Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. #168 - Professor Ken Rutherford

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

Ken is a professor, business owner, podcast host & father of 6. Since the last time we talked he's been a busy man - we discuss the Maverick party, focussing on kids (the stats will bring you to tears) and Ken's worst case scenario. Let me know what you think Text me! 587-217-8500

Hi, this is Braden Holby. Hey, this is Tanner, the Bulldozer Bozer. Hi, this is Brian Burke from Toronto, Ontario. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hello, everyone. I'm Carlyagro from SportsNet Central. This is Jay On Right. This is Quick Dick, quick, tick coming to you from Tough Moose, Saskatchew. Hey, everybody, my name is Theo Fleary.

This is Kelly Rudy. This is Corey Krause. This is Wade Redden. This is Jordan Tutu. My name is Jim Patterson. Hey, it's Ron McLean, Hockeynet in Canada, and Rogers' hometown hockey, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. I hope everybody had a great weekend. I didn't get up to a whole lot. I did a little bit of work on the, I bought a gym and then put it in the garage, like the squat rack and bench and everything. Anyways, I got tired of staring at the wall, so I bought a couple mirrors, and I put up some mirrors on the weekend and didn't break anything. Didn't get bad luck yet. But I had a great weekend. I hope all of you are finding ways to have a little bit of fun on the weekends.

We got a cool one today, good friend of mine, back on again. But before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors. Carly Claussen, the team over at Windsor Plywood, builders of the podcast studio table for everything wood. These are the guys. Dex season is upon us, and Windsor is stocked up on their microprose, Sienna Brown, treated lumber. So if you've got a backyard project on the go, stopping and see the group at Windsor Plywood, they'll get you hooked up. I always preach, you know, I don't love social media. I think by now lots of people know that.

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He's happily married and has six kids, a professor at Lakeland College, business owner, and co-host of the War on Weakness podcast. I'm talking about Ken Rutherford. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. You're becoming a fan favorite, Kenny. This will be your fourth time entering into the studio. But first off, thanks for hopping in.

Well, thanks for having me on, Sean. It's always a pleasure to be with you. with you as you know well we we talk sometimes mama makes fun of me because i think we talk as much as probably we do to our spouses but um you know with the podcast in particular just to bring everybody up to speed if they haven't listened to all the episodes you know you go back to the first episode it was a ramshackle one with you which i think um you know it was really cool to do and it was only i don't know 20 some minutes long and i remember the nerves and everything else So that was February 2019.

And then if you fast forward, it took me until episode 132 to get you back on. And I had to do some convincing you as hard as that probably is to believe now. And we can talk a little bit about that episode here after we get going. But you brought to light kind of what the lockdowns or the social distancing,

everything was doing to you in your personal life. And then, of course, the latest one episode 149, me, you and Tanner sat down and really had a frank discussion on what's going on and there was some, you know, the isolation hotels were happening right at the moment. I remember walking up to the studio and seeing the videos of the mom having her son taken away and, you know, things have definitely changed since then. But I guess how is Ken doing so far or now?

It's interesting talking about that, Sean. First of all, I appreciate for having a. Again, I don't consider myself a nobody. I just consider myself a member of societies. And so I'm certainly not going to increase your listenership. Let's put it that way. But to the people that know us, I feel like both you and I were quite involved in the community. And it's always nice to hear from community members.

So I appreciate you having me on. And I hope I bring some value to you and to your listeners. Now, how am I doing? Is that the question? Yeah, yeah. You know what? You and I are very busy. extremely busy actually

and I'm trying to convert my brain into enjoying being busy so instead of complaining about it I'm trying to enjoy it because it means that I'm involved it means that you have value it means that you're trying to make a difference so that would be how I am doing I would say I'm very thankful that we're in the spring

that was a long winter extremely long winter for a lot of people me included I mean last time we're on here I had a breakdown or that was two times ago actually Two times ago, yeah. Part of me, I'd say it was one of my more embarrassing moments of life and one of my proudest moments of life. It was, yeah, anyways, so how am I doing with that? It was, that was a lesson to me.

I would say that I struggled mentally over the winter. And I've converted that into thinking like I do with physical conditioning or with fight training or with diet. It was a lesson for me. You know, when you're, when you're, I can speak for myself, when you're having a few darker days, it's hard to think clearly. It's hard to say, here's the plan out, for me anyways. And then when you're in a better state, it's easy to go, okay, I recognize that. What were the triggers? What happened? What can I learn? What can I make sure I don't do again? How do we just like fight training? You know, somebody catches you in a in a choke, right? Or somebody gets you on your

back. It's like, okay, sounds good. I got put down. What happened there? What can I do better? How do I fix that for next time. So I guess it's it was it was enjoyable in that regard. You know, it's like the jaco jaco podcast, you know, how was that winter? It was hard and it was good, right? So I would say that's, that's how I'm doing. Thankfully, I find that life is much easier, much easier. For me, life is much more tolerable despite all the chaos when my, my, my marriage is in good order. It's just kind of like one of my stabilizers for me. And love of my wife, loving my marriage, love in my home. It's my place of peace. And so with that said, life is good. We're healthy. We're happy. We're fed. And life is good. So there you go. Oh, I appreciate you,

Sharon. I find that one sentence very interesting, you know, one of your most embarrassing moments or maybe best moments is a funny sentence. I just think it showed you're a human. And what we're going through, well, nobody walking this planet has ever been through, you know, our version here in Lloydminster and there's other versions all across the planet because the entire planet went into some sort of lockdown, some more, what's the word, they used draconian than others, but we all, I don't know if there was a very many states, provinces, territories, countries that didn't go into some form of locking things down. And so now we're, you know, we're into a year of it.

Can I go back on that? The messages that came to me personally after that, Sean, were staggering in that I've got more, I received more messages from people than I do on my birthday of people saying, I've struggled too. Thank you for saying that. And it taught me something is that we all kind of have this appearance, you know, like I'm sitting with you and you don't have a tear in your eye and you're looking good. You know, the whole debate on mental health is I can see your body.

body, you know, like you look good, you're walking good, you're got a smile on your face, but I can't get inside your noggin. And so it's the, it taught me that a lot of people chug, and it's okay to have a chug. You know, it's just you don't want to get stuck in that, you know, and if you, if you do are, then reach out for help and all that kind of stuff. But I want to thank the people for reaching out to me. It was, it was a lot of teary moments for me, actually, when, when people, I won't ever say a name, those are all private, never be discussed outside of the messages were sent to me. But it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool to have people share that with me. And then you kind of go, okay, cool, cool. So we're all in this together. And that's just the group

on that day that we're the feeling same. And probably next winter or next year or next month, it's going to be a different group. And what I learned out of that is that life is ups and downs. And don't beat yourself up if you're having a tough day, if you're having a struggle, if you're whatever, depression, whatever is. It doesn't last forever. Well, I shouldn't say that. For me, it doesn't and brighter days are ahead you just got to and i i think that you learned is you got to do something about it too you know like the there are factors that that come into that you know exercise diet sleep patterns you know what kind of stuff like so take some responsibility on my shoulders of what was going right kind of like what i'm doing is saying what was i doing right was i doing wrong you

know let's how do i how do i firm that up so thanks for that and thanks to everybody who reached out to me that was there's some uh really cool personal moments and i want to i want to thank the people that the strength to share those stories with me Yeah, well, hey, shut out to all you listeners. Yeah. That's, that was a, I don't know. And I don't even know what this is going to be. I think you're 168 now.

I think that's what comes out on Monday. And in 168 episodes, there's always just a, there's always an episode where people immediately message when it's done and it doesn't stop for, I don't know, a week, two weeks, whatever. And that was one of them, right? Like that one touched a chord. And it was just, well, I don't know. I just call it raw, genuine.

You're just, you're Kenny. That's why you're back on, Ken, right? Like, I enjoy our conversations. I enjoy where we take them. And I enjoy that, I give you a space that you feel like you can open up a little bit, I guess. That's pretty cool to be on this side, not that I want to dig into everything and have it exposed to everybody. But I'm happy that you think I'm a safe spot, I guess. And that's pretty cool to be sitting on the other side of it.

Yeah, well, cool to have a friend like you, cool to have somebody like you doing what you're doing. And from my perspective, you're your strengthening yourself, you're striking your community. You know, like you've got a good heart on you, in you. And so I enjoy your podcast. And I've never heard anything come out of your mouth that is destructive or wanting to tear down or quite the opposite. And we're going to get into that summer today. So it's an honor to be your friend and it's an honor to be on your podcast to be part of that. So thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I won't pump your tears anymore. I I when we last so that brings us all the way to Tanner yourself who have War on Weakness podcast and I sat down and we had this discussion about you know like what do we do what do we do where's the line we had all these things in there but we just kind of you know as I listened to it again even today and I'd listen to it when it first came out the thing that I just found was like we we talked about it. it but we didn't really do anything about it and for the listener they didn't hear the conversations that we had after and a big thing I said to Kenny was I don't want to do that conversation again like I want by the time we sit down again I want to have at least prod at a few different conversations tried a few different things and like get active about it because there's one thing to talk but then it's another thing to go out and like

actively become something that can influence society, so to speak, right? Like, not that this conversation isn't powerful, but if all you do is ever bitch and complain about, you know, what the government's doing or what's happening in town and never take an active role, nothing changes, I guess, is where I'm at, right? And so for the people who listen to it, then they don't, you know, now it's been two months. It was February 3rd when we had that last conversation.

And I know how busy you've been, right? Like, and I just thought maybe you could distill down some of what you've gone through, the conversations you've been having, and just share with the listener kind of what the last two months journey has been for Ken, because, I mean, you're a guy that has made all these different political meetings, you know, myself, I went to a Wild Rose meeting to see, you know, what they're talking about. because I'm like, not that I love sitting in a politics meeting, but I'm like, for once, I just kind of feel like I probably should do this. I need to know what's going on and whether or not this is something I'm involved with or like or not. And you're a guy that is outdoing me, in my opinion, and I don't know, I admire how hard you go. Yeah, you said a lot of things there. I think we could agree, Sean, that this has been a very, very stressful time for many, many people.

You know, if I'm an 85-year-old, you know, trapped inside an old folks home, you know, if I'm a youth that's missed my hockey and had lockdowns and all the rest, you know, if I'm a teacher who is, you know, like it's the nurses, you know, the police, The unemployed, this has been a shit show. That's what it's been. People who are sick or have immune disorder or, you know, are in the category that we're finding out at risk. It just hasn't been an easy road for anybody. And we kind of sat here and probably you and I, probably why we're good friends, actually.

