Shaun Newman Podcast - #699 - Blue Collar Roundtable #5

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

A farmer, a floorer and a blacksmith in the studio. It reads like a joke, but it is the newest edition of the Guardian Plumbing & Heating Blue Collar Roundtable. I’m joined by Caleb Toews, a farmer from Nielburg SK, Paul Hunter, an author who has spent 40+ years in the flooring industry from Hannah AB, and Ethan Harty, a blacksmith & musician from Lougheed AB. We discuss the Pickton Farm, the judicial system surrounding the Coutts 4 and what men can control.  Clothing Link:⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Vance Crowe. This is Tom Longo. This is Drew Weatherhead. This is Marty Up North. This is JP Sears, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Tuesday. How's everybody doing today?

Speaking of twos, twos pointed out on the last mashup. I said this yesterday. I'm going to say it again today, that when you're dealing with Silver Gold Bull, not only do you need to mention me, but if you go and talk to Graham specifically in the show notes, text or email them, and mention your Sean Newman podcast. not only is it going to help the Sean Newman podcast, but it's going to help you by getting you a lower price. That's right, on silver and gold and different offerings that silver gold bull has. Tews had to point that out. I thought I was making that clear. Obviously, I wasn't

because Tews maybe is dense. I don't know. For you guys, it's a Tuesday, which means twos comes up naturally. And if you're buying Silver Gold Bowl, once again, mention the SMP. They got a deal on smaller than one out silver coins, as I've been saying, Silver Gold Bill says holding fractional silver gives you real optionality and worst case economic scenario, while the low premium offered only for you the listener means you have a solid investment no matter what comes to pass. Down the show notes, text, email Graham, or you can go to silvergoldbill.com, silvergoldbill.ca,

once again, depending on the side of the border, you are on. Rect tech power products for over 20 years. They've been committed to excellence in the power sports industry. I keep talking about their west side location. You've got to stop in, you've got to see Ryan. You've got to see the showroom. It's a beautiful, beautiful building. We're running out of summer.

I hate saying that. Don't know if I can put enough emphasis on there. I don't like this time of year. Obviously, it's beautiful outside. But thinking about kids going back to school, summer holidays coming to an end, summer up here coming to an end, and demo days coming to an end.

So if you're interested in getting out there and checking some things out, stop in, find out more details on how you can test drive some of their machinery. If you're wanting to get a full scope of what they have, go to rechtech power products.com. They got everything from, you know, motorbikes to lawnmores, golf carts, quads, boats. You get the point. There's a ton out there you've got to stop in and see it today.

Ignite distribution at a wainer at Alberta. They can supply industrial, safety, welding, automotive parts, on-site inventory management for when you decide to leave like this guy, you don't run out of the day-to-day things that make your business run along. and let me tell you, Shane Stafford, that's who you want to call. He's going to make sure your business has everything it needs. 780 842-3433. Substack, have you hit subscribe yet? Have you gone down?

Have you done it? Why haven't you done it? You should do it. I'm not here to blow up your inbox. I'm not here to give you 5,000 emails and you go, why the heck did I do this? Why did I do this? And I want to be clear. It's free to just subscribe.

And at the beginning, you know, just for a free subscription, you're going to get Sunday nights week in review. So when you're going, I've fallen behind by like five episodes. I don't know how I'm going to catch up. Maybe you don't need to catch up on them. Maybe you're like, I always just want to know which ones are the ones that I should listen to. Click on subscribe to Substack. With Sunday nights, we just started it.

You're going to see a little clip from each of the videos, two minutes or less, and you're going to get to feel for what the shows had to offer. that'll give you a best case scenario. Oh, I'm going to go listen to this one. I'm going to go back. I'm going to click on James Lindsay from last week because that one is the one that seems like, yeah, that makes sense to me.

And that's where it begins. And hopefully we can continue to do things on Substack to maybe where you'll think about becoming a paid member and supporting independent media. And that's the only way you, the listener, can really do it, is by subscribing to Substack. Free at the start, if I can convince you otherwise, that put it out enough stuff that you're like maybe that should do it hopefully that's that's

on this side i hope you'll click on substack and uh subscribe today friday november 29th smp christmas party i just announced us yesterday we're bringing in the dueling pianos to the gold horse casino and lloyd minster saturday november 30th is already taken the entire the entire night sold out and so we're looking for companies so if you're a company in the area that is like oh i'd like to you know maybe you only need a table maybe you need five i don't know text me in the show notes. 587-217-8-8-500-0. All right, there it is.

Text me, and we'll see if we can't get the second night of dueling pianos filled up with some people. It's at the casino here in Lloydminster. It's going to be a fun night. That is November 29th, a Friday. Finally, November... It's never too late to think about Christmas, I don't think. And certainly, as we get closer,

I announced yesterday five legacy interviews is what I'm going to be doing. and I basically I'm not going to open up the Pandora's box on this. I'm going to try it. Me and one of the brothers were talking about, you know, the most impactful interviews that I may have done over the course of time here have been the archive ones. People really enjoyed it. It was encapsulating someone's life into an hour and a half, two-hour conversation

and really taking some ideas from family members on what to ask and where to lead the story and trying to capture someone, you know, their life story, their legacy. And so I'm going to try and do five of them between here and Christmas. If that's something, you're like, oh, that sounds like a really great Christmas gift. Or you've been wanting to do it and you've been sitting on the fence. Oh, do I want to do it? I'm only going to do five of them.

So if you want to do that, text me once again. It's down on the show notes. I would love to hear from you folks. Only going to do five. And if that's something you're interested in, reach out and we'll see what we can do. All right. Now, let's get on to that. of the tape. A farmer, a florer, and a blacksmith walked into a podcast studio. No, it's not a joke.

It's another edition of the Guardian plumbing and heating blue color roundtable. I'm talking about Caleb Taves, Paul Hunter, and Ethan Hardy. So buckle up. Here we go. Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, another guardian plumbing and heating blue color roundtable. Joined by Paul Hunter, Ethan Hardy, and Caleb Taves. I got you mixed up where I put your names. Nobody can see that. Well, maybe they can. I don't know. before I get into the three guests, I did want to bring up Guardian plumbing and heating. They are the major sponsor of this sucker. When I first approached Guardian about a blue-collar roundtable,

they were all for the idea. And I was talking to Blaine earlier today. And I don't know. I know Caleb knows Blaine. Does anybody else know the Guardian boys? Okay. Well, he does these funny little videos right now because they got a bogo sale on, but not pogo. So he rides a pogo stick while he talks about AC. It's funny. It's kind of cool. It doesn't matter. You can buy two-stage, is it a mana air? A-M-A-N-A-A-air? Somebody's not, Paul's not in his head. Conditioner and get a furnace or on-demand water heater for free. So there you go. That's their deal till the end of August. So if you're interested, reach out to

Guardian Plumbing and Heating here in Loyminster, 306, 825-2949. That's on until August. So there you go. Another addition of the Guardian Plumbing and Heating Blue Color Roundtable. Now, jents, none of you have been on here before, which is kind of know what I like it for a blue-collar roundtable. This should be interesting. And all we're going to do to start is I just want you to say your name and then, you know, a little bit about yourself, maybe something about your business. You can go for, you know, 30 seconds or you can go for two minutes, don't matter. Just so the audience, the listener and the guy sitting around the table, none of you guys have met before until we sat down here and you guys all poured yourself a nice old ba' so let's fire away. Paul, we'll start with you.

Well, I'm Paul Hunter. We are located in Hannah, Alberta, we own a business, Noble Floor Coversings. And so we do carpet, hardwood, vinyl planking, commercial, residential. It's year 30 for me in the industry. My dad did it for 42. My older brother works with us. It's a family business. So we're down in Hannah traveling to Special Areas County, and we go all over doing in-house

free estimates, you know, so rancher calls, he's looking. We go to him. We bring the showroom to him. We don't expect him to come to us because he's got better things to do. We've been located in Hannah for coming up close to four years. We came out of Erdry and Calgary. So I am unmarried. We just celebrated our 26th anniversary.

Congratulations. Did you do anything? No, we worked and we looked at each other and we said, do you want to keep each other for another year? And we said, yep, and signed the paperwork. You know, it's a good contractual marriage. You've got to love it. And, oh, yeah, but the problem is we have young kids. So I have a 20-year-old who works with me, and I got a six- and a four-year-old at home.

Oh, yeah, that's a space. Oh, there is a space there. You bet. And, oh, wouldn't have it any other way. Kids are the best thing ever. Wouldn't trade them. I couldn't sell them, so I might as well just keep them. But, oh, I love it.

I love being a dad again. I forgot how much fun it was. How can you tell he's going to be a firecracker today, folks? I mean, the guys got the gift to gab down pat. I'm sorry. Caleb. Yeah, I'm Caleb Taves from Nealberg, just South Lloyd here. I'm a farmer.

Right now I'm growing commodities and I sell them to corporations. And I'm a lot more passionate about growing food and selling it to people. So that's something we want to get more into doing that. So yeah, and I'm also a father. and a husband. And my anniversary is a September long weekend. And I'm also a farmer. So that means that...

That was a poor time to have an anniversary. It was. So, yeah, like anniversary celebrations are usually in the seat of the combine or in the grain car. How many years for you? It'll be 18 this fall. 18? Yeah.

Oh, man. Okay. I got some work to do. We just had our 10th an anniversary, our 10th. So it was a big day. Ethan. My name is Ethan Hardy. I live on a little farm just north of Lougheed, Alberta.

My business is called Hardy Locomotive Works, but it's a blacksmith shop. I'm a general blacksmith, and I do machining work, everything from cabinet handles for people to steam locomotive parts. And otherwise, we do a little bit of farming, and my wife does some stuff with Jersey milkhouse. So I have a wife, and speaking of anniversaries, mine is coming up here at the end of August. Four years, just four years. And we have two children and a third on the way, and it's a great blessing. Congrats. And that's a little bit about me and my business.

You know, in a world, and Caleb hammered it right out of the head before we even started. In a world where marriage seems to be, you know, like an easy out, like you just kind of, whoop, end up the door you go. Or children, you know, there's lots of people not having children. It's pretty cool. One of the things I always enjoy about bringing blue-collar people in is they're usually married, happily. They like kids. They like having kids. And they're doing something unique because, you know, like all three of you are.

are, you know, come from unique backgrounds of what you're doing. And I just enjoy having y'all in. And, of course, Ethan plays the fiddle, too, which if anyone remembers at the Cornerstone Forum, they probably saw him kicking it up on stage, which was really cool. And a lot of fun, too. What did you guys? Speaking of, everybody walked in here and it's like, oh, I kind of recognize you. I kind of recognize you.

How about we start with the Cornerstorm Forum, just briefly, self-promotion, I know, sad. but I am in the throes of trying to plan Cornerstone Forum 2025. What did you think of the first go-around? I really liked it. The one thing that I really enjoyed, though, was actually being able to visit with people. And so I'd rather, like, I'd like to stay later or just have a little bit more. This is obviously just my personal opinion.

But yeah, I enjoyed, like, just the networking, talking to people like Paul, you know, running into guys. and chatting with them. Yeah, a lot of fun. Just meeting people, which your events facilitate that, but you're a time Nazi. We all know that. So you're like, guys, 15 minutes is up.

Like, stop talking to each other and get back in here. Well, I think time, I mean, one of the lovely things about blue-collar workers is they're paid for their time, right? And if you become efficient at it, you can build things and become really efficient at time and time management. And on stage,

just no different, right? Like, nobody wants to have their time wasted, especially blue-collar people, because they work for a living. They got to get back to the job. They've got to go to the field or to, you know, building things in the, I don't know, is it the fire? Sure, yeah, the forge. Forge, thank you.

I knew there was a word I was missing. You know, any other thought, I mean, I gave it to Caleb. I was waiting for Paul to just dance in, but he, I mean. I promise to be good. I promise to be good. This is a round table, fellas. You know, I can just, I can squeak in a quick word. So because I was playing fiddle, I mean, that was all that was on my mind, you know, at the time that I was there.

But I did hear from my father and mother who was there and really enjoyed their time there. So they are ranchers and they work very hard. And in the kindest and maybe the best possible way, they live under a rock, kind of like me. And so their assumption is, man, there's probably not a lot of people who share the same, like they don't have, you know, big friend groups that party and talk about. about all the conspiracy theories all the time. So they were, for better or worse, I know at least talking to my dad, he was, it was quite something for him that there's, wow, there's a lot of people that are concerned about these issues and that want to share about these issues and visit.

It's almost like reassuring sometimes, you know, back to my part, not necessarily representing my dad here, though I'm sure it's true of him, that reassuring that there's other people that want to talk about these things and learn about them. Because a lot of blue-collar people work very hard, and they live under a rock compared to... So you're saying you agree with Grock. So Grock is the AI of X, right, of Elon's creation, and he said, this is the Sean Newman podcast.

When you said, oh, there's come up from the rock, there's a conspiracy theorist out there. He said of my style of the podcast, imagine your favorite uncle who's read one too many conspiracy theories, but also has a heart of gold decide to start a podcast. It's informal, it's engaging, and sometimes it's like watching a train of thought derail in real time, but in the best possible way. Yeah, and when I say conspiracy theory, like I'm using that as kind of just a jabby, funny term,

because most of the things that are talked about at the cornerstone forum, at least what I heard wasn't necessarily conspiracy theory, but that's what people call it. The general theme is it's conspiracy theory. isn't. You know, when we got, sorry, I don't mean to hop over you, Paul. You just do your thing. Well, do you want to hop in on? Well, actually, your cornerstone was great because actually, I found you because of the corners now. I did not know, like, I'm a podcast freak. I listen to probably four hours a day as I'm working, driving, everything else. And my brother in Vancouver said, hey, Luongo's coming. So since Luongo was coming up, he said, I want to go.

So I picked him up in the airport. We drove him up. We came, we saw Luongo, and he is the guy that we'd followed for years. Just years. I love Luongo. Craneer, great. If you guys hadn't have him on, I would not have known whom about it. Well, I would have found you originally.

Where did your brother flying from? He flew in for Vancouver that day. So then I picked him up. You know, we came out here. We did our thing. Had a great time. It was awesome. And then I drove him back to the airport that night,

then came back on with the work the next day. Let me ask a question then, because this is one of the things that I've been throwing out to the audience, and there's no better place than the middle of a conversation, so they all bloody hear it. The conversation right now is Lloyd Minster for 2025 or Calgary for 2025. And it's a serious discussion. I don't mean to put any pressure on any listeners,

other than I would love feedback on like, you got to have it here, you got to have it there. It doesn't matter. And it has been split down the middle. What do you boys think? I'd come to Calgary. Oh, he's tallying up the vote. That's good.

I mean, if you want to get more fish, you've got to go to Calgary. There's a population base. There's a lot of people out there. I love coming up. There's also an airport. There's also an airport. Lloyd is a big town for me now. So I'm like, hey, I like Lloyd.

