Shaun Newman Podcast - #602 - Ben Trudeau

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

He is one of the Founders of Alberta Free, a lobbyist group for small business in Alberta. SNP Presents returns April 27th Tickets Below:https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone/ 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 [phone] – general sales line, ask for Grahame and be sure to let us know you’re an SNP listener.

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Welcome to the podcast, folks. How's everybody doing today? Happy Friday. I promise. I think, I think I promise that today I'm not going to, you know, I had Lee reached out after last Friday's. Franco Tarasano. I was getting a few chuckles from a few different people.

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He's one of the founders of Alberta Free, the lobbyist of small business owners here in Alberta. I'm talking about Ben Trudeau. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. I didn't give us any intro. So welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

I'm joined by Ben Trudeau today in studio. So thanks for making the tour. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I was going to sit and do all the niceties before, but I haven't seen you in a while. I'm like, ah, we're just going to record it and where we go. How have you been? Well, I've been very busy since last time we met.

I started a lobbying company with my best partner, George Bears. And we've been lobbying for to make Alberta self-sophobic. So we've been lobbying against, or not, not against, we're not loving against anybody. We're lobbying for Albertan to take their resource back and to be able to develop more self-sustainability in our province. When I look at all that stats of our beef controlled by two companies, our oil controlled by five companies, including like a large ownership to the Chinese Communist Party, even the current. industry in this province is controlled by one or two companies, all the go-to dealership, which have nothing against them.

But it's just like the way that Alberta runs, you know, it runs on Boys Club and on smaller group controlling a large portion of our economy. And if we want to be more self-sustained, we have to encourage the creation and of smaller settings and we have to encourage manufacturing here. And like you just look at the ibuprofen, like last year when Premier Smith ordered a batch from, I don't know where, Pakistan or something like that, a bunch of it was not good, no. There's no reason we don't produce our ibuprofen in this province. There's no reason we depend on Quebec and Ontario for aspirins and for everything, you know?

Now, once upon a time you would have went, oh, why do we need to have it all here? Ontario and Quebec are part of this country too. And then you get treated with the short end of the stick long enough, and you're like, maybe we should just bring it all here. That's correct, no? And the same for the oil. When I look at our resource, it's controlled by five companies. All these companies are owned 78% by foreign entities.

So they could care less. I mean, you can be named CNRL, continental resources if your ownership is. not Canadian, well, it's just a name. It's like one of the largest solar company in the world. It's Canadian solar. Well, Canadian solar has zero case in interest. It's 100% Chinese-owned. So at the end of the day, it's just a name.

So how's that been going? It's been tough. It's been, so the problem of doing that, of shifting stuff like that is that we need to deal with small companies. even in the oil industry, all the juniors, there's one thing about

Suncoran Bridge to sink 10 million in lobbying in a year. It doesn't appear, it doesn't make a difference in their bottom line. For a small oil producer or junior company to invest like half a million in lobbying, it's a big deal. Because if they don't get any result, I mean, it does affect their bottom line. It does affect the way they function.

Our solution was to bring a concept where we tried to brought some stakeholder to back up these causes with all this freedom movement and all that. And then we discovered that people first, the people that are often very awake are often very broke because of the past four years that we had. And so it's hard for them to cash out some money for their cause. And then there's as well the other layer of people that just like, you know, as long as stuff, as long as they don't see it and it doesn't affect them directly, they're not really willing to fork out money for their ideas or to support the cause. And then the problem it causes as well for us is that because we're a private company, we're registered a lobby group with, you know, the ethic commissioner and all that, we're a private company. So at the end of the day, people, why would they give money to a private corporation, no?

So why would people give money to a private corporation, Ben? I believe that it's always a question of who does the work. So like you have no problem giving money to a lawyer to defend you when you know that you've been wrong, no? And I believe that, that, no, I come from a word. world in Quebec where for the longest time, people give money for all kinds of causes and mostly left-lefties causes. The left has no problem with that concept of giving without return investment. That's part of their modus operandi. Their return investment is on the shift towards whatever they campaign for, for them to see the progression. For them to see the progression

of the gay movement is the reward for the million they've put in it, and that's sufficient, where I say many Canadian right people, conservative, most of them made their money very harshly, like even there's not money on the oil, but I mean, you worked on a rig, no, it's not for the faint at heart, no. So you work a lot for your money, and I believe that there's kind of a comfort in there

and kind of as long as it goes well with my family, I don't really care for the rest until the rest really affects you. Until the rest comes to roast. Yeah, and then to shift everything around, only then do we have to shift a lot of little details to rein back the power, sorry, but we have to shift as well a culture in, in how to, where do many goes to be able to shift it.

And we're not there yet. And that's the problem, well, another problem with that, that's difficulties, the big difficulties we have with our companies. How do we sustain the in-between between we get a client and something happens, because often that client don't have the money to pay full-time lobbyists? And even to a client's like one of our clients, both have created union. No, BBC, we've been working with Brett for over a year,

working with him in opening new branches and working with him to, but even BBC, you don't, don't, don't, they're not big enough to, to pay a lobbyist full time to shift their stuff, no? They, they, they cannot, it's something that they can't afford. Explain to me the lobbyist idea, if you wouldn't mind. Because, you know, like, I don't know, um, it's kind of foreign to me. Yeah. But you know my journey in politics.

Yes. Three years ago, I didn't know half as much as I do today, and I certainly don't know a whole lot still. Lobbyists, some people are going to say, you know, it's what's wrong with politics is lobbyists. Yes. What is it about lobbyists that, I don't know, how does it work on why is it needed? Well, lobbyists is, if I can reduce it to one thing, is the, it's the, it's the, the, it's the, the, it's the, the, that educate or inform politicians and bureaucrats. So lobbying, the concept behind lobbying is to build a bridge between the industry and the

government and power for the government to learn what's happening with a certain industry. And again, information on it. And there's kind of two type of lobbying group, like the Chamber of Commerce is a lobbying group, for instance, and they will try to get law aligned to their members, no. But then the big problem with lobbying, like everything else in politics, with the concentration of power and the money that comes with it, lobbying became a big business and a big business for the big guys. And people often see lobbying has giving an envelope to a politician,

which is not the case. And lobbying is mainly to inform that politician or your point of view. And the more you can have access to that politician to speak about why they should lean towards your position, the position of your clients, make your job effective. The problem with lobbying in the states mainly is that there's no cap and there's no really ethic around lobbying. The one that wrecked the industry of lobbying in the States is Roger Stone. Roger Stone was a bad guy before becoming, and he's the one, him and his business partner in Mayford totally corrupted the lobby industry in the United States and gave them,

with many others on K Street in Washington, give lobbying that bad taste that we have today. And how do you do that? You do that by putting money before values. And that goes with the business as well. I remember when I was young in the 80s, early 80s, in your portfolio, in your shares, you would always have a couple of utility companies like Bell and even GM at that time.

They were called Blue Chip. And Blue Chip were shares that would not move, but they were a bit like golden stuff. silver. They were you will invest in them because they are stable and secure, no, and then there's that thought that enter even the stock market where every company needed to increase every year and everything was turned toward return. And we kind of lost these blue ship and we kind of lost these companies that were just stable. Like TELUS shouldn't be there to bring more and more money year after year

because they're for service, no? So, and that kind of notion disappear. And when you bring that to lobbying as well, no, like it's one thing about having a lobby to try to convince politicians to change something for the best, for the good, versus just for the money. And why I say that, I will give an example,

well, the best example, again, the state's Canada is a bit different, I will go there after, but in the States, what Roger Stone and Manafort did in the 80s is that they became the lobbyists of all the dictators in this world, African dictators, and they then gave access to all these regimes to the president and were paid richly to do so.