One of them is it's okay to sit around and bitch for a while, you know. Okay, feel sorry for yourself. Talk about how hard it is, how much everything sucks. But my belief and I think your belief, is, you know, I think you got to have hope and you got to try, you got to do something. Sure. If you pick it up and you try to having a change and you fail, at least you tried. You know, and I think back, you and I convert so many things into sports. You know, if you think you're, compare and contrast hockey teams, like I've had a very negative hockey coach in the past.

You know, coming between periods, you guys suck. You're not, nobody's working. I can't believe it's an embarrassment to coach you guys, you know, throwing hockey sticks around the room, just deflates the room, right? And then when somebody comes in and has a pump-up message with some hope and some drive, you know, I'm not saying they're all rosy pictures. There's never, there's never time for the negative message, but humans' hearts get, for mine. I get a skip on my step when somebody goes, you know what, there's a plan out of this. We've got a chance. Like, all we need to do is these three things, and we can do this. And to me, that's kind of where we've come a little bit, is saying like, you want to talk about you and I in our conversations is, okay,

It is what it is. It sucks. It's been shitty. We've had a lot of tough go with this. What can we do? Right? And I think that's a healthier place to be, at least for my mind. Maybe how about yours, Sean?

Like we'll get into what we're doing, but. Yeah, no. Would you agree? Well, I tell, like if I rewind the clock, up until COVID started, I'd only done one video interview, so one distance. And that was Paul Bissanet, right? Like, I mean, you're going to. I told myself I wasn't going to do that, but for him, I'm like, I'll break my rule, right?

Now what do I do, right? Like probably 75% of them, maybe more than that, maybe 90% of them now are through the computer, through technology, which is opened up doors everywhere. But I learned very, very quickly when COVID shutdowns, lockdowns start happening. I'm like, I don't function well when I'm not. you know, there's a balance. We talk about the balance all the time. You can feel when the balance gets out of whack.

But when I'm not moving, then, you know, I just, you know, now I'm like, oh, and I'm getting on everybody's nerves. I'm getting them on kids' nerves, getting on the wife's nerves. And it's like, sure, did they want you home every night? Yeah. But they actually, you know, then you're home every night.

And they're like, you know, go and because I like to, you know, I like to be a part of things. I want to do things. I'm relatively physically. fit. I got a healthy mind. My health is with me. I love being active. I think we have a great community and I see some shortfalls and I just want I want to bring us all together. I don't know. I know that sounds kumbaya. I say that like I don't mean like we're all locked in arms, but I just think the world tries over and over and over again to not get us to talk to one

another and report all the bad so that you think stepping out your front door is going to be this horrendous experience and there's so much bad everywhere and it's like the truth is you know if you step out your door you might run into a ken rutherford and until you do that you never know who you're going to mean and so for me being busy i've changed my mentality on it it's like there is a balance but i want to be because if i'm busy it means i'm probably doing some good yeah are you finding that uh I try not get too hokey-pokey because there's those weird, you know, what do you want from the universe? It'll throw back. I don't know about those sayings, but what I am noticing is that when you take a little bit of a risk, when you have some hope, when you have some try, just the connections start happening.

And it's like you can feel the momentum growing, you know, at least for me. Like when I look at you as well, it's just things happen. People come talk to you. You know, people want to do something. You volunteer at this place. Just the ball starts rolling. It seems to start with the mind. So if your mind is positive and you say this is where I want to go,

the universe kind of seems to meet you there. And if you want to say life sucks and this is terrible and the universe will meet you there. So if you want to, you know, I think we've all had days like that. I can say there's times worth going through this. I'm like, why do I do anything? Like why don't I just go home, just, you know, grab a half sack of beer every night on the way.

home, kind of numb the brain, you know, kind of, you know, disappear from the world and just grab another Netflix binge, you know, like that just seems like an easier mental journey, but it doesn't fit me and I don't think that's healthy. So I guess, oh, where do we start? I guess maybe we'll just talk for a little before. I was going to, I was going to, as I search my notes here, I had, I wrote down a, you were talking about, you know, not getting too hokey pokey well i i agree right like i don't want to but i wrote down a quote and i didn't wrote you know i was listening to i want to say carl yung at the time but i'm pretty sure it wasn't out of his book but it said what comes out of your mouth comes into your life and what you're talking

about is if you if you want to if you want to talk about the world sucks you're gonna i mean it's already right it's already in your mind it's already coming out your mouth it's everything It's why I fight that all the time. It's like, yeah, there's, there's, it's not great. It's not terrible right now, right? There's, there's good things. There's tons of good people. We just have to find a way to, you know, maximize that, right?

And I don't know. Like, I bring it back to, I really wanted to know you've been maybe the most busy person I've ever seen in a two-month span because what we what we left was was I'm not going to interview Ken again until I've done some things and so for me it was interviewing Daniel Smith it was interviewing Ben-ac-cquay that was those were both good interviews by the way and another guy I wanted to interview was Heath MacDonald which I know isn't the academia world he isn't politics but he's a business owner from town that I really respect and there were different conversations around similar things and I just wanted to you know start to like broaden

my narrative instead of just talking to the same person and having the same conversation and and over and over and over again right and on top of that i went to a wild rose meeting and you know i it didn't blow my socks off that's not to the bombard the wild rose party i think they are um speaking to an audience that is feeling unheard and if they do it properly i think they can attract a ton of people to them i i think it could be like overwhelming support it's just they got to find a way to get their voice heard, the message across right, and talk to everybody who's sitting in all these different places that are all saying the same bloody thing, right?

Everybody's saying the same thing. And that is they're tired of the lockdowns. And as far as the wild rows go, they don't want to split the vote. Right? We've been down this road before, right? You just got to go to Danielle Smith who was on and remember her walking across. And that's way too fresh in a lot of people's minds. So they got to figure out, you know, you always say,

let's make everybody on this together. Everybody stands for freedoms, right? It's nice. That's what we are. Don't worry about all the other trap. It's just freedoms. That's what we're all here for. And as time goes on, it feels like more of a mortgage pulled away.

And so over a two-month span, I've been trying really hard to decide whether politics is a road. Like, you know, like I think me and you've talked lots on like politics, whether you like it or not, is how things change in our country. That's democracy. Now, there's two ways to get into politics. There's the career politician. You start tomorrow and you slug it out and hope that what you say attracts following

and whatever else. I can just imagine, you know, what you got to do to get to the top. Or there's the Donald Trump way, right? They both get to the same goal. They're just two different, you know, a fork in the road, so to speak. One way you're going left,

one way you're going right, with the mind of eventually meeting back up to be, you know, a leader of a country. Well, the, the, maybe I'll just tell you my mental journey as we went through, I started doing some thinking about, you know, I think lots of times for myself, it's like a knee jerk. It's like, you know, when the lockdown started coming, I started thinking like, holy smokes, like, where are we going? Like, like, is it time to get out of this country? You know, like, we're some of the panic. And I'm not sure if maybe that's caused whenever there's mass change that the human just kind of gets a little bit, you know, strong out a little bit. But I guess my brain, my journey kind of went like this recently is, okay, let's just pause and let's think about this for a moment.

I started thinking, I won't see any names, but I've heard stories of, you know, a husband and wife struggling because one of them has, you know, an illness. And the other one's sick and tired of being home is saying, I'm going out and living. I can't stand being in my basement anymore. And the other one thinks that that's selfish because the other spouse wants to get out and how dare you risk bringing an illness that's going to kill me. Honestly, I cry in my heart when I hear that.

You know, because we hear about divorce rates and that coming out of this, right? And then I've heard another story and won't say names of very good friends who one is on one side of a vaccination debate and one's on the other side. And to my understand that they don't talk anymore. And it seems like we're in a,

period of time right now where we're finding things to disagree about, you know, and, and argue about and go to the extremes. And I think we need to focus on the common overlap. You know, what do we agree on? Let's not talk about what we disagree on. Let's talk what we do agree. I think that's what we need to do. So as a community, like, what do we, what do we care, what we care about our kids? Yeah, we all care about our kids. Do we care about the mental health community? Yeah, we care about the mental health community. Do we care about the economic stability of families and be able to pay their mortgage and put food. Yeah, we agree on that. Personal rights and freedoms, charter rights and freedoms. Do we agree that it's good to be able to visit

and talk and go to church? Yeah, we agree on that. So I think there's going to be a lot more that we agree on than disagree on. So then my brain goes, okay, so I can't let my brain get into one of those extreme camps. I can't. Because if we get into a specific debate on masks or on vaccinations, I don't, I don't judge anybody for this either side of it. Again, I've got a another story. I won't give names, but I've got a family member who, does have an illness and they do take it very seriously they mask they they they clean up their hands with alcohol you they they they they're full on for for vaccinations and I get it everybody's got their own personal story you know I think it's why somebody else chooses to mask or not mask or

to vaccinate let people make their own decision don't judge them they're not sheeple you know like they everybody's got their own story and so I think we've got to accept people for for their positions and what they what what is right for them so then I started thinking about um A lot of people I talk to, Sean, and I'm talking like a lot of people, again, I won't say names, is like, what are you thinking? A lot of people like, we're looking at getting out of the country. You know, that's not an uncommon statement right now. It crossed my mind.

And then I'm like, wait a minute. Let's just, let's just breathe. Let's just breathe for a moment, right? You know, that's, let's, let's roll through this for, for a minute here. I believe Canada is one of the best countries on earth. I believe in Alberta, Saskatchewan, being two of the best provinces in the country. I know everybody's going to think that. It's my bias.

I get it. This community of Lloyd Minster, I believe it's one of the best communities in Canada. Look what we can do with fundraising. Look at how many strong, good people there are. And then I start thinking, Ken, shame on you for one of your first tests as a member of your community and as your country. You want to run? Really?

Is that all you got in you? There's people that have died for this country. There's people that put this place together with their blood, sweat, and tears and lived in a shack with some mud packed in between it. We got the first nations that figured out how to live off the land. We got a beautiful country. And the first time it gets a little hard, you want to run. Okay. Well, is that the story you want told for your life, Ken?

When you're 85, remember when it got hard then we ran? No. So you got to fight first. You got to fight first. And it's worth fighting for. So that's kind of where my brain went. I went, okay. Well, how do we do those things?

So now that leads into some of the things we're going to talk about. So being busy, yeah. I'm like, the fact is it's going to be hard. We're going to have to do some work. So what do we do? Well, which one do you want to chat about first, Sean? Do you want to start leading to the politics thing? So maybe we could talk about that.