It's great. We shop, we do the whole thing, you know, because I live in Hannah. But Calgary is a major center. good facilities, a lot of people, a lot of people. I mean, that flooring guy from New Jersey might come back and bring all his friends. That was pretty cool. William. Yeah.

William, that was a cool story. Did you meet him? Yeah, I did. I did. It was quite funny. When I found out who he was, it was great. For the listener, you know, I was explaining this actually earlier today. And, you know, at the cornerstone form, one of the shocking things to me is, you know, at the end of all my events, I don't know where I started this, probably in the first one.

don't know why it spurred it on. I was just curious where everybody came from, right? Because when you look out over the audience, you're like, I recognize a bunch, but there's a whole bunch of people I don't recognize. And you get them all to stand up and then, you know, you go, where are you from? How far have you traveled? And you just start increasing the number. And I was saying earlier today, out of 250 people, it had to have been 150. It came from over two hours away, which is pretty wild. And then you get, you know, down to the nitty gritty and you realize Vancouver, Toronto, Virginia, Phoenix, New Jersey, were the five that stuck out,

and one daughter and mother drove 28 hours from Ontario. And you're like, holy crap, right? Like, that's something. And it still shocks me. So when you talk about Calgary, when you talk about bigger populations, you already hit part of it is like your brother flew into Calgary, right, to come all the way to Lloydminster.

And I love Lloydminster. Being 46 days on the road on our recent road trip and getting back home, and no place like Lloydminster. So I'm torn. I guess I'm just torn, but I want to try new things. And if that means taking into Calgary and trying it there, I'll try it. If that's what people are like, oh, yeah, I'll go wherever you put it.

Then so be it. You can try Red Deer, halfway between Edmonton, halfway between Calgary. It's true. Well, I tell you what, for the listener who's listening to this right now, text me if your thoughts. I can't guarantee that it'll end up your way, but I would love to hear what the audience thinks. Now, before we get into anything more, okay, one of the things that I love doing with in-studio people coming from afar is the first thing everybody gets is one of those. And you can, that's a one-ounce silver coin from silver gold bowl. This is a gift.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, kindly. Yeah, thank you. Beautiful. I see from all the smiles, I'm assuming blue-collar men have like a little stack of it somewhere or maybe, yeah. Mm-hmm. Do you collect silver? I love that cell.

I love that. A little bit. A little bit. I have a little bit. My older brother is, oh, yeah, that guy is. Thank you, Sean. He likes his precious metals. Well, no.

Thank you. That is awesome. Listen, I don't get to do a whole lot. And I got to give a real shout out to silver gold ball for following me on this journey and following my brain child when I'm like, at one ounce piece of silver would go, you know, people would get it. And then I've got to give it to people who've never had a piece of silver. in their hand before. That's even...

It weighs a lot more than Bitcoin. The next is there was a young girl at my last show and I got to find her name again so I apologize because I had her card and then I lost her card. She made me these and I promised to give them out to some people coming in. It's a key chain on one side

it says freedom on the other side it has the Sean Newman podcast. I thought that was pretty cool too and so I'm trying to make good of my promise to her that I would try and give it out to a few people who come here and and what I'll do for the next time is I get your bloody name, and then that'll make a whole lot more sense.

Somebody's going to text me because she's at all the freedom events. And finally, behind me is some Kalani cups. So what color would you like? Hmm. I got to go with my eye color. Blue. Oh, no, you just got to look in. Thanks, sir.

So one of the other things is Kalani is Alberta-based company, and they made some S&P cups. So they're, you know, they remind me of Yeti. And he probably hates me saying that or maybe he loves me saying that. I don't know. They're really good quality. Can I have that Army Green looking one? It's called.

Thank you kindly. It's called Dune. Dune. Okay. Oh yeah, that great one looks great. You know, the other thing while we're doing this, you know, the audience is like, what the heck is this? It's been one promotional thing, Cornerstone, to giving things away.

Thank you all for coming in to do the blue-collar roundtable. I've got to give a shout out to Jericho. It's the first time ever. In Sean Newman podcast history, I've had a producer in studio. He was joking earlier. He's my Jamie. It's true. It's the first time this has ever happened.

You're part of a little bit of history here and a little bit of an experiment, because we've never done this before. You know, when I put it out to the audience on what they wanted to have brought up on a blue-color roundtable, one of the resounding things was what's been going on with their justice system, right? it doesn't have to stay there, boys, and certainly it's a conversation, so feel free to jump in whatever you want. But one of the things going on is, you know, the acquittal of the four Coots Boys over the conspiracy to commit murder, and now the two of them are getting, while they're trying to get it back,

you know, they're appealing that decision, and on and on. When you look at the judicial system, where does your thoughts go? Do you think about it much? Do you live under a rock? You're like, I didn't even know what was going on. I don't mean to single anything. I'm sure you knew it was going on. I just mean, do you even pay attention to it?

What are your thoughts? Well, my first thought is, I think words have meanings. And the justice system implies that there's justice. And I don't really see that our current system is having a lot of justice. Like there's a shadow of justice there. There's kind of, you know, the leftovers of where there was once justice. But, I mean, let's face it, they didn't have a trial. for way too long.

They never had their day in court. The entire thing was unjust. And so, I mean, we need a, obviously we need a major overhaul of our justice system. But there again, I think just my own opinion on what that looks like for an overhaul is just

every man taking responsibility for himself and his family and doing the right thing, lots of small things. Lots of small things make a big difference. Just having principals and living by them and the justice system would, yeah, and getting involved, like becoming lawyers and going to law school, become an RCMP. I don't like the RCMP as an organization, lots of great people in it.

And so, yeah, I'm encouraging my sons to become RCMP. And even if it's for a while, you know, give them sick. years and then and then do something else but do something to make to make a difference instead of just complaining about it yeah yeah we got a we got to we got to there's a there's a verse in the Bible that says show me your faith by your works and so we can say oh I believe this and I believe that and it's like really like you can you can tell me that you that you love going to church but if you don't go to church I'm not going to believe you or I can tell my wife that I love her but if I never you know if I'm away

and I bring something back for her, I don't have to tell her that I love her. She knows that I do because I was away and I brought her something because I was thinking about her when I was away. So it's, I don't know, show me your faith by your works. It's doing, not talking. But which when you start talking about it,

then people also look at you and say, well, you're not, which brings some accountability. So, yeah, I don't know. Mm-hmm. And so Caleb laid out some really practical things flow from his theology. And I happen to know, of course, Caleb is a Christian, I'm a Christian. So our authority, someone might be asking, well, like, by what standard, are you saying that there's no justice or that you think that justice is lacking? And it's because, well, at the end of

the day, I'm a Christian. So that means that, among other things, I believe that the Bible is the word of God. So when I, and my desire, if I could have anything I want, which I think would be the will of God, it would be that the people in the governing authorities would govern according to the word of God. So where is wisdom, where is examples of where justice was carried out? So you mentioned, I actually don't know much about this trial at all, so, or the acquittal of the Coots boys. But like, you mentioned that the trial didn't happen swiftly. So if someone were to look at, okay, well, what should happen? Well, the Bible explains, among other things, uh, that, uh, that, uh, when there's trials that happen, when you investigate things on the account of two or three witnesses where there's evidence,

that trials and these investigations should happen swiftly. Justice should be carried up swiftly. It's not something that can be delayed. And that's not, ultimately, if someone's just going to appeal to, well, a humanistic kind of worldview, there's no standard by which you can say that, oh, the trial was, or the, pardon me, not the trial, but the process was too long or it needs to be shorter unless there is a foundation on which you stand to say that. So my opinion, because you're asking about what my opinion of the justice system is, because that's been brought up. So it's basically that at the end of the day, it should be reformed and it should be reformed

according to the word of God by people that believe the word of God. Is that a pipe dream? Well, like in one sense, yes. I don't know if that's ever going to happen. But that is certainly at the last day where the rubber meets the road, especially in a nation given so much light and so much Christian heritage. By light, I mean truth. People have bibles all over the place. People have the testimony of God's goodness. The heavens declare the glory of God, etc. And so, you know, they're going to be people that are given the responsibility of leadership in a country, they were given that responsibility by God. The Bible says that people who are in power are actually they're God's servants. God's servants. So they're going to give an account. Did they serve God in that capacity? And so someone, like,

if Justin Trudeau died today without repenting, he's going to stand before a holy God and give an account for his service to God. I wonder what that would look like. Well, it says that when the Lord comes back, that people want the rocks and the mountains to hide them. That's what they're going to feel like. So Justin Trigo will be trying to hide. Yeah. Right? Because he's doing a pretty poor job of our country right now.

Yeah. Yeah. But there's still hope for him. He can repent. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And we're supposed to pray for our government leaders that they, yeah, repent so we can live a peaceful and quiet life. But, yeah.

And so the practical implications would be just what can. Caleb was saying, you know, if we have faith in this God that is true and that does convert people, so we ought to pray, we ought to, and as we're given the opportunity to be an influence in the culture, whether it be through, you know, like a RCMP officer, whatever, some sort of a lawyer, someone who is standing on the firm foundation of something that's actually objective. Like you were mentioning, words have meanings. We really believe that the Bible is the word of. God in the sense that the text there that has been preserved and inspired and whatever,

that's what I believe in any case. Like, it's objective like you can bang your head against this table. Like you read it and it's not just a situation of, oh, well, I can interpret that to mean whatever it means because that leads to justice can be whatever I think it is. Justice can be determined that we can balance or we can put things on the scales depending on what color your skin is or what or some other um a variable that's not uh doesn't uh lead to justice so yeah there has to be a standard there when you go away from the standard as we are you get the fruits of it yeah yeah what we got is pretty dark actually guys you know like with the coots

guys i've known guys that have sitting in remand centers without a trial for three years this actually happens a lot. It's happened when I was a kid. We're now seeing it. My heart goes out to those guys. They're being railroaded. Okay, great. There's a lot of people that have been railroaded. Remand center. If you've ever been into a remand center, like when I was a kid, apprenticing, my dad had high security clearance. So I was able to go with him into maximum security looney bins, maximum security prisons. You know, there wasn't a, there wasn't a a juvie camp around the Vancouver area that we hadn't made trips into. Sometimes my dad jokes said, oh, I should just commit a petty larceny just so that way that they would stop calling me.

Because we hated going into those places. They were not nice. But the remand centers were the worst because you were in a cell that was about four feet by eight. And you'd been there for years. That's where Alberta keeps their pastors, right? Sometimes. times. But you know, before court, what happens is they put them in the remand center. Remand centers are so bad that when you, if you get convicted, if you've done two years in a remand center,

account says, I can't, don't tell me. Time and a half, if not two times. Because it's awful. There is no services. There is nothing. You are in a cell. You are let out for maybe an hour a day to walk a yard. It's it. That's what those guys are. But this has been going on for a long time. Our system and how it runs, like, I'm from Port Coquitlam, BC. Home of Terry Fox. We knew Terry Fox. Home of Willie Picton, who was just on the other side of the dike from us. If you know that story how those guys were picking up hookers in Vancouver,

raping them the death, grinding their bodies up and dumping them into the sluze. That's what these guys were doing. And it was a family affair. The Picton's not the foxes. Depicts it. No, no, no. The foxes were just the best. But the pictons. This stuff was going on. And when I was a kid, they could have shut those guys down anytime they wanted on drugs. Because you could go there and get anything. You wanted heroin? You went there. Everybody knew it. They were crazy. Oh, we all knew it. Nobody got not one official did jail time from that thing. It went on for 15 years. What do you mean not one official? If you look at the trial courts, you look at, okay, so what happened is the only reason why that came to the light of day was the Vancouver City Police picked up the Pictons and forced the whole procedure to go on. The RCMP stood back. Now, these pictons, they were psychos.

Intelligent psychos, very intelligent. Their property, where they were, they had a farm yard, which was in, if I'm not mistaken, Mayepard. Ridge RCMP detachment and their farm was in Port Coquitlam detachment. The two detachments didn't like each other and they wouldn't talk. There was inter-detachment rivalry. So these guys were playing the game of well it's on our property here and all these things but these guys knew how to get dirt on people. Those Pictons knew how to get dirt on people and many complaints were levied on that property. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. And so then what do do finally when the whole thing ends the family turns on Willie who was you know you

would say slow at best Willie would be called retarded and that's what we used to call him because he was there's no way he was the mastermind of that whole thing there's over a hundred people they 57 that they confirmed but there were well over a hundred there had to have been this was going on for this was going on for This was going on for a long time. My parents, my dad said, don't go on the other side of that dike. Don't go over there. So, of course, what did we do?

We'd go over there. You know, we'd ride our dirt bikes and, you know, a couple times. Some shotguns would go off. I'm like, oh, let's get out of here. But, you know, did we know they were doing that? No. Well, if your parents had said those are the pictons, they rape and kill people, don't go over there. I probably wouldn't have.

But that was pre, you know, figuring that all out, right? You probably would have thought your dad was pulling your leg. You probably still would have went. Oh, I would have gone to take a look. Sure. Of course I would have. But I used to work right next to their farm. They sold their land to a golf course. That first job was working on that golf course.

Then they sold the rest of the land where all the bodies were concealed to a subdivision. So underneath that subdivision of houses, who knows what's underneath there? But at the end of the day, who was held accountable in the RC&P attachment that was there? No one. No one. Nobody really got held accountable for it. Nobody lost their career. None of this stuff.

So when I was growing up, we knew, I knew very well where I lived in Poco, Percocuitlam, short. You know, if my buddy, I had my buddy get used beside me, had a couple of joints in his pocket back in the day when joints were illegal. Copps, you know, kind of said, hey, do you have anything on you? And they search us. They take the guy's joints and they say, hey, you know, you just be thankful you're not talking to your parents. We'll just keep this. If we were across the river in Surrey, we'd have been charged. But there we weren't.

Okay, great, super. I'm glad my buddy wasn't charged. It kind of really, from that point on, I kind of looked and I just said, okay, there isn't really justice. It is who you know. It's what you know. Sounds bad.

Sounds really bad. I've worked a lot with RCMP contracts, building things. You know, we've done it. I've met lots of cops. I had a security clearance where actually I could counsel. So I lived off the armed forces base for a while. So I had a lot of military guys coming up my way. And I had to RCMP.

I was used as references for the RCMP for lots of guys. It's a tough gig, man. I mean, I'm not going to those. My hat's off to the RCMP. It's a tough gig. It is a really tough gig. But yet, as a kid, I watched that go down. and you know so it kind of skewed my views on a lot call me jaded because I'm older than you guys

I'm a gen Xer so I'm supposed to be jaded supposed to be jaded on everything our justice thing has made me very I don't want to say bitter but very jaded um realist there's lots of guys that have been put into remand centers for a long time held on mischief killed on these things And in our system, there's a lot of power to hold guys. And so they don't have connections. They don't have a way of getting their story out. We know about the Coots for it because there's been people who cared. And if you look behind your shoulders, there's a painting of the Freedom Convoy.

