Shaun Newman Podcast - SNP Archives #36 - Jim Leckie

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Born in 1939 in Vernon Manitoba. Jim has been an accountant for 50+ years, started his own firm & is an active community pillar of Lloydminster. Here we will dig into the story of his life. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here:   https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Wednesday. Hope everybody's having a great week. Happy Hump Day. We got a good one on tap for you today. But before we get there, let's get to today's episode sponsors. Jen Gilbert and the team for over 45 years since 1976. The dedicated realtors of Coldwell Bank or Cityside Realty have served

Westminster in the surrounding area giving you star power. That's providing their clients with seven-day-a-week access because they know big life decisions are not made during office hours. And did you know when it comes to rental properties there, the biggest licensed residential property management company in the city of Lloydminster. They deal with over 300 rental units. We're talking houses, apartments, and condos. That's Coldwell Banker, Cityside Realty for everything in real estate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Give a call 780 8753343. Mac Construction. They've been doing business locally for over 12 years with 100 homes completed. Of course, they're a design, build, custom home building operation. It is specialized in constructing homes, cottages, and RTMs throughout Lloydminster and community since 08. In addition to custom homes, they also do extensive renovations to residences and like commercial work. If you're looking to build your dream house, head to Mac Construction.ca. And look no further.

Gin Spenrath and the team over at Three Trees Tap and Kitchen, they've been open six plus years now. And let me tell you, they're trying new different things out to get you in the building. They got extensive renovations on the patio, and I'm going, as I say that, I go, nobody's using the patio right now. who am I kidding, it's minus 30 outside. But when patio season comes around, let me tell you, the renovations they've done look spot on. If you're looking to wet your whistle, I suggest taking your growler down there, you can get a couple, well, anything on tap, Ripstone Creek, Fourth Meridian.

If you're a Guinness guy, I don't know why you are, but if you are, by all means you can fill it up with that. And if you're going to take the misses out, or mist her for that matter, make sure you're not like this guy. You call them book reservation. 780, 874, 765. New Year's is just around the corner. And let me tell you, they're going to put on a spread for you if you go down on New Year's Eve.

Just saying. Kiva Concrete since 1979, the year the old Emmington Oilers came in to be into the NHL. Kiva Concrete came into be, I don't know, you tell me what was more meaningful. I got my arguments. Regardless, they've been a family-owned and operated business for 42-plus years, and they, do all concrete services and I mean just it really I mean it goes a long way we're talking lake lots chemical warehouse farm shops so side credit union that's some of the recent stuff they've done so I don't know spiro's patio like they've done some pretty pretty cool stuff

so whether you're in commercial agricultural residential and whether the project is a basement floor driveway sidewalks patios garage pads shops barns and counties top essentially if you can dream it they can do it give Chris a call the day 780 875 7678 hs i group they're the local oil fill burners and combustion experts that can help make sure you have a compliance system working for you the team also offers security surveillance and automation products for residential commercial livestock and agricultural applications they use technology to give you peace of mind so you can focus on the things that truly matter stopping the day 3902 50 seconds straighter get broader your chemical call 306 825

63 10 if you're looking at for any outdoor signage, read them right, is the team. They always make SMP look sharp. Give them a call 306, 8255-3-1. And Gartner Management is a Lloydminster-based company specializing in all types of rental properties to help me your needs. There's 1,800 square feet of open space currently. So if you need just a single office or you got a team coming in, you need multiple. Give way to call 780808, 5025. And if you're heading into any of these businesses, let them know you heard a moment from the podcast, right? Now, let's get on that T-Barr-1 tale of the tape. He's been an accountant for 50 years. He's also the founder of Lecky and Associates,

an accounting firm which he started in 1985. He's the treasure of the Royal Canadian Legion here in Lloydminster. He's a community pillar. Of course, I'm talking about Jim Lecky. So buckle up. Here we go. Okay, it is March 14th, 2021. Today, I'm joined in studio by Jim Lucky. So first off, thanks for hopping in with me. No problem. Now, the way we start these is I want to hear, you know, kind of, you're born in 1939, so I kind of want to get a feel of what Manitoba, Vernon, Manitoba was like back

in your earliest memories if you can take us back there. Well, Virgin was a pretty small town. that was the larger of the communities that are west of Brandon in Manitoba, but it was still pretty small. I think the population was about 1,400 back in those days. And I guess what did your parents do? Like what was life like? What were you, what were your parents teaching?

What were they doing for work? I know you'd written in your questionnaire that your father was a banker until 1929. Maybe we could discuss a little bit about those two. Well, my mother was a bookkeeper, and she's done bookkeeping all her life, and she worked right up until retirement doing the books at a department store in Varden. and my dad came over from Scotland and landed in the homesteaded in Fox War in Manitoba and he already had his grade 8 when he arrived

he was 14 years old and he couldn't go any further that the schools only went that far back in those days and he was very good at mathematics. So the bank hired him as a clerk when he was just a kid. And when he was 17, the bank manager in Fox Warren had a stroke and died right in the office, apparently. And he had more experience at his age in that brand. and anybody else that was there.

And so they had him carry on, but everything that he did had to be notarized by the local law firm. So he stayed on, this was with the Bank of Hamilton. And he progressed with them and became the regional manager for Western Canada for the Bank of Hamilton in Regina in 1929.

and you know what happened in 1929, the world turned upside down, and the Bank of Hamilton went upside down with it. And according to the Bank Act, the Bank Act in Canada, the banks cannot go bankrupt. They have to be, I would you say,

taken over by other banks. And the Bank of Hamilton was taken over by the, back then, by what was known as the Bank of Car, and my dad was let go because they already had a regional manager and he just went out and and he collected, got hired by the Oliver Plow Company to do collections in the 30s. And he had a lot of nice people. He didn't collect very much money, but he had a lot of nice people.

