The Joe Rogan Experience - #2470 - Pierre Poilievre

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

The Honourable Pierre Poilievre is a Canadian politician serving as the leader of the Conservative Party and leader of the Official Opposition. He has been the Member of Parliament for Battle River—Crowfoot since August 2025.www.conservative.ca/pierre-poilievre/www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/Pierre-Poilievre(25524) Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Visible. Live in the know. https://www.visible.com/catfished Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. How are you, sir? Pleasure to meet you. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Great to be back in Texas. I'm glad we finally did this.

Yes, me too. I wanted to do it the first go-round. Yeah, I know. Well, when I got the invitation, we were in the middle of the election, and we just don't leave the country during election campaigns. I get it. And the problem we've had is we can't get you to come to Canada. and so we've actually hatched a full strategy to get you into Canada

because we think it's going to do big things for our tourism numbers. So do you mind if I present you with something right out of the gate? Sure. All right. This is from a gunsmith and machinist in Calgary, Alberta. His name is Jay. And he's designed. Look at us, kettle about it.

Guess what the weight is? 70 pounds. That's the weight you have. And it says on the front here, Jamie, it says here on the front. Jamie pull it up. We've got that. We've got, let me see here, some other stuff for a stand. Oh, wow, that's really cool.

Look at this stand here. So we've got Seeing is Believing, which I think was the slogan of the first UFC that you were the commentator for. I think it was number 13? 12. Number 12, right? And then we've got here your favorite quote from, what's his name, the Japanese martial artist. Somosha? Yes.

And it says, if you know the way broadly, you will see it in everything. Yeah. So that's here. And then Morris Co., there's a thank you letter for you. You've got your flying saucer.

Oh, wow. And we've got your logo here, too. So, but most important of all, we've got a subliminal message, which is the Canadian maple leaf. Oh, cool. Every time you do a kettlebell swing, you do a snatch, you do a clean,

you're going to be seeing that maple leaf, and you're going to be reminding yourself that you need to come back to Canada. All right. All right. I'll present that to you. There. Thank you very much.

Very cool. Is that in the way, Jamie? I'll take it off. I'll take it off. So I saw your interview with Pavell, and I'm a big kettlebell freak. Are you really? Yeah, absolutely. And I started researching him after you had him on.

And I was trying to, I love history. So I was thinking, why did the Russians come up with this? and it turns out they used it as a counterweight at the farmer markets. So they would say, you know, you come in and you have to say, this is how much potatoes you're buying. But instead of trying to do it by eyeball, they would put what is now kettle on one side of the scale and then the produce on the other.

And then at the farmers' expeditions, you have these big Russian farmers who want to show how strong they were. So they would pick them up and do all kinds of displays with them. And then the Russian army took it on. The Soviet army took it on, and then that's where Pavel picked it up and then brought it over the Atlantic and introduced it to America. Wow, that's crazy. So it was just accidental that they made this very functional tool for fitness? Yeah, it was just you'd go to a farmer's market.

You want to buy some barley or some potatoes, but you don't know if you're actually getting the real weight. So they'd have a scale, a balancing scale, and they'd put the kettlebell on one side and the produce on the other. And then you knew you got the right amount. And then, of course, they have these big farmers, farm fairs, and they're showing off their horses and their cattle and stuff, and they'd want to do strength displays. So these farmers are throwing these things around, and the Russian military picked it up. And then the Soviets, of course, took over and they took it on. And then Pavel, I think he was a Belarusian, though, if I'm not mistaken, Pavel, Settul. And he brought it over to North America.

But the ancient Chinese did it as well. Really? Yeah, the ancient Chinese, the Shaolin monks have used them, but they didn't do it with cast iron. They had, theirs were sort of a concrete, a concrete block. And they did for strength training as well. Oh, wow. A little history. Yeah, so I'm a big kettlebell freak.

I love it. And I really, I started to study what Pabell's teaching. I think he has an accreditation or something. If I ever get time, I might take it. Yeah, strong first. Yeah, that's his organization. And you're doing, you have a whole program, I think you, you do clean to press. and then...

Yeah, I do a bunch of different things. Squads with overhead squat and all that. It's a great functional tool just for your whole body. Right. You know, it's really one of the best pieces of exercise equipment I think I've ever found. Yeah, I think he calls it a cannonball on a handle. And the thing I like about it is the... It's like a catapult.

Like it, all of the lift is in that instant where it flips over your hand. And there you go. original ones. Wow, that's crazy. That's so interesting. So the handle was just to pick it up and carried around. Yeah. Wow. They had a real functional use. Well, it's just amazing how good it is for a piece of exercise equipment that was accidentally designed that way. Absolutely. And I think it's far superior to a dumbbell exercise because there's no a dumbbell you get a consistent lift, but that's not real life. If you're in a, fight or you have to pick something up heavy. It doesn't lift consistently. It's explosive in that

small range. And when you're doing a snatch, by the time you get up to your shoulder, the thing's weightless because the catapult effect has taken over. And now it's actually negative way it's lifting your hand up in the air if you're doing it right. But like if you're in a fight or if you're in a wrestling match or you're trying to push really hard against a heavy object, it's all about explosive power. And that's what kettlebells give, rather than. than just this sort of freeze and contract thing that you do with dumbbells. Have you always been a workout guy?

Yeah, look, I was big into sports until my mid-teens. I was on the wrestling team. I wasn't great. I was good, but I wasn't great. Then I got a wicked tendonitis in my shoulder, and it ended my athleticism for like four years, and that's how it got into politics.

I was so bored. I got to get home from school. I had nothing to do, so I took my, I told my mother. Tendinitis got you into politics? Yeah, that's what it was. I just couldn't get rid of it. Like, every time I thought I had it beat, I'd go in and I'd train, and it would be full of inflammation.

No one could do anything about it. And so I was, like, bored out of my mind. And I said to my mom, like, you know, you go to these local meetings with the conservative association. Like, take me to that because I'm going crazy. That's nuts. Yeah. So that, so what were you interested in when you first went there? Like we just

Didn't like the way things were running like what was it about it that got you so curious Well I grew up in a suburban neighborhood in South end of Calgary You know and my folks were teachers I was adopted my mom was a 16 year old She was a say obviously single mom she put me up for adopting two school teachers There was electricians and oil workers and police officers lived on our street normal hardworking good folks And I always grew up with the impression they were getting screwed over and that the government didn't listen to people like them, didn't listen to people who grew up on streets like ours. And living in Western Canada, there was a greater sense of that.