Sure. Well, I just, I think if people don't listen to the war on weakness or, you know, it's been quietly done in the back rooms across town. and I just think of the amount of conversations you've had with people and just trying to figure out where everybody's at. Maybe, you know, me and you have said this before, like maybe I'm just the crazy one. And I go, nope, like I've talked to probably 20 people,

they're all feeling the same way. And I'm going, okay, so if 20 people are all feeling the same way, why are we all hiding away, just waiting, right? And I know you're a guy that's, you know, branched. So I said Wild Rose because, you know, I'm Alberta. They're in Alberta party. They're looking to run. I'm like, wow, I've got to go see, right? To me, why wouldn't you now? Actually, as I start to open my eyes to things. Another party that you've been around is the Maverick party. And I know a lot of people have talked about that, especially in the rural communities. And I thought maybe you could share a little bit about that experience so far. Sure. Let's go back to the coffees. So there are, I do have deep concerns for our society. I do have deep concerns for our. youth and our children. I do have deep concerns for where this possibly could be heading.

And out of all, my style isn't to go out and argue fight. I mean, I fight trains. I mean, I would rather, I look at like our police and our nurses and our teachers and our welders and our truckers, but you have a conversation with pretty much anybody in their community. I know we've got bad people in the community, but pretty much everybody in the community that I talk to, He's good people. These are good people. And maybe we disagree, but let's sweep those disagreements away from it. They're good people that care.

So I've had a lot of coffees, a lot of discussions, quietly. And that's kind of my style. Just like, where are you at? Where are we at? What's your worry about the community? What do you think about? And one thing that's come to me is that I do believe humans are a herd animal. I think we find safety in numbers.

And it's something that, you know, I was trying to find an academic, term or a study and maybe it's good that I couldn't find it. But there's good, what I've noticed is that do people want kids to be able to play hockey next year? I believe the majority of people do. Do people want our seniors that are they're locked up in their rooms to be able to visit with their families? And if it's time for them to die to be able to do what their family members in their room with them holding their hands, I believe the majority of people do. And but what I do notice is that not a lot of people want to stand up and stick their head out of the hole. The common statement is I don't want to lose my job.

I don't want to lose customers for my business. I don't want to upset my neighbor. And so it's like this, everybody's got their thing, but we're all kind of on our own little islands, and nobody wants to say anything. But we're all kind of, like our community is hurting. And we'll talk a little bit about us, our children and our youth. There's various members.

There's people that are missing surgeries. There's people that should have had a cancer diagnosis that didn't go. We know the opioid death. You know, I've talked this many times. I think that we're going to be embarrassed of how we handled. this when we come out of this, you know, 10 years from when the emotions are gone, and it's just statistics now, I think we're going to be embarrassed. Well, I'll bet somebody heavily we will be.

I'm not an expert on everything. That's for sure. And maybe I'm wrong. But, and so I'm wondering is that folks, it's on our shoulders. I believe politicians, we can't blame the politicians here. You know what I've talked about us. I believe politicians are reflection of us. We vote for people that reflect what we want.

we put forward leaders that reflect who we are. So if we're letting down a lot of people in our society right now and everybody's too scared to put their head up and say we've got to do something, maybe we're getting what we deserve, you know, but maybe we can choose to be different moving forward. Maybe it's time to be brave. Maybe it's time to take a risk.

Maybe it's time to come together and say, I'm okay if I lose my job. If I know my community's hurting, I've got to stick my head up. I'm not I, nothing I want to do or say is to hurt anybody. You know, it's not in my DNA usually. Like, you know, the hockey and the right, but I care deeply about humans. And I wonder if it's not on all of our shoulders.

To people are listening to this to say, when you're 85 years old, how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be remembered as the person who played it safe, took care of your own skin, kept quiet when when you knew that there was, there was harm and hurt in your community? or should we come together and just have an open debate? You know, like, good things come. Like, we find, I want to encourage people, gather with like-minded people and talk and debate and argue and call each other out.

You know, like our book club has proven to be a very, very special part of us. And it allows me to not sit in my basement and go crazy, right? It's like you can think about things better when you're in a group. And so now politically. Well, to hop in there quickly, it's one of the reasons why I put up a lot of value in what you say, Ken, because how many times have we had the debate on, I don't know, like COVID lockdowns, vaccines, you just go down the list. Me and you've had it out, not had it out, but like a healthy discussion on it to the point where I've forced you to get better at how you talk about it because I know I'm just like, well, what about this? or I don't believe in that. And you're like, huh, well, I better go check into that.

And then you come back. And that's exactly what you do, because I know how much research and time you spent on all this. That's why the two-month kind of check-in, right, since we last sat down. I've been really curious, right? Because as much we talk, I don't get to hear about everything. And certainly when we chat, we're down a rabbit hole, just no different than this is a rabbit hole.

Okay. And when you say like you're imploring everybody to be like, we need to do something. Well, you know, in one of our, you know, one of my conversations, quiet conversations, one of the things is, is like, you know, guys, it is April, and by the time this comes out, it's going to be like April 26th, pretty sure they're about to really, you know, draw back on mass. They're going to draw back on gatherings. so people can go out and gather and it's the summertime and everybody's going to go do it anyways. What are we worried about? Right? Like, what are we worried about, Ken?

Like, what are we going to group together to do? We're through the worst of it. I hope so. You know, I guess my thought is, is that it's maybe a really exciting time. I know we're kind of all over the place here and people are like, just, would you get into what you're doing? Right. And, uh, but this is what we're doing. Yeah, this is what we're doing.

We've literally talked this through how many times, right? Oh, gosh, like, like, gone around a thousand times. and it's a little bit of struggle because you can't meet. You can't go to church. You can't, you know, have, you know, go to speakers. You can't, you just, I'm not even supposed to have my mom and dad into my home, right? Like, can't even talk to them, right? So how are you supposed to talk?

Well, I don't know, right? Obviously, you know, we can meet in coffee houses, right? Because I don't know, whatever. Listen, I don't, I don't hide behind it. I find one of the things that, COVID has taught me is people in the back rooms, wherever you are, it doesn't matter. In a group of 10 people, they're all going to say relatively the same thing. There's going to be the one that there's always going to be the extremes.

But for the most part, you get a group of like-minded guys together. They're all going to be like, yeah, this is BS, don't like it, whatever. But when the cards start to go, 9 of the 10, maybe 10 of the 10, all are abiding by two-week quarantine or abiding by if it's a variant. it now and is 24-day, they're going to buy by it. Oh, well, I got this. And I, my thing is, is what I've really struggled with is like, you're just, you literally just said that you thought it was all BS. But now, it's just like, no, it's, it's real. And, and so to me, I understand choose your words very carefully, because it's like, if you're going to say something and

you don't follow through with what you say, even if it's as simply as like, I don't believe in mass, and you shouldn't wear a mask anywhere and you should be okay with the consequences of not doing that because that's what you believe and as soon as you start saying something but then not falling through it now you're telling yourself a different story and that is a dangerous thing I think right

like we're all powerful behind closed doors but as soon as we get in front of a mic or in front of people or in front of a you know police officer if we don't firmly believe in our stance You know, Heath McDonald, if you believe in something, stand behind it. Those words ring. I'm like, huh.

Yeah, those are good words. They're good words. Yeah. As I'm preparing for this chat with you, again, I'm sorry, I didn't have a chance. Maybe it's good again, not to look up, you know, a theory or philosophy on it. But I'm kind of imagining myself like this is, you know, like these masks, you know, like there's a whole debate on which ones work and don't work and how people got them on their chin or don't wear them or they're dirty or, you know, they haven't washed them in, you know, the last 30 days or, you know,

like, it's kind of like, but then you can take them off and you can sit five feet from each other in a coffee house and you're okay. Like, it's just a lot of, we're all kind of like at each other and I don't know if I believe this, you know, but sure. And I kind of envision that let's get out of the mask debate for a moment. It's kind of like humans. We must have a programming in us that even though I know there's danger in walking that way, as long as I'm walking with another thousand people, I'm like, well, why does this keep walking there? I just seen a video the other day of water buffalo crossing a river in Africa. And, you know, the first four went. Well, after the first four went, there must have been 10,000. I don't know, five thousand. It was just,

I've never seen a herd that, but I don't know how many were there. But they're all just like, looks like we're going that way. We're going for broke. And I kind of wonder if us humans are kind of the same, who we're like, well, everybody seems to be dropping off in front of me, but whatever, I guess is everybody's walking this direction. The herd must know. And so there's probably, and maybe that's in a chance. So we are, we can gather and be compliant and live. And in peace, whatever the group does will just kind of do. Maybe it's a, maybe it's a good thing for stability of society. But I wonder if sometime it can't lead us to jump off a cliff, you know, because everybody did it. You know, does that make sense to you? Is that a bad analogy?

No, it's not a bad analogy at all. I think probably 99% of the time, it's for the most part, a good thing, right? Probably helps us a lot of the time. You know, like, you put your, just do a sanitarian, sanitation, sanitarium. God, I can't think of the work. I like them both. They both work But I was listening to your Dr. Shiva, and he said probably the most impactful people on the entire world have been plumbers and garbage people, right? Right. Whether the world wants to... Sanitation. Yeah, sanitation.

Whether the people want to believe that or not. And they think, you know, doctors and scientists and everything are more... It's like, well, no, actually, it turns out getting your shit away from your drinking water and where you live is a pretty big thing. Yeah. And then on top of that, you know, not living in filth is a really... big thing, right? And so, yeah, no, I get what you're saying. Yeah. So, um, like, sorry, if we, if you all walk different ways, it'd probably be hard to get people to fall in line, right, on certain things that are really beneficial to all of society. And the people right now,

on the COVID side, are going to argue, just fall in line. Just fall. the rules like there's still people that are no just follow the rules well we'll get through this even if it's another year we'll get through this just follow the rules and at this start I was like that I was like just gonna follow the rules like I'm not I'm not gonna stick my head up just take care of my family and everything but the problem is the longer it goes the more you just see the hypocrisy and the more people you you start to listen to that are very smart but are walking the opposite direction of the entire society and you're like well why why are they doing that and then you

listen to them you're like huh that's actually a really smart point dr sheva's one of them you just introduced me to him i don't know why i fight i fought that with you i know better than the fight ken around the pretty he's talking highly about something it's probably about time i just sat down and listened to it and seemed for myself and dr sheva i listened to a bunch of them now and and just he's a guy who goes against mainstream media against uh all the thoughts around the immune system and COVID-19 and getting vaccine and everything else. And once again, we're getting into the mud of like, we're not trying to argue that. It's just, you're mentioning, are we a herd? Yeah, absolutely. Like, just look at what we all do. Within three-week period, everybody was wearing