And he actually stayed on and helped them at the farm because they were feeding them and so forth. So he stayed on with them. And then my mother had family in burden. And, of course, when depressions and recessions hit, the families draw together. and my grandfather had an abundance of land. And so they came to Verdon and we all became farmers, I guess, for a little while. I hated the place, but it was...

But we had, you know, back in those days, it wasn't a matter of making money. It was surviving. It was being self-sufficient. So we had chickens and pigs and turkey. and all manner of things. And we didn't have, they didn't have a tractor back then. Everything was done with horses and these huge big horses.

And so that's what I remember about that. But my dad was very insistent. that we get a proper education, the whole family. And he insisted that we go to town school. And we lived about four and a half miles out of town. So my mother and us kids moved into an aunt's place in town and went to school. My dad did the theory that the rural school teachers just out of normal school were just out looking for rich farmers to marry so they'd be set up for their lives.

but the teachers in town were professional teachers, you know, they were. And it's like a good thing that happened because we all got, all of my siblings, all got educated, and every one of them has initials behind their name, but one kind of another. and so we were very fortunate in that way. But back in those days, you know, you couldn't just drive back and forth to town. They had a car, my grandfather had a car, but there was no roads, you know, back in those days. And it used to snow. So what did you do with the car then?

It just sat there. Drove horses into town. So why didn't he have the... But why would he have the car? For in the summertime. The roads were good in the summertime. But in the winter, they never plowed roads or anything. The grid roads were there, but they weren't maintained.

Unicipalities didn't have any money. This was in right after the Depression, you know. And there wasn't money for very much. I want to ask, I want to go back. You said when a bank, this is going back, your father working for the bank of Hamilton. When a bank goes bankrupt, they have to be bought out by another bank.

Is that what you said? That's the British law that has carried on in Canada. The banks have to have, they post a reserve against the people that deposit with them. And if they can't meet the requirements for this reserve, the central bank forces them to merge with another bank. That's still a law in Canada. It hasn't changed.

So what do you think of what's going on currently with all the government spending and everything else and money coming out like crazy? Well, you don't really want me to say, I don't think. I'm curious. You're curious? Well, I think that the media has a great input in the way things go today. And I think that with this pandemic, that the seriousness of it has likely been overplayed substantially,

and the government has jumped in. you have to realize that our current federal government not interested in balancing the budget whatsoever. They're interested in getting reelected. So they just, somebody else is going to have to pay. I mean, it's been going on in the United States for, you know, decades, the same philosophy, the deficits piled on deficits on deficits and

and something's going to happen someday but right now you know the government has all these programs out there and some of them are good and some of them are bad and some of them are being taken advantage of and and the government itself, the control over the thing has lost, you know, people that work for the government are working for home. They have no supervision.

They have no anything. You know, they're operating from home, and a lot of them haven't got a great command of the English language. And it's very frustrating to deal with the Canadian government at this point in time. with a guy who's got a background in you know accounting quite an extensive one at that I'm just yeah like I'm curious that when you say I don't know if you want to get me going down that rabbit all I go I don't know you got 50 years in it so I guess that'd be as good a person to ask as anyone because I'm just stared at it and go I don't know I don't I don't understand the money side like like

having a background in your knowledge base? Well, the thing is a... I have a theory about governments getting elected in that they hide behind the green cape that say, you know, that we're polluting the planet

and everything else, and then we should elect a government that's responsible But they might be responsible for keeping smoke out of the air, but they're not responsible fiscally, you know. And that's what's important. I mean, all the smoke that we put up in Western Canada is all gone by the time it reaches the Great Lakes, you know.

So it's not a viable argument, but they sure have a lot of people convinced that, you know, we've got to be careful with what we're doing out here, especially with fossil fuels. They want to decimate the fossil fuel business, the industry. But in reality, the products that come out of those oil wells aren't all burned in cars and airplanes and everything like that. Virtually everything that you touch and see,

and, you know, from toothpaste, I don't know where it is a byproduct of the petrochemical industry. So these people aren't realistic. You know, they haven't done their homework on what is going on in the world. They certainly know how to change people's minds, though. and influence people because, I mean, if there's been anything that is very noticed, is that it's gotten into every household, that debate, and it is a split debate. It's not like everyone's gone, these guys are idiots. I mean, there's a lot more in Western Canada saying that, for sure.

I'll tell you that they bring this little girl over from Scandinavia or Scandinavia, and I don't know whether she's all there or whether she's not. She puts on a good show. Her parents are very rich, and she comes over here on a ship that doesn't burn any fuel and everything else. It gets big crowds to follow her. And the young people catch on with something like that. They don't forget the fact that their parents are earning money working in the O'Patch. This is a dirty old job.

You know, we've got to eliminate it. And it's not that way. I think the oil industry has to be cleaned up, but certainly it has to continue to exist. Well, the lady you're talking about is Greta Thunberg, that she's the young one. And I want to say she has, I'm trying to see what it is right now.

She is autistic? I want to say, I want to see. Here she goes. She was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, and something else. It says selective mutism, whatever that is. But yeah, she does have a couple of things.

But regardless, the case to your point is she came over and rallied the youth and the, we got to get back to the planet, which there's a few things there for sure. But overall, we just, she was a very, very easy person for a lot of people to rally behind. And that is what has happened. And there hasn't been an answer to it because how do you, how do you, well, you can't attack a young girl. That basically gets you nowhere.

Nowhere. Nowhere. But the thing about it is the political people ride the coat tails into power. And, uh, you. You know, there's a lot of people that should be running for government, that don't run for government. I don't think we have responsible people that seek election. Why do you think that is?

I've mold that question in my head for probably five years now. I don't think anybody thinks that there's any good to come out of it, because politicians are, you know, run down and it's easy to do. And there's nobody out there that, you know, you look back in World War II when you had all these $1 a dollar a year, man, working for the Canadian government during the war years. These people were dedicated to the cause. And, you know, they did a very good job.

