The Canadian Investor - Extra interview ( Final )

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

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Welcome back into the show. This is the Canadian investor podcast made possible by our friends and show sponsor EQ Bank, which helps Canadians make bank with some of the best rates on the market. I personally, and I know Simone as well, is using the GICs on a regular basis to set money aside for personal income taxes in April or February. Their GICs are perfect because the interest rate is guaranteed, and I know I won't be able to touch that money until I need it for tax time. Whether you're looking to set some money aside

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Investing is simple, but don't confuse that with thinking it's easy. A stock is not just a ticker. At the end of the day, you have to remember that it's a business. Just my reminder to people who own safety goals, don't be surprised when there's a cycle. If there's uncertainty in the markets,

there's going to be some great opportunities for investors. This has to be one of the biggest quarters I've seen from this company in quite some time. Welcome back to the Canadian Investor Podcast. I'm here today with a special guest, Amber Canwar. You may have known Amber from our days back with BNN. Now she started a new podcast which has been about what, like four or five months that you've started the podcast into money? Yeah, I started it in January.

Okay, so there you go. So about four or five months. So she's on the show. A lot of you will know her from television and she took the leap like I did recently. So she went on her own and started that podcast. Do encourage people to listen to it. It's very good. And typically, I know you'll do more interviews with money managers, investment professionals and stuff like that, right? Yeah, that's right. It's all aimed just to get investible ideas and how I sell it and how I think about it

is you get institutional quality advice for everyday people. These are people, the people that I interview, they're managing billions of dollars sometimes and they're just giving away their picks. So if you're an active do-it-yourself investor, it's a great way to find out what stocks people like and why they like it. But it's also, if you're looking for a money manager, it's a great almost an interview to see, do you like their approach? Do you like their analysis? And I think that's why a lot of guests like to come on as well because they get to really highlight this is how I think about the world.

This is how I deploy it in the portfolio. No, that's great. I mean, I like to listen to all different kinds of people. I actually sometimes actively seek out people that I know will have different opinions than me just because I think it's really important to understand both sides of the coin. And like I've told people, sometimes they won't agree with something I say and I'm like, oh, that's fine. I mean, if you only agree with 5%, I think that's good.

Like just to get expand your horizon, I think that's great. But before we get into, you know, more investing type of questions, you want to go a bit more over your background. Obviously, I mentioned DNN, you were there for, I don't, I can't remember how long, but must have been at least 10 years or something like that, right? Yeah, it was almost 15 years because I started there as an intern. I was on there for about 12 years with a few mat leaves peppered in there. Yeah, that's okay.

Yeah, sprinkled in there. Yeah, sprinkled in there. Yeah, so total almost 15 years at BNN. So my background is as a journalist. It's not as a financial professional and I don't want anybody to think that I am. But I also think like that's why I think anybody can do finance. If I could do finance, anyone can do finance. There's just so many, there's never been more resources to kind of figure it out yourself.

Even if you do have like a professional helping you, right? It's important that everybody has a degree of literacy when it comes to investing. So I started fresh out of university. I did my master's in journalism at what was called Meyerson. I think now it's called Toronto Metropolitan University. And like, I had a master's degree and I'm in BNN and I am the lowest of the low. I am getting coffee for guests. I didn't know how to make coffee, so I have to learn how to make coffee. I'm miking up gas. But what I'm also doing is just watching.

I see how the whole newsroom works. I see how each role fits with everybody else. So I get a really intimate view of like, okay, how does this organization work, which is important, you know, as I progressed in my career. But I also just get to sit and listen to be in an all day. And that I know a lot of people do that as well. That's an MBA right there, right? If you do it every day, you start to pick up, what are these terms?

What's important? What matters? And then you go home, you do your research and say, okay, what was this? What's EBITDA? What's EPS? What's guidance? Like all that stuff.

So that's what I was doing, you know, figuring it out. I got to then become a producer, which again, you're booking the guest. So part of when you're booking a guest is you do a pre-interview, which means I sit on the phone with these like professional money managers or the guests or CEOs and get to talk to them sort of at length about their interests. The goal of that is to sharpen the focus for the anchor so that they get a nice tight seven minutes out of it. But then in the background, you get like sort of a nice exploration.

So after that, then I went on air as a reporter and that was terrifying. And then I became an anchor, which was incredibly terrifying. When I became an anchor, I was 25. Okay, wow. I was so young. And it was a co-hosted show, but still, that's kind of the magic of BNN is you can be young and untested and they still give you a shot if they see something in you. At least that's how the organization worked when I was there.

How nervous were you the first time that you went on air even before you became the anchor? I think you could see it in my eyes. I was just so terrified and I was gripping the desk and everything was tense and my voice was up in my eyeballs. I was just very nervous. I used to write a sticky note on my computer, just saying, calm down. Yeah, that's good.