We called it Western alienation at the time. And there was this guy, kind of a quirky guy, but a really brilliant guy named Preston Manning. And I saw this billboard of him and he had his fist up and it said, enough. And I said, yeah, I like that guy. So I got involved in politics and I started reading about different things I started I read a biography on Fidel Castro and then I read Justin's dad no no not Justin's dad right no no no no his dad was Pierre his dad was Pierre his dad was Pierre his dad was Pierre I had issues with Pierre Trudeau too because it is a great conspiracy theory

though well it is a hell about I don't think it's a true one though I his dad is his dad was very controversial I grew up because he did a lot of damage to the oil sector and we're from oil country. And so that was one of the things that I felt kind of resentful about the national government. And one of the reasons I got involved is because the West deserved a fairer deal. And, uh, but I read a lot of books like, you know, Milton Friedman, capitalism and freedom. And I came to, to develop a philosophy based on just maximizing personal, financial, religious freedom, let people make their own decisions. And that, That animated me to get involved in politics and fight for that, and I've been doing it ever since.

Wow, that's a fascinating transition from wrestling and tendonitis, getting deeply involved in politics. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you're a sports guy. If you had suffered an injury that took you out of Taekwondo when you were young, and you simply couldn't compete at anything, you'd probably be looking for some other adventure. Yeah, we should have. Well, we're lucky that stem cells weren't around back then, or you never would have gotten in a lot of. That's right. I would have been a wrestler. I don't know if I would have won any awards, but, but yeah, that was how I got started and, and I got very active very quickly. I got my first internship making 600 bucks a month when I was 16 or 17 years old and, you know, take two trains

and a bus and an hour and 45 minutes each way, but I was so thrilled. My dad bought me a used suit and a used pair of shoes. And I thought, this, I'm, this is so incredible. I'm an important guy. I wear dress shoes. I wear a tie. Didn't matter that the tie was bought from some dead guy whose family had sold it to a used store. But that was my start. I loved it. Well, I'm really excited to have you in here because I've seen you speak multiple times and you're a very reasonable, intelligent person that makes a lot of sense. And that is a rare thing in politics. And I love Canada. Like, I should I just say, I don't go up there anymore, but it's because I think the government went horribly wrong over the last, you know, X amount of years. But the people are amazing.

It's like, I always, I've always said that Canada has like, it's like America with like 20% less assholes. Like, every time I would go up there, I'm like, people are so nice. It is true. They're like the nicest people. And I think that's part of what went wrong for Canada is that people are rule followers. and, you know, they're trusting and kind people. And, you know, this wolf in sheep's clothing snuck in and, you know, was pretending he was a sweet guy and passing all these crazy laws.

And just when we saw what happened with COVID, just what happened with the truckers and people's accounts getting shut down for donating to the truckers, like the whole thing was so concerning because Canada was like a part of America. I mean, you're a different country, but it's like you used to be able to go over there with just a driver's license You know it was like it was such a cool place to I started going to the Montreal Comedy Festival in like I loved it up there. It's like one of my favorite places to just for laughs Yeah, yeah, good how's your French not good okay

We'll work on that. We'll get you some French lessons It's terrible. I don't know any French words my wife is learning French though. It's interesting She's got this app that she's learning French But it's just an amazing It's a great country. And to see it go the way it's been going and sliding the way it's been happening over the last, you know, X amount of years, there's just so many things that concern me. You know, one of the things that really concerns me is this assisted suicide thing. Had one in 20 deaths in Canada is now assisted suicide.

That's insane. Well, listen, my view is that people should have the choice, but that, uh, that's the But the concern we have is the suggestion that it would be offered to kids or offered to people whose only condition is mental illness. Right. I don't agree with that. My concern as well. I mean, if someone's got a terminal, like a good friend of mine went to Oregon to end his life because he had ALS. But, I mean, he was gone.

I mean, he could barely talk at the end of his life. His name is Michael Lair. He was a regular guest on Kill Tony. Great guy. Right. And it was horrible. I mean, watching him fade away, and he wanted to go out on his own terms. So he went to Oregon for assisted suicide.

There's a place for it. Yeah. But, I mean, there was a kid recently in Canada, and he did it for seasonal depression. I'm sure you're aware of that case. I am. Like, who allowed that to happen? Who didn't counsel this young guy? Who didn't give him a hug?

Who didn't tell him about diet and exercise and changing your surroundings, your lifestyle, and just do something? Right. To give you some hope and happiness. Like seasonal depression, really? You're going to end your life, this beautiful life on this planet for seasonal depression? And that's what we have to do more to give people hope when they're suffering with mental illness. Yes. You know, give people the sense that they can take back control of their lives.

I think we do have to promote fitness more because it gives people, it turns them into a subject that controls their surroundings rather than an object being controlled. It teaches people to that that hardship is temporary and that the aftermath is positive. And we have to give people, reinstill people with a sense of meaning when they're going through hardship rather than to say that it's all over. And, you know, I think we have to, our system needs to be geared towards giving people all the best options to live on rather than just suggesting made as the easy, as the automatic path for the system. to impose on people. So one of the things our party is pushing for is to make clear that public

servants who are getting phone calls from people who are in need of help for something, they shouldn't be offering that. They should be offering made. People can seek it out if they want, but when you're calling up saying I'm poor or I'm struggling or I'm having a mental illness or I've got an injury, we shouldn't have a government worker saying, well, consider made. Well, the unfortunate thing is that any organization, that gets formed, wants to grow. And you get financial incentives, and then you hire more people,

and then it gets bigger, and then what do you have to do? You have to keep doing what you're doing. Exactly. What are you doing? You're killing people. So you're going to kill more people because you're actually financially incentivized

to put more people through this program and end their lives. That's very sad. I think we have to get to a point where people have the freedom to make their own decisions, but they also have hope that there is an option for them.

And that's what we're trying to. Yeah, give them a pathway. You know, and like the exercise thing, it's not just give them, you know, control of their life, but it makes them happier. It's, it's, it's, it's been studies that show it's much more effective than antidepressants.

Absolutely. Well, it's the, first of all, there's the physiological side, which affects the brain. But it's also the sensation of discomfort that you push through, knowing that you have to focus on the thing you have to do.