Right now, I think we have some uncaring people leading our government. This is exactly how I feel. Well, let's go back to you. I've taken you down a little bit of a rabbit hole. Let's go back to Verdon. What eventually leads you to Lloyd Minster? What eventually brings you this way? Well, after high school, because of the fact that my family didn't have a bunch of money to send me to university,

I ended up going into the accounting profession, which back in the, those days was basically five years of practical experience under the guiding care of a qualified CA. And I was very fortunate to work for some very good CAs. And I learned a lot over the years. And when I graduated in 1962, I believe, I was very young. You know, I was all, I went through the course, okay. I flunked economics the first time, but I think there's still a lot of people that flunked economics today.

that are economists, but they're still flunking. But anyway, I went back home to Vurdon because I thought that I could get ahead in my own hometown, better than staying in the city. And I went back there, and I finished my article with a firm out of Winnipeg that had an office in Verdon. And I was kind of the second-in-command in this little office and had a lot of responsibility and so forth.

They didn't pay me very much. You know, when you come out of high school, you make $85 a month to be a student accountant back in those days, back in 1957. And the outfit I worked for in Winnipeg offered me $90 a month if I would go to Brandon and work for their office in Brannon. So a $5 raise, I'd live closer to home. So I went. But anyway, I graduated.

And a bunch of local guys had a livestock auction mark, Verton Auction Market Limited. and they hired me to run it because they had trouble with the auctioneers aren't very good bookkeepers so they can sell cattle but as soon as the sale's over and they're done so anyway it was a great experience

and I did that for a year but it got very boring you know, did the same thing week in, week out, week in, week out. And it became very boring. So then I went out on my own as a sole practitioner in Vurdon. And that was very difficult because, you know, I was young, very young. and I was more interested in playing hockey and curling, and I really was an accounting.

But, and I used to umpire baseball to make ends meet, and I ended up refereeing hockey. I made more money refereeing hockey by far than I ever made as a student in accounts. I mean, I used to, like when a playoff came, in February. I was on the road every day just about going somewhere to referee a hockey game at some level or other. And some of the rinks in rural Manitoba lead a lot to be desired. Like a lot of them had curling rinks beside them, and they'd have a blind side. So if you happen to be skating down the blind side, and there's a bunch of guys coming at you,

there wasn't much you could do except try to climb the wall. And it was pretty difficult. You'd know what I'm talking about. But anyway, accounting kind of turned around. And I didn't have to referee anymore. What made the accounting turnaround? Well, because I worked hard. So you just slowly gain clients is what you mean.

And slowly lane plants, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, how could an accountant not be successful at death and taxes? The only two things that are for sure in this world. Do you believe that, death and taxes? Well, yeah, pretty much. Overall, I've been paying taxes all my life, and likely so of you.

and we have to do that for the people that don't, I guess. I don't know. Don't get me going down that rabbit hole either. Did you always want to be, like, when you were in school and you were playing your hockey and you're curling, your umpiring, everything, were you always like, I'm going to go to school and I'm going to become an accountant? Like, is that what you wanted to do?

No, I had a guy that a fellow that lived across the street from my parents who was a geologist. And I always thought he, you know, I kind of admired him. He made good money and always riding around in this truck and was busy and they had enough money. Back in days when it was 40 below, they left the truck running all night and things of that nature. But then,

then I got some friends who worked in the oil patch and tell me how dirty and cold and so forth it was and that if you had the brains

not to do that that you shouldn't. So I had a job in the summertime I'm at a bulk fuel distributor, Anglo-Canadian oils. And I did the bookkeeping there, all the invoicing and everything, and they had three or four trucks out delivering fuel and so forth.

And they had a retail, set of retail pumps on the front end and so forth. So there was a bit of accounting. to do there. And it had to be done. It was a company-run operation. It had to be done up to their standards. And there was an old guy who was an auditor for them that came out. And he showed me a lot of things.

There's the right way you should do it and so forth. And so I was kind of impressed with that. I want to go back. I don't know why my brain didn't think of this when it first got said, but it just percolated up to the top. Welcome to me on a Sunday, Jim. Your father was a banker up until 1929.

Then, obviously, everything that happened, and we talked about that. But they really impressed upon you guys to get your schooling. Did you ever ask your dad or parents why they wanted you to push so hard to have the letters at the end, your name, like he kind of joked? Well, my dad

had worked in the bank, and he knew that you had to be smart to get ahead. And he pushed all of us. If we weren't first in our class, or very close to it, back in those days, on your report card, they'd say, whether you were first, second, third, or fourth.

You know, it wasn't like it is today where they kind of say, well, okay, you've been here long enough, you can go under the next grade. But anyway, my sisters and I all had to be first in the class. Every one of my sisters won the Governor General's Medal of the Verdon Collegiate Institute when they went through. And one of the teachers there said, you know, you're nothing like your sisters. And I said, well, and I think maybe that's a good thing.

But they weren't playing hockey and they weren't curling and they weren't having any fun. And I was, you know. I mean, I was doing all these things that boys do that girls don't back then. And, I mean, girls just went to school and helped out at home, you know. They didn't have much of a social life at all back in those days. You're talking like sports and, like, clubs and groups to get together is what you mean? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they didn't have the opportunities that the boys had for sure, you know.

And I know my sisters, two of my sisters, curled in high school curling, but that was just during the winter, you know. And the curling season was pretty short because the verdons pretty far south and the ice doesn't last too long, you know. From, you know, middle of November until the end of February was curling. And other than that, there was no artificial ice until in the late 50s. What brings you, you know, we outline a bunch of different things on how you got into accounting and that type of thing. What brings you to Lloyd Minster?