mask. And it just took enough of a push from the government that we all started doing it. Like, it must be a really, really, really, really interesting job. Or maybe, um, for the, um, feeling to have that much power to be at the very top and to be like listen me and kenner in a room do mass work and we've had this conversation lots i don't know why it always comes back to mass it's the most visible yeah and it's the most visible to see that everybody's doing it you got two sides that are really smart one saying you absolutely need to one side's saying you absolutely don't need to the other side's completely wrong and they're so now me and kenner sitting in a room and we're the leaders. It's like while you're catching flack if you don't make people wear it, because it's not like

one, you know, one country did it and 99 didn't, but you're going to catch flack if you do do it because the other side is going to be unhad. But the ability to just, that's what we're doing, and then to have, you know, what's Canada, 30. Is it 34 million? 34 million? Three or five million? Just under 40 million, but somewhere in the 30s of millions of people, all of sudden, just everybody falls in line wearing mass. Like, what a feeling that must be. Yeah, I make the error of, I'm trying to correct my own compass. I make the error of assuming that the majority of people are good people that just want

the best for others. You know, it's kind of maybe what I have in my head. But like, let's take Doug Ford for a moment. You know, like he put Ontario on strict lockdown. Like, you got to call that pretty close to be in a police state. You know, like if I think about a continuance. him. Well, can you back it up for people, because I had to explain to my wife, I think maybe you should just give a few details on what Doug Ford empowered his police and everything else to do in what

was that, like a week's a week ago. So maybe we'll back up for that. Dr. Shiva, if you listen to his stuff, in the end, he becomes a little bit political, you know, because I think he ran for office. And so some of his later stuff, I'm like, he's he on the politics, you know. But if you go back, he's a academic he's got multiple degrees MIT he teaches I think in the med school at MIT and he he breaks it down exactly according to him how the immune system works and it's a complex beast as everything in the human body

on this earth is so if you're if I'm not saying he's 100% right I don't know I'm not smart enough to not but I know he made me go hmm that's that's pretty deep it's because of Dr. Shiva that we we all this winter we've been taking zinc we've been taking vitamin D we've been taking, oh shoot, we put a few drops in our smoothie every morning, but because of him, because of he explained how the cell walls work and how this works and how that works.

But anyways, everybody else can listen out on their own. I purposely don't get too detailed right now into the daily COVID updates and the restrictions and what the laws are. I'm just kind of getting the channel just a bit because it stresses me out. It causes me mental stress and I kind of want to fight or puke or get mad or, you know. But my understanding on Doug Ford is he clamped down hard. He was like, you people, this is my perspective on it. I could be wrong.

He said, you don't want to listen. We're going to come down hard on you. You people are doing this. And I am the ruler and you will listen. Well, Kenny, they had police at the access from Manitoba into Ontario sitting on the highway. Yep. They gave special, I don't know, are we calling it powers to cops to pull over anyone they wanted to, including people walking.

You had to be so far away from your home if it wasn't out for, work purposes or, you know, like, it was, it was like, oh, wow. Like, and that's, you know, Vance Crowe, a guy that, I mean, his book club, he messaged me immediately. Me and Quick Dick, actually, it was like, is this real? Right? Like, and we're like, yeah. And he's like, like, right now in St. Louis, it feels like COVID isn't even real anymore.

And he's watching that. And I know the United States, you know, I say this, you know, once again, who cares what your belief on vaccination is? Once vaccinations hits so far, you're going to start to see things loosen off. And in the States, that's what's happening, right? As more people are vaccinated, it's starting to loosen. But Vance was one guy who texted immediately. It was like, is this actually happening?

I'm like, yeah. Like, I don't even know what to say, right? Like, I don't think it'll ever happen in the West, but I never thought it would be happening in Canada. And there it is in Ontario. We've got to remember, like, what was that show? Like, you always talked about, like, Jurassic Park. we've read Jordan Peterson on the Pinocchio,

you know, is, what was the show where the guy puts the ring on? Lord of the ring. Lord of the ring. Remember when he puts on the ring and he turns into that demon-looking evil? And maybe, you know, the saying absolute power corrupts absolutely. You know, I think there's a lot of weight to that. And so maybe, Sean, if you're the premium of one problem, and we're given like, you just do what you need to do to make the people do what you think they need to do.

We might be putting on a ring, right? And that's kind of how it appears to me to Doug Ford. I'm sure these politicians, we know politicians in our area. These aren't evil people. They don't set out to, I don't, maybe some of them do, but I don't know. But Doug Ford, you know, like there's charter rights and freedoms. We either got to say it's valuable or let's flush in the toilet. Right, really.

Like, let's be bluntly honest here. Well, you bring up the charter rights and freedoms. So I wrote down what stuck out to me. Yeah. I mean, if you want to read it all. Well, the one Doug Ford, like, for example, he says, I think he gave people. police power to stop anybody and question them anywhere as to where they're going and give them increased police powers. Well, I kind of flip open this weird document, Carl,

Canadian charter rates and freedoms. Apparently it might have been important at one point in time. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. Well, Doug Ford flashes that in the toilet because the king has spoken. Well, did you, did you see that video I sent to you this morning? The police forces look like they're like, hey, this is even getting unpalible by our standard. You know, we're supposed to be the police. he's crying he's I made a mistake I'm so sorry okay sure you flush the charter rights and freedoms down the toilet now you're now you want us to forgive you I'm sorry you know to me I don't trust you anymore and maybe that's something's come out of this for me is a lack of

trust of a lot of people that are in power you know and maybe it's time for for us normal people maybe it's time for a mechanic to become our MLA maybe it's time for a truck driver to become our premier enough of this career politician well you you said last last episode. It's selfish if we only look after ourselves. And then he said, the government is us. We are the government, you and I. And if this is true, then the onus is on us to do what is right. And I'm curious, you know, we haven't got to the Maverick Party. Like I keep kind of like spinning around and get, we get pulled off. You've been a guy that I look at, Kenning. I've told you this behind scenes multiple times. I think everything you say, I think you'd be a great politician. I think you

would. Now, that doesn't mean it pays well. It doesn't mean maybe it's crappy office hours and you're not around your family as much as you want to be. I don't know all the inner workings of that. But when you talk about, you know, when you're 85 and you look at your children and they go, what was it like, Dad? Well, I did X. Have you figured out what X is? Are you going to be a politician? Are you going to, has Mavericks convinced you? As Wild Rose, I don't know, you probably can't do well, Rose, but you know what I mean? Has anything convinced you that way? Have you figured out what your ex is? I got to say my initial reaction is I think you'd make a good politician. I know you mean it well because of my own internal belief system. It's like I think you'd make a great use car salesman.

No, okay. Well then let's rewind that back. No, I know. I know you don't know. No, no. What I mean is you're a guy I look at where I respect everything you do. And that's what you're. That's why you're what I want out of a politician. So what I mean is, is if you put your name on the ballot tomorrow, I can, like, immediately, I'm voting for Ken Rutherford. And I think in our area, particularly, I think I'm not the only one like that. I think there's probably thousands of people that would be like, yeah. And in my short experience of paying attention to politics, I've found very few people

that I would be like, who can't rather for this run out? Like, immediately. And that's no knock on all politicians. I don't follow up. I haven't been around politics enough in working with you and the things that you were that mean a lot to you and your talks about freedom and like, like we need to get the Constitution back

or the charter rights of freedom, sorry. Like, to me, I'm like, I get all that. And the way you talk about it and the way you conduct yourself, that's what I want. of a politician. That's what I want. I want that. So I thank you for saying that, Sean. And I would think the exact same thing of you

as I would have many members in our community. Yes, true. And something that's come to my brain. Well, and I mean yes, true about other members. I don't think I'd be. No, no, no. We're not going to try and shoehorn Sean into, hey, yeah, you'd be good. You'd talk. Well, you would. But no, but let's, um, somebody said it in one of the meetings I was in.

You know, and my brain was here too is, I'm a I'm a Saskatchewan guy and, and, uh, so he's like, we're sitting here, for some night and shining armor to ride in and Brad Wall's going to come save us or Brett Wilson or Stephen Harper's going to come back. They're not here. Folks, they're not coming. Maybe they won't ever come. Maybe they're great people. Maybe they got every reason. They got grandkids or they're they got their own issues. That's okay. But maybe this is wonderful. Normal people got to look each other and say it's time to run for everything. Not just MLAs.

The issue I, a lot of our, it's coming apparent to me that politics are very important. You know, look, I'm like, yeah, whatever, just do your thing, take some taxes. Well, when times are good. Tell me when to vote. I'll go vote. I'll talk about it, a couple of a beer on a Friday night to what I think of this policy or that policy, but I just don't want to be involved in it. But it came to me this is that we've got to get involved in everything.

We've got to get involved in our school boards. We've got to get involved in municipal politics. If you believe in something, run. Run. You have to. This whole day of where we just sat on her own and took care of herself, went for a day's work and, you know, went to Mexico once here. It might be behind us.

That's maybe a great thing. It's maybe time for us all. I don't know. All I know is I'm getting involved and I'm going to do something. I'm going to be a part of something. And I, my way on all this right now is that have I got involved with Maverick Party? Yes, I have. And I don't care who it is. I want the best person to run. I want the best person who represents our values to run. And so Maverick Party is. Maybe I've just joined. Actually, I did. I'm on the electoral district, EDA, the board for the sketchery on the, on the, on, um, um, um, on the Saskatchewan side of things here. And I'm not for separation at this point. You know, I think that's maybe a marketing issue for these parties. Wildrose party on the Alberta side, Buffalo on the Saskatchewan and Maverick party. I think I was in error thinking that a lot of them were like, oh, we're separating. Like you vote for them and they win. We're out.

And it's just too common issue. I was leery to vote for them or put my support behind them because I'm like, we've got a lot of things for a crowd. Like, how about anybody talk to the First Nations? Because I think they have a say in this. What about police? What about debt? What about money supply? You know, what about, what about, you know, we're not, we don't touch ocean. So how are we, how are we going to get her? And I find a lot of people say, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. We can't move product. Shut your mouth. Well, you know, unless you've, it's like, you know, Jordan Peterson. A lot of people hate Jordan Peterson. Do you read the book? No. Okay. Sounds good. Let's just talk about something else then. Because until you've depth, you know, jumped into this, you're not worth, it's not worth our time. So there, these are deep, deep topics. And what I'm finding is that, What I am for is autonomy. I am for sure for that.

I believe that Canada's too big, we're too diverse. We should have more say at our local levels. And I think, did I mention this to you? Like when I was coaching senior hockey when you were playing. Every time, I don't know if I told you this, but every time we'd sing the Canadian anthem, I'd look at the Canadian flag and I sang every word because what I noticed is less and less people are singing the Canadian anthem.

