Shaun Newman Podcast - #851 - Frank Vaughan

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Frank Vaughan is a Canadian YouTuber and podcaster known for his commentary on Canadian politics and social issues. He has been involved with the People's Party of Canada, running as a candidate in Northumberland-Peterborough South in 2019, and creates content deconstructing Canadian elections and societal topics like healthcare, gender, and family. He hosts The Frank Vaughan Podcast and you can find all his content at frankvaughan.ca. To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionWebsite: www.BowValleycu.comEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail]

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and I don't know, see some of the bonus footage and some of the good stuff. We got the new studio coming here in 2025, and if you want to be on the wall, a little value for value with the legacy wall, just shoot me a text. There's lots of different ways, skills, labor, materials, money, and we'd love to put your company

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when I finally get to unveil it. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, make sure to subscribe. Make sure to leave a review. If you're enjoying the content, make sure to retweet it out and share, share, share. We rely heavily on you, the listener, to get the word out about what we're doing. All right, let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest is a Canadian YouTuber and podcast.

We're known for his commentary on Canadian politics and social issues. I'm talking about Frank Vaughn. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Frank Vaughn. Frank, nice to see you again. It's nice to be back.

Thank you for having me. Now, to the audience, if they didn't tune into the 12-hour live stream or maybe just parts of it, Frank joined us in the middle of the 12-hour live stream on Election Day. And I remember thinking you're one of the few people I didn't know who walked on the set that day. And I was just saying, you left a bit of an impression on me. I was like, huh, I want to have you on and just get to know you a bit better. and let my audience get to know you a bit better because, you know, one of the wonderful things

is sitting in this chair, just when I think I've met all the Canadians in the independent space, I made another one. And so I guess, A, it's great to see you again, but two, I would just love to give you some time to explain to the audience who Frank Vaughn is,

and you can go, sir, how far, ever far back you want to go, and we'll start from there. I'll try to keep it succinct, but I've been back and forth when it comes to, commentary work for over a decade now. I don't think you can even qualify the beginning as commentary work. It was through the oddies. I was concerned about climate change and I did a bunch of deep

research on climate change and I looked at the papers and looked at some of the suppositions that were being made and what data they were being made on and I realized that the panic just wasn't there and that the world wasn't burning up before my eyes and every thunderstorm wasn't caused by mankind. So I thought, I'm going to seek out some honest debate about this. I want to, I want to stretch and I want to test some of these ideas on people who know better. And so I went and I found some groups. And I started arguing with scientists and activists of many different stripes. And that gave me a taste for how debate functioned in 2012 and 2013.

But that's where I got my start was the climate change debate. And then fast forward through time, 2015, I was very bored of U.S. politics, board politics in general. And then Donald Trump gave his speech announcing he was running for president. He was talking about some interesting things like illegal immigration and various themes that most politicians in the United States never touched. And I thought, hey, this is interesting. And the only thing I knew about him was his name. I didn't know anything else about. I knew he was a businessman. I knew he was in real estate.

I knew he had a TV show I'd never watched, but I thought, hey, this is interesting. And so I did a deep dive on Donald Trump, and I thought, man, this might be worth a shot. Then he started talking about Saudi Arabia, 9-11, and just some of these themes that I'd never heard anybody ever say before. And I thought, this is interesting stuff. And so I got involved.

And that was before I got really involved directly making video. I had a social media presence back then on Facebook. It was rather large, much larger than what I have today. Um, it was, in, sorry, in 2015, you had a Facebook following. Yeah. Yeah, there was a couple different pages that were just political material, but I wasn't making, I started making videos on my own channel, but I had a public facing, um, Facebook pages, two different Facebook pages that were just about political stuff, um, that I worked with two other people that I just happened to meet through politics and we just, we blew up. Um, and mainly it was, um, and mainly it was. around that Republican primary cycle that got Trump nominated in 2016. But that was that. And then when it was done, it was done. When he became or when he won the election, I was pretty much finished with it.

And so I just signed off and I walked away. And I thought I was just going to be making videos on my own private channel. And then I got involved with the Conservative Party leadership run in 2017 with that field of candidates, but it's centered around Andrew Shear and Max and Bernier. And then 2018, 2019, rolled around. I got involved with politics there. The founding of the PPC, I was there for that. I ran in federal politics in 2019, left shortly after.

And then there was something happening in China when it came to the, before it was a pandemic, before it was C19. You could see there was something really bizarre happening in China. and so I kind of did a deep dive into that. And there was a fellow by the name, I don't even know if I can use his name yet. You might know him as CD. He's a man who went to the appeals court in BC trying to prevent his then daughter

from getting sterilized by the state with gender stuff. I was heavily involved in that for a while. And then, yeah, I mean, it's... Do you mind? Okay. Sorry. You're rattling off things and I'm like, well, now you've you've, you've, you've piqued my interest on like 17 things now. I want to rewind all the way back.

So, so you go back to 2012, 2013. Yeah. What do you like, forgive me, because I don't know, I haven't, you know, is it, is there something about the climate? Because you say it starts with climate, right? Correct. Everything is like, it starts with climate. Something about it. It just isn't sitting right with the other.

That's 2012? Yeah. So at the time, I was an organic farmer. That's what I've done for most of my working life. I haven't been doing that for the last three years, but that was the mainstay. I had a greenhouse nursery, did organic farming, ran farmers markets, did stuff like that.

And climate change and the environment was just a subject that came up. And I've always been kind of passionate about the environment, but genuine environmental issues. But I kind of subscribe. to that panic that the world was going to burn up in the next few years until I dove deep into the research and I realized that the panic wasn't justified. And so I just went online and I found the largest forms I could find and just started debating the merits of the science. And that's just how I cut my teeth.

If that makes sense. It does. And so I am, I guess you have me like, I guess curious about it. So you go, you find these large forms to debate. you know, I think if I'm hearing you correct, you're like, yeah, I'm just walking in your shoes, if you would. And you're like, yeah, the world's going to burn up. We've got to get more people, I assume, to know about this. Then you start looking into the debates.

Then you start seeing the conversation. I'm, wait a second. This doesn't make sense. And, you know. Sorry. No, I, you could hop in. I'm just, I'm literally talking for you. I'm just trying to get a feel for where you were at before this because I find it interesting.

I'm like, everybody has, I don't know, they call it, lots of people call it the red pill moment, the moment where something in their worldview gets shattered. They're just like, you know, wait a second, that doesn't make sense. And then once you start, one thing makes, doesn't make sense. You're like, uh-oh. How many other things don't make sense that I've been ignoring or just been going along with the narrative? Because once you see them bungle one thing and they won't adjust, you're like, but, but like, why aren't you, why are you doing it that way?

And so I assume that it just starts to, you know, you rattled off a bunch of different things that you got involved with, which means you went from climate. And then you started to get more. And the more you got involved in, the more I assume you saw, wait a second, some of these things just don't make sense. And the more that doesn't make sense, it's like now I've got to start opening up other doors, which I probably would have never opened before. Well, I've always been more of a nonfiction reader than a fiction reader. Like even when I was a little kid, my dad bought me a book on World War II. and that was it. I had to actually expand my vocabulary

just so I could read that book and figure out what it actually meant. So it's nothing new, but it was always private or it was shared with friend circles. You'd be around the fire, campfire having to drink and Frank would expound for an hour and a half

on politics and it would just be kind of an entertaining sidebar for my close intimate circle. The situation around climate change, just it was more public. It was like, I went on, you know, it was mainly Facebook.