And, uh, that I think, it helps us in anything we're encountering, whether you're going through a divorce or a bankruptcy or an injury or an illness, if you know that pushing through to the other side, because you've got a meaning there, that can give people hope for a better life. You know, my favorite psychologist is Victor Frankel, and he developed this Lagos treatment, which was basically giving people a sense of meaning. He survived the Holocaust in the concentration camp because he had a sense of meaning that he wanted to, his book was stolen from him in the concentration camp about this, this theory. And he

wanted to live on so he could survive and write that book. And then he found his, in his teaching, that it wasn't so much people's circumstances that determined their happiness. It was whether they had a meaning in life. And he tells this incredible story of a group therapy session where he had this very rich woman who was married to a very rich man. And he had next to him another lady who was living in terrible poverty. She'd lost a son and had a second severely disabled son. And he said to both them, what will your life look like when you're 80 years old and you're on your deathbed? And the wealthier lady said, well, I will look back and think that I had some fun and enjoyed the luxuries of being very wealthy and having an easy life that there wasn't a lot of meaning

to it. And whereas the mother who was struggling with a disabled child and had lost another one said, well, I gave my first child a great life, a short one, but a great one. I struggled to give my disabled child a good, dignified existence, and I leave this world satisfied and happy that my life had purpose and meaning. And the lesson I take from that is that it is not about whether you have a gazillion dollars or whether your life is easy, it's whether you have some meaning to invest your life into. And I think we have to infuse people's lives with meaning so that they can live a good life. Well, that's a great message.

And I think that's one of the most important parts of being a leader is having a great message and having a great philosophy and having a great perspective. And, I mean, that's what disturbed me the most about when Trudeau was running the country that I didn't feel like. I felt like he was manipulating people with woke politics and ideology and that it was just this weird, slippery slope that people were falling down. where they're losing rights and you're losing your ability to express yourself. And it just really disturbed me because I always felt that Canada was like one of the freest places

and one of the most open-minded places. And it just, I didn't understand how it could fall so quickly. This episode is brought to you by Visible. Folks, there's one thing nobody wants this season and that's getting catfished. And it's not just dating profiles that are putting you at risk. It's also big wireless carriers. You know the type. Looks great at first.

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Don't fall for the trap of getting catfish by wireless. Visit visible.com to learn more and start loving your wireless carrier. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. We still, you know, we are a free country and we are a democracy. We have preserved that. You know, my leader, I had this funny moment when Joe Biden came to Parliament Hill and I said, Mr. President, I'm Pierre Paulyab.

I'm the leader of his majesty's loyal opposition. And he said, loyal opposition. How can you be loyal and opposition at the same time? It's like, what the hell are you talking about? And because you know, you guys have a system based on a republic, whereas ours is the British system. And in our system, the opposition is an act of loyalty. That's what our system. It means that if you are opposing the government, you're doing it out of loyalty to,

the good of the people. And our House of Commons, you have a half circle in your Congress. We have two sides in our parliament. It's two and a half sword lengths apart because they used to little kill each other in the old English days. But the idea is the opposition is to prosecute the hell out of the government. Make the mighty low. The most powerful people in the country are supposed to tremble every time they walk in that place because no, every mistake they made, every abuse of power, every corruption they might have done can be exposed and in front of all eyes. So our system is really designed to constrain the power of government through what we call parliament. Like I don't work for government. I work for parliament. And parliament works for the people.

We call it the House of Commons because it's the House of the Common People. It's green in there because they used to meet in the fields of England. And so I really view the world of our Parliament to limit the power of government, to maximize the power of the people, make people bigger, stronger, and more fulfilled by having the government narrowly focus on the things it's supposed to. to do roads, military, basic social safety net, borders, police, etc. But then leave people alone to live their lives. If I were to start a political party from scratch, it would be the mind your own damn business party.

You know, just get the government to do its job well, do four or five things really well, and then let people live their lives. Well, that sounds very reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, anybody that doesn't go along with that, anybody that's opposed to that, that doesn't even make sense. No, look, like I said, the way I grew up and everything I've seen ever since, when I talk to farmers or factory workers, electricians, I find they know just as much or more than the so-called experts I encounter on Parliament Hill. Like back during COVID when all these governments were printing money and all the politicians and bankers said, oh, this is great.

Look at all this money we get to spend. I walk around communities and I'd have like mechanics say, you know, we're going to have a lot. inflation. And I would say, yeah, it makes sense to me. And I'd go back to Parliament Hill and the experts, but I'll say, no, no, there's not going to be any inflation. And sure enough, all that money filtered into the economy, bid up all the goods we buy, and everybody got smoked with higher prices. But the point is that it was the, it was the common people who don't study this stuff for a living, who don't read endless reports and studies, who could just figure out that if there's money pouring into the economy that's not matched by goods and services, it's going to bid up the cost of

everything. So that's my experience in my ideology is the common guy knows how to make his own decisions. We need to empower him to do that. Yeah, just stay out of people's lives. Exactly. So there's a narrative in America. And the narrative is that you were about to win and your party was about to win. But then Trump came along and said he was going to turn Canada into the 51st state and everybody went crazy. Is that accurate? I wouldn't say they went crazy. I mean, it like, well, it was a thing. They should be upset though. I mean, I mean, What's a crazy thing to say? It is a crazy thing to say.

Canada's not for sale. We're never going to be the 51st state. You know, we love Americans as neighbors and friends, but we want to be uniquely and we want to be sovereign as Canadians. It's our country. It's where we grow up. You're a patriot as an American. I'm a patriot as a Canadian.

It's where my grandfather arrived. It's where our collective ancestors put on military uniforms and sailed to fight wars. It's where our grandkids are going to live. We're very proudly Canadian. So we're never going to be the 50 first state. And I just wish you'd knock that shit off so that we can get back to talking about the things that we can do as two separate,

but two separate countries that are actually friends. Did that really have that much of an effect up there? Like, did people take him seriously? I think at first everyone thought it was a joke because we've always had these jokes. Like, you know, one day we're going to take over Vermont and Detroit should be part of Canada and all that stuff. But then he kept saying it,

saying it and, you know, it became, a lot of people got upset about it. And I think understandably so. Understandably. Yeah. I mean, it's a crazy thing to say. It is a crazy thing to say. I talked to one with the phone about it. It was like so funny. He's like, at first I was joking, but then people were like, it's a good idea. That's not a good idea. Nobody's saying that. I can assure him of that. But, and the tariffs aren't a good idea either. We should get the tariffs out because there's so much we could be doing together as neighbors and partners if we got rid of those tariffs. You know, I think what are the biggest problems in America today? Affordability, security.

And we can help with both. We knock the tariffs down. Let's look at affordability. We have the fourth biggest supply of oil anywhere on earth. You guys pay a huge price discount for our oil because we're effectively, all our infrastructure to ship it is north-south. and it's a very unique heavy oil. So we accept, unfortunately, and for now, a price discount on the oil we send you, which can translate into more jobs and paychecks, but also lower energy prices.

You've got $5 a gallon right now in lots of places in America. You're buying, I want to produce more so we can sell 2 million more barrels of Canadian oil into the U.S. market. And then there's housing. You've got huge housing pressures on young people. they can't afford a place to live. We're the biggest supplier of lumber for home building of any country that imports to the United States, exports to the United States. We've got very low cost, but high quality soft with lumber.

