Shaun Newman Podcast - #960 - Guardian Blue Collar Roundtable

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

In this episode of the Guardian Blue Collar Roundtable, I’m joined by Marty Up North, Norm Giroux and George Giroux who are hunting buddies who get together for the annual He-Man hunting trip. Marty Belanger aka Marty Up North is a 12th-generation Franco-Albertan professional engineer, married father of four, and self-described adventurer who has become one of X’s most prominent voices for Alberta independence. With over 146,000 followers since joining in late 2021, he blends blunt sarcasm, memes, and relentless criticism of Ottawa, Justin Trudeau, and federal overreach while cheering Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP—yet constantly prods them to embrace full sovereignty fasterNorm Giroux: Millwright, father of two, born and raised in Alberta. A devoted Christian and avid outdoorsman with 30 years of experience in the oilfield.George Giroux: Master electrician, journeyman instrumentation technician, and 4th class power engineer. Father of two, married, and a business owner with 30 years in the pulp, chemical, and oil & gas industries.Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Prophet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] the code “SNP” on all ordersGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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Coming up January 17th, we are closing in on that date, a little over a month away, and we're going to be in Kalmar just west of the Emmington International Airport. We've got 10 teams still available. So if you're interested in putting a team of four or you're an individual, you can sign up either way. Love to have you there. It's going to be a pretty laid-back day. You can go down on the show notes for more details on that. The Cornerstone Forum returns March 28th at the West in Calgary Airport, back in Calgary for another year.

But this venue is a little different. It's a hotel and conference center in one. And if you're flying in, 24-7 shuttle gets you right to the hotel about three minutes away. It's super close. And we're just continuing to pound the pavement to add guests to the lineup that's going to join the likes of Tom Longo, Alex Kraner, Vince Landry, Matt Erich, Chad Prather, Karen Katowski, Sam Cooper, Tom Bodrovics, twos, and more to come. If you haven't been paying attention to Substack, we've been releasing all the episodes on there.

There's been some interesting conversations starting to percolate at the bottom of each episode. So if you're wanting to join in on that, head over to Substack, become a free subscriber, or you can become a paid subscriber and support the SMP. If you're listening or watching on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Rumble, X, Facebook, Substack, make sure to subscribe, make sure to leave a review, make sure to share with a friend if you're enjoying the show, folks. Now, let's get on to that tale of the tape. These three guys are a part of the He-Man Hunting Group. I'm talking about Marty Up North, George Juru, and Norm Juru.

So buckle up. Here we go. We're welcome to the Shaw, welcome to the Shahn Mewa podcast. We have Marty Up North in, and then George Drew, Norm Jure, and this is, I guess, welcome to another blue-collar round-tie. So Guardian Blue Color Roundtable, shout out to the Guardian boys. If you're looking for solutions on heating or plumbing, look no further than Garden. You can visit them at Guardianplumbing.ca. You, gents, this has been two years in the making of trying to get the He-Man group together.

This is a Marty idea that me and him started talking about. You guys hunt together. And I guess just thanks for making the trip out here. This is the second podcast in the new studio. So this has been a bit of a journey to get you guys here. And Marty, you were saying you're a little disorientated getting here. It is. I mean, this is my third time in one of your studios, two and the other, maybe three times in studio.

But this is disorienting because I didn't expect this. What you've built here is pretty cool. And I get the concept. I totally get what you're going to try, what you're doing here. Like people are going to fly in from wherever and they're going to get an experience of being in studio. but there's going to be something leading up to it. And I think when it's disorienting and you catch people a little bit off guard,

that's cool, right? Because then you hopefully, yeah, no, it's disorienting. That's all I can say. Well, just on that for a second, I was saying yesterday that I took a lot of inspiration from, like I watched Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Sean Ryan, and other podcasters. And if you watch Joe Rogan's new studio,

you know, like when he has Elon in and they're shooting the Tesla and stuff, right? And you start realizing what he built there. He built you flying in and you can have an experience. And so one of the things, I looked around this area and you guys going out in the country and hunting all the time, you get this easily, is like Lloyd, you know, is it a nice town? Yeah, it's a nice town. Is people flying in to come see the sites of Lloyd Minster?

No, it's a blue-collar working man's town, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you go half an hour outside Lloyd Minster, any direction you go, the area is absolutely gorgeous. and I hope to, like you say, maybe have somebody fly in from New York someday and land here and go, what on earth is this? And then, not to mention, hopefully, you know, state-of-the-art studio for them to, you know, be impressed by as well. And you're not going to get unwelcome visitors. Hopefully.

Hopefully. Hopefully. Who knows about this government. Now, George Norm, it's your first time on. So George will start with you. if you just want to tell the audience a little bit about your about yourself just so that they know who the heck they're listening to oh man I'm just kind of ordinary person I guess but I you know like Marty said like we've been in industry for I don't even a hold I am anymore probably 30

years you and I buy trade um do fill a lot of different hats quality control like out in the piping and maintenance planning that kind of stuff but like even from a person's perspective, like family came up from that Peace River area. Eventually, we settled down in Atson. Well, their last name is not a coincidence. I mean, they're Drews from Drewville. I think you need to point that out. I mean, they're, they're, Drewville? Yeah. Yeah. There's a Drewville. There's a Drewville. There's a Drewville, which is, which is in a Peace River country. Up in northern Peace River, there's, there's a Francophone community that's been there for 100 plus years.

So their ancestors were from Quebec, but these guys are fourth or fifth generation Albertans. With Frankphone backgrounds. Actually, I'll tell you, just let him introduce himself, but I'll tell you how I met these guys. This is how this day is going to go. Hey, let me tell you. No, like Marty says,

like our parents were up in Felaire, Donnelly, and McLennan, and yeah, they were French, and they grandparents farmed up there for like my grandfather came from both of them i guess came to Quebec and then came out there it's a yeah small little farming community and you know uncles did the same thing um and then i'm actually out of all the jerusalem the only one that has a boy so i'm just going to point that out so i got the last i got the last last line so we'll see yeah well normie normie for yourself just for the audience?

Just a born and raised, Albertan. Used to call myself a proud Canadian. I wouldn't say that anymore. Proud Albertan, for sure. Hoping for better. And like George said, you know, come from up north. I'm widowed. I had a wife that unfortunately got caught up

in what I'd say our health care system lacks. So I've got a couple daughters that got to get to adulthood without a mother in a system that's poor. So I have some thoughts on that. Yeah, just a low-life mechanic made my living. If you can't say you're a low-life mechanic, well, you can. But on this show and on this specific blue-collar round table, I always enjoy talking to the guys that do things. and do things with their hands specifically?

They're being modest right now. I mean, and I think they're a little bit shy, but, you know, George is a master electrician and Norman is a millwright. And I know them both. I've known them both for 30 years. And, you know, that's the show that you want to talk about. I mean, that's the concept that we talked about. These are guys that I can rely on.

And when I go out with these guys and we go hunting or whatever we do, I have zero worries. Zero worries because these are skilled people. These are everyday Albertans with massive skills. Yeah, like we were able to maneuver. Yeah, like there's not too often we need to phone anybody to do something for us. We do it ourselves. You mean the government isn't going to fix all your problems?

We have flown in a welder though. Yeah, we have to do that then. Yeah. But, yeah, no, the government's not coming to save us. We don't want them to save us. And I'm all right with that. like stand on your own two feet i mean if there's an apocalypse tomorrow people have said that like they're coming to my house i'm like my house will be empty because i'm going to his place

and you're not going to find us i'm just going to look up drooville on a map yeah well you'd be a long ways off from where i'm at but yeah where is jeruville it's in a peace river area so it's it's literally so it's in the middle of nowhere it's the opposite side of the province of this part of the world yeah yeah yeah yeah if you head up towards ground Prairie, you hit Vallevue, make your right and keep driving. And then you'll eventually hit Peace River. But you'll drive by Donnelly Corner, which doesn't really exist anymore. There used to be a little restaurant there, and you'd make your right to go to

McLennan, and you make a left, go to Felaire and Drewville. And before that, you drive through Ghee, which is, fine it. Phelair and Drewville are more frank, you know, you often hear people talking about Bonneville being Francophone or like the Bish, but Phelair is francophone. Like when you are downtown Falaire, the, the, the name. on the businesses are French the stop signs are bilingual it is weirdly bilingual especially in Alberta right yeah yeah and then and these guys come from they didn't talk about this but how big is your family like it's well yeah

mom's side is there was 19 brothers and sisters and my dad's side was 11 so yeah we've got uncles and aunts we've never met we've got cousins we've never I'm sure we got I've been to family events with these guys like weddings or whatever and there'll be like 300 people there and I'll go, oh yeah, you're a jeru, you're a jeru, you're definitely a jeru, you're a jeru. I don't know who you are, but you are a jeru. And mom and dad were the youngest, right?

So actually, like, all those uncles and aunts or a lot of them aren't around anymore. So it's like, you're next up. Like, that's the reality. I guess we all age and you get to the point, you're like, well, I'm next up. And I think that's the one thing that smacks you in the face just in life in general.

Like when mom passed away, like, I looked at the kids and I'm like, my dad's going. gone my mom's gone I'm next up and they're kind of look at you it's like it's a circle eventually eventually it's your turn just make your stamp yeah I feel like it's a turn for a lot of us right now with the state of Canada yeah in what sense like well I think I think you look at it from a life perspective and you try to you know we all talk about making a stamp it's like what's your impact gonna be because you're looking at what we're leaving for our kids it used to be

that our parents left something better. I don't think we're leaving something better. Definitely not leaving something. We're leaving them a lot of debt. We're leaving them. We're leaving them without an identity even, too. Like, our country is not what it used to be. And we, I mean, this, it always struck me.

Like, my wife was sick, and she went terminal. We went to the cross cancer. And so then they'll start playing with you and doing all sorts of different medications and whatever. know your bit of your genetics and your history and whatever and so you sit in there and they push this piece of paper across put your name on male female all that stuff and then it's like what's your like what's your cultural background right and you look down the whole thing and i'm like where's canadian like there's no well not there's no such thing as a can i'm like yeah there is

such thing as a canadian like i was born here like a canadian with maybe some french background sure I can bite on that, but like, I mean, no, we have an identity and we should have an identity. I was like, I told her, put down other and then there's right Canadian in there. Like, we need to take a stance on that. And quite frankly, I hope it's Albertan one day, like not too far away. You think we ever get there, boys? We will. I think so.

I think so. I mean, I think. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. I used to think not in my lifetime, but now more than ever, I think in my lifetime, we will see an independent Alberta. The talk of a referendum in 2026, though, like I guess in our lifetime is a lot of years, hopefully left, you know, barring nuclear war or, I don't know, an EMP or a solar flare or something that really sends us back to the Stone Ages.