It's like just something to get through. I was like, I'm the next, my grandfather, fought in the world war and I won't be that generation that quit singing the national anthem. And every time I'd get a tear well from my eye, because I think about what went on into that flag. And I thought, I'm a Canadian first, but I am for autonomy because the politicians chase votes and Ontario, Quebec have the mass amounts of our seats. And I think, and what I'm learning is that that's, that's the obvious. And I'm finding, in my opinion, that it's okay to be different. Like instead of being mad at Quebec, let's celebrate it.

They're different. That's okay. The Maritimes are different. That's okay. You know, BC is different. That's okay. And we're different here in Saskatchewan, Alberta. We're just different, I think.

And that's okay. You know, you're from a big family, a big family. Some my brother and sisters love to live city. Some don't. Some like the hunt. Some like the, and it's okay. We don't have to hate each other. So I'm for autonomy.

And that's what all these parties are aiming for first is more rights and more say over their local affairs. Like, for example, Wildrose party, although I can't vote for them because I'm not an Alberta resident, you know, just go to their website. Here's their mission.

They want to affirm all individual rights and freedoms. I like that. Make that clear to me. That's a big one. You know, this wishy-washiness, you know, of the federal parties, I'm done with them, myself personally. Establish an accountable Alberta police force.

I like that. You know, like, I'm for that. Establish an Alberta revenue agency to collect their own taxes. hmm let's wrestle some of that out of Ottawa's hands there was one on I don't know if they say it here but on having our own chief firearms officer I'm tired of the whole every three years

we're going to take all the guns away and we're going to lock them all up and we're going to take what no no how will we just take care of that ourselves I don't intend on going to shoot anybody all my guns are all locked up properly you know so I'm I'm for this even if we never separate all these things that these parties are standing for more autonomy I'm for when it comes time to decide on whether we want to leave Canada or not. At that point in time, I'm going to have to think.

Because I don't know what right now my vote is no until I know a lot more. Yeah. You know, so Maverick party, yes, I'm involved with. And they have a two-pronged approach. It's not, if you vote Maverick or Wild Rose or Ruffalo, you're not separating the following morning. Like, we don't even have a constitution. You know, we trade agreements, you know, money supply. How do we handle the debt?

These take a look, look at Britain. It's not like you just leave the following morning. These are long discussions. So to me, I'm voting for them. and I'm put my hand into a voting. Barring something changing drastically, that is who I plan on voting for, because I want autonomy.

Now, political seats, Sean, what's led me there, in Canada, we've just got to be honest with each other. Total seats in Canada, 338, okay, in Canada. Guess how many are in Alberta in Quebec alone? Alberta and Quebec?

I'm sorry, Ontario and Quebec. 80-some? No, sorry, you said 300. Out of 338 total. 180 some. You're getting close, higher. 220? Yeah, 199.

Okay, so Alberta and Saskatchewan combined. Guess how many we have? Oh, God. 45? You're very close, man. 48. The vote is decided by the time it gets to us. We vote for no purpose.

Almost, right? So it's like, and if you're a politician, you care about votes, you have to. If we're a political, if we're a federal party, you cannot lobby for the West and in something that isn't in favor with the East and you will never win. It's just not mathematically possible.

I think it's time for us to admit that. It is what it is. Is it perfect? No, is it okay? I don't know. But it's the rules of the game. And so the Maverick Party is trying to be the Reform Party, you know, in their first version

where it's saying, let's get some MPs to Ottawa and they vote for the West. And when it's a minority government, they can say, listen, we'll side with you on this, but you got to give us something back. So it's kind of like trying to be like party Quebecwa out of Quebec. And we might argue that party Quebec was not a pretty good job for Quebec. You know, and maybe we should take a, you know, a page out of their book.

And so for now, until I'm seeing different, I like it. And I'll tell you what else I like. You go to these meetings and there is zero people with political experience. These are farmers. These are normal everyday people, me, you know. And they are taking time. out of their lives to put their own gas in their own vehicles to drive to all these little communities to have and you go out to these things it's farmers it's local entrepreneurs it's it's like

we're heading into seeding season right you farmers shouldn't be taken a day out of their life to come to a political meeting when there hasn't even an election called and they're coming that tells me something grassroots this is maybe time for us normal everyday people to say let's let's get it out of these career politicians hands let's quit line to yourself let's take our matters into our own hands I'm for it what do you think Sean? I think this is why you need to be in politics. You said, whether it's a school board, whether it's X, Y, Z, right? I find it's what motivates you.

So do what motivates you, right? So if you're motivated to, you get, you know, let's use a school board or 4H or something, right? Like you want to make sure that it's ran properly, the best leadership, get involved. That's what you're saying. and when I watch you with all your sheets fanned out and the Ken Rutherford way of like this is how I attack problems. I watch that and I go like and to me that's why I'd love to see you representing people representing what I want because you know if you threw me into politics tomorrow I'm going to be honest like I'll I'll try I'll sink or swim I have no idea but I don't know if I'll ever get to where Kenny is at like I watch what you just did and I go and that's why I think

you'd be great. Like I think you'd be great at it. And I think you'd run away with it. I do. But you represent exactly the type of person I want to see talking. And you never know. Like maybe there's lots of people that are like Ken and they get in there and it changes them. But I go, no, I know Ken pretty good. And I don't think it's going to change him. I think he's going to speak his mind. And if that doesn't work, then maybe we are too far down this road and there's no way to change it. But you can't ask people that earn into politics to be like

you should go run for politics it's like no that probably won't work either because you know just representation but a crappy representation we've all dealt with the person that man but we've all had that same person

that's really good at something and they're using their skills and you're like they're pretty good at that they're actually pretty good at that yeah the um So like when you say you could be that, no, you're the exact same Sean. I've done many things with you.

And when you go, you just, you get into it. But let me throw this at you. I got pulled into a, I don't even know how I got a ticket into this. It was a quiet meeting with some of the inner brains of the Wild Rose Party. And I was for sure the dumbest person in the room by far. Ticket into a secret meeting. I think you're already in the club, Kenny. It must be grooming you.

No, it was an error. It was an error. But my point is that there was some smart people in there. It gave me hope, actually, to go, oh, there's some brains into this. There's some thought put into this. We might have a brighter future instead of a dimmer future, maybe. I don't know. I'm not saying Wild Rose is a savior.

I don't know. Maybe they're good. Maybe they're bad. I'm just telling you what I've seen in the room with some passionate people doing the same thing. Invest in their own time, spend on their own money, right? You know, figuring out how to think their way through this. And the one guy that I won't say any names because I don't know what I'm at liberty to say or not say. but he said, I hope I'm quoting him correctly,

there's two characteristics you should have in a politician. Number one is be, how do you put he? He said it's much better than I would, but to be of good morals. Number two is to be smart. And number one is the most important, and that's the necessary one. Number two is, if you can get them both, great.

And that said something to me is like, so anybody that's listening to this, for me, I think it's time, oh, you're just a farm wife. No, you're not just a farm wife. If you care and you've got something to say, it's time to stand up, right? I'm just, put your name behind this.

I'm just, no, you're not just on anything. It's time for us. It's time for us to take, you don't have to be good at talking, you don't have to have been a, might even be better if you were never a politician. So you don't own anybody in favors. You don't have any, you know, old buddies

or old friends. You only, you know, it's just, it's time for us to do, to come up and just, and be open, you know, like so, Sean, something I'm going to say is my primary motivator is that I'm concerned for where we're going. Like to me, like,

and it's, I don't know for me to be 100% into something, I need to hear that we're going to, we've got a plan to get off this COVID bandwagon. And to me right now, as a society, I don't mean to go back into it for a moment, but I'm just going to jump in for a moment, is that I think right now,

like every day we get to COVID update, We get this. There's many hospital beds. There's this. The premiers are locked. It consumes so much of our time and energy. And one of my biggest motivators is our children. Have six of them.

Oldest of six. I've coached. I don't know how many athletes I've coached lots. I've coached for the last, I don't even know how many years. You've coached multiple teams. That's once. Yeah.

Yeah. And I teach. And I'm just so behind our youth. That's our future. We've got to take care of those. That's our most precious resource. I think. And there's so much time

there will be, yeah, but like if you don't wear a mask, you're going to kill a grandma. I don't know, maybe. But let me go through some stats here for you. Right now, there's so many other members of our community that we need to worry about in addition to the people that could be harmed by COVID. I'm going to focus on the kids.

Somebody else can focus on the homeless and on the opioid addicted and there's just too much information for me to take it all in. But let me start with this. this are our most recent data because to me again like it's too many feelings about um COVID so I'm like if I was stuck on an island all by myself and I couldn't talk to anybody you know should I be scared of COVID when I look at this so this is a data updated as of April 21st I pulled this just from the the Alberta website this morning um they have to

to me like do the are the tests right are they wrong or the are people this or people I don't know maybe maybe not but what I'm just going to go to the best statistics I can find it's on deaths. It's hard to argue. Did somebody die? Yes, I know it's a binary. It's easy to say they either die or they didn't die. So I'm going to go right to that statistic. When I count the Alberta, what do they say? There's 2,054 people who died with COVID, according to the Alberta website. When I look at that, my strip of the stats, 94% of the people that are in that category are over the age of 60. Okay, so I look at that. I'm like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to, it's starting to suggest it's age related. It makes, okay, I'm cool with that. Now, when I go to the,

they say comorbidities, they list the comorbidities, comorbidities being cardiovascular disease, chronic chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, dementia, stroke, bad things, liver, stroke, liver, stress, you know, serious illnesses. Percent of people who have died with COVID, with one or more of those comorbidities, it's 97.5%. So I go 94% over 60, 97.5 with at least one corbidate. These are elderly people with an illness that appear to be at most risk. I think we know that. Now, I don't know whether they died from COVID, with COVID, I get you it. But now that's our focus as a society. Every dang day we're getting this, how many people got it, how many people in your community habit, what's our hospital account? How are when are we out of bed?

You and I are people that know that there's more of the story than this. But let me ask you, or one other, I've talked about utilitarianism before where we've got to make decisions to create the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. How many people? How many? people died of opioid death this last month? Do you know? Don't know. I don't know either. You know, uh, do you know how many people without, uh, uh, you know, this last month, due to, due to shutdowns or losing businesses or layoffs? Do you know? No, I don't either. I'm like, we need to focus on more than just this. I, like, there's nice stats. Think of how many people are employed to just kick up the stats that I just put out. So the one I'm going to

focus on in kit is kids. Let's just go like this. Let's say, I imagine like a room where we've got a giant monitor and we've got like every segment of society and we kind of keep a running total of who's being helped or hurt by all these decisions and whatever kicks up the biggest number whether we agree with it or not we got to make that decision right and we're only focusing on this COVID well I decided to jump in there's an article from the Toronto Star from December 13th of 2020 so very recent okay the article is called you anybody can Google it's called 4 million cries for help calls to kids help phones sore amid pandemic the previous year this kid's help phone where you can I guess you can text it you can call it if you're if you have any kind of you're suicidal you're

depressed anything like that 2012 they had 1.9 million contacts in 2020 guess how much it went up to you want to guess five million yeah you're close it's 4 million 111% increase these are kids calls per day, over 800 calls per day. Imagine being a counselor on the end of that line. You're talking to a 12-year-old. Suicidal. 10 calls per day where the police have to get involved because they're suicidal. These are kids.