It's okay. But that's everyone in your 20s, right? You're just afraid, you're so terrified. And that fear is actually, if you use it well, it can be very motivating. So I was terrified that people would know that I don't know what I'm talking about. So what do I do?

I submerge myself in the content and learning, that people would know that I don't know what I'm talking about. So what do I do? Like I, you know, submerge myself in the content and learning and becoming obsessed with like, okay, I need to know what I'm talking about. And then it shifts from me trying to prove to everybody I'm smart enough and I deserve to be there to I think I know enough now. And if I don't know, I'm pretty comfortable with that. I'm comfortable and I can now be curious about it. I don't feel like asking questions makes me look stupid. I think people can be afraid to ask questions.

They're like, ooh, is that an obvious question? I'm at the point, I got to the point where it's like, if I don't know it, there's a good chance other people don't know it as well. Cause like I'm as in it as you can be. And if I don't know what. There's a good chance other people don't know it as well because like I'm as in it as it as you can be. And if I don't know what's going on, then like that probably warrants further investigation. No, I think that's great. I mean, I think it's important to

ask some questions. Obviously, once you get more comfortable, you know the basics. I've definitely been there myself, I used to give presentations in front of hundreds of people for newer employees I've done and I remember the first time I was very nervous and it's completely normal but if you embrace it and you really want to improve over time I think that's fine and most people like I know it's different on TV but I know in real life if you tell people oh look it's my first time giving this presentation so bear with me. Most people are pretty understanding

as long as you're straightforward. And my experience, if you don't know something, just don't try to make it up. Just tell them, you can tell them, you'll do the research, you'll get back to them. Things like that where people appreciate honesty. Honestly, this day and age, like it can be really daunting to put yourself out there

because anybody can just comment online and say whatever they want. But I have to give a big shout out to the BNN audience and now my audience at In The Money because they were really like nothing but kind. Like obviously I got some meat from harsh. First of all, a lot of them are older and when I would meet them, like they almost talked to me like I was their daughter or their granddaughter. They were so proud of me and I really felt that and it motivated me to protect them and take care of them. So I'm interviewing people and I would always remind myself, don't be intimidated by this

person because this isn't who you're working for. You're working for the people you can't see but who are behind the camera who are watching this content and consuming the content because they really like I wouldn't have had the career that I had if they didn't like me right. So there there was some sort of support there and I felt it whenever I met people who watched BNN and who are supporters now of my In the Money podcast, but they're really sweet. And so I know this age of trolls, like there's a lot of nastiness out there, but I don't know, maybe there's something about finance. People are a little bit nicer.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, like you can't make everyone happy. That's something I've learned throughout the years as well as you have to be authentic. You can't make everyone happy. It is what it is. It's just going to be like that. But what I really liked what you said is you didn't know much about finance when you started

and you wanted to learn these terms. So you would make note, you'd do the research. And I think that's really important. That's what I did a lot myself and I still do, right? I listened to some investment professionals or experts and although I may understand 95% of the terms and there's always going to be a few where I'm like, oh, okay, that's kind of new. And I don't know if it's a quality that certain

people have, then others don't. I'm not quite sure. But my personality is like that is it bugs me if I don't know. So I have to go understand what like a term that I didn't know. I have to go and research it and know what it is. And I think for people that are listening, that may be starting, I think that's a great habit to have is we try to define terms as best as we can. We try to not take for granted that everyone knows them, but we sometimes don't always define them. And that's a really good quality is if you don't understand something, a term, take a minute. I I mean with all the resources out there with

Chad GPT I asked Chad GPT to explain things to me as if I'm in grade five all the time and I feel like that was so much of my job before it was like I had to go and understand really complex things but then it wasn't it wasn't enough to just understand it. And I think this should apply to everybody, not just people who present for a living, but once you go and understand it, try explaining it in really clear, simple terms,

like not dumbed down terms, but this industry, as you know, Simon, like loves to talk in jargon and they don't say what, like it actually is. So like I try never to say things like, you know, Simon, loves to talk in jargon and they don't say what it actually is. I try never to say things like, oh, they cut the guide. What does that mean? My grandmother doesn't know what that means. This company warns their profits can be much lower than they expected. That means something that I had to do for my business. But I think for anybody, when you're learning something,

that's a great exercise. Learn the material, absorb it, but once you understand it, try and tell it back, like try and explain it to somebody who knows nothing, and that almost creates a deeper understanding for you. No, that's a great way to put it. As an investor, I'm always looking to reduce my fees, which is why I'm excited that Questrade now offers

zero dollar commissions on stocks and ETFs. But Questrade isn't just about commission free trading. You can also get USD accounts, so I avoid forced currency conversion fees when trading US stocks. Plus, get access to their advanced edge trading platform available on desktop, web, and mobile. I've been using Questrade for many years and so has Simon. And their platform makes trading seamless whether you're managing a long-term portfolio or making active trades. Don't miss out. Start trading commission-free stocks and ETFs today. Visit questrade.com to learn more. Between meetings in Toronto and conferences in Vancouver,

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Well, we'll transition here. Over the years, obviously, you've interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands of investment professional. I'm pretty sure you probably aren't keeping track, but I feel like it's somewhere in there. What are some of the learnings, some do's and don'ts that help you with your own portfolio and that you think would be very valuable for retail investors? It's so cliche and I always used to roll my eyes when people would say this on the channel because it's like so obvious, but you really should know your goals, right?