There was a group that was called join the fight to stop global warming, if my memory is correct. And it had about 250,000 members. And so I just got involved in debating in the comments section of that group. And I was, if I wasn't working my farm, that's what I was doing. I did those two things. I didn't have any kids. I had my wife.

She was supportive. And I said, you know, I just, the more I pursue this, like the hockey stick graph, for instance, which showed catastrophic warming starting in the modern era, I learned. I learned about the underlying data and how terrible it was. And I read a couple books on the subject. And I'm like, this is one of the biggest lies that's ever been perpetrated in science. And I need to tell the world about that.

And so at the time, I measured my progress by how quickly that page was losing followers. And that went on. They let me debate there for a long time, full credit to them before they banned me. But that was, yeah, that was kind of it. It was just countering the panic and just trying to counter that zeitgeist that was sweeping up so many people, including myself. Every time I experienced a hot day in the field, I thought it's worse because of climate change.

And really climate's very variable. And then you start to learn about how our very prosperity and survival today counts on an interglacial warm period that's been going on for about 10,000 years. And you just start to understand these things. and you see the politicization of science, and it's just something that I wanted to push back on at the time. You mentioned Trump, which completely, honestly, makes sense to, I think, a lot of us, because, I mean, he came in and really rocked the establishment, right, like as he continues to do today.

But you brought up another Canadian one that I'm curious about. Zandrewshire versus Maxime Bernier in the conservative leadership race. What did you, I guess just, what are your thoughts about that period of time? Because for my own background, Frank, I didn't start the podcast until 2019. I certainly didn't start talking any politics until probably August 2021, but even then it was COVID focused. It was it was trying to make sense of what was going on. I just didn't, I don't get it. Why aren't we talking?

Why aren't we allowing debate? Why aren't we bringing the brilliant people together to solve the problem? And then it graduated and then it's a graduate and it's a graduated. did some more. And so, you know, one of the things I'm rapidly trying to do is understand some of the history of even my lifetime, let alone before that. When you say you're, you know, I was a part of the, you know, the leadership debate going on in the conservative federal party, walk me through that because I've heard, you know, I've had Maxime on the show. And he's shared his thoughts on what went on and everything else. I'm curious yours.

Well, I don't, there's a lot of things I don't know. And at the time, Maxime wasn't asking questions. So now it's pretty common parlance for PPC people and Maxime to talk about how that leadership race was rigged against him. But at the time, that wasn't a conversation that he was willing to have. But it certainly seemed fishy to me. I was there on the convention floor. They had these really nervous people come walking. out. They had a bunch of ballots show up last minute. They said they were going to shred the ballots that night, which I thought was really curious to include that in an announcement on the stage about ballot results, how they're absolutely shredding them that night. The result was never audited. But there's a lot more to what went on going into that leadership cycle and what went on in the conservative party between that leadership cycle and Bernier-

leaving that I didn't know at the time. But I very much liked the difference that in that 2017 leadership cycle, there was a lot of differences that Bernier was bringing to the table. There were some things I didn't like, the free trade with China stuff. I didn't like it all. Being proud of the Foreign Investment Protection Act and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I thought were real bad looks on the part of Bernier. But, you know, that's ancient history now. But coming out of that, there was a bunch of just a bunch of narratives and things that led into the founding of the PPC. And at the time, I thought it was a good idea. I was one of the original registrants of that party.

So the original 250 signatures that you file with Elections Canada, 10 of those signatures I got to collect and submit myself. Because I thought we needed a choice. I didn't think the conservatives were being very good to their membership at the convention. I didn't like some of the business that went on going into that leadership vote. And I thought, you know, more choice in a Westminster parliamentary system is generally better for the people. And, you know, it was worth a shot. I wanted a people's party. And so that kind of takes us to that point.

What do you, I'm curious, you know, did you say you ran for the PPC? Did I, did I hear that? Yeah. So you, you, sorry. Sorry. Nope. It was a riding called Northumberland, Peterborough South. I think it's Northumberland Clark now or Peterborough Clark or something.

It moves around all the time. But, yeah, I ran in 2019. What was the experience of running for the PPC like? You know, it was actually, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Because, and I actually uploaded within the last couple months, I uploaded all the debates that I attended because I recorded the footage. And listening back to it, it's like, yep, you know, you can see a lot of the future coming. that we're living in today from 2019 forward.

And I was, you know, I didn't talk about Max much. I talked about the party and a party for the people and the need for more choice and political representation. And I got to talk about a lot of big ideas that you normally don't get to hear about in debates. And, you know, one of the more memorable parts was going to a David Suzuki environmental debate that was the whole thing was climate change.

That's all they wanted to talk about. And I went up on that stage and I thought They're going to hang me from the rafters tonight by my neck. And that's going to be that. But I'm going to go in there and I'm going to say what I have to say. And I said that climate change was destroying the environmental debate and that all the things that have merit are not getting discussed because all we want to talk about is CO2. And I got more applause that night from a room full of environmentalists. The green person was shocked.

The NDP rep was shocked. And it was such a good experience. Like I was really glad I did it. I'm quite proud of it. I felt I represented myself well, and, you know, we didn't, I didn't win. I wasn't expecting to win. I think I got 2.1% of the vote. But the sheer number of people that said, you know, if we were voting for the best candidate,

you know, you'd be the guy, but I can't vote for you because I have to vote for this party or I can't vote for you because I have to vote for this party like it was this whole argument, which was expected. But yeah, it was a really positive experience. Do you think that's such an interesting, you know, I can't, if you ever was voting for the best candidate, you get my vote, but I can't because I got to vote for the party. Well, I mean, that seems to be a common sentiment to today, right? We can't vote with who we believe to be the best candidate. Like, I mean, how do you change that?

Can you change that? I don't know if you can. It's the nature of the Federation. The system is, we're like a quasi-European American hybrid where we take all the worst elements of each and sandwich them all together in this thing we call Canada. So we have the basically a two-party system. It's rapidly becoming a two-party system other than the block. The block kind of stands out. But a parliamentary system like the one we have thrives on more parties, more choice.

Like if you look at European democracies, they have far more options than we do here. And, you know, we don't elect our Senate. We have no control over the judiciary. We have no right of recall. We can advance ballot initiatives. So I think you're always going to be channeled into these two options, whether they're good, bad, or not. Like, I wasn't happy with Andrew Shear. I was far less happy with Aaron O'T.

school. But I thought Polly have represented a difference on some things like criminal justice, legal gun rights, conversations around gender and stuff. I thought we're heading in the right direction. But the fear of the Orange Man was just so big in this last election. And in the wake of this election, that's just disappeared. There's no more elbows up anymore. Everybody's going on vacation. We don't even get a budget. It's just, I'd say it's unbelievable, but it's perfectly believable. That's Canada by design.