And they're attached to the thing that got shut it all down. Yeah. Right? And so that story is becoming more and more, you know, center stage, if you would, because as it goes on and they try and. paint Tamara Leach and Chris Barber as these barbaric duo and anyone in Canada at this point you know who's picked their head up from the sand for two minutes knows that isn't true and then if you start thinking about that and you start listening to a couple other stories it leads you back

to the Coots 4 because without the Coots 4 they don't get the Emergency Act implemented which means all that stuff doesn't happen and it's it's a linchpin and this linchpin is becoming by the day more just disastrous out if media would just poke a hole in it, right? Like just open it up and see what's been going on there. Instead, it's only a handful of outlets talking about it. And that's because, you know, you go back to, I don't know any other stories of the remand where people have been held like that. But I also don't know of a larger protest in Canadian history in my time

that allows me people keep sharing this story to me, right? It's why we did a roundtable on it a week ago. It's why we're doing two more in the future here, very near future, with a whole bunch of characters coming on to talk about it, because I'm trying to shed light on what's going on in Alberta. It's our province, for Pete's sake. So that's interesting. Yeah, those guys are heroes.

They're being railroaded. But guys, there's other people being railroaded, too, that we will never hear about. So this is something that has been going on for you. Our system is a very interesting. interesting system. You know, we watch American TV and law and order, don't, don't, you know, and, you know, justice, as justice delayed is justice denied. Yeah. Yeah. It takes years for you to get to court. If you could even afford to get to court, you know, our, our justice can be used as a weapon. So if you, if you were sitting, if Daniel Smith was listening, let's just assume for a day, she, she tuned in and, and wanted to listen to a couple of blue collar boys. Uh, talk about, you know, justice reform. Do you have any simple solutions or there is no simple solutions on this? I do. I'm, I'm interested. I think it's, I think it's men taking responsibility for their families and actually like, like having principles. Like, like we've had, uh, he says it's been,

this has been a problem for a long time. And it's, and it's kind of the, most of our problems have been a problem for a long time. And we're, and we're trying to, like, vote our way out of it. Like, oh, what if we had elected really good government? That's like, well, what if we all just had principles and lived by them? Like, what if, what if, like, we want the government to save us. We want to elect a government that can save us. We want to, we want to, we want to get, you know, a new, you know, head of the RCMP. You know, we need to get rid of this Brenda Lecky or, I don't know, I'm not sure what her name is. But we always want to, we want to, we want to We want to get someone new in there, right?

And, you know, I'm going to just switch gears a little bit from the justice system and talk about education. Because I think I know lots of teachers. They're amazing, right? They're great people. But we have an education minister. And the education minister, you know, we have a group. We have a small group of people that dictate what curriculum is. We saw it during COVID with the medical.

system. We have the college of physicians and paramedics. We have all these colleges of, so we have like a small number of people. There's thousands of doctors in Saskatchewan, but there's 12 people who make the rules, right? Like there's 12 people who say what you're allowed to do, what you're allowed to use for treatment. So doctors can say, oh, Ivermectin would knock this thing out, but the college has said, oh, you're not allowed to use that. Right? So we have all of these institutions that have great people in them, but from the very top, they're poisoned. And so And so then if we have individuals that are trying to just live their life and say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to, I'm not going to send my children to there because they are going, you know, from the top, it's poisoned.

The people that are there are wonderful often. So your solution over time is men take responsibility. Yeah, and it's a long game. But I think it is a long game. We didn't get into this overnight. No, we didn't. Like my dad is, I hope he doesn't listen to this. I think he's 56.

I shouldn't know how old he is. But so I think he's 56. So he grew up in Lower Mainland. There was, I think, between six and 700 kids in the school. He knows the kid whose parents were divorced. He knows the kid's name because he was an anomaly. There was the one kid whose parents were divorced. And so like we've been on a trajectory.

for a long and we need to just start by yeah like um often swallowing our pride like just being like like you know what i'm wrong i was wrong um i shouldn't have you know but we were proud people we don't want to admit that that we fail and we do stuff wrong all the time i do stuff wrong all the time and i i often have to tell my family you know what i screwed up guys i did this wrong and they're like oh we forgive you dad and we move on and then we figured how to do it right and it's it's hard but it's yeah my kids are great they they always they always seem to forgive me some of the bigger ones if they don't I'm gonna get hurt but they're getting pretty big now those big boys of mine and how many again do you have five four

boys and a girl right oh yeah and my boys are doing jihitsu like a couple times a week and so right now yeah yeah pay man will come one day well I've I tap well I didn't tap but it wouldn't have been long and he probably would have just killed me if I had it. He just gave out. Yeah. I raised Shay, my oldest, he's eight, around the ice, full circle, right? I was going backwards and he was going forwards.

And if he didn't stumble on the last corner, he would have beat me. And I'm... How old is he? Eight. Okay. And he was mad. And I was like, well, you got to learn out and not stumbling me while I'm going, I got another year where maybe I can hold him off until he can beat me.

And I got to flip and go forwards, right? I don't know how much, you know, he's only eight. It's like, what the heck did that happen, you know? Kids are amazing. And I mean, dads, if I'm going to lose to somebody, I want it to be my kid. I mean, that'd be great. Yeah. So you go back to the question is, you know, when it comes to, you know, maybe justice reform,

maybe just reform in general of things going on in society. It's like men need to take ownership of themselves. And by way of that, it's going to be not only yourself, it's going to be your, your house and your kids and your marriage and make sure those are all being taken care of. And then you might not know the possibilities of where society could go if men started looking at it that way. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's, and I don't know whether it was in Germany or China, but somewhere there's, we've all seen this picture of the one guy that's standing and everyone's kneeling. And then other people started standing, right? Like that's the, that's the end of that story is other people started standing up. and because one person had the, sure, that guy was scared. He had to have been scared.

Everybody else was kneeling and he was standing. That's like bravery isn't being fearless. It's doing the right thing when we're afraid. It's, isn't John Wayne being scared to death but saddling up anyways? Yeah. That's the definition of courage. Yeah. I mean, he's great.

Yeah. Yeah. And if I could just add one thing to that to bolster that, the thing that's going to give a person conviction to like stand up among the crowd, be the nail that gets hammered down or however the saying goes, is that ultimately they have to, whatever they're standing for, they obviously believe in it more or they fear the consequences of injustice, more than justice, but what that comes down to at the end of the day,

especially if it's going to have any lasting effect, is they fear God more than man because there'll be circumstances where someone, if they're trying to do or have any kind of a conviction apart from the word of God, there's always a payoff to compromising when the whole world is against you in some sense. Because without faith in a judgment day,

or the God who's going to judge on judgment day and actually reward and punish, et cetera, and one who sustains you along the way. Without that, there is no reason to stand up among the crowd who's, or stand up among the crowd who's kneeling or whatever it is, because there is, well, like the only reason you're doing that is because you feel that way. And that's a right feeling, but I'm just getting what I'm saying is it. Yeah, that has to, the type of conviction where you're going to go and die for something,

when literally you will lose the whole world. So what does a man gain if he gains the whole world and loses his soul, forfeits his soul? There's really, when push comes to shove, man, there's so many statements in the Bible that pertain to this, unless you are willing to hate your father and your mother and your sister, your whole family, even your own life, you're not worthy of me, et cetera. There's, that's, that's the foundation, fearing God more than man at the end of the day. That's actually what's going to provide that, you know, in the individual. Just, and I say that just meaning that, yeah, we can't separate, say, man, we need to have convictions and convictions.

But if there's no substance. It has to be a source for them. Yeah. There has to be a source. Otherwise, it's just, it's fleeting. And it actually, at the end of the day, it won't stand up to. Morality will never save anyone. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's objective. Morals are objective, unless it's based on. something and that we agree that this is what the morals are. You know, somebody comes in from a complete different culture. They have different standards. They have different morals.

Unless we have something that's like, this is who we are, this is what a Canadian is. You will do this, you'll do this, you won't do this, you won't do this. You know, if we were going to talk Canada, morals like you were saying, being a good dad, like morals standing up. We cannot reform this system, guys. Like, I'm the old man in the room. I'm going to let you know. We're not.

This system ain't worth fixing. We can't reform it. But what we can do is raise good boys and raise good girls. That is one thing that we can do. Awesome. Five kids. Oh, you have no. I hear that and I just go, I love it.

That's great. But that is something we can do. We can choose to love our lives. I call them arrows. I call my kids arrows. Arrows? Because I'm going to shoot them into the next generation. to make change.

Well, I don't think you want to know what I was calling my little turds yesterday. But, oh, no. But no, guys, like, I hear it. I'm so thrilled to be here with you guys, because I'm looking at you guys, we're all dads. Like, that's awesome. We're married. But, guys, it's a choice. Like, I joke and I say, yeah, I worked on my anniversary.

Yeah, we did. My wife and myself have a family business. We are like this. Our finances are completely entwined. She knows that I went to Profit River firearms. By the way, very good place. Awesome. Showed to the Prophet River.

Oh, you bet. They're having a customer appreciation day coming up in September. Just throwing that out there. They treated me very well today when I went in there and bought. Good stuff. But my wife knew it. The second I paid for it, I get that text saying, oh, she cheated. But it's a choice.

What did you get? Oh, I picked up a cool. Okay, I bird hunt. I bird hunt all over So I was just needing a backup gun So I bought a Benelli supernovus Pump 12 gauge And it'll probably be sitting in the back

Of the truck It's an indestructible gun that even my son can't wreck And you know, so I was chatting And you know what? I could have bought it anywhere I could have bought it at Cabela's In town where I live We have like a hardware store that sells guns

But no I chose to go to Prof River Because he's one of our people He's one of your people And I paid the same amount but I'm supporting a business that supports us. That's what I'm talking about, though. Principles where you, where you, like, those little decisions, like, because it's everything that you do, you say, I believe in our people.

And so then you prove it with the way you spend your money, right? You say, oh, no, like, I don't like that this business has a rainbow flag up and it wants to, I mean, let's face it, the rainbow flag means you want to cut the dicks off of kids. And so I don't want to support that place. I'm going to go over to this place that doesn't have that flag and support them. It's the same. It's just those little decisions that, yeah, and they all make a difference. Yeah.

Our choices. Smiley likes it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Choices, guys. It's all about choices.

Yeah. It's all. Do we support our, do we support our friends, our neighbors, our family? Like, we're in a small town. Mm-hmm. We try to support local. We do support local. We have local people support us.

You know, and I'm so thankful for that. That's great. That's what it's all about relationships. But I can't change my town. Maybe if I've become the mayor, that'd be a scary place. Oh, that would be fun, actually. That would be great. Nobody else would like it.

Hannah would be down to like three families. But it would be awesome. They'd be the families I like, so we'd be good. Anybody here watch Paw Patrol? Does your kids watch Paw Patrol? You look like Mayor Humdinger. Oh, if I had the hat. Yes, but except I don't like cats.

Okay. I'm a dog guy. Mayor Humphinger. I don't ask you. But if anybody else starts calling me that, because I'm going to get home, by the way. My brother's going to be calling me that. So thanks a lot.

You're right. I'll take that with a sense of pride. It's a great. It's a fitting name. Right on. You know what's funny? My wife asked me, I can't remember.

Was it in the last six months? Probably about the last six months. She said, like, what are you trying to do? Right? Because, you know, I come home after having all these conversations and, you know, in her mind, you know, I'm sure I say some pretty odd things at times because I decompress on my wife, right? You know, you talk to somebody that is a dark situation, an uplifting situation, creative idea, you know, rant. You know, you can just imagine the emotions that go through recording roughly or while releasing five podcasts a week. And I don't know if she thought I was trying to change the world, right?

become mayor and take over Lloydminster and then rah, rah, rah. And I'm like, oh, no, no, nothing. If you did, we wouldn't complain. I'm like, well, I guess where I sit is I go back to what Caleb's thought was. And I guess, Paul, you're shining light on my thought as well. And that was what I told Mel, you know, six months ago. I'm like, oh, no, I have no misconceptions about what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to figure out who I am, how to be a better husband to you,

better father of my kids. and if I can clean up my room to steal a Jordan Peterson line and work on my house, maybe, just maybe I can help my community just a smidge. But I don't know if I got much control over that. And even to control that or influence that is going to take a lot of what I do, you know? Like I was saying to you guys, you brought in O'Bad,

and I'm like, oh, Scotch, sucks. But today marks day 19. And I don't know. I don't know how long I'm going for. I just know I'm like, yeah, I just don't need the drink today. And it's been 19 days. And it's funny, little things like that make me better around the house. I don't have, you know, if you have a drink at night, it seems to mess with me the next morning.

Or maybe it's two, I don't know. But you get the point, right? 19 days, I don't have that. And lots of guys that I follow that are at the top of their game in the realm I want to be in. Don't drink. They do jiu-jitsu. They do certain things that almost become like, you know, they read the Bible. it's just becoming more and more accepted or talked about or my ears are open to it.

It could be all of the above. It could be one of those. But like all of them, you know, like I don't remember listening to Tucker Carlson two years ago in the middle of COVID and him talking about the Bible. I could be wrong. But I just finished listening. I finally, I started and stopped it so many times. I finished listening to him and Sean Ryan. And man, they have like, it's got to be 40 minutes on spiritual warfare.

And I'm just like, Tucker Carlson is speaking my language right now. This is really, really fascinating. And then I find out today, walking in here, Joey says to me, shout out to the Guardian boys, that Donald Trump doesn't drink. I'm like, what? Donald Trump doesn't drink? And then, listen, phones, devices, they're always listening. So then the Theo Vaughn clip comes up because if everyone's seen one clip, it's been him talking about cocaine and being a night owl on your porch,

you're like, what the heck is he talking about? The one that was great is where him and she goes to Trump, so you've never drank. Trump's like, no, I had an older brother. And he talks about it. I'm like, oh, my God, that Trump should come out more often. That's a, that Trump would actually connect with pretty much all of North America, let alone in the United States. Like, that was something.

His base would definitely go for it. Oh, yeah. Like, that's powerful stuff. Oh, Tucker's great. I was listening to a couple of his coming up as well, too. Yeah, it's nice because, okay, guys, like, people are desperately seeking for something. Okay. We've done money, money, money, money.

money, right? My parents were baby boomers. Money, money, money. You know, that was that whole thing. You know, latchkey kids. I don't even know, if you don't know what the latch key kid is, look it up. It's kids that were at home when their parents, both of them were working in the morning. They would make breakfast for themselves and their brothers and sisters. They would go to school and they were expected to have the little latch key, the key around their neck to get back into their house so that way they could get dinner ready for their parents. Latchkey kids. We go, like I get this blank stare. I tell my nephews and they're like, that's like child abuse. And I'm like, no, that's like I could give you five names of kids on our street. That's what it was like.