They have to ask the police to respond because 10 of these kids are like, they think this is the one. Cops, you've got to get to 4201, 57th Street because there's a child that's suicidal. There's another document called, or another organization called children Canada first Canada it's so it's an advocacy group for for kids that takes data and reports and says listen these are the risks of the Canadian children I'll just rattle these off and there's a document called top 10 threats to childhood in Canada

according to this suicide is a second leading cause of death in their youth between 15 and 24s second leading cause of death 15 and 24 it's the leading cause of death for children 10 to 14 highest among First Nations, or Inuit and Métis. 57% in the 15 to 7-year-old range rated their mental health as being somewhat worse or much worse compared to time before COVID measures came in. 50% are saying, I'm worse or much worse,

from pre-COVID to in-COVID. One third of Canadians report COVID has had a moderate major impact on their financial ability to meet financial obligations and essential needs. One in seven households has food insecurity post-COVID. Percent of children that are meeting their movement guidelines, physical activity, so that are meeting their movement guidelines on a daily basis.

According to this document, 5 to 11-year-old segment, 4.8%. 12 to 7-year-old, 0.8%. These kids aren't moving. They're stuck at home. They're depressed. Not all of them. I get it, but this is data. You know, I've went to a data document.

Kids are hurting. They're suicidal. And we have an onus. You know, we could claim ignorance. Prior to me reading this, I could claim I didn't know. Now I do. So I'm done with the COVID talk. I'm done with, I get it.

The old and ill at risk, I care about them. And I care about these children. We can't focus on one. So now there's an onus on me to do something, which is, Whether I like it or not, our laws and our policies are created through politicians. You have to get there. Folks, we got to influence through our votes, through our advocacy groups, through running for office.

If you don't like the statistics I just said, then do something about it. So it's, well, it's hanging heavy on me. Obviously, I'm choking up as I'm reading it. So that's where I'm at is if our politicians that are in place today are just going to do the daily COVID count and do another lockdown, that's just the kids. Like we, we, somebody else is going to care about the homeless, right? And those with opioid did deduct, or opioid deaths and overdoses. And they're going to choke up as they're reading those.

I, it's too much for me. But I'm on the side of kids and I got to advocate for them and I got to do something. Now, I've talked a lot. You go. Well, I don't know what to say to that, Kenny. Like, I didn't know all those stats. How can you unhear that? Everybody who just listened to that is going to.

to go, holy shit, right? Like, holy shit. When you, when you're talking about the different age groups and the meeting their, their movement, I'm like, it's going to be low. Like, I'm thinking like, I don't know, 10%. It is zero point, whatever you said. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, that should shock everyone who just heard that.

I don't know what to say to that. All I know is, I'm, it's why I've been fueling, you know, as much as you, you got to surround yourself with people that care for you, right? And have your best interest at heart. And so I see how you react to this. So I fuel your fire because I'm like, you can't have, you know,

if I go back to when we started the podcast, if you would have said, ah, it's an okay, whatever idea. Nah, you sure started over there. But you fueled the fire and now here's where it is, right? And I don't know if I can ever repay that. But when I hear you talk like that, I'm like, I'm in.

whatever let's do something I don't know what it is I mean we haven't brought up the bike trip I know it's it's it's not getting kids moving but it was a way to do something that brings our community together around something that needs to be brought

and I I don't know how to solve that problem I don't I'm like we need to put pressure on our politicians we need Ken Rutherford in politics I'll say it's a thousand times on this thing whether or not that happens I know I'm putting on the spot, but whether or not that happens is beside the point, what we're saying is change needs to happen. It needs to happen quick.

Like you can't go five more years like this and expect that 20 years down the road, you're not going to reap what you sow. It's like we need to find our way out of here. And right now we're not confident that the people leading are going to do that for us. Until I hear them talking about more than just COVID restrictions and lockdowns and we might have to keep everybody in their basement until the new vaccination is out for the newest very, this is, this is a journey coming up forever. So now I'm going to pump your tires.

Let's jump off that for a moment. Well, we can transition to it. We can transition. The thing is, is I, so in my two months journey, right? Like in the two months since we talked, I went, I'm not going to sit by and do hockey player after hockey player. If anyone's been listening to this podcast, which I got a lovely audience, so I know you all have.

But, I mean, at some point you're like, man, is he ever going to get back to like hockey players and maybe getting like Wayne Grexky on here? And I made a conscious choice, and I probably should have said it, and maybe I did say it at some point, but I just went, okay, there's more going on here than just the NHL. Let's figure out some things. Let's see if I can figure some things out. So I've really taken a hard right.

And that's where Daniel Smith, that's the Ben-Aquay. That's all these different conversations having you and Tanner on. And I just came to the conclusion that, and honestly, like Samir Saeed was part of that, watch Mikey Dubs run 120-some K and just went, you know, like, we can all, tomorrow decide to do something and have an impact on her community, our country, our province, like our area. And so I woke up one day, texted Quick Dick and said, you know, the story goes. I texted him, hey, you should come here, when are you coming to Lloyd?

And he goes, well, you know, the highway runs both ways. And I'm like, oh, God. Yeah, road trip to it. tough. All right. And then road trip, maybe I'll bike. I want to get back into biking. I've been talking about getting back to biking. Maybe I should raise some money. Okay, I'll raise some money. And then I talked to a few people and you said something that I don't know if you remember this when I told you, you were like, sometimes you just need to think a little bigger. Oh, yeah, think a little bigger. All right, okay. That's a dangerous word, but all right, I'll think about that. And so then it went

from biking to quick dick to now there's a group of us. And it went from that to what do we raise money for to like an on and on and on and on and I gave a I gave myself a short window to pull it off I don't need a year to sit around and try and pull something off and I've only raised $10 so be it right but I'm going to get active because I hey listen I get bugged all the time it looks like you gain a little weight it's like yeah I have you know you want to talk about moving around it's been a year for all of us yeah group two that I haven't been doing if you're not doing you're slowly gaining. And so I get it.

So I was like, no, I'm going to do something. I call it my stupid idea, my proof of concept. You've heard the proof of concept a thousand times. So the idea is to bike to Tupnell, Saskatchewanaback, with 10 people and raise money for breakfast programs in schools. So bike for breakfast. I got to give credit to Nekhi Jamal for coining that. And, you know, I'm happy now that you read off your stats,

I'm like, it ain't fixing their movement problem, but it is fixing the problem that I think, we need the youth to be strong learners, get smarter, better, learn from our mistakes, and hopefully follow in our footsteps a little bit. Yep. And so by putting money towards our schools, and when I say schools,

you know, I got to give credit to Ken Rutherford here, because I was thinking, okay, if we could just do Lloyd and a few surrounding areas, well, that balloon to 57 kilometers. And I'll do, I'll try and round it off. That's 16 schools in Lloyd.

That's Lloyd Public, Lloyd Catholic. to the south you have Onion Lake, Paradise Hill, Hill Monde or to the north. To the north, yeah, to the north sorry. Lasburn, Marshall, Neilberg, Marsden, PV, Kid Scotty, Marwain, Dewberry, Clan, Donald. Did I hit them all? I think you have them all.

Yeah, so. So you... It's 30-some schools and that is it's a little bit overwhelming. Yep. But I'm like, screw it. If it falls flat on its face, the most that comes out of it is I'm moving again, and that's a good thing. What I think's going to happen is,

while now I got nine other people moving with me. Yeah, rallying around a spark. Rallying around a common thing that is going to do wonders for our schools. Yep. And isn't that a way of just like showing everybody in the area if you're going back to enlisting people that, we got to start doing something here.

It's like, we do. It doesn't mean you have to run the politics first. I would think, it could be a lot of different things that can impact our community or your community. Yeah, so you reached out to me and to a few others and said, are you busy? It's like, no, not really. Just kind of sitting around Netflix binging right now. And you're like, I got this idea.

I want a bite. Do you want to come? Like, you bugger. What are you doing? We're raising money for kids food for schools. The schools have been hit hard. Their budgets have been cut and there's probably kids going hungry. I want to do something.

Oh, Sean. But I don't even think I left that phone call and I said, I'm in. You're like, well, but you should probably talk to your wife. I'm like, yes, out of respect for her. I should call me for wife. And then what did you do? You've got, you know, this group, Necky Jamal, Dentist, Town, Nigel, Dube, Coaches, Jr.

18 in town, Natalie Weeb and Becky Grassel, a couple teachers in Lloyd, Jim Taylor from grinding gears, Brad Hoffman for Fourth Meridian, Tracy Matthews. And I've got a question mark here. There's one more that you and I got to meet with here. and and then these students. So you gave me the job of calling each of these schools to find out. As long as they have a food program in place and they have a need,

we want to partner with them. And we're going to rally the community to help these students. The numbers by my account from the spreadsheet that I did were over 10,000 students of the Lloyd Mr. Strangling area. This is our chance for, well, we just rattle off the stats on food insecurity, you You know, the households are lacking food. You know, we got little jiggers. They're trying to learn on an empty stomach.

And you and I both have wives that are teachers. We both know that there's quiet sandwiches and granola bars and apples brought in from these good teachers in this area that just kind of, it's coming through our budgets, right? You know, and other households' budgets that it's just quietly feeding. And we know that those needs will be covered by those wonderful teachers in the area, but they're going to be getting covered more and more as these budgets cut. You know, these aren't good times in our area. and government debts are piling up

and budgets are being slashed. So is there a chance to do something good? And I'll tell you, it sure feels good. Sean, you've asked me to come on it. And Matt, is it ever fun? Look at me, I've got a small in my face. I'm talking about it. I can't wait to ride on this bike

and making some great friends out. I'd never met Nucky Jamal and all these other good people and now I get to do this. So good on you, Sean. Good on you. It's a spark you've started. Are we okay with saying what our goal is?

Yeah, sure. I think so. It's a big number. It's your you're the captain, you say. Well, we're trying to raise 200. thousand dollars right like it's it's a big number i i when necky first you know we got bantering around what the need was it takes you breath away a little bit you're kind of like oh okay but i don't know i i look at it you know my i'm going to try and explain that i have i've talked this through in my

had so many times that I hope I explain it correctly. You know, I got to give a, he sponsors the podcast, he's been on the podcast. I approached Heath MacDonald with it, right? And, and his family, I shouldn't just single out Heath. Like, I approached the McDonald's with it. And Heath was like. Crude Master Trucking. Yeah, Crude Master Trucking.