That's part for the course at this point, isn't it? Yep. Yeah, it certainly is. And I think we're past the point where you can create a new federal option that's going to change anything

federally. Like, I think the hope lies in the provinces now, and I that's where my focus is. It's on Premier Moe and Premier Smith and hoping that they will exert provincial autonomy and really try to advance Western interests because Canada's not coming to save us. You know, we're going to have to do it.

You've seen Premier Moe come out just recently with his 10 points that need to be addressed and you saw before that Premier Smith come out with her nine points that need to be addressed. you see separation or independence movements. I kind of use the word, two words interchangeably. I got told by a lawyer once upon a time. They're both, you know, separation obviously has a bit of a negative or like connotation

to the word, whereas independence kind of sounds like, you know, a little more positive. But both words can really distinctly put on a different conversation or in each conversation exactly what you're thinking. So in your mind, if, you know, like, you think, A, can the federal government even deliver on half the points they put forth? And then, two, you think it's possible we see in, you know, like the coming months, years, separated Alberta, Saskatchewan, et cetera? I think when the time is right, when the historic moment arrives, if you're a student of history, you understand that, When the time for change is ripe, change will find a way. It always does, like real change.

And most of the nations that are on earth right now, maybe not most. I shouldn't say most, but many of the nations that are on earth right now began illegally. They have illegal roots that were then rendered legal because they were on the right side of history. So thinking the American Revolution. Very illegal what they did. But here we are 250 years later, and America is still standing in one form or another. I think it's impossible for the federal government to deliver what Smith and Scott want. I'm glad they're asking for those things because, quite frankly, the provinces here deserve that and are entitled to it.

But I just, I think part of the reason they're doing summer vacation, after campaigning on an unending series of emergencies, they're now going to go on vacation until September 15th after they sit for 15 days. they're not going to be able to advance a legislative agenda. There's no way that you can get past three readings in the House, three readings in the Senate and get Royal Assent in three weeks. So nothing's going to happen. I think they're trying to run out the clock and this interest in independence or sovereignty. I think they're hoping will just kind of melt away

because people will get bored over the course of the summer. I don't actually know what the strategy is, but none of it is about strengthening. So anyway, I just, I don't think they can deliver what's been demanded, not requested, but demanded. And I think that right now, in spite of what Carla Beck says and to a lesser extent what Nenshi says, now's the time to make as much noise as possible. Lodge your complaints, sign petitions, get referendum questions posed, and make a lot of noise so that when you are in negotiations with Ottawa, you have a strong hand saying the people are fed up and they want to be able to prosper.

they don't want handouts, they want to be able to build, right? I've been really upset with the way that Carla Beck and the Sask NDP has been handling the question because they're just trying to make it impossible for people to have a voice or at least make it harder. And I'm not really sure the people of Saskatchewan elected Carla Beck, not the people of Canada. So I don't know why she's not trying to strengthen our hand in negotiations. but I think we're at that historic moment. It feels, you know, historic moment doesn't fall.

Well, certainly they'll point in the future to a single day. But, you know, living it out, you know, it could be the next 10 years. Like it could be, it could be shorter than that. But certainly you go waiting for it to dampen out. I'm like, dampen out. I don't know. Do you see it dampening out over summer? People around the campfire and sitting and having chats?

No, I don't think so at all. I think, but I also, being someone that lived in the East for so long, I understood Western grievances long before I got here. And I knew in my heart that this is where I knew in my heart I was going to end up here eventually. Not necessarily by the road I took, but it's this understanding that the West has been set up almost territorially to permanently fund the rest of the country. and then you study the history of the Western provinces and their struggle against Ottawa, which is what it's been.

It's been 150 years. It was back before they were provinces of just struggling with bad decisions from Ottawa, all to say that eastern Canada doesn't really have any idea because a lot of people don't spend any time putting themselves in the shoes of the Western provinces. And that's not to say there aren't millions of people

there who care and do, but they're outnumbered by millions more who don't. And so that's why I think maybe the Laurentian elites, the political class that just won this election, might think it's all going to fizzle out over the summer. I don't see it. But then again, I'm in Western Canada.

And I feel like I understand it a bit better because of the perspective that gives me. What was the final straw for you to make you come out west? You mentioned in your heart you always knew you'd be out here. But you, like, What was it that finally, I don't know, was it, was opportunity straw that broke the camel's back? Was there, you know, what eventually lands you in Saskatchew? There were so many things.

I knew culturally it was better aligned, but I had young kids. I did not want to raise them anywhere near Toronto in Ontario. I had a small house. It was built in 1895. My bedroom was my son room and the kids had the, the, or, the bedrooms and then my office was set up in one of those rooms and I just didn't have the space. I couldn't afford to side grade. So that was part of it and I was I was looking somewhere else already. COVID happened. And I knew that if something like that happened again, I did not want to be

in Ontario for that. I wanted to be somewhere a little bit better with a little bit more space. And in terms of the work that I was doing in the video making and everything else, I had a, Like I said, I had that organic farm and I had a public facing business and my address was available on the internet. So I started making videos. The channel started blowing up and people started showing up at my door, knocking on it just to say hello because they'd seen videos. And one of the straws that broke the camel's back was one morning I woke up and I could see that somebody was walking around my house at night. And I had a young kid. I think my wife was pregnant. Yeah.

Oh yeah. She was totally pregnant with my second at the time. and so I shut everything down and I just began the process of unwinding my life and putting the house on the market, which the real estate market saved my bacon because I didn't think moving here was going to be as possible as it was, but it happened and everything worked out. But it was a combination of factors. Like I had to get out of Ontario.

That was the biggest factor. I needed a bigger place for my kids to raise my kids in. I wanted a safe place to work where my address wasn't available on the internet for everybody to come and find me. And I wanted to get to, I often talk about the first time I came to Saskatchewan and started meeting people, it was like coming home because the crazy's not here. People are, the friendliness that I remember from Ontario in the 1980s and the 1990s is still here.

You know, you go to a grocery store, everybody's interacting with you. It's like a party. Just going to get gas can turn into an hour-long conversation. The kind of thing doesn't happen in Ontario anymore. And I remember too, by the time we moved, all the mandates had been lifted everywhere, even in Ontario. And I went out and I tried to buy jeans a week before I left, 85 to 90% of the people were still masked up and doing the whole thing. And a few days later, when I got out here, complete opposite. Everybody was just living their life.

And it was a lot like coming home. So I knew I was coming. I just, I didn't know when and I didn't know how and I'm glad I'm here now. Well, we're glad to have you, you know, a Sasky boy on this side, although I live in Alberta now. I got a ton of time for my home province of Saskatchewan. There's a lot of great people there, a lot of great values there. And, you know, I understand or mirror your thoughts on the values and how people treat you. When you're talking about a guy walking around your property, did you go and confront him and like, what was he doing?