We had an entire generation that was very focused on the material world. Just make money. You know, greed's good. Go, go, go. All that stuff is falling apart right now. And I'm seeing young men all across that are saying, there's got to be more to this. And oh yeah, there is a lot more to it. Oh, there is. It's nice to see. It's really nice to see. Today I went into your local Coles bookstore in the mall. So I go to a town, I always go to the mall because that way I can tell a lot about a town by looking at the condition of their mall.

So I go on the Coles and I'm like, okay, they're not going to have this book. No way. They're not going to have Plato's Republic. They will not have this book in this small store. They had it. And she digs it out. And she said, oh yeah, it's in our philosophy section. And the front table is books.

You know, you have 1984. Yeah, but that's a good, and they're like five bucks a pop. It's great. And, but that's why I, you know, jaded Gen X. You can literally get all the classics for like 50 bucks. Right there. Those are the books that I read when I was a kid. Yeah.

Because they were part of our mandatory reading. And some of them I read, you know, picked up myself, like the Odyssey, the A&ED, all these great books are just cool. And so I jokingly said to the clerk, I said, do you sell anything? Because you would not believe how many young people are buying these books. My heart just skipped. That or I got to check myself into the hospital after. don't know. But I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it because I thought, honestly, guys, like that millennials would not care about this stuff. It was amazing. Mind blower. Because philosophy.

Scripture, philosophy, the things we need, the essential pillars to learn about these heroes of old. Like Jordan Peterson. Great. You know, I don't like where Jordan is doing right now. But my goodness, if it wasn't for Jordan Peterson. We wouldn't have survived COVID. We wouldn't survive COVID. I really wish that he was around when, you know, because he was going through that, that, the withdrawals from that medication he was on. But pre that, he took an entire generation, you know, clean your room.

Let your words be clear and precise. These were all the things that I was taught, but the next generation wasn't. And he came out and he started to teach these things where I'm going, Yeah, well, yeah. Well, yeah. And I would see that book on more coffee tables all through Calgary. And I'm like, interesting. Now, if our local churches would pick this up and rum with it, he's given you a taste.

The church has the full answer. You know, the church has the full answer. He's wetting the appetite, right? Well, I've said this lots. If it wasn't for Jordan Peterson, I want to be back to reading the Bible. because I turned away from it so hard and then he found a way to just like you say, wet the appetite

is probably the best way. Where I'm like, huh, all right? And Ethan's mentioned like there has to be a standard and I forget the phrase that you just used but it was, but the Jordan Peterson used because I was thinking when you said it, I immediately thought let your yes be yes and your no-no, which is the Bible verse.

And you know, you mentioned like making your bed, cleaning your room we've been given a dominion mandate to have dominion over the earth and subdue it. Well, what's shocking to me about reading the Bible is how much good, I'm like, oh. There's nothing new. Right. So everybody just read this book and then wrote a book, paraphrasing it, and we all go, well, that's genius. And that's why I say Jordan Peterson let me back to the Bible.

Because once I, okay, well, I've read part, like, I might just go read what it actually says, right? Yeah. And that took time. And all of a sudden, now you're picking it up, you know, picking it up daily and reading it. And that comes from a stepping stone of Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson won't even go that far to say that. Other than the Bible, well, I shouldn't quote Jordan Peterson here because I don't know where he's at today, right? His wife has become a Catholic, right?

And is deeply into her spiritual walk there. But I actually don't know where Jordan sits as of today. And I know listeners are going to send me a whole bunch of stuff where it is. So again, though, like institutions, like going back to, going back to the institutions, right? Like, you say Catholic, and you're like, I'm going to get a bunch of texts from this.

Sure. But, okay, so who wants to defend the institution of the Catholic Church? Actually, I know quite a few that would. Right, and I know some, I know people that, like, would say they're Catholic, but they deny what the Catholic Church teaches. And I'm like, why,

why are you Catholic again? And we hang on to these institutions. We hang on to like, you know, like people get upset. You know, I homeschool my kids. Or I don't actually call it that. I call them raising my own children. But it's, it's like it's not like I hate teachers or something. It's that I don't like the system, right?

Like there's lots of teachers in the system that are good. There are people that are in the Catholic Church that actually believe the Bible and not the doctor. that the Catholic Church teaches. So the institution, like, does anybody really want to defend the Pope? Like, no one does. Like, none of the, any of my Catholic friends don't want to defend the Pope. And I'm like, why are you still a Catholic?

Like, it's the institutions that are corrupt. And then there's people that go in, there's doctors, there's nurses, there's teachers, there's teachers, there's principles. Do you think I could ever do a round table with, like, Catholic? and I don't know. I don't know the answer to that because I'm like, the last time I stepped on a landmine with the Catholics, then I had to bring on a priest to, anyways,

I was just, I was just like, I didn't realize it was this, this heated. I kind of walked into the open fire. I listened to that, by the way. Yeah. I think you should, I think you should do it. A round table. Yeah, yeah. Where it's like cordial.

And if you cannot find a Protestant or someone that's not a Catholic, like I will do it. I'm not qualified, but if you, if no one will agree, like, well, there you go. There's a challenge,

folks. We'll do, we'll do, uh, I have an idea for a dangerous, uh, Christian men round table. Yeah.

But maybe the, the, the starting place should be the Christian, the dangerous Christian topic or something, you know, you want to kick that up a notch. You bring in an Eastern Orthodox guy into that. Well,

I think, but I think you should. No, well, actually, guys, the, the funniest thing is,

like, I was raised evangelicalal my whole life. Okay. And I'm actually, looking at Orthodox. I'm dead serious guys. I'm taking a peek at it because those guys have been dealing with the philosophical, spiritual questions since the time of Christ. They've documented, yes, they, oh, they have all these weird rituals and something. If you ask them what the ritual is about, they'll tell you. And it actually makes sense once you start to kind of go,

oh, well, well, well, okay. And, you know, it's very interesting where, you know, that's the cool thing about Christians but what we can get is we can get so tunnel vision like my older brother works with me he's an ex pastor as well too and the stuff that was see my family if you weren't slog and carpet you were in ministry okay and that's just what it was right so like shop talk hockey talk around your table you know when you were growing up with your kids your brothers see that was church talk at my house and it was a full contact sport baby full contact sport what we can get ourselves so stuck into is we have so much in common.

And if I have worked with Anglican priests, I've worked with, I had to perform last rights for a guy who was Catholic because the priest couldn't get there. And I mumbled my way through it, and then he said, let me get out of the way, son. It's my job near now.

We have actually a lot of things in common. But what we like to do is we like to try those findings, okay, this is exactly what Trudeau and all these guys, they try to find these things that we're against. And it's always something minor. and they get us fighting and doing all this stuff.

And we spend all this energy about what we're different versus what we have the same. And it's like 99%. Sounds like the conservative movement. Yeah. I mean, I hate to bring politics into it. No, no, no, that's it. Well, what about a blue, like a blue collar round table? Like we isolate a group and yet, and I think it's great.

I'm not dissing the blue collar round table at all. I'm just saying that like we've talked. about Jordan Peterson and yet we're like we all agree with Jordan Peterson. He's not blue color, but we agree with him. And yet we've found the truth somewhere else, right? Like we've been like we hear him, we read his books and we're like, oh yeah, that's that's that's proverb such and such. That's that's this, that's over here. And and he's not wrong. Um, it's just that it's, you know, we've, it's already been, it's already been said. And so there is a sense where they're like even that we try to isolate ourselves into into more groups where we uh and then

there's division oh i'm blue color that guy's white color well i like qd m's thought on it was a blue color round table uh the first virtual one so would he be white color or blue color well he said he said he said that um pretty much everybody fits in a blue color yeah because you know it used to be you know the blue color was uh you know was a set kind of occupation he goes if we don't have all the occupations, we kind of, you know, minus the bureaucratic machine. I don't think that's but college. The political committees. Right.

There's some that you can just circle and be like, yeah, well, we could probably do away with these. But he's not wrong. You know, if you're working at a grocery store, stock and shelves and different things, that's one he always points out to. It's a boat as blue collar as it gets these days. You know, it's manual labor. So how simplistic are we going to define what blue collar is? I mean, if you're getting your head, this guy isn't, in my realm, I'm not blue guy.

I sit behind a computer, you know, like I don't, this is my realm now, a 12 by 12 room with no sunshine. And as you all can tell, she's getting a nice and toasty in here, especially with five of us sitting here in here. And you go, you go back to the blue color, though. What is, how do you define it? And then is there any exceptions to it? And is there a way you can leave that realm if you get, you know, X, Y, Z too successful, et cetera. etc. How many callers

is a farmer have? I mean, you're not just out there working. You've got to know tech, you've got to know computers, you got to know how to run your, you have to know how to run your machine. And electricians hate us.

So we always are, we're always touching stuff. So you go, the blue collar was more of an idea of like the producers, the builders, the people that make things work. Because if you lose those,

what do we have? Bingo. You're a blacksmith, buddy. Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, And one of the reasons I think that it's that, you know, we associate the blue-collarness with, say, people that are, um, want some truth or people that are still connected somewhat to biblical values, even if they're not Christians or whatever, is because when you're a blue collar, when you're working in a trade, uh, something like that, if you live by, um, so-called postmodern principles like, ah, truth is relative, whatever, like the thing that you're trying to accomplish doesn't work. Like right in front of your eyes, if you don't screw in the plumbing, right? If you don't, you don't, you don't. don't, whether it's the way you treat your animals or you're an electrician or you're a blacksmith or whatever, like the consequences of that worldview is something that shocks you, you know, right away. Whereas when you're a white-collar person, when you're the philosophy, PhD teacher in the local university, then your ideas will be just as wrong.

It's just that the downstream effects. That's a great impersonation. the downstream effects take a little bit to you know before the disease the cancer is in stage four and you realize it you know it's it's it's a plumber doesn't help the gas line right the building's blowing up right or if he doesn't you know solder certain pipes together and water starts leaking from everywhere it's like the consequences are real and fast or if he doesn't do his billing CRA is on his back and next thing you know his business is shut down because they got in trouble with GST. So you have to have that blue collar. Like I've heard it said many times, it's like instead of collars hats, you got your, you know, you've got your tradesman hat,

then you have to do your office hat, then you have to do your family hat, and you know, these little things kind of going on. But I mean, if you don't, like I have known many tradesmen that were the best craftsmen you could ever imagine, and they couldn't run a business for the life of them. Oh, sorry, I'll keep it nice and cool.

You've got to wander away from Mike more than anywhere. sit still, I'm a tradesman. What do I, you know, you should get some lanyards and we could just put them around. Oh, yeah. And you could just move with us. A muzzle, that'd be great. My wife would want one of those. But if you don't do your taxes, man, you're screwed.

That's just that you're screwed. And there have been many good tradespeople that can't run business. My dad and my uncle ran a really successful business. But in the end, one did the back work, one did the trades work. And without that team, you're kind of done. And so, you know, you have to sell things. Like, I now sell things more than I install things. It bugs me.

It bugs me. But that's just how it is. So, you know, treating people away. I guess I didn't really think about this bringing you all together. But small business owner, Caleb, correct? Small business owner, right, Ethan? Yes, sir. I mean, small business owners sitting here too.

And the thing I hate the most, the absolute most, is the moment the mic shut off and everything else that has to happen in order for people to hear this. And that's paperwork. That's all the, little things that make little businesses run and you don't realize how much work is in it until you get going you're like i had this stupid thought i was working at baker hues and i was getting ready i was in my last final days and i was like can't wait to be full-time podcast i'm going to put my feet up on the

table it's going to be awesome we're talking some cool people and i've never been busier in my life and i did not see that coming and i wonder you know the small business guys here did you see i don't know if you had you know i don't know everybody's story on how they got into it obviously Paul, your family run business, so a little different maybe. But like, did you realize how much work was going to be running an independent, small business, or, I don't know, I'm curious, that topic in general. Good question. Oh, sure.

So, so my story is a little weird because I don't have much to compare, like, I don't, I've never had a nine to five job to compare to. So I grew up on a ranch, we were farmers, ranchers, mixed operation. and like we work was lifestyle. Like the ranch was lifestyle. Okay. And then I quit school when I was 16 to be a blacksmith. I had been doing it since I was about 12. And then just through some mentors and some convincing and maybe badgering, definitely.

To my parents, they let me quit school. I've started doing it kind of full time, I guess, under their roof and then got married. I've just been doing it ever since. So all that I know is. is the, well, what is your lifestyle? Well, that's work. Like, what you come home? Like, you know, what does that mean?

So, in... That's beautiful. That is amazing. But here's the thing is, like, in my particular case, I think I'm going a little bit off your questions, but, or your question, I apologize for that. That's the lovely thing about this. So for me, like, I'm really blessed

because I get to do a whole bunch of different things because I, because as I mentioned at the beginning, It's not just working in the shop that I do all the time. We have a little bit of farmland and we do some cow stuff. And I have a class one, so I will do a little bit of trucking once in a while and all sorts of things. And so there's freedom to do that. I'm around the home and I can spend time with my kids and spend more time with my wife than I could. So even though my work life is intertwined very intimately, the type of thing where you wake up,

in the morning and you're writing invoices and emails and you go to bed at one in the morning and you're writing invoices and emails even though that's happening all the time there's so much freedom for me throughout the day to be doing the things that maybe otherwise like a nine to five guy would would have time to do more or less leisurely things in the evening or spending time with his family doing what needs done around the house and flexible scheduleness we can drop everything and go here but as long as we try and organize our life productively, you know, that's really good. And I, and there's nothing wrong with, I don't think there's anything wrong with the work, life being intimately intertwined as long as you are,

well, again, as a Christian, my first duty is actually to seek first the kingdom and all the things, the clothing and the food will, that God provides that. So my, my duty is actually in everything that I do, I want to do glory to God. And that means, like, making, in the case of my blacksmithing, making nice hammers and getting people there products on time, which I fail at often, charging people fair prices, that like all of the, all the things that go into running a business, that's, I'm trying to do those things, seeking first the kingdom and obeying Christ. And as long as, and then that includes the time that I'm spending with my family and how I

I lot that and how I arrange that. So I'm not saying that that can get imbalanced. Just in my case, man, I'm really blessed. I wouldn't have it any other way. And I guess it's quite a privilege that I haven't had to have it any other way yet. That day may come about. There's no obligation on God's Providence to keep that running for me, you know. But that's how it's been so far.

Would you do anything else? Like, you know, you wouldn't have it any way, any other way, like you say. No. Same? Yeah, no, I wouldn't have any other way. I mean, I can really relate to, like, I love the work that I do. And then the tax and the bookkeeping is the part that I don't like. And the invoicing and just whatever.

Yeah, those are the things that I do at one in the morning. Yeah. Because I'm like, I have to do this. Yeah. And so you just do it when you don't have, yeah, when everyone's in bed. Yeah. And I'm going to encourage you guys, do that when kids are in bed. You get home, spend that time after they go to bed, then sit down at the computer.

It's discipline. I mean, because that's the sucky part about running your own business. Yeah, I haven't done that very well. But what he was saying was like doing everything. Like I also think like even, even work, like we have this mentality that work is a bad thing. And again, going back to the biblical worldview, Adam was commissioned to till the garden. to cultivate the garden before the curse. You know, before they had sin.

