The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - Canada's SHAKEY Economic Future w/ Mike Campbell | The CBP

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

FRIENDS AND ENEMIESHow UNCERTAIN is Canada's shakey economy? What does the future hold for Canadians, Canadian investors and Bitcoiners? Is it time to look elsewhere to put down long term roots? We're joined by Michael Campbell - host of the famous Money Talks Show - to discuss all the issues top-of-mind for Canadians.Join us for some QUALITY Bitcoin and economics talk, with a Canadian focus, every Monday at 7 PM EST. From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com⁠Discord:   / discord   A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetworkThis show is sponsored by: easyDNS - https://easydns.com EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. With DomainSure and EasyMail, you'll sleep soundly knowing your domain, email and information are private and protected. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠ The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. There's never been a quicker, simpler, way to acquire Bitcoin. Use the link above for 25% off fees FOR LIFE, and start stacking today.256Heat -⁠ https://256heat.com/ ⁠ GET PAID TO HEAT YOUR HOUSE with 256 Heat. Whether you're heating your home, garage, office or rental, use a 256Heat unit and get paid MORE BITCOIN than it costs to run the unit. Book a call with a hashrate heating consultant today.The Canadian Bitcoin Conference - https://canadianbitcoinconf.com/The PREMIER Bitcoin Conference, held annually in the great white North, where Bitcoiners come together to share stories, build momentum and have a great time while doing so. Whether your a pleb, business, newcomer or OG, the Canadian Bitcoin Conference wants to see you in Montreal, October 16-18 2025. Don't miss this one!

threat. And one of the things that can't be attacked is your self-custody Bitcoin. And one of the things that can be attacked is the ETF. Can't be exposed to that. That's my view. It's not a good idea. And by the way, that'll hit MSTR too. It'll probably hit other stuff as well. Friends and enemies. Welcome back. Canadian Bitcoiners podcast. Friends and enemies, welcome to the CBP. Want to be better informed. Listen to Levin Joe E. Spots is taking care off right off the top. Oh, Bitcoin and EZDNS, the media is feeding the slop. It does. matter what topics discussed quality entertainment and information you can trust uh that's being planned or at least discussed you know we're not going to allow the entertainment and information you can trust

send the guys some value boost them with some stats bitcoin is the scarcity asset i mean it's just a fact geopolitical national down to the local cloud friends and enemies welcome back to the canadian bitcoiners podcast recording on western time today even though eastern standard time is the only true time zone My guest, Mike Campbell, is, he's on the west side of this great country of ours. Some tension, geographic, jurisdictional, political, economic tension between my neck of the woods and his neck of the woods. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about a bunch of stuff today. We always like having Mike on.

And I will be on his show. We're recording tomorrow. That'll be out Saturday, I think. I'm assuming it will be. I haven't asked them yet. But I'm looking forward to that. Before we get started, as always the sponsors, we'll go quickly. Easy DNS.

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But anyway, everyone should have one of these things because you're heating your house anyway. Why not get paid for it? It doesn't make sense not to do it. The Bitcoin Conference is the final sponsor. It is the eighth today. The conference is eight days away. So this time next week, I'll be telling myself I should be packing my bag to go. And I will probably wait until tomorrow, Thursday next week, to do it.

And I'll be in Montreal with the rest of you guys, hopefully. Best Conference on Earth. High Signal, great venue, the Rialto Theater in Montreal. And I'll be your emcee this year, just like I was in year one. Really looking forward to meeting all the speakers, meeting all of you guys, of course. And, you know, maybe having a fizzy drink along the way. Mike Campbell's here. Mike, thanks for coming.

first things first okay what's going on with your bills i took the uh bills on the uh evening of monday i think it was a monday night game against the patriots they lost do you have any comments on that i thought uh first of all i thought new england was impressive but the the commentary was over the top you know like i'm always fascinated with the sort of sports commentary that wants somebody in a hall of fame in about 15 minutes so i guess that quarterback may is going to be there we're going to have the parade any day now, obviously a disappointing loss for the bills. You know, their defense was up to it, but they had a chance to win and they didn't, but they're right there.

But they look as good, if not better than any team I've seen in the NFL this year. I mean, if you're a Baltimore fan, you know, Lamar Jackson's hurt, but it doesn't matter before that, you wondered, is anyone playing defense there? Because you're not winning that way. You know, now it's hard to evaluate some of the teams at this point, but the bills have got to be in everybody's top four. still doesn't matter i think so too i'm actually flying to washington on monday morning to see the skins play the bears on monday yeah that should be fun i did that a couple years ago it's a bit

of a taxing trip uh but worth it all the same so i'm looking forward to that now look mike we got i mean where should we start man um you know i i i try and prepare for these interviews maybe a day or two in advance and this time i thought there's not really a point because i don't know what's going to happen in the day or two in between the prep and the show and sure enough yesterday Uncle Mark in the White House trying to strike a deal not really striking a deal we got obviously the interim

I'll say that again the interim PBO head going on every channel station network that will have him and telling people this guy is falling we have companies leaving Canada left and right everything from auto manufacturers to liquor dispensers distributors what do you call I don't know

What is going on, man? Maybe we start with the PBO. I know you've had your share of people interviews over the years. What do you make of the determination that the PBO has publicly shared for the last, at least a month or so, about how we're in big trouble financially, fiscally, if we don't get things in order? Well, I think the key is, if I was in the parliamentary budget office, I was E. Giro now, Jason Jacques, you know, who's the interim head.

