. And when I came here, my career in engineering started very early. A couple of months after I arrived, I was lucky. And I was lucky because I had AutoCAD written on my resume, which I learned by myself.

So going back to post-communist Romania, we got computers coming in before. During the communist time, we didn't have access to computers because we could print. And if you print, then you can produce manifests against the party, right? So even the typewriters, if you would have a typewriter, you would have to give the actual print of every letter on a paper to the police so that they find the manifest that's written. they would be able to trace back to what a writer has been written with. So, yeah, communism had funny faces. And coming here, I was exhilarated, and my career started very early quite fast because of technology, and we kind of observed all technology exploding around us, right?

and what I can say is the fact that that was the beginning and I was able to work in engineering up until 2015 when our friend showed up. So, and everything turned green. So. And by friend for the audience, you're talking Trudeau. Well, the liberal. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so the liberals. And actually, since NDP first one in Alberta, because what happens is the corporate world, not the private sector to be more accurate. The private sector is very sensitive to the politics, right? So I've seen that happening a number of times, but what I can say is before, if the trend tends to go in a certain direction before the politics, they will put a halt on the projects. So the projects will stop or slow down or just pencils down, and then you have to. to give the client everything and they shelved the project. So in a sense, that happened before Mrs. Notley showed up.

And then in the fall, we had Justin Trudeau, and everything was halted for many years. So by God's grace or universe encounters, I don't know how to call them. I have met this wonderful lady who is still now my friend. And she encouraged me, oh, you know a lot of things. Why don't you teach? So I got into teaching because my contracts were over. It was like nothing.

So Zilch, Nata. And I know friends, I had friends in the world of consulting and working for owners subsequently. Owners meaning the big ones, right? The trans-Canadas and now T.C. Energy and bridges of this world. and I know people who stayed home for three years just stayed home not being able to get a job I once sent a resume to a friend

and my friend sent a resume to this gentleman who is heading is the manager of a small smaller consultant firm but not small and I looked at the time when the email was sent so I sent the email to my friend my friend sent it to him

not even one minute passed by and he responded to her, no, she worked in oil. So, and I didn't work only in oil. I worked in everything that you can look for. I worked in mining in Ontario because I joined the known famous. When I work in consulting engineering, I work for SNC Laughlin. Four years in Toronto, four years here. So, yeah. So I have stories about that, but maybe that's for the different show.

Well, you're the first person I've ever, if you got stories, now you got the character. Yeah, well, I don't know. Yeah. You hear this big boogie, you know, not boogeyman, but you hear the stories put S&C, Lavelin, and like, but they're just this kind of like ominous thing that gets just a boatload of money and they're tied up in all these scandals. But you never hear of anything else.

Like, I don't know. It's just a common. Because the press is the way it is, right? Yes. Yeah, because it is the way it is. So the way everything happens is when it's the downfall of an entity, a public persona or big company or what have you. First, it starts with an inquiry or a report. We'll investigate this.

And the report comes in two years. And then after that, it's like, oh, here are our findings. And then is the fall of that person. or that entity. And that's what happened with Essencee Lavalin. So with SNC Lavalin, there was a report on corruption in Quebec, on investigation. I believe I even have the, because I think I downloaded at the time, but I don't know on what computer,

because I went through many computers and hard drives since then. Sure. So the report was in French, and it was about corruption in the public sector. Not in the public sector, yes, in the public sector. in in Quebec. So I remember distinctively an example. So for example, so there would be bids for to build a hospital or whatever to do something. So there would be a typo, for example, in the actual specification based on which companies were supposed to bid.

So it was a zero added somewhere. Instead of $10,000 would be $100,000. Everybody would bid for $100,000, the company who was supposed to bid. supposed to win the bid, but bid on 10,000 because they need a real number. And of course, the price will be lower. So this is just one example that stuck with me. It was in French, so I don't speak very well French or I'm not fluent, but I can read because I was, yeah, I had some tutoring done when I was a kid in French. So I can speak if I can read, but I'm not fluent at all. And anyway, so long story short, somehow,

Somehow, the CEO of S&C Lavalin came out public and said, well, this is it. Of course, they didn't mention names in the report, but somehow he went to the press saying, oh, it's not us. And then everything started to go down, right? Because when I left S&C Lavlin in 2011, things were weird, especially in Edmonton office. You just hit on a word that means about 10,000 things. When you say weird, what do you mean? Weird is, so first of all, we would not get more business, and then we would have a leader, I mean, a general manager who came new and said, oh, we're going to get this.

So we want to have this many hours as a base and as a base income, right, revenue, right? Because hours of engineering, obviously, right? And we want to grow to more and so on and so forth. And we were, I mean, I was managing the only project left alive in the office. And I had like 24. And there was another little project with sustainability work for Shell. So I was doing a project for tech industries in BC, an expansion for a coal processing plant. And I was leading that project for quite some time.

and his numbers were not aligning with mine. And he never come to talk to me. I mean, I'm leading one of the main projects in the office, and you don't even bother to come and ask a few words. And then you get us into this hotel and room, and you serve us breakfast, and you give us these weird numbers. I mean, these unrealistic numbers, unrealistic. How do we get there?

Don't tell me what. Tell me how do I get there? How to get there? So, and another bit is my realization, and I remember it was in January 2011, was that, of course, you get through intranet all sort of news, right, to the news that are coming. This is what we did, another successful project here, another successful project there. And, of course, on the private sector, I was hearing about all sorts of, let's go to arbitration for this one, and let's go for arbitration. to put this other one and so on and so forth. So, and then on the infrastructure projects

that were outside this country, we were so very successful. So, of course, you come from Romania. What do you think is infrastructure? Infrastructure projects are done with people who are in public sector from different countries. How are they? Greedy. What can you do?

Bribed them. So something was not aligning in my head. Because, so obviously, it was exactly, what was happening. So in 2011, you were sitting there going, like, something doesn't feel right. Because when you use the word weird, it's like, you're like, and so are you like, I got to get out of this position. Yeah, like I was blending. I mean, I was, my thoughts were going to that direction. Yes, yes, definitely. And I left two months later. Yeah. Yeah, well, two months pretty darn quick. Like, you're like, something is. It was the universe. Yeah, it was the universe. Because people, I mean,

the atmosphere in the Edmonton office was horrendous people crying on the floor. We call it floor, right? But a kid, you know, just hired and she wanted to charge to a different project. And of course, you don't charge without asking permission. But in the matrix type of organization, when you have functional department bosses and you have engineering disciplines, you get, as a project manager, you get to use your resource that the functional department is going to give it to you, right? You know how dysfunctional this sounds?

Like, it sounds dysfunctional. And yet it kept getting awarded, you know, millions upon millions upon millions of dollars from the government. Yeah. The idea is that we live in a very unforgiving world, believe me, we do. We think we like, we think we have rights. We think we have all sorts of things. but some people who are nothing but normal, what's their right other than working and paying taxes, really?

And the focus is not on the normal person. So probably, I don't know, 75% of this population feels alienated because nobody talks about them. So if I am to look at what has happened with the Sincill Avalon, at that time, the CEO took the fall, but the whole system was put in place by the previous CEO. And, of course, nobody mentioned his name other than former CEO, right? Because Ben Raiza, who was the gentleman who was doing all the little fiddling in the Middle East, and he was getting all this money, he definitely, his reign started under the previous CEO.