I didn't see him. I saw in the morning the evidence that he'd been there. So I don't know who it was. Could have been a girl, for all I know. Feet were large enough that was a guy, but somebody was just there at night surveying my house. And it was in, it was either seven or eight times. Somebody had come to my house and knocked on my door just to say,

hey, man, I've seen your videos online, and I just wanted to stop by and say hi. None of them were unfriendly. Like all those people that have, I actually met were they were just good people wanting to meet. But you put two and two together in your head. Ontario is full of activists. I'm not that far from public transportation and I'm talking about all kinds of subjects that people aren't happy with. And I got a pregnant wife and a little kid. And then you had that whoever it was, show up at night. That was just, I got to, I got to,

if I'm going to do this, I got to get out of here. I got to go somewhere else. Do you have, curious, like, did you self-train yourself on, uh, self-train yourself on, uh, self-training myself. Did you, I don't know what. Anyways. Did you have any background in media before or did you just start talking and learn on the fly? When I was in a high school or junior high school, I was a mess. The thing I feared most was every single year you had to do a class presentation. And I was just, I was a sweaty, hot mess every time I had to do it. And I think I got to about grade 10, grade 11, and I just got sick and tired of having no confidence. And so I figured out, don't look at your feet when you walk.

Always be looking up at people, meet their eyes. Don't blink as much. And that's kind of how it started. I had to get confidence so that I could get friends and just change my introverted ways and adopt more of an extroverted lifestyle, I guess. When it comes to media, the first time I shot a video, and I rarely rewatched the things that I shoot, but I rewatched those first videos. there was all the ums and ahs and blinking and lack of eye contact with the camera and all these things

and I just made a point by point list and I'm like I have to change that I have to change that I have to change that I have to change that and then I change those things um I'm naturally an inter introvert um I don't this is uh public speaking is not my natural forte but I can do it I can do it because I've made myself able to do it well I I can tell you I can go back to episode one of this. You know, what are we, an 8.51 or two folks somewhere in there. And, man, I mean, my hat's off to it. Because I'm a natural extrovert. I like talking people. You know, I walk around. I got no, I love just chatting up everyone.

And my wife at times like, oh, God, just get out the store and just leave it be, you know? And yet the first podcast ever did with a good friend. Kenning Rutherford. I had like the 17 minute mark. I was like so nervous. I'm like, oh, should we just end it? He's like, what? And he's like, no, let's keep going.

And I'm like, uh, you know, and I was, I was just unsure of myself, I guess, in this realm. And I've had to, you know, I've learned some tough lessons and some interesting lessons along the way. And it's, uh, I find it fascinating that you're like, no, I was terrified. And I just started doing it. And, you know, like it's a, it's a cool. I call these origin stories because they, like, you've never been on the podcast before. And I know, of people know you now because the more I've uh you ran in well you you came on the live stream

and people were commenting and text me like you got frank on that's sweet right and I'm like how do people know about all these folks that you know I'm in my own world but it's uh cool that uh you know I think that's a cool story that you know you're basically oh no god I was uncomfortable introverted had to teach myself how to be what you are what you're becoming or maybe what you've become I don't know either way well I could always, like, in private company, I was always a good communicator, but it was always private. It was never public stuff, right? So I think that's the, that's the major difference is just trying to figure out how to bring what I was doing among friendly company and put it online.

And then, of course, face the barrage of criticisms and trolls that you get whenever you have an opinion online. And learning how to be resilient in the face of that and not take it seriously, right? That's another skill. And I often reminded of that, whenever I run into people who are just starting out, how hard it is when you first come in and people are calling you all kinds of names and casting aspersions at you, left, right, and center, and you take it seriously because face-to-face interactions don't work that way. So you take these online interactions and you ascribe to them the meaning of face-to-face interactions, and it can just completely demoralize you. So I do spend a bit of time talking to people who are just starting out saying, stick with it. It's not a big deal. Don't let anonymous people on.

online, tear you down because that's what they're there trying to do is stopping you from doing what they can't. It's, yeah, it's challenging, especially if you're coming out of it from no experience whatsoever. Well, one of the things that I listened to, I can't remember what episode of Joe Rogan it was, but he talked about, I just stopped reading the comments. And as soon as I heard the best podcaster in my opinion in the world, doesn't read the comments anymore. I'm like, that's enough for me. I'm like, I don't, I don't need to go into the, the ugliness. If you don't like what I'm saying, you turn me off. I think, and if you do like parts and

you don't like parts, that's why the text lines there and you can text me, you know, and that's been an interesting, it's been an interesting realm to allow my phone number to go out as much as it has. And yet, it's been the way that I connect with the audience the best, because I find it takes effort to text. And if you're, if you, if you, if you, you. just want to yell at me? You know, then you try, you know, most people won't call. I'm not given a, well, I don't really care. If you want to call, have that or right. But like most people, they want to be anonymous. They want to be online and honestly and attack you and say things. And you're like, well, whatever. Life goes on. You know, I step out of this realm and I go into a different one.

You know, I just did the, we're talking, you know, you're asking about the cornerstone forum when we, when we, before we started. And like one of the beautiful things about that group is do they all agree on everything? Certainly not. Man, they're a bunch of beautiful human beings that just treat each other with respect and come in and smiles and handshakes and a lot of hugs, to be honest. And it's really cool to see humanity act that way. When you know, you look at our politicians and I'm like, no one acts that way. Like I don't get it. You got an official opposition. You can disagree with a lot of what they're saying. But, you know, like, we don't mirror, if you mirror what they do, nobody would ever talk to anyone, right? They're all, they're all searching for gotcha

moments. They're all attacking each other's everything. And you're like, and it started with federal, probably. I mean, you could probably comment on this. I just see it go further and further to where no government works with the other side anymore. Right. And it's, it's like it's festered down into society where it's like if you believe in X while you can't talk to the person who believes in why, which, you know, you started this off with being at, you know, in front of a bunch of climate people and telling them this is the problems and them applauding you. It's like, oh, maybe there is a way to have that discussion in a way that is respectful of everybody in attendance, but tell them some truths that maybe are a little bit uncomfortable.

Well, and what I found with that experience was there was, it was shared ideas. These, these people had never, all they're ever offered is lip service to climate change alarmism. That's all they get. So you go to a David Suzuki junket, that's what you're going to get. You go to a World Wildlife Fund junket, that's what you're going to get. For them to hear somebody talking about things that they already were thinking about, it gave them voice. It gave them an outlet because there's such a, there's this atmosphere bullying that stops people from having conversations. And you can actually chart, and I did this a while ago, a long, long time ago, maybe a decade ago now, but the instances of non-partisanship in U.S. politics.

So Democrats voting for Republican bills and Republicans voting for Democrat bills. And as the Internet climbs in usage, instances of bipartisanship decline. to the point now we're in two walled gardens, and there's very little interaction between the two, because everybody's blocking everybody else out of existence, and we're all just getting into our own little echo chambers. And that's a big problem. And people want content or they want conversation.

Like they're drawn to orderly debate. They want to see that little bit of conflict, and they want to see the ideas tested against each year. other rather than just be inside an echo chamber all the time. But the internet has made it so easy to just wall yourself off. And that's a big problem. Because it's almost like it's two different worlds that exist at the same time. Well, we're seeing it more and more, aren't we? Like if 20 years ago, there was a little bit of friendly debate, as it goes along, it's becoming less and less. Like, you know, you come out of COVID or certainly in COVID, you weren't allowed to say certain things.