My goal, I'm young, so my goal is as a very long-term time horizon, right? And so my philosophy is pretty simple. I just, I try really hard never to sell. I look for opportunities to buy and I try really hard not to sell. If I'm up on a stock that I have low conviction in, I take my gains because I'm lucky. I caught a 75% ride on Air Canada and I was like, I think that's as good as it's going to get with Air Canada.

Especially for airlines, yeah. Exactly, yeah. So that's not a sector I ever have long-term conviction, but sometimes things get so cheap. This is kind of my Achilles heels. I can get lured in by cheap stuff. I'm in a Pfizer and a Nike because I'm just so pathetic. And I look how low it is, and then I eat another 20% lower.

But again, with like a long time horizon, I believe that a Nike or a Pfizer, like, I don't know about Pfizer, I really don't know about that. But like a Nike, they'll find their way eventually. And I've got that long term time horizon because I have seen what happens in my portfolio when I don't do anything. And during COVID, I was on mat leave with my second child. And so I had a newborn and a two-year-old, and my life was very chaotic.

And I got my address, I guess, wasn't updated. And so my bank locked me out of my trading account, my TFSA. So I couldn't trade my TFSA. So March 2020 happens, everything plunges. I probably would have felt like selling right. And just thank God I didn't I look like a genius just by holding the names that I would have had conviction in anyway, like an Amazon, for example. And like, just thank God I did. And that was really a big learning

moment. Because up to then, I had been kind of in and out of stocks and been like, oh, okay, well, I made 10 15% like that's pretty good. Now I'm up double triple these stocks, because I just held with the fullness of time. So that was like a really good moment for me to understand like I know my goal, I'm in it for the long term. So just for me stay in it for the long term so just for me stay in it for the long term doesn't work obviously if you're if you have to retire you have to think more more about the the timing of the market but I don't and I'm you know I'm generally an optimist and I think in the fullness of time like the things I own the markets will move higher. No that's great it aligns a little bit with Braden my my co-host, which he says people should even delete the app on their phone. So it's that extra barrier of having to go through your computer and not feeling the urge of making a trade when you're out on a walk or in the shopping

mall because you see a headline just on the TV or at the restaurant. Just having that extra barrier is a good thing for a lot of investors, especially, I think, I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but just temperament plays a big, big role, right? I was listening to Warren Buffett, his latest annual meeting, which of course he came out with the big news, and I listened to the whole thing on not regular speed,

kinda 2X, 1.5X, cause it's a bit long. It's long. Yeah, but one of the things he keeps repeating is just having the right temperament and how that's important. And is that something you saw a lot with your guests too talking about, like not even the fundamentals, not anything like that, but more the behavioral aspect of investing? Yeah, like the calm kind of investor. Warren Buffett is like, you know, inject it right into my veins.

It's just so calm, but so deep knowledge that those are the people that I really love to interview because there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people that maybe have high energy, there might be better interviews in terms of sound bites, but I sort of learned the people I pay attention to are like, they're often very calm, they're very clear eyed, but there are, you can tell when there's like deep fundamentals and deep research sort of backing it. And that's like where I get, get kind of hooked on people is like, oh, they're doing like these real deep dives, they're thinking about it in interesting ways. And not everybody does, You know, some,

some people will say, like, like, Google's a perfect example right now. I think people put these like sentences around like, Oh, well, Google's been dominant, so it will continue to be dominant. And, you know, I'm still Googling. And I just don't feel like that is capturing maybe what's happening with the younger generation and how I feel like I'm young and old enough that I like I googled things, but now I'm chatty peteing things and I own Google and like I'm very nervous about what this means for Google because I find I'm chatty peteing so much more and the things I can do it's like, oh my god, it's like life changing. And I think that I feel like people are too dismissive of that.