I guess when I asked the question, I think, you know, like 2026, do you see a referendum question coming? Do you see a vote to get out of Canada? right now i don't me personally i don't want it in 2026 i think we still need to do a little bit of educating um you know you don't you don't do this every year until you get the answer you want so i think i'd rather wait a little bit i've a few things still tell me that there's a lot of alberts that aren't on board well and to your point i think you got a like the firewalling idea like you i think you got to get that first because like you could vote tomorrow and you're 12 years away from it. Number one, they're not going to let us go. Like, you don't,

you don't, you don't let the piggy bank leave, leave the house. Like, they, they, they want their bank account and we're it. But not only that, it's just like, we're not, that's probably a lot of the hesitancy amongst people is like they're looking at it and they're going, well, we don't, like, what are we going to do for pension? What are we going to, you have to settle these things out and get them set up before, you know, it's like when you're preparing, like you can, this isn't like a teenager leaving the house for the first time where they just grab their bag and take off like you've got a lot of people that have a lot of different concerns so how do you manage that well you got to have your police set up we're doing that you got to take you got to tackle your pension

thing we're we're doing that you know you got to what are you going to do for military what are you going to do for currency like you know you've talked to a lot of people along those lines and it's just like you you got to have those plans I think you got to enact a lot of those plans so you're not starting from scratch because if you just decide people that's what makes people nervous is the fear of the unknown like why do we so you look at quebec and you see how they pulled things back to themselves and you go that's that's that's a plan i think that was the best marketing phrase that smith ever did we just want to be like quebec because when you do that no we don't want to be like them we want well some of the things that they sure yeah yeah but it's a tagline where it's like well there's some

fun things in Quebec. But, and you've been there. But the reality to it is, is like, when you, when you use that, it's easy to frame up. People go, oh, yeah, well, why not? It's like, it's, it's not extraordinary, right? You're not asking for extraordinary things. You're just asking to be treated the same. Yeah. So it's, it's a good way of framing it in a way where the average person can, can get on board with that. Because if you say, I want my own pension plan, they're like, nobody does that. Well, no, Quebec does. Yeah, the good thing is people are definitely getting on board. I mean, I, you know, like every week I think people are having that buyer's remorse now they're they're

they're seeing what's that that nothing changed in Ottawa which is a good thing for separatists right like I mean Carney's coming out to Alberta tomorrow tomorrow today I think he's coming tomorrow I think it's today it don't matter it don't matter he's here he's coming here and he's going to announce a quote-unquote memorandum of understanding I I saw bits and pieces of what they're going to announce and it's just more more regulations more more hurdles for us like it's you know we're being we're being suppressed and we we're we're being held back as a province he's all burton he knows he understands yeah yeah yeah anyways yeah he was in uh i mean it was funny to watch uh actually we're not here to talk about carney

but it was funny to watch carney in abou dhabi last week or in in the united emirits wherever he was right and i mean he was gushing over them like they were they were showing off what they had they were showing them on showing off all this beautiful infrastructure and then and then carne kept gushing over just like so you're gushing over uh abu dhabi's wealth that comes from oil but you're not gushing over our oil yeah like why don't we have why why can't we be like them right yeah so yeah because we've made mediocrisy the target rather than like the lowest of low bar yeah well we we used to build things we used to like we had dreams and now and that doesn't happen

anymore we can't even man like to put a pipeline across like that shouldn't that shouldn't take anything well look at trans mountain man actually norm lives on the trans mountain pipeline went right by his property you want to talk about a money laundering affair that's money laundering at its finest like when you watch a hole show up on the back of a tractor trailer And they pick up the exact same hole and put it on another tractor trailer and move it down the road. You're sitting there going like, really? Just got to show it's moving. Yeah, they just, they move the stuff around and they can bill for trucking.

It's all cost plus. There was no, there was no bid work on this. Like, and the Eastern people think that they built us a pipeline? Oh, please. Like, come on. We had the damn thing built and ready to go. Like, if you just got out of the bloody way, but oh, no. Like, just more, that's why we, that's why we don't need them.

Like, get rid of them. I talked to an industry person when they were doing that, so they had to lay down yard in Atson, and that person was like, we had just had a meeting with the government. There's 80 people from the government in this meeting. For a laydown yard. Like, they just all show up.

It's, there's, oh, are we going to talk with government waste? God. Like, here's another one. Well, here's one. I'll tell you another. Where do you want to take this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here's another interesting one.

And I, like, because you talk to people, right? Like, if you talk to people, we find out stuff. And I was talking to, I was in for an appointment. I was talking to the guy. And his wife used to run a little cafe in town. And so an AHS was building a hospital in ATSA, which took forever. But so they were trying to figure out how they were going to do the decorate. So they held this big meeting, brought all the AHS people in.

So her job was to cater. it's not just like when we have our food it's like you get what you get and then you go serve yourself there had to be somebody at each tray serving and they had to explain to the people how it was prepared like this is so and he goes you know what the funny thing is they have this big meaning they bring all these people in from all over and the decision on the interior design is that they would contract that service out and you're like what So they drove from all over. They couldn't even pick a color of paint, which is probably white.

Actually, when one was there wrong, it was white. Yeah, yeah. But, like, that's what I mean. Like, we talk about government waste, and people don't understand how deep it goes. It's like, think of the most ridiculous thing you can think of. And they've done it. They've all done it. I don't care if it's UCP or NDP.

Like, they're all the same. It's a uniparty. It's just what side of the aisle are you going to really, like, kind of hover on? It's our embedded bureaucrats that are the problem. Like, I went to a hockey game with a buddy, brought his father. He works for AHS. And he was upset with, because we were higher up in the nosebleeds. And he was, his buddies that got free tickets were down there in the lower bowl.

And they were making fun of him for having subpar tickets. And I'm like, just like, what are you like, how are you here? Like, that shouldn't even happen, like, at all. like not even a little bit, but that's, that's, that's just a small part of it. I don't think they should be treated a whole bunch different to the private sector, but in the same breath, it's like the, I don't think you're getting the same, I don't want to paint them all with the same brush, but like, you're not getting the same level of competency and accountability in a lot of instances. Like, and like, let's be honest, you're getting a big,

big organization. And they beat the care out of you. Well, that's my point. problem, right? I mean, yeah, we need a bit of government. I, you know, I think we can all agree we need a little bit of government, but government became something of its own beast. And it was okay when government was sort of just incompetent. We dealt with it, right? We work in the old patch and a lot of the rules we had to deal with you, go like, okay, I'll deal with it. But now it's, it's beyond incompetence. They're actually hindering and, and they're even going further. I mean, they're trying to take us out of business like they're doing things to purposely take us out of business well they want to that's our frustration i mean we like we were we all grew up in a in in a province that had

this amazing alberta advantage i mean we're we're all fathers we all had kids we all had homes everything was great norm was touching on this i mean my father your father that's they weren't they weren't the they weren't the best men in the planet but they did something that they were supposed to do they made sure that the next generation was better off i i i'm better off often my dad and you're better off than your dad that wouldn't take much but i but i i don't think my kids will be better off than me that's your phone norm yeah that's my phone you want me to shut it off yeah no let it let it let it keep ringing and get a better ring tone geez but but you but you want to what like put them all on vibrate yeah i got rid of mine i ordered some pesos so i guess they're

Norm's prepping. Are you talking about Canadian dollars or? Yeah, both. Yeah, they're worth... Because it's cheaper to fly halfway around the world than it is to make each you know, you talk about that though. Like, we talk about the, like, leave the next generation. Like, I don't think it's hopeless.

Because I see... Well, actually, I heard an interesting stat. It was American stat, but they said, like, Gen... What is the Gen Z? are the, or the newest ones, whatever there. Like my son's age, my daughter's age. They go to church more than any other demographic. Yeah.

So it's kind of wild that way. And then the next millennials and then next axers and boomers go the least. And we wonder how things drift, right? Because I've heard you talk about faith a lot of times. And it's true. Like it's amazing how you drift back. so it's kind of wild you have to forgive me because i'm a one-man band on this side so every time somebody sits up and moves i'm like well i'm better go check a camera otherwise i'm going to sit

here and stew on it for the next hour well we're what we're the second group in the studio yeah i'm still ironing out a lot of problems that's cool that's cool yeah yeah yeah yeah sorry finishers i drift back what were you saying so so there's i was listening to a program and and they brought out the stats on uh the demographics that go well age demographics because I go to church. And they said, like, Gen Z's, and this was right after what happened to Charlie Kirk. And they said, like, Gen Z's go attend church

more than any other age group at this moment, followed by millennials, followed by Xers, and baby boomers, not surprisingly to me, go the least amount. And I think they're the people that have drifted the furthest away from faith. And you can see it in the way they behave. And not all of them, because there's a lot of good ones. Like, some people are very principled.

But a lot of them are willing to sacrifice the young for themselves. And it's absolutely bizarre because it's completely contrary to, I would say, how. To biology and genetics, right? You're supposed to. You protect the young. And the young are supposed to replace you. And yeah, it's supposed to be better for the young. That's how biology is geared, right?

the survival of the fittest and we are supposed to reproduce and and uh yeah they're the ones pushing i think in a lot of cases not not just i i mean i don't i don't want to go down this one too hard i i i i'm critical to boomers too that's that's a group i like to pick on well there's there's a lot of good boomers in in order and probably specifically rural Alberta and i'm i'm singling out rural because i just come from it and i know what i grew up around right like yeah there's there's a lot of there's a lot of good people in all the different thing all the different age categories it is interesting the younger people turning back to faith I think it's hard I obviously I'm not one of them but I mean in my own journey

you stare at the world and none of it makes sense you're like what are we doing this it doesn't make any sense and so then you got to go find something that makes sense and I think for the reason I go back to it a lot is it makes a ton of sense to me it just it just does and that once you have that then you can stare back at the world and go oh this is kind of where we're at yeah and and in society right now when we're you got uh what is it 16 recalls going now for UCP um um MLA's petitions you got teachers upset for being ordered back to work meanwhile meanwhile the ATA didn't pay them and you're like you're like where did the money go like where's the teacher's outcry about their own governing body that didn't pay it?

I mean, at some point, you've got to go, like, aren't you going to address that? No, you're not going to address that. You're just going to go and try and get everybody who's ordering you back to school, and they're throwing this propaganda in that there's a book ban, and it's so bad, and we're going to get rid of all the classics, and you're like, what are you talking about? Like, do you even understand what's going on? Like, how can you be so far removed from reality? Because they never left school.

which is actually you know that's an interesting observation I've noticed more actually now this is weird but I've noticed more and more people starting the question they're actually getting pushed so far that they're starting to question that's a great one right like I think teach I think that's a perfect example recently teachers it a lot of teachers started to question because they they even said like wait a minute we got a 12% raise uh we're going to work and not just teachers other people started saying what you got is good and they started questioning things in general like what are you complaining about well that that strike was to inflict the maximum amount of political damage that that's all it was like teachers i talk

i said you're not getting more than 12 percent you want to know i know that because that's what everybody else got and they're not going to the government's not going to go out on limb and give you 16 whatever right and i and then they talked about hard caps i'm like well i actually think the problem with school, like with classroom complexity, is that all the desks should actually be pink. You just pick the variable. Class size is the variable. Is that the only variable? No, there's lots. But if you pick one, you're stuck to it. You can only address class size, because you don't have money to address anything else. But if you deal with, and I think they're going down the right path, if you pick the problem, and then you start finding solutions. But if you start building the

problem to fit the solution that you want you haven't done anything like you've made it probably worse but that was one of the things that i liked about the strike right it brought up some some people finally questioned the problem right like the teachers they had a they had a legitimate beef right the classrooms are messed up we got we're we're we're we're letting in kids who can't speak english into the classroom and the teachers are having to deal with it i'm glad that some of those problems got brought to the forefront and people finally said hey maybe government is causing problems like maybe the policies we've gone too far we're seeing that a lot well and one of the ones I heard a lot about from teachers is um I don't know about your guys's day but I know my

day in school uh discipline was still a thing now they were removing by the time I was in school you know the the the ruler and the strap and things were that long gone but the old I can just imagine. I deserved it. But I got spanked in grade one. I remember that quite, you know, like... I got punched in the face in grade nine. But, you know, like, I think, you know,

what has changed in school since even my time is discipline is they've been handcuffed. And complexity also part of it is, is like, how do you deal with an unruly kid who's ruining the entire classroom? And if you talk to enough parents, it's in every community where they're not allowed to remove a kid they're not allowed to touch a kid they're not allowed to you know and all the things you're like so what do you do yeah yeah no they've gone overboard on they've gone overboard on like we're going to make a safe space well what about all the other kids a safe space or accommodating people that really you know don't deserve it don't like i'm i'm going to say it i mean i my youngest graduated

about three years ago what from high school and and there were people that got their diploma that shouldn't have received their diploma and they were accommodating them and and in the past we would have said no that kid does not shouldn't be in the class it's it that kid if if if the parents wanted that kid to have a certificate we we could have saved a lot of time and just said here here's a certificate done but but they made that kid sit in the classroom for 12 years and and and it cost of fortune and realistic they left with without the skills they need absolutely and like for schooling they're like like like I'm I'm I I live that part, too, is we need to stream these kids differently.