We could be shipping. Or the best-selling truck in America for 45 years now is the Ford series. It's aluminum. It's a military-grade aluminum body. You guys can't make enough aluminum here. You don't have enough box-site or electricity to, to convert it into aluminum and aluminum. You get your aluminum from us.

A tariff does not bring the production to America. It raises the price of the aluminum and therefore the F-series truck. Get rid of that tariff. You lower taxes, you lower the cost of an F-series truck for the, for the miner in Appalachia or the electrician in Ohio. And that's just on the affordability side. There's a lot we can do with our minerals to make the continent a hell of a lot safer as well. So I think it's in America's interest to come towards a tariff-free deal and trade freely as friends.

And that will be good for both of us. Have you had conversations with Trump about this? No. I believe in the rule of one prime minister at a time. So I fought like hell to win. I didn't win. We came very close. So I've said, listen, I'll leave it to the prime minister to do the negotiating.

And I've said, I'll support him anyway. I can't. Even in my visit down here, I'm sending him text messages to tell him what's going on to try and support his work because what we want, we both want what's best for Canada. Where are your elections now? When do you have the next elections? That's, this is a strangely hard question to answer because we're- I know, it's weird system. Yeah, it's weird in comparison to ours, rather. Yours are fixed, as you know, ours, we have technically fixed election dates, but the government

can fall at any time. It's very simple a rule is that if the opposition parties bind up and they can vote down the government. That is to say the majority of MPs in the House say we've lost confidence in the government. The election is now. Or if the prime minister decides he wants an election, he can call it and the election is now. But it has to be sometime in the next roughly three years. Oh, so you have a deadline where it has to take place? Yeah, that's right. So. But it could happen tomorrow. The, it wouldn't necessarily be tomorrow, but like, you know, in the next few weeks, if there were a non-confidence vote and the government lost it, then they go to an election. So it's kind of like the British system.

Interesting. Yeah. Oh, it is the British system, really. We adopted the British system almost identically. So when you're campaigning, you're essentially, this is like a long game. Yeah. You're just laying out your strategy, laying out what you would do to make Canada a better place. Yeah.

Well, we have two roles. So I said I'm the leader of the opposition, but I'm also prime minister. in waiting. So the notion is that the Canadian people should not only have a government, but they should have an alternative. And that alternative has two functions. Official opposition. It's actually called that. I think it's a proper noun of capital O, official capital O opposition, and also government. So you have to be prosecuting the government, but you have to present yourself to people in a way where they say, yeah, that guy or that team could actually be the government. Those are the dual roles that I have to carry out.

Interesting. And how long have you been attempting to become prime minister for? How long has this been going on for? Almost exactly four years because I launched my campaign in February of 2022. Was this something that you had always had in the back of your mind? I'd say in the back of my mind, but it wasn't something I was set on. Like I thought maybe, you know, when in my 50s or 60s, I would try it. But I was in no rush to do. that. How old do you know? I'm now 46. And so what motivated you to do it? Well, you know, after COVID, as COVID was unfolding, it wasn't just the, the COVID policies themselves. It was the economic policies, because I've been very focused on economics in my parliamentary career.

And I was seeing the size and cost of government, not just in Canada, but all around the world, growing so much. And that inflation was just destroying. the working class people and that it was going to get a lot worse. And so I ran on the platform of making Canada the freest country on earth. We had a tradition of freedom in Canada. Our, our, one of our earliest prime ministers, Wilfred Laurier, we asked, what's Canada's nationality? And he couldn't actually list an ethnicity or a religion because we were already mixed up,

even a hundred years ago. We had Scots and Irish and First peoples. So he said, look, yeah, French, most of all, French, English and First Nations. So he said, Canada's free and freedom is its nationality. And I wanted to reinstate that idea. I wanted it to be the freest country anywhere on earth. And so I ran on that platform and won the leadership and then ran in the last election and

stayed on after that election. That's kind of the last four years of my journey. And so the way your elections work now, so you're essentially just stating your case and going around and talking about what policies you would implement and how you would do things differently and just waiting to see how it all plays out? It's, we have, see, our prime minister is different than the president. He's actually part of the legislative branch.

So he comes in to the House of Commons, and we debate multiple times a week he and I. So it's not just, you know, in your system, the Republican and Democrat hold like four debates right before the election. in our system, we're always debating. So he comes in, he's on one side. I come in, I'm on the other side. And I ask him like six consecutive questions,

and then he answers. And we go back and forth. And that's called question period. Then we have these committees where we prosecute and propose on finance, natural resources, health care, you name it. So we're constantly prosecuting the government, also proposing better ideas at the same time.

So like the other day, I proposed to bring back the auto PAC between Canada and the U.S. to have tariff-free trade going both ways across the border. So that's an example of how I'm in a position to actually offer solutions, even though I'm not in the government. And then hopefully government actually steals my ideas.

And I've been encouraging them to steal my ideas. So what... Is this coffee, by the way? Yes. I need some caffeine. Yeah. Some caffeine in there. I'm a terrible caffeine addict.

Me too. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, and shout out to George St. Pierre for hooking this up. Yes. George is a good man. He's the best. great guy. He said he's going to have me do some padwork with him at some point. Oh, really?

So that's pretty dangerous. Oh, that's awesome. He's here all the time. He's a fantastic guy. Yeah, he's the best. He's one of the best representatives of martial arts you could ever hope to meet. He's got humility. I remember he came to Parliament Hill years ago and I thought, geez, he's going to be, because he's, I thought he'd be cocky and swagger, but he was so down to earth. Oh, he's so humble. So much humility. For what he's accomplished in M. I've introduced him to people and they have no idea who he is and then I go, that is one of the greatest fighters that ever walked the face of the earth.

Absolutely. No way. He's so nice. And that's the Canadian way though. Like it's soft-spoken and gentle and kind but don't, don't piss us off. Yeah, but tough. Yeah, that's where Trump fucked up. I wonder what would have happened

if he didn't go along with that 51st state nonsense. You know, I mean, that that is, the narrative in this country, like I said, that if he didn't do that, that you would have won. Well, you never know, but I try not to cry over spilled milk. I focus on what I have to do and live in the present. But this new guy, Milot, have you followed him, Mike Malott? Oh, sure. I know, Mike. Yeah. He's going to be fighting in Winnipeg. I think he's the next GSP. He's very good. You like him? Yeah, he's excellent. Yeah. He did a great job in Montreal if you saw him there but you have I've been to many of us called a bunch of his fights is that

right yeah he's excellent yeah he's a my buddy is his trainer crew out crew Allen haemalgene in in Hamilton he's a for Hamilton steel steel town guy and and anywhere we're hoping that he has a big win in Winnipeg so well you guys have one of the best gems in the world TriStar in Montreal is that right for us a hobby okay if there there's like maybe a handful of great mastermind minds in MMA as far as coaches and Ferras is at the top of the list. Is that right? And what's his discipline?

