The Ben Mulroney Show - A land ruling that could impact more than Richmond BC

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

 Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founding Partner of Chatter AI If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit.

So the best hapice in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ.

Built for breakthroughs, with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. happy Monday to you. Monday, October 20th, appreciate the fact that you will join us each

and every day. It means so very much. I've said it many times before. Were it not for you, I would just be a very frustrated old man screaming into a microphone. And nobody needs that or wants that. The fact that you're here, it means we're having a conversation. And I really appreciate it. And feel free, by the way, to reach out in any way that you can. Shoot us a DM. Send us an email. Let us know what you think of the show. we are not perfect and every now and then we may say something that runs a foul of your sensibility and we'd love to hear it right maybe maybe it'll challenge the way we think about things maybe it'll make us think about things differently and maybe it will lead to a whole other conversation if you have an idea for a segment let us know we certainly just yesterday i think we got we got a uh a DM from somebody and it sparked an interest in a particular government plan that we said we're going to look into yes it was so we'll have I have to see, like it's, we're always looking for stories, always looking for stories that matter to you.

And the best way for us to know what matters to you is for you to tell us. So please consider it a two-way conversation. I promise you, we, we read everything that's sent our way. And, and we're, you know, we're big boys. We're big boys here. And we can, we can handle a little criticism. And we can have to add a lot of criticism, frankly. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us.

All right. I want to take the show all the way to, um, the west coast of Canada to British Columbia. In 2024, during the provincial election campaign that saw David Eby's NDP get reelected, there was a conversation that was being had back then over the, what some people believed was an inevitable battle between treaty rights and property rights. and David Eby took to the microphone during a debate during that provincial election campaign and told everybody not to worry.

This work actually improves and increases prosperity for everyone. And John wants to say it wants to take something away from you. It wants to take your private property away from you. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Premier, you may want to go back and listen to what you said back then, because if that's how the world was supposed to be, then the world has been turned upside down for a great many people.

Most notably, in the city of Richmond, BC. You will remember that the BC Supreme Court essentially ruled that a particular ban in British Columbia may have rights over the legal property owners because of a particular interpretation of the lower. law. And that is an issue. The city of Richmond sent a letter to hundreds of homeowners that we all saw on social media over the weekend that a recent BC Supreme Court ruling recognizing the Cowichin Tribes Aboriginal title over 800 acres could impact their property ownership and compromise title of validity. Justice Barbara Young laid down an 863-page decision declared that private and government ownership was defective.

That's the word she used. However, the ruling has been suspended for 18 months to allow for negotiations between Coitian, Ottawa, and the city. There's widespread concern. Mayor Malcolm Brody called it one of the most significant rulings in Canadian history, if not the most significant, warning it could dismantle the land title system while BC officials appealed the decision,

citing major risks to property rights. And by the way, I think what the mayor is doing here is, is the right move. This idea that Justice Barbara Young throws a bomb, a grenade into the idea of property rights and then says, okay, I'm going to suspend this judgment while you negotiate. No, no, no, that's, you don't negotiate with one arm tied behind your back. You don't shoot yourself in the foot and then they're going to say, go run a race. You're going to lose the race.

What you do is you do what the mayor wants to do, which is appeal the decision so that when ultimately do negotiate, you negotiate from a position of strength and make no mistake. The coalition didn't ask for this. This was not, this, this was a decision that I think surprised them. And however, you take the world as it is. And if the Supreme Court gives you a gift, you're going to run with it, right? And the government has an obligation to work on behalf of and in, with the interests of taxpayers and all the citizens, including those who own property.

And you cannot negotiate if you have a suspended ruling hanging over your head. So I 100% support the idea of appealing the decision first. There is a global news story out of Vancouver, out of British Columbia that really lays out the issues and the knock-on effects of this, what I think is an irresponsible decision. They spoke with, we have a clip from a homeowner, as well as a real estate person who is a real estate bank person who's like... The second voice you're going to hear is from the real estate person. I really want you to pay attention because, look, this could be the beginning.