So you can tell when people are like, not really doing their homework about what's happening, you know, with a stock or a certain sector. It's funny you mentioned Google. It's almost you see the both extremes, right? With investors, you have investors that are? Super bearish on it because of what you mentioned they say oh, they're gonna be gone in five years because of that And then you have the other types of investor like you just said that are dismissing anything because it's so cheap Yeah, where can you buy a stock like Google that is so cheap and normally like well I already own it so but normally something like this would lure me in

because I'd be like, oh, look how cheap it is. That's Google. It's Alphabet. And that's true, but something that perennially kind of stays in that box, I think that tells you, like, smart money knows something about it. I mean, it just got taken down on comments from an Apple executive that, you know,

search within Safari is down. And that tells, that's like a tell Investors this is what investors are nervous about they don't care that YouTube is worth a ton and they're getting no value for it in the stock They don't care that Waymo is already on the road and you know They just don't care. This is what people care about because it is an existential crisis for the stock and I You know, I think you've got to wait to see, are they gonna play the game? I don't think Gemini is it, right?

I'm not Gemini-ing things the way that I, like what chat GPT is doing to me is like the moment that you held an iPhone is like when you get into a Tesla and you kind of understand, oh my gosh, this is good, this is new. This is going to change things. No, that's a really good point. Yeah. I mean, especially nowadays, right? Like you, you

were at BNN and you know, with mainstream media, it's not just them, right? It's mainstream media in general. It's always what's sensational. And I think it does, when you're an investor, it really tests your emotion, whether one way or the other. You mentioned the Apple executive comments, for example. It's a good point because I have some dissonance about it because on one hand, somebody calling for a 20% drop in the market is eye popping, right? And very rarely are those people right. But then when they're right, we alienize them.

And I really felt like so when I came into the business, it was like post the great financial crisis. So our heroes were like Michael Burry, John Paulson, Kyle Bass, you know, and you're always like, what are they saying now? What are they saying now? We were all waiting. What's the next crisis? What's the next crisis? And there was not. And if you held just through that period, if you had that ability, you know, if you were retiring in it, it was a nightmare. But if you had that ability, like you were just

rewarded for it in the fullness of time. And one thing that's sort of a bugaboo of mine is like, we don't hold those heroes of the crash accountable to the fact that they don't do well in good times. They miss other things. They're just held up. I'd rather listen to the person who, fine, missed 20% downside, missed 30% downside, but stayed invested, bought along the way, and then is sitting on mountains of gains, you know, years later quietly, yeah, they missed it. They missed a 10% pullback, they missed a 20% pullback. But if your goal is I'm in it for the long term, it shouldn't matter. Yeah, the most impressive ones, I don't have any like, I've seen them, but the most impressive ones are the ones that are close to market returns are pretty much in line, but then when there are big drawdowns, they do significantly better.

Those are the managers that are very impressive. That's very impressive. There are few and far between. And then we have a few of those in Canada and I've interviewed a few of them, like Jordan Zinberg at Bedford Capital. He has this knack for picking small cap stocks that do extraordinarily well, that aren't resources. Yeah, I've watched that one with you. Yeah, I did watch that one. He's just got this knack and it's not luck because that market almost never does well, right? Small caps, X resources. There's no cycle for small caps, X resources in Canada.

So you really just have to pick good companies. I just spoke with Moaz Kazam of Anson Funds and their returns 15% compound annually since the financial crisis. That's very impressive. Warren Buffett's is 19%. So that tells you that's a very elite level, but it's hard to find those kind of consistent players. Yeah, exactly. So do you primarily invest in stocks or do you do some index investing? Do you invest in other classes, whether it's materials, precious metals, Bitcoin? Do you just strictly do stocks or even bonds? Yeah, I would say I allocate... The way I play, quote unquote, is like a part of my portfolio that I feel comfortable

playing with everything else is in like very steady stable like ETFs or mutual funds that just track the index and then there's like a smaller part of my portfolio. This is like my TFSA for example where I'm very active in that portfolio and try to you know pick good stocks in there. You know I think are we calling homes an asset class? That's a pretty big one for me right now. Well, we're in Canada, so for sure. So, you know, homes and we dabble in some digital assets as well. The more sophisticated stuff, and I know a lot of people are big up on alternatives and private equity and giving access to retail

investors. I still don't feel, and I love your two cents on this, Simon, I still don't feel like we've solved the liquidity issue, the transparency issue around private equity, but there's definitely a push to push these products onto retail. I don't know that we have all the tools and the research, like if you wanna buy a stock, you have the liquidity and there's research. There's people that you can call around it, but like private equity is just different.

And I don't know that we're there yet. I'm not a fan of private equity mainly because typically when you see Wall Street or Bay Street pushing things towards retail it's usually not great. Yeah, like they're looking for an exit. Oh yeah, they're looking for an exit or they're looking like they don't really care, right? Like they'll get their fees one way or another especially with private equity for sure there's a performance bonus that they can get but they still get that roughly 2% depending on the private equity fund. And then you get into the exit strategy that oftentimes like nowadays, like there's less

and less IPOs. So that venues is less possible for these private equity funds to exit. And then there's just kind of less demand overall. So a lot of them end up having to roll over the investments in new funds. So I think that's a bit dangerous. And I have a bit of a pet peeve with the term alternatives, just because why is private equity called an alternative when you're essentially just investing in businesses that don't trade mark to market like a stock would? So to me, it's not an alternative investment.