Do you think, you know, do you think there then, you know, like, you've seen some, some interesting sides of the world then, you know, like, you know, when you put it that way, do you think, yeah, do you think that there's more good people or bad people in the world? Oh, no. All people are good. Definitely all people are good. But sometimes in different situations, greed or individualism or me, me, me, the ego is one big deterrent. And mind you, when I was working for owners, one of the big, my big, my big, my big, you,

biggest pains was the me factor. In my world, if you get to produce a project, manage a project, and deliver a project, you are looking at your colleagues as definitely it's something that they are supposed to enable the production or the delivery of that project. And in turn, actually, is becoming a showstopper. They become a showstopper. Because it's very tricking in the corporate world to kind of be able to tell your colleagues, move your rear side and get things done because he's your colleague. Even less if you are a contractor for them, right? So you cannot really, sometimes I was thinking, how did Hitler convince the whole country millions of people to go and die? And we cannot motivate people

to do their work. Yes. And what did you come up with? What did you get to? I have no response to that other than propaganda, right? Propaganda. And if things get bad enough, do you think people will fight, will come together and unify around an idea and go off to it. I think so, but before you can let's know when you say bad enough, what means bad enough? Because bad enough is if we are to fight over a corner of an element of a bread, a piece of bread. Look at COVID. COVID, and I mean this in the best possible way to everybody who listens to this. but towards the end just before the truckers

it was getting to the point where they were starting to call out everything was the unvaccinated right the hospitals are filling up with unvaccinated and it's a pandemic of the unvaccinated on and on and on it went just get your shot already and you took everyday normal people who are good human beings I know lots of them and they were frustrated because government's saying this is the last hurdle we have to jump

meanwhile everybody who is unvaccinated was saying listen and there was some vaccinated saying it too. I shouldn't I shouldn't just split it down the middle. But more of the population was like just do what you're told and we'll get out of this. And the other side was going, yeah, but look at all the goalposts they've moved. Like it's not getting better. We're pretty they said, you know, take the Vax pass and all that. And you see how it shifted over the course of like a year and a half to like do this or we're going to exclude you from all of society. And when you take that thought process, that's what I guess you can see how if you took that

playbook and molded it to a bunch of different things. You can kind of get to where Hitler just over time molded this idea that the world was, you know, a whole bunch of different things, but like, and you could mold the population to do and go and do things that were, you know, honestly two years ago when people said you can't come in a restaurant because you don't have this little card. No, that took time and it took these little steps, just little, little, little, little steps. I don't know. You grew up in communism. I mean, you tell me how communism works because at times I'm like I feel like we're already in it yeah yeah well no no no no okay because we can have this discussion we are not in it right yet yet but they keep

telling us they're going to censor it you know I just found out this is going to piss some people off this morning when they hear this we're doing some I've been chasing one million downloads okay and then you can have your way with comment this has been really really driving me nuts so I'm not a firm believer in no I'm I mean I'm firm believer in obviously there's They're shadow bands and they're like, obviously that's absolutely possible. But I was like, look at the numbers that I've been doing with the podcast. Like it's been growing, which means that they're still allowing it to get out. And I know I'm saying allowing and all these things.

And you're like, well, they shouldn't. Anyways, I get it. We were doing the simple test. It's the simple test because I wanted, I just, I picked the most obscure episode that has not gotten any downloads in forever. And so I just went and started watching it. And nothing went up. And I went, well, that's interesting. So then I got the guy from St. Louis, Jack, who works on it, to go watch it himself.

Still no download. I'm like, huh. So then I turned off my Wi-Fi, because this used to be the thing from like four years ago. The only way you could get a download is if you physically downloaded an episode on Spotify or Apple. Instead of just like streaming it on Wi-Fi. I'm like, okay. So I flick off my Wi-Fi. And then I watch like four in a row just to see what the heck would happen and never ticked up on any of them.

And I'm like, okay, now this is getting weird. And I know, like, I'm not the doomsdayer, but I'm like when my analytics, how I sell to companies is based off of these numbers. And now they're now they're not even showing them. I'm like, well, now I'm screwed. How the heck do I gauge what my, you know, when you're not going to give me what is going in there, right? Like, that's pretty messed up. Communism. Anyways, folks, I was frustrated by that last night because I'm trying to, you know, we're closing in a million downloads in a calendar year.

And actually may have two millions. Yeah, maybe. And I have no more. idea. Like I literally have no idea now. I'm like, well, this is, this is unnerving. Okay. I mean, and what is it now? Now, I go back to the old argument. We had three years ago, what is it download? Is it when you have Wi-Fi and you physically download it on your phone? Or is it just streaming? Because now it gets all, it's just getting so messy. It's what they say. It's what they say. It's what they say. It's what they say. And they change their mind. Yeah. Because now I,

having moving out of the corporate world actually being pushed out the door of my engineering career you know so I'm like I have still the privilege of being able to relive my career because I teach project management in McEwen University for the School of Continuing Education and I relive that so I'm just on top of my game anyways because I'm teaching it and I'm giving students examples and they actually praise me because they say oh the example you give now we understand well it's it the I just had Preston Manning on and and what I was people can love or hate it I get it you know there's lots that you're not going to like whatever but I look at them and I go what a wealth of

information you are even if you don't realize it like 81 years old still got a sound mind comes from a family that had a dad as a premier on and on and on it goes it's like you need to talk more yeah I need to listen more yeah and when I look across you and what you've just laid out in the first, you know, whatever, 20 minutes we've been here very briefly, and I've got to shut up here, folks, is like I hear you and I'm like, here's a wealth of information. We need to listen to that so we can learn and not repeat all these silly mistakes, yet we seem destined to want to do. Well, we'll do it. We'll do it because that's the nature of the world, but I had to reinvent myself. So that's what I'm actually, I'm,

I was glad that I was able to to come to your show and you invited me. And I'm great. for that because I wanted to send a message, a positive message to the people, a message of optimism. So everything is coming. So if you don't have something bad, how would we appreciate the good, really? If I wouldn't have been raised under the communist, of course, I wouldn't be able to recognize and see the signs. But there are bad things and good things about everything in life, right? So I'm not saying communism was good, but I think it was a failed experiment that is revived now, in a sense. Why? Because they ended up with a lack of cash.

And ever since 2008, I've seen definitely the same lack of cash in North America. How do I know it was a lack of cash? Because my mom was an accountant, as I said, for the only offshore drilling and oil production company in Romania, 3,500 people, huge logistics, harbor operations, maintenance operations, 4 rigs, they were supposed to be seven, they ended up being three. My father was leading one of these rigs. So he was a rig, I don't know. Manager?

Manager, so to speak. Which is a higher position regarded and more authoritative than what you would have, for example, in the Gulf of Mexico type of operations, right? So he worked in oil, right? So first, Romania has very, very big, big and old roots to oil. 1913 or something they first discovered and they started using it. And they were American companies before the war that came to and invested in Romania. So, I mean, definitely oil is a big industry and the support for the oil industry was there as well.

So manufacturing pipes and all sorts of other things, right? So there was this industry related to, so oil and any other things, right, petrochemical companies and so on and so forth. So my mom, in 87, I think, in 89 was when the communism went down in Romania and the 18, 1989, so December, 22nd of December, 1989. So in 1987, I think my mom would monthly go to Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania, at the Ministry of Oil, and they would have a roundtable with all the accountants for main major companies out of Romania. And they will talk to each other. I say I say I owe you. My company owes you, I don't know, $3 million. You owe them $2 million.

They owe me $500,000. So they let's you raise in between three of us. $500,000 because they didn't have cash. Why? I don't know. Whatever reason, the communist leader wanted to, Chowoshek wanted to pay off the foreign debt because he felt threatened by having a debt. There were food shortages, as in the food stores were empty. I would have school probably, not probably, I would have school six days a week from

8 o'clock or sometimes 7 o'clock. So to go to school to 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock or so. So to go to school at 7 in the morning, to be at 7 in the morning, you had to be going to school earlier. So I could see people or bottles of milk lined up at the back of the store because everything was done through the back.

They didn't want anything up front. So when the milk would be delivered at 6 o'clock in the morning, people would put the bottles of milk at the back of the supermarket lined up there. This is my bag. This is my bag. So they would work up at 3 o'clock in the morning or something to drop the bottles there. So no milk.

I also saw kids who were just barely six years of age or something, taking going or seven years of age, going to school and taking their little brother, just dragging them half dressed, you know, dark outside. to the daycare because the parents couldn't drop them off. They had to be at work as well. So the keys were around the neck with a piece of, I don't know, string or something hanging around the neck so you don't lose it. If you lose it, it's a problem, you know, get into the house.

At 10 years old, in 80s, he started that because before there were like few stages into the Romanian communism. One of them, the former, the last communist, leader, Chowashisku, was very loved when he visited the area where I was born, which is in the oil area, Kumpina, north of Bukarest, about 90 kilometers, just in the middle of the oil field, so to speak, one of them, one major one at least. They threw rose petals to him in front of him, right? Great. And that was not exercised or imposed or orchestrated behind. People, people, were grateful grateful appreciating I remember this about Cuba

Cuba there was a time where yeah maybe a little bit orchestrated let's let's face it but still it happened and then he went to China and he was able to see the cult of personality the personality cult and he came there oh but I deserve that and then a personality cult well as in the country he is the great communist leader whatever he says is golden for the country is going to be done one direction, just my direction, my way or the highway, and everybody's supposed to bring praises to me. And those, that in time became really, really, really painful to exercise. So every, so you'd have like 1st of May and you'd have like 1st of May is the International Workers Day. And everybody from every company

would be taken on the streets with flags and shouting, you know, glory to the glorious leader and this and that. And of course, everything was orchestrated by the secretate or secret police or actually all these, you know, rallies and whatnot were done by the political components of each. By the 18 different ministries or the... No, no, no, no. It was the political component. Each company would have a political office.