I hope he gets appointed permanently because he's willing to say what he sees. there. I was impressed. But if I was them, you'd go, how many times do I have to tell you? You know, if anybody thinks of creating record deficits, you know, is the weight of prosperity. I mean, there's some details around that that I could discuss. But the bottom line is he's saying, I think no one's listening. How about if I say it's uncontrolled? How if I say it's unsustainable? How old if I say it's a shocking escalation? And it is. I will wait and see what the budget deficit is. You know, is it $68 billion? Is it 90 billion?

My biggest challenge is I think you can find half the population anyways who doesn't care. If I said to him, hey, you know, that budget deficit's going to be 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, no extra reaction. And that's what I think is worrisome. Now, there's a lot of I can say about the budget deficit. I want to acknowledge, and I'm proud to say, we talked this the first time it came out of Mark Carney's mouth, which we're going to separate the budget from, operating into investment. Easy criticism of that is the government gets to make up which is which. I said right at the time, I mean, literally the first day I said,

well, I can balance the budget tomorrow morning. If you let me do that, I'll just call everything operating. It's for the good of the country. So there go, like the CBC, $1.4 billion. That's for the good of the country. That's an investment in our culture. You can, you know, they're not going to be specific. I don't trust them to make any kind of non-political judgment about

what's an investment and what's not. That would be number one. Secondly, what if it was all in quotes investments? Well, the problem there is the government hasn't proven to be effective in any kind of an investment, you know, decision. I mean, just look at the disaster that has been the electric vehicle manufacturing, which we would say, that's an investment in Canada's future. Trouble is, you've got, you know, come on, it was within 12 months that Northbolt declared bankruptcy. Amazing. They're flying electric in Quebec is in bankruptcy protection. No, those aren't the kind of investments I make.

You know, and the kind of, so they don't have a track record on investing besides that. And here's the final thing and the most important. Canada needs to borrow money every year. They need to borrow money for maturing debt. Forget the deficit for a moment. Debt is maturing. We do not obviously have the money to pay it. So we have to roll it over.

We also have these increasing deficits. Now, you can go anywhere. The estimates, by the way, by 2030, by 2030, $360 billion, because are we including that military promise, you know, 5% of GDP. Other campaign promises have not been costed in the budget yet. So we could have this monster number. And I can tell you this, the credit markets are the key. If people get anything from what I'm saying, note that the problems with the deficit will

manifest in the credit markets. That's what we've seen globally. We've seen it historically. And the number one question is, what will I lend Canada money at what rate? Or will I lend Canada money? I've got better governments to lend money to if somebody decides that, although that competition is pretty weak. But we know we're in a sovereign debt crisis. That's the context to which we have to borrow, whether it ends up being $500 billion in the next year or not for maturing debt and deficit.

it, you need someone willing to lend it. And if they perceive that we have, our spending is not in control, our governments are not, you know, on top of this spending, they're going to say, pay me more. That's the biggest danger to individuals. Presto, long-term interest rates go up and the government can do. People don't have an idea about the long end. I just went to renew my mortgage last week and even the guy at the bank, you know, I tried to explain to him how the budget was going to impact mortgage rates because the long end would

rip if the budget was ill received. and he looked at me like I had two heads. You're correct. You know, I don't expect him to know that, but if you don't know that as a Canadian homeowner, forget an investor, as a homeowner, you're going to be in trouble. I'm going to read you a quote here that I had ready

from our friend, Jacques. This is not a funny fiscal outlook. It's really a serious fiscal outlook. We don't lightly use the word unsustainable. Unsustainable means you don't have the option of saying, maybe I'll wait a couple of years. I'll see how things go. It means if you don't change,

this is done. I love that quote. And I will just say to you, Mike, that hope as you may, he will not be appointed, the chief of the parliamentary budget office on the back of that quote, if I had to guess. Now, I think it's funny, the presentation of the budget changing this year for the first time, Carney and Champagne, Minister Champaign, making the case that we are not alone in this regard. We have good company. Strong, stalwart economies headed the right direction like the UK, for example, also doing this. There's one thing to put lipstick on a pig in a budget. It's another thing entirely to march out a draft and tell us it's a pig, which is what's happening here. I'm curious about what you think this means for things like,

you know, the inflation target. Bank of Canada saying the other day, they're considering abandoning core inflation as a policy metric. Where does this leave? Like if we're just spending whatever we want, we're not looking at inflation, where does this leave something like the Bank of Canada? What levers are they now looking at to decide on policy? Do they even have a role to play? What is the dynamic now for a central bank and a government in this country if this continues? Well, I mean, clearly they have the one major tool which has raise interest rates to discourage my spending, which brings prices down. I mean, less demand will help at least stabilize prices. So that's their only tool at their

disposal. But when it comes to actual inflation measures, what's interesting is they've not done a very good job. They've not done a very good job at forecasting unless you say to yourself, hey, I got an idea. Let's push food prices up 27% in four years. If that was your plan, then they are on top of it. But people should recognize that's not their plan. They're shocked by it. And they think there's a level of control that has never been exhibited. That was a huge criticism, by the way, a Prime Minister Carney, you know, when he was in the Bank of England. You know, they're still living with it, along with the impact of their climate change agenda that we're part of, that he's made it very clear, that we have to be part of that climate agenda, which is the

biggest worry I have about domestic policy. Yeah, I just think the bond market is where the action's going to be. But again, we have to be careful. We're not alone. The U.S. is a mess. You mentioned the UK. How about France? They can't even get a government together. You know, they're talking about IMF having to come in in the UK and France. Extraordinary. And what about Germany, where their chancellor, Mertz, has clearly, well, they started off with saying, we've got to raise the retirement age to 73. Just let that sink in for a minute, you know, for people, you know, in Canada.