He trained GSP. Is his discipline karate or kickboxing, Muay Thai? I mean, he's a true mixed martial artist, black belt and jujitsu, kickboxing, every. I mean, he can do everything. And he has a, TriStar is a place where a lot of people from America go up there for their camps. Interesting. Yeah. I have to drop in and see those guys.

Oh, it's phenomenal. I mean, like I said, GSP trained up there. A lot of fighters trained up there. And he also had a great working relationship with a lot of people in America. So he would come down and, you know, they would exchange fighters back and forth and train with each other. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now?

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The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. Yeah, well, we have a great martial arts tradition in Canada. I don't know if you know, Mike Miles. He brought Muay Thai from Thailand to Calgary, like back in the 70s or 80s, and he still got a great gym there. Do you know who Jean Yvesterio is?

Yes, he's a buddy of mine. Oh, really? From Ottawa, yeah. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, he was a hero of mine when I was a kid. Yeah, he's incredible. When I was kickboxing, he was like my, idol. Really? Yeah. Does he know that? I never talked to him. Well, he's going to see this. I bought his book.

Yeah? I bought his book. I started running stairs because of his book. Right. He was talking about how it increased his leg muscles and his kicking power. I remember that. It was in one of his documentaries or something. He said his kicks weren't strong enough so he would do stairs. But I went and trading at his dojo a few times. It's in South Ottawa. He was incredible. He was one of the truly elite kickboxers of his time. He was a great boxer. Like, I know, he never competed as a boxer, but his hands were fantastic. Well, that's really what separated him from a lot of other people. It was like his accuracy and his technique was pristine.

He told me that he would spend hours studying the distances that your limbs would have to travel, depending on how you moved. He was kind of like a scientist in the way he learned and studied. And he was all about simplicity and removing anything unnecessary. I think Bruce Lee said that. He said simplicity, hack away at the unnecessary. And, you know, how do you, what's the shortest distance to hit the strike? And he's got a great, he's a really good heart too.

You know, he had, he has a jiu jitsu club as well. And when I went in there, there was a blind fellow who was into jiu jihitsu, which you can do as a blind person because it's so much about feel. But with COVID, he couldn't do jiu jiu jitsu anymore because they disallowed that kind of close contact. So he actually found a way to train this guy with focus mits, even though he was blind. It was really incredible. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was just, but it was incredible amount of patience he had invested in making sure this, this young man could keep doing his physical activity throughout COVID. Wait a minute. So they allowed pad work, but they didn't allow jiu-jitsu? I don't know if it

was a government policy or if it was just a policy at the gym because, you know, you're just so wrapped up and sweating and I'll each the- The gyms in America, everybody just kept going. kept going. They hid. They would like put foil over the windows and like hide or coming through the back door. A lot of the gyms in LA, that's what they did. They just plowed ahead. They just figured out a way to not get in trouble. And right. And some people did get caught and get in trouble and nothing ever came of it because it's pretty unconstitutional to tell people that they can't work out together. Like the government really didn't have the right to tell people that they couldn't do what they wanted to do. That was a legal thing that you can do. Like, all of a sudden,

there's this mandate, there's this law or rule being passed down, or at least it's being promoted, that you're not allowed to go to a gym and work out with other people. Like, but those are the healthiest people. Those are the people that are the least likely to get sick. Like, this is crazy to say, and you know if you're sick. And if you just have a good gym with good people, say, hey, don't show up if you're sick, everybody should be okay. These are the people you should worry about the least. We need to have common sense again. And too many governments in the Western world

have gotten way too bossy. They're just looking for every excuse to boss people around. And that's what we have to push back again. And it's, you know, EV mandates or, you know, excessive control of the internet or the massive increase in the cost of government, which is really like appropriating the private

voluntary economy into the coercive government economy. That's what we're seeing across Europe in the UK, parts of the United States, as well as back home. So we need to reverse that trend and get people back in charge of their lives. Well, the narrative has always been that rights lost are never regained or are very, very difficult to regain them. So how could you reverse that? Well, you have to keep fighting.

I mean, we did regain our rights. after COVID and, you know, the people have to, look at the history of it. How did it? Which rights did you regain? Well, all the mandates are gone now. Of course, but those were ridiculous anyway. Yeah, they were ridiculous, but a lot of programs. And they also impeded business. They ruined people's lives, social lives. But freedom has always had to be taken.

Like, you go, our tradition goes back to 1215 with the Magna Carta, the great charter. And most of the freedoms we have today were in that. original document. Right to a jury trial, no arrest without charge, no confiscation without compensation, no taxation without representation, all comes from that one document, the Magna Carta. And it was because King John was taken aside by the Barons and they said, listen, pal, this is the choice. Either you sign this and follow it or we overthrow you. And as a result, we got the Magna Carta and all of, when you guys had your Boston Tea Party and said you can't tax our tea because we didn't. We didn't don't elect you. That was an appeal as English, you were Englishmen saying, I'm not, we're Englishmen.

We have the right not to be taxed unless we vote for it and we're going to throw you out otherwise. But that came out of the fields of running meat in England in 1215. So it's a long march towards freedom and it's never actually done. Like there's no permanent victories or defeats. You just have to keep going forward. So if you were elected, let's say you get in right now. What's one of the first things you would do? I would unblock our resources. So we have the most resources of any country in the world per capita, bar none. We need to have, to make it happen, though, we need to have the fastest permits anywhere in the world

and the lowest taxes on producing those resources. We're the fourth in oil, the number one in uranium, number one in potash for fertilizer. We have the fifth biggest supplier of natural gas. we have the longest oceanic coastline. Like we have 12 of NATO's, sorry, we have 10 of 12 of NATO's defined defense minerals. So you know you had that guy, Palmer Lucky on, I don't think he can make his stuff without Canadian minerals.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he'll correct me. But like night vision technology, you need to have, you need to have germanium for that. You need to have gallium to make semiconductors, and radar. You need to have aluminum for armored vehicles and airplanes. You need cobalt for heat resistant alloys and fighter jets. You need tungsten for body, sorry, armor piercing ammunition. We have it all. And what I want to do is unblock those resources, produce them in abundance for ourselves and our allies, make, you know, $200,000 paycheck

for our trades workers, build up an enormous strategic stockpile of it so that we have tons of leverage in international relations. And if God forbid there is ever a global conflict, we would have all the resources necessary to win it. But we need to pass, we need to get rid of a lot of laws that are blocking and replace them with laws that have fast permitting so that we can produce this stuff on scale very quickly. So is the concern the environmental impact of extracting these things? Is that what's holding it up? That is the, that's the ostensible reason. But I just think across the Western world,