Why do you go, I'm heading in that, I'm heading. West, and I'm going to Lloyd of all places. Well, two or three things is I, the Lecky family controlled, you're too young to remember Robinson stores. Do you ever? Can't say I do. No, there used to be one here in town. I had the privilege of shutting it down when I was at Robinson Little.

But anyway, they had 185 retail stores in Western Canada, And these were Mawn Paw stores, and Robinson Little was the wholesale distributor in Winnipeg. And my aunt, when my uncle died, my aunt, rather than selling the thing, decided she wanted to manage it, and she hired my cousin to be in charge of merchandising because he was already working there, and they needed a bookkeeper type, so I went to become completely. and treasurer of Robinson Little. And I went there in 1973 and sold my little accounting practice in Verdon and went to the bright lights.

And we did a lot to change things around, but what was happening in Western Canada was that the small towns were disappearing, you know, farmers were getting bigger. And when I first went to Robinson Little, the guy who was in charge of development said to me, you know, in order to support a Robinson store, they've got to have at least three elevators in the town. Elevators were assigned.

Yeah. Yeah. But all that changed. All that changed. I mean, there's no little elevators anymore. There's great, huge catching places for, farm produce. And

farmers used to have a half section of land or a section if they were rich or, and nowadays it was working its way towards that in the 70s. In a lot of these little towns, the

Robinson stores just couldn't hack it. We sold dry goods ready to wear and and basics like sheets and pillowcases and rubber boots and, you know, supplies for agricultural towns. And it became, it was a downhill slide. It really was.

But at the same time, we were opening stores in growth centers like Yorkton and Brandon. moose jaw and the places that were growing and our sales went up a lot of it due to inflation more than the quantity of goods being sold because in the 70s in the 70s

inflation was rampant and Mr. Trudeau senior brought in the anti-inflation act I don't, you would I wouldn't remember that, but I remembered very clearly because we had to prove that we weren't jumping prices, you know. And at the same time, the banks were raising interest rates to try and curb people from spending. But that was the start of what's still going on now. People were going to spend.

They want this, they want that, they want the other thing, and they're going to spend the money to do it, whether they have to borrow it, or whether they have to earn it, they're going to get what they want. And as a result, Robinson Little, in 1979, my aunt and I got into a no-holds argument over the direction the company was going. And I knew if we kept expanding, with the the interest rates the way they were that it wasn't going to work. And she was bound to determine. So anyway, I got fired in November, in October. I knew it was coming, but I got exited in October of 1970. So I got to stop you there for a second, because I don't know if my ears are working today or what's going on.

But did I just clue in the fact that the Lecky's owned a... department store that was Canada-wide? No, no, we had 185 retail stores west of the lakehead. Okay. But still, that is a big chain. Oh, it was a big chain. And there was lots of fires, and that was my job, was traveling around the country. I rode in more little bumpy aircraft than I ever knew existed. So then, I guess, when you became an accountant, why didn't you go there first? Or did you start working for them first? For Robinson Little?

Yeah. No, no, no, no. My uncle was still alive, hey? Yeah. And he was very much in command, and he had a guy there that had been the accountant for years. But when after he died, the accountant didn't want anything to do with my aunt

because she was a school teacher. She wasn't business. business person. And it wasn't long before they tangled and he was gone. And she, the firm, the law firm approached me about coming in as the controller and treasure. I knew nothing about the dry goods business whatsoever, but I learned in a heck of a hurry. But, but. So then you get hired and you're working for, for, you're working for the, for them, and you get in an argument with your aunt.

Who's the manager? General manager. General manager of all these department stores. Yeah. Well, I felt responsible for the financing of the firm, of the direction it was going. And I knew I had to take a stand. The chairman of the board knew I had to take a stand. but he said that she was absolutely uncontrollable

and he was right. What did you get in the argument about? About growing, building new stores, equipping them and everything else when we didn't have any capital. We were doing all this out of working capital. And I had to explain to her what working capital was. She's a school teacher. She didn't know what working capital was.

And here she was the president of this. firm that was doing $50 million a year and she had no idea of what working capital was and I had to show her how it was determined our banks knew and they were they were after me about the erosion of the working capital in the company but nobody even the bankers didn't stand up to her but I did it didn't do me any good but you know but I knew I was doing the right thing. I had to be honest with myself. I mean, I couldn't become part of the downhill slide. It just didn't make any sense because the place was going to go bust and somebody would say,

well, what hell's wrong with you? Lackie? You know better, you know. So. So then you get canned? Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean. So I'm missing something here. I feel like. like I'm, no, but I wasn't worried about being canned because I'm a professional accountant. I could go and get a job anywhere. Anywhere. I didn't have anywhere to go at the time, at that particular time. But I knew that somewhere out there was home for me. And I enjoyed public practice.

and I didn't like the idea of being responsible to somebody that was irresponsible. You know, it's not that easy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the values got to line up, right? Yeah, that's right. That's how you follow someone, and it's what a lot of us struggle out West right now with our fearless leader is that he doesn't share our values, and that's tough. No, well, don't get me going on him either.

What can I get you going on Jim today? Well, don't get me going on him because he, I would just say, he's dishonest, he's uneducated, he is, I don't think he's got any soul, you know, he just, he just, it doesn't even bother him to bald-faced lie, you know. I saw a cute commercial the other day about him on the TV saying, don't worry, I've got to supply a vaccine that's, you know, coming. And then the next little thing is he's writing, Dear Santa, you know. But anyway, I thought it was a good cartoon.

You catch me as a guy that has paid attention to politics throughout his life. Here's one that I certainly do not remember. I wasn't born yet, but Trudeau, Sr., giving the finger on the rail car going through British Columbia, do you know that story? I know that story very well. I'll tell you. I was a young liberal delegate from Brandon Suras that went to the 1968 leadership convention in Ottawa that elected Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Not on my vote, but there was a... other there. I was a young liberal because I had the greatest respect for Lester Pearson because Lester Pearson was could accomplish things with a minority government that people couldn't do with a majority government. You know, he got us our flag. He got put in the Canada pension plan. He got us got us into health care, you know. It was, it was, It wasn't Tommy Douglas. Tommy Douglas did it in Saskatchewan, but Lester Pearson did it for the whole country, you know.