Retirement age at 73, you know, well, why is he doing it? They can't afford it. He made that comment also, about two, three weeks ago, he says, we can't afford the welfare state. That's why people should care about this stuff. And I mean, there's so much. I don't want to oversimplify, but allow me just one more comment on the debt. You can borrow money if it's in a productive asset. That's not been our strong point. Just ask the Bank of Canada about our productivity. But you can borrow, like I could borrow money. And I've done this in the past and made more money with it than my interest cost. I've made investments with it. And in fact, I'm just coming due

to one of my bigger loans, I took it because I wanted to invest in gold and gold companies. Well, I took it out about four years ago. It's kind of worked out pretty well. You know, I mean, my goal, you would have wanted me a Bitcoin, but very small Bitcoin guy. But, you know, come on.

What is it? The senior gold index and the TSX is up 116%. That's GDX for people who don't know, right? Yeah. I'm just saying, so you can borrow money. But the trouble is we've borrowed a ton of money and redistributed. That is not a productive asset. We're not making any money because they sent me a $300 check during COVID to someone who didn't need it.

And I, by the way, donated it to charity, right? Right. Instantly. You know, but that's the kind of spending. We have not made a distinction between redistribution and production. And that's, you know, the liberals have to own that. And that's exactly what Jason, Jean. Doc is kind of talking about why he's concerned about it because the economy hasn't grown

to the extent our debt obligations have. You can't do it personally. And you shouldn't do it in a country, especially given the global problems with sovereign debt right now. I totally agree. I will point out, I said this the other day on the show that, you know, there is like a push, especially as Canadians my age going to Thanksgiving, they'll be talking to, if you're a Bitcoin or Thanksgiving this year, there's going to be some good.

some bad. The good is going to be that you were right about a lot of things. And you're going to see some, you know, hopefully handshakes and headnods from your relatives who doubted you. But the bad is that these same relatives are probably the elbows up types. In all likelihood, you're going to get liberal, especially seniors. So your parents, your aunts, your aunts, your uncles, if you're my age, are generally liberal voters. And trying to explain to them that the U.S. is in actually like a significantly better fiscal situation than any of the countries. we're aligning with and us is hard to describe. And I mentioned the other night that if you look at like the asset, the sorry, debt monetization,

sovereign debt purchases by central banks in that same jurisdiction, the U.S. is at like 7% of total outstanding debt. Here it's double that. And then, you know, the further you go, UK, France, Germany, you know, they don't even have that option. The EU doesn't, like there's, there's not that mechanism. So to your point, they can't even pretend to finesse their way out of it. they need a bailout or bail in.

The Germany pension thing is mind-numbing to me. They're talking about, and by the way, this is a great example of the deputization of an arm's-length think tank or academic group. We need someone to tell everybody that the right thing to do is raise the retirement age because we can't do it. They'll burn the capital building down. We can't do it. What they're not saying is, okay, well, we're indexing this to the,

life expectancy that we see now. Buddy, the reason you have that life expectancy is because you're not fucking doing anything after you retire. If you work until you're 73, you will die at the photocopier processing benefits for an illegal immigrant and they'll bury you in the parking lot. Like that's the kind of retirement you're going to have if you work till 73. They don't get that and they think everyone else doesn't get it either, but everyone gets it and nobody wants it. And so why do they think they can do this? I have no idea. It's unpopular. I don't follow. I don't follow this. Like, do you, like, on money talks, you talk to a lot of people about sort of retirement planning. How would retirement planning look if you had the work until 73? What retirement?

I think there's a lot of things in what you're saying here. I keep in mind, by the way, that under the Harper government in the latter years, we did raise the retirement age to 67, you know, from the day security. No, but there's an important point there. It's because our longevity has increased so dramatically since they first instituted. It was under Justin Trudeau that they rolled it back. And I said at the time, man, you are just doing for political reasons. You're ignoring demographics. You're ignoring our ability to meet that. And this is part of something that should concern a fine young man like yourself. And that is the younger generation is getting absolutely screwed in this country. I mean, are anyone hallucinating that they'll have the same level of

health care, for example, that their money right now goes to pay for my health care, you know, in all seriousness. We know the numbers. We know the stats. Once you get over 65, you start accessing the health care budget or hospitals, et cetera, far more frequently,

far greater number, but also old age security. You know, so you're paying taxes right now so they can send out old age security checks to people 65. That older generations, the percentage who own their own home, they don't care about this problem with young people

and the lack of affordability, you know, that they can't get into the housing market. No, we've set up this two-tiered kind of one generation versus a younger generation. And I can tell you, the younger generation is the one that's getting killed. You can't do any Canada pension plan numbers where the younger generation isn't getting killed. They'd be much better off, even if they were forced to save for retirement. So you take care of that, they'll have retirement money, but they could invest it in their own name.

That's a redistribution scheme. You know, I can go on and on because I care about young people, but we have a contingency of Canadians who kind of have the attitude, I'm okay, so we're okay, you know, and that's not the case. That's a great way to put it. There is like this, you know, my situation is fine, so I imagine that most other situations are fine. And we are in these bubbles. Like, I live in a, I don't know what you would call Dundas, but it's like, you know, sort of outside of the big city communities, let's say. And I've largely been unaffected by a lot of the problems that are plaguing communities right now, whether it's like temporary form worker floods or, you know, we talked about health care before the show. I have a story about that that I'll share with you after.

But, you know, because of my sort of position, like I'm not really affected by health care problems. But so many people are. Like, you know, and, you know, it's interesting to people in a Canada where we're supposed to be, like I'm constantly told that. But the thing that sets Canada apart from the U.S. is, well, in the U.S., everyone is out for themselves. And no one cares about anyone else. It's an antisocial kind of one man for himself, society. But I don't see that over there.