And then pharmaceutical company, start just like getting access to, you know, basically lobbying. is trying to get access to, and to educate. So they were gatekeepers, and they charged heavily for it. And they charged heavily for it. And then it became really an elite practice.

And in Canada, it's a bit the same. In Canada, we are a bit more moderate because in the States, a lobby have the right to give money directly to a campaign of a candidate. So in the state, for instance, the lobby of gay marriage in 2010 gave 10 million to,

to Barack Obama campaign. Like lobbyists give like millions to to the campaign. To the campaign and to the candidate himself. So in the state, you're a congressman, you want to promote or to protect like NRA. It's a big lobby in the state. So an area comes to see you and say,

well, I want here's why you need to protect NRA and the guns and all that. And oh, by the way, here's 50 million if you take it forward. Exactly. Exactly. So never personally, but I will fund your next campaign. And then it's legal. I mean, it appears in the nations. And this is how we know that Mark Zuckerberg gave $600 million to the Democrats since they're in power. So there's a possibility to give massive amount of money to run campaigns in the States. I mean, a presidential campaign,

like this year, there's going to be $6 billion that's going to be spent on that campaign during the year. It's big business. $6 billion. Yes. So. So. And here I am, you know, and I want to hear about Canada, but here I am like trying to get peanuts, you know. Yeah. I don't mean that I'm getting peanuts.

It's just like, when you talk about lobbying, all I think of is the CBC versus us little independence, right? We're all these little, there's all these little tiny voices that are, you know, trying to rise up the ranks, but they're competing against something that's getting subsidized by the government. And on top of that, the government is trying to shut up. down everything on the internet and we're trying to eke our way through and I I mean this in the best possible way folks I'm doing quite well like I got no issues on my side I've been fortunate and continue to work hard and everything else but when I listen to you that's what I kind of hear

it's not like you're competing you're talking about you know the number you threw at the start was 500,000 which isn't a small number yeah but then you're also talking about the United States six billion yeah and you're like oh man that's that's a drop in the absolute bucket now saying all that, Canada, how is Canada different in its lobbying world compared to the United States? Because as much you don't want to talk about the United States, I'm curious about how lobbying works here in Canada. Yes. Well, Canada is different in the way that it's illegal in Canada to fund for a corporation to write a check to a political party. So political party can only receive donation from

individuals above 18 years old or I'm not sure about the age, but no Canadian citizen that live in Canada, and they are limited to $1,725 a year that you can give to all political... I believe it's per political party to a maximum of $4,500 if you give to multiple parties. Which is pretty small, that. Yeah, very small.

So a lobbyist in Canada cannot fund a political party. The other thing that is very different is the way our system was, works. Like in Canada, traditionally is a politician, there's a wall between the politician and the bureaucrats. It's called the deputy minister. And traditionally in Canada, you don't jump over your deputy minister when you're a minister. So traditionally, when you're a minister in Canada, you get your information from your deputy minister. And if you want to even step in your ministry, you have to add the permission of the deputy minister to speak to his employees,

because they are his employees, not yours. So if for instance, and I know now that, that Premier Smith is pushing, for instance, Adrianela Grange to go visit the hospitals and all that, but this is very, it's borderline culturally, politically, culturally not okay. because usually you cannot speak directly to employees of your ministry without your deputy minister being present or without this authorization at least. So in Canada, the lobbying is done a bit more organically.

So you know a couple of politicians and then you need to carve your way within the machine, within the bureaucrats. And this is the costly part of the lobbying in Canada. So because most decisions will be done by bureaucrats at the end of the day. And if you want to move the needle, you know. A minister, it's easy to meet because he's elected official. He has to meet people. The director of that program doesn't, no.

His office is somewhere in an upskirt tower, known here in Inington or Caghery or somebody else for Alberta and he does his job coming at eight in the more no eight to five and if you call him and say I'd like to meet you to speak to you up he doesn't need to I mean he doesn't have he's not obligated to know and and and and if you want to be very efficient to to shift the needle in this in this country you need to address the bureaucrats because they are the one that do the final move And they are shielded by their deputy minister from the politics to make sure that there's separation between the machine and the politicians. And this is why it's so hard to move anything.

This is why even politicians, when they get in power, discovered that it's like molasses in winter. I mean, you need to heat up the top a bit to start moving because there's no incentive for the bureaucrats to move. there's no incentive to change the way they work, to change what they do. In fact, it's more work for them. So why would they change anything? So the only way, there's two way to make things change, and this is where, again, I go back to the lobbying in Canada, for instance, if I want, I'll give a concrete example,

if I want bureaucrats to endorse a new way to produce hydrogen, for instance. I have a project, my client has a new way to produce hydrogen, And I meet with the Minister of Energy is very encouraged. I mean, he sees stuff. Yes, I like that. I want, this is awesome. But now what? What do you need?

And that will always be the question of the politician. What do you need from me? Well, most likely I need your endorsement. And perhaps if you want to go forward, you can speak to your deputy minister about it. And then the Deputy Minister will either shut it down or not. So the other way that you can wedge it is true. the machine itself and to have access to these

high-ranked, I mean, like in the government Canada, I think there's something like 17 level of directors in their system. So to find the right director that can actually move something, it's an art. And you need to dig in the machine

and you need to dig in the and all this information is public, you need to dig in these organizational chart and find who's who and who can move stuff. And then one you find who can move stuff is how can I speak to that guy, or to that girl, no? Well, then you look where they live and there are different ways. This is very like, like, you end up, if you find out where they live, you end up like in the,

find out the coffee shop where they pick up their coffee in the morning, you know, and just like after two, three weeks or show you that every morning, you struck a conversation. or the other way that is way more simple is there's always conferences. There's all these conferences. Like at November, I was at the Canadian Association of Urban Transit, but all the transit director of all the Transit Corporation of Canada meet there. All the director, all these bureaucrats that keep their door closed are there.

And then they're going to sessions, no, to workshops and all that. So a good way to do that is for you to show up at these professional association, them, and then you end up meeting the guy, you know, that if you have a picture of him, you know, oh, there he is, and then introduce yourself, chat with which workshop are you going? And then he tells you, oh, that's funny, I'm going to the same, you know, and then you spend, like, the day with him, you know, and chatting and just like, chit-chat, and then you kind of, you can't give up at least an interaction until we can shift your business cards. And then these guys are like, they're humans, like you and I.

I mean, and they're usually just do their job, no. They're not nefarious people that spend their daily manipulating stuff. This is not how it happens. It's very, very subtle, no. And that's the other thing as well is that these conference are basically lobby because they shift the way they see things. They're presented all new concept and all that. And the problem with these conference is they're expensive to go.