like Europe, UK, parts of the U.S. and Canada, there's a problem with bureaucracy just growing way too damn big. Like, you know, the first nations in our country are incredibly forward looking. The Squamish built 6,000 units of housing on 10 acres of land. You can believe it. In a town in a city of Vancouver where it's very hard to get a permit to do anything because it was their land. So they did it. They're trying to build, they're building now an LNG liquefaction plant where they replaced an old 30 mills. They cleaned it

up and put an LNG plant there. But the federal government took a lot of time, 14 years, to give them a permit. So we need to think like they're thinking, which is entrepreneurial, speed of business, get it done quickly. That's how you develop. Like we have this community in my district. It's called Hardesty, 600 people, they manage $100 billion of oil in a town of 600 people. Why is it there? Because their municipality offers a permit in one week with one page. And I wanted to tell this story. So I called them and I said, can I have someone come and do a video with me?

And they said, we don't have anyone here. We don't have like bureaucrats that can help you. They're all out on their farms right now. They come in, they stamp the permit and they go back to their farm. Well, that's why we have $100 billion of energy moving through the area, which is bigger than the GDP of many countries because they have fast permits. And that's what we need in Canada. We need to be the fastest place to get things done.

But don't you think you need some safeguards to protect the environment? And how do you balance that out? Protect it quickly. We can figure out whether a project is damaging to the environment in weeks and months rather than decades. Like there's nothing you're going to learn in year 14 of the review that you couldn't have learned in month 14. So there's ways to protect the environment. When the Germans, so the Germans had to break their dependence on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, they approved an LNG import terminal in 60 days.

They completed the whole damn thing in less than 200 days. And guess what? No environmental problems. They got their engineers to sit down and figure out how to do it quickly. And that's the mentality that we need to get in Canada. So what would you be able to do to bypass all this bureaucracy? How could that be done legally? Well, you slim it down to one project, one environmental review instead of 20 or 30.

You have a fixed timeline that the bureaucrats have to give an answer of six months rather than just as long as they want to drag it on for. And the other thing I would do is study areas where they're perfectly situated to have a project like a pipeline or a mine or an LNG export terminal or a port expansion. And I would pre-permit it. I would say to our officials go in and study, make sure that the environment, aspects are all in good order, I'll issue a pre-permit and then anybody who comes along and wants to build it as long as they follow the terms and act responsibly has a guaranteed permit before they even apply for it. And I think we would have a roaring economy if we did that. That sounds awesome. But the great fear is that if you do have an impact on the environment,

that impact is often permanent. And it's devastating. And I've seen some of the oil extraction that they've done up in Alberta where you look at the area, it looks like scorched earth. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's the most responsible oil extraction in the world. But when you see these, what is that one area that often gets criticized? Fort Mac.

Is that what it is? Yeah, they're open pit mines. You open up a mine, you take out the bitumen, you separate the sand from the oil, you make it less viscous by putting diluent in it, and you ship it off. And then after the oil is, after the mining is done, they resurface it. And you wouldn't even know there was a mine there.

And there's no impact to groundwater, no impact to the environment. I mean, there's an impact no matter what you do. But at the end of the day, the people who live there are very healthy and very happy. And they're the strongest supporters of the expansion of the oil sands. It's an incredible. Because economically, it's amazing. Oh, it's incredible. It's the best resource in the world.

It's like there's no decline rate. You guys have shale here. But, you know, as the years go by, you get less and less out of a shale reservoir. We have varying a little decline. We can keep producing and producing. We have what's called the insitu where there's an entire oil sands operation under your feet. You could be out in a forest hunting, and you wouldn't even know that under your feet, they're extracting it through a whole system of pipes where they inject just steam, steam vapor.

That loosens up the oil. It sinks down. It goes into another pipe, comes up to the top. And you can have beautiful, pristine nature, the bears, the, the deer, the bird. They don't even know that there's extraction happening under their feet. So we have the best industry, the most responsible industry

anywhere in the world. It's been a really disgusting PR campaign by extremist environmentalists and frankly some of our competitors to try and make our industry look bad, but it's the best industry in the world. Yeah, they got me. Yeah, we saw some videos on it. I was like, oh my God, what are they doing to the ground?

What are they doing to the earth? It looks horrible. They're all, it's all bullshit. We have the- It looks horrible. Yeah, but I mean, that's just a superficial look at it. I'll take you for a tour in the oil sense. You'll be amazed.

We have the best engineers in the world. And by the way, the First Nations people absolutely love it because it's lifting their people out of poverty. They're getting enormous job opportunities out of it. One of our MPs is a former chief where they took 18% unemployment, brought it down to three, balanced their budget. Another one of my members of Parliament in Northern British Columbia negotiated a $40 billion LNG plant

on the Heisla territory, it's completely eliminating poverty for the First Nations there. And by exporting clean Canadian natural gas, which we can liquefy 25% cheaper because it's cold as hell in Canada, they actually displaced dirty coal overseas. So instead of Asia burning coal, they're burning clean Canadian gas that's delivered by First Nations partnership. So this is the best way to do it. It makes everybody richer and makes our entire continent better off. What seems so simple the way you're laying it out. I don't understand why this hasn't been implemented.

Yeah, this is the story of my life. It's frustrating. Is it that, but it's, is it that simple? Is it really, this is what's holding everything up, the bureaucracy and the time it takes for permits and. Yeah, like a lot of things. Regulations. We have the same thing in housing. And so do you.

Like, if you look at California. California is terrible. Like, why is there such a housing shortage in California? It's because it takes. forever to get a permit and there's always bureaucracy standing in the way and it totally screws over the working class youth who can't find a place to live because they're not being built and we have that challenge in Canada as well and that's why I proposed ideas to cut the bureaucracy and the taxes so that we can build affordable homes for our youth because right now we have a whole

generation that can't afford homes and that was one of the biggest issues I ran on home ownership is necessary for family formation for civil peace and society where you know everybody feels like they have a piece of the pie. We need to expand homeownership. But to do that, you've got to get the government gatekeepers out of the way, speed up the permits, free up the land, cut the development taxes. So let's assume that you got in office. How much time would it take to start implementing these things?

And how quickly would that impact be felt by the Canadian people? Look, I think a lot of them can move very quickly. There are a lot of projects that investors are sitting on, but they don't have certainty and permits. So I would unblock that. And I think in the first year, you would start to see immediate benefits for the working people who would be getting these jobs. Some of it would take more and more like a medium term.