Over there, what I see is a united sort of like cultural moray. I see like a united American exceptionalism view. Whether you're Democratic or Republican, it might look a different flavor, taste different flavor, but it's the same ideology. America can do something that other countries can't, and here's what we should do. Now, it might be X, it might be Y, but we can do it. In Canada, I actually don't see any of that. I see, like, where do I even start?

I see people of my, like, people my age, upset with boomers. I see people younger than me don't even leave their house anymore. They're unengaged politically. They're unengaged economically, which is probably more important. They're not getting married. They're not owning homes. They're addicted to SSR. eyes. And like, I just, I ask people who think everything is good, how would you define everything

being not so good? Like, what would you look at? And generally what you would say is, okay, well, if I go to the store by my house, like, yeah, it's all, again, like, I hate doing this because I feel like I'm picking on Indian people. I'm not. But like the overall majority of people working in fast food, grocery, retail, they're TFWs. If I go downtown to, you know, try and enjoy a concert or something, what do I see? I see. drug addicts. I see vagrants. I see I see illness, right? I see societal and physical and spiritual illness everywhere I look. And like to those people who think everything's fine, when are you going to think it's not fine? Like at what point? And the problem, Mike, and you've said this before too,

about your sort of, you know, past run-ins with the medical system, you're not going to realize it's not fine until it's too late. And then what do you do? Well, my comment on the medical system and I've been following it literally since very early in the 90s because I'm looking at finance and economics and I said there is nothing that possibly can work when you say unlimited access with limited funding like that and yet we pretended that was the case and I think we're feeling the fallout and your point about the health care system we all end up there now you may end up as a 50 year old or younger of course but a 50 year old a 60 70 or 80 all of us are going to have that wonderful experience of being in an emergency

ward, for example. Oh, except for it was closed. You know, you were asking those people to quantify when they think it's a problem. I do that all the time with medical. So 28,000 people die waiting for a diagnostic scan or surgery in one year, 223 into 224, 28,000. And that's an understated number because not all jurisdictions would report. But my point only being, I'm told that's not a problem. I want to know what would be the number. Fifty thousand people dying? Just give me a number. Of course, the answer. The number is one person who has your last name, right? Yeah, that's a great answer. Yeah. The other thing I've said to them and very clearly, though, is it's not a problem with the people who work there. My observation, unfortunately, directly from being in that system as a patient,

oh my God, I've come across so many people from specialists to GPs to the emergency room nurse. they were all fabulous. It's the system that's letting them down and us down. They don't want to close the emergency wards. And my problem is that we don't even have a discussion on that. And it's financial. You know, if it was all free, we wouldn't have a problem. But look at the number of people that they're sending down to the states for treatment.

I mean, in British Columbia, which was the vanguard of trying to prevent private care, the vanguard. And what do they do? They send people to Bellingham across the border in Washington, state for cancer treatment because I guess we were just killing too many you know I mean there's a list of these things so health care is to me an economic issue it could be a phenomenal advantage for us but we're hurting the people who work in it and certain the people who are patients yeah we are burning out some of the most important people on our society whether it's health care or teaching or whatever it's interesting you know our mutual friend Brian day dr. Brian day mentioned on probably

both our shows but mine is top of mind because you just did a few weeks ago. And I had another doctor on here, Dr. Mohammed Zerabian from Hamilton, who runs a private back surgery clinic in Toronto. The idea behind Canadian health care is noble, but it doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't work is because hospitals get block funding. And so every patient is actually an expense as opposed to a revenue. And so, you know, when your goal is to maintain your books instead of to maintain the health of the people coming through your doors, well, yeah, patient care suffers. Yeah, you get burnout.

Yeah, you get weights and waiting rooms. Yeah, you get 30,000 people dying on lists. And it's like this everywhere. The interesting thing that I thought, you know, I didn't know this before I talked to Dr. Day, to access what should be public information about acceptable wait times for certain conditions. Bladder cancer was the one that he used. They don't give you the information. You have to like basically subpoena the information in a legal proceeding to find out how long the hospital thinks you should be allowed to go without treatment.

And when they got the information, him and his team, the hospital was letting almost everybody wait the maximum allowed time before treating them. What do you call that? When you pay into health care, that's not the health care you think you're going to get, but that is what is going to be applied to you. And again, if I can come back to people have to understand that wait lists were designed to manage financial issues of the health care system. It's on purpose. People don't seem to be as aware as they might be that it's actually on purpose. Otherwise, you know, they restricted the number of doctors to be trained in medical school, restricted the number of nurses to be trained because if there's more doctors,

there'll be more prescriptions, there'll be more diagnoses. So, yeah, I mean, it's a very discouraging situation. And the other last thing, as I mentioned here, is that keep in mind, Canada outlaws private care, for example, Cuba does not outlaw private care. Only us in North Korea. You know, that's it. I mean, we don't, our rankings are so low if you look at like the Commonwealth Health Index. You know, we have, you know, significantly more bureaucrats, health administrators than Germany, who has better outcomes.

You know, that's a typical thing. You don't just get to go, there's an either or, it's a binary, us or the United States. Love it. The United States is far better than us when it comes to innovation because they're paid to. and there's many problems they've got in the U.S. medical system. There are more than two choices for goodness sakes, and every one of them in the Western world ranks above us in time of the access to treatment. It's really unfortunate.