You get the same kind of exposure. The only thing they get to say is that if the stock market is down 20%, they don't have to market to market, so they say they're flat. I know, that's right. Yeah, they'll market down in three months, but for those three months, boy, your portfolio is doing great. Or by the comps we're doing, don't worry worry about the markets. Like we're still up 10% or something. So that's my issues with it.

And I find that it can be luring, but I'd be very careful. I mean, I come from being in the pension world too. So I've seen obviously the private equity can be pretty important for some of those large pension plans. So I do have a lot of reluctance. I mean, there is some good private equity there. I don't want to paint it like all the same brush. But overall, it's something I stay away from

personal. Yeah, because for a pension fund, it makes a ton of sense. They've got an army of people to do the research, they're looking for stability. It is a growth area, they don't have the liquidity need, you know, I just think that for a retail investor, we don't yet have all those tools. And so it's just something that I know people are talking a lot about, but I'm in your camp, Simon. I don't think we're there yet. As an investor, I'm always looking to reduce my fees, which is why I'm excited that Questrade now offers

$0 commissions on stocks and ETFs. But Questrade isn't just about commission free trading. You can also get USD accounts, so I avoid forced currency conversion fees when trading US stocks. Plus, get access to their advanced edge trading platform available on desktop, web, and mobile. I've been using Questrade for many years and so has Simon. And their platform makes trading seamless, whether you're managing a long-term portfolio

or making active trades. Don't miss out. Start trading commission-free stocks and ETFs today. Visit questrade.com to learn more. Between meetings in Toronto and conferences in Vancouver, I'm not home as much as I'd like. So I've been thinking while I'm off enjoying someone else's Airbnb, why have I not put my own place up on Airbnb to earn a little extra income and help me pay for the trip? With Airbnb's local co-host network, I can find someone to handle everything. Bookings, guest support, even the cleaning. It's a simple way to make extra money while I'm traveling,

without the hassle of hosting it all myself. If your place often sits empty while you travel, it might be time to let it work for you. Find a co-host at airbnb.ca forward slash host. It's the small things that make us Canadian. At BMO ETFs, all of our tickers start with Z. That's right, Z not Z. From ZSP to ZEB, we know how to build solutions for the Canadian investor.

So the next time you invest in ETFs, consider AZ instead. Visit bimoets.com for more. Okay, well, so the next thing I wanted to get your thoughts on, so you mentioned, you know, small caps, x resources, for example, it's not it's not a big space in Canada for sure. And are there certain areas in your view, just based on the conversations you've had where they're just overlooked by investors? I know it can be a bit difficult, right, because the Canadian market is so small, especially

when you compare it to the B and down south. But is there something that's caught your eye in the past few years? I've always had a passion for tech, particularly Canadian tech. I did a show when I was at BNN I pitched called The Disruptors and it was really profiling these early stage tech companies. And this was kind of right before we started to see big exits in the space. And I said, you know, one of the things I remember at BNN is like, we could never get BlackBerry. We could never get Jim Balsley or Mike Lazaridis on the show, because I guess we didn't pay a lot of attention to them

when they were up and coming. And then when they obviously when BlackBerry was so huge, they would just go on the US channels. And I remember thinking even as a young journalist, like how disappointing is that, that we don't have like a Canadian darling that would like even come on BNN. And so I thought if you do a show on these Canadian tech stocks and you shine some light on them,

or tech companies, some of them were not publicly traded, you shine a light on them, they're gonna to remember that when they grow up and they're going to come back to you. So you'll get to own that story. You'll also give your audience an advantage because they will have been familiar with this company maybe before it goes public or before it has that exit or is bought by a public company. So I think we do such a bad job of investing in tech in this country. It's almost virtually non-existent in the public

markets in an exciting way. Like it's just Shopify. Yeah, I was going to say it's always funny to look at the TSX tech index. It's basically like, yeah Shopify, and then you got Constellation that are essentially half of the index right there. Yeah, and like Constellation, what a beautiful stock that is. That is like, it has gone up every single year except 2022. Even in the financial crisis, it was up, barely, but it was up. It's a beautiful stock. I mean, as a business, is it was up. It's a beautiful stock.

As a business, is it exciting? Is it changing our world? Not really. It's just an acquisition vehicle and they're really good at it, but it's not like an Uber. It's not like Amazon. Shopify is the closest thing that we have to a very exciting story. They're basically white labeling Amazon for for businesses. And that's so exciting. There's a huge market. But even then, like, well, they

trade a lot in the US, they were going to go and buy a logistics business that probably, in the long term, was a good idea, right to solve logistics. But the market freaked out. And they wanted them to show profitability. So then they basically abandoned that. Is that Shopify, right? That's Shopify. Yeah, I think it was Flexport. Yeah, I know it was. I'm thinking like 2021 was probably when that happened.