Each company had a political office. Each company had a political office. office? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Because every company was owned by the state-owned. So S&C. Lavelin, just to paint a picture, if it was over in Romania back then, would have somebody who is the head of politics and if the leader was coming through or something they would

organize to make sure there was part of the company that went and supported it. So a company that will come from outside definitely will not have that because it was a private company. Oh, I just mean, I just mean if S&C. Lavalind, sorry. I mean, using a terrible. If a company would exist. If that existed under Romanian control, they'd have a political part of it.

Absolutely. And they would organize to make sure their employees would show up to a said event. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And they would go outside. Well, yeah. I mean, every company would be structured the same way. But mind you, what's happening right now, it's called centralization, right?

Yes. So we centralize ourselves now. Everything is centralized, right? so definitely the area of so I see patterns that repeat themselves definitely at that time they will have the counter information officers the CIs right so or spies or I don't know people who would rat on other people call them what they want right so the communism was able to do that even with the members of your own family to get you to wrap on the members of your family,

depending on how they would get to you. How? They would force you to do that. Yeah. Can you explain this to me? Because, you know, like, when I think of the family unit, I got brothers, I got sisters, I look at my own family with three kids,

and I just cannot imagine, I personally can't. Going to some government official, I'm being like, oh, by the way, this is going on, or to show up one day and have my kids go, my dad does a podcast and I think it's going against what the country wants. Like, you think about where I said. I'm like, well, I mean, anyone can wrap me out at this point, but I mean, nobody has to wrap me out, folks. I mean, I'm literally everywhere talking very openly. They're going to try and censor it off. But regardless, in Romania, when you talk about families, like that tight, I can see

coworkers being pissed off each other, but when you talk families, is there examples that stick out to you where you're like, oh, this is exactly how they did it? Well, I don't have specific examples. of a family member writing on a family member, but here it is. Here's the network. You have the asset, right? And you have the handler of the asset. And everybody could be an asset, right? Okay. They would constantly want to have everybody being an asset. That was the focus. More we know, more we know about everybody, every better it is. So there would be just a function of being pushed into a corner by whatever circumstances and you'll start to have to write up people. So for example, to give you an example, I know the example of my

personal, my dad, right, my personal example. So my dad was supposed to go to visit on to invited by a company out of Houston in 87 because he was working on a rig obviously. He was working on the production, participating to the design and reviewing the design of the production platform in Romania for this Petromar, which was the company, offshore company. And when you go outside the country, obviously, to US, right, there will be like four people who need to be there and 10 who don't need to be there, who are supposed to watch the four people who are supposed to be there, right? And five of them would be hardcore, counterintelligence officers and whatnot or handlers, right? And the other ones would be relatives of whoever in the

ministry or whatnot that will be able to squeeze them into this trip to U.S., which was so sought after. And of course, you have to go through the jumps, jump to the hoops with the secret police. They will interview you. Do you want to stay there? Do you want to leave the country? How patriot, I mean, you are a patriotic individual. Do you love your country? Are you going to come back? And my father kind of went through these interviews, and then they tried to scare him. Why? I don't know. But when, so for example, the living conditions on the oil, Romanian oil rigs were very tough. You were not allowed to drink, smoke, have knives or anything like that.

They would search your luggage before you go on to the rig, you know, flight or whatever. And the shift was two weeks on two weeks off. And of course, that depending on the weather. Sometimes you cannot fly or sometimes you cannot go. or sometimes you cannot go by ship or whatnot, right? So, of course, people were smoking, right? They were sneaking cigarettes in, and they were smoking in the lavatory,

which was far, far away in the living quarters, right? But of course, people are people, and they will leave the cigarette butts on the phone, right? So how dumb are you, right? And of course, the cigarette police said, you have to tell us who is smoking. And my father said, how do I know who is smoking? My living quarters are somewhere else.

I'm not smoking, I'm this and that, and the reality is the reality, right? But this is how it works. So they tried to push him into a certain discussion that was not very pleasant. And I remember my mom was, so they tried to get him to rat on people. That's definitely what has happened, right? And then you never know if you're going to go out or you don't know if you get out of the building. Or you don't know, depending on how everything they want to turn it on you, really.

Because it's my way or the highway, really. I mean, look at what's happening here, right? So in Canada right now. So here's the bill. You're going to live by it. You don't like it. You like it. Your MP is going to do zilch, nada, nothing,

because this is a crooked system to start with, right? Here's this, here's that, here's this. Oh, you live in a democracy. Be grateful. Bye-bye. But here's your bill that you don't like. How do you get there? I don't know.

Please explain to me. Please explain to me. So, for example, one of my first brushes with the image of communism because I was not the generation that instated this communism. My father was young when that has happened or my mother, right, obviously. So what has happened here was I saw, so there was this industry of, underground industry, of VCRs, VCRs, right? So a VCR would cost in the upwards of 40,000 lay, which is the local currency, and a car would cost 70,000 lay.

So... Think about that. More than half of a car. Of course. For a VCR. For a VCR to be able to watch movies from the West, you know. So they did not want you having outside influence? No, we had to.

Of course. We had two hours of television with praises with the glorious leader every year. day. That's all the television we had. Two hours a day. Yeah, that's it. And it's funny. I mean, this is the leaders. This is the how much glorious projects

executed by this by the party and guided by the glorious leader. News and on Saturdays or Sundays you would have a movie, maybe. A movie. Definitely a movie.

and at 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock on Saturdays and Sundays kids would watch cartoons they would start the TV program probably at 1 o'clock or 12 o'clock have the news and praises to the glorious leader and whatnot and they finish it by 3 or 4 o'clock p.m. and then start it again at 8 o'clock or 8 o'clock to 10 that if I remember correctly maybe the times vary a little bit but that's the idea so that's when I say we're in communism, you laugh at me because you're like, we're not there, yes. Yet, because we can talk.

This is, just give me, give me before, like, so if this happened, let's say I was over in Romania. Sean goes, I don't really give it damn. I'm going to have you in. We're going to talk. What happens to me? Well, you don't get to buy the equipment and get a space in the first place. Well, but let's say,

let's just say, somehow I smuggle it in. I get a space. I release it. Somehow there's a way to have a podcast back then or whatever. and get it out. What happens? Just anyone who spoke against the regime, what happened to them?

Well, they will be taken by the right people. Yeah, absolutely. Are we getting... Do you think we're getting close to that in Canada? Well, if we are to look at what happened to tomorrow. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because you're not allowed... It remembers... I remember seeing a Twilight Zone type of episode where she was talking about... I listened to her podcast recently, right?

You had the rerun for her, and I listened to it because I didn't listen to it the first time. And she said the frustration and the pain of being broken from the people, you know, broken away from the people that you used to be all the time and broken away from your environment. So it's like in that twilight zone, I remember there was this punishment for criminals, whoever was deemed to be criminal, to have a sign on their, forehead and nobody was allowed to talk to them. They can roam among people, they can go in the store, grab food from whatever, but it was not a problem of food or existence or whatnot. It was the human interaction. It was the human interaction that was prohibited to them, right, or to each

other. They couldn't talk to each other either, right? So that's exactly what I envisioned when I heard we're talking about the frustration of being cut off from the environment. But not only that you are taking. Oh no, it's not about that. It's about the beating. It's about the broken teeth. It's about the let's get, you don't understand. You don't understand. We are trying here to build a new human being.

You're against that. That's what, I mean, you would be beaten. Seriously. You don't know if you're coming home. Well, that Well, that, um, but if you're going on that trip in US. My mom was

hanging over the kitchen window to see him coming back home to see my dad coming home because she wasn't sure he's coming hour after hour and they grilled him for hours and hours tell us if you don't tell us that means you're not a good a good citizen you are not a patriot you are not you don't understand the realities of what we are trying to build here the new human being a new society you are an element that is against us if you don't cooperate with us and then at some point my dad came home eventually at 10 o'clock or something after they

picked him up with, I don't know, he had to talk to them at probably about one o'clock or something. And my mother said, finally, and then he never knew if he's going to still go on the strip. He never knew that. He couldn't have possibly no, right? They tried to push him, push him, push him. What do I know? What do you want me to do, just tell, give people who aren't, because he was himself against certain, I mean, you know, when you have safety, rules and this and that. They pretended to be safety. Okay, fine. So I have a torch here. I'm welding. I don't know, 10 meters away from where I have the will basically coming up, right? The pipe main pipe, whatever. And then they cannot smoke in the lavatory. It's absurd, right? And then you don't want because you don't want people who are going berserk, right, because you don't drink two weeks in a box,

in a metal box, and just working. So he had his way of keeping them quiet and rested and calm, right? Because that's what you do, right? Yeah, you figure out the situation. If you paste them off, it's a problem, right? So, yeah, that's how it is. For example, my parents didn't want to have a phone installed. I have a very good friend.