It's unfortunate. I love that bit about how the discussion is steered toward this false dichotomy between us and the Yanks. And in this era, that's unpalatable for at least half the population, right? Even though the thing I say all the time on this show, I'll say it to you now, There's already two tiers of healthcare in Canada. And if you don't think there is, it's because you're on the lower tier. And that's just the fact of the matter. Let's talk about, you know, I didn't ask you about the budget.

They're releasing in the fall now. I have this conspiracy theory that I came up with, you know, the other day when they announced this change. They used to announce in the spring, obviously, and then again, in the fall, they do the economic statement. Now they're planning on doing only fall budget releases. I think, Mike, if you'll indulge me here, I don't have any tinfoil, but if I did, I would put it on. I think this budget is going to be so ugly that there's going to be a call for an election. And as you know, there's only two things to stop Canadians from going to the polls. One is the NEP, the other is the winter.

And both of them are going to be working in favor of the liberal government if they release a budget in November. There's no way they're going to call a national election in December or January or February. So they're going to use that buffer time to let things settle. Now, the question is, what are they going to let settle? Do you have any predictions about how ugly this budget is going to be? We talked about the investing versus the capital versus the operating. I think it's going to be nasty. I think it's going to be close to $100 billion.

It sounds like National Bank today releasing a report they view it is probably a three-figure billion's deficit as well, largest in history. Where do you come down? What are you thinking? Well, again, I'm worried about Ontario housing, for example, impacting. You've got the lowest housing starts. You know, every neighbor I look at coming out of the construction. industry, which is, you know, tens of thousands of people working in it.

Yeah, that contraction is much greater than I think has being reflected, by the way, in a lot of commentary, you know, but that is one example. That's one isolated piece. Yeah, we got the number out of CD Howe at $92 billion deficit. That's what they came up with. Again, here the real problem is none of us know, and I'm being serious. What are they going to include? Are they going to include that promise of 5% of GDP on military spending?

that. I don't have full confidence that they're going to include all the expenditures. That's one of the reasons that they're going to separate from what they decide is an investment and what they decide is operating. As I say, that's a simple way of getting the numbers down. I don't think people feel comfortable with this. So I don't, you know, I saw the same reports when I saw $100 billion. That was, again, I'm going by what the C.D. Howe did. And what someone like Trevor Toome out of the University of Calgary came up and said, man, you throw it all in, you know, over the next, by 2030, you're talking 360 billion in deficits. Yeah.

It feels like it. It is out of control. There's no, it doesn't feel out of control. It is out of control. And, you know, it's on par with these other governments around the world that are also going through the same sort of exercise, right? Spend, spend, spend. Because if we don't, we're cooked.

You know, listening to the prime minister today or yesterday, I think it was yesterday in the or in the whatever press room talking about, we're going to invest between now and 2030 a trillion dollars in the United States. Where is he getting a trillion dollars from? Well, because what I see is zero foreign capital investment. What I see is tons of high taxpayers migrating out of Canada. What I see is tons of low earners coming into Canada.

What I see is our demographics continuing to get worse and worse, even with this out of control bonanza on the immigration. side, where's the money going to come from? Does he not think anyone, like, I continue to believe that politicians are, are so far, have so far been unable to grasp they're operating in a new information environment. This isn't 1995. I don't have to wait for Peter McKay or Peter Mansbridge or whoever to tell me what the numbers are. I don't have to wait for Vashti Capellos or Andrew Coyne or whatever that guy's name is, that pillow screamer. Like, I don't need to wait for these guys anymore. I can just go look myself at the data. I can go look myself at what the

trade agreements look like. I can go look for myself at what the debt and deficits are, what the GDP per capita is, for example. I can see that it's faltering, failing, floundering. You know, you pick your adjective there. But I mean, what do these guys think is going to happen spending all that money when you noted, you know, very astutely? They don't have a good track record as investment managers. So where's the money going to go? Where's it going to come from? Well, a couple of things on that is one is I think they appreciate, I think that the election proved that a good number of Canadians don't care about finances. There's no way you would be voting the Liberal Party after a 10-year track record that's

now manifesting in so many statistics, including in people's pocketbooks, including in things like 2 million people using a food bank. So all I'm saying is people had other priorities, the economy wasn't one of them. As I said earlier, with the deficit, I don't think most people, good chunk, though, a good chunk. And tens of millions don't make any distinction whether they came in with a $70 or a $90 billion deficit. Like $20 billion isn't anything. So I think that's what they're counting on. And, you know, the number of times, you know, I've heard, well, Mark Carney was a central banker and I'm going, your point is what? Not to criticize him, but what is your point there?

You know, he managed a central bank. They don't make monetary policy, you know, or fiscal policy. Basically, yeah. You know, that means, you know, they don't set taxes. They don't set program spending, et cetera. And we'll see. But I find it incredible. We haven't had a budget in this long. Like incredible.

April, 2024, are you kidding? And that's the Hellsian days when they thought they could revive the economy by raising taxes on capital gains, which insults the word brain dead. You know, I mean, no, but these are fundamental economic issues. And for some people, that's a big problem. It's a problem for me. I look at my children, my grandchildren's standard of living. But we've seen it reflected in the numbers. Like that list is just a long one now, 9 million people living in food insecurity.

That matters to me, but we'll see if it matters anywhere else. But yeah, the numbers, we're all at sea over the budget deficit number because we don't know what they're going to include in it. We don't know if they're going to absorb all the spending promises in the election or, as I say, the military. spending promise. So we'll just see. So different institutions are coming out. But man, they're just taking stabs in the dark about how big it's going to be. Where do you come down on something like, oh, sorry, go ahead.