Like, we need to give them options. Like, not every kid's the same way. And we need to have a couple of avenues for kids to thrive. We've got enough of them. Well, that was on the edge. That was something that Danielle Smith talked about a couple years ago. Remember, and even that solution, like where she said, realistically, you can pick a kid.

At some point in grade 10, you can say, kid. you're not going to university. That's okay. That's okay. You have a knack for being a carpenter or a cabinet maker and let's put you on that stream. And then there's parents and people go, oh, you're denying that kid an opportunity or whatever. It's like, holy smokes. You can't even bring up solutions anymore.

Well, like they keep, I mean, you hear it quite often now. They're saying like the plumbers are going to be the next millionaires. Like you can't. they try and get a plumber like good luck like you know you got to know a plumber so that he'll come otherwise well that's why i like talking to guys who work with their hands so much yeah well like four the CEO of fort he's like 6,000 bays in the u.s are missing mechanics a mechanic that's just ford that's not everybody else so you got to like at some point we got a teacher i remember i remember when i had robert oswell he's a guy from this area um built boats actually now can you

imagine a guy who builds like wake boats coming from this area where there's you know like you know this isn't the the Minnesota of the land of 10,000 lakes. We do have good lakes here in Saskatchewan, but regardless. He told me way back when that you have to make blue collar cool again because kids need to like there's such great opportunities to go and build careers there and a lifestyle there and it's needed right like you hear all this stuff about AI. I'm curious you guys' thoughts on AI, you know, like of, of, it taking over the world and replacing all these jobs. And I always stare at like, you know, a mechanic, for instance. I'm like, good luck with replacing that with AI. You're not going to, like, you're a carpenter, somebody

who builds, like, look around this place. It was a carpenter who put in all this. I'm like, AI ain't fixing that. It might design it. It certainly ain't coming in and, uh, putting in the screws and cutting the boards and, you know, all the other things that go along with it. Computers are getting rid of paper, remember? We got more paper on me than I ever did. Like, they were going to make your life easier. Like, it's, it augments it. It changes it.

Like, I think the reality is it's like, especially in it, and you're, you're better with the data side of it, but in a data-centered world, like, you're just collecting more information. So it's going to help you, uh, sort it, parse it out. But at the end of the day, somebody has to make a decision. Yeah. No, I mean, let's, let's, let's keep talking about that. Like, yeah, they made it.

I don't know who. decided that being a blue collar was bad. Somebody along the way made it shameful to be a blue collar. And we're going to regret that. It's just another decision. It's just one of those things. In the last 30 years, man, our society did a lot of things that we will ultimately regret. Well, you look into the schools now.

We said, yeah. The computer room is more equipped and more funded and used than the shop class. A lot of these schools don't even have shop classes anymore. Part of that is is you can't get. Like, if you've got a mechanic and he's going to be a teacher, he's got to jump through a pile of hoops in order to do it. And he's not given the resources he needs. Like, I remember our shop class, we bring a truck in, we were welding,

we were grinding, we were putting engines, we were rebuilding. We were, like, all sorts of them. Those kids don't do that anymore. Like, not at all. And we don't, but we don't give it to them. We give them a smart board and a iPad, and you're like, why? Everybody's got that on anything. And like you said, there's not, there's nobody to teach it.

Like, like, I look, my, well, if you're a mechanic and you can make 200 grand a year, why would you go make 80 as a teacher? The only reason why you do it is for lifestyle. I'll teach the kid that wants to come and work. But they would do it for lifestyle, right? So, but then, so you flip that, okay, it's like, okay, I want to go do this as a lifestyle choice. I don't want to, I'm tired of being cold. Okay, the money's less.

I'm kind of half-ass retired. Run that, run that thought. And you're like, okay. And it's like, oh, by the way, you need an ed degree. It's like, I'm out. Like, what Nate's able to employ tradespeople to teach trades people, and they do a really good job of it, I'd say for the most part, I had good ones. Some of them I was teaching when I went through, but, but the reality of it is, it's doable. But we have this idea.

Like, you could have a PhD in physics, but you don't have an ed degree, so you can't teach in a public school. That's crazy. Well, like, apparently they've made some sort of concessions for the shop teacher stuff. Like, my girlfriend's a teacher, and so I get a little bit different. viewpoint, which is good. I needed that during this last little run through the ringer, but yeah. Speaking of money, I'm staring, it's staring right at. So I'm not able to do this, okay? What are you giving us here? So every guy who comes in the studio gets a one out silver coin from silver gold. You know I'm short. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, well, Silver Gold Bowl,

one of the things we started I think it's going on a couple years now anybody who comes in studio gets a one ounce silver coin and I don't know if you boys stare at silver and gold prices at all or if you collect it all but you know

watching the gold price do what it's doing the silver price do what it's doing when we first started that I remember giving one to Daniel Smith and I remember not knowing if I could give it to her and she laughed she's like is it over $500. I'm like, oh, no, it's like $38 at the time. She's like, oh, I can have it. So we,

you know, I gave her a silver coin. And since then, you know, I'm not, I don't have the the spot price in front of me, but I want to say it's $72. So that, you know, I, it's, it's almost doubled since I started it. I actually had a, I posted something cool on X about a month ago on my way to the, the, the, the, uh, the, uh, independence, uh, rally. I stopped at a gas station and I paid cash and a guy gave me coins as change and just randomly I afterwards I looked at it and there was a 1957 quarter in there and I was like wow okay the 1957 quarter was still silver yeah stop making silver quarters I think in 65 or 67 it's somewhere like that right so if you go back before pre 60 let's say 67 yeah

It's like 80 to 85% silver. Anyways, six quarters, no, 13 quarters makes an ounce. So I looked at the price. That quarter was worth about $8.90 in the silver content of that quarter. You just got everybody's going, holy crap, that money jar that I've been. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have a money jar, go look to it. You should.

If you have any pre-67 quarters or. I went to, I went to, um, uh, gosh. What the heck is it called? A big craft show in Lloyd, like, craft. Farmers market? Yeah, no, no, but they have this huge Christmas craft show. Oh, yeah. Right, like 10,000 people come through it.

And they have all these vendors, and this is like two years ago. There was one of those old coin guys. And I said, what's the best silver coins you got? Like, going back pre-67, 65, somewhere in there. And so he showed me all these coins. And I bought one for like, I can't remember, 20 bucks or something because of its value and its rarity. Now, it was just a, I think it was a silver dollar memory serves me, correct?

But I think about that now, and I'm like, holy crap, that was like really, I mean, it's not, is it making me a millionaire? No, but I mean, you go look back, anything pre-65, 67, forgive me, folks, there is a date in there. Martin Armstrong talks about it a lot. And it's like, you should be looking through your change right now because if you have that old coin jar, which I assume we all grew up with, I bet you there's a whole, whole bunch of quarters or coins in there that are worth a heck of a lot more than what's

printed on them because yeah the silver content is high yeah yeah yeah no um precious metals and things like that are worth investing in right now i mean our our dollar is being devalued like rapidly every like every day is that part of the reason why the price of gold is going up so much too though like because our dollars worth less absolutely i mean like uh you know look at look at the government's budget last month, right? There's a, there's a 70 billion dollar deficit. And every time there's a deficit, that's more money that the government has to borrow. And where does our government borrow money from the Bank of Canada who issues more bonds and does all sorts of crap. And people, people get excited because they're, whatever, their property values gone up by

5% this year. It's like, your property value's gone up 5%. But your dollar is devalued by 7. So you're not gaining. We're not gaining. Speaking of property, okay, I meant to bring this up almost close to start but then you know we've been we've been in a different realms you so i follow i think a lot of people who listen to the show follow marty on x and uh one of the things that uh you had on your property like i don't know was that how many days ago is that where you spotted the truck out last last weekend so about a week ago yeah uh you had the truck parked out but i don't know walk me through this because i saw it on x i'm like man that's strange yeah so i have uh it's not my 48

but there's 40 acres next to my property right in my backyard it's a 40 acres of of grazing land and my wife was just sitting in the living room or in the dining room and then she just looked out and she's like there's a truck in the middle of the field I'm like and I looked and I'm like yeah there's a truck in the middle of the field what the hell is the truck doing there there and and there's kind of a dip in the field and he was in the lowest spot it looks suspicious I grabbed my binoculars I couldn't see what was happening. So I literally went and grabbed my tripod and put a spotting scope on it

and I looked at the truck and then all of a sudden as soon as I did in order to do that I had to raise the curtain. I went upstairs and the second story of the house opened the curtain, put the scope there and then immediately that guy started moving around and packing up.

So he packed up a tripod and he had a camera or something. And so then I'm like, okay, I've got to go into the, I told Karen, I'm like, I'm going into the field like I got it so I jumped in my truck and I drove and I have to drive it a little bit around I wasn't going to drive through the fence right and as soon as I drove into the field he took off and he went

back to the road and then he and he went down the secondary road and then he got onto the highway and I said on my tweet that I chased him down doing 160 people people misinterpreted thought he was doing 160 through the field no he didn't do 160 through the field but once he got on the road he started speeding away. And so I got, I got his license plate. I caught up with him. I got his license plate and I put it out on there. And I, and the reason I'm putting these things, these stories out there, people say, Marty, you're getting paranoid. Like, well, I'm starting to get paranoid. Yeah, because I've had too many of these incidents and I'm putting it out there to let people know whoever that is. If they, if it was somebody spying on me, then I want them to know

that I was on to them. Now, I got an answer afterwards. Somebody, one of my neighbors said, I think that, you know, one of my neighbors said there's a property for sale nearby and could it have been the real estate agent flying a drone to get some footage. So I called a real estate agent. I went, looked around and I found a sign and I'm like, I called the real estate agent. And she said, yeah, we were out there doing something.

I'm like, can you describe the truck? She didn't give me a satisfactory answer. It's a potential, it could make sense, but still, I'm like, yeah, but when, I don't know, I don't know about, yeah, why would you go to a field? Yeah, why would you trespass? I don't know, I don't know about Georgia Norm, but I just sit here and I go, okay, you pick the low spot.

Yep. That's, well, maybe that's coincidence, but I think us sitting in here, I got, as soon as you're in the low spot, I mean, I know, anyways, then you go, okay, as soon as you lift the curtain, could it be timing that he starts packing up, or do you notice that you were starting to notice them. Well, okay, let's give a coincidence again. Okay, there's two. Yep.

And I'm not a big coincidence believer. So then you go, the third thing is, as soon as you come out there, if it's all above board, you stay there. You stay there and you go, oh, I'm just filming for this, and you explain it, and there's no harm, no foul. Done. It's like, oh, okay, not a big deal. Instead, they drive away.

And then probably the fourth thing is to get on the highway, instead of just doing normal speed, they truck it. Yep. I mean, to me, am I missing anything here, Jens? If you're flying drones, you've got to be certified, and you'd have to produce that you are certified. And if you're there doing it for real estate, like, yeah, and there's nothing wrong.

And I'm still, yes, and I'm still trying to give the benefit of the doubt saying, okay, the guy I was flying a drone and he didn't want to be. Was there a drone? Did you see a drone? I didn't see a drone. I didn't see. Literally, all I saw was a tripod with what looked like a camera. And as soon as I started going out,

As soon as I put the scope on him, he packed up everything and rushed and threw stuff in the back of the truck and then drove away. And I actually got the license plate. I put the license plate on X and I have friends who looked it up and then they contacted me. They're like, are you sure you got the right license plate? Because that license plate doesn't register. Okay. So that's, is that five things now? Well, then there's a sixth thing, which was a week earlier.