This could be a trend that crests, a wave that crests over the entire country. What's happening in BC could just as easily happen where you live. Let's listen. Two years, we don't want to be moving anywhere. We don't want to be giving up this. property, but we have no intentions of selling this property. So whatever's happening right now, it's very concerning. So the question is, will anybody want to ever buy a property that is being so affected? Could you get a mortgage and secure that mortgage or other financing by a charge on

that property? It throws a whole situation up in the air. So like I said, the Cowichent, Yeah, that's it. Like, who's going to, okay? Who's going to buy that property? Who's going to buy that property? With this suspended ruling still in effect, you have to appeal this for the sake of clarity, for the sake of the billions, if not trillions of dollars in land value

that could be upended by this decision that could become precedent across the country. You've got to nip this stuff in the bud. And like, hard, hard you got to nip this in the bud. The Cowitzman representative said they don't seek to displace private homeowners. However, they expect compensation for lands taken unlawfully. So basically it's another cash grab. I don't want to be that cynical. And I don't know about, I can't speak to the terms of the seeding of land and what was paid for and what wasn't.

So I'm not going to call it a cash grab. I wouldn't do that. But it is certainly an avenue for this tribe to seek financial redress. and I don't know that we have any money, to be honest. I don't know that we as a country have any money. I think we've been given away a lot of money to a lot of places over the course of a very long time. We become less productive.

We pay more in taxes than ever before. We get less for it. I don't know where this money is supposed to come from. Okay. And so opposition leaders say that the ruling has created serious uncertainty for property owners, as you just heard. and I think at some point this is going to come to places like Ontario and look I don't I'm not saying that there is a causal relationship between land acknowledgments every single time officials get together and this decision I'm not saying one cause the other but there is no world where you are going to convince me that one doesn't have something to do with the other I'm sorry it's That would be insane to suggest that, oh, us showing respect that we are on lands that aren't ours has nothing to do with a judgment that says you are on somebody else's land.

But also, how far back do you go? Do you say, okay, who is there? Well, I mean, do you go back to the Stone Age? I mean, how far back do you go before you go, okay, you know what, enough is enough? Well, but again, if, like, I think we as a nation got very lazy and just decided to be performative in this, oh, we're going to show how empathetic we are and how big our hearts are and we're going to remind everybody that we know that we're on land that isn't ours. And if you don't, if you don't follow up in short order with meaningful conversations about how to recognize that thing and improve. prove the lot of those whose land you say you're on, then this is a type of thing that's going to fill that vacuum.

If you do nothing, in the absence of doing something meaningful, something else is going to fill that void. And this judgment fills that void. And that is on every level of government for having failed at doing the one thing they should have done was to put meat on the bone on real reconciliation. Now we've effed around. We're about to find out.

All right. We're going to come back, taking calls. Is this reconciliation to you for all the proponents of land acknowledgments? Are you ready to give up your house if it goes that far? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We want to hear from you what to do about this BC Supreme Court judgment that essentially, if it is not appealed, could potentially reverberate across the country

and throw everyone's property rights over their homes and their businesses into limbo. And this is not an intellectual exercise. This is happening in real time in the city of Richmond, BC. When the city sent a letter to a number of people that said, please take note of the recent BC Supreme Court decision of Cowich and Tribes versus California. Canada made some very important decisions which could negatively affect the title to your

property. This is absolutely happening right now. So we want to hear from you. Give us a call 401-6870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. We want to hear from you what to do here. Now, right now, the judge in this Supreme Court decision in British Columbia stayed this decision for 18 months to allow the BC government to negotiate with the Cowichester. tribe. I think that that is the wrong move. I'm glad that they are going to appeal before doing that

because you do not negotiate with one hand tied behind your back. With a judgment like this looming, you are literally negotiating at a disadvantage. This needs to go away before you negotiate. That's pretty simple stuff. But if anybody thinks it's going to stop in British Columbia with this one decision unless this is nipped in the bud and list this is reversed completely this will repeat this will repeat and it will continue to repeat so long as we continue to uh offer performative um uh moments like land acknowledgments without commensurate work behind the land acknowledgments it's it serves absolutely no purpose except to make white people feel good progressives feel good to say, we acknowledge that we're on land that isn't ours.