Like, work is not a bad thing. Like, work is a good thing. We're actually designed to work. God created us to work. And so if we're always trying to have leisure, like, we need to love work. We need to, and if we don't love our work, like, I'm not saying you need to get a new job.

We need to love the one that you have. Like, like love is a choice. Yes, sir. Like we need to just love the work that we have and do it. Like we're not, yeah, it's okay. Just be really good at whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah, and I don't want to steal that thunder, but I would just want to reiterate too

because I didn't say it in my little spiel. Because it sounds often when I talk like I just did that, like, man, Ethan has it so good because he has a job that he loves. And that is that I was passionate about from a young age and all that. And that is a real blessing. I'm not discounting that at all. But I have people say like, man, that's the key to life. need to have your job that you're just that your passion you got to whatever your passion is you do

that and as uh the wise mike row has said that's actually terrible advice it's not even though i have the great privilege many people do of of being able to do um not whatever they want because there is a lot of things that i don't want to do that i have to do so that's not what i'm saying at all and people do are disillusioned about that that it is going to be everything but that that that's not the key to life or even good. It's that what has been provided for you and what your job is, that's what you need to take joy in that and love that. That's your provision, man.

Yeah. No, you're right, guys. I'm glad to hear this because, I mean, it's nice hearing, it's a nice hearing this because, you know, we work with our hands. We care. I take things personal. When a job doesn't go right, I take it personal. It's always been personal.

But yet, I'm also a businessman. And I have to walk this fine line. I have to treat people properly. I have to watch my supplies coming in. I mean, just like everybody else. You have to watch dollars and cents. We're coming into some insane instability. Insane instability.

And it needs to happen because we stopped the small little recessions for years. Now we get to have a good depression coming. And we're watching our world change. Absolutely. Your world is changing. we're all, it's all changing right in front of her eyes, dude. And I agree, I agree that those things are coming. What I, what I also, though, think is that we have to look at like, what did it, how much energy are we putting out to keep the lights on now?

Mm-hmm. Versus what we did, you know, a hundred years ago, right? Like, like, we really like to look at inflation and, and hate it. And I do. I do as well. But, but at the same time, like, we are, like, we have a lot of leased. Like we can you can go to I don't know 25 different restaurants in this town and order All kinds of different things like we can do like we are we are extra like we have a lot of leisure a lot of leisure in our in our culture and society now

Whereas but like a bike costs way less now than it did for our wages compared to You know what what a bike costs like a hundred years ago if you were gonna buy a bike you were a pretty special guy you had a bike you could go places faster than everyone else maybe maybe it's not a hundred years probably more than a hundred years ago but there's a sense where we're like we actually get way more for our money now than we used to not short term long term I'm talking I'm talking if you if you zoom way out 30,000 feet if you look at it in the scope of like 30 years yeah no in 30 years it sucks but if you if you look

longer. If you look bigger, bigger picture, then things are cheaper than they used to be. But cheaper, yes. Okay, I remember when I, I graduated in 1992. And there was a Canadian furniture industry, Canadian auto industry. We made everything in Canada. I'm a floor guy. We made carpet. We made Lionel. We do it. Now, this still is some of that stuff being made, but not much of it. Everything was made in Canada. And if you bought it made in Canada, the table that was made in Quebec, Solid wood, right? Solid wood, baby. Oh, yeah, you paid for it.

You paid for it. But that table would last you, 50, 60 years. We were promised when I was graduating, we're going to, we're going to, free trade is going to be this thing that is going to be the greatest because we're going to get Mexico to make all this stuff now.

And all we have to do is the buying and the service industry, right? We have to do the high-tech stuff. That's what was promoted. Don't go into the trades for God's sakes. Don't you ever do that, because you want to be in computers, because you are going to be the smart ones. So then all our industries went down to Mexico.

And then China took the Mexico industry right over. Oh, yeah, I can buy a table for a lot less. But we all have crappier jobs from this whole thing. I'm old enough to have seen this. I watched our industries go from quality products, good food, to mass production. Yeah, it is cheaper. My dad bought his first house for $32,000 in the lower mainland. It came on the market two years ago and it sold for $1.6 million.

That is not inflation. You know, I mean, so I mean, yes, that's why. Why do you think I don't live out in the lower mainland? That's the reason why. I watched our industries get outsourced. I watched our tradespeople get out. get outsourced. If I was living in Calgary right now

and I needed to hire subcontractors to do my work, they would all be Turkish guys. Some are good. Most of them are horrid. Not only they're horrid to the customers, they don't know what they're doing because the standards of our trades have gone way down, way down, way down, way down.

And it's not because they're Turkish. It's not because they're Turkish. It's because they never learned the skills. It was never instilled in them. My dad used to take guys from BCIT and he would, you know, I'm ticketed. I'm probably the last ticketed guy alive. Our industry is not ticketed. It was personal.

We knew what we were doing. We did high skill stuff, high in, and then we would go into that little dive house and clean up their bathroom and do it all with a smile because treating people is what it's all about, guys. It's what it's all about. But I have watched the caliber of installation. If we could not run our business, if I did not have my older brother. and myself, and maybe fingers crossed, my nephew might come out to Alberta one day.

Because I cannot hang my shingle out to say we do quality work. There is nobody left that can do that quality of work. The training is gone. Like in our trade, like in our trade, in our industry. I hear this with carpenters. Like if you know anybody who's going out of school, get them to become a carpenter. A carpenter's around our area, they're in their 60s. There's nobody left.

Somebody needs a pole barn built. Good luck. When I graduated from high school, there were more carpenters than you knew what to do with. Like, in fact, that was a stupid job because there were so many carpenters, you couldn't make money. The roles have reversed. So in our industry, because where we are, we import a lot of stuff from China. You know, our floor products are made in China. And the first thing, the good news, guys, I wanted to let you.

Something's changing. they're starting to make this stuff in North America again. Thank goodness. It's expensive, but they're starting to. But you see, I remember the time when we used to make everything. Then we outsourced it all. Then everything got cheap. But our jobs got crap here.

It was this weird thing. I sit and I talk with my brother about stuff like this because he's older than me. So he remembers stuff before. And we're talking about this, just going, how does a young person get going and get started? You know, I, I, I wait, I keep up at night thinking about how my son's going to manage in the world. Well, he can't do the things that we did. That world does not exist. It's changing right in front of our eyes.

And it's guys like you that are going to be that ballword that will take us into the future because you guys got it. You have no idea how happy it makes me feel to hear that because these values of work is not a sin. Getting your hands dirty is actually a good thing. Oh yeah, it is. Yeah. But you said something else there. You said get started. Yeah.

And that is the problem with a ton of people is that they never start. They never start. They never actually start. They're like, oh, there's no hope. And I'm not even going to start. There's no hope. So I might as well just sit and wallowing it. Like they're like Eeyore, you know, and it's like, no, like start.

Just start. But our kids, like, okay, my oldest graduated from school, okay? He's training 20 tomorrow of all things. He came out of school with COVID, all that wonderful stuff, locked down. He came out with a grade 10 education if he's lucky. That's how bad it actually was. Good on you for homeschooling, my friend. Because I'm eyeballing.

I don't homeschool. I raise my own children. You raise your own kids. Hashtag Deuteronomy 6. Like Rich Dad. When Rich Dad was on, that story you had on with Rich Dad, I tell you, my heart just almost exploded. Shout out to Crypto Rich because he had a lovely... Crypto Rich, there we go.

He's got a lovely accent. Baboons don't raise their, you know, baboons don't give away their kids. Elephants, just the way his voice was, I'm like, this is... Yeah. Unschooling is what Crypto Rich does. And I'm thinking that with my two youngest ones. We're going to put them in school for a little bit. and then I'm watching.

And if I'm keeping him in school, I'm teaching them philosophy. I'm teaching them the things that they will never learn in that school. I don't know if I want to homeschool. I'm going to figure this out. Here's a question. Or I shouldn't say, just raise your kids and live with them. That's awesome.

Tucker Carlson, I'll go back to Tucker. He was talking about his childhood and how his dad and stepmom's house because his mom laughed. they used to have unique guests over to the table all the time. Now, we're talking like CIA. We're talking like some crazy stuff. But he said they used to have like five hour chats. I'm like, five hours is a bit much.

But like at the same time, I'm like, how do you foster that? You just invite people into your house and cook a meal and just see what happens. Is that how that's done? Like, I say that and I'm like, I think I know how it's done. But at the same time, I'm like, it sounds really stupid the way I just said it because I'm like, it feels like it's a lost art almost. To invite people into your house have this welcoming atmosphere where the kids sit around they sit and listen to this like larger than life discussion Because that's what Tucker's pointing out like that sounds lovely I like to sit at that table

I think you've been to my house I think we had macaroni and wieners yes we did yeah and I mean my kids would have loved it I enjoyed our conversation yeah and I mean and my kids did too like they they they really like how Joey Joey teased you about being a third grade school teacher somehow. I don't know how he worked that in there, but they thought that was great. They still laugh about that. Of course they do.

Yeah, all right. Joey enters the conversation again. He's going to love that. Well, it is his blue-collar round table, isn't it? True enough. True enough.

Do you guys have customers that come into your shop? Do you talk to them? Occasionally. Yeah. You know, that's what I was in my introduction. I have a few customers that buy they buy wheat berries from me. Wheat?

Yeah. Berries. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So for years, we called wheat. Yeah. It was called wheat berries. They were called wheat.

Now we call it grain. Yeah. And there was a time when it was called, they called it wheat berries. So they called grain wheat or like wheat? Yeah, instead of calling it. Yeah.

And that's what I was talking about where I want to sell food to people instead of commodities to corporations. Ah. And so that's, I don't actually have. Like my customers are Saudi Arabia. Yeah. And so no, I don't really get them in my,

and I mean, I do a bit of custom farm work. So, I mean, I have a few people that I, you know, do some work for. But most of my customers, no, I don't know them at all. Yeah. And so I don't know what that looks like. I mean, I do have a few customers that I sell grain to. And they grind it right before they're going to use it. whereas everybody else, you know, takes their bananas home and they peel them

and they set them on the counter, which is what we do with flour. We completely wreck it. Then we put it in a bag and we take all the good stuff out and we put a bunch of bad stuff in it. And then we go and put it in the shelf in the store. And we should be grinding it and using it because it's more of a berry than it. It doesn't actually keep when you grind it. You need to use it right away. and so that's what I'm talking about when I want to sell food to people.

I want to sell grain to Mr. Hunter here. I would need to buy some of that grain, please? Yeah. And so then he can grind it and actually have food instead of like whatever it is. You talked about it. The food is garbage. Our food is junk. Well, did you listen to, you know, going back, geez, I've been toting a lot of Tucker Carlson.

Oh, my. That last one you called. Him and the siblings talking about how big tobacco bought. egg. Big egg, essentially, big food production and made it as addictive and cheap as what they'd done with cigarettes to get population-knucked on it. Very, very interesting, right?

You walk through the grocery store. You don't have to, you can like whatever you want to like. Just look at where all the healthy stuff, and then look what all junk they put right before you walk out and how many aisles are dedicated to absolute junk. All listeners need to listen to that one. That one kept me up at night. Well, sugar is eight times more.

podcast kept me up at night. Really? It bothered me because I knew they were right. And I had to adjust how I thought. And just so I'm going to... You know, it was really good. I mean, okay, guys, you know, city people have no concept of the food they put in their mouth.

They have no idea. You know, they think it just miraculously comes out the ground and goes to the grocery store the next day. Well, I watched documentaries and I literally see farmers saying things like, oh yeah, no, we spray our wheat five times with glyphosate. Callie and Casey means the truth about Ozempic, the pill, and how big pharma keeps you sick. Bravo. Yeah, that's Tucker Carlson.

Sorry, just in case somebody's looking for that. And I don't like to cry. I don't like to cry. You know, kidding, right? I don't think, I think I just sat down in a meeting today with a company out of the States, and they were talking about how Tucker Carlson is now the number one podcast in the world. So there you go. He went and listening to him talk about how.

he once again I'm he he I don't know when it happened where he jumped Joe Rogan for me but he's jumped Joe Rogan for me and he talked about making fun a podcast why would anyone want to do that and now he loves it and he goes I don't know when I'm ever going to stop doing three episodes a week and I'm like I know that feeling sitting here at 38 going can I I can probably do this until I'm like 70 you know like what's actually going to stop me of talking to people I stopped talking about things people want to hear about, I guess. And then I have a real choice if I actually like it or not, right? Which I started before anyone's listened to me.

So I go back to Tucker and what he's talking about. And he's bang on on a lot of things that are not really that shocking. Lots of people have been talking about it. But he's finding new people to come on and really shock the world, right? Like, you know, big tobacco buying that. I don't know if I'd ever really thought about it, but him saying it and you start to understand, oh, that's what you're up against. Like they're really playing psychological and, you know, like physiological games with the human race.

Yeah. I mean, your food. If you are going to make good food, that is the fuel of the fire. Bad feud, bad food, bad fire. You're not going to be able to smell. You won't be able to do anything. We are a human furnace. We put in crap.

You're going to get out crap. And we have the ability. I bought a cow off our hutterites. We have a new way. In hannah, we have eight hutter-rate colonies right in our place. Some are good. Some are not so good, but we have one colony. And these guys produce, you know, they have a market garden.

We buy all our produce for them because I'm not going to lie to you guys. I got no time for a garden. I just don't. But I want that good food. And I can get that good food. I can get it from them. And I have a relationship with them. I can hunt their fields.

You know, we have a great thing going. I've bought hogs off them. I bought cattle off of them. We have the ability to get good quality food. You do not have that ability when you go to a grocery store and you are buying what they call meat. It is actually that bad guys. Like when COVID started,

I moved myself out of the foreign business completely because the whole market stopped for us. All the buildings closed, so because they were all quarantined and all my buildings were multiple-story buildings. So how am I going to work? they won't let me in so my neighbor across the street said

you have your security clearance right and I said yes I do he goes perfect you can help me put in security systems and grocery stores so that's what I did I went on the road all across Canada from end to end from you know it was in the maritimes in Quebec all over the place when nobody was flying on airplanes I was on an airplane

all by myself wearing a mask like an idiot there we go that was me and we were doing this stuff and I was in grocery stores watching people and I see how the whole whole market and how it's just a beehive of activity of how items are stocked and everything. And I'm looking at this whole thing. And I'm looking at going, all this food is crap. You know, like these, you know, I was in the city. So I'm like, I am a slave to this.

I am part of this. I'm taking money from this industry to some extent. And you're watching it. You're looking at it. You go, you wonder why our people are angry and crazy. It's because they're carbs and sugar and pros and high fructose corn syrup. Oh, that's what I've said. The cool thing, I'd be curious to know, Ethan, when you talk about bad fire, I just want to bring in that for a quick second. Is there such thing as a bad fire in the forge? Do you have to do it a specific way to get the best heat, fire, I don't know.