I had the trout or the salmon incident. my property, which again, was completely bizarre and unexplained, right? I'm sitting in my office and my daughter was visiting, was there that afternoon. She's in the house and she looks out my window and she's like, what's Tika licking? My dog, right? So I'm like, I have no idea. So I walk out there and there's my dog licking a salmon. It looked like a store bought salmon with the head cut off and gutted. And I'm like, what the heck? complete mystery um and we're we're like my wife karen's like well maybe it was one of the neighbors was getting ready to cook it i'm like so they left it where on the deck and tika just happened to

go visit my neighbors are like you know whatever 500 yards away so like and i dismiss that incident as nothing and same thing i i'm i'm i'm still on x the reason i put some of these things on X is to make sure people understand that I'm not a robot I'm not an agent I'm just a Joe Schmuck right and I'm real so I put it on X and then a whole bunch of people's like that's an old mafia thing man they used to dump a fish on your steps and it was a warning saying you'll be soon you'll be swimming with the fish meaning you'll have concrete booties I'm like no no no no there's no way but but but then but then you have the truck show up and and you know when you just start looking at it And you're like, well, you've been following Lauren Southern?

Yeah. That is wild. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Like, but that's the thing. I'm not Lauren Southern, but yeah, I have 150,000 followers. I mean, on the flip side, you say I'm not Lauren Southern, but I mean, what is Lauren Southern?

Lauren, or who is Lauren Southern? Sorry, Lauren, if you ever listen to this. She's a personality online who talks critically about government and immigration policies and and so who's Marty up north. A guy who, he's a guy online. I know you're a real person because obviously we've become friends over the course of several years

but I mean realistically you have an online presence that is relatively large you know is it Elon Musk no but is it Bob from the supermarket? No right you got hundreds of thousands of people staring at your content you're critical of the government you know

I don't know well at a minimum he's regionally significant yes he is in Alberta 100% you know with the UCPA GM coming like how many people there are going to know Marty a lot right like it's not going to be like you walk in and nobody knows who you are no you're no i mean yeah no it's uh you know that i've got i go to uh i went to several of uh daniel's um um um um alberta next panels or whatever yep and i went with my wife at one of them and i'm like check this out so i got up to go ask a question and i told karen just watch this. And as soon as I got up to go ask a question, I got semi surrounded by a bunch of

people. And they were Danielle's bodyguards. And they came close. They didn't do that for anybody else. And then one of them said, you're going to be nice, right? I'm like, I'm just asking a question. I'm like, just making sure. I'm like, okay. And I asked a question. And I got a, I got an applause because I asked a question that was on people's mind, but that most people were afraid to ask. Afraid to ask. Or, yeah, yeah. That's an odd story in itself.

To have people get, because that means if I'm hearing you correctly, that means they had a discussion about it before the meeting and said, Marty's here, and there's probably a couple others. I assume there's a few others. And if he gets up, we need you to get up and do what? Just go near him. Just go near him. And maybe just let him know, you're going to be, like, think about that.

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Well, it happened last year. Remember last year, you had the hospitality suite and Red Deer. Yes. And she walked in, right? Yes. And when she walked in and she saw me, she walked up to me.

And then same thing, her bodyguards got really, really close. And then she's like, it's okay. And then she, she. See, but that's. We had a quick chat. And. But that story makes sense to me. Because like when she walked in the hospitality room,

she's looking around and there's a bunch of people that if I'm a bodyguard, I'm walking in a room. And I got to make my presence known that actually makes complete sense to me. At a town hall, if you're like they didn't jump up for anyone else but me, that's odd to me. And especially when they say the comments to you, you're going to be nice, right?

Like I mean, they already know who you are, all the things. Actually, she was nice after that town hall. I actually got in. invited into the back room and we had a chat and she literally said give me a heads up next time you're going to drop a bomb on me kind of thing and I said no no no no no no that's not how it works

like I mean we like did you get her personal number at least how would you like me to drop the bomb on you yeah yeah yeah give a heads up I mean you're the premier of a province I don't actually have you on speed dial I do I used to but not anymore well you know I but I but I used to too But back when she was Daniel Smith, the radio host, I think it was very, she was very accessible. Now as a premier of a province, and I got a ton of time for Daniel Smith and how outspoken she is towards Ottawa and what she's doing, right? But like, I mean, how many degrees of separation is there between her and, like, I'm not suggesting at her town hall. She was the one directing that. I highly doubt that.

I assume she doesn't even have time to think about those things. But somebody in the staff certainly does. Oh, yeah. No, and, you know, I'll close it with this. I mean, I've had, yeah, leading up to last year's AGM, I was pretty critical of Danielle. This year I've backed off. I mean, I really like what she's doing for the province and she's, she's the right premier and she's doing a solid job. But I did get a lot of criticism from people because I was criticizing her. And I'm like, like, I'm not going to stop criticizing a politician because of the color of their, of their flag and their, shirt. I mean, I don't care. My job is to hold politicians accountable. Yeah, well, I've taken some similar flack. Yeah. And I chuckle about it because it's interesting to me, as soon as a government gets in, Donald Trump, it's like all of a sudden people team red, they can't look at what's going on and be like, wait a second, that's kind of hot though. Aren't we going to talk about that? Well, no, Trump's in and he's going to save the world and on and on and on. And especially when you bring it

closer and closer to home, that becomes more apparent. And Daniel Smith's doing lots of great things. Does that mean she never does something that's, you know, outside lines or something that maybe we should talk about to pull her back towards where, where society wants to go? It's interesting, but Team Blue doesn't want you to do that. Team Blue wants everything to be raw, raw, conservatives are the best. Well, it's interesting because it's like it, you know, we criticize NDPs for group think, right? like they can't have diverging thought.

And then when we get in, to your point, we say, you shouldn't criticize them. But that's what makes us conservatives. And I would like to think that's what sets us apart. And is that we're more than willing to question and criticize. But like, what's our biggest strength is that? But it also is at our own detriment if you want to maintain power. But I don't think it's a good thing to be in power for 20 years. an example, right? Like, it's like, you get corrupt. It just happens. Like, it's, it's inherent,

or you get complacent. Like, you look at Ralph Klein, pre 2005, was incredible. After 2005, eh, I didn't go for him. They hit home, because it was like, he got, like, what was he doing? He was going through the motions. Like, they just, what's your goal? Everybody has to have a purpose, right? But we talk about, like, how they change when they get into power. Well, part of the of it they have to they're wearing a different hat but i actually had a um i was at a conference a little while ago and i actually met um stockwell day i had never met stockwell day and it's just to the point you said uh when stockwell he told a story he said when he got into politics his father told him you're going to learn uh don't quote me exactly but you're going to learn what

changing your mind means and real quick and and and and stockwell didn't quite know what his dad meant but he he got elected and all of a sudden he represented the party stockwell himself said like it was crazy how instantly i i i went in there thinking i represent the people and as soon as i got elected and sworn in within days i was representing the party i'm like wow that's that's a that's a cool insight and I think it's hard for any of them to resist that right like there's a lot of people that do go in well there be a ton of pressure the pressure must be huge I think as soon as you get elected there's a there's a there's a there's an apparatus that feels you out real quick and can we are you going to be a dissident or it's before you even get elected yeah it's when

you put your nomination in they already are feeling that out yeah have you guys ever been part of those like when you start talking like I remember when uh I was on this I was sitting on the board for the CPC and my riding. And somebody challenged the incumbent. And so people actually signed up for the nomination because in, in Yellowhead, like if you can win the nomination, you win, you win the riding. Like, it's guaranteed. And so what ended up happened there?

Like, they had people from, they had this guy from Ottawa coming out, renting an apartment in Hinton to be part of the area and trying to tell everybody that we weren't getting proper representation and it's like like our i would definitely argue that our MP at the time was was a party guy so i don't know what was kind of going on there but as a board like we wielded quite a bit of a lot of stroke there and that guy he came out i don't know what his intent was but like eventually there was enough interviews they struck him as a candidate because they're like uh they're like this this isn't right yeah yeah but and there was other people And eventually that MP of ours, he decided he was older and he decided not to, not to run again.

I don't think any of us would ever be able to run. I've been asked that a lot of times, right? Why don't you run? I'm like, I'd go nuts, man. Well, we'd go nuts, but they won't, they won't take us because we're way too critical thinkers. And we, we just won't, I won't tow the line, no matter what. I won't toll the, the company line, the party line, the, I, he's laughing because I mean, I've quit jobs over there. I will not tow the line. Like if you try to get me to tow the line,

that's, you've just done something that immediately makes me go, ooh, uh, why? Yeah, not very good of being told what to do. Yeah, it's like you can, you can bring some logic and reason and I can work with that. But yeah, if you're telling me that I have to do something, yeah, that's not going to work well for you. Like it's just, and I'm not a character. And political parties are that way. At some point, no matter what, you're in a political party, you have to, there, there's always a time where they'll make you want to tow the line. And as soon as I have to toe the line, I'm not. Yeah.

Well, they'll argue that's what the caucus meetings are for. That's when you debate it. But then you come out with a unified front. And it's just like, okay. But I'd be never obviously been part of the caucus meeting. But like, how much are you actually heard as a backbencher? And why should you have less stroke? You're one vote.

You know, and that's what I tell people. Like, if you ever want to, you know, you want to run. I'm like, they're just the vote. Like, they're not the people pulling the strings. The people are behind. Like, Ralph, I'll go back to Klein, right? Who is, who's in Klein's here? Rod Love, right?

If you wanted to be, you want to be Rod Love. You don't want to be Ralph Klein. Ralph Klein's job sucks. Rod Love's job was really good. Actually, in Klein's government, I would have wanted to be Steve West. He was the guy who was tasked with that era's equivalent of Doge, right? He was the guy tasked with, uh... And he's from this area.

Is he? Mm-hmm. He was a vet, right? Was that? Or he's still alive? I think he was a... He's still alive. I actually don't know that. They called him, yeah, the workers didn't like him. Neither did the cabinet members. Nobody liked him. But he did his job. Yeah. Actually, you were laughing because I was thinking of the story. I got to tell the story, right? So I should have introduced Norm this way, but a lot of times it's to do with not towing the line. And I was introduced Norm to new people. I would say he cost me my job. So I lost my job because of him. But what happened is my boss was gone and delegated to me to be the boss while he was on vacation. And I like to hang out with the workers and we had a little barbecue at the plant and we had fun.

And then my boss came back and he was pissed off that I had done something nice. And then I got heated. The debate with my boss got heated. And then he literally said, hanging out with Norman's not doing anything for your career. I don't know why he brought that up, but my boss literally said, hanging out with Norman's not helping your career. I don't know. I thought it did good.

I'm like, and at that point, I'm like, do you seriously think I'm hanging out with that guy to advance my career? I hang out with that guy because he likes the hunt. He rides a Polaris ATV. He fixes my stuff. We drink beer. We drink beer together. And we live in a small town. Like, come on.

And, and, and then shortly after that, that was an eye opener. I quit. I quit the job because I asked my boss at the time, like, are you telling me that who I do stuff with and how I do is more important than what I do? And he's like, yeah, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm out of here. And you quit shortly after that. I mean, it's like, yeah, anyways, you cost me my job, you. I did you a favor. I'm the only stable one here.

Yeah. You guys, you know, when we first started this. conversation, you know, two years ago about possibly doing this. One of the ideas was around you guys go hunting and, you know, and he spent a lot of time there and you solve the world's problems. And I feel like, you know, that has been a good start to this conversation. But we got talking on the way out about caribou. Maybe you could walk me through, well, I don't know, you guys can discuss it, but you brought up caribou specifically. Well, caribou for, like, for me it's been a little bit of a dig and you try and like the government's done a really good job

that they they don't want to let the numbers out and they make the numbers small but let let me frame it and then you can sure um so we've been hunting 25 years in the exact same area pretty much exact same area like we have a a camp that we go to year after year at the same time and in that area, there are supposedly caribou. There are caribou in that area. And the government of Canada has a caribou protection plan and Alberta signed on to it. So Alberta's, we had to. It's one of those things where if we wanted to develop our oil and gas, we had to sign on to this caribou protection plan. And Quebec did as well. Yeah. So in the area where we hunt, there's apparently a small herd that's been separated from the big herd and they're trying to protect it and over the last 25 years we've

seen how many strategies employed by the government to try and protect them go through some of the things we've seen like so they've they've asked they've increased the hunting quota in there for ungulates like basically there's only two zones in alberta that give you cow moose with a with a draw like for rifle and those are caribou zones and they're they've opened up the bull moose draws. So they wanted us to kill the moose. They wanted their theory was kill all the moose. Then that way you get rid of the predators, wolves, bears, what have you.