Like the second thing I would go after is just the inflationary spending, which is a big problem all over the Western world. Like people just can't afford to live. I don't know if you do you encounter that around. here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, inflation's crazy. And it's, I mean, the national debt in America just went up to $39 trillion. Right, which is bigger than your GDP. It's a lot of money. So, so explain this to me. 50 years ago, a barber and a, a barber and a waitress could buy a house with a big yard for a dog and raise four kids, meat and potatoes on the dinner table every night.

And now an accountant and a lawyer can't do that. Why is that? It's crazy. Well, there's a lot of spending and a lot of making money, a lot of just turning, you know, just making dollar bills with nothing behind it, nothing to back it. This is the biggest fraud perpetrated on the working class people in the last hundred years. Printing money is just insane. The idea you just print more money is like, and people go, okay. Well, it looks, it looks painless at first, but if you have an economy with 10 apples and $10, it's a buck in apple. You double the number of dollars to 20, but you still only have

10 apples. Well, all of a sudden, it's two bucks an apple. It's not that the cost of apples has gone up. It still costs the same resources to grow the, and pick the apples, is that the price has gone up because the value of the money has gone down. Right. So in America, over the last 55 years, you've doubled the number of homes in America, from both 70 million to 150 million. You know how much the money supply has grown? 30 times. So you have twice the homes, but 30 times the cash. So what's happened?

Housing costs have gone up 15-fold in 55 years. And now an entire generation of kids can't afford homes. We have exactly the same problem in Canada. This is the biggest wealth transfer from the working class to the elites from, I say, the have-nots to the have-yauts. and Washington and Wall Street love it, by the way, because it inflates the stock market, inflates the bureaucracy, politicians get to spend, CEOs get their stocks inflated, but it destroys the working people and we need to get back to hard money.

Everything should be getting cheaper, by the way. You know, it takes 60 to 80 percent less resources to grow food. We grow four times the food on the same acre, get four times as much of milk from the same cow. We use 80% less water and fertilizer. So why isn't it that food is not less expensive? It's because all of those gains are being erased by monetary inflation. So it's not that food is more costly. It's that the money we use to buy it has less purchasing power.

And we need to do what the Swiss do, which is they don't print money. They have balanced budgets. They have almost no deficit. And they have almost zero inflation in Switzerland. They have the strongest money in the world, the Swiss franc. And we would all be better if we operated like the Swiss when it comes to our money. So in a real world scenario, it's like you take over Canada. How would you go about implementing this?

You got to cut bureaucracy, consultants, which consume, by the way, $26 billion of spending. How big is your debt in Canada? 1.3-ish trillion. Oh, that's baby debt. It's compared to you. You guys are really wild. But, you know, you've gotten away with it because the dollar, the American dollar is the reserve currency.

So all these countries prop up the value of the U.S. dollar by keeping it on reserve. Better hope that doesn't change. Yeah, better hope. We don't have that luxury. And so, but we do have a lot of debt and we have a lot. We have provinces too. They're quite indebted. But I would cut the bureaucracy.

I would cut consultants, foreign aid, I'd cut way back on foreign aid. We give a corporate welfare, these checks, the corporations. I believe business should make money rather than take money, so I would get rid of that. We're giving a lot of money to fake, fake refugees, people who come in and don't actually, are they not actually fleeing danger? Like I love real refugees. My wife was a refugee, but I have no time for people who are pretending, but they're not really. And what do you mean by pretending to be a refugee?

How are they doing this? They're not actually endangered in their home country. So they've come to be declared themselves as students. and then wanting to stay declaring a refugee status. Oh, and this is common? Yeah, it happens. It happens. And I mean, they just want to have a better life.

So I don't begrudge them as people, but we can't, we can't spend money on social service, stay enhanced social services, advanced programs that we as Canadians don't get for people who are not paying into. So you're not opposed to them being there. You're opposed to them getting Canadian welfare. Well, I'm opposed to them. If they're not real refugees, they shouldn't be brought in as refugees.

I think we have to distinguish between those people who are actually in danger in their home country, which is the definition of a refugee and someone who just wants to come in excess of their proper immigration regime. Is this that common that it's actually affecting your economy? Right now it's a challenge because we had a big number of international students and temporary foreign workers that came in in very large numbers in like two or three years. we were bringing in about a million people a year, which in America's terms would be 10 million, like just if you're doing per capita. And it really caused a housing shortage,

like some places where you have 26 of these students living in one basement. So we're trying to unwind that now. And how do you do that? Well, when their work permit and their visitor visa runs out, then we have to encourage them to head back lawfully. Right. but you don't want to do it ice style.

No. No, I don't think we need to do that. I just think we have to be orderly and lawful about it. And is that supported by the Canadian people? Yes, because we're a very welcoming country. We're a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws. And we, there's a general consensus, like across the spectrum in Canada that there was, the population growth was too fast for like four or five years. And so we're trying to unwind that.

now what are the other things that you would have to do to drop your debt and sort of balance your budget and begin to turn things around well in addition so I I like this idea that actually believe it or not the Clint that Bill Clinton and the Republicans did in the 90s in the US it was called the pay go law it was very simple principle every time the administration wanted to bring in a new dollar of spending they had to match it with a dollar of savings So there was no extra net spending for like eight years. And that's when your government balanced his budget and paid off $400 billion of debt.

That law lapsed in 2002. And immediately after that, America went back into deficits. And you haven't emerged. You've been in deficit now for 25 years. This is about internalizing scarcity. Every creature in the universe, every bird in the trees, every fish in the seas has to live with scarcity, maximizing use of scarce resources. The only creature who doesn't do that is the politician

because he's always using someone else's money. Right. It's like, oh, well, just print it or borrow it or tax it. It's not my money. And so they routinely show up to their cabinet meetings and say, well, I've got a new idea. It's $100 million. Where are you going to get it?

I don't know. We'll print it. We'll borrow it. We'll tax it. Not my money. But if you had a law saying you can't actually bring a proposal to cabinet unless you have matching savings to pay for it, well, then you'd have these politicians

walking up and down the hallways in their departments looking for waste and like rooting it out. So instead of making the single mom, the senior or the small business owner live with scarcity, I want the politicians and bureaucrats to live with scarcity. And that's what I would impose by law on my government. Well, it's just a rational way to deal with the problem. Like, don't spend money unless you could save money. Exactly. That's how you balance things out.

I mean, Clinton did balance the budget during his time. And people forget that because we've always assumed that there's always been this extraordinary debt, but that's not the case. They're in the 1990s. I mean, he did a fantastic job at that. Yeah, I mean, it was that Congress was very disciplined as well. And the American people just got fed up and said, we're not tolerating these deficits anymore. And they imposed scarcity from the center. And by the way, the economy boomed because the government was restrained.