So they call Tommy Douglas the father of Medicare. Well, he was. He pioneered it in Saskatchewan, but it came into being under the guidance of Lester Pearson and the liberals back in those days. And there were some good, he had some good cabinet ministers back in those days. that were honest, hard-working people. And so, yeah, I was the vice president

of the Brandon Suras Liberal Association. And I remember in 1968, we lost Brandon Suras to Walter Dinsdale, who had been the setting member under Defenbaker for years and years. We lost by 71 votes. And all you have to do is turn 32 people around. or 36 people around and you win, eh?

But by the time 1972 came around, we couldn't get anybody to run in Brandon Surrus because Trudeau had poisoned everybody so badly, everybody in Western Canada, that we couldn't find anybody to run. And we had an emergency meeting, the senator in charge of Manitoba, what was his name? Anyway, he phoned us up,

and said, you guys got to have a candidate by tomorrow. So you know what we did? We flipped coins, and the loser was going to have to run. No, no, no. That's how bad it was. And Ernie Ellis lost. He said, well, I'm not running. So he went over to the, to the Brandon University.

and picked out a law student by the name of Gary Balecki, and he ran. And of course, he didn't do very well. But he ended up being a judge because he did it, and he's still a judge. You know, that's how politics work. You get your reward before you get to heaven. But anyway, I've been. recall that and and you know after 1968 I wasn't a follower of the liberal party at all because of voting in because they voted in Justin True justin true justin Pierre Trudeau

well I I didn't know what he was going to be like but he was a justice minister and he he he didn't care about money at all he wanted to have the Canadian Bill of Rights he wanted to get the Constitution patriated in Canada. You remember the Queen came over and we became our own guiding light. And that's what he was interested in.

And he didn't care. The budget never bounced. And then, of course, everybody was upset about that. So then they elected Malruni, who was even worse. He didn't care about money at all. You know, I got a I was born in 86

So I feel like You're talking over my head on so many things So I'm just gonna I'll just ask some dumb questions And we'll see you how it goes Okay The liberals to me Right now or

For the last whatever Always felt like they didn't care About balancing the budget And what I hear out of you Is at one point in time They certainly did Is that right? Oh yeah

Yes sir The liberals the liberals during subsequent to the depression and World War II were very conscientious about the budget. Jim, can I get you a little closer to that, Mike? Oh, okay.

Yeah, there we go. Yeah, they were very conscientious about balancing the budget. And then things kind of, you know, Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker didn't get along all that well. And then John Diefenbaker got elected with a majority government, and everybody out here loved them.

But he wasn't a good financial person whatsoever. But Lester Pearson was, and... Subsequent to Lester Pierce, we got Trudeau. And then we got Mount Rudy. And Mount Rudy, back in 1991, introduced the GST, the goods and services tax. I remember when Ed came in because we had to train all our clients, on how this was going to work. And, of course, the next election, they only got three,

only elected three members. And, and, what's his name from Quebec? He was prime minister. And he, Craig Chan. And he, he was, he had some great ideas. He had been minister of Indian and Northern Affairs for all the years that Lester Pearson was prime. minister. Cray Chan had been the minister.

Okay. And he advocated that when the first year in 1968, as soon as the election was over, he brought in the white paper on Indian Affairs, which abolished the Indian Act, put a moratorium on Indian land claims, and was going to turn all the Indian reserves into municipal governments. And then they were going to spend a bunch of money on infrastructure and education to alleviate the native problem that was there then and remains today to try and bring them into Canadian society on an equal basis with the rest of us. and it passed first and second reading in the house but Trudeau never brought it in for a third reading because the Department of Indian Affairs was violently opposed to it and he also had there was opposition

from the natives themselves on this and so it never got off the ground. It got first and second reading, but it was never, ever approved. And so it dead in the water. But I thought that was a very ambitious thing, and I thought it would eventually be good. But I like Cray Chen because he was. was very forthright. You ask him a question, he'd give you an answer. Bang, whether you

liked it or whether you didn't, you know. But he, you know, and he was a tough little guy. He'd, you know, somebody tackled him at a public rally or something. He'd proceed to kick him around a bit. And he had a bit of a reputation that way. Nobody bothered him. But subsequent to Cray Chen there's been a power struggle and it's

it really bothers me because it's so corrupt in that I'm trying to think of the people that own the shipping company and he was prime minister his dad was under was minister of transportation under Lester Pearson.

Oh, and then he became prime minister after after Cray Chan. Oh, what's his name? You're doing the prime minister history on me, and I'm obviously poor at this. Well, anyway, here's a thing that bothers me. is the only reason that they use foreign oil in eastern Canada is because of who's... Paul Martin.

Paul Martin. And his dad's name was Paul Martin, too. And they have this steamship, this... Now, I want you to finish your thought. Why do we use foreign oil? Finish that thought. Because we have interests in Saudi Arabia. Arabia, we have people on our cabinet have substantial interests in Saudi Arabia.

And this Martin outfit, the halls of oil to Canada, have been doing it for decades. If they stopped doing it, what would all these steamships be doing? But anyway, that's how corrupt it is in my mind. Fall of the money is what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, a thing that's come out since Trudeau getting elected again has been talk of separation or of Western sovereignty. Do you, you know, as a guy who's followed politics then, do you see anything like that coming about? Would that be a smart move in your mind?