They've actually had helicopter, the government contracts helicopters. They fly around. One year they shot 111 ungulates and then they poison them. And then that's in order that they do it in the winter so that the wolves will get onto them. Poisons the wolves kills the wolves. Well, that doesn't keep eagles off. It doesn't keep ravens. Like, the only thing you're kind of saving is the bears.

And the bear, there's a lot of bears up there. Anybody that's worried about grizzly bears, like... So it was a weird theory, but their theory was if you kill the moose, then the wolves will leave because the moose is the wolf's food source. Favorite food. And then they'll leave the caribou alone. That backfired. Then they went and thought about...

They wanted to build a breeding pen, which it sounds like they're doing in Jasper. Yeah. Which is a whole other discussion. But anyway... They're going to fend... them in. Yeah, the fence them in so that these caribou can breed and safety and what have you and then they can make more.

But they abandon that and then now they're onto this, there's too much disturbance on the landscape, which this area is like probably the most untouched part of Alberta

south of Grand Prairie. Like it's Crownland. We're hunting is just... There's a few cut lines and there's the odd Cut block. So now they went, so in the last couple of years, we started noticing it under the Notley government. They started, we call it rolling over the cut lines. So cut lines for people who are listening are like they cut trees down lines so they could do seismic and go look for oil and gas.

These seismic lines date back to the 1950s. And they started rolling them over because again, they had a theory that the wolves were using the cut lines. I'm like, they've been there since the 1960s, man. The cut lions are no different than a river. They're generational. So the wolves know about them. The caribou know about them. All the animals have adapted.

They understand that these cut lines are there. They started rolling over the cut lines. And by rolling over the cut lines, you mean? Make them impassable for us. They went and used back hose to rip them up and then knock all the trees down and just try to make it impassable. Impassable. And so what did we see this year? that we haven't seen in years before,

we saw caribou. You know where we saw the caribou? On the roads. So they wrecked all the cut lines that the caribou were using as part of their migration, and now the caribou are on the roads. It's wild because we sat in,

we got a meeting with some of those government, like a lady from the government, and the math they use to determine, so they say that area is 99% destruction. So the math they've used for that is from the edge of the cut line. Any disturbance? Yeah. And they don't care how old it is.

Yeah, 500 meters. You can't see 10 feet into the bush, but they say 500 meters off. So the math, I would say, is set up to promote this idea that it's a, you know, like it's been completely destroyed. So when you hear a number, you say 99% of that area is disturbed. you're probably like, man, it must be like just mowed right down. No, no, it's not. It's just the way to do the math.

I mean, it's a, and then, so we think it's a, it's a bad solution. We wish they'd ask, it's classic government. You wish they'd ask the people that know the problem. Know the problem. And then, um, and then they don't. We actually think they're going to do harm now that's irreparable. And, and, um, and it's costing, what did they say, $55 million. Yeah.

money just just pissed away i was on getson on that on online and he's like have you ever been on a pipeline project and like this this comes down to like what we talk about right like we don't always just blindly follow the party because it's blue and like i have no problem criticizing those guys i have no problem criticizing my own mLA because it's like i'm not going to blindly follow you and you're like 55 million dollars to for what who to go to yeah that's a different story and and then and then they know we're in the area right they know we're there they carved out her camp they did stuff that we think they we don't think we know they did it just to piss us off right they literally put signs up that say warning uneven terrain after they went through with their

back hose and destroyed it they literally put warning signs up yeah Helen Keller could see it like that's how bad it is and you're like I'm like you guys are just yeah you're just trolling us at this point Yeah, you made liability. Yeah. You talk to the federal government and you look at the, like, I just seen an article, but Jasper Parks and the, and the, and the caribou in there. So these, these caribou have got the most pristine country that they can possibly have. No disturbance, no people, no ATVs, no heavy equipment, no cut blocks, no pipelines, no, no nothing.

And the caribou, it is going into, they're building a breeding pen for them there. Yeah. So we, we have given these caribbean. the very best of the very best. Like, I'm surprised somebody isn't out petting them and, you know, doing other things to help them along, like Caribou Viagra or something. They're probably working on that.

Yeah, they probably are. There's a study, and somebody's laundering some money for it. So they're failing miserably, and we're going to use their model for ours. And, like, our herds are staying the same, and according to that gal, even growing somewhat, and that's with cut blocks, forest fires, pipelines, roads, drilling, you name it.

Yeah, it's not scientific because we dug into it. We know that up here, in this neck of the woods, by primrose or whatever, when CNRL started doing their SAGD, that was one of the things they were asked to do. You need to put cameras and monitor the wildlife. And CNRL's experiences that once they started putting cut lines for, the pipes that the caribou population exploded so i like well it's interesting because what they talk about the linear disturbances because they all they did offer to work with us we'll see if they actually do yeah but and i appreciate that they're worried about these linear

disturbances because then the wolves can see them and i'm like well wolves and bears up noses and it's like in her timber wolf it's like they can motor through the trees these caribur maybe they can too i I don't know, but I doubt it is. They actually did us a favor in a sense, though, right? I mean, they pushed all the moose into our area. Yeah. Like, the moose are now trapped in right where we are. And so it was good hunting, good hunting this year.

Yeah. And the cut lines, like the cut lines that are left, they're like highways now. Yeah. Like, just like, bye, whatever. You know, we've talked to a lot of government incompetence here. I'm sure we can rag on it for a bit. I'm always, um, I'm, the eternal optimist, I guess.

And one of the things I see with a group of buddies that go out together in the wilderness and hunt and experience the outdoors and some of those things. I mean, you know, Marty, one of the things, I assume you still do this. But, you know, like early on, you'd be like, oh, I'm taking out into the back country. I'll be back in, I don't know, two weeks or whatever the timeline is. How important has it been, you know, as the world gets more and more reliant? on every piece of technology that time to get out

and go do some hunting I don't know I'm just curious you guys we look thank God Norm still organizes it for us because it is a lot of work to organize but we all look forward to that time off everybody's chomping at the bit

how many guys did we have this year we had 16 or 17 guys showed up generally we set up two tents and we have room for 12 guys we have a core group of about six or guys um but throughout the week that we're there we had guys come and go we had 17 people come and go and that's that's what it was it's all it's um it's uh it's uh it's just a like it's it's decompression it's decompression it's seen guys that you haven't seen earlier in

the year you get to see them at that time yeah and it's interesting because it's like there's lots of cell service around that area like it's spotty but you know and it where cap is It's the one spot. There's, like, there's no cell service. So it's like, you don't have these issues with people, like, sitting there scrolling on their phone. Like, obviously, technology's even changed on that where if we want, we can text somebody out.

But, you know, and some people have thought about, like, talked about bringing a Starlink, and we're like, no. No. There's no Starlink. And, like, it's not dangerous. It's not, but it is. There's a, you have to be prepared, right? So we get to go out there and you have to make sure your equipment works.

And you have norm go. goes out of it. He's laughing at that. We'll, we'll talk about that. Um, like it, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's not, it's not living at home. It's definitely, it's comfortable. It's not totally primitive, but it, there is a, there is a risk component. I mean, I'll be honest. Every time I'm there, we, I play through the leaving, right? Like, we have to, we have to get out and the trails are muddy and then you play it in your head and you're like, oh, I'm going to have to go up this hill and we got to do this. And, we're, and, we've got to be prepared for broken equipment and getting muddy and getting stuck and or every time somebody shoots a moose then the first thing you think of is like why the hell

that we just do that yeah because now we got to do a lot of work a lot of work yep like I carry spare axles on the back of my ride it's like you're gonna probably need one somebody's gonna need one if they're riding the same thing oh we have everything yeah we have axles we have we literally bring a welder yeah welders generators uh you know like We were laughing because historically there was a period. I was one of the worst ones at this, right? You were the worst. I was the worst.

So I had an older ATV that was constantly breaking down. The tires literally rotted. Anyways. So we used to, so we instituted a rule and we have a T-shirt that you get to wear. So if you cannot, if you need to be towed and you can't get back to the truck or the camp on your own power. then you get to wear the t-shirt and the t-shirt's crude and you wear it and then we um uh we embroidered we can't talk about crude things on this yeah yeah and so but norm he's right

that t-shirt did more for improving maintenance than anything else just a little a little public shaming yes oh nobody wants to wear the t-shirt nobody nobody we had a guy this year had to wear the t-shirt and then he was like he's he's he's like if i had known the rules more specifically i would have winch myself back to the truck. I'm like, no, you wouldn't, man. You were 17 miles away. There's no way you, you know. Oh, man, it was great. He made it about, actually, he made it not even a kilometer off the trail. And the funny part is, we're loading it up, and Norm noticed that he already had a busted axle. So it was like, it's like, well, just wait. Yeah. I looked at him, well, that's going to cause him some trouble. And whatever, he got to

wear the shirt, got a good picture of him. Yeah. But you know what? He remembers. And he's like, that is not going to happen again. First people to buy brand new machines. Yeah, well, there's that too. Yeah, I'm at the point now where I need a new machine. That's funny. Yeah, no, I mean, you know, back to these two guys. Like last year I had a problem with my fan on my ATV.

And I mean, I'm barely getting off the quad. And he's already pulling out a multimeter. and he's lifting up the front rack and getting to the everything and then like there's no worries we're going to get out we're going to get out well you you got a group of guys who can all are very um oh what's well they're resourceful thank you resourceful is the word i was looking for right everybody brings something to the table if you if you got a problem it's like you know minus i don't know something like catastrophic happening and once again i go to like who knows a solar flare just like knocking out absolutely everything you still have the guys who can think through the

problems and uh you're surrounded by them it's something that most of society doesn't have anymore well it's like one one of the funnest ones that we had is i was out with blainer and his general and like he lost his seatbelt uh the switch and we're just sitting there we're looking at it and it's like well the switch ain't working so it puts it into limp mode well i might have had a beer tub with me and you just cut it up and you build a jumper and jommer in there taper up and it's like and he's just looking at you like what did we just do and it's like let's go yeah and it's just like you you can make a lot of different things work like in that case well who shifter broke and we used the uh that was was that blakes somebody broke somebody broke no no i was todd retod yeah

retod's shifter broke so we use retod oh everybody has a nickname out there everybody's going nicknames yeah what do we use we used it's todd but i call him retod It was my broken sway bar. Yeah, I used a chunk of broken sway bar. I jammed it in there. I had a broken sway bar. So it was like,

was busted off. We're like, use this. It was like, pop. Yeah. Now, getting out is, is part of the fun.

It's part of the fun. I mean, we're, I think we're, how far away from, from like, like, how far in do you go?

Oh, God. Well, we drive. Off the end of the road, closest road, seven miles. Yeah. You got a quad. in seven miles yeah and then you're just down by the river and but from you're from the pavement you're

another we're 52 kilometers on dirt roads yeah and then off the dirt road we're seven miles or 11 kilometers but those 11 kilometers take a beating you know i i remember um we haven't done this but uh got three older brothers and uh we did flying fishing up into northern Saskatchewan this is man this is a long time ago there was seven or seven or eight of us went there And, like, nothing worked. You're just, you know, like, there's just no technology, right? Like, it's, and it's almost like, even if you're sitting there and you're like, if the world ended tomorrow, we wouldn't know.