Usually a conference like that is $2,000, $1,800 to assist. And then you go to this special workshop. It's like $500 per workshop. So somehow you can easily drain like $5,000, $6,000 in one of these stuff. To have the opportunity to meet with the bureaucrats that you're targeting to be. able to shift the opinion from the inside that will then corroborate when the minister will speak to his deputy minister and the minister will come to director oh yeah yeah i knew these guys

i met them and said oh yeah yeah we know these guys no like so you're playing a very long game it is a very long game it is very expensive at the end of the day and and and and this is why in canada lobbying is reserved for the rich ones because because again i mean there's guys i mean i mean When you look at the oil industry, like a small producer might produce like 3,000 barrel a day. I mean, 3,000 barrel a day times 80 bucks a barrel, that's other money. But it's still a small business. It's still like, so for that guy, just to drop, you know, half a million, a million, to maybe get the needle move to his, you know, to his liking, it's very different than from adco to drop 20 million a year,

that it's a complete right-off out of the $4 billion profit they do. And by doing so, the average ratio of return investment of lobbying in North America is $700 to 1. So for every dollar that you invest in lobbying, you will get $700 back when the lobbying is successful. So it's a good business, no? but it's a business for the big guys. How long you've been in Alberta now doing this? Well, doing lobbying specifically like over a year. My company is a year old now with George,

but my business partner, George, has been doing lobbying since the 80s. And somehow with what I've done in Quebec, I've done lobbying a lot. I mean I brought in... I just... Sorry, I just mean, you know, if I look at it, it's like, I don't know where I come out on lobbying,

but when I look at it, My brain just goes to hockey over and over again. I got my brothers coming in for a brother's roundtable. And honestly, I think it'll air before this air. So that'll be kind of odd to say because they're coming in the same day, folks. Either way, I was listening when you were walking in to our first ever brothers roundtable. It happened in 2019. And I'm going to pick on the Oilers because back then they just fired through GM and they had an interim GM.

And, you know, you extrapolate 2019 to now the ups and downs of the image and oilers. and it's taken a long time to start to prove out Ken Holland's vision of where they're going. And they have some studs and everything else. And I look at what you're doing in trying to build connections, figure out the government and how it works in Alberta, then to build a name for yourself where people will work with you, trust you, et cetera, et cetera. Having George along probably helps, I would assume, and it allows you to open up a few different doors

that you probably wouldn't have got through on the first go. Having the last name, Trudeau, probably is a great, card to have and the worst card ever possible to have. Either way, it stands out compared to, let's say, a last name Newman. And, you know, you just go, it takes time, right? Like, it takes time. And then maybe one day, you know, it just all falls all at the same kind of time. But I look at it and I'm like, you're fighting a battle to which a whole chunk of Alberta has no idea what you're trying to do, right? Like, it's like, I sit here and I'm like, I'm trying to keep up, but I'm like, this is really complex, right? But you're trying to build.

Well, I don't know. You're trying to pull certain industry into Alberta that you think would be very, very beneficial to the population, the province, etc. And I think if I go back to the very start when you're talking about the Canadian, the Canadian Chinese Communist Party, I was about to say. But when you talk about them own it, like, yeah, no kidding. You know, Freudian slip. When you look at the control of the major industries and where all that is, it's not Alberta. It's all over but Alberta, and that's concerning to you. And you're trying to attack that and open up new ways, which also they probably won't like. So that's probably difficult as well, right?

Because, I mean, they already have their talents sunk into everything you're trying to do. It doesn't mean you can't do it. It just means it's an uphill battle, I assume. That's right. And well, the good thing, though, is that they don't see us as a menace. No, they don't, we're coming a bit like... Yet. So, yet.

And our battle on our side is that we, I'm not interested, like, no, for instance, I'm trying to work, how can we start and help to put together a class action lawsuit on vaccine injuries, you know? That's one of the thing that because because we are lobbyists with with causes, no, it's not it's not all about money, no, and it's all like, like I sent you that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, we, we did that we, we're, we're working to wedge a bunch of stuff in this province and, and, and, and, and at the same time, all of these activities, I believe, are morally necessary, no. So the problem with the problem we have, George, George and myself, is that we are mainly principled guys. No, we believe in freedom. We believe in, I truly, I'm a true Albertan. I was raised, you know, within Quebec sovereignty.

There's a lot of stuff that Quebec does that Alberta should do and that I know how to do because I've done it. and I'm always looking, how can we make that happen in our province? I mean, I married, I moved here as I was a bachelor, I married a girl from Edmonton, no, born and raised, and our four kids are born and raised in Alberta. I mean, no, when I die, they won't fly me back to Quebec, no. So I'm Alberta, no, and I'm Albertan in a way that I used to be a publicer in Quebec, no? Like I believe that the problem with this country is that it's so, so big, so wide, that we have to allow regional forces and government and identity to rise, you know?

To be Canadian, all at once doesn't work. It will never work. And I believe we should that Quebec be as woke as they want. And let Alberta be the way they want to be. Be the way they want to be with our resources as well. Like we shouldn't be drained the way we are, no. And so, so yeah, so this is this is where I stand. And through that, no, we've been, I'm a serial entrepreneur and my best partner, George, as well. So now we're coming with a new concept to how can we, how can we fund the operation?

And don't hear me wrong, we're not doing that to get rich, no. Or, again, as long as we do a good living and we can see the, you know, the needle move. we're happy, no. So and and and and now we're going, we're coming from a new concept or maybe, no, the latest one that we're working on right now, we're starting to launch, is is a bit like Alberta free card. So in Quebec since the early 80s, since the first referendum in fact, there's there's it's what the government put it up, but there's a lobby group named CaliTi, Quebec, so Quality Quebec. And and what they do, they they they get membership in of Quebec manufacturers and food producers and all that.

And when you go to the grocery store in Quebec or to any store, when a product is made in Quebec, there's a sticker on it. And it's always, everybody knows that sticker. So when you have like a bunch of product and you see that sticker of one of the product, you know that product was made in Quebec. And I believe this is important. And I believe this is where we need to bring Alberta to be made in Alberta. Made in Alberta, no?

So we have to take back control of at least our basics. I mean, if in the hypothesis is where Alberta would be totally locked down, I mean, and it's not too far from the truth, we've been from the state during COVID. I mean, we had that embargo with BC when we had that wine dispute for stuff like that. So it's not impossible. So if you see Alberta, okay, there's no more that comes in. nothing that comes in, nothing that comes out,

we can probably stand that siege for three days before lacking insulin and before lacking even like basic health stuff. When I look at Canada, I go, we should have been doing what you're talking about. Well, we should be doing it. We have all these natural resources. Why wouldn't we give that to all of Canada and support one of our provinces

and then grow the industry over there and there, except you find that's not the way this big nation, works, which is, you know, like, you wish it was a different way. But the truth of the matter is, it's just the east is the east. BC is definitely BC. And then you get the middle provinces that, you know, like, well, what are we going to do? Are we going to let this, you know, go on for the rest of time? You know, before we continue our conversation, though, I got to throw you that.

So any, any guest that comes here, and, you know, any guest that comes here, it gets a little gift now. And that's silver gold bull. So there you go. There's a silver coin to add to your collection. And, you know, the price of gold hitting an all-time high, silver is going up too. So there's a little funding for your bank. But at the same time, thanks for coming all the way here.

Well, and thank you for having me here. And, no, I mean, I really really like what you're showing what you're doing. Well, some days I'm muddling through it. I'm not going to lie. But, you know, for the backstory, and I wanted to start with this, but we jumped right in. So I'm going to take us on a little bit of a detour, and we can come back to the lobbying and everything else. Is everybody remembers that. I was trying to get Frank Freddie.

Like, I was like, Frank Prattie. Everywhere I went, Frank Prerty. As the cowboy preacher would say, you know, when God puts something on your heart, you just can't let it go. I'm like, I don't know what that feels like except for Frank Prattie. I'm like, I just need to have this guy on. I just need to let him know. Hey, like your books meant a lot to me. and and I stumbled through it, you know.