Like you mentioned it and everybody shut you out. Right. I mean, that's why the podcast, you know, really, man, you go back to those early days when I'm, you know, I think back to having Glenn Sather on, right? Like the GM and Eminem, Tonnoilers, coach, et cetera. And then the next day, having Peter McCle on. and then it just kept, you know, I stopped talking hockey. And there was a lot of anger on both that. Man, the text line was tough back then.

That was, that was, there was a probably a six month period where I'd wake up and I'd be like, do I even want to look at the phone? Because people are upset that I'm not doing what they want, essentially. They wanted something. They wanted to be it reinforced. And as soon as I wasn't reinforcement, some people applauded, lots did. Some people did not. And we're at a stage now where if you've tuned out anything you disagree with, you know, it's hard to have your worldview pushed upon because you've been having it reinforced for so long.

Yeah. Well, and COVID was a huge test of that. Like, I don't think the division became so acute through 2021. And I mean, it was officially sanctioned. So there was only one point of view that you could express. And the other side, you know, there was no other side. It was just driven underground. And I remember when I was heavily talking about COVID was December of 2019, January, February, March, into April of 2020.

And that was at the time when we had Doug Ford in Ontario doing live streams at front of Chinese, All You Can Eat Buffets, saying it's racist to not eat at buffets. and we can't shut down traffic from China because it wouldn't impact the human rights of, not Canadians, but nationals coming into this country. We can't impact their human rights and mass are dangerous. And this was Teresa Tam.

This was the official government line. And I remember saying one day they're going to flip their script and they're going to just claim all kinds of power. And you want to be ready for that. You know, you want to be kind of prepared and calm. So while everybody else is running around with their heads, like chickens with their heads cut off,

you're calm and ready and you can be a little bit more peaceful. And I didn't know what was going to happen. The videos that we saw coming out of China looked very worrying. And in those early days, few people were even talking about it. So you can kind of see something was coming down the pipe. But it, more importantly, coming out of it, so the mandates get lifted. And it all goes away. I mean, there's still people out there tweeting that COVID is airborne and it's a very real threat today.

And I can't help but look around at society function. and think there's a disconnect there. I drove by a guy the other day, and this is in rural Saskatchewan, the guy had a mask on in his truck. And I have a hard time explaining that any other way than kind of an artifact from COVID times. And now we can actually talk about it.

You and I can have this conversation, and YouTube's not going to censor us. And there's a lot of things that I've noticed since Muskbot X that we can talk about again. And so I kind of, I ducked most of the worst censorship because I, when I realized the things that I was describing about having people at the house and whatever, I pulled all my video work down in preparation for moving,

I ducked most of the worst censorship. And so I got to come out the other side and I still had my channel, whereas a lot of people, they lost everything. A lot of my audience was waiting for me on the other side, which is why you probably, you would have never encountered me. If you started in 21,

that's when things were tapering off from me. And I didn't reemerge until. about six, eight months ago. Well, I know on this side, I had, so I had my YouTube channel nuked, like just disappeared one day, just gone. But you want to know the craziest thing? It, uh, when it come back? Came back last year.

They just reinstated it out of the blue. I didn't, I didn't send in a request, nothing. I'm like, just one day YouTube email me said, hey, your channel's back. And I'm like, what did I do? And then, and then as soon as they reinstated it, they canceled again from an old video of Peter McCullough being on the show. And I'm like, but I haven't even uploaded anything yet. I hadn't even touched it. And it got removed again. And then they brought it back. And then they

removed it again for Peter McClella again. And I'm like, I still haven't uploaded anything to this. This is a at this point, I think it's just funny. Right. Like I'm like, what am I you know? And it's been, oh, it's been interesting to watch. It's been an interesting thing to be a part of. You know, if you come to where we are at today and you got a Carney as, you know, elected you know me and twos were just talking about uh forgive me the forgive me coback for for the the riding it is but the one vote right the flip the flip and then the flip again to one vote is

separating the win for the liberals you got carney in you got all these things going on you got them signing these executive orders like he's he's trump which forgive me maybe i'm wrong but i don't have that and so i'm like uh What does Frank think about 2025, May of 2025 when we're sitting today? It's unreal, man. Like those, so they're called, I believe they're called notes of direction is what the title is on those things that he's signing. There's no legal basis for them. It is theater.

It is 100% theater. He might be directing his cabinet to draft legislation that they might try to introduce and pass in the three weeks that they'll be sitting. before they go on vacation, in the middle of all the national emergencies that they just sold us on for the last several months. Like, I can't even believe it. Like, it's almost, if you thought that things were unreal under Trudeau, they've taken a whole step to a new level with this Carney.

Because he comes in from out of nowhere. He's been outside the country for a decade. They parachute him in. They have this registration process where anybody can register and then they disenfranchised 250,000 people somehow. I don't know if it's just because they couldn't verify. I mean, nobody knows. And then he gets the statistically improbable,

even coverage of vote dispersion within this leadership, what I would call a farce. So you have the selection process. He comes in, the central banker, somehow becomes the hero of the Liberal Party and the middle classes. You don't get a more principal oligarch. And my memory of the left when I was younger, you know, in my teens and my early 20s,

the left opposed this international class. We opposed things like the multilateral agreement on investments and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We all thought these were bad ideas. And I say we, because when I was that age, I identified as a liberal. And I remember protesting the Iraq war because there was just, there was no justification for going to war in Iraq.

It was a clear neocon initiative and it had nothing to do with Afghanistan or 9-11. It just didn't even make any sense. But this was the kind of stuff we used to do. Fast forward to 2025. And you've got a guy who ran two central banks. He's ran Brookfield assets. He has more conflicts of interest than anybody can count. And he didn't even do relevant financial disclosure.

He managed to duck at all. And now he's our prime minister. He's signing these fake executive orders. And he can, by the way, what Justin Trudeau pioneered, his biggest contribution to Canada, if you can call it that, in the last 10 years,

was since prerogation, governing by order and counsel. It actually started before that when he signed the orders in counsel, banning and prohibiting firearms without any due process. And then I noted at your conference, you had Rod Gil Takka there,

the CCFR, they did that big gays, which basically determined that we don't have any property rights. To me, that's the implication that comes out of all the work they did is that we don't have any property rights whatsoever, which we kind of knew. It's not in the charter. We don't have property rights anywhere. So it's all privileged-based,

but Justin Trudeau pioneered this concept of governing by order and counsel. And now Carney is going to reap that benefit. And so they can spend tax dollars. They can not have a budget. They can issue tens of billions of dollars in new debt. and they don't even have to go to Parliament for a rubber stamp. And it just, I don't think our system's ever been laid more bare than it is right now. And I continue to be shocked that the red voter has no capacity for introspecting on it

and actually seeing seeing how bad it actually is. This is how totalitarian states function. And here we are, acting like we're bastions of democracy trying to save the world from the orange, man, even though that's off the radar now too. We're not even doing that anymore. We're just, it's so bizarre how it, the narrative is changing by the day. And there's a huge chunk of the public that's just moving with that narrative wherever it goes. Minus the, um, the holiday that they're going to, you know,

summertime's coming. They're taking a break. When you look at it, you know, like I look at it, I listen to your story and I'm like, okay, here's a guy who has been paying attention for, you know, roughly, roughly 13 years. I don't mean to see you weren't paying attention before that, but you, you know, the climate thing really got you in 2012. You start to dig in. You know, like when I listen to your story, I'm like, okay, then Trump comes along. Then you get involved with the conservatives. Then the PPC. There's a whole bunch of other things in there that I'm skipping over, you know, COVID to where we're at today. And I look at you and I go, okay, here's a Canadian who in a breath has laid out a whole bunch, including that you're once, We're liberal, you know, and then you run for the PPCs like that, that in itself right there shows how far you've changed, I guess. When you're looking at like the next, whether it's three months, whether it's six, whether it's a year, what's on your radar and what are you trying to raise awareness for Canadians? provincial autonomy.