Can you just, because I find that analogy really interesting. Sure. That is a cool analogy. I don't think I can do it justice to really, like, add to the, metaphor that you were trying to do, but it certainly is true. Like, okay, most of my forging is done in a gas forge, like production forging, and I do coal forging stuff too, you know, especially for demos and when people want to smell coal and I like the smell of coal, but in all honesty, I can't.

Wait a second. Isn't coal bad? Isn't coal bad? Isn't it bad? I don't know. Are you eating it? Bad for what? Forgive me.

Forgive me. Once upon a time, an old house, there was houses out in the Hillmont area that used to run on coal for heat. And you just, it was just a funny statement because I like, I like to smell of coal. And I'm like, in my head, I'm like, I don't know if I've ever smelled coal burning. I'm like, I'm sure I have, maybe? I don't know. Have I? I don't know.

I'll tell you what coal is good for. It's that when the power goes out and it's 40 below and you live an hour from the city, that the coal sure, the little bit of coal smell sure smells good in the stove when it's burning and keeping the house warm, which has been a reality for us, literally, you know, last winter. So does coal make carbon? Pardon? When you burn coal, does it make carbon? Like CO2? Yeah. It is carbon. It is. Carbon. Emissions. Never heard of her. You know, talking about raising my own children, we went, we went and visited my parents. My mom was doing cancer treatments down in Scott's She's doing great now.

So we're driving through Nevada and I take it we stop and I take a scoop of like this. It's like sand and like garbage rocks and shells and like the soil is just a mess like it's nothing's living there. And I picked a handful of it up and I looked at my son and I was like, what does this dirt need? More carbon. It needs more carbon. It needs it needs some some dirty stuff. It needs to take the pollution out of the air and pull it into the plants and put it into the ground. And it actually could become viable soil.

Interesting. But we need more pollution in order to make. We've got to burn some tires. We've got to burn some tires. Isn't that crazy? It's weird because outside of Hannah, we have a 800 megawatt power generation plant, right? And shearness plant. We do some contract work in there.

And it's hilarious because, I mean, I get to see what the power grids do. and all these things. And the guys in the control room love their jobs. And they're more than happy to give you a tour of what goes on. I mean, I've seen every broomcloths in that place because I had a guy who was in that business for 30 years. He was there the day one, they opened this plant up in the 80s. And he's been there, and he showed me everything.

And it was a, they built this plant right on a coal scene. So they built this plant where the coal was. And it was really shallow, low-grade coal, but it was good to burn. They have a little conveyor belt that goes over Highway 36. So they have all this space dedicated into this plant for coal because they were burning coal. Well, that coal scene was going out. It was running out. And there's no way in the world in Alberta that even, I don't care if we would have had the previous government to the NDP.

They wouldn't have approved another coal mine. They were all covering their butts with CO2. So they converted it to natural gas. No big deal. So great. There is a big natural gas pipeline that goes right by the plant. They added 50 feet of line. Boom.

Now they've turned a coal burner into a natural gas burner. And yeah, you see a little bit less stuff coming out the stack. Yeah, you do. But they had great scrubbers. They had a lot of stuff. Like it was. It was clean. It was.

Yes, it was a state of the art. It was clean. They ran the natural gas. But what they got is they got all this coal that hasn't turned into coal yet. And it's called Humolite. And it's a fertilizer. It's a carbon sink. and they got mountains of this stuff.

So a company, they shut the mine down. And, you know, oh, everyone's going to be out of work, you know, okay. But then there's these guys trying to market a natural product called Humulite. And you put it on your soil, you put that stuff on your soil, you will have years of production. Not just one. You will have multiple years because it's the black stuff that makes our black soil awesome. It's cold that hasn't turned into coal yet. Mountains of it.

It's a natural product. And they're trying to market this stuff. It's great. You know, here again, they shut down on this coal plant. Oh, coal's so dirty. And yet this coal over here that hasn't turned to coal, this is clean coal. And it will make your garden grow? And oh, will it make your garden grow?

Don't put it on your grass unless you want to mow it twice three times a week. Carbon, right? You know, it's silly. So I'm going to go all the way back to what I was asking Ethan about. Is there what is in a bad fire then? It's funny. We jumped here. I just want to clarify a clarifying question.

Welcome to a round table. I love it. That was very interesting, by the way. I really appreciate that. So when you're asking about a good fire, do you want me to like go off into like metaphor land? Are we trying to build a metaphor here? Or do you want like just practical boots on the ground?

Like, hey, how do I build a good forge fire? I'm just, I'm just like. I'm just like. I'm just like. You know, like, do you just stick in some wood and away you go? Or is it like way more? You got to have the right amounts of certain things. and boom, you got a perfect fire.

A perfect forge. Okay, so, okay, so let's say that we're using a coal forge. So first of all, it's almost imperative to have the right kind of coal for forging, and that is bituminous coal. And it's stuff, we don't have the proper kind of coal for forging. Like, you can get by with Alberta coal. Or I'm going to qualify that. Actually, out of the crow's nest pass, there's the best forging coal, metallurgical coal, in the world.

I don't have access to it. Who does? That's a good question. I don't. So they're not mining it's what you're saying? Yeah. I have a who works there. And it all goes to China.

China owns the mountains. And they dump it in the water, don't they? And they dump it. What do you mean they dump it in the water? It's the cheapest place to store it? What? But they use it to forge steel to make their steel in China. Yeah.

But they dump coal in the ocean like off the shore? I think so to store it. I hope I'm thinking of the same story. But I'm, yeah. Well, some low grades of coal have to be stored outside of oxygen. Because it was explained to me at the power plant. They have the coal, but it's really crappy coal. If they put that in the real car and rattled it and tried to run it somewhere,

it'd catch on fire in the car. So Crow's Nest Pass has the best coal under the sun, and it's all going to China, and they're storing it there and then using it for their own. Okay. Yeah. And it just, I'm sorry, but the reason it didn't come to mind when I said, Alberta doesn't have good coal is because like, oh, I can't get it. Right? Like when I think

Alberta. The best coal in the world we can't get because we've given it to a different country. Yeah. Like it's comparable or it's, I think it's better than this stuff. Doesn't that just sound about right? Yeah. It doesn't shock me. So it's actually my wife's uncle, but I was talking to him yesterday. We were at a, we were at a funeral. We talked about this before we went on. And so I was talking to him and he said that there's this mountain that he's been, because he's, he's been hired there to drive a truck calling coal. And the mountain's getting small. all the time. Like they're just,

they're pulling the hills down. And he said there's train cars in there and all of the coal, none of it stays here. It all goes straight to the coast, gets put on a boat and no one here is allowed to have it because China owns the land.

They own the rights to it. They own the land. It all goes to them. And then so when I tell them, you know, I was listening to a podcast a few days ago and our trucking is all, 80% of our trucking is owned

by another country. Foreign nationals. I'm talking about the last roundtable. So we have, we have our, and I'm not against the people. Again, it's not, it's the way, it's fundamentally the way we do things. They're exploiting our nation as maybe, I don't know, the United States has exploited other nations. Right. And we're just busy playing video games.

Honestly. Like, we're just, we're just busy, like, with leisure. We're busy, you know, worrying about our sides that we order at the restaurant. which I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy things. Like I think we should. I'm just saying that we're not actually. Well, you keep enjoying things and doing nothing else though. Yeah, we're not willing to get dirty.

I think there's more and more people willing to get dirty. Yeah. I agree. Oh, I agree. Oh, fire. Fire. Give me some fire. Okay, and I apologize.

Some of my jokes make me sound as ignorant as I look with these punt and mutton chops. So I apologize, especially when I'm talking about coal. But I don't know. I, anyways, okay, you want to know about a fire. So coal's hard to light. You need to start with a small wood fire, or you can use pine cones or whatever in the forge. And then once you heat up this, we call it green coal, like just when it comes out of the ground, hasn't been refined or anything, natural resource, green coal. And I believe that's because the smoke that comes off of it is green, thick, green, stinky.

And once all of the impurities in the coal, like the sulfur, for example, is burnt off. the carbon in the, you're left with a pure carbon fuel source and it kind of expands, bubbles up into something called Coke, which is the refined coal. And that basically happens in your firepot, in your forge as you're working. You bring in the green coal from the side, it smokes and burns off the impurities or the sulfur with a yellow flame and you're left with an almost pure carbon

clean burning blue flame fuel source. Like the type of. flame that comes off of a blow torch when you turn it on. Very clean, very hot. And so for a while, you have a very, you have, uh, with like with a hillbilly forge or an old-fashioned forge that you find it at a farmstead in Alberta with a hand crank blower on it to supply air, you're easily going to reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit that'll melt any steel that you find anywhere, like that hot. And then soon, maybe within 30 minutes, you're going to get clinkers that form a round where the air is coming up in the bottom, and clinkers are like a radiator in an engine.

They're spiky, they have lots of little points, and so they suck out heat. That's the gist of it, is they pull heat out. And so you've got to dig your clinkers out once in a while and get the ash out of there, and then other than that, you just keep, you never put fresh coal in the middle of the fire because it just smokes and burns a yellow flame. It doesn't burn hot, but you bring it in from the side. it refines it as you're working and you bring it closer to the middle

and you have coke to burn. There you go. And you can buy, there are facilities that control burn coke or burn coal in a, I don't know if it's even called burning, but basically in an oxygen-depraved environment and just to make coke itself for like iron making processes

where they just want the pure coke for burning for getting steel really hot. So, yeah, there you go. Okay, one more cool fact is that there's such thing as petroleum coke, too. In fact, I think there's a ton of it that's made here in Lloydminster in some plant. I was talking to the guy the other day. Mark Ainslie probably. Pardon?

Was it Mark Ainsley? Yeah, yeah. So. He always tells me about Coke as well. Yeah, yeah. Sounds amazing. I've forged with it a little bit, and it's been a few years since I have, and I don't really remember, but I think it works very good, too.

And there's lots of it. So, yeah, there's such thing as petroleum coke. There you go. That's a really... I learned something. Thank you for having me here. Well, one of the... Sorry, you asked a blacksmith question about blacksmithing. But here... I'll go hide under the rock.

Here's the thing that out of that question came the fact that the cleanest coal in the world is owned by China. We're shipping it all out of here. That's wild to me. It started with you talking about the human body and how if you put, you know, it's going to get bad things out of what you put in your body. It can deal with it. Our bodies are wonderful machines, but maybe not machines, but you know, organism, I don't know, whatever word you want to stick there. But the thing is, I was going to, you threw out that analogy, I'm like, I got to get a blacksmith to answer that. And then I was going to say the lovely thing when it comes back to the body is how quickly you can change things and adjust and see, like you want to change your next 30 days.

Just start, you know, like the simple things, food journal. see how you feel off every food, off drinking, off anything, not enough water, too much water. I don't know if there's such a thing. Probably is. And you'll start to see trends. Once you see the trends, okay, eliminate some things. You'll see new trends and on and on.

It's a lovely little experiment. You can do it on yourself. You don't need anybody else's help. The comparison to a fire, I'd never really thought about it. But, you know, you think of different types of wood and how they burn and how long they burn, how quick. I'm like, oh, actually, that does make sense. The fact that China owns the coal mine does not shock me.

But it kind of is like, where are we? heading as a nation. I don't know. I got one final one before I let you guys out of here because one of the things I got to do better when it comes to a blue color roundtable is I got to take us all for lunch first so we can we can prep the, you know, you talked about Ethan's talking about you know, you build a little, you get the pine cones in and you let them up and you got to heat it up first so that it gets going. And as the conversation's gone on, I don't know, it feels like it's not gotten better. More natural might be the word. And I am curious right now. So I'm learning a lesson here. I'm going to have you in the earlier next time. I'm going to take you for lunch and then

we'll do this. Booming or is it tight right now? In your industries, I drive down the streets of Lloyd and I look everywhere and I don't know, in the middle of COVID, I saw tons of houses for sale, like every fourth house. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not much. Now what I see is tons of vacancies and office buildings and commercial. Curious. Got three different guys from three different areas working in three different parts of the kind of, you know, in our respective provinces. What do you see out there?

And what would you say? Boom. Or is it, you know, bust? Paul, you alluded to at one point like we're going for a big depression. Yeah. Sure. Okay, mine's going to be kind of a different answer maybe than most. small businesses in Alberta because the majority of the money that I make doesn't come out of

Alberta actually. I sell most of my wares to the states and other places and in Canada to an extent. Yeah. So because my bread and butter, or at least for years has been for years as a young guy, but like for the years that I've had the business has been selling blacksmith tools. So I sell tools to blacksmiths and ferriers and knife makers and a lot of a lot of that demographic is in the state, so that's where a lot of it goes. So like during COVID, weirdly enough, was really great for me. I mean, I taught blacksmithing classes too. And so during COVID, there was kind of a, that put a little bit of a hiccup in the program, but most people that wanted to take classes from me didn't care. So they weren't too worried about social distancing. Right. Right.

They were probably, yeah. The coal smoke in the shop is literally a bigger threat in the COVID. So, anyways, I had a, you know, by God's grace, I had a good time through COVID. Didn't really change the lifestyle at all. That was fine. And because, and so to tack on to that, the reason that people are buying those tools from me in America and in other places in the world is because a lot of my marketing, if you want to call that, hardly feels, it doesn't feel like that, is, I guess, social media marketing. Like, I make YouTube videos and do the Instagram and stuff. And so there's a direct correlation in my business at the moment to how much content I publish online and how many sales I get. And the quality of the content and how many sales I get.

So that's something, I've steadily been trying to work my way out of that into more of contract work, industrial type work, doing stuff for, oh, everything from BC Hydro Powerline work and machine shop stuff, even fixed. farmer stuff because there's so many things that a blacksmith can help with that your regular old either machinist or welding shop is doesn't want to touch. So even getting into that, something that I would rather do because that is more sustainable on an economy that is not based largely on people's surplus income and hobbies and things like that. So even though that's been my business up until this point, trying to go a little bit different direction. At the moment, I've had one of those kind of blessed spikes in online kind of content stuff that has has brought me plenty of work and so I'm thankful for that. So that's that's kind of how my business is set up and why it is affected a little different

land. You're in a different landscape than most. Okay, fair enough. Caleb? I'm going to talk about COVID as well because during COVID, you know, we had a government that was printing money, bucket loads of money. And when you make money, out of thin air, commodities go way up in price. And so grain was, we were selling grain for, you know,

more than double what we can now. So yeah, like it's, I would say bust. Like there's, we're, you know, our inputs are up.