Would that be a terrible move in your mind? It's pretty difficult to pull off when you're landlocked. you know, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, the lakehead to the mountains should be one province. They did everything wrong when they, when they, when they put Canada together. But they, the time they said, well, fine, we won't, we'll make these little provinces so that way they, we can control them, eh? But if that was all, they, they, but if that was all one province from the lakehead to the mountains. My good heavens, a pile of people, a pile of industry, a pile of, you know,

that would be hard for Ottawa to control. Here's a question for you. Do you think that's exactly why they did that way? Do you think they had the thought of like, if we make it so they have small provinces, not one, now we can control them for the rest of the time? Like, do you think, like... I think that they were smart enough to do that back then. Yeah.

The provinces came into Confederation following the CPR railroad, right? Yeah. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta came in, and BC wasn't going to come in until the railroad was built. And it was built. But Alberta and Saskatchewan came in. in 1905, eh? And Manitoba came in in 1871.

And B.C., I think they were in before Alberta and Saskatchewan. But I think to this day that would, B.C. has utter interest. You know, they have the fishery and they have tourism and they have a lot of stuff that we don't have in the prairie provinces. but I think it would have been politically to our advantage if from the lakehead to the mountains was all one province. Well, that's what a lot of people want.

Well, you know, the thing is that we were in, Western Canada was in confederations when the conservatives were in power the last time around. I mean, they were recognized. That's where the prime minister came from, and a lot of cabinet, strong cabinet ministers and so forth. And we were recognized.

And the same when Malruni was in. There was Don Mazenkowski from here. He was a powerhouse in the government. And so we were in. We're not in now. I mean, we're just whatever they can do. to keep peace out here or whatever. This is where my brain hurts though.

Why? Why? Oh, why? Would you worry? Why wouldn't you empower this area to keep doing what it's doing? Is it not supporting a huge chunk of the country? With its industry and technology

and the energy industry in general, All the people. The thing that really gets me is Quebec is about the only province that has a balanced budget, and it's balanced because of the equalization payments that come from Alberta. And then we have the Premier of Quebec going off to Sweden and saying that they're going to put the end of the fossil fuel business. I mean, he might as well, you know, shoot himself. It just doesn't make any sense.

But there has to be some point in time where level heads make sense. Saying that we can run the country on wind energy, what if the wind doesn't blow? Or all this solar stuff, it wears out. going to do with all those soar things when they become obsolete? What are we going to do with them? And here we are out here with all kinds of hydrocarbons under the ground that can produce energy so efficiently, so efficiently. And here we are, piddling around trying to get power

from wind generation, power from the sun, because it's a clean power, but really it's not. And storing power in batteries, how efficient is that? Do you know what they have to do to make batteries? How much ground they got to dig up to get all these minerals

that go into these batteries? I mean, and most of that stuff comes from another country, other countries, and child labor and everything that's involved in it. Why are we shutting down the petrochemical business, the fossil fuel business, when we can get all the energy we want and need from it?

It just doesn't make any sense. Well, I will agree with you. There's a lot there in what you just said, right? And to try and break it down to why, this, that, the other thing, I don't know. I don't have the answers to it. As far as the political side, just getting some perspective on

the different leaders and how they came in and what they did. But it is interesting. But this green movement is just a front for socialism. You know, it is. So you're going to take me, you know, we've gone down

some interesting rabbit holes here. This is supposed to be about your life, Jim. We're supposed to be talking about Lecky and Associates. But in saying that, I have had several different people on the podcast talk about how we're heading towards socialism or communism or both or whatever you want. And it behooves us all to start standing up to slow that down or to turn the ship around.

I have no problem with being in the middle of the road because I realize that there are people, who don't have opportunity, who are not prosperous, who don't have the ways and the means to generate income for themselves. And I think that society has to kind of accept that. But on the other hand, it's going so bad. It's not controlled. There is no incentives for people with ideas and industries and industry to have opportunities to get ahead

because of the money is being spent to produce votes rather than to produce employment, rather than to produce, you know, it's just doesn't make any sense. Well, let's go to something that does make some sense here. You moved to Lloyd in 1979. You start up Lucky and Associates in 1985. Yeah. Why? No, not why, 85.

That is, what are we looking at? 15, 36 years? 79 to 85 or six years, yeah? No, but then you've been, you've had Lecky and Associates. You started a company and have ran it for 30 plus years. Oh, James H. Lecky Professional Corporation has been in business a long time. But Lecky and Associates only started in about 88, 87, 88. Okay, so right in there.

Yeah. You, you, uh, it said that's, you know, like, of your life, that's your biggest achievement. It was, is your business. Yeah, yeah. I'm really proud of the firm that was built. We started from next to nothing and, and, uh... What is next to nothing? Well, George Madison rented me the back of the, the back of the paint store.

downtown and there had been a there had been a murder in there George and I picked the shotgun pellets out of the wall so we could finish the wall and so that fit that I can show my surprise holy dinah okay yeah so anyway so I started up in there and did you have clients in there? Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they gradually came. They gradually came. And did you ever bring up in conversation? By the way, there used to be bullet holes in the wall. Oh, we used to kind of giggle about it. So the odd part, the odd client. I mean, people in Lloyd Minister have an exceptional sense of humor. I mean, what would shock most people is entertainment to people here, you know. Yeah, it's a great community that way.

I mean, they enjoy things that are maybe not accepted in other societies. So the back of a paint shop, that's where it starts. That's where it starts. It used to be Jim McCrae's old office. Jim was a lawyer here for years. and then it became a law office for another firm, and that's where this unfortunate situation happened. And then it was empty for a while,

and when I needed a place to rent George, well, he actually suggested it. And he was a great promoter of, of me. He liked me and I liked him. I had a lot of respect for George. And, and, and, uh, yeah, he, he helped me quite a bit to get going. Well, you, you mentioned that he was most influential person in your life. What was it that, that, uh, George did through your ears that help, I don't know, guide or movie or? I didn't know anybody in Lloyd Minister when I came up here.