She's my dear friend. She's in Ontario, Isabella. You know, I don't know if you know, but, you know, most of Romania, a lot of it is, percentage is Christian Orthodox, same as Greeks or Russians, but based on Greek calendar, really, not the regular normal calendar, not two weeks like Ukrainians are having the Christmas on 7th of January or whatnot. So she's my goddaughter because at marriage you are supposed to have a pair of a couple of that will be your, who,

who will be your godparents, right? So anyways, so she's my goddaughter in Ontario. And her father, God rest his soul, was second in command on the only Romanian submarine, the dolphin, which was from the Russians, by the way. All technology anyway, secondhand type thing. And I visited that submarine, really quite an experience. You could see these guys were really bulky. You would expect that shorter people would be in submarines, but no, these were.

like bulky sailors and whatnot, all of them pale because of the amount of hydrogen that they were taking in during missions, right? So anyways, long story short, a few months before the revolution hit, he moved from that position and he went to lead a military base in Navy military base in Romania, of course in Romania. And when the revolution hit, the CI guy didn't show up at work. So he took a witness, and he broke into the CI filing cabinet. And he opened a two inch thick file, his file. He took his file, right, to see what's in my file. This is your father? This is the father of my good friend is about. Okay, yeah, okay, yeah. Now I'm falling. Yeah. So he broke into the filing cabinet of the

CI guy who didn't show up and little that you know he had like two inches or three inches thick paper that was handwritten with all his phone conversations ever on that phone number even when I was calling Isabella from the payphone because my parents refused to have a phone install and even those conversations. conversations, well, do you want to go to the beach and this and that? And that was done by hand. Imagine what you can do now. Yeah. Yeah. In Romania now, for example, a few years ago, I was in Romania and there was these idiots with bomb threats and whatnot. And they would find them fast. Of course, from the pay phones, but they would find them in about two, three days. What is that

telling me? The communism and the suspicion, because we get to have a suspicious mind, right? not trusting of the government. Of course they have the recordings of everybody's voice and they go and search into a database the voice pattern and they find the idiot who was good. So they have that. They have that technology. So what?

Romania has it in Canada, doesn't? Right? So for example, this thing, I mean, look at what has happened with the state of emergency. Again, I have a suspicious mind. So here is, there are certain paths.

So I listen to news because I like to put things together, right? So first of all, I hear, and I'm surprised that the prime minister has been taking to a secret location. Okay, he's safe now. The truckers are coming. But they were not even all of them in a lot at the time. So my first reaction was, whoa, he's not going to talk to them at all. And then I hear this guy still on the news, on the media, a legacy. This guy from

U of A, this legal professor, expert, of course, it needs to be a state of emergency because the prime minister is not living in his home. So isn't that orchestrated? He never had an intention. He had the intention to bring everything down, right? This way, very forcefully,

because he cannot afford to have a second one. So, first of all, I leave, I'm taking out of my house, before people really arrive seriously, and this becomes a big event as it became, ended up being. And then a few days later, when the state of emergency idea came up, you have support from this individual, I don't remember his name, but he's an academic, right?

Of course it has to be a state of emergency. The prime minister cannot be at his home. So what was first, the chicken or the egg? So it was planned. Yeah? I mean, that's my speculation. Of course, I don't have real facts, but you have to put the two and two together.

Yeah, but we all watched it play out, right? Of course. And how, so why didn't you go to talk to them? Just get the leaders and talk to them, because Romania had their share of rallies. So communism went down. Guess who won? Guess who took power?

Because Romania has had the only televised revolution. Why? because people ended up going to the TV. So it was manipulation, first of all. So somebody convinced Chavchescu. So everything started to happen in Romania. My shirt is wrong. My shirt says the revolution will not be televised.

In Romania, it was televised. Absolutely, yeah. And that's why the Russians couldn't come in. Everything was a coup, actually. It was not, everything was prearranged. The new communist leader who came in power, Ilyos, after the second one. So they knew they needed to get rid of Chavoshesco.

And who betrayed him? The secret police. But it was prearranged ahead of time. Ahead of time. Absolutely. And they knew exactly who was going to be in power. And they had the blessing from the Russians. And the Russians were at the border.

And how do we know that they didn't get in? Because it was on live TV. It was done. So there was this phone from the Russians. and the Army General who was leading the Army, picked up the phone, was given the phone to have the conversation. Of course, all of them had, we're speaking Russian at the time, and he picked up the phone, and being on television,

he had to say, no, we don't need any help. But we're here to help. No, we don't. So to help means the Russians are coming. When they are coming, they're not going for a long, long, long time. Look everywhere. There is a new, I think there is a TV on Netflix from Norway. I can't remember the name of it, which is exactly about Russians coming and not going,

in a fake scenario in which Norway invents this technology, whatever, whatever. So they're not going. Is Romania, Romania isn't communist today. Not today, no. How did they get out of it? I hate to jump like the story, because I'm, And like, but how did they eventually get out of communism then? Well, as I said, somebody contacted the Russians.

So Gorbachev came in 87 to visit Romania. Okay. And everybody hoped that Gorbachev is going to convince Chavashchewu to kind of transition somewhere else. Because we knew other countries being going already undergoing through changes, right? And Gorbachev and Russia was going through changes. And Gorbachev visited in 87 and nothing happened. So at that time, probably they decided the underground. So because they wanted to preserve the communism.

That's the idea, right? So they said if we managed to get this guy out of the way, we can still be communists. I had to pull up Romania, sorry. I'm like, dance around here. I'm like, okay. So the Russians came and for the listener, you should look it up on a map, right? Just so you understand what we're talking about, but southwest of Ukraine, essentially. Borders part of Ukraine.

Well, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Just so people have an idea, right? Because, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm listening. I'm going, okay. So you got out of communism because Russia came in. Because Russia gave the blessings to the shadow government, so to speak, that was formed to remove the existing communist. from power.

It's blessed so that they can move forward and Russia gave it a stamp of approval, essentially. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Nothing would happen in the communist world. What year did this happen? 89 22nd of December. 89 22nd of December. 1989, yeah. And on 25th, Chavisherskwood and his wife were shot to that, executed after a fake trial,

which first everybody watched. I watched the first one. and they it was a very unprofessional your guilty trial type thing sure they shot him they shot more her than him but they died and um yeah so um because they knew they needed to remove him and then the next so the next in december in january 29th of january 2019 as in a month later there was this big rally because people couldn't understand something is wrong here, right? So people were still going to the streets, rallying and whatnot, and there was this military vehicle and the new communist leader,

of course, new leader we didn't know, started waving his hands and talking to the people and say, that couple has dirted the idea of communism. And then everybody realized at the time that everything was prearranged. We didn't know that at the time. We thought there are these people emerging people that came from nowhere. It was a lot of confusion, right? So, yeah, it was a lot of confusion on the streets and whatnot.

There were people and rumors started quite a lot. People dying, shot and whatnot. For example, my former husband's cousin died. He just went with a military vehicle. He saw this thin guy on that vehicle, ready to go in. And he said, oh, you're too small. for this fight and he pulled him down. This guy was playing volleyball professionally

before he went into the army and the tab was blasted, right? And he died. So this was street fights, right? So, but very confusing time. People were given guns or weapons from the army and whatnot army weapons

and you could find they could kill, they did kill a few people who had multiple uniforms, one on top of the other without any markings or whatnot. You could not recognize this is a Navy uniform or that, whatever, right? So who are those people? The names of those people. And then six months later, so people starting with January, people realize this was all bullshit, man.

It was not a revolution. It was a coup. And we believed in it, and this is what happened. And then the younger generation, which is, I'm coming now to Canada, right? So because why young people are so much kept away from the reality of the politics? Why Canadians are not talking politics? Why do we not do that? Why do?