I'd just say the key number, though, is the interest payment. Two things. The one thing for sure, we have less flexibility financially than we did before this sort of pay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No different than individuals. And we're in a difficult, you know, uncertain world.

Secondly is interest payments take out money that could. go elsewhere that it you know we worry about our hospital systems that we just alluded to well can't be you know we're going to spend more in interest than we are transferring from the federal government taxes into the provinces that should be a concern it is and like we should talk a bit about the sort of relationship between the provinces and the fed the provinces and each other um david eby who seems to have just absolutely zero like whatever the lowest integer is IQ on the economy and understanding how trade works and understanding the importance of natural resources against Daniel Smith. And here in Ontario, you have, you know, Ford who seems to just

be for a guy that size, you know, awfully good at blowing with the winds of the day. And I just, I don't know what to make of the sort of unity picture that was, it was prominent during the election cycle, right? It was prominent even when Trudeau was the prime minister, prominent since Carney took over, and then after Carney won, it was this united front. We're sending people to Mar-a-Lago. We're going to negotiate together, Melanie and Jolie. We're better, stronger as a nation as opposed to a body of individual states or provinces.

And I don't actually think that's true anymore. And it brings me no great joy to say that. I don't want to see Alberta separate necessarily. I don't want to see, you know, Quebec separate. I think Quebecers, Quebecers are some of my favorite people. And I speak French myself. and I really think it's an important part of the country. But I don't see how there's a way back from this.

What I see is Quebec, given its own sort of special rights for immigration, for example, obviously the dairy quota huge. In Alberta, they're trying to get what I would argue is rights that would benefit the entire nation for resource export. They can't get it. David E. Again, today, talking about how it's anti-Canadian. I don't fucking know how that makes any sense.

Excuse the French. But how do we come back? from this. Is there a way out of the separatist thinking, you know, in your view? Well, in Alberta, I think there is put a pipeline in. Yeah. Federal government, you know, and by the way, I'm not new to that. I made that comment very early on.

You want to stamp out the independence, you know, the momentum for that out of Alberta, put a pipeline in. Yeah. There's, you know, from people, if they're listening from Ontario or other parts, you know, Quebec should at least not agree with necessary, but understand the attitude. is all of this money has been blown for no good. I mean, Canada contributes 1.32% of global emissions. Oil sands contribute 0.14 of that 1.3.

It's irrelevant. It's absolutely irrelevant. And so to give up tens of billions of dollars, whether it's jobs, whether it's government revenue and federal revenue, for nothing. I mean, I'm not debating climate change. I'm putting the numbers to it. you know and so i think that would be the fastest way to take a lot of momentum away from that

independence movement and the fastest way to goose it if there's no pipeline i believe that's why prime minister carney who's been trying to play every possible side of any fence you know on that issue but that's why he brought up keystone this week when he was in the uh meeting in the white house with president trump because the americans will allow it you know under trump and i think that's i think it's also a partial acknowledgement wouldn't solve the problem by the way that does not diversify our markets that people wanted during the height of the tariff worries so it won't diversify our market as for british columbia i mean the absurdity of saying we can have a tankers coming from atlaska down but we can't have Canadian tankers that absurdity is not something

that seems to bother some people and again 43 or 46 percent of the public voted in bc in the the election in October 24 for that party, despite a track record in health care that is absolutely abysmal, and despite these kind of things. And keep in mind, you're talking about a province whose deficit is working as hard as they can to be the worst in Canada. And it is, according to economists like Trevor Toome, saying it's the most dire financial straits. You know, they turned a surplus in two years into 11 billion dollar deficit, into an exodus of companies. So, Again, the old expression, we get the government we deserve. I didn't deserve that.

And our young people don't. But, man, we are going to get it good and hard. You know, as H.L. Bank famously said. Not to veer off the path too far here, but like, you know, you've had Sam Cooper on your show. I've listened to some of the stuff he said about, I mean, to put it kindly would be the Chinese involvement in some of these decisions behind closed doors, financial support for certain politicians and incentives for certain politicians to do these things. it seems to be weakening the country. I don't know how much I thought Cooper was correct two years ago, but the more I look at the decisions that are being made and the things that are being said,

the more difficult it is for me to think that these are being made independent of hidden incentives. Because I just look at the pipeline thing is really eye-opening to me. The pipeline, you know, Alberta, if I just back up a little bit, Alberta pays for basically all of the entitlements of the East Coast of Canada, Quebec and further east. Alberta also pays for its own entitlements. And I think a lot of people who say to Alberta, you can't separate because you won't be able to afford your entitlements without us. I would say I'm already affording them, man, I'm paying for yours. So that's like that the money needs to come in.

It needs to. You cannot starve Alberta of resource money or you will cook the rest of the country. Then I look at BC to your point, right? These guys don't know how to spend money. They don't have to manage money. And E.B, you know, for a guy who's right next to this province, they probably share a ton of potential trade opportunities, resource or otherwise. He seems unwilling to cooperate and also attacks the prime minister during some of these segments. I don't know what to say about this anymore because it's not economic.

It seems to need to be either personal or something else is going on. It's ideological, you know, they have opposed fossil fuels, period, you know, especially oil. That seems that natural gas seems to have got a more positive acceptance. But keep in mind, it was BC who said that we're going to use every tool in the shed to stop the Kinder Morgan, Trans Mountain Pipeline. Yeah, yeah. I'd go further with what's going on in British Columbia, though, is with the broader context. I'm old enough to remember, because I'm older than three months, when we were going to have rid of all interprovincial pipelines.