Our machinery costs are up. Land is up. But I'm assuming they've stopped printing money, at least for the time being, because our commodities have really, they've flatlined. like hard. Like we're not we're selling

we're selling commodities for for you know kind of break even break even costs with the yields that we have. I mean if you have you know above average yields there's definitely some you can make some money. Yeah. So I would say I would say

we're seeing a bit of bust like we're seeing I think farmers are going to be cautious for a while but that would be my opinion just because grain prices are there was a while you could sell canola for 2850 I think it was a couple days you'd sell

canola for 2850 a bushel and now we're 12 we're under 13 you know if you sell into the future but you can get 13 bucks so I mean that's a pretty big difference right yeah

and 28 like to be honest was was a little better than I thought it was kind of too good to be true. It was more than we needed. How about you, Paul? I mean, okay, we're construction. So we do construction.

Like, you were talking in COVID. I got ahead of the game in COVID. I'm one that's always trying to look ahead. I don't look at the past. What's the next gig? What's the next thing? How could I get up? Because, I mean, my family's income, like,

of ours, our family income is completely tied to me not having my head up my ass. Fair enough. I mean, honestly, because we can get so caught up in the moment and saying this is where we are today, as a man and a leader of my house and a leader of my tribe, I must lead my tribe. I must look ahead. I mean, we have to. Dads, we have to. But in my business, I have to. And what I am seeing and knowing is We do floors. We are at the tail end of the construction. The last thing that usually comes into any house is the floors. We also aren't an essential service.

You know, you have a, you know, plumbers, essential service, electrician, essential service. Floors are a luxury. You got to, yeah, you got to walk on them. But you can walk on the bear, you know, we sell a luxury item. We sell some good effective ones, cost effective, but in the end of the day, you can live in your house and survived the winter if you didn't have flooring. I am watching businesses go broke everywhere. Large business.

I'm actually, before I was sitting here eating, I was watching some of the auctions of me buying people's inventory for cents on the dollar. Biggest companies that you would think they will never go broke, they're going broke. If they're carrying high inventory and high debt, they're going broke. gentlemen do not carry debt now do everything in your power to get rid of it that's why we left airdry we moved to hannah i reduced my footprint my debt my creditors couldn't believe we were doing it oh boy am i glad i did it because when these guys are all selling for cents and dollar i'm going to be

buying because we don't carry debt in our company but sadly the vancouver market completely imploded my product all get in um they all come from container ships from China they enter the port they all come out there the Vancouver market was explosive growth explosive growth there's nothing happening nothing in Vancouver the foreign money is all that laundered foreign money that's been dumped in the Vancouver Toronto and Calgary is leaving Calgary is still experiencing some you know housing prices are still up there Here is the way I tell how an economy is going. Tomorrow morning, I have to drive into one of my suppliers in Calgary.

It's a warehouse. All they do is flooring. It's it. It is a massive warehouse. 50 feet high racks that go all the way 50 feet high, probably 100,000 square feet. Three years ago, every rack was full of stuff. It is empty. There's nothing in that warehouse, which means flooring is not.

not being sold. If Florian is not being sold, it means furniture is not being sold. It means drapery, cosmetic stuff isn't being sold. It means people are clinging to their money and they're going to go for the essentials. People are holding their breath. And what I am watching and I'm expecting and I'm looking at it and I'm preparing for it is I'm preparing for a big, big crash because it needs to happen. Because the way we've been doing things is wrong. You know, the debt we've been carrying is wrong. And the house prices, nobody can afford to buy these houses.

Nobody can't. I'd have never left Vancouver area if I could have afford to live out there. People are crazy, but the place is nice. I never left. But yet, I'm watching our industry absolutely change before my eyes. I talked to my suppliers and I ask them, how is shipping? I was trying to get stuff shipped. Couldn't get it shipped.

Well, why? Because that Houthi's shooting ships going through the Suez Canal has stopped the shipping. The shipper companies have just completely held back. And even though we don't go from there, it affects us. I heard an interesting one this morning. WestJet. They're starting to shrink to the major lines, one. And I was like, oh, they're not, you know, not enough people flying.

shortage of pilots. I've heard that they've been asking different places to prop them up if you would. I don't know how better to say it, but you know, you want us to fly to your town or fly this flight. You have to incentivize us. So that probably means paying them to do it. And you hear things like that. And all I can think of and forgive me audience for saying this again is Atlas Shrugged.

I just read that book and I read Fountainhead and I just keep coming back to our industry is going through a monumental shift right now. You know, it's why I think these chats are so important because these voices aren't being heard or very rarely. And yet when you get into the tight circles, you know, one of the goals of the Cornerstone Forum is to like, okay, this is what's coming. I'm looking a year out.

If you can look further, great. What's the next year look like? What does a guy got to do to be the man of his house to an order to, you know, safe, around a bad storm because they're coming and they come every year some are just worse than others and when you talk about it that way and you start to piece together what what's going on in all the industries it's like well prepare for something and how and everybody's going to do that in different ways right like Ethan starts off with my business is actually doing quite well because it's

it's it's it's got a large market in the United States that's what I hear and I you know and I go interesting yeah it's doing just fine for just a little one man, you know, hillbilly in the hills. Sure. Well, and I think of the SMP podcast. It's doing pretty good for a hellbelly living in Lloyd Minster, you know? Like, but you're watching what's going on with people starting to contract and contract and contract. You start to listen to different guys on, usually X is where I turn to talking about how many people are using the food banks. How many people are, you know, going to the essentials alone.

and you wonder in all of our communities, you know, like I interviewed, when I used to do archive interviews on this podcast, I did 49 of them in Lloyd. I interviewed the older generation. So we're talking anywhere from 60, but majority of them were 80 and older, for the most part, 75 and older,

and they talked about the 80s and how dark that time got. And there was a lot of them that I got the sense suicide was contemplated where they were. They lost everything they'd work their absolute tail off to get. And if we can just help navigate some of that by hearing the things and piecing together the story of what's coming next before, you know, moored off some tough times, it's nice to kind of bring together different parts and hear what everyone's seeing. And I don't know.

I hope that makes sense. My dad, my uncle lost their business in that early 80s recession. We went from being rich to poor in a week to go into a food. to going to Valley Village from having everything. We lost. Was that because of debt? What happened in the economy was my dad, if I look at per capita what my dad was making,

an average, I'll just say a guy who was just out there just installing carpet or whatever. He might make $150,000, $200,000 a year. If I figured out what my dad was making with inflation, my dad was making probably close to $700,000 to $700,000 a year, all the trades were. They were breaking it in. The economy shifted and it stopped.

The difference with my dad was, my dad and my uncle had about a very large floor store in the Vancouver market. Okay. Now, I'm a little kid watching this. My older brother knows more because he was, you know, he's six years older than me. Sure. Right? So we talked back and forth.

There's so many things that I just remember, but I don't know why. And my dad is now gone. So I really can't ask them. But the crazy thing was we went from it because my dad, they were selling, they were selling, they were developing these new high towers. And if you ever gone to Vancouver, there's, there's towers everywhere. It's been going on since the 80s. They build up.

So my dad was putting floors in all those buildings on pure credit, pure credit, making off like a bandit. You know, what do you need? I don't care. Just put it in if it's brown. Okay, great. So he would give him a good value. They would do it.

Then one of the guys went broke, one of the towers went broke. And they're like, okay, we're still good. the second guy goes broke that week. They're like, okay, let's circle the wagons. You know, we're now out millions, 80s dollars, millions. We'll be okay. We'll be okay. Third one went broke.

Spent two weeks. Now they're like, we have to give our creditors, we got to start calling some guys to get this. Fourth one goes, done. Spend of two weeks. Done. And we lived at that thing where my dad was had our RV hiding in the United States to hide that asset because it wasn't a great trailer but

they could have taken every single thing we don't my guess is what's coming is like that again if not even worse I I pray that it is not yeah yeah I am actually preparing for my dudes I'm preparing for that get your debt under control get your family's under control and don't be afraid and do not be afraid because these things will end. We are going through a tunnel that we cannot change. We are going through it, guys. I'm sorry, our baby boomer generation was kicking the can down the road. Now it's our can. And we can't kick it down. We are going through this tunnel. Okay. And we will get to that end of it. Oh yeah, we're going to get to it. And it's going to be good for our kids, but it might suck for us. And I'm prepared to have it suck for me. I'll take whatever it takes to get

it so my family can survive and thrive. Can you, um, uh, uh, You said, I'm going to butcher this. You were going through the tunnel. So get your debt in order. Yeah. And then I believe you said get your family in order? Get your family in order. What do you mean by get your family in order?

I love my wife. I hope she's not listening to podcast because now the whole game is over, right? But we've gone through a lot of stuff, guys. If you're listening, please turn it off. Sharon, turn it off now. Okay. We've gone through some nasty things. Really hard things and amazing things, okay?

Gentlemen, it is time to grow a pair. It is time to be a man and lead your family. Because the times that are coming are going to need leaders, men that will stand up to say no. All of all of a sudden, we have to change what we are doing. We have to be flexible, but we have to be a, leader. I'm going to, I really hope Sharon's not listening. On my wedding in our reception, I had this old guy that was one of my wife's family. We had a huge reception. She's a midnight background and they had all these people had no idea. I had an old guy come up to me

and he's like, Paul, you don't know me. I've been married for 60 years. I'm like, wow, 60 years. How does that go? And he goes, oh great. He goes, you know why? I'm married 60 years? No, we're going to, you're going to get kicked off of this. He said, I've never listened to my wife once in 60 years. And I went, huh, really? He goes, I've led my wife for 60 years. And he walked away. One of my other cousins came up, because it's kind of funny, if you want to start hearing banjos, my wife and myself have some similar cousins. And it's one of my other cousins. And it's one of my other came up and said, oh, said he told you to not listen to your wife, eh?

I'm like, yeah. Like, totally shocked, right? You know, totally shocked. And he's like, huh, yeah. He goes, it's good advice. I look, I mean, he's like 20 years older than me. And I'm like, have you done it? You listen, right?

Because his wife is now my cousin, right? So, you know, he married my first cousin. And I'm like, and he's like, you know, when I did, I got into a lot of trouble. My family got in a lot of trouble. guys we're here to lead what I love about my wife she is awesome

oh man you don't mess with her I try to mess with her oh my goodness for 30 years I'm trying to get her angry and it's harder and harder because you've seen all my tricks right but she is a lovely she is put into my life by God women are awesome

and my wife desperately wants to be led in certain areas not all areas there's areas that she runs There's areas I run. We get into friction when, sorry, we get into friction when I go into her area. She goes into my area. We have a division of things. But my wife desperately wants it to be led.

Because if I listen to her, I would be living a safe and boring life. It's not my job to change my wife. And it's not her job to change me. And if she wants to try, she can try. It's going to fail. I love her to do. bits this is the relationship that my wife and myself have we've been better friend we were we knew each other for five years on top of the 30 but yet I love her to

bits I wouldn't know what to do with and I wouldn't divorce her because it would destroy me financially for the rest of my life this is great it's awesome but times are coming and she is going to be looking at me even more to say yeah tough times and so my dudes you're saying to every guy who's listening to like in tough times they're going to look to you that could be your wife that could also be your community members

anybody right because you look for the leaders we have to look for the leaders now we have a choice we can be that we can be that or we can stick her head in the sand yeah we can I would disagree we don't have a choice we are we are called to be that and if we don't do it like we are actually like we do have

We sort of have a choice, but we're completely derelict on our duty. But it's a choice to disobey, not a choice to just do something else. Exactly. It's a, we're choosing to disobey what we were called to do. It still's a choice because you chose, right? Yeah, you chose to disobey, though. It is, I think we're kind of, you know, we're talking kind of that round about, see, like courage, John Wayne. Oh, I love that quote.

Oh my God. I got that in a poster in my office, right? You know, it's being scared to death, you know, it's being scared to death, but still, you got to go out and do it. Now, guys, we need, we need to. to do it because we cannot control this province. We cannot control our country, but we can control our families. And if we're lucky, we can control our communities, our municipalities. We can do that. That is one thing we can all do today. You can be a better dad. You can be a better dad.

Yeah, I guess I probably could too. I'm pretty awesome. You can be a better dad. That is one thing. And you do that today. Your kids will be better kids. And then your community and everybody around you will be better. We can do it, guys. We have to do it. If you choose not to fight, if you choose to be disobedient and not lead, then your kids are going to have to try to muster up the strength to lead. Because we're still going to be in the same problem. We're going to be deferring. We're going to be deferring the problem down a generation. And we should fight now. We should stand up now and lead. Well, and if it gets, you know, if you take what you're talking about, Paul, and you go, are we heading for dark times? And dark times. And dark

doesn't mean COVID dark, man, that was a, that was something. But you talk about economy, right, going into a depression of epic proportions. Is that possible? Well, yes, absolutely it is. And if it is, there's going to be people in your community that probably surprised the heck out of you that hurt from it, that you had no idea, had overextended themselves that didn't realize on and on and on. You know, one of the, one of my, not deep regret, it's part of the reason I started the Cornerstone Forum. I've told the story several times. I'll tell it one more time. What the heck?

Is during the middle of COVID, three older brothers, and we argue a lot, as everybody knows, we do it on the podcast lots. But one of the things we don't ever talk about on the podcast is what we were talking about in the middle of COVID, which was mortgages in the housing market. And we were looking at it, and at that time, it was you could get a five-year fixed in Canada. And for my American listeners, it's different than you. You can lock in for 25 years. We don't have that option.

We can get a 25-year-old. mortgage but we lock it in for five you know and so what we started talking about in that time frame was mortgage has never been this law right could it go lower sure but it only has a percent to go and eventually it's going to go the other way and you look at how much money they were spending and on and on and on and one of the things I did poorly and it's why I started the cornerstone forum is because I wish I would have talked about it because I wish I would have allowed people into my art train of thought is in that time we started talking about 10-year mortgage.

Everybody laughed you out of the building. Banks in Lloyd were like, 10-year, nobody does tenure. And they were like, mortgages are at 1.4-9. Why would you do that? And I'm like, if you can't see what's coming, I don't know how to help you. And so my wife probably could have punched me in the face because I talked about it for like two years. Then we locked into a 10-year.

Now I any bank I walk into, oh, man, you're, wow, you got a great rate. How did you, you know? And yet, we haven't even begun to see the, absolute fallout of five-year fixed mortgage, right? This is the year. And it only gets worse because 2019 to 2024, people waked up, you know, are still waking up in 2024 going, oh crap.

And that was from 2.49-ish. I'm just ballparking to, I don't know, what is it out right now, 5% or in that ballpark? Yeah, and when my wife and I bought her house, it was 1.28%. Right. And 2019, every year we go on, unless something really magical happens and it drops way back down.

It's going to get higher and higher, which means every year people are waking up to the fact they have less disposable income sitting there. So we argued about this for two straight years. And, you know, because of that, locked into a 10-year mortgage. And that's what the Cornerstone Forum, that's what these conversations, that's what podcasting is trying to do, I think, as a conglomerate. Sure, there's entertainment mixed in with a whole. whole bunch of different subjects.

But like there's dark times coming in a different version ahead of us. It certainly looks like an economic one because of the money the government's printed during COVID and you talk about, what is it, 2015, 2008, which one do you want to pick where they just kicked it down the road a little further and a little further? And can we do that again right now? I don't know. Like could it be 2030? Could it be 2040?