Oh, I know we are a former British colony. You don't talk politics and religion, blah, blah. Get out of it, man. Yeah. Get out of it. Hey, you speak in my language because it's taken a long time for me to go like, okay, I love the image and oilers. Hey, we're on a seven-game winning streak. the time this airs, maybe it's more or less than that. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day,

I'm like, I love hockey. But if we keep going the way we're going, yeah, like eventually, you know, like you can love all the things you love. They're all going to be gone. Yeah. I hear that just like, so, so kids got in the street. Kids got in the street, students got in the street. So there is this, um, students take this. We call it a plaza. We talk it, we call it the plaza, but it's not a plaza. It's a, it's kind of a landmark in Bucharest. So they put a milestone there and they said this is the with a zero on it, right? And they said this is the kilometer zero of neo-communism. Here there is no neo-communism in this spot.

So there was the university balcony and didn't like unions created were created and whatnot. I mean they were before but the leaders were now against the communism, right? So unions. So they started becoming going and artists were playing and they wrote songs against the communists. and people were coming from work and going to go in night in that university plaza, whatnot, and the tents were installed because just across was the National Theater building, and they put tents and some people were slipping in there. They were totally dedicated to the idea of freedom and talking against the regime,

which was neo-communist now and so on and so forth. And that was great until the communist leader decided, okay I'm going to go help and he called the miners everything was they were manipulated so he called to action because these students are dirty and they are going to they try to three thrown our new values and so on and so forth so what what they did actually they put people against each other exactly exactly what so there was these traditional parties old parties that existed and the communism took them down The leaders resurfaced because one came out of jail after he was in jail for many, many years,

out of which 14 years in total reclusion is 14 years seeing talking to nobody, Cornelio Copposo, 14 years completely talking to no one in jail. And then eventually they couldn't kill him, they had to let him out. And what did he say when he got out? he was 40, 50 pounds less than what he used to be. And he came out after, I don't know, three years of jail or something, but out of which, I don't remember.

I don't have the exact date. And he was the traditional conservative. It was the party. He started leading the new party that was the farmer's party, the real, you know, kind of related to land. I don't have the exactly. the proper translation to English. And he was hated by some part of the population

because he was considered to be a traitor by some or whatever because he came out of nowhere and he didn't eat salami made with soya because communists Chavishu wanted to get us to on a proper regimen, food regimen, to eat what he wants. So we were not supposed to have the food stores anymore. We were supposed to eat in cantonas

that he would build for us and we will have the proper nutrition insured by the government. The longer you talk, the more... The scarier he gets. Well, the more I go, history doesn't repeat it rhymes because it's just our version. Yeah. And you

you... So, man, 14 years, not talking to anyone. That guy would be... Yeah. Is he still alive? No, he died a few years ago. But he lived to an old age. He lived to an old age. Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be, um, yeah. So regardless. Depends on how soft you want to take it or how hard you want to take it. So. Let's pull it to Canada. Yeah.

You move, you move to Canada. Yeah. You're here. You love it. You fly out. You come up to Eminton. You, you, you know, like this is home. You smells everything.

You just, you found it. Yeah. You find Alberta. Alberta? Not the other part. Sure. Just Alberta. Alberta.

Yeah. Where are you at today? Because when we first talked after the first time I met you, you're like, we need to talk. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Fair enough. Where are you at today?

Like with everything you've been seeing. And you can start back to 2015 if you want. Just walk me through what you're staring at with Canada. So first of all, once the, first there is no green technology. Let me make one statement. I worked in consulting engineering. I worked in, so I worked for designing nickel mines, gold mines. I worked in an uranium refinery related projects, chemicals in poor hope.

I worked coal. I worked facility as in refined, I mean oil storage and whatnot. for oil. I worked oil sands and I worked pipelines and not aware of a green technology. And when you mean green technology, what do you mean? A reliable, solid source of power that we need to go on with our lives, especially when we have such variations of plus 30 minus 40, right, or minus 30, whatever the weather is going to bring us, right? So, and we have, I mean, technology-wise, so there is no miraculous technology.

Sure. The trend of this green, green, green, green, I don't know. I mean, I think it's a huge mass manipulation that's happening right now because now I do have a fascination with words. And I think an immigrant hears things a little bit differently than someone who was born and speaking into one single language. So the problem is that once you start hearing, you cannot stop hearing. So the good thing is you start understanding, but the bad thing is you cannot stop that. You kind of hear stuff and not that you are paranoid, but everything that I read, every kind of headline that I see in the newspapers or in the news is definitely trying to manipulate you into a certain direction.

They are not necessarily very skilled in writing articles or providing you with information, but they are very skilled at putting headlines, which kind of get to tend to stick with you. Yes, because everybody just scrolls through the headlines. So, first of all, when I came to Canada, I couldn't read the newspaper. Really, I could not finish an article because it would start here, you have a name, move the other way. Everything was confusing. Nothing was clear.

And then somebody was telling me that, yeah, but they write to grade six. level. That's what the articles are they did for. Okay. So I cannot cover that. It is my mind so complicated? So that's confusing for me. I did read a lot because obviously we didn't have television. We had when I was growing up, I even had a trial test done at candlelight because they would take off, cut off the electricity at 6 p.m. in school. So we had to take this trial, this test, but not was not the format, was in preparation for the main test. What did you just say about electricity? They would cut off electricity at 6 p.m.

And so everything would be dark? Yeah, until 8. And then from 10 o'clock again. Until, from 6 to 8, they cut electricity, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. And then at 10 o'clock they would take it again, take it off. Take it off. So they give you two hours again from 8 to 10, and then they take it up. And from 10, when would they bring it back on?

I don't remember. I am probably sometimes two, three, four o'clock in the morning. I don't know. From population. From industry, no. Because they would work in shifts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Working shifts.

Right. So Romania was technologically up to date in 70 to 73. And then it was too big. The technology was too big. So they couldn't support, they couldn't sustain the growth or profits at that time. But to move back, to go back to the media. I don't want to confuse it.

Sorry. No, I'm bouncing around. But every time she says something, folks, I'm like, wait a second, what now? Anyways, I'm trying to keep this on the straight and narrow, but I keep, you have, I'm like, oh, man, it's like, I'm listening to you and I'm like, okay, what we should do already is it's like, it should become like an eight-part series where we just talk about something and dig right down to the bottom of it so I can understand.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I'm gladly sure. So let's go back to manipulation and media. Yes. So first of all, when I came to Canada, I was astonished to see this stupid model with, let's repeat five times, 200 times a day, the five pieces of news. So what's that? I mean, the pieces of news are, look at this disenfranchised lady who has this situation, but now she's happy.

Look at her. That's kind of one of them. Someone who, oh, okay, here's the news, here's the piece of news here, news there, and nothing from the international other than some U.S. news. So this is an immigrant country, a country that is based on people immigrating to it. Where are the news from Africa? Do we know that Argentina just elected a weird president who was counseled by dogs to go into a presidential race? Counseled by what?

His dogs. His dogs? Yeah. He had a dog and he went to a medium and the dog advised him to go. And he's been elected. President, isn't that a piece of news? Why don't we hear it anywhere? Oh, we talk about the Google thing that the Google,

oh, Google has released the trends for search for 2023. How is that useful to me? If I am a professional and I am professional, I make websites, right? The other. So I learn my lesson. I don't put my revenue in one hand, in one basket, right? Put my eggs in two baskets. So I'm teaching and I'm building websites

and I love to play with words, right? Because it's exactly about manipulation, right? So, I mean, I would like to know news from South Africa, Namibia, not only about people killing other people. Here's what happening. So the television has a function to educate. The television has a function to inform and the television has a function to analyze economic politics and give the trend and get people to get people to be informed. Like Google is working for the user. So if it's used in the proper one.

it becomes a very powerful tool. On the flip side, if it's done to create a narrative, it becomes a powerful tool in that hand as well. So after a few years of living in Canada, we did everything to install one of those to see Romanian television. The first night when after we installed it, we didn't, I did not sleep the whole night.

I watched television, Romanian television. And it was so funny because you see these idiotic things, but they make you think, and they show you the spirit. So for example, I was looking at this pro TV channel and it was a piece of news about this individual who tried to steal a cow and he tried to, from somebody else obviously,

and it was muddy and he tried to disguise the cow so he put rubber boots on it. And of course the cow couldn't walk properly so eventually kind of lost rubber boots and whatnot. And of course you look at this piece of news and it's entertaining. It shows the true romance. Armenian spirit trying to steal something creatively, but still idiotically, right?

It's a creative way to do it. I mean, yeah, I mean, if it works. It didn't. Attend for creativity, but yeah. So, so we had to have the humor, right? And is the pretty much same type of humor as it is the Jewish type of humor. We see this thing with, oh, I need to put positive. Doesn't work for me, doesn't work for us.