And I think my biggest problem right now is the status quo. And anything that interrupts that status quo is kind of my objective. My hopes, my aspirations, the things that I work on when I'm not making videos, other than the education of my children and raising my family is encouraging the premiers to take some power back from Ottawa, a significant amount. I've talked about how Scott Moe did an unlawful rebellion against the carbon tax. And he won. He got away with it.

Everything that he did was illegal. And he did it anyway. When the federal government was sending, I can't remember what department. I think it was the Department of Oceans and Fisheries, but I might have that wrong. But they were charged. Yeah. And so he said, if he keep to do that. doing that, we're going to arrest you. They backed off. The Saskatchewan

Firearms Act, which some people have said it's just a bureaucratic, it's actually, it's brilliant because what it does is it creates such a huge bureaucracy that it effectively renders the buybacks or the gun seizures impossible to implement because there's all this procedure that the federal government has to go through in order to get there. And the Saskatchewan government has just deprioritized the entire idea of a gun grab. I view that as a proactive step. There was the Saskatchewan Revenue Act, which seeks to take back control of taxation and tax collection from the federal government.

That's great. These are, this is where the hope lies because the Federation itself in Ottawa, represented in Ottawa and represented in the elites and those political parties, I don't think they have the people's best interests at heart at all. I think Canada has been converted from a middle power, nation state, to a resource. colony. And whether it's China or the United States or India, everybody's in here, taking advantage, buying up our resources, buying up our land. We got a huge money laundering problem. I focused extensively on that in my video work a couple months ago, just how money laundering and the illicit drug trade in Canada worldwide. Like we are renowned. I read reports from Europe. I read reports from

international agencies. The world knows that we are a money laundering criminal hub. The only people who don't seem to know it are Canadians, even though you can walk down any city street and you can see the signs of it with your own eyes everywhere. People can't even travel safely on public transit anymore. It's a horrible tragedy. It's happening in plain sight. And if Ottawa is not complicit in it, they're completely negligent. So the only hope in my mind right now is these two provinces actually, because I don't have much faith that Manitoba is going to do anything unique right now under their leadership. BC's got Ebby, enough said.

So I think it's down to Smith and Mo. I mean, Ford actively opposed Polyev's campaign in the last election, which just and I think it comes down to Roman Bobber being kicked out of the PC party and then being invited in the CPC. I think that's really what it comes down to. But he's glad handing with Carney and he's opposing Polyev. So my point is, is that Ontario, having just done an election, given Ford, a huge majority, they're kind of on their own.

They're not my problem anymore. So my focus is Saskatchewan in Alberta, if that answers that question. Well, isn't it interesting that they point to Daniel Smith torpedoed, and I'm using my words, torpedoed Pierre with some of the things she did during the election. And yet, Doug Ford actively supported Carney. I'm like, do you, do you even see what to go? Like, are we're just going to point to Daniel Smith bad and the fact that. Can we, can we pull up a political map?

Can I, can we look at where the, the country's blue and where the country's red? And maybe understand that I don't think Daniel Smith damaged the conservative party here. I don't think she damaged them at all. I think, I don't think there was. So they talk about Carlton. They talk about the fact that he. lost his seat. It's quite understandable when you realize that if you've hyped up the existential threat of Donald Trump to Canada, it's going to land hardest in Ottawa whose existence depends on

the Canadian government existing and the bureaucracy existing as it is. So they feel that the most. Carlton is right there beside Ottawa. That's stuff that that visceral fear of Trump, whether it's right or wrong, carries a lot of weight outside. of Western Canada. And so they, that's, that's what killed Polyev's prospects, I think, more than anything, was the, it was the hyped up fear about Donald Trump. And the amazing thing is, is in the post-election world, Carney takes one flight down there, he sits beside him, commends him, complements him, calls him whatever it was,

a transformational president who's focused on his people. And all of a sudden we're buddies again. And I've seen CBC News today when I did my video this morning. CBC had an article talking about how Donald Trump has said the people of Gaza are suffering and what a good thing it was for Donald Trump to indicate that. I really think this is just an – it's a psychological operation. They knew that the Trump fear was the thing that they had to run with in order to cling to power, and it worked. Yeah, here's your map showing how blue – the world.

West is and and then obviously everybody knows how the rest of the map goes, but just to just to give it a visual. One of the interesting things here is Quebec and I've actually just been noticing this recently. The liberal, the provincial liberals are beating the BQ or sorry, the Part de Quebec in Quebec now. So federal liberals or federalist liberals are making a big comeback in Quebec, which I think is interesting. The BQ is actually not in the position of power that they were. So it's an Eastern thing that's shared distinctly with the entirety of the East. Did you shock you the pier didn't get a seat? No, and for the reasons that I highlighted, because that fear of the Orange Man,

I mean, the way the Conservative Party responded, which was to jump on board with Team Canada and to do the whole thing, I thought it was a misguided attempt to hide from a label that the left had ascribed to them. I feel like the Conservatives should have done a, this is the greatest geopolitical partnership the world's ever seen. They're the best trading partner we've ever had. Look at the damage the liberals and the NDP have done to our reputation with America. And we're the party of adults. We're going to go and fix it.

But they didn't really do that. they tried to distance themselves from the Trump labels after running a campaign. I mean, I wouldn't call it mimicry. It wasn't like Pierre Polly of was sitting behind a desk signing fake executive orders level of mimicry. But there was a lot of Canada first. There was a lot of similar rhetoric. And then they kind of did a 180 on that and tried to escape that label because they knew it was going to be effective. Like I'm not, I feel like the big red machine put them in a hell of a position and they didn't really have.

a lot of good options to try and combat it. But I wasn't really shocked that he lost Carlton, no. Not really. Considering that sort of Damocles that the big red machine had dangling over everybody that Trump was about to take over the country. It really landed. You know, it came out that, right, on Rogan, that he'd extended an olive branch to Pierre's team.

And basically, you know, Pierre's team probably weighed it and said, if we do that, you're not going to pick up the votes or whatever, right? It's going to hurt you more and it's going to help. I have no idea, right? And that in itself is not shocking. I'm just disappointed, I guess, you know. I think there's a lot of, you know, things that Trump or I come closer home, Daniel Smith did when she first won the UCP nomination.