I don't know. But it's coming. Is it not? I don't think you can kick. My two terms is you can't kick this thing. We're in it. We're in this thing. Now we're going through it.

Yeah, we are going through it. It's going to go up. I mean, one of the reasons, I mean, we're talking blue collar. Okay, we're talking blue collar. Like, we have an incorporated company. We're in a corporate business. I have access to 25-year mortgages. Not, you know, like I can get a set payment for 25 years if I so choose to.

I have access to different lenders than anybody else who's not incorporated. That's one of the perks of being incorporated. There are, there's a complete. different role to finance. That's why we did this. That's why we, you know, 20 some years ago when we set up our company, this is why we did this. We did it so that way I could get access to different financing that the average person can't. Is my life more complicated? Oh my goodness. Is my life complicated? But, you know, but the crazy thing is there are ways that we can do things to be smarter. If I have to dissolve my company for 20 years, if I need to, I will do it.

you know, I will sacrifice whatever it takes to get through. My dudes, there are lots of things that we can do to get ahead. Oh, yeah, there are. We have to be smarter. We have to talk to our elders who went through those 80s. Ask them. If you know anybody who went through the 80s and lost the business, you ask them. Or go back and listen.

Listen, guys. Because honestly, on this podcast, folks, go back through the archive episodes. And Spiro Coconutus is one that sticks out to me because Spiro's restaurant here. and Lloyd Minster, just search Spiro, and you'll find it. He'll talk about it. And he isn't the only one. There's a ton of them that went through it. And it was easy to ask about him.

What were the 80s like? I mean, geez, it was five years ago, roughly, that I was asking it. And they'll tell you about it. Those people will tell you what the 80s were like, sorry to butt in Paul. No, no, that's exactly it. Now, anybody that's listening. I mean, I will rag on, boomers, whatever. They went through something that was absolutely awful.

Ask them if they know, because the interest rates went up to, 18 to 19% and my dad put mortgages on his house for 19%. Imagine that guys. And the years leading into that, I know I've talked to farmers who say they were paying capital gains tax because they traded their tractor off and their tractor that they already owned was worth more because of the inflation, right? Like it was, they were selling used equipment from, like it because the inflation was so crazy. And they doubted. They adapted. And the guys that adapted did well.

You know, we have the ability to adapt. We all do. Oh, good. Now it's just us. But we have the ability to do it. If we choose to, you could turn this podcast into something absolutely amazing. Because I hate to tell you, brother, it is really good. I really enjoy it.

You can turn it into something amazing. No, no, no, no. Look out, Tucker. You might want to get some stock in this guy. but it's great. The only thing is holding its back is us. This is why I got into business.

I do what I want. Like, I'm not going to lie to you. I hunt 40 days a year. This is what I want. I built my whole business around this. Because I can. I just want to say one thing on the darkness is like, no matter how dark

the 80s were, people got through it. Some got through it smoother than others. And that's the thing I always like to point out, as dark as it was. some people skated through it. I don't mean there wasn't rough days for them, but some of them got through it a lot smoother than others. The world did not end in the 80s, right?

Obviously, we're all sitting here. That is 110% sure, right? Like, we can look back on it and take the lessons they have and just ward off some of the rough times that you don't have to go through if you adjust a few things. Yeah. You're right. No, you're right.

See, it's not the end of the world. The world will not end. what we have around us very well, May, it has to change. We talked justice. We don't have it. I mean, we don't have it. What about health care?

Do we have health care? Oh, it's a joke. But sometimes it's really good. My kid got sick this year. We got in there like Bing, Bang, Boom. But we call the whole thing health care. Yeah. And some of it's not.

You know, you said, Paul, that you can do what you want. Something along that lines. You go hunting 40 days a week. a week a year and um uh okay my final one because i'm i'm not running this long i'm enjoying the conversation i'm laughing i'm like i don't know if jericho knew what he was signing up for today right he walks and he's looking at his wand that's right well well i've seen him nodding as well in agreement i hope he's having a good time um one of the things i did that i didn't i knew at the time uh was a smart choice is i remember this conversation

At the time I was doing the podcast, it was very much focused on sports community. And the idea had been, well, maybe you should just call it like grassroots hockey or something like the very specific. So people understand what you're trying to do. And I remember telling them, no, I'm going to call it my name. And I don't, I've never, I've said this from time to time. I'm not like this, like Sean Newman sounds like, I don't know, like this wild name. It isn't. I don't think it is. I've got to give a shout to my older brother Harley for, for, for,

dubbing at the SMP. It's his idea that turned it into that. But one of the things I remember was the conversation of, no, I'm going to call it my name. That way, whenever I want to change gears, I can go talk about whatever I want to talk about. And if that is politics, I'm going to go talk about politics. And if that's hockey, I'm going to go talk about hockey.

And you can get as mad as you want at me for doing that, but it's me. And if I say something stupid, it's on me. It's not on some far off in La La Land company name. It's one of the one thing. it's one of the few things I look back on and I'm like, man, did I have that right from day one? In your respective businesses, do you have a moment like that where you're like, man, I knew 10 years into the first week of doing what you do, we're going to hold to this course and it's never led you astray?

No. I had to stay the poor. I mean, this was family business. So I knew the industry, right? I knew the industry. I knew where it went. I had my goals. I had the things that I wanted to do.

I mean, I knew the things that I wanted to do personally. And I had to make them happen. I had to plan, I had to scheme. And I had to work for it. Oh, yeah. I had to get in there and work for it. But I knew what I wanted. And I talked it up with my wife.

I talked it up with Sharon. I talked it up with my parents. And my parents really didn't get it. You can't do that. I'm like, I can do it. you watch. I had a plan of what we wanted. It probably took about two years to kind of get to the point where I could see,

ah, yeah, here we go. You know, I have enough income to start doing this, and it's the things that I love to do. It took about two years, but then after that, my Kent would say, boy, you know, if you'd work more days than these days, you could make a whole lot more money. I'd say, yeah, and then I would also be there'd also be a lot more geese flying around that aren't killed.

And I can't sleep at night. that I mean those things got to go and but that's what I wanted to do because I was trapped in a business and I was trapped in an industry of one time that I was a slave I was the wage slave and it was told what to do and I said never again will I ever let that happen to me ever let that happen to me I don't care if I go broke I don't care but I will never be a slave to another man especially a man that I do not respect um we can do a lot of stuff if we want any listener here could could can do what if they want there is hope there is hope but you got to do it well i was just going to let the other two hop in is there been anything in your journey as a business owner

where you got it you know right from you know as little as it could seem i think no um like there's things i do there's things there's practices that i have in my business that uh that that that are that are principles for me that i that i'm not going to uh deviate from but i don't see my my, I don't see my business as, or, or my, even my livelihood. Like, I do think that farming is a lifestyle. But I think that it's, it's bigger than that. I think that we, that we ought to do everything. Like, I, you know, to the glory of God. I think that we should, I think that when we fast, we should fast to the glory of God. When we feast, we should feast the glory of God. When we work, no matter what it is that we do for work, we should do it as under the Lord. When we're a

husband and a father, we should do it as under the Lord. And so I think that, um, even though I'm a farmer, I think that I'm in, it's a ministry. Even though I'm a father, it's, it's my ministry. I'm a husband. It's my ministry. I need to do all of it, um, under the lordship of Christ. And so ultimately if my farm, which I love the lifestyle, I love the work, it's not, it's not what, uh, it's not my identity. My identity is, is in Christ and that I want to bring, uh, glory to him. I want to bring, I want to bring attention to him and all that I do. And so whatever it is that I, that I'm going to do, I want to do the best job that I can so that I can hopefully be set apart in that like, what's different

about what he's doing? And I'm not saying I do that well. Um, it's, it's something that I aspire to, but that that's how I would look at it. So if, if my, if my farm was to, was to fail and I did something else. I would try to do that to the best of my ability as unto Christ. Ethan. Well, I mean, how do you follow that, Caleb? That was great. That's it. Podcast over. Yeah, exactly. I don't, you know, and I got to say the same with, same with the other two. I don't have something where I can look back specifically in my business and think, man, made a good decision there. And my business is less than 10 years old, so if I have, I would want to wait for some fruits, you know, some long-term fruits. The only thing, like, marginally interesting

that I could say to actually give kind of an answer would be the fact that by God's grace, by, you know, I don't know what possessed my parents, but I think it was a good thing, to let me quit school and I wasn't a Christian at the time so I had different reasons why I wanted to do that but that is a life decision that's heavily related to the success of my business so early because I didn't have to continue high school where I look back on that and that is something that I'm thankful that happened that yeah I look back every day and think wow I'm so glad that that didn't have another outcome there now with that being said that's not at all saying that people shouldn't like go to university and for the most part i don't think they should but that but like

certain um that's that's not what i'm trying to say there at all because there's there's so many places there's certain things where i would um maybe certain of my children depending on how they turn out i would want them to go to you know some sort of a more um an institution to learn some things but as far as my situation and like uh and what i see coming down the pipe and even the foreseeable future and even how things have progressed, man, that was really good. I'm really thankful for that. Well, I think that's, we're all coming out of COVID going, thanks. That was, you know what?

I'm better for it. You know, you're better for those tough times. You find what you're made of. I certainly know on this side of things, it's exactly it. Now, if somebody is listening to this, is like, man, who is this Paul character? You know, who is Mayor Humdinger? I mean, they're going to go Google that. They're going to go Google that.

But before I let you out of here, your business, how do they find you? What area do you service? Because I, you know, I do want to make sure that if people want to support you, right? Maybe they're in the process of building something. Maybe, you know, and they can find a way to do that. I would love to have, you know, the community find the other parts of the community. Oh, okay. Our business is called Noble Floor Coversings.

We can be reached at noblefloorcoverings.com. And it's pretty simple. You can kind of hit us on Facebook. We are attached to Facebook. You know, I am sort of on X. I just use X to kind of follow things, not necessarily post. You know, that's kind of it. But the best way to get hold of us is, you know, through our website, through Facebook.

You can contact me directly. We do. We travel, like, we travel hour, hour, half, hour, 45 minutes each way to kind of service our communities. Just curious. If somebody's sitting in Leominster and. just as an off shoot and goes, man, who is this guy? If they would like it, I would come on up. You just got to get a pot of coffee and make me dinner and I'll come up for an estimate.

Okay. Because if you're what we do, we do, we do something that nobody else can do. We care about what we do. And I mean, there's probably some good businesses in Lloyd, just going to say, probably are. But what we do is we do in-house service. Well, one, here's the thing. I look at the SMP as a community and the audience

wants to support the audience and if they want to support businesses in Lloyd I'm all for it I'm all for local but this is Alberta we're talking about right and as this podcast has grown in different shapes and forms that community has taken on a whole new meaning to me so that's why I just hey maybe somebody likes the way you talk and here's some things and goes I want to have that guy in my house

and I'm building the house and I would love to nothing more. I don't think it's bad to support the SMP community as a whole. As neither do I. I mean, I love it. I mean, we like to meet people.

My brother myself, we like people. We like our people even better than most people. Well, and we're drinking scotch and the Longo Goat Cove. Tommy, you better believe it. And it's just like,

but if you want, please give us a call. We'd love to chat with you regardless. Side note. That's like Camille and his wife brought them up. And me and Dustin, we're looking at him. And I'm like,

how do you bring them? those she's like I got like and I'm like I need four of them immediately and you'll notice that I'm missing one it's because Dustin has commandeered the and so dust I'm coming for you regardless there should be four goats and guns uh gold's gold gold and gold gold gold gold gold gold gold gold tree it's awesome um Caleb if if if people is there anything you're like ah they don't need to get a hold of me or is there some things you want to make sure get brought up before I let you out here uh yeah well you know I do sell some food to people already,

which because I said in the beginning that I sell commodities mostly to corporations. And yeah, if people want to, if they want to buy wheat to make into food, they can gladly email me or call me. And if you want to get an, I should point out, if anyone wants to get a hold to any of these people, you can always

just text me too in the show notes. I got no problem passing along, some information. Yeah, and they can eat Caleb at Renegateachers.ca. Or if they're in the Nealberg area, they can call 911 and fake in a medical emergency, and I'll show up for that as well. So I'm a first responder. So, yeah. Don't do that, actually.

Don't. We're not condoning that. That's a joke. Okay. Okay, so you can look up Ethan Hardy on the internet, and you'll probably get a bunch of stuff, but one of them will be my website. So Ethan Hardy Blacksmith, Hardy Locomotive Works is my company name. and again, I do, I'm a general blacksmithing and machine shop and do everything from, like, if you want custom forged cabinet handles for your kitchen to repairs on steam locomotives,

I have a version of the power engineering license for antique riveted boilers, so I do stuff with antique steam equipment and kind of everything in between. And most of the stuff that I do, people can, I mean, come to me from all over the world. if I can ship you something, you know. Or if you're a local farmer, I mean, if you're anywhere in the vicinity of Lohyd and the local welding shop or the machine shop can help you out,

I might be able to. So, yeah, that's on the internet. If you look up, Ethan Hardy Blacksmith, and I'm on the social medias under the same kind of name, the YouTube and the Instagram. And thank you very much, Sean, for giving me a chance to say that.

I appreciate that, and thank you for having us on your podcast. I might add in, I might add in one other thing for you. Sure. If you're looking for old school fiddle to play a show, if you got an event, I got nothing but high praise from when I put you on stage, you, and I'm forgetting his name. That's okay.

Samuel Corey. Thank you. You guys, like, that was cool. And I had, you know, you won't know this little inside story, but it was me and Caleb were at the carbon tax protest at like 5 a.m. We do our morning meetings. Anyways, they're sitting there. And we're walking away and we're talking.

I'm like, man, I really want, like, I don't know, a violin or something, like, just, like, completely out there. I don't need, I don't need somebody to sing. I just need, I just need this classical feel to it. That's what I'm looking for. I know a fiddle guy. I'm like, what? Like a fiddle. I don't know.

Fiddle? Oh, yeah. And he's on and on and on. So then with, yeah. Yeah, that's right. But it's funny because within, I don't know even. It was two minutes. You'd sent me his contact with another two minutes.

I was talking to you. And I was walking away almost, I was like, oh, yeah, he's coming to play. And Caleb's like, what? I'm like,

he's coming to play. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're going to work out the dotted line. And so if anyone's, it was all within like 10 minutes. It was all within like 10 minutes. So if anyone's looking for a blacksmith man

who can just absolutely tickle the strings, you do a heck of a show there too. Thank you, finally. Yes. Thanks to gents for coming in and doing this. I've really appreciated it. Thanks to Jericho for manning the,

the uh you know we'll have to set up a cot maybe for him next time or maybe we'll get a sorry jerico did you enjoy the conversation yeah it's good there you go he's paid to say that maybe thanks again you'll go far thanks again gents for coming in yeah thank you