I mean, for some may work. I don't know, because now everybody is pretty much, especially the new generations, are pretty much like here, really. So having the same challenges and whatnot. But we had to look at the half-empty part of the glass and make fun of it. That's kind of the style, right? So you don't sit down and die because, see, I was listening recently to Shane talking on your podcast. Shane gets on your podcast.

and he said, I was in Berlin and I touched this piece of wall. Here is the wall. And I understand for us, for Eastern Europeans, okay, here's the wall. How do I get past it? That's the idea. How do I overcome this? So you see, that's the good part of it. It made us resourceful.

And that's how I can relate so well to Alberta, because Alberta, And people in Alberta, find a way. When I moved, yeah, when I moved here, before I moved here, I knew that I liked Alberta, because all my fabrication in Alberta worked out the ways was supposed to be working out. Is that practicality of the space, right? And people, they do find a way, yeah. That's, honestly, in the middle of COVID.

Yeah. And, you know, like everybody, you know, back two years ago, my thought was, where is the practicality? Like, this is what we do. Give us the problem. We'll go figure it out for you. Yeah. And, I mean, now the more you dig, you know, the deeper you get, the deeper you go.

Holy crap. Like on the level of ineptitude amongst other words in that realm. It's too many people who've come and sat across me or virtually where you're just like, I can no longer fight that the stats, all these things, all these people, everything. It's just so blatantly obvious. But back then, like, take a plumber. Take a engineer. Take a doctor.

Take all these different people. Put them in a room. We'll figure this out. That's what we do. That is the Western Canada spirit. We're not that far from people coming here in the early 1900s and, you know, living in tents in minus 40 weather. Like, I mean, that's what they did.

That's the bloodline I come from. Like, it's just like, give us the problem. We'll solve it. Yeah. One way or another. One way or another. So to go back to the media, I'll come back to the COVID thing, but I want to kind of close the, I mean, get to closing or have some sort of a general statement. I want a change in the media programming.

Why don't Alberta has a television? We'll have its own television agency or programming. Yeah. We need information about why. I tell you what, I'm sitting with Premier Smith here and that's an interesting thought. I mean, anything, anything government scares the living crap out of me. I'm not going to lie. Anything they get their hands on, I'm like, ugh.

But, you know, we're talking about pension plan coming in Alberta. They're talking police force coming in Alberta. What's one of the most in? We're talking green because everybody comes and says, oh, you're dirty. No, we're not. You don't even have a clue to work and money and effort that is being put in making projects green. I don't know. I don't know the answer on the, on the.

Alberta television station, the ATS. I don't know. I don't know either. I'm not familiar with that. But no, no, I'm joking because I've never heard anyone talk about it. They talk about all these things pulling the money back. How about pulling some of the communication back? Here's your Alberta television.

Here's the information about the projects. Here's the information. Here's education. Here's, we invite doctors and naturopaths and whatnot, how you can protect yourself from cold. here's how you build a proper lifestyle here's how you eat well what do you achieve with that

that means how do you hold in a period of crisis mental health and such when one person is going to see that will say oh I have mental health problems so if they talk about it on television that means there are other people like me I'm not alone which is what matters

right that's what matters. To feel that you are not alone, to feel that they are talking to you, to your needs, not bullshit news repeated 500 times a day. And then, of course, brought to you by the 30-year-old,

I don't know, person who does the same thing and they become older and, I don't know, thinner and face work done and so on and so forth. I mean, it's unpleasant. You see it's like a monopoly. Oh, I grab this position.

will never leave it until I die, right? So all these hosts, right, talk show hosts and whatnot. Fake. Fake, yeah, absolutely, yeah, fake people. Botox and the lips and the wrinkles all gone. It's unpleasant to look at them. And they show up there, day after day, and they never go away. And they grab the power three years ago.

Just please retire, get another guy who thinks a little bit younger than you are. I mean, I'm not the youngest one. I'm getting closer to $20,000. days of life but oh that's an interesting way to put it yeah but yeah but but but you can tell people just stopped right yeah they're like pulling on what is that what is it well actually I'm shorter than that a little bit not quite a little bit uh shut up okay shut up Diane about your age but anyways the idea is that when you I mean if I turn on the TV I don't want to see oh oh here's another one for many years I was waking

up and turning on the TV, advertisement for death insurance in the morning. I don't want to, I want to hear the news, but it's obvious that they were gearing towards an audience that was not going to work, right? So, it was ready to die. So who is CBC's audience, TV years ago? Old? Well, get the new one, get new programming, inform, get people, speak to people about the fears. But here's the thing. The CBC at one point, I remember as a kid loving it. They used to have the movie on Sunday night. They used to have hockey night and Canada on Saturdays.

It was built into our culture. And there's tons of people that, you know, that are older than me that grew up with a similar idea, right, of what CBC meant to the country. Now it doesn't. And I just come back to, it's just simple. I come back to the truck of confi. You could have went in there going to look for like the news of it. Like, is this what they say it is? Is this bad?

And within 10 minutes, because you've seen this. happened from all anyone from mainstream who went down and experienced Ottawa or the actual convoy went this isn't what they said it was and yet they're it's just dying because if you wanted to actually do the news you would have went and done it and you would have award winning journalism immediately because everybody was like yeah hungry for it yeah yeah and what people are hungry for now they're finding elsewhere they're finding through podcasts through through uh different things like rumble there's different news there's different not news agencies but there's different people across North America I'm probably further than that that are giving them an independent touch and they're

all going there because they're like I can no longer trust my government and what they've been spewing for the last at least two years it's probably way longer than that but it's certainly in the last two years everybody saw the trucker convoy and that CBC did nothing on it and if they did do anything on it they said it was a bunch of you know racist and misogynists and all this stuff and that they're terrorists terrorists and they print these articles where you're like What F is this? This isn't journalism anymore. It's an imbalance presentation of the news.

So if you would have an Alberta television, you would have the possibility to show how many rallies are everywhere because the CBC is not showing up. That means nobody knows about it, right? And if they put in just a fraction of the money, you know, that they put into health care, you all of a sudden would have, and you could, that'd be interesting.

Yeah, it's interesting because you would have lots of people watching it. she comes on. It's next week Daniel Smith comes on. Please. And why not ask her? I mean, like, have you thought about this? It's actually a decent little idea. Because... Although Chris Sims, because she's going to listen to this, Chris Sims would be like, anytime government,

like journalism is not supposed to be funded by government. They're supposed to be separate because journalism is supposed to hold accountable government. It's supposed to be impartial. But conflict of interest has many facets and they can start the company. They can help start the company that is

become like not necessarily state-owned or province-owned, but definitely independent because, believe me, people are going to watch and there's going to be a lot of advertisement or whatever that, the means of coming. Anyways, I'm not the architect of a televerver. I don't want to step over my boundaries, my capabilities, but here it is an aspect that you don't, maybe you don't think about. People go to Rumble, people go here, there, they listen to you, they listen to other people, but not to people are listening to the same thing, to the same message. Whereas how do you coagulate the message?

How do you concatenate and serve people with this? Because it's about serving people, right? You serve people. You inform me, Sean. Thank you. And you also go out on a limb and you get to speak your mind. Not many people do that, right? Why doesn't everybody do that?

But then it's a dispersed effort to be powerful. You need to get the effort together, put things together, to be able to send the message across. So let's look at how the perception about the oil industry being so dirty started many years ago before the green world started showing up, many years ago, probably 10 years before. But the oil people, the big wigs in the oil industry, they didn't think, ah, that's just no idea. They could have invested in educating the people. Yeah, they could have been proactive instead of reactive. They could have been proactive. Yes. When you are reactive, it's too late, too little too late.

Yeah, I agree. So now there is no way you can step into any world and say, oh, by the way, we extract green oil. No, no, no. That's dirty, man. You're trying to lie to me. No, it's clean. And your underwear has elastic that has oil in it, by the way. You're not pure.

You look around the house. I think anyone can look around the house. You have a plastic bottle. And you paid $5 or $7 on it because it has a... We live in a country where we run off of heating our houses and everything else. Like, it just goes on and on and on. Here's another one. Here's another one.

So, for example, I went back to Romania about a year ago because I had to take care of my dad, he's paralyzed, so I'm the only child, so you got to do what you got to do. So I needed to buy a washing machine. And in Europe, they have these washing machines, and I think they have them here as well. Well, they don't have exhaust. The dryers, sorry, I'm talking about the dryer. Some of them have dryers as well, but the dryers or the machines that have the dryer on them as well, they don't need to exhaust outside.

They have a heat pump and all the heat stays in the house. Now, can you calculate the number of calories that are going out and we consume electricity in our homes to dry our clothes for one, two, three, five people more, right? And we get it out the door. Yeah, we blow it outside. Yeah, thank you. I see what you're saying.