Sorry, you know, he was, he was like, well, what's Hillman's need? Right? He's, Hillmont. I can take care of an, and, and, I, and, I pushed on them and I pushed on everybody and you know this that if you want to go help X, go help X. But you want to come with us, we're going to help the area. And I think it's a really big tip of the cap to the companies that have already signed on.

And I got to give a shout to Nekki and Wayside, right? They're another gold sponsor that are coming on this thing. In trusting that the idea is sound and on top of that, knowing they, could walk in and affect their community and choosing to affect all the other communities. You know, like, it's going to be over, you know, I don't know, like you donate $100, a huge chunk of that. Let's say you donate $100 and you're from Nealbert, let's take. Like 90-some percent of that is going everywhere but Neilbert. But in saying that, the same is true.

A person from Hillman donates $100. and if Onion Lake donates $100 and Pea Hill donates $100 because I just look at it like everything over at least the last year if it isn't longer is trying to pit us against each other and it's taking away good people just talking. And I don't know

if this can be more than just raising some money for breakfast programs, but I think it could be a start in that the good people talk and when good people talk, good things happen. How we know that just by getting 10 of us in getting, getting on this bike trip, right? Like, just look at the, how quickly things start to roll. Oh, man, geez, like three days ago, I thought, is this a dumb idea? And now I'm like, no, it's rolling.

But I really hope it's a way that, you know, could you walk in, you're from, you're a company from Kid Scotty. Could you walk in tomorrow and solve Kid Scottie's problems? You could. But you come with us, we're going to take care of our area. And I, I've said this a ton to people. Like Lloyd Minster is much more than Lloyd Minster. It's not Lloyd Minster. It's Lloyd Minster and Eric. I'm a Holman boy. You're a Paradise Hillboy. I still call Lloyd home. And when I lived in Hillmont, I still called Lloyd home. It's a really weird thing. But Lloyd is on an island. I think it is, right? We're two hours away from anywhere, right? And we're this small little thing that, you know, is part Alberta, part Sask. Maybe that's a blessing. Maybe that's a curse. But at the end of the

day we got great people here and i just look at it like you know in 40 you know june 4th to 6th we're going what's that 40 some days we're hopping on some bikes and we're gonna we're gonna we're going to bike in 20k segments non-stop 48 hours straight through the night when they're back morning morning morning night the the uh shone the yeah like i'm agree with you the lloydminster and area we're one big family and this it's kind of a cool thing i'm good on you for doing this is that it makes us go you know what, I'm from Paradise Hill and the people from Kids Guy and the people from New Lake, people from Lloyd Minister, we're all in this together. Let's come together. Not for this division. You know, let's join together. So thank you for being the spark that got this going.

And, you know, like, it's really your thunder. You've got a good relationship with Heath and we're aiming for $200,000. And Heath steps up and are you okay with seeing money? Yeah, absolutely sure. So Heath McDonald steps up and says, I'm in for $25,000. We're in a time of tough oil prices, depressed economy, you know, uneasiness of our future. And you've got people like Keith McDonnell stepping up. And now how many do we have so far at the 25s? We have two. Wayside has stepped up.

So, I mean, you've got to give just, and it starts with Wayside, right? If they don't start with that number, I would think, wow, how are we ever? And then they step up. So we've had companies already set up and say, We're in. You're right. The youth is our future. These are most valuable asset.

I'm over 25. Sean, we're called bike for breakfast. I feel like I'm interviewing you now. No, no, no. But how do people reach out if they want to get involved with it? And folks,

it doesn't have to be $25,000. You know, some of the most special gifts are that kid that raises $10 with his, you know, sell lemonade on the side of the road. I know you can't right now with COVID, but, you know, whether it's $5 or it's $50 or it's $500 or it's $50,000,

you know, it's all going to kids, stomachs. So how do people reach out, Sean? Well, I think probably right now if you're listening to this, we've got 40-some days. So there's a few things that need to be figured out. We've just set up social media accounts. So bike the word for, not the number, bike for breakfast on Twitter and Instagram. There will probably be a Facebook page set up. But right now, if you're interested and you want to help or you want to donate, it's interesting in COVID times on how much help we can actually have, right? But just find me on social media and go to the Sean Newman podcast. You can send me a message and we'll see if there's a ways they can help. We don't even have the, you know,

it's so, it's so early. Like we're working, you know, like some of the names I should mention, right, is Reberge Transport of Donated. Fountain Tires stepped up and donated. The Kinsman Club here in town is going to handle the money. So checks are going to be payable to the Kinsman Club. And I got to give a shout out to a long-time listener, Lewis Stang. I made one phone call. He's like, we're in, right? Yeah, look, kidding. Called an emergency meeting with the kinsman.

And now they're in. And it's like everybody can understand that we just, sometimes we sit around and we wait. You mentioned waiting for people to do something. It's like, no, let's just go do something. Let's do some good. And let's get people talking again. And, you know, I don't think, I don't think there's a division between all of our little communities.

I just think we're all so narrowly focused right now. I'm just holding on. Just hold on and get through this thing. It's only a few more days. Well, I was there. I thought this was going to end in January. I go back and listen to some of my stuff. I'm like, yeah, just, it's January.

Well, here we are, and we're rolling into, you know, June 4th to 6th, and we're unsure of social distancing and everything. So we're approaching this thing like we're going to abide by every rule they put in place so that there's 10 of us on a, think about this, there's going to be 10 of us on a 50 passenger bus, just so we're spread out. We're COVID-friendly. There's going to be no rule.

We're going to have to have to pass. Find a way. All right. Done. You want us to do that? Sure. Great. You want me to bathe and hand sanitize?

Great. I'm going to, I'm biking there one way or another. We're going to do something good for a community. And we're going to, we're just going to, I don't know, I told Samir Saeed, him going and playing in the longest world's hockey game and not being an NHL player. I was sitting at lunch with two buddies. and I was just like, you know, he should have trained more. And they both looked at me and went, and I told Samir this,

but they both looked at me and went, Sean, you bike across the country and never bikeed before. I'm like, yeah, that's a good point. Because you're training as you went. I'm like, what the hell am I talking about, right? Get out of our own heads. Let's go do some good and push this thing and see if we can't, you know, take care of our area, our kids, bring some good people together. I don't know, yeah, we're, I don't know, I keep saying.

this, I don't like saying the numbers because I'm not trying to toot anyone's horn. I just think it's cool on the companies that have stepped up that we're at $60,000 when we haven't pushed a pedal, right? The goal is $200,000. Let's get there. Let's do some good for all of our community, all of our kids. And this isn't elementary focused. It's elementary in high school because, you know, I say this all the time. So wait, you hit high school and you don't have food problems and somebody goes, wow, you should be able to take care of yourself. You're 15, 16. I'm like, yeah, what if you get, like, what if you come from nothing?

Like, wouldn't it be good to know that the community cares about you too? Like, they're still kids. Like, I look at an 18-year-old, and I'm like, yeah, sure, you should be able to get a part-time job. And, but there's some people that are hurting. Go ahead, go a part-time job and buy your own groceries. You know, like, I don't know. I don't know about that one. You know, like, I think it's easy to preach from your high horse when you've got a,

you know, a pair of aces in your hand. You know, like the, we were all just a few shakes away from, from not being born to the, to the family that has the, their crap together and has the money to buy the food and has some income stability. You know, all of us, like you and I, Sean, like we're, I keep saying this. You know, we're too bad shakes away from being, you know, a drug addict, a homeless on the street. You know, if I lose my wife and in a couple of kids, something happened. I hit a streak of depression. And so I think it's just, folks, there's people out there that are hurting that need food, whatever, their kids. They're kids. kids, you know, like, we can debate this to where blue in the face and they're hungry.

Let's just feed them. You know, like, uh, and, and I think it's pretty close on that. We, like, it's great that the, the corporations are stepping up. And I also think like, man, if you're a kid out there, you know, like you want to help your school, you want to help these kids, you know, uh, offer to cut your neighbor's lawn for 10 bucks and donate that. So you're helping to support your community. You're feeding your fellow fellow student. You know, we all know, we've seen these schools. There's, there's kids that go hungry. And we as a family or as a, community we can wrap our arms around each other and say let's just take care let's take care of the family so good on you Sean how much time do we have left 10 minutes could can we can we jump on up for one moment yeah okay so um

I won't go too deep into this but uh we should mention that you know I've been talking to a lot of people we mentioned that earlier and there's a really fine family from Paradise Valley area named uh Jason and Tara Davidson or sorry Anderson I think those are maiden name, but anyways, a farming family. I'm old enough. I call everybody by their maiden names or their old names. And she's a good person who's got a Facebook group started. It's got close to a thousand members, I think now.

And it's called Stand for Truth and Freedom. And in short, what we've got is a group of parents that are coming together. We're trying to align with like-minded people who want to do something to influence to be more proactive as opposed to reactive for the good of our community with peaceful means, no, any hateful discussion or there's going to be, you know, we want to shoot somebody, no, not interest. I can't be a part of that. But what we're trying to find is to put people together to work with our politicians, work with our police, work with our nurses, to find a way to help our community to get off of just the COVID train and focus on our, we're going to have

a youth focus to come out from the kids perspective on advocating for them because I don't know about you but I now that we're on this the variants are coming and we got to wait for this booster and then we got this I see us losing hockey programs I see us locking up doors on our arenas I see see competitive athletes that are just going to walk away from sport we've I've went to all the statistics kids that hanging out home playing play stations on their phone not eating properly you know BMI they talk about BMI index increasing for youth suicides it's we want to join with people that want to influence our community in a positive way to say the rest of the world can fall off the COVID train but we're we're going to help the youth so so what is the the group called

called stand for truth and freedom uh it's uh Tara Anderson is who the person that started there's a like I say there's close to a thousand members in it join it send here a message and you'll find out more of how to help come together. There's strength and numbers. If we all just hang out on our own house and complain, we're weak. If we come together, we're strong. And I would say there's strength in knowing you're not the only one, right? Like the fact that there's, I take for granted people talk to as many people as, you know,

I'm not sitting here saying I am having coffee with everyone because I'm not. But just whether it's phone calls, the amount of podcasting, just, you know, I work in an oil field. I tour a lot of different places. and very few and far between, like, everyone says they're exactly with what you're talking about there. Like, I don't see, I don't hear the opposite message. I think they're looking for a place that has some leadership to direct their energy. If they, you know, whether it's a vote or whether they want to get involved, I think that's probably a good start because if she's already had, you know, we know terror. If she's already got it started and you're concerned about what's going on,

there's a way you can go to something, get involved, and it's our area, right? Like, it's right here. Yeah, for me, I've watched her now. My value system agrees with hers. Like, I'm not, a lot of people are saying we should go and ride in the streets, not my gig, and I don't want to harm my community. I want to help my community. And what if that group jumps to 15,000 members, right?

of people that think alike and say it's time to open up our arenas, it's time to keep our kids in the schools, it's time to advocate for our youth, advocate for these other areas. Now that group can work together to positively influence our community. And now that starts to politicians, remember, their currency is votes. If you've got 15,000 people on that,

that has a voice. That's just the way we're set up. Right? If you go and sit with your school board, right and say you know you know we're concerned for our kids and we're all speaking together that that carries some weight has a voice remember this is this is our community it's not the politicians community it's not the school boards community it's our community and we should have a say in how our community operates and we need to come together and have one voice that's kind caring you know

understanding respectful you know that's kind of where I want to end up I appreciate that that is where we're going to hop to the final five though. Oh, let's end on a fun little five questions. Shout to Crude Master, Heath and Tracy, sponsors the podcast since the very beginning. I mean, we've already talked a little bit about Crude Master and the amazing things.