We, like, I mean, if, it's a great feeling. It's an interesting experience. And yet you wonder how many people ever get to experience anything like that. I assume this audience, there's more and more people that are like that. Yeah. And I, and I. In the general population, how many people never leave the city to actually know experience it. even like what what our hunting is one thing but what i do when i go hiking alone for seven or

eight days that's a whole new level like that's that's seven days of not seeing another human yeah that's something i i definitely have never tried that before it's a it's a weird feeling like when you go my record now is is seven i'd like my longest hike is 12 days but my record of not seeing another human is seven days seven days and uh i don't think there's a lot of places in the world where you can still do that you can still do that in alberta we can definitely even when we're hunting if it was just us we often don't see other humans yeah like unless you get near the road you won't see anybody down in there no which is all right i'm good at yeah where we go hunting it's a really cool feeling like uh there's a hill on the way there called scenery hill and i

often described, I tell people that it is one of those weirdly familiar places that's hard to get to. It's kind of weird, but it's hard to get to. But I go there. We go every year. We go every year to this spot. And there's a guy that died on the hill. Yeah. And we stop and have a beer and hope that it's not too dangerous going up and down the hill. It's just one of those spots that has become a marker every year you go back to. And every time you're there, you just go man it's hard to get here but we get here and it's one of those spots you pull up i don't know what's like for you guys but like to me it's like where you're coming in for for the annual trip and you're like made it it's just like it's there's no cell service after that yeah and you're just

like yeah and we never know where we're going to find that's the other cool thing right like you you you you drive up you don't know what the road's going to be like the dirt road whatever and then you some you get little victories remember last year we got off the Texaco road and it was there was gravel on it right like somebody had somebody in the winter had gone and abandoned well nearby so they put gravel on a section of the road and we're all like whoa we got gravel like we're like all happy and then but then you hit the cut line and all of a sun it's like oh uh actually here's the conditions every every cut line out there every corner we have a name for it right and so we have uh we have a cut line that we called jetboat alley

so going through jet boat alley with ATVs is yeah pull a tub trailers do that that's like a whole new level of hell yeah so when you make it through that but but it's yeah that's part of that I mean that's part of the experience I'm not gonna lie every year when I'm on my way out there I'm like oh god why am I doing this right why am I doing this but then we sit around the fire that first night or the river we have a tradition like the first night that we show up once we're set up camp and had a bite to eat we hit the river is still about a kilometer away for us. We didn't, you know, you don't put your camp right on the river. That's too windy, too wet, whatever. So we were a little bit away, but first night we go to the

river. Am I right and thinking too right along the river, you might have different predators that would be near there? Or they around you as well? Well, they're all around. Like the one I just assume that they, you know, like in this area, the river's, I don't know, what is it, five miles roughly from here. Yeah. And the talk of, you know, cougars and stuff like that Bobcats I just think you know

they're typically associated with bodies of water or like the river's so big there that the country's just large yeah there's everything there I don't think they want to be honest that's an interesting

that's a good you know we I get asked about bears all the time and people have these weird attitudes about bears like oh you we leave our camp unattended for months months hours on end during the one we're there the camp is there there there's food everywhere

there's bunks there's everything there's never been a bear in our camp ever they wait till we're gone once we're gone then they show up and they go and dig up the garbage pit or the fire pit and the latrine and whatever we know they come but they never come during the week while we're there yeah like at one time i went to go put some put a game camera up and what have you take the girlfriend and at the time three kids. And, you know, I'm focused in on the lick where I'm going to put this camera and we're walking along

and I had 12 gauge with me. Just I don't know why I grabbed it. It's not normal for me. But as we're hoofing, we're almost to that lick and the girlfriend's like bear, grizzly bear, and just turn and that fucker is like right there, like right there. And I just jacked that shell and I started going right out.

It sits up on its hind legs and it's like, I'm just like, I don't know what's going to happen next. And it's, thankfully, it just went down and took off. But it had a, it had gotten a white-tailed dough and it was just finishing burying it. And like, this thing was like, it's, like, there's no rigumortis in this thing at all. Like to understand what they can do to a critter and how much they eat, like there was a hind leg, a hunk of hide with some, you know, like the spine to a front leg and then the head. and that's all that's left of this thing and like it's not stiff

like what would it weigh prior to 125 pounds like how much did he eat of that thing well they ate like guts and everything 50 pounds of it oh more than that man I'd be willing to bet 75 pounds that thankfully it did that because it was full and wanted nothing to do

with us but this is 700 meters like as the crow flies to camp it's 700 meters like it's a 10 minute walk like that bear could be in camp any time so it's uh they're there they don't for one every reason they don't but i don't know if it's we stink so bad i don't yeah yeah probably but you know it's it's a really sad comparison to what you guys are talking about but part of the the um idea with this place is kind of similar what you're talking

i mean obviously i'm not taking people off the the uh you know out of civilization by that far and everything else. But, you know, the first podcast I did in here, the guys were joking about looking out the window and they're like, I wonder if a hobbit's going to go rolling by. It just kind of has this feel to it. You got a beautiful spot. I love it. Yeah. This is great. Yeah, well, I hear you talking. I'm like, man, there's just something about being out in the countryside. You can't hear a sound. I mean, minus what's in nature. And you get the campfire going and the smell and just like, you know, there's just something special about it. You know, there's just something special about that and uh when we were doing this place we we had many a campfire out here because we're

you know i i think there's a hundred people going up on the wall and then um i forget what it is is it 22 businesses roughly something like that and uh there was many a night where guys were working in here and then we'd have a fire and you know i'll share some stories and a few sassbarillas would be handed out and everything else and like it's just something to special about being away from it all, you know, like, you get focused on, you know, like I think of the first hour of this, you know, you're talking about some of the stupidity that's going on with government. Government's always been dumb. You talk to the old timers, and especially the ones that paid attention. It has always been dumb. Now, it's on a whole new level right now.

And then you come out to somewhere like this or where you're talking about the hunting camps. And it's like all of a sudden the world just kind of makes a little bit more sense, you know? Well, we do things at our hunting trip that I, that most people have never done. Oh. And, you know, like, it's amazing how many people have never started a fire, a campfire. We have showers out there. We'll have a cold, we'll have a warm shower. We'll warm up water by the fire and then hoist the pail up and then have a shower. And then we, it reminds us like, I mean, your mom. Yep.

Like our mother had an outhouse, right? Yeah, they didn't have running water. They had a bucket in the, and we're one generation away from that. and some people have no idea that there was such a thing, that life was a little bit harder than, and we need that. I wish more people had a harder life. Well,

and I think you realize like that. It would smarten up a lot of people. Like, commodity, right? Like, that's the one thing. Like, I tried to tell my kids.

And I'd say even more so my boy. It's like, you've got to find a group of buddies that you can count on. Like, life's pretty hard. And, and for, I always say, like, people aren't sympathetic to when men are struggling.

They're not. So I said, like, I have a great wife, but, like, they can't always relate with what you're going through. But if you have some good, if you have a good circle of friends, like, your buddies, the people you can count on, the people you call it four in the morning and say, I need your help. And they go, where? Like, that matters. And, like, so I remind my boy, but I remind the kids, too. It's like, find that circle and treat it good because you're going to need them.

When you talk about, you know, going something about being around the fire and whatever, you're like, yeah, there's something about being around the fire, but there's something about being around the fire with a bunch of guys. And, you know, just everybody can let their guard down and pick on each other. And I think that, like, we talk, like, we talk, me and George talk about this with our, like, just the youth or young men today, they don't have. that like they don't have that but they can they can but they got to leave their bedroom you know and got and but as as the men that are in their lives and around them it's our job to like bring them out

of their bedroom and like steward them yeah we got we got to mentor them into being better men because i got two daughters and like i want i want my daughters to find good men that like i'm hopefully i give them a something to work with but You know, like, I want my girls to meet good guys and I want them to make me grandbabies and I want all of their lives to be just special and those guys need to be men. And I don't know if we're making men anymore.

Like, some of what we see out there, I just go, ooh. I think there's a hunger for it. I think there is, yeah. But even amongst the boys, I think it's like, I think you're starting to see that swing. But we got to do it like as men. Like, I'm a father of two daughters. So I don't have the ability to, like, per se,

to influence my son into being a good man or being a man, but I can influence my daughters on, like, I think that's something that's been missing for a long time is we need to teach our daughters how to be good women and good women to men. Like, you want a man, you want to be a queen, like, you have to have a king. And you got to help make your king. You know, you don't just get to walk on and have a king. Like, so be a good woman, do the things that you need to do. We all have roles. I tell my daughters, you guys are unique in your own way. And you guys can make a huge impact.

You want a good man, be a good woman. And then I send them, like we talk about it often. Sometimes I think they roll their eyes at me and go like, okay, dad, I get it. But you want to what? You see you don't have a son, but I would argue that you've influenced a couple of young men. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. Like, we all look at it and it's like, I shouldn't say, people look at it. like they don't realize the influence of a hockey coach, football coach, whatever, right?

Like we all have opportunities in our lives to influence people in the right way. You know, I'm fairly outspoken. Like most everybody here is fairly outspoken. But there's another example, right? It's like, just don't shut up. Like if you see something, it's okay to say it. Don't be scared. Because you want to want, chance or other people are thinking the same thing.

We learned that four or five years ago when we started. started lining highways with people and you were in it. Like we were in Atsin when how many trucks went through? There was like a hundred people made me line that highway. How many people drove by gave us the bird? Some people honked. Like we were at the start of that thing. And, you know, I went because my mom was like, get your ass out. And you're like, which that was kind of the interest of her with that area. It's like there was a lot of those women were taking the role of the man and saying get your ass out there and do something and which is awesome but in the same breath it's because we well we could go on to that side of it like how they've destroyed masculinity but and it's intentional

but it's you have the ability to influence anybody you want you just have to take the opportunity to have a conversation like we didn't have really have a dad like my dad was gone at 13 I found mentors and like people that they filled the role at the people I still talk to I find with I got two boys and I find a lot of times you know I'm sure that I'm leading by example but at times you talk about your daughter's rolling their eyes. I'm sure my son rolls his eyes at me all the time and my son joined football this year I knew nothing of football I never played it I've certainly watched the game but you know like I just didn't anything know anything of the culture and uh the coaching staff ran it man like i i've never been in the

military but i've had many a military guy on here and their practices were so well structured the discipline that they instilled in the boys was cool to watch as a parent i never i never missed a practice this year i just i just showed up to watch how the kids interact and you you talk about hunger with men it's it there's a hunger in boys that they want that and I watched it week after week two hour long practice and when the first one hit I was like there's no way they're going to keep boys engaged for two hours what was and it was dark Marty yeah it's like 815 at night and they're still running the kids lines and they were still going and I'm like this is really cool like society's telling us this is wrong or this

doesn't exist and I watched it and I'm like this is so great for my son it's not even funny and they're giving them things that when I try and tell him it he rolls his eyes at me and when they do it it's another way of mentoring them and and they're teaching them things that I want but sometimes they got yeah yeah no I was trying what did what did Mark say about me when he was worried about the way I was talking to his boy but then he changed his then he realized what I was doing Yeah, he was, he was just concerned with, like, how you were, like, you're, you're, you're fairly straightforward and, you know, it could be seen as harsh, right? Yeah. And, but then, uh, once he's seen you in action, you, you know, disciplined, you, you knew how to, you were good at instructing the, the boys.

So that's part of what we do with here. Yeah, like, like, like, yeah, we do that. We bring, we don't, we're trying to bring them during hunting, but we bring him, uh, before the hunting season when we set up camp. and yeah like we bring all the kids in and then we we bring out firearms firearms chainsaws whatever yeah we let them do all that stuff like these are like they don't get that normally right so and but what i was going to say to your point like the discipline some people take offense to the strict tone i'm like okay that's fine i mean well if you're talking about firearms if you don't have a strict tone and let them know what is yeah i have a strict tone when i'm talking to the kid and

but most kids actually well respond to it But, you know, it's like when Jarhead was, you know, give you that swat on the back and you got mad at them and give him a tuning, like, you know, George is all right with it. It's like, that's part, like, as a young man, you've got to be prepared to get tuned by any man. And that's just part of life. And don't take it to heart. It's, it's just part of growing up and being a man. You're going to get put in your place. Well, in that case, it's like, he need to understand.