And Madison's Grosseteria was on the way home. And I used to stop in there and pick up groceries. And, yeah, we had a great role power. He has a great sense of humor, George. And we'd regale each other with stories. and yeah, he was a great guy. And he took a great interest in me. He wanted me to succeed,

mainly because I was renting for him, I think. So, but I wasn't there very long, and I outgrew the place, you know, in a couple of years. What In 79 to 85 How big was Lloyd Lloyd would have a pretty small place 3,000 people something like that?

No, no I think it was 7 or something 7,000 7,000 Something like that But the thing is Have you ever heard of the National Energy Program? A little bit

Yeah, well the liberals brought it in And it destroyed The Lloyd Minister Oil Patch is what it did. It's like the premier of of Alberta told the people in the east that they could

maybe freeze in the dark or something like along those lines. And Joe didn't like it. Then he set up this national energy program where they controlled the price of oil. And that

just shut this down down. That was before the upgradeer. That was before the upgraded. And it just, it was just, you can shoot a cannon off down 50th Avenue and never hurt a soul, you know. It was that bad. That was in the 80s? In the 80s, yeah. Yeah.

Well, you're the first one who's brought it up. I've brought up the 80s plenty with different people because of how bad it got here. Well, yeah, there was two or three things went wrong in the 80s. the price of borrowing money, the interest. I remember when I worked at Robinson Little, I had an appointment one day with the regional manager of the Royal Bank for Western Canada and an economist from Toronto.

And he was saying, he was telling me that, interest rates were going to continue to rise he said, I can see no end to it. And I said, oh my goodness. He said, yeah, but he said, a lot of the time I'm wrong. I thought it was kind of funny. But he was dead on there

because interest rates just became ridiculous. Just became ridiculous. Do you think that's going to happen again? They're ridiculous the other way right now. There's no incentive for people to save. But when I was a student in accounts, we used to do municipal audits in Manitoba,

and the government of Canada in the Depression put out what they called bonds, 3% bonds, that with no due date, they were called permanent bonds or... Anyway, all of the municipal... municipalities had had it. They were called perpetual bonds is what they were. And they had interests at three percent. And and back in the day, the banks, when I first went into business, the highest rate of money that the banks could charge was six percent. And everything was

fixed at six percent. You go to the bank and borrow money. It was a six percent. The answer was either yes or no, but the interest rate was 6%, non-negotiable. And then Pierre Elliott Trudeau got elected, and he fixed that. He took the ceiling off the interest rates that the banks could charge. Why did he do that? Because he thought that it was the same old thing, that people could borrow money for everything they wanted, and the banks wouldn't say no, but they'd just have to pay more for it.

I don't know why he did it. There must have been a reason, surely, that he did it, but in retrospect, everything was pretty simple back in the days where the interest rate was 6% and the banks just said yes or no. But then, of course, people that couldn't borrow from the banks went to finance companies and private. loan companies it charged, you know, eight, nine, ten percent. But the chartered banks could only charge six. But it opened the door for all kinds of good and bad things.

When you said you go back to being at the Liberal Party and seeing Trudeau get elected, Yeah. What were your thoughts of him when he gave his speech? I assume he got up and spoke. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That leadership convention, he had a whale of a pile of a pile of support. Like people, like whoever was organizing for him, did a whale of a job because it reminded me of

Germany during the 30s when what's his name was run? When Hitler was run? Yeah. Yeah. Like you're talking like absolute belief in something. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

But I mean, he wasn't in there long before. I mean, they figured him out. I mean, he had some great cabinet ministers like Mitchell Sharp and and John Turner and he had some guys that do their way around but the agricultural minister

they'd never vote for him out here and his agricultural minister I never used to come from Iron Pryor Ontario this guy by the name of Joe Green and he was a nice guy but he knew nothing about agriculture And of course he was a minister of agriculture when Lester Pearson was in

because I never forget we had a meeting with Joe Green when I was a young liberal candidate. And he met with all the delegates from Brandon Suras constituency. And he asked me how big a farm I had. And I said, I'm not a farmer. I'm a chartered accountant. He says, well, if you come from Brandon Suris and you're in Ottawa, you're a farmer, I don't give a shit what you do at home.

That's what his thinking. Take me back to this. I want to understand this for a second. So you go, you watch Trudeau speak, you say it is like 1930s Germany, which means they're just like very... I'm trying to think of the word, but... You got to...

At that time, Quebec didn't have much representation in the government prior to Lester Pearson's days. The people from Quebec weren't very vociferous, but they had these guys in Quebec who were revolutionaries, like Trudeau, like Jean Marchand, like Pierre, Bouchard, and those people who are, who were going to sit back and let English Canada run French Canada any longer. And so, doesn't it feel like Western Canada is getting closer to that? Well, I, I am a great believer in the country of Canada.

being whole. And I think it should stay that way. But I think that that it should be run on an equitable basis so that it's fair for all the participants in it. You know, it shouldn't, you know, the maritimes have the fisheries

and the coal mines and Quebec has a whole bunch of industry going and Acharya has a bunch of industry going and then there's a great big space of nothing and then they start farming when you get to Manitoba and so I think that

the thing that's a problem is that the people that get elected think they have to look after the people that elected them So the election is generally over by the time they start to vote in Thunder Bay. You know, the election's been decided. And so the people that live east of there pretty much get what they want, and the rest of us have to take the second seat.

How about this? I only got you for a little bit longer. So I know you were the, or maybe you still are, the treasurer of the Royal Canadian Legion here in town for years and years and years. When I came to Lloyd Minster, I'd been in a Legion in Manitoba for a substantial number of years. I was in the reserve.