Yes, right. And so remember, 2022, like the vibe is not growth. No, it's like efficiency, right? I think like Zuckerberg said. grows. The whole tech sector got taken down. But there can never be an Amazon in Canada for a bunch of reasons. And one of the main reasons is we would never tolerate losses for that long. Amazon for the longest time was like the world's largest nonprofit, right? It recently has turned on the profit. But for a very long time, I'm talking like 10, 15 years, it was just a money losing business. I honestly believe that Canadian investors would not tolerate that. We ask our early stage tech companies to be profitable right away or we will not invest in them. Right? And think about like Lightspeed, for example, a point of sale

software, Montreal Bayes. And they're struggling,peed, for example, a point of sale software, Montreal based. And they're struggling, they're struggling for a bunch of different reasons. But one of the things that they're promising in order to get to where they need to be is like, we'll be profitable. Like we've got our eyes on profit, profit, profit. And US tech, that's just the US environment is just better at tolerating losses, better at tolerating investment, better at tolerating investment, better at tolerating mistakes.

And it's too bad because tech is such an exciting sector. We have such big brain power here too when it comes to tech. And it's such a great disappointment that all this innovation in Canada ends up bleeding south of the border for them to monetize and capitalize on. Artificial intelligence is a perfect example of that. Jeffrey Hinton is Canadian and OpenAI is in the US. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we'll see, right? Maybe five years down the line if it's a bit more friendly terms of environment. I know we try not to get in politics, but oftentimes, you know, the reality is you can't avoid it investing because if you make it a good environment

for businesses, like capital goes where it's best treated. It's true. I've heard this time and time again. But it's also like it's a culture thing too. Like we just the funds I speak to you, they just want dividends. They just want that. Dividend value investing in Canada, that's our jam. But that means you're investing in oligopolies

that have been around for a long time and you don't actually end up investing in disruption. And if you don't have that capital here, homegrown capital here, where are you going to get it from? It could all yeah, it's a big culture thing too. I was reading an article, I think it was like seven, eight months ago, or maybe around the time Trump got reelected and someone like they interviewed someone who moved from the US to Canada a few years before that. And they said, look, I really enjoy being in Canada but people should be aware

it's not the same culture in the US. In the US it's much more like entrepreneurial culture where people are driven and not like more self-focused but they're definitely like they want to be the best like it's always that mentality not always but more relevant than Canada where Canada it's a bit different where, you still have some people like that but typically she was saying that people are more conscious about like not hurting anyone being more like you know making sure everyone's okay and things like that and Maybe it's that kind of comfort thing. They're less comfortable with disruption or uncertainty but she's she was just telling Americans that we're thinking about moving to

Canada because every time there's a US election, whoever wins the opposition is saying everyone's gonna leave and go to Canada. But she just said like, look, it may be your thing, but just just be aware of what you'd be getting into. It is a different culture. So that you know what I like experience that so poignantly when I would interview CEOs. Interviewing Canadian CEOs honestly sucked a lot of the time because they didn't say

anything. But I would talk to them like, you know, off camera or whatever, and they'd be like, yeah, this is bullshit or whatever, I'm pissed about this. And this is what we're going to do. But then on camera, like literally never would they give a hint of their political views. Even if they did, it was always these like couch sentences, like just so reticent. To your point, like they don't want to piss anybody off. In the US, they don't give a, you know, flying fork. They're just like, I don't like this, I don't like that. This is a problem. And they don't, they care more about being right, right?

And communicating to people like, and they don't really care as much about pissing people off. But I also think like in the US, there's a culture of like, I can sling words, but you know, when we talk behind the scenes, we know that we're like friendly about it. And then we're just kind of like playing I can sling words, but you know, when we talk behind the scenes, we know that we're like friendly about it. And then we're just kind of like playing this game. But in Canada, it's the opposite. And Pierre Pauliev, I remember him talking about this to a group

of CEOs, basically saying like, if you don't like this government, say something, right? Like he referenced, he referenced, oh, I'm trying to remember the pipeline. It's escaping me. But basically, like, was Northern Gateway, I think it might have been Northern Gateway. Okay. Okay. And then so they kill it, right? And then what does the company do? They barely come out, you know, angry and upset. And so his point was like, if there are no consequences for the government, and it doesn't matter whether you're liberal or conservative, like there should be criticisms

of conservatives. The point is like, executives don't come out. They're not open. I would say that this election became the closest to coming out. There was an op-ed. They finally did it, but that's after 10 years of being so pissed in the background, but

literally never saying it once out loud. And we just have this culture where, yeah, we don't critique, we don't criticize. And like, I don't know, does that service? I mean, I think people should be allowed to speak their mind. Obviously, when you're ahead of a large corporation, I think sometimes there's going to be a lot of different stakeholders that you have to keep in mind and you have some interests of your own and obviously they're pretty well paid jobs so you don't want to put your future in jeopardy either.