Okay, but unless you do something with that acknowledgement and something that is within your control, then somebody else is going to take control and they're going to do it for you. And that's what we've seen in British Columbia. That's exactly what we've seen. You know, we've had years where different levels of government could have taken those performances of saying we acknowledge we're on land it is and ours and done something with it. They could have done something with it.

And they did nothing. They just thought, oh, we'll stop here, and everyone will be happy. No, no, no, no, no. At some point, somebody was going to take it and, look, I don't want to use the word weaponize, but yes, weaponize it against those who have chosen not to do anything with those words. Let's welcome Eric to the conversation. Eric, thanks so much for calling. Hey, Ben.

Hey. Hey, first thing I got to see, I'm so waiting for my AM 640 cup I was promised a long time ago because I listen to you, Alex, and Oakley, all day. Oh, my goodness. I didn't know anything about this, but we'll, uh, we'll, uh, Send an email and we'll see if we can get you one. All right. Anyways, yeah, this whole land grab thing, it's disgusting.

I was just telling your producer, what's happening to this country? I actually sent you a text. This is not the country that we grew up in when your father was prime minister. And it's only declining further and further. I'm making plans to get out. I know a lot of people that are. And that's sad because this was the greatest nation on the planet to grow up in. But it's falling apart on every level.

Let me just say, Eric, because I want to make sure I'm very clear with our listeners and our viewers on YouTube that my contention is there is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to achieve real reconciliation with First Nations. And I like living in a world where the idea behind these land acknowledgments is an expression of respect. So I understand the intent behind it. But in the absence of doing anything beyond a land acknowledgement, you are creating a vacuum in which somebody is going to, fill it. So either those in power take those words which are in and of themselves meaningless and add value to it by saying, you know what, this is the beginning of a conversation that we hope leads to X. They didn't do that, which meant the BC Supreme Court came in and

filled that vacuum. That's on the leaders in this country for having not done enough to follow those words with action that could have led to real reconciliation. That's how I feel. Well, and I agree on the vacuum part, only vacuum that's happening is money being stuck from our pockets and taxes. Well, I mean, that's par for the course with every single possible, at every level of government. When I read this week that the feds are sending $25 million to Senegal for some pet project of theirs, I was like, okay, well, that's $25,000, $25 million I think we could spend here. Thank you very much, Eric. I appreciate it. Let's go to Jim. Jim, what say you, my friend?

Hey, how you doing? Good. I'm living this world right now. We have property at Saba Beach. Oh, you're living this. Tell me. Tell me what you mean. Well, we've been told by our local municipality that we're not putting anything into infrastructure. We're not putting anything into anything's going to cost the taxpayers because nobody knows who's going to take what there.

Yeah. The entire town is surrounded by a reserve. Yep. um they have been mistreated over the years um they handed it over to them this summer they've taken the beach they've changed the name already um just from saba beach to saugeen beach and there's just this fear that they're just going to keep trying to take chunks of property um to get closer and closer down to the main strip um we can't sell our place like we we've lost probably 40,000 to 50,000, and price because people don't want to take the risk.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. In an environment of uncertainty, when you don't know what the rules of engagement are, people are not going to play the game. But even the municipality is scared at this point. I mean, that's what happens when you punt the ball and you don't, when you're not proactive, when you don't take a leadership position, you abdicate. your role in controlling the narrative. If you're not going to be front-facing,

if you're not going to be the tip of the sword on anything, then you have to be prepared that you're going to be, that somebody else is going to take control. Somebody else is going to rest control the narrative and you are just going to be a passenger. And unfortunately, across the country, you've got various levels of government that have just decided they want to be passengers in this.

They don't want to be the leaders that we need. No, I completely agree. Well, it's frustrating. Well, thank you for the call, and I wish you the very best, and thank you for giving us that update. So that's interesting. I mean, we were talking about it's just in B.C., but clearly in Ontario as well, it's happening. Hey, AJ, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you.