It's only been a year, Mike. Don't hold them to the fire so much. Well, we're not close, though. We're not close, though. We're not even, we're not close whatsoever to getting rid of those interprovincial trade barriers. I'm not blaming any individual at this moment. We could do a segment on that. But I'm saying we should recognize what you were saying.

The country is divided. It's not just manifesting in whether we should have a pipe. pipeline or not. It's manifesting in so many other ways economically that cost far more than the Trump tariffs, far more than the Trump tariffs. So again, all of that stuff we should recognize that, yeah, I think there's a real challenge to Canada as a country. Even our sentiments, we know that the polls think that we have a greater percentage, a pretty strong percentage, thinking, quote, Canada's broken. Now everyone can define what they meant by broken, like watching people celebrate the October 7th

on university campuses. That would be a pretty good close to definition why I think things are broken, but others will have other reasons. We need a really different approach in this country to unify. And I'll finish with one last thing because politicians don't like accountability.

It was Joel Lightbound, who at the time was head of the Quebec caucus for the liberals. He made it very clear that a decision had been made during COVID to divide the country over vaccine mandates. That was a conscious decision. Just months before they did that in Ottawa, Prime Minister Trudeau said we'd never do that.

But then the polling results showed that there was something to be gained. So politics by nature looks to divide us. And people who are partisan will choose the other guy all the time. But I see very little effort to unite us at this point from government. From individuals, yes. I have far more faith in the Canadian public. In so many ways, I don't equate Canada with just the government. It's the Canadian public that you see volunteering at your local hockey rink

or doing a charity drive at your kids' school and many other ways. So I have faith in the Canadian public. How we're operating in politics, to me, just divides us. There is tons of divisiveness. There was a school here in Ontario, I think it was in the Toronto, DSB, maybe in Mississauga. that on October 7th, which was yesterday, did the Canadian National Anthem in Arabic. Did you see that?

Yeah. Like, that's intentionally divisive, I think. And whether you agree with that or not, like, I have my own opinion on all these things, but that's not the time to do it. It's intentionally pouring gasoline on an already raging fire for kids, for kids. You don't need to do that.

No, I couldn't agree more. As I say, it's not a positive outlook. And I'll just, I'll finish with what I recommend people do. You have to take care of your own personal finances. One of my big themes that has proven to be profitable and correct is if you think the government is going to bail you out of your problems, you are dead wrong. And that's why I look at the erosion of the purchasing power of the currency. And as you know, two years ago, you were before that we were, a very strong recommendation

of Bitcoin. we've been the number one recommendation of money talks has been gold as we watch it go to what you know numbers 100 almost today right per ounce yeah yeah so I'm talking about because of the problems we're alluding to are real then look to protect yourself financially you know don't buy government bonds you can do real short term but don't buy government bonds well that's what we do on money talks is really that's our goals to protect people it's it's funny I want to ask one more thing about the sort of cultural shift in the West, and I want to talk about Golden Bitcoin to finish. Are you keeping track of this digital ID thing in the UK?

Oh, of course. Yeah. What do you make of this attempt? A broadly unpopular prime minister making a push for a broadly unpopular policy at a time where everybody is more tuned in to these types of things than ever before. Why do it now? Well, also keep in mind that European Union is very much in favor of the same thing. Only the U.S. has said absolutely. not to that. And of course, it's part of that world economic forum agenda. You know, I'm not, you know, I'm sure it informed some of their thinking on that. They are saying as every restriction on personal freedom is always rationalized the same way for public safety. That's why they think, I mean, the liberals have interviewed five different bills to censor the internet.

Yeah. All for my own good. I don't need the help, by the way, from that, you know, all for my own good. But for public safety, that's what these are being. They're taking the immigrant problems that they have, the blatant problems, of course, the financial hardship that came about granting way too many rights or benefits to newcomers. Obviously, there's been a lot of scam on that. So they're saying the digital currency is the way to protect ourselves throughout Europe and including the UK. The trouble is it's open for abuse. You know, It's open for, you know, it's called the social credit system in China where you don't behave right. You don't get, you know, this is going to do away with paper currencies, at least in the will.

I think it's coming. They've said it's even sooner, probably coming by the new year. They're going to implement it. That in conjunction with all the censorship bills that we've seen, which is much more onerous in the UK, for example. Like most of us would consider, are you kidding? People are going on doors over tweets in the UK, Mike. Middle of the night, they come pick up. Well, on average of 33 people a day are arrested.

Is that the number? 33 a day for tweets. So I put the digital currency, has to have that part of its context in looking at it. And again, I've said all along, the number one issue, the overriding context is trust in government or lack of trust in government.

That then filters through. Why do you think Bitcoin is so popular with a huge group of people? They don't trust government. We're seeing it manifest in so many. We just talked about health care. Do you trust the government to take care of your health care? Do you trust the education system to give a nonpartisan, objective, skill-based education?

Most people would say no. But you're talking about, you know, this confidence, and the more people lose confidence reflected in the polls, very clearly, politicians down in Canada, about 70% in trustworthiness. What are they going to do? Become more restrictive. That's a big challenge going forward the next few years. years. More freedom will be curtailed. Digital currencies give them the opportunity to enact that. Let's talk about the gold and Bitcoin move. Bitcoin did an all time highly two days ago. Gold obviously is going up like a point a day, which is insane. People in Bitcoin look at the gold

move and think it's really not that big. But the market, you know, it's 27 trillion or something like that, total market cap. A dollar or two in gold is a lot. A percentage point in gold is unfathomable in terms of capital invested. One of the things I plan on saying at the Bitcoin conference and maybe also at the financial outlet conference in the winter, for people who think that the U.S. Treasury or the U.S. dollar or whatever your sort of asset of choices as a reserve, you know, reserve asset for a central bank, for example, these two specifically were thought to be untouchable a year ago.