And so I, I would just like, it was the weirdest thing, you know, I'd walk up to somebody and we'd be talking and they'd be like halfway through a sentence, I'd be like, you know who Frank Preddy is? And they'd be so caught off guard. They'd be like, what? And some of them wouldn't know who that was. Others would be like, you mean like guy who wrote the books in the 80s? I'm like, yeah, is he still alive?

I'm like, yeah, he's still alive. And so we, like, I laid an absolute assault on Frank Pareddie. And you and your team were the folks who, finally landed me, Frank Prady. And I wanted to make sure that I at least give you a tip of the cap because that, you know, he was number one on my list this year. You know, people will think it was Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson is still on the list. I still want to have Jordan Peterson. I'm still trying to get him on. It's proving difficult, which is fine. But Frank, you spoke for his wife twice. Yeah. How can't you get to the husband? I don't know. I agree with you.

I agree. It's, it's, it just seems like it's a different realm. And, uh, you know, You know, like where I sit, if it's meant to be, it's going to happen. And the Frank Parenthagy thing just needed to happen. I needed to talk to that, man. And I don't know if I've ever been pulled that hard to talk to one individual. And hopefully I get to meet him this summer. That's the hope. I told him I'd love for him to sign my old rickety copy of this present darkness.

It is in rough shape. But regardless, I got telling him about it after we were done. and he was like, oh, is that the two books set? And he remembered the book and everything. I'm like, yeah. So anyways, I hope to meet him. I hope to get him to sign it because it was pretty cool that interview. And I just wanted to make sure that I said thank you for that.

Because, I mean, without, you know, like all of you in unison were working on it because there was a ton of people that were calling bookstores and everything trying to find this guy. Eventually, we found them. And I don't know, that was a surreal, you know, I've had a lot of surreal moments on this podcast. and you've played a part in that. So I appreciate that a lot. Well, thank you. And you can say that you ask me what can I do for you. I say, well, have me your podcast if you want to

because I'd like to speak a bit about Alberta and what's happening in terms of making a self-sustainer. I'm very careful of not using sovereignty because of the tent of that word. But this is what it is. I mean, Quebec is, has been working since 1976 to be very sovereign in the way they deal their stuff within the Canadian constitution.

Yeah. And they are very successful at doing it. And I believe there's no... And something struck me in the past year when I've been very involved in the UCP. I've been very involved in politics. And my business partner, George, is one of the co-founder of taking back our freedom.

with another individual named Roy Beyer. And we've been working together a lot within his network. He knows Premier Smith for a long, long time over 20 years, and he has a good network stuff. And during the convoy and all that, he was very influential in connecting as well, some MLAs and ministers here in Alberta. So we have a very good business.

base of contact and people that we do respect and respect us and that we have access to. But I lost where I was going with that. Well, I don't know. I've had you on Frank Prattie. Well, so Frank Prady, so, yeah, this is where I was going. Is that one of the thing that George and I

and in our business were doing, we're setting challenges. So we say, okay, we need to speak to that person. And then we could just go and find, no. Nobody is inaccessible. Yeah, I 100% agree. I look at what you're doing. And it's kind of the way I operate the podcast.

People look, how did you get that guy? Yeah. Well, you've got to be relentless and you got to find creative ways to, you know, one of the things that I completely get when you talk about going to all the conferences. Heck, I'm putting on a conference, right? Yes. Putting on a forum. is you want to get

it doesn't matter Jordan Peterson we'll pick on Jordan Peterson although I think that I don't not 100% sure that going to a conference he's at would work because he would be mobbed but regardless you would be put in a select group of people which is actually pretty small

number and there is the opportunity to at least go talk to them that's right right so I think of I just think of Ezra Levant of weirdly how that comes up but I've been to an APP event where he's been at and I've been to when James Lindsay was in was in Canada.

And you go to those events, you pay the ticket price, you go and there is a very high probability you will get to interact with them. That's correct. That doesn't mean that all of a sudden he comes on the podcast. It just means you get the opportunity to go interact. Tucker Carlson was the same thing. You got in the VIP room, you actually got to shake his hand. I got to shake his hand. It didn't exactly amount

to much. And I'd heard if you were in Calgary, you actually might have got to talk to him for a bit longer than in Emmington. Now, that's here and are there, but what you're doing with the money you have is when you go to these conferences, you get the opportunity to be in the same room, the same sphere of influence,

if you would, of a person. And on my end, I have the same problem as you, from a podcast standpoint. I don't have the bank role to run across Canada, all these different conferences, because what you find out

is there's conferences all the time. That's right. And there are some very, very good speakers at lots of these. and I find it's actually a common friend part is Wes who has been inviting me to a bunch of stuff and he's finally like, you have to come to this. You're coming.

And I'm like, okay, I'm coming. I'm going to come. I'm going to take the day. I'm going to drive up. I'm going to go to Calgary. I'm going to go to whatever. And he's like, you have to keep, you have to start coming to these.

And I'm like, in fairness, what I've probably done on this side, Ben, is I've probably shortchanged myself just a little bit in that I don't venture too far from Lloyd lately. because I just don't have the money to do it. And in fairness, at the same time, I probably think I don't have the time because of kids. But you, sir, I guess, to bring it back to what you're doing,

you'd face the same challenges. You got kids, you got bills to pay, and the conferences all over, and lots of them are great. It's hard to make them all, isn't it? Because time-consuming and everything else. Yes, and not only that, but when you go to the conference, often like there's not only one target,

if I can call it like that, there's multiple ones in that conference. I know exactly what you mean, because I look at guess as targets too. Frank Peretti was a target. Exactly, yeah. So then you need not to go alone. You need to come with a little team

and then you need to split the target, you know, and to send everybody on each side. So again, you take that $2,000 per person times five, certainly 10 grants, plus the will tell. I mean... Yeah, it goes up quick. It goes up super quick, no?

And I guess your way of attacking is obviously different than mine, because I'm a team of one. Yeah. And saying that to all the listeners, I feel like I'm a team of like 50,000. Because I, like, when I put out who I want, people are actively trying to help, which is super cool. Yeah. So to have you on and talk about it, I think is really eye-opening. Because if you can convey the message the right way, you just never know what it opened, what doors it opens, you know? I can't say the latest one and tell whether or not it happens or not.

But I had an individual on a couple weeks ago and the door had opened up for them. I'm like, this is fascinating. You know, you never know who's listening, right? Never know what business owner or even politician, you know. I know there's a ton of conservative-minded folk who listen to this show. Yeah. So you just never know where that leads. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and this is the other thing that we're trained to do because I'm an entrepreneur and all that. We're trying. So we try the way where we have our stakeholders. And stakeholders, we had like these seven spheres of freedom, which we were like pushing for developing small business in Alberta and all that. And then it will cost you $950 one shot to support that lobby. The problem is that the amount was, I believe, a bit steep for the average Freedom Fighter, I'll say. And it's too conceptual.

I mean, there's nothing, what do I gain of doing that? Why would I take like a thousand bucks and give it to these guys to have a microrefinery where I will be able to fuel my tractor? So it makes sense, and mine makes sense, but practically, I mean, they don't get anything yet, no? or maybe ever, so that concept work. And we still, we have probably, I don't know, in the past year, we gather maybe 150 or 200 stakeholders in all of our spheres, which we'll deliver. We're still in contact with them.

We do in a newsletter, inform them on what we do. So we have, for instance, one client we're developing micro-refinaries. He runs two refineries in Saskatchelan. He wants to expand in. Can I idea a moment? Maybe this is just my light bulb moment. You know, you're representing all these industries. Yeah.