So you're saying if it's already over in Europe where they trap that heat so it's so it's green, you have to go with small increments like atomic habits, right? If you had red or whatnot. Exactly. There are many things that can get us to the greed. Take the, you want to subsidize something. How about we subsidize changing out drying machines that they push it into your furnace? Essentially is what you're saying.

Take the money from that tax because it's a tax on which I pay GST called carbon tax. And take the money and get the people to change the. And you know what? And everybody would look at it and go, actually that kind of makes sense. A drying machine, as long as it's going to dry clothes, which I assume. it still does. And instead of cutting a hole in the wall and blowing it out there, you just find a way to transfer that energy into heating your house. It's not going to be this giant amount, but every little increment helps. Yeah, yeah. It's $1,600 or something running for an hour

or half an hour, right? So it's enough. So there are many ways. So there is no plan. When Nautley showed up, she came up with an eight points plan. She announced. I looked it up. I couldn't find it on the internet. I think they wiped every, every. So to reduce carbon emissions. So that was about a month or two after she showed up in power. And one of the eight points was to Carpool to Calgary. And I just took my right arm and hit my forehead because I said, oh my God, is this the great solution to cut carbon emissions to Carpool to Edmund, took from Calgary to Edmonton? One of the points. I could not find it on the internet, but I remember it. So if I'm lying, I'm lying. I'm sorry. Well, and here's what we're going to do to the audience. If you find it, send it to me

because it would be great to have. Of course. And so, okay, now imagine this. It's a snowstorm because I did Calgary. I worked in Calgary for about the year, right? And I came, I mean, I was going Tuesday morning to Calgary coming back Thursday's evenings. And I had snow and dry weather and rain and what have you, right? So I'm not going to put my life in somebody else's hands on an Albertan highway. I'm not going to carpool. Build me a train and I'm going to go to Calgary. Build me a train. I'll do that. I'm going to use the train to go to Calgary. That's it, man. But I'm not going to carpool with anybody. If I die, I should die at my own hand, right? I'm not going to come off the highway, you know, in an accident. Because the first time when I went to,

to Joffre and my first exit won't work it was. I think it was January 8 or 9th, 2007, when I started work here. I wish I could find it for you. I'm trying to, you know, this is, where's Jamie when you, you know, I'm just a joke? So, so I was driving to Joffre and I counted 17 trucks in the ditch. It was 8 or 9th of January, right? Sure. I went on a project site, right, for a client meeting and said, oh my God, what's happening here? I mean, why are there so many in that ditch? I don't know. So anyway.

Well, I think if you're from Alberta or even, you know, Saskatchew, and so many of us got implanted into Alberta. Transplanted is the word I was looking for. Highway 2 between Calgary and Emmington. I think all of us, maybe I'm wrong on this, have a memory of driving that highway and seeing 50 cars pile up. in the middle of winter, a bad storm just picks up, away it goes, and then it's just, and on and on it goes, every year it happens. And whether or not you need a train or what have you, I don't know the answer to that.

Somebody needs to look at the stats behind it and whether it would get used enough to be cost-effective and all these different things. But when you come back to like carpooling or whatever, you're like, well, a train makes a heck of a lot more sense than, I would think, you know, than what they're, but it's just ideas and getting the right ones, to play out because we got this carbon tax.

Yeah. And they're going to tax us to death. Yeah. And you're going to get rebates, but the rebates are going to cover. And it's like, no, it doesn't. Like, I mean, no. And then, and then on and on it goes, we're going to, we're going to have all these vehicles that are EVs. You're like, oh, yeah. No gap. And you're like, okay. But how do we, you listen to anyone who knows the infrastructure, eventually, if you changed all the vehicles we had, then we can't support that. Yeah. And on and on this goes. It just goes on and on and on. You're like, where are the grownups in the conversation?

Well, it's the lack of education, the personal interest. They are not working for the people for the most part. The fact that they think the planet's going to do, you know, if we don't get 1.5, if we go over 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, I believe it is, although it was a target for 2021, once upon a time, and 27. And it's just been on and on. They push us down. And we're in this, like, religious cult of, like, we need to get here.

Otherwise, the planet just dies off in an instant. And we, like, that's an insane thought. I don't know. I mean, I'm not a scientist to talk about the global warming. I do know that I have found a book, which now I think I misplaced, that I would have brought it over. Did you know, so this was a book published by the environment temperatures and whatnot, Earth, Earth, by the Stockholm University, with about 63 scientists from all over the world, it was published in 70-something.

So to my dismay, I realized that in between 1880 and 1940, the ocean waters raised with about 20 centimeters, and nobody knows why. Maybe the heating started then, the heating that we see now. Between 1880 and 1940,

it raised 20 centimeters. Yeah, if I remember, correctly, right? So the ocean waters raised about 20 centimeters. So I think if that would have happened now, which is happening now in for some countries, I believe, I don't know if it's happening or it's not happening because I didn't measure the thing in that specific country. But anyways, it would be just tomorrow we're going to all die. And what that does to the younger generation it's unbelievable because I was the lucky generation to have been when the communism changed and I was just turned 18 19 19 or 18 I don't remember yeah in 19 right after just before

the communism went down and everybody wanted to do something the technology got in Romania and that's why I make websites now and that's why I learned not by myself because computers got in man and oh my god have we embraced them and now even the GDP of Romania is driven by that very fact because a large part of Romania's GDP is coming from IT and IT was something that we all embraced I loved it I built programs from my I mean I was supposed to do calculations I said instead of doing calculation I'm going to write the program and I did that and I would let the computer to run for half an hour, ding at the end, and go get my data, put it in Excel, process it, put it on a graph, and that's it, right?

So that's how it goes to my university. And you see, that's why I was able to kind of go and say, oh, my God, this is marketing. It will never be going to die. It's a democratized marketing. So that's why I got into building websites. I like the words, and I like, I have a good. creative component on the graphical side and because I used to draw when I was a kid and it's some people say where did you go from you from consulting to this well let me tell you

one thing there are lots of disciplines that play into a website if you know what you're doing and if you are professional of doing it and the other bit is is like almost like engineering really So engineering is a sum of the complexity that we'll get in engineering was amazing. And I like that. It's the diversity. And it's amazing. There's lots of people since what would have been, November 2021. So it was before then, that have left Canada, gone all over the place, right?

I assume your laughter is because you know some of those people. No, because I want to leave Canada. I cannot afford to retire here. So I was leading. it towards. I don't have the money to retire here. Sorry. You, you are looking at it and you go, I got to get out of here because of how much, how expensive it's going to be? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have the money put aside to, to be able to retire here. And why? And another bit, it's economical decision. If I am to, okay, let's say I have the money. Why would I spend $4,000 when I can

spend one? So where, where you, I assume you're looking at different places? I, you don't, strike me as a lady who hasn't given it some thought. Oh, I have, I can live for free in Romania. I mean, rent-free, so to speak, in Romania. So you look at going back to where communism was. Yeah, and keep build a bridge in between Alberta specifically and Romania because, I mean, be a little bit here there because I work here for what 30-something years. So Canada, Alberta owns me something, right?

and go back to Romania and decrease my costs, you know, average into a dissent area, as long as my health is going to allow it, of course. Did you think of it like that five years ago, 10 years ago? I don't know where along the lines. Did you think I'm going to retire in Canada and this is going to be my home? So here it is. Here's another bit here. The European Union is investing 70% of certain projects.

you come up with 30, they come up with 70%. Grants. You build it, you are accountable for every penny or whatever you owe. Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Eurocent. And then you have to fulfill the conditions of that grant that's being given to you, right? To you not as an individual, but as a company who wants to do something. I don't see myself not having an active lifestyle.

or being active because I do see myself as active. So I think, you know, long-term care or whatever, there are certain things like here, $10,000 per month. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? I mean, no, $10,000 a month for in-home care or whatnot,

what I've been right? It's mind-blowing, right? And yeah. Yeah. So there are a few things. There are a few areas that I'm investigating. I'm not saying I'm leaving. I'm not saying. So. Yeah, but you're entertaining it. I'm, yeah, I'm looking what's what's, how, where do I get the best for my buck? Yeah. You know, you know what probably unnerves me the most is how many people are actively discussing it. Right. Like, and I'm like, we're in, we're in Alberta, Saskatchewan. Like, I can't find, you know, don't get me wrong. Is there warmer climates on the earth? Yes. But is there the group of people we have sitting here anywhere else in the planet?