And now, for the first time since 96, gold, holdings exceed U.S. Treasury holdings, central banks around the world. Bitcoin is pushing up on the old gold market cap here, you know, from a few years back. And you're watching a shift to your point away from trusting anything related to the fiat of government, whether it's laws, health care, education, or money. And, you know, I want to know what you think about this. What is the, you know, you've been talking about this on your show for a long time, like, ever since I was a listener, now I'm appearing on it. And it's just like a constant remind that no matter whether you're my age, your age, somewhere in between, if you are an

investor, you're thinking about this already. If you are someone who is online and looking at restrictions and restrictive policies, you're thinking about this already. If you're someone with a child, you're thinking about this already. This is a huge shift. Where do you think this is going to end up? How do we look on the fiat currency, fiat government side five years, 10 years from now? Well, I think, first of all, there's a huge overlap and motivation of people who,

who are individuals who are buying gold. Not quite the same with central banks, by the way. That's a U.S. dollar related. That's a geopolitical related. You know, if I'm China, do I really want to finance the U.S. war machine by buying 20s? Of course not. You know, so there's that. When it comes to the individual, I think the motivations are very similar.

Like I'm watching the erosion of my buying power. You know, I don't trust government to manage our finances. So I'm going to protect myself by being in Bitcoin and being in gold. So I think that motivation overlaps. And I've never said by one or the other, you know. I've never trusted government, by the way, my trust extended to Bitcoin until Trump got in. And I thought, okay, they're not going to do anything. But up to that point, and I agree with you when you say the ETFs changed the game, too,

because that became more mainstream in their attitudes and, you know, who you were impacting if you did something. You're some major Wall Street players. You probably didn't want to do that. But that was my early day challenge for, Bitcoin was that governments aren't going to let it be successful. So I still don't trust them, don't, by the way. But I think a lot of that's been taken away at this point.

And it's the same with gold. The other thing to make a distinction, which is, is it a store of value or is it a medium of exchange? Well, gold is not a medium of exchange. I mean, even though it would be fantastic, you know what I mean? The average Canadian house price would be half. If you just saved in gold instead of the half as much, you know, or the food price I mentioned would be down if you, in fact, had gold to buy your food.

But it's not going to be a medium of exchange. Bitcoin, early days, if that's the case. You know, there's examples, but early days. They're store of wealth right now. And they're, I said, outside the system, I'm more comfortable. My money will be there when I want it or my equivalent of money. So, yeah, I think that and there's, you know, you're too young to remember those old serials that you'd go and see in the movie theater and they'd be repeating and they'd go

to be continued on the bottom you know like the cliffhanger that's where the word cliffhanger comes from to be continued so it would be to be continued on that score on the medium of exchange score i think you're right about that i think you know i might take some some ship from my peers here but i think it's it is really days in the medium exchange thing to hold your tomatoes bitcoiners i'm not saying it's not going to happen but we have work to do oh but it takes time i mean you're replacing an entire system you don't do exactly Because you feel like it. Exactly.

Mike, you've been very generous with your time. As always, I appreciate you coming on. I know you're busy. No, please. It really is fantastic. I want to pass a message to you from a friend of the show. I won't name him, but I will use this as a segue into my final sort of opportunity for you to comment.

He's been a listener years for a long time. And he was telling me today that your show and you specifically have helped him through a lot of decisions, a lot of tough times in his life. And whether it's a familiar voice or the good advice, you know, it's been big for him. And I think a lot of people who listen to your show probably feel the same way. And it's because it's consistent. It's because the advice is good.

And it's because, you know, like I said to you before, it feels to me like being honest is becoming more and more difficult these days. And your honesty, if anything, has ramped up over the last two years, much to the sort of enjoyment of, I think, your faithful listeners. So on behalf of my friend, I want to thank you. And since you are also a podcast host, what are you telling people to do these days on Money Talks? I mean, my listeners probably listen for the most part. But what's Money Talks messaging been and probably going to be over the next little while? Well, the first thing is I have no trouble. My commitment is to the audience.

I couldn't care less who, what politician you like or don't like. That's irrelevant in the end. and people have real trouble with that. You know, we have mentioned that earlier with the credit markets. They don't ask who you voted for before they decide to lend you money. You know, you went in for your mortgage. You said you went in for a renewal. They didn't say, well, tell us a little bit about your political need.

It's absurdity. That's not how money and finance works. I'm also extremely clear that I believe in free speech. So people welcome people disagreeing. You know, they'll sometimes expose more about themselves than about what I've said in particular. I realize it's not popular. to challenge the narrative of the day.

But if the facts lead you there, you should be. And I really believe in presenting facts, and you decide, if you go to Money Talks tweets, you're going to see nothing but facts that you won't see in the mainstream. So you make a decision. You know, I believe that there's legitimate to be disagreed, and you can vote one guy or another guy or one party or another party. But I want you to have the facts, you know, and make an informed decision.

As for what we're telling people, again, I alluded to it earlier, You're on your own. If you think the last few years have been wild, I mean, think at the Trump tariffs. Think about the outbreak of war in Ukraine. Think about the Middle East. Ain't seen nothing yet. Ain't seen nothing yet.

That's a good place to leave it. You guys should be listening to Money Talks, Money Talks tweets for Mike. And of course, is it this weekend? We're recording tomorrow. Is it releasing on this weekend? Yes. Okay.

Looking forward to that. Can't wait for it, man. Can't wait for it. Until then, everyone. take care of yourselves don't do anything i wouldn't do adios thank you great show my