I played in a reserve band. And because of my years in the band, I became eligible to join the Royal Canadian Legion, which I did. And my dad was a member of the Legion because he was a World War I veteran. And so when I came up here, the Legion Hall was down in the back end of the downtown co-op. And it used to flood. they had a real good dance floor in there they used to have some real good parties

but the downstairs in that place if they got any more than two inches of rain it was underwater so they were wanting to build a new Legion building and I was here for a couple of years prior to that and I

wasn't treasurer but I helped the lady who was because she needed help, so I helped her. And I became vice president of the Legion. Then I became, I've been President of the Legion for six terms. And during that period,

it was, I was vice president when they built their President at Legion Hall and then in the past year with this COVID thing going on, the Legion got shut down. Yeah, like so many businesses getting shut down. I know now the building's for sale, and I know like times are not exactly. Well, the thing is that they can be for sale forever, you know,

but the thing is that the Legion is, that the Legion has to carry on in the community. There has to be a place where veterans are still wars going on in the world and there's Canadians participating in it. There has to be a place for veterans to seek help and their families to seek help and so forth. So when we reorganized the Legion back in August,

I ran for treasurer again just because I wanted there to be some stability in the financing finances of the Legion because there hadn't been for a few years. And the people that were elected to the executive had no business acumen, you know, and if you don't have people who are capable

financially, things can get in a heck of a mass in a hurry. And that's what happened. and so we started from scratch and we're doing very well we're only open there Friday nights and Saturday afternoons and we're operating it with volunteer help

and we're running what we call a grand draw we sell 100 tickets every second week for 20 bucks a piece and we give away a thousand bucks every second week and people are very interested in supporting that And when the Legion went out for sale, that was a lot of businesses in town just sent a check

and said, you know, we want the Legion to continue to go. And so we've had thousands of dollars in donations. And, of course, then we got the federal government came out with some COVID relief money to keep operating. And, of course, we don't have any employees. so we did very well on that issue. So the Legion's back on solid ground now. And I think if and when this COVID thing ever goes away,

we'll be back operating as usual. I didn't realize your, well, A, it's good that the Legion is in good hands. and, you know, you can kind of put down some of the, you know, troubling things that people see from afar, but it sounds that you guys are doing the right things to ensure. And then it's pretty cool that, as this community does, it stepped up when you guys were in need. I'm curious, you mentioned your father fought in World War I. Did you ever talk to him about that, or did he ever talk to you about that? He was never overseas.

He was in the Royal War I. Canadian Air Force. And they just didn't participate in the World War I because they weren't ready. They were, you know, they were still trying to learn how to fly in these little things that they had in 1916 or whatever it was. But he never got overseas. But he was always a very strong supporter of the Legion. And the World War I vets were a different breed than the World War II vets.

The World War I vets were, there wasn't the booze flowing over there that there wasn't in World War II. There wasn't, the tobacco people weren't involved in things. And my dad was very upset at World War II with how many. guys came home that were addicted to tobacco and drank too much and things of that nature. So I remember when we built a New Legion Hall in Verdun, Manitoba, he said they'll just be fighting. Those guys from World War II, they'll just be fighting there.

That's all it will happen there. And he was right when they first came home. That's what it was. It was a going concern, but it straightened out after a few years. And the Legion back in Verdun is still a very big part of the community. So in World War I, they didn't have smokes, or there wasn't a push from... There wasn't a push from the tobacco companies that there was in World War II. They used to get free smokes, eh?

World War II vets got free smoke? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Well, tobacco company saw it was a heck of a good deal because when they come back, because, you know, tobacco is one of the most addictive things that there is. So they were just lining up a bunch of customers for when the war was over. An awful thing to say, but that's the way it is.

I guess I never really thought about it, but that is something new that I've never heard before. No, that's the truth. Well, I've held you in here for some time. We've talked about a lot of things. Is there anything else you want to make sure we talk about before I let you go? No, except, well, you asked me the most surreal moment. Yeah, most surreal moment in your life.

I've had a couple of them. Both my son and my daughter are chartered accountants. And I was able to present them with their certificate. on the same date. They both passed at the same time. And that was pretty surreal because, you know, you only got two kids and they followed the old man's footsteps.

And I never encouraged them, not at all, to do that. And both of them tried other things. But then they came back to the accounting profession. That would be an interesting feeling handing over diplomas to your kids to do exactly what you do. Yeah, it was very interesting.

Yeah. And also, they awarded me with a fellowship with the Institute of Chartered Accountants. And that was surreal because I didn't think that I deserved it. But

Like, very desperate for fellows in Lloyd Minister. I don't know. But anyway, I was awarded in 2006 or something like that. I became a fellow. So. What's maybe one truth you've learned through your years? Well, you can't beat hard work. Hard work will see you through.

and anybody that thinks that they're going to get ahead in life without working hard is in for a disappointment, I think. I've always worked hard, and I was encouraged as a student to work hard. They never paid overtime or anything like that. But as the guy that was in charge of teaching me everything that I knew, told me, the more you do, the more you're going to learn, you know. And it turned out to be right. And, of course, I advanced rapidly in that firm because I was dedicated.

And also, I didn't have any money to do anything else. What the hell you might as well be working, you know? And, you know, when you're making $85 a month, we used to play cribbage for matchsticks in the back room at the office. But everybody was in. in the same boat, but it was fun. Well, I appreciate you coming in and sitting down with me, Jim. It's been an interesting hour and a half of some of your different thoughts and views

on where we've been and kind of where we're at. Yeah, well, I found it interesting too. I've been blessed with a good memory of a lot of the things that went on, you know, but don't ask me about my golf game. Well, thanks again. Okay, fine. Thank you. Hey, folks, thanks for tuning in today. Make sure to like and subscribe. Believe me, it helps.

I want you fine folks also to do me favor. Head over to my new website, shan-newmanpodcast.com and let me know what you think. And finally, if you want to support the podcast, check out the Patreon account link in the show notes. And we'll catch up to you next Monday, all right? Until then. Go kick some ass.