Hi, how are you? Good. Well, I just wanted to say that perhaps the feeling that Canadians are having right now is similar to what maybe Palestinian people could have. I mean, I know this is not in topic a lot, but I just wanted to make that kind of connection. Like, people are saying that these lands were from the Aboriginal people 200 years ago. And now a new Canadian of British descent is now living in there. And all of a sudden, the part of the Aboriginals are saying, like, listen, this is my land now. So get out.

Whereas in Palestine, for example, they've been living there for, let's say, 500 years, the Palestinian people, and all of a sudden, the Jewish people comes and say, listen, we were there 2,000 years ago. Now, get out. This is our land. So you wanted to make that comparison. Well, I mean, listen, I appreciate the comparison. I don't think it's as, I mean, listen, it's an interesting thought exercise,

and I do appreciate you, AJ, for bringing it up. I think that that probably confuses issues. I mean, frankly, I saw, I know we're getting off topic here, but I did, I saw, what's his name, what was his name? He was part of the Biden administration. He was his housing guy, the openly gay the mayor

of Cincinnati. Anyway, he Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg, yes. Pete Buttigieg actually said something that was actually quite interesting about the entire debate. He said anytime you say anything, you get attacked for not saying everything.

Anytime you say, oh well the war started because of the atrocities on October 7th, someone will come to here, but you didn't talk about this. And any time you look at it from a different person, but you didn't say this. So for us to have a little vignette of Palestine there is not helpful. But I do thank AJ for calling in. Huda, Verinder, thank you for calling. Hi, Ben. How are you?

I'm well. So you're from Surrey. So you're out in B.C. So tell us how you see it. Well, you know, I do see it as like this is not, this good truth. reconciliation, reconciliation policies is bad. Yeah. Reconciliation policies, right? Yes.

You know, I'm one thing I'm like up Indian origin, right? You know, India was a British colony and that sort of stuff and has some issues there. But I'm always, what did that make you proud to be Canadians that I'm born in Canada, not even the West, is that we had the Adaski to apologize for our past, which not a country world doesn't do. And, you know, and I have to think that, you know, there has to be a more realistic, more, you You know, like your father said, you know, no deal is better than a bad deal. Yeah, no.

Anyway, Verinda, we're going to leave it there. Thank you for calling in. We appreciate it. Hey. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We were having a very heated, and I thought intellectual discussion as to why certain names of months are proper names, like January, April, May, June, August, I mean, July, not necessarily, but Julie and July are very similar in August, August. But for some reason, February and March,

no first names. And it turns out to believe it or not, in the Southern Hemisphere, there are people named February and March because it's summertime down there. And they don't view those months like the cold, the cold grip of death that we tend to. up here in Canada. Anyway, so even if you, like what I'm trying to point out is, even in our commercial breaks, when we should be taking time for ourselves, we're still having these incredible conversations that take us nowhere. But time to have a conversation that will take us somewhere. And of course, we're joined by Tony Chapman, the host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, and the founding partner of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome to the show.

Always a pleasure, my friend. So did you just learn something from me about these of the months and the names? Well, I could tell you, that's why I spend a lot of time in the winter in Costa Rica. There you go. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Okay, this isn't a marketing or branding story, but it does speak to a particular way that Donald Trump's brain works that is unlike most people and the fact he's willing to go places that other people won't and to his benefit, right? And we're talking, we've been talking a lot, or a lot of us saw it on our social media feeds. The no kings protests over the weekend where people were protesting what they thought was too much of a concentration of power into the hands of the executive branch in the United States that was leading the president to believe that he was in one way, shape, or form a king. And the things that he posted over the weekend were, depending on whether you like the guy or not, they were either kind of gross and crass or legendary, I guess.