So I can understand that to some extent. Obviously, the career risk would be real for them. I think most people can agree. But I did see a little bit of a shift to when the big banks were coming out with earnings right after the US election. The CEOs, I listened to quite a few calls and they were not shy about saying some of the things that Canada needed to improve. But they also like, it was just saying it where you could connect the dots. Obviously, if you listen, that's what I mean, you have to connect the dots. They won't come out and just say it.

Yeah. So they were saying basically everything like contrary to what the government at the time was doing that we should be doing, but they that's as far as they went. They would not go any further, but they were definitely talking to it more on a economic basis on the future of the economy and what impact, obviously, Trump could have on Canada and trade. And that's before, that was, I think, banks was late November, early December in terms of earnings.

So that's before, like, all the crazy shit started happening in February, March, and April. But it's just interesting to see that they were definitely the most vocal I had seen them and heard them be on calls but to your point. Think about Jamie Dimon, right? He comes out, he tells you, he tells you what it is, what's stupid, what's not, and you know part of that is he's got credibility, he's got a long wish, he can kind of do that, but who do we have in this country that's like that?

Right? And that's kind of disappointing. You know, I can think of some people maybe in real estate, John Leavitt. Maybe Toby. Toby, but that's new. That's new. He's been, maybe in the past year, I would say a year and a half, but that's the only one that comes to mind.

Yeah. Toby is a public market CEO. Yes. And that is new. For those not familiar, Toby is the CEO of Shopify. That's why I mentioned him. Yeah. But that's the only one that came to mind. I know. We just need to speak up. Even if it's to say like, I like this, this is good. We need more of this. And it's not to criticize the government, but you can still be very critical of policy. Yeah, exactly. And what it means and showing what it actually means.

But anyway, it's interesting you brought up Jamie Dimon. I love listening to him. I disagree probably with him on half of the stuff he said, and I agree with half. So I think it's good because he's not shy. He says it out. It is obviously hates Bitcoin. I mean I yeah exactly hates work from home has been on rants and obviously I don't agree with

all of that but at the end of the day I still enjoy listening to him because I think you know he's worth listening to and there's a lot of good information and I'd like that he's for the most part unfiltered. But again, he's got the track record. But I guess the last thing I wanted to talk to you is, what do you think in terms of you made the switch from traditional media to a podcast? I don't know what we call podcast like alternative. We're the alternatives. Yeah, exactly. The alternatives.

But what do you think podcasts will have in the role of shaping investor knowledge versus traditional news? I know younger people, even our generation, I'm assuming you're a millennial as well. So even our generation, ever since I moved out from my parents, I've never had really a cable, right? So I just consume my news online, a lot of stuff was being streamed, that's fine. But yeah, what do you think it has

in terms of shaping investor knowledge versus those traditional financial? So the first one you mentioned is reach, right? To your point, if something's happening in the markets, people don't necessarily turn on cable anymore to see what's going on. They go on Twitter or they go on X, whatever. It's called like one in five,

there's that one in five people start their investing journey on social, yeah, so-called Twitter. So one in five people start their investing journey on social media. So if you wanna communicate about the markets, you have to be where people are. They're on social media, they're on podcasts, and they're on YouTube.

And I know that you guys are on YouTube too, so that's great. But that's a huge sort of growth area because that's where people are finding the information. So podcasting is great because it increases reach. But also you can have these fuller conversations at a time where people want fuller conversations, right? You need those two things to go together. You could always have longer conversations on radio, but people weren't interested, right? Everyone has short attention spans. They just want clips, clips, clips.

It turns out that they don't. They have the time, the patience, and the energy to listen to longer form stuff, which is why we're seeing such big podcasting growth. So back when I was on TV, I had to think. I guess just said something really interesting, but I know this interview is over in three minutes. So do I follow up on that point and make the interview just about this one topic or do

I have to move on? And every single question and answer was like a trade off between am I following up or am I moving on? Am I following up or moving on? And I don't have to do that as much in the podcast. And what that means for the viewers is you get richer insights because I can follow up and I can say, well, what about this? And I can spend more time understanding the thesis around a stock.

And if I do that, the viewer should be enriched for that, right? Because we gain more insights. The second and the third answer ultimately reveals something that just wasn't revealed in the first answer. But then, you know, I have more time to like do it all, right? So I don't have to make that trade off. I can capture all of it while also like getting rich into the details. And I find like, you know, I'm in a studio,

there's lights here, but just the nature of podcasts, I don't know if you feel this way too, Simon, when you interview guests, like people are just more open. They like that it's a conversation. So you end up getting better insights. The medium allows for that. So that's super cool as well. So it's really just reach and richer conversations.