Which is, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, if I'm hearing this right. You're representing all these different people who are like essentially entrepreneurs. Yes. That's correct. That are like trying to do things that would not only benefit but could be transforming of our current way of life. That's correct. Yes. Me and you, you should bring them on, I don't know, some podcast.

and let me talk to them. Okay. Because what better way to inform the public and get people like, gee, that's not a bad idea. The guy I think of right off the top of my head was Chase Barber. You know, when he came on and talked about Edison Motors, I was against green everything. The way the government's handled it,

the way that it just feels like it is an absolute, well, part of it is, or maybe three quarters of it is, maybe 90% of it is. It's complete garbage. Yeah. But then here comes in this guy, sits and talks to me, And by the end, I'm going, man, geez, I could probably go buy an Edison motor. And I've had a lot while, and he's been back on.

He's been on a blue-colored roundtable. So to me, if you're representing these folks, and there are some interesting characters here in Western Canada, which it sounds like there are. There is. You know, you go like, what better way to inform my audience and the world that is, then bring them on here? And then you never know where that leads either. Just an idea. Just to, you know, tossing back and forth. I'm sitting here listening, I'm going,

I bet you these are interesting people. They are, yeah. A lot of them are very interesting. And again, you know, like they're very successful people in their own, in their own spheres, no, they're, no, they have company. Of course, it's not, it's not the big guys, no, but, but it's like substantial companies, like company, the $100 million, stuff like that.

I mean, it's not, it's not little, it's not little, little either, no? So, so, so, so we, we have good, good guys for that. And yeah, I would, that would be more than willing to introduce you to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, and, like, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, is, is, is, UTIB, so, so he has that 25,000 square feet space, and, and he has a bunch of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, independent then restaurateur, I think they're a bit like a food court, but it's all with natural stuff and all, anyway, so a bit, a bit kind of farmer's market halfway, no? And his utility bill went from when he signed his lease in 2020 to now from two bucks a square foot to 18 bucks a square

foot. Yeah. I mean, it's killing him. I mean, you cannot, you cannot 12 bucks a square foot, like times 25,000 square foot. That gives you the increase that, that, that, that, you're, that, he suffered for that. And so he was faced toward shutting down and somehow he's wondering if they're no, if, anyway, I won't go there on the conspiracy side.

But at the end of the day, there's tons of people across Canada facing similar scenarios. So what we've done, we have another client that do I believe it's what your sponsor and plumbing does, know the CHP system.

Garden heating and plumbing. Yeah, garden heating plumbing. So basically what we've done, we introduce him to that other client that will probably now install a gas generator in his space and listen to that, the return investment, if he start using that machine in his space to fill his hot water for all of his restaurants and all that in that space, plus it should back power on the grid.

So you oversize your setup. And then because it's considered green energy as much as solar and wind, the grid, they need to buy it back from you. So once you calculate how much gas he has to burn for the power to produce and all that, is return investment would be nine months. So you took a scenario of a guy almost close and shopped to like a big success story. A big success story. And these are two freedom fighters.

These are two guys that, like they would die for freedom, no? And they showed it by the decision they take, the position they make. And this is what we want to create. We want to be that platform that gathered these guys together, to deal together. And this is why right now we're developing probably, I don't know how we're going to call it, but maybe a bit like AME card. And we'll charge you like 20 bucks a month to be member of that club. In exchange of that, we need to take control as well of our electronic stuff.

We need to take control of our emails, of our websites. I mean, there's no more website hosted in Alberta. Tell us emptied out all of their server rooms back to Vancouver or somewhere else. So you cannot host a website in Alberta if you have a business. Your website will be hosted in Vancouver, like physically in their servers, no? In Vancouver, in Oregon, in Washington. So the same with emails. I mean, you think that proton male is safe.

Well, one of our colleague at Alberta Free, God is his account froze. On froze. By proton because of some contents that were, anyway, that they didn't agree. And the guy is not a nefarious guy. No, he's a very, we're just talking about, anyway, about freedom stuff, no? Do you think bringing everything to Alberta is a, you know, you see the state of Canada right now.

And all the different things they're trying to do online specifically. Yeah. You know, I get a text pretty much daily right now going, like, are you going to be in jail or shut down or, you know. Yeah. So this is why our plan, sorry. I guess I just go bringing it all back to Alberta. Do you think by doing that, you can,

if you got the leader in Daniel Smith, that can push against the federal government and protect. everybody who keeps their stuff in Alberta, I guess is kind of where my question's going. Well, there's many stuff that happens when you bring back, and again, I lived in Quebec, no? In Quebec, in late 90s,

I was on the lobby to create in Montreal, the largest multimedia industry in Canada, and we succeeded. I mean, today, you know, Ubisoft is there, and all the game creators all in Montreal. We government made, made in all Montreal a sector

that they called the cities, multimedia, city multimedia, and gather all these, the company there. At the same time, and all your listeners won't like that, but I was part of

the pharmaceutical lobby in Quebec, and we brought all these pharmaceutical company in one industrial park in Quebec, and we became a strength in pharmaceutical, no? So I do know that these things works, no, and I do know how to do it. So I believe that by bringing stuff here,

the thing is that each time you bring a project, a headquarter, of a company, of a concept in a place, in a physical location, it's not only that that headquarters you bring, it's the accountant of that headquarters, and it's the, it's all the services that service, that business. Well, look at Lloyd Minster. We have the Upgrader.

Yeah, right? Yes. The Upgrader just isn't the upgrader. It's everything that comes with the upgrader, right? Yes. Thousands of employees, their families, and so now you have schools, you have accountants, you have restaurants, you have everything to service their,

set in place and you build out this ecosystem. That's right. That's right. And so if you bring that to Alberta, whether it's, you know, you go back to Daniel Smith, you know, I'm staring at Silver Gold Bull. They were started at a Rocky Mountain House. Yes. But I mean, one of the things she'd talked about was Bitcoin, right? Maybe we should be becoming the Bitcoin leader of North America.

You do that. You're going to attract different industries in because of that. Now, I'm not saying that's where we need to go. Just that when you're talking about different ideas, certainly, you know, like hydrogen's been talked an awful lot about, about becoming a world leader in that and trying to pull those things in. You know, when it comes to oil, you know, having more refineries, having different, these big capital projects bringing that in. What does that do? Well, it doesn't do bad things. You know, it brings everything under our watch, our law, which at the time I'm a little bit skeptical of. And yet,

it brings more people in that are going to be have good paying jobs, et cetera. And what does that do for your community. It allows it to flourish, I would probably think. Well, yes, and I believe we need Albertan to change a bit their mindset as well in Turkey. I mean, 10 years active politics in Quebec, one thing that I never, ever heard around a table of policies was can we do that? Never. Not a single time that I had, oh, with the feds, can we do that? No, no. In Quebec, you do it, and then the feds are not happy, they will sue. No? So you just do it. So I never heard. And here I hear

that's all the time. Oh, can we do that? No. Do you have the permission? No, you do have the permission. It should be changing, Ben. We just watched the federal government do as they wish to something I think we both admired in the freedom convoy. And the longer it goes, the more you see how an app they

were, they just did it. Yeah. And nobody, well, who knows, we'll wait and see what they end up paying, probably some dollars out probably in a lawsuit or two, right? Yeah. But the actual individual politicians don't look like anybody's going to be held accountable. Yeah. And they're just going to read the same lines over and over again

that they were justified even though they weren't. And on it goes. And so what you're saying is, is like, well, if they're going to play that game. Well, then let's just worry about Alberta. And I'm a Saskatchewan boy at heart, right? Born and raised Saskatchewan not live in Alberta. So I'm a Western Canadian. Yes.