Yeah, I think, and I think this is actually one of the biggest branding stories because Trump is firmly in control of his brand positioning and how he creates stickiness with the people that absolutely believe he is king. And what he's doing is he's using AI. Now, this is a president of the United States. Instead of responding to criticism and protest with policy, he's really creating a spectacle. This is, this is that, you know, when he walked into the ultimate fighting, this is really just, ultimate fighting. I mean, it's just crashes you can get, using AI video. And what he does is he flips it on, it clips the whole king messaging on almost like a judo flip and presents himself as the king and the poppers out there. He has no interest in. And I think that's really what he

does is he divides the United States continuously, even using ice versus no kings. And I think that's what he does really well. He says, people want to stick to something. They want to rally around something and Trump does that whether you like and not better than most. I'm not defending Donald Trump here but I, one could argue that he in this moment, in the example that we're using, he's not the one

dividing people. He is identifying the division and he's playing with it. Yeah, he's identifying the division and he's playing with it by dumping sludge on the other brand. Oh, I think you saying sludge is a very, very just all the entire what that video is. Is it dismissing

dismissing people that don't share, you know, fawning over Donald Trump. So his, so his, his, his, the video itself is an AI generated video of Donald Trump as a king,

but also as a, a fighter pilot. Yeah. Cruising of a fighter jet over, say, the New York protest and dumping, not sludge, but let's,

let's be honest, it's, it's human excrement all over the crowd. I was saying, you know, careful here, but yeah, I mean,

And that's his branding at its best where, you know, Coke versus Pepsi, this is what people rally for or against is really the essence of branding when you really only have two people contending for your vote. And that's what he's done really well. And I think you can't dismiss it. And this is his being as parley. He's treated politics like a reality show from day one. Mark Burnett created this emperor mentality with the apprentice.

And he's continued to ride a second term into office. and now with using things like Homeland Security or ICE, he is, in fact, starting to act more and more like a dictator. And I think that's why the protests and, again, how Trump just dismisses it as peasants raising their pitchforks, but they certainly don't have the power of the fighter pilot. You know, I would push back. I would say, I don't know that the use of ICE is a proof that he's acting as a dictator. Some would argue that he's simply enforcing the laws that have not been enforced for years.

but that's a debate for another day, my friend. Let's move on to the Toronto Star Survey that reveals that by Canadian, it wasn't just, we were worried that it would be a moment, and it turns out it has become a movement. Yeah, without question. And it's across every touch point, we're seeing it with the consumers wallet.

We were not seeing it. Interesting enough is with our government. You've talked about purchasing ferries from China and using Chinese steel. The next part of this story is obviously that as much as we spend taxpayer dollars to keep our legacy media alive, here we have our government taking much, our precious tax dollars and using it and funding multinational social media platforms like Facebook to keep them in power, as opposed to saying, well, if you're so

much, if our legacy media is that important, why aren't all our media dollars going to Canadian media houses? Well, he's also, I mean, a few weeks ago, the prime minister did give a pretty big speech where he laid out that from a procurement standpoint, the federal government would, the default setting of all purchasing was we will buy Canadian unless it has to be proven that in, that in order to fulfill that one requisition, there is no Canadian who can fulfill that order. So the government has at least put forth the idea that by Canadian will become the rule as opposed to the exception when it comes to purchases made by the federal government. We'll have to see whether

They have... Let's see how well they do that when they want to get votes and they want to have hyper-personalized messaging. And social media is the best path to do that. So I will judge them by their actions, not their rhetoric. And to date, their actions, they say one thing and often do another. And to me, as a taxpayer, and the same thing goes in terms of where we're sending our money abroad versus taking care of our problems at home. So this is what I hope to see. I hope to see Carney actually act on it as opposed to speak about it. Well, this next story, we get to display that you, Tony Chapman, are in a great many ways, much like the great Creskin, where you were able to predict things in the future. And you predicted that when we said goodbye to Hudson's Bay as a company, the brand would live on in sort of a smaller capacity where you would be able to buy all of those famed Hudson's Bay products, like the blanket with the stripes and you would be able to buy that somewhere

and sure enough Canadian Tire which bought the IP from Hudson's Bay is doing just that. Yeah and they're doing a brilliant job with it. They're also keeping the foundation alive which is what the blanket stood for. More importantly, here's my next prediction. You will see thermal Hudson Bay blanket coffee mugs

at Tim Hortons because you're starting to see Tim Hortons and Canadian Tire really take advantage of Tim Hortons is a daily purchase, Hudson Bayes is occasional purchase, but putting them together makes a loyalty program that is a every moment purchase. So you're going to start seeing more and more of this, but Canada and by Canadian, retailers are letting us do that, time Canadian show up with their wallet. And I've got to ask, you know, Tim Horton's is suffering from a little bit of reputational

damage these days. I mean, some of it's their own fault and other things have nothing to do with them. but do you think that they could benefit from sort of aligning themselves to something like that Hudson's Bay nostalgia? Without question. I mean, they already made that move with the loyalty program. Where their flank is vulnerable, is it, Tim Horns is no longer a Canadian company. But at the same time, it has Canadian roots.