Yeah, and if you're a guest, it's much easier to mess up in a five or 10 minutes segment where you, you know, it's more of an audio clip almost because they just didn't have time to elaborate on their whole idea. Yeah. And I think for them, that probably causes a bit of an issue too, right? It could be a very complex question and they may be able to talk about it for like three, four hours long and give all the

details and all the information but they have to condense it in five minutes because then the next five minutes is gonna be another question. So I think some are, I'm just assuming that some might feel a bit constrained or feel like they will get misinterpreted because of that lack of time. Yeah, I totally agree. Well, no, that's great. And I guess the last thing I was mentioning for the long-form content, so during the election, I was actually seeking out some long-form interviews with all the candidates just because I'm, like I've said on the podcast, I'm an independent. Like I've voted to pretty much like every single party

in my life. I mean, I lived on the Quebec side when I was younger. I'm pretty sure I voted for block ones, just not because I wanted separation, just because I thought- Just to mix it up. Just to mix it up and I thought the representative was just the best option there at the time.

But just to go to show that, you know, I'm independent. And I was listening to a long form interview with Pierre Poilier and one of the things I didn't know, he had a little girl with a disability. I had no idea. I've never seen that mention, had no idea. And he started talking like halfway through the podcast, how he loves his daughter.

It's great because she has no filter, but it is a challenge because of that disability. Then go into detail what the disability was, doesn't matter. It just goes to show. How it humanizes him. Exactly, it just goes to show that it's something I had no idea about him.

That's why I think a good example of why I think long form content is really useful and there is less of maybe that confrontational feel at times too. Yeah, I agree with you. It just feels like, you know, two people. What I always thought was the best conversations and like part of why I love CNBC, for example, in the mornings, you know, with Joe Kern and Becky Quick and Andrew Russo, it's because I feel like I'm just watching three pals catch up and and like rib each other a little bit and I always strived for that like in my shows like if I had a co-host I was always like I didn't want to be like reading the news I hated reading the prompter I tried never to do it

like we did it we had to for newscast but the but the rest of my show was just ad lib and chatting based on information I had. That's because I think that's the most entertaining thing, just to feel like you're eavesdropping on two people having a conversation about the markets, about this stock. That's how you absorb information. It's not me rattling off a bunch of facts about a certain stock. No. At the end of the day, people wanna be entertained too, right? So it's always creating that balance between, you know, having some useful or some good discussions

and also entertaining people. But no, I totally agree with you, obviously. I asked that question and we have a podcast going on almost six years now. So definitely, you know, you can probably know where I stand. Any advice? Any advice? I hope I make it to six years. Yeah, just consistency. I mean, it's not always easy is probably the best advice. Just be

authentic, I think is probably the second advice I would say are authentic and honest. We've had to turn down deals and stuff like that just because we didn't think it was an honest approach to take. And maybe in the short term, it would have been better to take those deals from a financial perspective. But long term, we thought that first of all, well, it did not feel right. If you forget about the money aspect, that was a big thing. But second of all, you don't want to erode trust of your audience. I think that bond you have with your audience is really important and trust takes so much time to build.

And as we've seen with the US and its allies, that trust can quickly go away by just one bad action, years and years of trust. So that's probably my best advice, even though I went a little bit on a rant there. No, I like it. It's important for people to know, right? Because the great thing about newsrooms is there's a very strict code of conduct and code of ethics. And I feel like now that you and I are kind of blowing in the wind in podcast land, you

don't have to, right? You could accept money, you could get paid to promote a stock and not tell anybody, right? Like that could never happen in a newsroom because there's checks and balances. But when you're your own company, you're your own podcaster, there's nothing stopping you except for your own sort of moral compass. And I think that's really important to like be upfront and communicate about that. And I'm the same Simon, like you cannot pay me to talk about a stock. Obviously, we have to take money into the podcast. But for example, I won't take money from issuer. Yeah, like to talk about their specific stock. And why you should buy it. Yeah,

stock promotion. I won't do that. No, totally. We're the same. So that's a good way to go about it. So well, I'd like to thank you again for coming on Amber. For people who want to follow you, do you want to tell them how they can find you, whether it's on YouTube, on Twitter, or anywhere else that you have a presence online? Yeah, we're everywhere. It's under In the Money Pod, P-O-D. That's our handle on all social media platforms. That's our page on YouTube as well.

And you can just search in the money with Amber Canwar and all those videos and those channels will come up. Please subscribe, because you know we live on those subscriptions, right Simon? Yeah, I will add a link to your YouTube channel in the show notes. So for people, just look at the show notes and you'll be able to find that for Amber.

Amber, thanks again. It was great chatting with you and hopefully we'll get to do that again soon and best of luck with your podcast. Thank you so much, Simon. I love it. I love your podcast. You guys have been a trailblazer in this space, so I'm lucky to call you colleagues. Thanks so much much Amber.