And I go, Western Canada just needs to start doing it. And that's what you're saying Quebec does. That's correct. That's what Quebec does. And again, Quebec do it with a socialist spin to it. Well, we can do it with a small business spin to it in here. With a different spirit, a different fuel. The Alberta mindset.

The Alberta mindset, or the Western mindset, if you want. And there's a way that we can do that very effectively and cheap, because this is what Westerners are. They do stuff effective and cheap, no? So with the resource and cheap, I don't say cheap, like fragile, cheap, like cost-effective, no? So our plan right now with our company, I know it's one thing that has been on my heart since I started and just didn't have the money to do it at start, but I believe that we need, what I want to do, what's part of the plan is to create another extra net.

So in the early 90s, I was in multimedia. I was on the Internet. The first mosaic came out with their image on the first browser in 1990, and I saw the business opportunity. I started selling website to companies in 1991, 1992, and CD-ROMs and all that. And it took me until 1997 to bring my company to the stock market and do a bit good.

but all that to say that at the time there was the internet that was like a beast by itself and then there was America Online and there was compute serve and then there was other bees that were called Extranet so Extranet was like servers gathered together that might have a bridge to internet but they were like and I believe we need to go back to that

because if we create another Extranet and Alberta with our own servers here running on a private platform a bit like AOL was at the time with a bridge to internet, I'm not saying to isolate ourselves, but the structure itself become private, then Bill C-11, Bill C-18, has no play on these computers, on these servers.

They can't. It's the same thing that Tim Horton got their own servers. I mean, today, in Toronto, they go on their computer, they know how many coffees were sold in Fort Mac, and the government had nothing to see on that server network, no? So if we create our own email, our own cloud, our own IP phone system, our own podcast viewer, our own tools. And the good thing in 2024 is that all these tools are accessible for cheap because they're all open source. And they're open source because everybody does their money by their monthly subscription.

So they don't, it's not like in the 90s and 2001 you would protect your code, no. Now all this code is open. So no, to put up an IP phone system, like a signal or stuff like that, I mean, like it's 50 grand, to put on like, I mean, the price are that low. So I believe that if we develop that network, that extra, Alberta Extranet, where people will pay a membership to be part of. And in exchange of that, they will get an email, a cloud space. and then take back their stuff.

No, that's, I believe, it's the way to go forward because then this extra net, because just of the way it's built, it's going to be shielded from any federal legislation, including the CRTC. So that's my plan.

That's our plan right now. Well, I like a little bit of positivity when it comes to all the federal... You know, I went to Jamaica. My wife and I took a holiday. where I got to officiate a wedding. Yeah. That was a first.

And one of the things that, you know, people were like, oh, how was, how was the holiday? How was the holiday? Yeah. How was the holiday? Like, I didn't turn my phone on to look at the, you know, the absolute mess Canada has become. And the one thing that was really hard for me, like, not hard coming back because I love it here. But like, in Jamaica, it was just like no problems. And I understand there are problems in Jamaica.

I understand I was on holiday. I understand a lot of things. You know how many times I saw any sign with an LGBTQ flying anywhere or being told that a man could be a woman or participate in women's sports and on and on it goes? None. And I didn't see it anywhere. You know, and you know how many times I heard about made? I made a joke to the one guy and he just looked at me like, he's like, why would, none.

Safe supply, none, right? Like, it's just, it was a different world. And then you come back and you just get absolutely hammered with, you know, like, what are you going to do with C-11 and all these different bills? And what are you going to do with this? And what are you going to do with that? It's like, I don't know. These are big problems. Yeah.

And big problems have solutions. Yeah. Then they have to be act on. So it's nice to hear that you're staring, that we have people staring at it going, yeah, well, this is what we could do, though. Yes. Right? Like, you know, like, does Elon Musk Starlink get us around all of that? Like it.

Yes. But I have my reserve on Elon, but that's, that's, I look at it and I go, like, is there ways to get around what the government's doing? Yes. And there is. And then we just got to do that. There is. And then go fight them. And I don't mean physically, but I just mean like, no, we don't want your car.

Like this carver text on April 1st. Like where the country's at right now with everything going on and how many people are just like, you know. Yeah. To raise prices. Daniel Smith, if you're listening, I'm not at 100% sold. I had her on here in January. I should get her back on.

Talking about the gas price going up, right? 9 cents and they didn't raise it the full 12 because she, you know, and she had a nice reason. I was like, oh, I guess that kind of makes sense. It sounds like they're going back up to the full 12. And I'm like, right now, are you insane? Like, come on. Yeah.

Like, these governments need to, I don't know, do this thing called lower taxes would be nice. Yeah. You know, because everybody's struggling. and yet I go, it's nice to hear that there's some people throwing some ideas around. You know, one of the things about this coming forum, Cornerstone Forum, I got coming April 27th. Here's my shameless plug on my own show, so I guess I can't really call it a shameless plug. But it's your show as well, even what you're putting up.

It's not a plug at this level. You're the organizer. Well, so I look at it and one of the things, Ben, you know, you've been to my show. shows. Yes. I think it's great to talk about a specific problem. Yes. To shine light on it. Now with all the podcasts and all the shows, heck, doing this five days a week, I'm like, I think we know all the problems. Yeah. Now it's about like solutions. Identifying what's coming in the future. And how do we navigate those waters? Yes. Because, and I always come back to a very simple one. And it, you know, mortgages here in Canada, right? The rates went through the roof. And if you weren't paying attention to

it. You woke up one day, went to renew your mortgage and went, holy crap. Or now you're sitting there going, is a bank, can I get on? Like, a mortgage is going to go out? Like, when can I lock in? How do I do this? If I'm going to stick on var? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And in the middle of COVID, 2022, I guess it's the end of COVID. But anyways, locked into a 10-year mortgage. Now, I'm no genius. We literally just argued about it and stared at that problem for so long. eventually you went and got laughed out of some banks. So they're like, 10-year mortgage. Who does that?

And we locked in. And so I've taken that approach to this Cornerstorm Forum. I don't know. This is the first time I've ever done a conference style, you know, idea. I don't know how it's going to go. I think it's going to be great. Yeah. Overall, I think it's going to be great.

But the idea is like, like, look, Alex Kramer isn't coming in and talk about Ukraine. He's coming in and talk about inflation. Yeah. And the opportunities and the different ways to now. navigate that. Tom Longo is coming in to talk about what the fed's doing and how that's going to ripple effect on all of us. You know, Curtis Stone is coming in to talk about a bunch of different things, well, him and Chuck Brodnick, that are happening here in Alberta and BC. And what are some things maybe we could do as an individual to maybe help navigate that? Because

I think that's really healthy. I think what you're talking about is staring at the problems and going, well, are we just going to let them run us over? Or are we going to do some things that are proactive and start getting more proactive so that us as individuals, our families, our communities can withstand the troubling times we're in. Because we've been in trouble, you know, like I bet if I talk to my parents,

they went through the 80s. And they probably could have saw parts of that coming and could have navigated a little different and whether it and just reduced the stress on people. And so, I don't know, I'm rambling now. But that's the idea of this conference. coming up, right? Yeah, definitely.