She went and did talks on every podcast or no one to man to try and get to the common folk to talk to them and, and explain who she was. And, you know, so seeing her, seeing him do that, it was kind of like, oh, man, okay. Yeah, I think if he had done, I think doing Rogan might have been smart. The rest of them, not so much. I'm of the opinion that in the, in the Canada that we live in, running to run Canada, your time's better spent as a politician, door knocking here, or going on podcasts like yours.

or Jasmine Lane or talking to Canadian podcasts and podcasters and creators and going after those votes here. Yeah, I wasn't going to suggest that he should go on every U.S. podcast. I was actually going to suggest, you know, he went, I got a ton of time for Jasmine Lane. I got a ton of time for Candace Malcolm. Those are the two Canadians other than Jordan Peterson a while back that I saw him do. And I was like, you know, there's a lot of brilliant creators in Canada that it would have been an interesting conversation. You know, the mutual friend we have is Clyde. I'm like, can you imagine if tomorrow you flipped on and Clyde had Pierre on?

You'd be like, well, I got to tune into that because I know Clyde. And I'm like, I just kind of want to hear what they say, you know, and that's just, you know, there's just so many of them. I know so many of them. I'm like, you want a list to talk to Canadians. and people say, or at least the pushback I get is, you know, while that's all a certain segment, and he was trying to win Ontario and they don't listen to that stuff. I'm like, well, they must listen to something.

There must be something out in those writings that he could have went and talked to that would get him in front of the voter in the greater Toronto area or the Toronto area, right? Like that he needed to win. Like, am I wrong in that thinking? Well, no, I think, I think they recognize. recognized that their problem was with the 65 plus demographic. And even though there's a lot of them that listen to my shows, I would say the vast majority still get their information from traditional media.

And so the Conservative Party was consumed with how do we counter that? And I think you're right. I mean, going on and I mean just spamming every podcast that's out there, every Canadian content creator, because then you can increase your numbers with those younger demographics and you can reach into some of that 65 plus group that's there. Like if I look at my demographic breakdown on Twitter, it's much younger than it is on YouTube.

There's a lot of older generation people watching on YouTube. And that's great. You know, you're reaching them and you're having those conversations. Pierre could have tapped into that. They had a huge war chest. They could have spent some money advertising that they were doing that and educating the public that there's actually these alternative media formats. But the Conservative Party, in spite of, in my opinion, being better in this iteration, they're still defensive.

They're still trying to hang on too much. You know, conservatives win when they're out there fighting and opposing and making the mainstream media mad and fighting the big red machine and being, I mean, if they're not mad at you, you're doing something wrong, right? And you have to try and guide that. So, yeah, I agree. like it's a big missed opportunity not engaging alternative media and building it up at the same time because who else is telling you a different point of view these days you turn on cTV you turn on global news you turn on cbc it's all the same and a lot of it's funded by government we're not i'm not i don't think you are i'm certainly not no no we're just out here doing this because we care right um

and so yeah you'd like you'd like to see the opposition party embrace that a little bit bit more for sure. Well, and you know, you're talking about rising all the boats, right? Like you go on all these different shows. It's helped put a spotlight on some of the different Canadians, right, that are doing it. Instead, it just, I had the, like, I, when I first started in this, I'm like, you know, like, I, I know people from Ontario. I got people who text me all the time from Ontario. That there's a lot of Ontario's that think, enjoy this conversation right here. And so I've always like I'm like I don't get like do politicians not realize by now that if you go you know I'm watching Kearney do it. I'm watching a ton of them do it, you know, where they go say, oh, we're coming to the West.

We're going to tell them we're building all this stuff. And then we're going to go back to the east. We're going to say we're not building it. And you realize we're not morons. And we're going to see that. And like, you know, like you talk to someone from the country, they have their needs and wants. You talk from somebody in the inner city, they have their needs and wants. So you understand there's some nuance in how you approach different problems for different people, right?

One size does not fit all. So that makes sense to me. I just don't understand why we can't have a politician who walks in and speaks almost the same language across the country and why it wouldn't resonate. Because I'm watching the liberal machine, they did one thing to galvanize people. They created a common enemy, which was Trump. Trump fed into it just beautifully, whether that's all, you know, by. design, well, we can certainly have that conversation, but like he, he found a way to galvanize people from Vancouver all the way to Newfoundland around Canada's being attacked.

We have to pull together, roughly, elbows up. That was the common thing. You can love or hate Mike Myers. You can hate the commercial, but the commercial, I watched it. And I'm like, a younger Sean would have been like, that's a pretty cool commercial, right? Like, that is clever. It plays on what makes Canadians Canadian. hockey, all the old going back to all the different things.

And they made fun of it, but I'm like, it was a brilliant piece of marketing. And it galvanized Canadians. We watched it play out in front of us. And you talk about the conservative war chest. You talk about just like what they were doing up until Carney got elected was winning them a landslide victory. And it's like they abandoned it at all because I understand they got a new foe. But you know, like I'm a big hockey guy. If you get to the Stanley Cup finals, which it was.

and you've played a certain way to get there. You're a pretty good team, I would argue. And if you abandon everything that got you there, you're not winning. Like, I mean, you're not winning. I mean, you can adjust. I'm not saying you don't adjust what they're doing or the next team. You see adjustments all the time. But when you give up the core identity of who you have built the conservative movement around,

I guess it shouldn't shock everyone that you lose. Yeah. Well, and it, they, it wasn't just, it was like the big red machine looked at all the different talking points. They knew that Justin Trudeau was toxic waste, but they were stuck with them because they changed all these rules. They couldn't get rid of him. He had to voluntarily step aside.

So they were getting to the point where they had to pull the temple down. They had to be willing to pull the temple down on their head to force him to walk out. And when they got rid of him, that solved a lot of the liberal party's problem because it's, I may not like it. It pains me to admit it, but there's, There's a significant portion of the red vote that was literally that superficial. They thought that Justin Trudeau was the only problem. They forget the fact that every step of the way, there's a whole cabinet that was behind them.

There was all the MPs that were voting for them. There was the NDP support for four years. That all went away with the swap of the face. But it wasn't just that. The fake suspension of the carbon tax. A lot of people bought that. And so the housing, when he came out and he said he's going to build a half million, was it half million a year? Was it half million?

Yeah, I mean, casket homes, Hong Kong style. I mean, that's the only way you can build that many homes. They have to be eight by eight squares that you can fit a bed in. Maybe if you're lucky, I don't think we ever see that number. But it was take every talking point that they have and rob it of its vitality. And instead of responding with a. greater surge of attack energy, like going on the offensive, the conservative sheld up again. They turtled and they started being defensive.

And the conservative party does not win defensive games. Now, mind you, I mean, they did get 41.4% of the vote. I think it was 41.4 or 41.3. Biggest showing they've ever had. They picked up more seats. but I felt that in the face of the concerted attacks against the conservative party, Pierre Polly have fell back on talking points far too much. And I understand he was maybe trying to get that message across.

Because I was watching the debates and I was watching what he was trying to do. And I kind of understand the strategy. It's like this is my opportunity to communicate directly to those. 65 plus people and show them that I'm not a bad guy. But he kind of lost other people in the process and he lost the initiative. And so you had Jagmeet Singh barking in his face the entire time. And it just... Yeah, you, I don't know.