It's our third home. It's where we meet up with people. There's no doubt bringing some of that Hudson Bay iconic candidate, within Tim Horns, only strengthens those notes. And if I was running Tim Horns, I'd say absolutely everything we can do with another great Canadian retailer like Canadian tire, not just for data and loyalty, but for value to the consumer is a move well-made. Tony Chapman, thank you very much, my friend.

Always a pleasure. Up next, our focus on small business takes a bite out of the Zah. This is the Benmore. Mulroney Show, happy Monday to you and happy small business week across this country. We at the Ben Mulroney Show hold small and medium-sized business owners in the highest regard, those who bet on themselves, bet on their idea, put their money where their mouth was, and tried to build something for themselves, for their communities, for their country.

And so this week, we are finding people who started small business. In some cases, they're no longer small businesses, but they remember what it's like to be a small business owner and it's time to get some insights from those people in the hopes of helping the next generation of entrepreneurs. So please welcome to the show from Pizza Nova, Dominic Pramucci. Dominic, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Ben. Thank you for having me on the show today. It's awesome to talk about business. Indeed, indeed. Okay, so Pizza Nova, my kids, we love pizza Nova in our house. Pizanova founded May 12, 1963 by your dad, Sam. I have to And you, sir, learned the business by taking on every role in the business before assuming a leadership position.

That's correct, Ben. I mean, as you can appreciate when back in the early days of the company, my dad and he had started with his brothers as well. And by the way, can we just say the names are straight out of central casting? Mike, Vince, and Joe. Yes. And so, you know, at a young age, you're brought into, you know, go to work with that and so on and so forth. But, I mean, I started at the age of 14. And my first job was washing dishes.

So I can tell you, I can why. I mean, I learned from the best, and I can wash a mean dish before dishwashers were, you know, they were around, but not as, as, as, as. relatively available today. Do you remember those early days of Pizanova when your family was trying to build it? My sense is it's a lot harder to create something from nothing

than it is to take something that exists and grow it. I think they both have its advantages and difficulties, if you will. I think that... Well, what were some of these challenges in the early days, if you can remember, because you were a kid.

Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, what do I remember? But, I mean, at that time, pizza was not a dinner or lunch. I mean, at that time, we all, we, I remember my father and the, brothers, the restaurants opened at 4 o'clock, so it was more late, later day type of meal. But it wasn't your meal. It was more of like a snack item at the time. And I recall, you know, at midnight being extremely busy, we'd have a Russia at midnight because people would be, you know, getting hungry late, coming home late from wherever and so and so forth.

So it was really a not an alternative to a meal. Yeah. Today it's your meal, right? Today, it's fast forward to today. It's your lunch. It's your, it's your. Hey, depending on who you are, it can be breakfast, too, my friend. I'm in between.

Pizza can be breakfast, too. I guess I can assure you of that. Yeah, 100%. Dominic, so talk to me about the here and now, 2025. What are some of the challenges facing, even an established company like Pizza Nova. What are some of the headwinds that you're facing? Well, there's a lot of, there's quite a few challenges.

You know, I don't want to bark back to 2020 and it's, you know, the pandemic, but the pandemic did change the landscape out, you know, in our business. the food service business. All of a sudden, the Uber Eats, the third-party aggregators of the world, have come on board and come on board strong. So not only can you just buy pizza and, say, Chinese food, which were the staples and food order takeout at the time or before that, now it's anything and everything.

Right. So you're competing in a way that you were never competing before because so much of your business was built on. being the food that gets delivered, and now every food is delivered. Oh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, yeah.