I can, I'll be there. I can't wait for a conference. I always love your S&P president. I went to all of them, I believe. Yeah, I think you have. You know, we lost, Reg Hagle. Ben won't know who this is,

but Reg Hagle's been, went to all of them as well. A farmer from where I grew up and he passed away. So wherever Reg is listening to from now, I do appreciate him supporting me. There was a lot of people at the start that really gave me the confidence to keep going, you know,

because, like, you know, like having people come in to an idea that, you know, I hadn't fully, you know, that first one with Daniel Smith and Shane gets in, and Andremer Murray and Eric Payne, I'm like, I hope this doesn't suck. I had the same feelings of this forum. I'm like, you know, I've never done. I've never done one before. So I don't know how it's going to go. But I do know that the day is going to be.

a ton of fun regardless, right? You got people coming in. You got McElthorup coming in from Panama. Panama. You got Alex Kramer doing a workaround of his schedule. So he flies in from Monaco. And then he's flying to, I think it's Bangkok after. He's doing this whirlwind tour.

You got Longo coming in from Florida. Stone from Colona or a Colonna area, right? Chris Sims from here in Alberta, Chuck Pradnik from here in Alberta. And then Martin Armstrong doing a virtual from from wherever he's going to be at, right? Like, overall, I know it's a sound idea. Yes. But I'm very much, you know, the reason this spurred on, what you said was like, to me,

I see the problems. Yeah. What are we going to do about it, right? Like, and what can I do about it? And is any feasible? Can I even afford it? Can I do these, you know, like how simple or how extreme do I have to get in the coming years to help mitigate some of the problems that are coming?

And I look at what, you know, I think what I hear from what you're talking about is you're looking at it from a province level of like these are the things, these are some of the individuals. We have some of the solutions here. They just need to get this through the bureaucracy, which is a machine. And we could be further along if we want it to be. Absolutely. And know what? The Alberta, even Quebec don't have the Alberta as everything to be self-sustained. in all of the way. There's no reason for Alberta to, no, I mean, we have the oil. We have, and then no Premier Smith always says that you get 6,000 products from the oil. Well, no what, if you take a barrel of oil and you just, like, subtract the basic elements of it and just, like, I have like businesses that just like do these plastic pellets that then they sent, so it's not even like the first transformation, not even the second transformation. If you, if you just do a first transformation of a barrel of oil here,

suddenly your resell value per barrel jump up to $1,500 a barrel from the $70 bucks that you receive right now just by sending it crude. Well, that money pays, no, pays people here, pays the hockey season of your son, instead of paying like an extra card to Jeff Bezos or whatever he does on his side, and this is what we, this is our mission at Alberta Free.

is to create these these system, these network to show that we can we don't need, we don't need to import anything. Well, that's not even our objective. Objective is to at least the basics. No, like cover the basics.

Cover is like if there's a nuclear war tomorrow and we need to stay in Alberta, how do we keep on living? We have the energy, so the energy won't be a problem. We haven't plenty of egg land. So, so food shouldn't be a problem if they stop not doing like freaking like kennelof or their biodiesel.

No, like Imperial Oil is building a biodiesel refinery in short part right now for 700 million, and they will clean their diesel with the hydrogen produced by air liquid, another big giant, which built that hydrogen, $1.3 billion plant. So, but the biodiesel of Imperial Oil, they want, they want to, they want to, they want to produce biodiesel from canola? Well, they have a capacity of 50,000 barrels a day of production. To produce 50,000 barrels a day of canola oil, you need 4 million acres of canola field.

4 million acres of canola field is 22% of all the ag land of Alberta. So what are you doing? you're using our agricultural resource instead of feeding people to put fuel in a truck that we can extract on 20,000 square feet from one well which one is the most ecological

which one is the most like doesn't make sense there's a whole lot though that doesn't make sense so yeah so but that's only one example so instead if we have like if we have like small refineries that produce like and the small refineries The small refineries are super clean, like brand new one.

Like my client, no, he has one running here in Saskatchewan. And, I mean, it's a small footprint. He produced the cleanest diesel in the world. 3 to 6 ppm of sulfur in his diesel. Instead of the norm is 15. You need to have 15 ppm. He produce more than half that in terms of quality of diesel. Right here, right in Saskatchewan,

with crude that are local. So, no, in Alberta, we used to have 16 micro-refinaries in the province. They all been bought up by Sun. The last one was owned by Parkland near Bolden when you go to Calgary on Highway 2. That was a small 9,000 barrel-a-day refinery, owned by the company that developed fast gas station.

They expanded, they were successful. They brought some of the gas station even to Manitoba. The problem now is that in terms of distribution, it didn't make sense anymore. So they made a deal with Petrocan to supply them with their fuel. Do you know that on Highway 2, there's that refinery? There's a gas station on the side of the highway. They used to be pipeline during the highway to fuel the gas station directly from the refinery. So I don't know anything greener than that.

No, no transportation, nothing like you you take. take local oil, you adjust your process for that local oil at that location, and you have the gas station there, and the farmers come and fuel its tractor. Well, it used to be that in Alberta at the beginning of the oil industry. And the last microrefinery in the province was shut down, because when Petro Canada signed the deal to give the fuel to Parkland, in their contract, conditional was to destroy the Bowden Refinery, to dismantle it. They didn't have the permit, the permission to resell the system. They had to scrap the metal.

So, and this, this is, this is what we need to stop. And this is where, where our company comes in and so, okay, that needs to stop. And we need, we need, because the day, the day, I don't know, the day that the third World War starts and, and we have these pipeline going to the States. And we know that the big five, I own, that 38% by the Chinese Communist Party. And then there's a guy like Trump, let's say, in the state. that say, well, we don't want any Chinese fuel here. Well, sadly, Canadian fuel is Chinese fuel.

What do we do? So, anyway, so this is, no, this is what, this is why, this is what, what keep me up at night and what I decided despite the cost, what it costs. I mean, I don't care, no, I need to do that for my kids, no? How can people find you? Well, we have a website, albarafree.com,

and again, we're working in that solution with that card or that membership that we'll know because we've been very in the past year, we've been trying a bunch of stuff, and we've been trying to find a way how can people help us at the same time that helps them and everybody found his account, and then we can create that Alberta network

of small businesses and eventually even linked to that and even in terms of a cryptocurrency we believe that in this province we could know we could be able to create a cryptocurrency as solid as gold and silver by just backing them that crypto with asset. So for instance if you're a farmer you have like these nine section of land that they're paid and all that but they're worth like a million well there's no reason why

why you wouldn't be able to put them to back up the creation of a million coins backed up by your land, you know, that you can now use instead of just trying to negotiate a freaking line of credit that you have to pay interest on it. I mean, it's your land, it's your equity. You should be able to do something with it, no? So anyway, so that's part of the long-term concept. We have a lot, we have a lot, a lot of thought put in that. And this is what we're working even with BVCU.

with Brett. Brett is a great, great mind, became a great friend. And this guy is like, he's a true Alberta. He really wants to protect assets of Albertan, and he's willing to do a lot to do so, no? And so, so, yeah,

so I love working with these guys, no. It's funny. So Brett's coming to the S&P Cornerstone Forum. Okay. April 27th. Here's my shameless plug again. Anyways, he texted me, he said,

So I put out, you could sit with all these different people, right, by a table of nine plus the guest. And so I was like, oh, I guess I should put my name in one of them, one of them, maybe someone will buy. Brett bought it. Okay. And then asked if my wife wanted to sit with us. And I was like, oh, yeah, I think that'd be great.