You know, I tried, I tried gauging myself off, especially the English debate of trying to understand that he's trying to appeal to Ontario. I'm like Ontario Like I know a ton of people from Ontario At some point you got to put Jag me in this place At some point you just got to

You just got to turn to them and say listen The reason we're in this predicament is because of you and your party You have been locked step So I don't know why you're barking at me When you're the reason we're here We've been waiting And you're finally like it's such an easy thing to say

And the pushback that I heard was Well you can't be too aggressive I'm like why Our country is falling apart right in front of us. At some point, you have to show a little bit of passion for your country. And, you know, reserved. And I'm like, I get it. I get it.

But at some point, are you going to win the debate or are you not going to win the debate? That's right. You know, you come out of the debate and you're like, and I'm rough on Pierre. I know he said some good things, right? But the sentiment I had coming out of there was, I was just waiting for, you know, and they go back to who was it? Was it Mulroney? I forget now.

It was it Malroney with the knockout punch back in the 80s? And you go like, it wasn't, when you go watch the video, it wasn't even that big of a knockout punch. It was just, he just stood firm and addressed what was actually going on. Instead of falling back, as you pointed on, talking points. And like, you know, like, I just didn't get it. I don't, I don't get it. I'm like, I understand that, you know, in politics, they play all these percentages.

And lots of times, they're bang on. right but at times they just give bad information and you watch to play out towards this end of the election cycle and now here we said we got carnion you know and i try not to go too off the deep end oh we'll wait and see six months what's it going to happen i'm like he literally is said he's elitist globalist that's what we need he serves different people that are not us especially in the west and you know like so then you get this sentiment rising of east western alienation which is is is brimming with you know the api in here Alberta Saskatchewan's got its own things starting to percolate you got scania pre-mere mo come out with his points Daniel smith right after the election does a couple of things and what you know the obvious answer

that's going to happen is all these people are going to come out and attack us for being selfish and you know like all these crazy things you're like you know what sitting in where i'm said I don't care you say whatever you want to say because you're going to have to live with it i don't i don't care what you think anymore i care about what alberton say because if albertans really don't want to leave then i mean that's democracy but i also know there's going to be foreign actors there's going to be actors within alberta and saskatchew and they're going to actively try and derail this thing so that it can happen they're probably funded by somebody who isn't alberton is going to be my guess you know it's just going to be a calculated guess

that there's going to be money pushing in that doesn't want to see Alberta or Saskatchewan or bothly, because if they do, I mean, what happens to the rest of the country? Well, they're going to figure the shit out. It's as simple as that. Yeah, for sure. And I think the one thing that you have to fixate on when it comes to Alberta and Saskatchewan is the fact that Quebec has done so well for themselves. They're the only province doing it right. And you can resent them all you want.

And I do much of the time over equalization and many other things and official bilingualism that's imposed on everybody else, but not in Quebec. They have successfully engineered a country around their interests. And they do it to this day. Blanchett can come out in the middle of a federal election, actually towards the end of a federal election, and say that Canada is an artificial country. And he's right to call it that.

But when we even hint at having that conversation in the West, we are attacked and demeaned and browbeaten and I think you just have to shrug it off. It's like you said, you have to not care. This is about the interests of the people here. This is about not getting ripped off anymore. And we don't want to be welfare provinces because Carney's, in his book values,

which I've read and I've been pressing a review on it. I think I'm on six or seven parts of that review of that book. But he says those assets have to be stranded. The oil's got to stay in the ground. And Ottawa will have to compensate people. And I don't think Alberta and Saskatchewan want welfare. They want to build. They want to prosper.

They want to have pride. Have work ethic. It's just a different mindset here. We want to prosperity and we want to develop. So we just have to be willing to demand those things and accept the fact that there's going to be people here and a lot of people outside of these provinces that are going to call us every single name in the book. and they'll just have to call us all the names they can.

Because, you know, if we think the federal conservatives are, first off, Pierre's got to get a seat. And in the opening statements of him in this post-election world, one of them was dedicated to his restatement of his dedication to the Federation in Canada. And I think you want that in your federal leader. You know, you don't make a very good federalist if you're not intending to be part of the federation. But that's why I think for now, maybe the CPC just needs to be set aside. And the provinces are where we try to make progress. And we follow the Quebec model doing it. Like if Quebec can do it, any other province can do it.

They've used the notwithstanding clause, I think, 12 times. You know, we can do the same thing. You just have to have the will of the people, right, to push it through. Right? Yeah. And, you know, one of the guys that started off that change now petition, I've been in communication with him. I think it's up to 5,600 signatures or something. And media tried to contact them and they're saying, you know, what's your answer? What's your structure? What's your plan? What you're like, you know, they want a formal, itemized point by point pathway to sovereignty if that's what you're going to do.

And the thing that I've been telling people is you don't need to have all the answers right now. At this point in time, you just need to lodge your complaint. And you need to call it out for being unfair. And you need to let your MLAs know and you need to let your premiers know. And let events develop. Because right now, you just got to find your voice. I think Western Canada is more than entitled to having a voice. And the other thing, too, when it comes to the heavy crude that Alberta produces,

there's very little light that comes out of Saskatchewan, too. with all the leases that are being snapped up in the United States, as drill baby drill starts gaining steam in six months to a year, the oil market's going to look very different than it does today. We don't have a lot of time to get ourselves positioned to take advantage of that. And that's one of the reasons I find it so offensive that they're in the face of these national emergencies that we've been told are present. The government's just going to go home for the summer.

Like we need action now before the, global market and oil changes. I agree. Frank, I've appreciated you hopping on. I hope it won't be the last time. But, you know,

one of the things I love doing is bringing somebody on, as I've said a couple times, a good old origin story, try and figure out who a guy is, give you know, a little bit of a one-on-one. So the audience can get to know you. Where do they find you?

I know you're on X, but you got a YouTube channel. Just let it. everybody know where they can find Frank Vaughn's media. Yeah, if on X, if you search my name, you'll probably find me. Same as on YouTube, or if you go to

Frank Vaughn.ca, there's links to both my social media there. And I'm only on X and YouTube, and then I have the website, which has all my videos too. And you can listen, you can actually listen to the podcast on Spotify, iTunes. I'm on a bunch of them.

I have no idea what happens to those podcasts. I know they get there, but I don't know what happens after they get there. I'm terribly unprofessional that way, but usually my name will get you to me. Well, and for the listener, I mean, you, you, you, you see it on the episode as you're staring at it, but one of the things I'm, um, Frank's last name, V-A-U-G-H-A-N, right? I, I say Vaughn and, uh, uh, he politely doesn't correct me because I think that's the way to say it, but if it's, if you're, in my brain, in my brain when, when, when I think, of Vaughn, I don't think of that spelling. So it's kind of like Sean Newman podcast, right?

Tons of people would never spell it with a U there. And so I see the name and I'm like, I better address that. Make sure when you're spelling Vaugh-V-A-U-G-H-A-N because I'm sure it'll pop up. But if you're struggling, make sure you search that out. Frank, appreciate you hopping on today and look forward to when our paths cross again. Thanks again, Sean. I appreciate it.