Like, he's really strong now. Like, it's not, you're not. And then, you know, you start, and we've circled back. and you start to explain it and it's like man you're you're 16 like you're very strong like you can't just like when you're walking you're killing a beetle but yeah and he's he's weak but when you're hitting when you're trying to hit a june bug or whatever with with a hat and you're beating the crap out of them it's like that's hurting so it's like oh it's like now you're you're hitting you're hitting a different stage of your life where it's like now you have to you have to be

controlled and like i remember i use we'll use him as a bit of an example and And I'm sure you with boys and you with the girls, it does in my daughter too. It's like they all hit a point where like being, uh, being not in control is acceptable because by being not in control, they learn how to control themselves. Like that's the one thing we miss out like, uh, I remember having a lady talk to me. Like she was talking about like asking if I wrestle with my son. I'm like, you have to wrestle with your son because they need to manage, learn how to control their emotions, manage their emotions. If you don't do that, they become unmanageable.

And they can't manage themselves. So then they get themselves into trouble. And that's where you get, I don't say, and then you also touched on this, on something. Like, you know, people, people say it takes a village to raise someone. But I don't think they understand what that means. The village means that if his son misbehaves, I can, I have their permission to set them straight. And they have their, my permission to do the same thing with my sons. Like, that's, and that's completely missing. I mean, we still live in small towns, I guess, and we still do that. You know, when I was a kid, if I misbehaved, my mom would have heard about it from long before I got home. Yeah, you got two beatings, one right there and one when you got home. Yeah. I have,

I don't know if I should tell this story, but, oh, what the heck. Then you should. Talking about wrestling with your kids and your boys specifically. Um, Shay, my oldest, I forget how old he was. He was, um, man, he was young. Uh, his first, year you seven hockey so he would have been five years old and he loved to wrestle and so we we blew up this air mattress in the basement and I used to do wrestling moves onto it slamming them and everything he bounce up and just a kid that really enjoyed pain right like it was it to this day it's the same that's why I think he gravitated to football anyways I wasn't paying attention and we popped a hole in the air mattress and I was chucking them and do it all these wrestling moves and I broke his collarbone

and um i remember going into the doctor's office and trying to explain it and i'm like this guy for sure thinks i beat my kid right there's just no way and to this day you know kids get talking about broken bones and he'll go yeah dad broke my bone wrestling when we're and i'm like oh man i'm never going to let that down ever and uh yeah i chucked him off the top rope and that one backfired yeah yeah didn't it didn't i don't you got a good memory well he still talks about it. Um, yeah, with, uh, he's not upset about it. He just, you know, like, you're probably right. I just think about it. I'm like, you know, dad, oops is dad fails of the day. Yeah, that was one of my wrestling with kids. No, when, actually, all this talking made me think of one story

in my house, too. Like, we're talking bears and wrestling kids and whatnot and, and becoming men. I had, I had issues with my oldest son, right? Like, uh, there was a point where Nick was starting to push back on me, right? I'm like, perfect this is good like you're you're you're trying to exercise a little bit of dominance but let me show you how this works right you're gonna i'm gonna kick you out of the house right now and then you can go do that in the real world not in my house i'm still the big grizzly here and i push my kid out and now he's doing what he's supposed to do and how many how many parents don't even do that anymore like you know they have all sorts of excuses for why their 30 year old kid is still

living at home. There's no excuse, man. You have to make them excited for it. Yeah. Like that's the one thing. Either excited for it or, well, like the one thing I told you got to turn the heat up so much that they're like, it's time to get out. No, I told my, yeah, that's why I told Karen, like stop buying ice cream. That's exciting. Quick cooking the cheese. I tell him. I sell it to him. It's like, this is going to be the most exciting time of your life. Like my son's laughed at 17, right? So like, don't get me wrong. He's not like in the real world. Like, we're still paying the bills. But, and he's 17, right now. But, like, there's, like, how long was he on his own for?

Like, we went to school in March. Well, sports are great for that, right? Yeah, you probably went through the same thing. And he doesn't have a billet there. He had himself, like, and you went in the fridge and you look, and there's real food. Like, he eats steak. He takes an interest in cooking now because it's like he likes eating good food. Doesn't like eating crap.

Well, I know all the Newman Newman siblings, mom and dad's rules got to us, right? Like I think, you know, when there's structure and it's like, no, it's my house. Eventually, you're like, I'm going to go do it my, well, I assume this is going to happen with my kids. Eventually, they're going to be like, I'm so tired of your rules. I'm going out. Perfect. Good. Go figure it out.

But then, you know, you're like, oh, maybe I didn't have it so bad. And yet, at the same time, the experience of going out on your own is maturing. It's, it's finding your own way. It's dealing with bills and putting food. Can't replace it. Yeah. It's the most exciting thing that those kids will ever do. I said, it's like, it's like the excitement of a toddler, right?

Why, why are they excited? Because everything's new. And it's no different when they leave the house. Everything's new. Like, the first time they pay a bill. Like, they're like, how the hell do you do this? It's like, how do I get my own phone contract? And then you start to realize, they start to realize, well, okay, I don't need the newest one.

I have a one. That's good, right? Like, you start to learn how to prioritize. Oh, you want the ice phone? What are they at? 17, 18, 19. I don't even know what they're at. Do you want the new one?

Okay, this is what's going to cost. You're like, oh, maybe I. Well, yeah, like a deal with the 11 or, I don't even, I don't even know what I have in my pocket if I'm being honest. No, and so, you know, what we've been talking about for the last whatever, 90 minutes, like we're describing problems. It's crazy that we know the problems and we know that there's things we've done in the past that have made life worse for all of us and somehow or other we're not, we should reverse. Like we just talked about, you know, kids are unsuccessful. Why? Because the parents are enabling it. Enabling it. So you know the problem. Why not reverse it? And we can list all sorts of problems.

One of my frustrations in this day and age is that we know a lot of the problems. We know that a lot of things we've tried in the last. You talked about religion at the beginning. We're going back to it. It's like it's cool. We need to go back to certain things. We've done things that didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. So let's stop doing these silly things and let's go back to what worked. And you can't. Like religion is a good one. You can't. pick out one you go well this thing about religion was bad so we shouldn't do any of it like that's silly right it's like just like just take that one thing out don't do that you know like it's you don't have to throw out everything like there's a lot of good structure in there's a lot of good

discipline a lot of good lessons so it's like let's keep that part and let's get rid of this bad part yeah yeah two of my two of my four kids are like the one is she reads her bible every night she's and that that's all on her own she that's what she wants and she now you're not a religious person maybe a man a believer i'm just i i could be better there's no doubt well but you have faith but it's not something like in fairness we can all be better yeah yeah no that's true yeah i'm uh i guess migrating back that way but maybe know as fast as i could then the other the other one she's she's active with frank frank pruddy once told me um it's not it's not a race you know it's a journey enjoy the journey enjoy the journey

So, you know, when you say you're migrating back, enjoy the migration then, you know, I wouldn't, uh, I remember telling Frank after I'd interviewed him because, uh, and I don't know if you guys know the story, but, um, I picked up, uh, I'd come back from Ottawa and I'd come back in shambles, I would say. And anyways, I found myself in this used store and I found this Frank Pretty book and I knew his name because somebody kept sending me, Seth, kept sending me these videos of Frank Prattie, and I didn't know who Frank was, and I thought it was his autobiography, so I was kind of interesting, and then I started reading it, and it turned into be this fictional story about angels and demons, and then I found out it was a national bestseller

and it sold millions of copies and all this stuff, and when people heard me talking about it, oh yeah, I read that as a kid, and I'm like, I had no idea. So I finally got the interview, which was a very, very cool experience, and what was probably the best part of it was the hour me and him talked afterwards. Most guests, when you're done, you know, it's like, oh, thanks for coming on, you know, and whatever. and Frank sat with me for an hour virtually and he just wanted to know a little bit more about me and somewhere in there I said yeah I'm probably not going fast enough something like that because a lot of people said you got to go you got to get to this and you got to get to this and he stopped me

full he's like don't don't think about it that way you're on the journey enjoy the journey there's no pace that you that needs to be set as long as you're on the journey that's a great thing and that's really impacted how I look at it because for a while there I was like I got to get there fast everything's got to be fast and uh you know it's it's the journey of life if you're you're starting to wrestle with that's a good thing enjoy the wrestle well you miss the lesson right if you go too fast like that's that's the journey is the learning right like will you ever be there no like what are you actually going towards you know what i mean like it's like is there like a set spot or it's like once i get here i'm good i don't have to do anymore no because when you get

there it's it's no different than um you know so starting the podcast when i started the Peak was episode 100 and I wanted Wayne Gerexki. Actually, I want to win Gerexie for 99. I wanted 99 on 99. I had it all worked out and I got relatively close. I would say to making that happen. It didn't. And then I had Ron McLean on 100 and I know there's a ton of people, myself included that were disappointed with what went on with Hockey Night in Canada. But Ron McLean as a host had always impressed me at his his diligence and just how professionally was and so i got to have him on episode 100 and then i woke up the next day and i'm like okay well life didn't end you know and that time it was the mountaintop you know and then you look and you're like no there's the next one okay and so like

i sit in this place and i go oh i got i got plans you guys drove by the a frame right that's the next one and then there's the next one and and i can either go oh there's the next one or glad the journey isn't over right like uh purpose right like i i like getting to the top of the hill so i can see the next one okay that's where i'm going but wakes you up in the morning and and honestly like like kind of circling back to those young men kids in general right it's like and we talk about because we're getting on to the point of like getting closer to retirement it's like and we talk about what's going to be your purpose like what's going to wake you up in the morning because you can't do nothing. Like it's that adage that, you know, like idle hands does the devil's work. That's

100% true. Not to mention as you get older, if you stop moving, that is probably the quickest way to die. I'm still an incredible beer league goalie. Not just a little humble, they're humble brag, but yeah, carry on a few extra pounds. But I just bought my next last set of goalie pads. So it's like, okay. So I told my, that's what I tell my wife. It's my next last set. And she's like, you just bought some. And I'm like, well, I might have a problem. What episode is this going to be? 960.

960, wow. Yeah, I'm 40 away from 1,000, Marty. 40 away. That's crazy. And it's just a number. Like, full stop. It's just a number. But along the journey, there are certain moments where you hit a certain mountain

and you're like, or a hill or whatever it's called. And you're like, when I started, I did not set out to start to get to a thousand. That was not, I remember thinking 10 was a big deal. and I remember really think a hundred was and then somewhere along the line the hundreds are just kind of whatever it's just another number but a thousand thousand NHL games not

yeah it's it's I've had to pause and think about it because it's coming up real fast you know 40 is going to go by in a blink of an eye and yeah a thousand is I don't know I don't know it's almost surreal to say you're targeting for a thousand um

I've targeted a lot And, you know, I mean, I assume the audience, Joe Rogan, you need Joe Rogan at 1,000. Well, there's, there was two really, really, really, really influential people in me starting, specifically a podcast. And the two people were Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's quote sat in the studio in Lloyd. His quote on the wall stood there when I was working full time and being there at five in the morning and chasing this dream. And it just kind of reminded me that, you know, you got to put in the work and on and on it. And it was Jordan Peterson reading his book that got me into podcasting in general, right?

And it's the purpose part. And you haven't had Peterson on here? I've had his arm. I've interviewed his wife twice. And the one episode, you can hear him doing dishes. And then he comes over and, you know, kisses her goodbye and his arm has been on. And, you know, like, I'm a faith-driven man. I've prayed about it a lot.