And I was just talking late and great. Sounds like late and gray. And his wife were going to be at that table. I'm like, oh, man, this could be, this could be. Brett's getting a little all-star team together here. It could be a fun little evening, day. Yes. Because, you know, Brett was on here a while back, man.

That's a long time ago I had him on to talk about Volvali Credit Union. And they've opened up a new location in Acheson, correct? That's correct. That's correct. And there's four new ones coming up that I cannot speak about. You cannot speak about. We're working on four other branches. Can we work on one here in Lloyd Minster? Can we do that?

Well, there's a lot. So again, so to create a branch, you need at least 200, members, 25 million of deposit, 12.5 in term, 12.5 in open account, and 1 million equity. So this is the magic mix to start what we call the satellite branch. Satellite branch is a branch that basically you just have somebody to chat with. And what Brett has been working as well is to put a system where kind of hybrid system between virtual and in person. So you have your BVCU employee

that will always be the same. You go see Margaret to do our stuff or John, and John is at your branch is the one that you go see there. But then if you need a specialist in gold and silver, especially in that, then you go with John in another room with video conferencing to speak with a specialist that is sitting at the Cochran branch or the energy branch,

because we need to find a way to handle that expansion by solving the human resources problem as well that that caused, no? So we say, and I know that a lot of Freedom Fighter that I work with, and I know they hate Zoom and they hate, like, we do it because we have no choice, but they're way better like, like, have no double top driving to Lloyd this morning to meet you. No, I mean, this is how we operate.

We're union. We work face to face. This is a thousand times better. Yes. So to kind of cope with that, the solution is to have that video conferencing setup where you can sit with a couple. And you've been dealing with John. You know, he opened your account. You've been dealing with him already for six, seven months.

You need to renew your mortgage. He's not trained to do that within the BVG system. but, you know, Liz and Cochrane is trained for that. So then we book a meeting with Liz, and then Liz on the screen, but John is there as well, no? So you have that human, so you don't have all that barrier of technology and others anyway. So that's where we're leaning. And then as we grow that branch, then the ATM will appear, and then after that will be a full branch. So that's the way.

but to justify even the investment of that first satellite branch, we need kind of a core of people. Well, I look at Lloyd Minster, and I'm like one of the things I admire about this place is we're the ugly stepchild of both provinces, right? Like nobody really wants us. We sit right on the border. We're full of entrepreneurial, independent, free-thinking folks.

We don't have big government here. We don't have big union here. And, you know, like there's been a lot of money come out. of this place. When the Oilers were almost lost in the late 90s, Cal Nichols, who is not Lloyd Minster, but, you know, Lloyd, I say, is not Lloyd, it's Lloyd in surrounding area

because we're all in the middle of nowhere. And Cal Nichols is a guy from the Paradise Hill, St. Walberg area, who helped champion save, once upon a time he was my white, my white, bison, my white Buffalo trying to track him down. I finally got to interview him. He's a guy that came from this area that helped save damage and Oilers. And,

What did he do? He went outside of Amiton and went to the province of Alberta to find money to help keep the oilers there. And that gave this huge group of investors. And they became a community, ran NHL team. Yeah. And there's a group out of Lloyd, several different people out of Lloyd that helped put money into saving the Amitton Oilers. So there's, I think there's like an opportunity for Bow Valley to come here and be a part of this community. Because I really appreciate what Brett does.

I know a ton of people appreciate what he does. I look forward to sitting with them, you know, April 27th. I'll keep hammering that date. Either way, I appreciate you making the drive and doing this. Before I let you out of here, is there anything else? You know, I wanted to make sure people know where to find you. Because if they want to, like, come see what Ben's all about, if they want to support what you're doing. Once again, how do they do that?

So we have a website, albertafree.com. So that's our main, main website. And from there, from there, there's contact. and all other stuff. And plus, once we're going to develop,

once we're going to finalize our concept of that card with that extra net that we're going to launch because I believe that's needed now. We'll probably start doing

tours like we've done when we launch as well tour around the province. I still, we still love like, again, meeting people in person. I believe that nothing beats that.

Nothing does. Yeah. So, so we're quite involved in with the freedom groups, no, that's another thing that I like. Like yesterday I was with a group in a middle of nowhere in a small community hall and passionate people.

Like they were like 15 and they were asking, you know, like should we just join that bigger group? And my thought of that is that, no, keep it local, keep it. And the things that the more small group that we have, as long as we have, and this is what a bearer-free wants to do as well, I want to be like the relay. to make sure that everybody knows what the other one doing. If we can become that, that would be great because at the end of the day,

there's a friend of mine that was telling me at the end of the day all the advocacy group, it's a bit like a game of Wackamo at the fair, the more you have and the less, they will be able to knock you down, no? And you know what's going on in your community. That's correct, right? What the problems are of your community?

Because the problem we had with co-examination, COVID, the problem we have pretty much right now is they gave one solution for everyone. That made zero sense. And everybody knew it. Yeah. And if you're decentralized, yeah. Well, they can't just come in and shut you down. They might be able to shut.

And if you get a win, then you share the win with everybody. That's correct. And then it spreads like wildfire. Look at Westlock. Yeah. And shutting down the pride flag and everything. We just read a story earlier this week about it being down in California and them shutting it down.

And it's like, maybe that idea is spreading. They found a way that just like, no, we don't want this. And sure, they're getting pushback, but you're going to get pushback anyways. Yeah. By the way, to answer for Christian, Jean-Cretien, when he became premier in 93, his minister of finance was Paul Martin. And what they've done, and whatever, I'm not, everybody knows I'm not a liberal, but I do respect the first Christian government because Mulroney government was quite corrupt. and they lost as well.

I mean, they went from 185 MPs to two at the 1990s election. No, one of them that remains was Jean Charray, who became Premier of Quebec later on. But what Paul Martin did when, like within weeks of becoming power, is to tell everybody that he's going to shut down 50,000 jobs in the public sector. And no, there's a guy, Donald Savoy, he's a constitutionalist. He wrote beautiful books on Alberta democracy and all that. And Savoy himself was saying in his books and he's not left either that in a government,

if you really want to make change, you need to impose these type of changes. because you cannot ask a bureaucrat to find where to cut because it's not his job and he won't cut himself. So the only way to really change bureaucracy is to say, okay, you have to cut 3,000 jobs. Klein did it at the beginning of the mandate about the same time. So it was something that was acceptable at the time for the Minister of Finance.

I was, okay, no, 50,000 jobs. Find them who to fire, but we need to reduce by 50,000. And this is what the liberals did. And fiscally speaking, I believe that the Kitsyn government was the most responsible government we had in Canada for a long, long time. Well, we were just, once again, early this week,

we looked at the job creation, I think it was, the public sector and the graphs. And Trudeau is the highest. Kretchen was the lowest. And I remember reading about that. And, you know, everybody's going to crap on the liberals about everything. I certainly do.

Yeah. But pretty interesting to see that the liberals at one point had the lowest. They brought in and actually had a, I don't know, a mandate from the people I'm going to sue that we need to, we need to get back. Coming out of the 80s. The 80s were terrible on the population. Well, we're in our own form of something right now. And I'm waiting to see what government's going to come in and decide that maybe we need to go a different direction. Either way, thanks for doing this coming in. We're going to, for the folks, we're going to, I'm staring at my computer like somebody's staring at me. We're going to, we're going to hold Ben for five more We're going to go over to Substack. So if you want to hear the last thought on the podcast, head over to Substack, and we will catch up to you all there.