It's so easy to partner with a company like Crude Master because they just, that phone call, I called Heath in... Yeah, I was what sure was mine or yours. That was a cool... that was an emotional, like, a couple of phone calls between Heath and his daughter. Just, you know, I get it. People think, oh, they got the money or they don't or whatever.

You just got to look around at the times we're in. And for them to get on board, even more so to believe in what I'm talking about, the group that we've assembled about what we're going to try and do to have the trust to do that, man, that's moving. That truly is. So let's do the final five. Give her. Well, I don't know if I've ever asked you this.

It's the first one I've been on so many times. I've never asked this, which is crazy to me. But if you could sit down and do this with somebody, like pick their brain. Who would you want? I'm not very good at this. I tend to think too much and then answer. So I'm glad you gave me a little bit of time to think when you were given because I just, I'm an analyzer, right?

And so, but one that jumps to my brain, it's a dark place. But I'd like to sit down with Alexander Solonetian. We both read the Guleygar archipelago. And I'd love to sit down and go, Alex, could I ride your coattels from it? And you just walk around here and see what you're seeing. Does this concern you? Or is it like, no, you're good.

You know, so that's Alexander Solentchen wrote Gullerkeptelago on Russia. Man, can you imagine if you could beam him here and just say, hey, what do you think of this? Give us some advice. Yeah. You know, a guy that won a Nobel Prize, I believe, right, wrote the book and just said, He was a first-hand account of when other societies slipped into communism, totalitarianism, and all the harm and horrors.

You want to cry a few times before you go to bed and puke a couple times and have a nightmare or two, read the book, but that's good because that's reality. So anyways, that's my author. Or my person. What's one of the, no, actually, what's one adventure you want to take on? I call it an adventure, but, you know, you're not a guy to sit back. and I don't know watch life

you're a guy to hop in and enjoy life I guess is the way I look at it so what's one of the things you haven't done that you foresee yourself doing I don't know you got a lot of years left

but I'm curious like what's a thing that can goes you know I've always wanted to try this I just never got the courage up or maybe you know I got to wait until the kids are a little older

or is there something that you tickles your fancy so to speak that you haven't tried yet there'd be two one was uh i almost pulled it off i bought a crappy mortar home one year i'd love to travel all Canada with my family i'd love to it's another story for another day you'd laugh laugh at it but i was like i'm gonna do this i'm taking my whole family across canada so i went out and i found this mortar home and i was going to load up that summer and yeah that's that's another story i'd like to travel Canada with my family i'd like to see all the provinces

love this community and i have family from prince of d'ar island my grandpa married my grandma during the war years and beautiful beautiful country and And so I'd like to that. Also, prior to COVID, let's pretend COVID was an issue. I fell in love with a little place down in Yucatan down close to the Belize border called Merida and Progresso. And I'd love to take my family down there, lots of history. The Mayans are down in there. And then it's the crater that they think started the Ice Age.

Yeah. And so it's just a really cool spot, lots of history. I'd love to take my family down there and hang out for like two months. So that would be two. Travel with my family. What's one of the best lessons? I know that's a large question, but what's one of the guiding lessons

that maybe your parents instilled on you, a mentor, a good friend, it could be multiple things, but is there a lesson that you've learned that's been really impactful on your life? There's many, as you say, that's a deep question, but one that jumps to my brain. I grew up in Smeltown, Saskatchewan,

where there was basically white people and First Nations. That's all I knew, right? And I remember kind of actually being a little bit fearful of other colors of people, other religions, other foods, you know, just because you didn't know. There's a saying that's a say you fear the unknown. Thankfully, I've had the opportunity prior to COVID to travel a lot. I think I've been in like 22 countries around the world. I think there's only one continent I haven't been on.

And one of the things I've learned is that don't fear other cultures, embrace them. You know, like you get to go somewhere and walk into a, weird temple and they invite you to a weird meal and you get to find out that the way you look at them or bow is like this. Just embrace it. It's cool. Like the world is a beautiful place. And I found that my fear was unbased and as opposed that it's exciting. It's really, really exciting to just open your brain and go your way might not be the coolest way, the best way, the only way. Let's just stop and listen and talk and share a meal and tell me about how things work here. You know, that's been one of my best lessons, I would say, is embracing weird. What I used to consider weird, different, unique,

cultures, meals, temples, ways of directing. Hopefully we get to go back to that. Yeah. Something you're reading right now. Well, I just started, as we all have. It was it going to be best book, most impactful book or just reading? Just reading. Just reading. The second Jordan Peterson book. We've covered 12 rules. Now we're on Beyond 12 rows. I can't remember the name of it. The black one. The black. Yeah. So I started that. So that's what I'm reading right now. People don't don't listen. Beyond order. What I've learned every time I went to a different, yeah, I think so.

Every time I went to a different country, I'd have warnings. See, watch out over there. These people are like this. It was always BS. You just go to somewhere and you're nice to them. They're nice to you back. Generally speaking. Books, Jordan Peterson, people say he's bad, he's evil. He's just, no, he's not. Just read the book. You know, try it out. So that's what I'm on right now. Final one. Prediction for the next five years. That's a, tell you what I'm fearful of, and I'll tell you what I'm hoping for. Fearful? My greatest fear is that we can't get off this train.

We're in a police state. The Charter Rights and Freedips has been eroded. We've got universal basic income in place. We're moving down a path towards communism. And my fear is that by the five-year mark, I hope I don't hit this point, but I've left Canada with my family. That's my fearful prediction. I don't know what percent of chance.

I hope it's a very low chance. That'd be my fearful one. I hope it's not there. I'm going to do everything I can to not go there. My hopeful prediction, we get off this train and we figure out that, holy smokes, what do we learn from that?

We better put that charter rights and freedoms and, you know, we better put up in every doggone classroom and every office and every public bus and know that we will, we got to do everything we can, that for the next hundred years we don't do this again. And that we have a renewed sense of hope and passion in our communities.

Like you and I, like, how many times have you read the Charter and Rights Freedom prior to this? Not very often. No, I think, I read it a few times because a little bit, I went to where the Magna Cardo was signed, you know, in England, if you're not familiar with that. So I've had a passionist, but even me, I remember the debates I've thought about or actually thought about or followed legal cases.

I don't know if I've ever followed a legal case on a charter, a charter challenge of any kind. So that's what I hope for, Sean. That's what I hope for. I hope that in five years, I guess this is going to be the podcast. Matt, I'll tell you what,

I will, I will weep if I'm in a different country five years from now and Canada is in a really, really tough spot. You know, it was Jordan Peterson who said, I think it's self-authoring where you're supposed to write down, you know,

he's talking about very much about the individual. Write down how your life could be, for the bad if you go down the road of you know you already mentioned it and it's like well how could my life how could it get worse how could I go down a road that is

terrible for me cheat on my wife lose the kids lose my family I mean obviously that's a big one lose my job like you just go down the road and then what do you got left

right yeah that's that's pretty that's pretty grim and then right where you want to go set your goals right and let your fear of the bad, Chase help push you towards your goals. So anyone, you know, I listen to that and I go, I know why Ken's so motivated because he's already going, well, I can tell you where it could go and I don't want it to go there.

And that's motivating. People will laugh at that, but you've got to think about it. Like you couldn't have said that better, Sean. We need to pause for a moment and get out of, I don't care. This isn't about masks. It's about police state. It's about government overreach. It's about rights and freedoms.

and take the right steps and it can go either way. Yeah, and we're still early. We're still early. We're still early. So we can self-author this. We as people can come together and say, how do we want this to look? Stop waiting for a politician to do it for you. Let's do it together.

So, Sean, I know you've got some other people coming in. Thanks for inviting me on, Sean. Yeah, thanks for coming in. It's a friendship that keeps getting deeper and better, and I appreciate all you've done. And let's see what the next, let's listen to this five years from and go, oh, whether we get that wrong. It was better than we expected. Awesome, Shawty.

Thanks again, Kay. Yeah, you bet you. Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story.

The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Keeners. Thanks for two. tuning in. I hope you enjoyed catching back up with a good friend of the podcast, Ken Rutherford. I got to give a few shoutouts. First off, Jim Jones said, hey, Sean, really enjoyed the Bob Strom interview. I played ball for his dad Gilstrom in 84, and he was a multi-sport athlete and coach.

He just said, thanks for sharing. I loved his stories. Another one that came in was Troy Tendek. I hope I'm saying that right. He said, just listen to your interview with his good friend, Bob Strum, Sr., unbelievable storyteller, and he thinks I should get him back on at some point. You've only scratched the surface. Well done, and thank you. So thanks, guys, for listening. He's talked about Bob Strum, which came out a couple episodes ago.

So if you haven't tuned into Bob Strum, there's a guy who has 40-plus years of being in, you know, organizations from the NHL to the WHL, et cetera, and, and, some just fantastic hockey knowledge. Now, I hope you enjoyed today. We got another episode coming at you Wednesday, an archive episode coming up. A great story about a lady from in town here who originally came from India. So make sure you tune into that coming out Wednesday. And I guess we'll catch up to you guys later.

If I haven't updated you on the champ, champers on the mend right now. So you can't be out swinging clubs. He can still be feet up on the desk. but I whacked him in the arm the other day, and then I'm like, oh, yeah, wait, you have a broken wrist. I guess I shouldn't be too, too hard on you. So get better, champ, all right? To the rest of you guys, we'll catch up to you Wednesday.