And right now, I pray for Jordan's health to return him because he's down and out. And it just hasn't happened. I cannot, I get over a thousand episodes, if you would have told me I wouldn't be able to get Jordan Peterson on, I would have laughed. Because I'm like, when I set my mind to something, I can usually make it happen. And him being Albertan, everything lines up that it should happen. Yeah. It just hasn't happened. I've got to meet him once.

It was probably the most awkward starstruck I've ever been. I got to meet him when Tucker Carlson was in Eminton. And, man, I bungled that, you know, and I had Daniel Smith, Premier Smith at the time, give me a beautiful introduction to him. And I was just, like, my tongue wouldn't work. And I'm like, you know, God, like, what's going on here? Like, maybe it just isn't time. Maybe it's never meant to happen.

I prayed about it. I want him on. His arm has been on. So I guess in theory he's been on. But, you know, I've wrestled with a lot of different things on the thousandth. You know, like, do I want Joe Rogan? Boys, yes. If tomorrow I can have Joe Rogan, so the audience.

If we can make that happen, absolutely. Would I fly down there? Would I do whatever it took? Ab's a freaking lowly. To me, I don't know if that's going to happen. I'm being realistic with myself. And so I've got a lot of different ideas on the 1,000th of what to do. I'm still wrestling with those ideas.

Yeah, you're right. It's coming up fast, right? I mean, that's 40 away from... Yeah, it's roughly February. Things have a way of just working out. Like, you know what I mean? I think this is kind of where you were going with it. Maybe it's like that thousandth,

it'll show itself when it's time to show itself. It's coming quick, but it's amazing. You blink your eyes and the answer's there sometimes. Yeah, well, one of the things about doing live shows is I have this mantra. And when I get super stressed out, because, you know, like things are coming,

people are showing up. I'm like, there's still time. Even if there's one minute, there's still time to solve a problem, to think through your stress and everything else. And with 40 episodes to go, that's not a whole lot of time in my realm, but at the same time, there's still time. And I agree.

I'm hopeful that it's going to be one of, you know, roughly 10 people that I've been trying to get. And if it doesn't happen, I have another idea that I think maybe is more important anyways. And maybe I go along that line. And, you know, once again, it's just a number. It's just a thousand, right? Like, I'm kind of curious where the next thousand. thousand take me, uh, because, you know, like talking purpose, gents, uh, I didn't realize the

impact this would have on my life doing these interviews and, and what the podcast has become. I didn't, I don't think about the, the impact you probably had on a lot of people. Like, you compound that, like, you know, you, you speak and what it would, like, you look at your viewership, like, I think the last time I'd look, what did you, like a couple million a year? Um, Well, I mean, when we did the federal live stream, we had 500,000 people in the first 24 hours. So I actually don't know where this year sits, but my, the last year I did was 1.2 million, I think, downloads. So, like, we're talking very strict, trying to, like, see what the people who are actively tuning in.

That isn't social media. That isn't all those things. I mean, I'd be curious what Marty's numbers are on social media interactions. But interactions are different than actually going out and like downloading a podcast. And now that's changed. They changed the metrics on that, which has really been interesting to follow. But yeah, forgive me. I'm making a short answer long.

It's, you know, this year, up until this point, the number one episode I ever had had 100. and I think it was 100 and like 20,000 in our live stream 500,000 in the first 24 hours. And like when me and twos were following that, it was insane to see how close we were to the CBC. Some of the, I'm sure some of your stats are big. I'm sure they are. I mean, I can tell you some of my stats. Like it's mind blowing actually. Like on YouTube, for instance, I can see how many hours people listened.

Yeah, consumed. And you go, wow. People listened to me for like 450,000 hours. You're just like, that's crazy. Yeah, it's hard to compute. Yeah. On X, I'm hitting a million impressions a day on X now. Wow.

Which is like, that's just bonkers. Well, I go back to the guy parked out front. I just go, like, you've become a bigger influence. You've become an influence of their taking notice. Yeah. Now, I don't know. if there's any nefarious maybe it's just some random guy and you got freaked in an offy land no i mean but when you're talking about a million a day yeah and somebody's taking it's not

just me right i it's it like i'm i'm on i'm on the platforms enough to notice things like people say it's like i i can see patterns i can see the data i can see the stuff that's happening to other people on the platform there is a concerted effort by liberals and and progressives and this country to quiet us everything we've talked about some people just literally don't want this out like it but you can imagine how many people outside of alberto want alberta leave oh they're cheering for us some people are but if you're the the apparatus that is can oh yeah you don't want that no no no they don't and you think the bank account they're they're willing to funnel money through all these different projects they will fight tooth-and-nail the people who know don't want us

the people in in government who know how the finances work they don't want us out. God, are you kidding? They know there's $15 billion that would disappear. We are subs like, yeah, I mean... Yeah, well, we can go... Yeah, yeah. So the impact thing is interesting

because I always think of Jordan Peterson's book and how many young men that impacted. Like, you know, when you talk about this podcast is specifically because of that book. Make your bet. You know, that was like one of the... That's, you know, you pay...

Like, that's one thing I remember in that every morning. I make my, well, pretty much every morning, make my bed. Get your affairs in order before you worry about somebody else's. 100%. Yeah. The one that, there's a whole bunch in there, we started a book club surrounding the, you know, when you talk about groups of men and the he-man group and getting that group of friends,

we started a book club. And I had them out here a couple nights ago, and we just had a conversation talking about it. Because we, you know, all of a sudden you blink and it's been seven years, we've had a book club. where we've been meeting and discussing things probably very similar to you guys and we meet weekly now and we got talking about it and it's because of Jordan Peterson

and because of you know when you do the ripple effect of what Jordan Peterson did with just that book, 12 Rules to Life out of that came the book club and if it wasn't for the book club I wouldn't have the confidence to do this because I sent them I should have kept it but you can imagine I'm working for Baker Hughes at the time

and they sent me to Calgary for some sort of training and you know you get in those things and you probably went out drinking the night before and so you're kind of just going through the motions and i didn't go drink the night before i was sitting there and i was just like i was just bored and we got a break a smoke break for for some and for me i went and stretched my legs and i grabbed my phone and i recorded a voice and i've been writing it out the entire time because we'd um i'd listen to a few jo rogans by that time we'd read jordan peterson and it was just like it sparked something in me. And I was walking around with the phone and I recorded a voice and I sent it to him and I

was terrified to send it to four grown men that this was a stupid idea and you shouldn't do it, right? That's the way my brain worked. And their encouragement that it was a good idea and had nothing to do politics. It was all sports back then allowed me to pursue it. And I can't overstate. I haven't talked about men's groups in a long time, but I can't overstate having a group of men around you, not only to put you back in line when you're bitching and complaining about, you know, whatever it is, to do list or something going on in life. No, poor me. It's also there to, like, prop you up and make you think, look higher than what you're, what you think you're capable of. Yeah, like, I find, like, our spouses, they'll,

they'll pick us up and dust us off. They'll give us encouragement to, to go, but your men group, they'll just, they don't sugarcoat it. If you're being a dip shit, they'll tell you. You're wearing a t-shirt you know what i mean yeah and that's that's the reality where sometimes like the messaging we get like i get from my wife it's great i needed a lot of times like i need to be told that you know like what i'm doing is is the right thing the way she frames it sometimes is they frame it in their own special way like they they they give you that that soft encouragement but you know we talked about football in that military style sometimes you just need guys to tell you pick your ass up you know like nobody

Nobody's coming to save you. Pick your ass up and get going again. And that's what they're there for. And it's, I think as we age, we all take that role a little bit more seriously. And we put our own spin on it. Like when people tell me about shitty things that are happening in their life, I don't sugarcoat it. Like if you're contributing to that, like stop.

That's the biggest thing. Or it's like, hey, man, you don't need to be scared. We're here to help. Many hands make like work. There's lots of stuff. off right now and honestly like one of the things that i like to do right now is like not that i'm a genius at it by any means but it's just encouraging our young people to start investing now like it's like that power of compounding interest is just amazing and if you want to if you if you

truly hate the man and you don't want to be stuck in it you need uh pardon my french but you need fuck you money and uh the sooner you got it the better i think it's taken almost two hours I was to get the first F-bombing. It will surprise me on the dri-voter. That's all right. You're not wrong. You look at how we went through COVID, and a lot of people got put in positions where, whether it was financial or mainly financial, they were controlled.

Because if they take this away, how will I survive? And if you're a young guy and you want to be in a position where you can say what you want, when you want, to whoever you want, you have to be in a position that you're independent. And that doesn't mean you can't work for a corporate. or whoever. It just means you can't be in a position where they can influence you so much. I was watching a movie last night,

two nights ago. Margin Call. Yep. Kevin Spacey and everything. And at the end, he says, I want out. And the guy says to him, give me two more years. And I'm waiting for him to say,

no, you can take my everything. I don't care anymore. And he goes, something along the lines of, Final stay because I need the money and that's a simple reason. That's it. Yeah. And then it goes on and you realize he's he's he's lost that part of his life that would give him independence. It's not just financial. It's having a partner that, you know, will back you up when you're in tough predicaments and in the movie he's divorced and that's a way of controlling. The boss knows it. He needs the money. He can't leave. You can hate what we just did, but you're going to stay because you need to get paid. because you have problems. And if you don't want to be in that position as a young man, as you get older,

you've got to remove the problem areas in life. Take discipline. You know, we talked about, I guess the theme of this, right? That blue-colored roundtable. It's like, what do you got for skills? Right? So it's being an entrepreneur in your own sense. It's like, hey, like, I'm an electrician.

I can sell that. I can do stuff. He's a mechanic. He can do stuff. and then you when you develop those things and you take away that dependency on somebody else to do stuff for you yeah i've often said this though there's a reason that government doesn't like us they don't like us because we're hard to control because we've done a lot of we're independent we're self-sufficient we own our own chunk of dirt we have skills and we can tell the government

if you and they don't like that and we have guns we have all sorts of things that they don't like. Yeah, we can take care of ourselves. We can take care of ourselves. At my house, you can shut everything off and I'm just fine. And quite honestly, we just want to be left alone. We really want to be left alone. And so I don't understand why the government doesn't just actually leave us alone.

Go and control everybody else that you want, but they can't leave us alone because as much as they hate us, they need us. They need us to keep doing what we're doing. they need us to keep those pumps running so that they're they're being hypocrites about it they don't want the oil but they need the oil gentlemen this has been a lot of fun appreciate you guys coming in and doing this and uh well hopefully it's not the only one maybe maybe uh there'll be another he man at some point i still think you need to really in the next 1,000 you need to put this in a little package that you can take it we'll we'll have you come at heman you can come

Oh, you want me to come to You can come to Hemet Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait For a place that doesn't allow Satellite or any tech, you're going to allow me to come in with some mics and do that? Yeah, yeah. I've been documenting He-Man for forever.

It gets us in trouble, but... Yeah, it does do that. I do enjoy a good adventure, Marty. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll... Yeah, we'll... We always come for a test run, too. I mean, we go there for Heman is a week of hunting,

but we set up our camp two months beforehand. We leave it out in the wilderness, and we go visit it two, three times in the summer before the main event. So you could come out there for that, or you could come for the main event during Heman. Yeah, grab an elk tag. Yep.

Put you in on the, get you going on your drawers. I don't want the shirt. So I'm going to be doing a lot of research before I ever come to make sure I don't wear that dang shirt. I don't know what's on it. It's leaving a lot to the imagination. Once the mics go off, we'll let you know. Yeah.

I think I got a picture of it. We did make some shirts the one year. Like, it was pretty indicative of what we, as a group. It was like I had this silhouette of this guy riding a moose with holding a beer, and it's as a world's laziest hunter since 1998. I like to take that to the, we always seem to have moose. We always get our moose, though. We're lazy, but we get it.

Yeah. get it done cool gentlemen thanks again thank you thanks for having us yeah thanks for having us yeah