And it's funny because everybody says, oh, now there's lots of delivery options, and so there's lots of delivery. Delivery is the new way of doing business. We've been doing delivery for 62 years. So it's nothing new for our business. Sure. However, you know,

and then there's other challenges, right? I mean, I was talking to somebody last week who said that one of the issues they have is staffing. that it's still hard to get people to, you know, young people to come on board because as you started as a dishwasher, a lot of them, in his opinion, it was the CEO of Food Tastic out of Montreal, he said that nobody wants to be a dishwasher for the rest of their lives. But you're proof positive that just because you start as a dishwasher,

doesn't mean you end as one. That's right. You know, I believe that you got to start somewhere. I mean, you can't start at the top. So you need to build that experience, whatever, in anything you do, it doesn't have to be food service. It could be anything. Whatever you do, you're going to probably start at the bottom somewhere.

And you've got to work your way up, but you have to be eager and passionate enough to do the work. If you're eager and passionate enough to do the work, you will learn and you will move through the organization. and that's where it's, that's where it begins. You can't go into a job saying, well, I hate this job before you even get it. You hate it before you even get it, then, you know, why are you even doing it at that point? Dominic, there was a poll that a study that came out from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business

that said that 70 plus percent of small business owners would not recommend to a friend to start a small business today. Now, given the fact that small and medium-sized business represent 15,000, 52% of Canada's non-public GDP, the fact that the drivers of that size of our economy wouldn't recommend that others get into that aspect of the economy is a, it's a, it's a worrying number. What would your advice be to somebody who wants to start a business today? Well, I understand that comment and it's very well noted. but however, as you said, 52% of our economy is driven by small businesses.

And although our company has grown to be not a small business any longer, maybe more of a medium-sized business, however, we have franchisees. So we're, in my way I look at this, we're a collection of small businesses. We have one-owner shops that franchisees have invested in our brand, become partners of our brand and want to do something for their future. And they're a small business under the one umbrella of our brand, Pizza Nova, but they're still small businesses and they're still small local businesses. And when I look at this is that we've had a lot of great success with our franchisees.

Franchisees have worked very hard. They've got over the years, they put their children through schooling. and university and become, you know, some of them become doctors and lawyers as all parents want their kids to be, or whatever else they've, they've, you know, become whatever they, whatever they have a passion for. So I think the small businesses still are crucial to our economy, and I think that, you know, don't get discouraged, but I think it just have to be, you got to understand that it's, you know, you open a business, doesn't mean that it's, you know, you're guaranteed X amount of dollars.

You're not. You've got to work hard at it. Dominic, last question for you as we wind up this conversation. And I thank you for your time. And I thank you for your pizza too. But the idea of managing a brand and protecting a brand in a franchise model, how do I say, how precious do you have to be over your brand? In other words, if a franchisee wants to come to you and say, they want to do something a little different because for whatever reason, the appetite in their neighborhood, the demographics in their neighborhood are calling to do something just outside of what you would want them to do. Is there ever a discussion to be had one-on-one with a franchisee to say,

you know what? That's typically not what we do, but we're going to, we'll allow you to test it out because, yes, you do have a different demographic. How, how protective are you over the brand of Pizza Nova. Well, there's two different thoughts of that. I mean, we have to be protected of the brand pizza Nova where the reason the company has succeeded is because of these, you know, procedures that we put in place. Our product is, which is first and foremost, right? I mean, it's the product quality that makes us who we are today.

So this is, you have to protect that and we have to protect it all the way through. Now, if somebody wants to add a different topping or ingredient to our pizza and, yeah, let's try it. Let's try it in your area. Because you never know, right? You sell slices, so, you know, they can put it out on a slice display and see what requires. All right, my friend. And we've done that. Dominic Camucci from Pizza Nova, thank you so much for the insights, all the best,

and thank you for all the hard work you've done to build Pizanova into a brand that so many people love. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain, and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to build a stronger Canada. We're Pathways Alliance,

six of Canada's largest oil sands companies working together to help grow Canada's economy. Learn more at pathwaysalliance.ca.