I don't know, maybe. But I go, you're going to be hard pressed to find it. We just have to dig in. I don't know. You mentioned right at the top. You're going to have some optimism for the podcast. And we probably talked about it. And now we're getting close to the end of today.

And I want to leave on some optimism for Canadians, for Western Canadians. If there is some, you know, like you're seeing all the things play out. You're seeing all these different things. happening across Canada, not just Canada, but a huge chunk of the world. What's some of the optimism you got for us? Well, the idea is that there is always a tomorrow, right? We do have, if we are, so I live long enough to be able to realize that the universe is working with you, not against you necessarily, because what's in you is going to transpire outside

towards your family, towards your, the members of your inner circle or, you. outer circle and so on and so forth. The general idea is that you were, I mean, yes, these things happen. They will come to an end. There's going to be something else coming. We are human beings and we are, we owe to the society to be good to ourselves and to others. We need to get together. We need to talk. So in Romania, in the communist Romania, you learn that very early. We would have learned that very early. So you cannot say anything outside the house, even if you are five years old, that mom and dad talk about this at lunch or whatnot, right? Or at dinner or whatever. So is that duality. And we built to, we grew to be dual in Canada as well.

It's one thing we say outside in the workplace. It's another thing that we say at home. It's another thing that we say in certain circles. But at some point, how do you build, your circle. How do you find like-minded people by opening up, taking the risk to open up and say something that would trigger an adverse reaction or a positive reaction. And then that's how you find your way. So that's a risk-taking exercise. And if you do that, often enough, you get out of your comfort zone and then you're going to grow. We all should grow, should be focused on going. It's not about growing your bank account. That will come. That comes anyways if you grow as an individual.

The influence that you have on other people is what matters. It's like if you wouldn't exist, what would people, how would people look like? How would they exist? Would they be happy? Would they be more wise or not? I don't know. I'm going all Christmassy now, but that's not. That's an interesting thought, though. Yeah, it is. If you weren't here, what would the world, what were the people? that you influence be like.

Yeah. If the communist leader, they wouldn't exist. So I think history is creating and picking people. I mean, I'm looking at Tamara. I'm looking at Hitler. I'm looking at, I don't know,

Stalin was a pickpocket guy in Georgia somewhere. Right? So, yeah, he ended up being the man. He killed 20 million people of his own people. Intellectuality, Ukrainians, what have you, right? So Hitler did the same.

All of them, Lenin was sponsored by other people. Lenin was sponsored by other people, right, to get into power. Both of them. It's funny, you picked all the most horrific people in the last hundred years and you threw Tameran because you look at Tamer and you see the opposite. You see someone who's putting her life out in front. She was picked by history to become the front of something. Yeah.

Yeah. That's how you. Talley Ron, I just went to Napoleon. Don't please don't go. I mean, it's such a ridiculous movie, Napoleon. the movie that's in the game. I don't go to theater as much. You went and saw it?

I went and saw it. It was disgusting. It was disgusting. You just confirmed for me. We were talking about it at the book club. And my brother's like, I want to go to it because it looks. But he's like, you know Hollywood's going to have their way with this and it's not going to be. No, it's more than that.

I think he took an administration genius, a super capacity, human capacity to, he was writing like 19 letters a day. 40,000, I think they have 20,000 or 40,000 letters written by him in the archives, and he makes a fool, insecure, clumsy fool out of him. Ridley's God. I mean, it's just unbelievable. He twists everything. Nothing transpires with the genius that he had in tactics and whatnot. Not that I'm a big fan of, but to be such a discrepancy is like you take a historical

figure who shaped the humanity for the next. next hundreds of years. And you make them a bumbling fool. My bumbling fool. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So it's cancel human.

Cancel character, right? Character cancellation. So it's the world we live in, but that's not, does it have to be my world? No. I can build my world. I can talk to you. I can select the people that I'm listening to. What I would like to see is some sort of a movement that gets people.

people like-minded together. Because I'm not about the liberal or a conservative. That doesn't matter, it's just a name. What matters is do you care or not? Do you want to do something for this place or not? Do you want to do something to say that you're not happy? Or your interests are not followed? I mean, when I selected Canada, my friends left for Canada

and I went to the British Embassy in Romania and they had a library, I was a member there. And I borrowed a book to talk about, to read about Canada. Canada. And then I look at the first thing is Canada is a country based on natural resources, the economy is based on. So now I look now back and I say, yeah, mining is dirty. Natural resources are dirty, right? And they are not green definitely. So the wealth that built the power, the power of this country, the natural resources industry has been terrified and canceled because they're dirty.

So it's like you cut the branch from underneath your feet. Who's putting money into that budget? I don't know. Because everybody has to spend money to stay green. And there is no clear delineation what green means. Oh, by the way, I was trying to find, for a client of mine, to find the green logo or a certification that the product is green. is no such thing but everybody says oh this is a green project and this is green lead there is no

green lead you know the standard for building buildings there is no green nothing there is no certification green certification lead certification so everybody takes the words and turns them into magical slogans that become oh my god oh green like for example improve your communication skills what communication what what what communication skills tell me what what communication skills tell me what we improve. What means communication skills? It's a whole array. There are two buckets of skills into communication skills, right? So which ones should I improve? So we have these power words that come around us. And the idea is, don't let yourself be put down. Look around you. Listen to the news. You need to, we need to get informed. We need to get. We need to listen. We need to

listen to these, to the regular media to know what they are talking because you don't know what they talk unless you look at them and listen to them, right? So how they think. We know how they think. What? You don't know how they think? We know exactly because it transpires to the whole media, right? So that's how you know. That's how you get informed. So the idea is, sun is going to rise again tomorrow and I'm very comfortable with the fact that I'm very happy with the fact that we have Daniel Smith into power now because she's a very strong individual and she has the right direction for Alberta.

We need to be able to say our peace, and she does that very successfully. And definitely, we cannot get better than that for the time being, given the circumstances. And I'm looking forward to the next year when everything should change supposedly 10 years mark it should be coming. And I've always wondered why it took 10 years.

But anyways, that's another discussion for another day. Another day. Well, I appreciate you coming in and doing this, making the drive. I feel like there's probably about 50 questions that I got to think on. And I'll go back and listen to this one because I felt pulled like 17 different directions as you were talking. You know, I chuckle about you bringing in. This is what we should talk about. And I laugh about it because I'm like, if I get like five things down on a piece of paper,

where I'm like, we're going to go all over the place. And we certainly have this morning. Either way, I appreciate you coming in and doing this. And yeah, just there's a lot there in what you've said. And I think it probably is going to need warrants being revisited in the new year of trying to maybe focus in on a couple things and really dig to the bottom of it. Just prepare a bit so we don't deviate from. It's been a fascinating discussion. Like the two hours is just like flowing by, right?

But I sit here and I go like, man, that was a lot. And yet I'm like, I wanted to really hammer on a couple things. And yet every time I tried, we just kind of went all over the place. So that's okay. That's, that's, uh, yeah. Either way, I thank you very much for making the drive this morning. Absolutely. Maybe it's a beginning of a beautiful friendship, right?

Casablan. Yeah. Well, I love the fact that I was able to have this chat with you. It's definitely something that, um, I'm surprised that the universe offered me this opportunity to kind of be able to talk about it because typically I talk with my friends

and I talked with the kids and they say, well, leave us alone because, yeah, you steal our time and I mean, you push us into the direction, certain directions and I said, yeah, we have to know where you're, the world you're living in. I used to call it the universe.

I don't call that anymore. No, you call him God? I call it God, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the political correct word for God's universe. Yeah, and I guess I'm done with political correctness. I guess is where I'm kind of at.

I feel like that's kind of... Yeah. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't know. It's just where my mind is at. I'm so tired of... Just hiding behind... Yeah, honestly. Concepts, yes.

Yes, yes. Yeah, you know, like... Say it like it is. Yeah, like, what do you actually believe, you know? What did Preston say? It's like, maybe it's time we just started asking politicians that they actually believe and don't let him get away with wordplay. Like, what do you actually believe?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I worked in corporate world for so long that, do you know there is an actual corporate BS generator on the internet? You can Google that and you're going to find phrases that mean nothing. And we would call it wooden language in the communism. Wooden language. Wooden language. Just as nothing, but sounds good. Yeah. So. Isn't that where we're at in society right now? We are exactly that. Yeah. Wooden language. Wooden language. That's it. Let's talk just for the sake of consuming oxygen. At some point I said, you know, unfortunately, oxygen is for everybody. Man, this is going to set us off in a completely different direction. Thanks again for coming in and doing this. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean. Bye for now.