And the free market economy could just roar. And that's another part of the equation, by the way. is unlock the power of free enterprise. Like this is the 250th anniversary, not just of the Declaration of Independence, but also of Adam Smith's wealth of nations, where he basically, for the first time in human history, described the free market system.

And that was starting to flourish in the states and in parts of Europe. And that system basically started to come into place after the late 1770s. The growth since the free market system has come into place in the world has been 200 times faster than it was before

because there is the most powerful system for generating material benefit for the people and that's what we need to restore in Canada I want to make it the freest economy in the world well that all sounds amazing how the hell did you lose how can a rational person not vote for that I mean you're not saying

anything that's restrictive you're not saying anything that is in any way infringing on people's rights or liberties or it just sounds like it's just 100% positive for Canada. That's what I think. That's my mission. And I think it will be positive. And we'll get there.

You know, Canadians do things through evolution, not revolution. So I'm just going to keep pushing my ideas. And I think that I think overwhelmingly will win the next election. Well, it sounds like I just can't see how someone would listen to what you're saying and say, I find fault in this. Other than the potential environmental impact of extracting resources, I could see how a lot of the greenies would get really upset and get their panties in a bunch about that and be very incredulous to the idea that you're going to protect the environment and why you're extracting all these resources. But if you could lay it all out and also lay out this enormous economic impact and how it would uplift impoverished communities, how it would completely change the economic landscape of the country, it just only means. make sense. That's why I'm baffled. Well, listen, the people render their judgment, but it means

I have to do a better job of proselytizing. What were the criticisms of you? Like, what did your opponent say that, like, people that resonated with people? What were they trying to say? It was funny because they, they all disagreed with my ideas and they said, these are all very scary ideas. Scary. And then they said, first of all, they said, they said that I had no policies. Then they said, they're scary policies. And then they stole my policies right before the election. So, but hey, listen, if the government that's in power now steals all my ideas and does the things I want to do, then I've won. Because that's why I came here.

I didn't just do it so that I could have my name on the door. So I keep saying to the prime minister, steal my ideas. Right. But he doesn't want to. Well, he, I won't criticize him on foreign soil. I understand. Good for you. Yeah.

I mean, we have a mutual respect. That's such a Canadian thing to do. That is a very Canadian thing to do. So polite. That's what I'm said about Canadians. They're so polite. It's funny, your security guy was talking about the Canadian standoff of, you know, when you get to a door, you go first. No, you go first.

No, you go first. You can stay there all day. I actually looked this up the other day. Ontario actually has an apology act. It's a law that defines the apology because we always say sorry in Canada. So they wanted to clarify that sorry is not a legal admission of guilt. So like if we get into a car accident and I say, oh, sorry, man. And it was terrible, your bumper, it doesn't mean that I'm guilty.

It says actually in law. There's so many apologies. Even if somebody else screwed up, you say sorry. That's funny. That's so Canadian. But, you know, the great thing about Canada is we've always sorted our shit out peacefully. Like the Protestants and Catholics tore each other's eyeballs out in Europe for like hundreds of years. And then we came to Canada and just got along.

And that's the great thing about Canada. It's like you can come, you know, Muslims and Jews, Christians. and, sorry, Protestants and Catholics, Hindus and Sikhs, they come to Canada and they just get along. They live on the same streets. Eventually, we all start intermarrying, and it's a great thing about Canada. Well, it really is a great melting pot, you know.

Yeah, and, like, folks get to keep their cultures, like, at the same time as blending into the Canadian identity. Like, my wife's from Venezuela, and so, like, you know, oftentimes I, like, I'm in the house. and there's like 16 Latinos, and they're all speaking Spanish. I have no idea what the hell is going on. And they have this food.

It's called a jackas. And I said, when they start cooking this stuff, I thought my, I said, I'm like, did your mom just call me a jackass? Because that's what it sounded like. I don't speak any Spanish, but. You should probably learn. I should know what they're planning.

It's a great, my kids are starting to learn Spanish, so I'm gonna be outnumbered. Yeah, you better learn it. Yeah. Yeah. So, What else is an issue in Canada that you would like to fix? James, you toss me those napkins?

We have to, we got an allergy I'm dealing with. We got to toughen up our justice system. It got way too soft. What's wrong in your justice system? Basically bail. I mean, we all believe in the basic principle that you're innocent till proven guilty, but if someone's convicted,

have like 150 prior convictions, and they're newly arrested on their latest crime. Yeah. I don't think we should be releasing them onto the streets. And so we got two lax on bail. So there's now a consensus in Canada that you should have severe restrictions on repeat offenders. Like in Vancouver, they had to arrest the same 40 guys, 6,000 times in one year. 40 guys, 6,000 arrests.

So they're basically being released within hours of their latest arrest. So we're we now built a bipartisan, multi-partisan consensus to fix that. And we're pushing to toughen the bail system and ensure that it's the repeat offenders, the tiny group. We don't have a lot of criminals in Canada, but they do a tremendous amount of crime. So if you take them off the street, you put them in prison, you can basically reduce the crime rate dramatically. Well, we probably have more crime percentage-wise in America, but it's still a small percentage of the population that commits the crime. Yeah. But it's the same issue. Like in New York City, it's extraordinary, the amount of people that are repeat offenders. Yeah.

And they just let them go. In California, no cash bail, let them go. It's like, it is bananas. And it doesn't make any sense. And it doesn't make anybody help. I understand you want to be empathetic. And I understand these narratives that the prison system is racist and the justice system is racist. And these people never been given a great shake in life. Well, if you want to fix that, start in these impoverished. neighborhoods, establish community centers, establish better education, fund that. But don't let hardened criminals back on the street when they, they're habitual. If you've been arrested 40, 50 times, it doesn't seem like you're getting any better. So whatever rehabilitation process they have going on there, that's not working. So keep doing the same thing over and over again. Unless you like crime, I don't understand why you would do that. This has been, you know, it's imposed by these so-called experts. They tell, oh, we've done all these studies that show that the soft on crime policies work. But everywhere it's been tried, it's been an absolute disaster anywhere in the Western world.

We have a town called Penticton. There's one guy who the police can tell by looking at the crime rate, whether he's been in jail or not. When he comes out of jail, the crime rate for the entire town of Penticton actually goes out. That's so crazy. But you just keep him in prison. That seems so simple to solve. It's like there's so. There's so. So many of these problems with government that it's just like rational thinking. Exactly. One of the great interviews that I loved about you, you were eating an apple and you were talking to this guy who was being completely ridiculous.

You were asking him to define the issues that he had. And it was so funny. It was like, this is what happens when a rational person meets a person with empty narratives. It was such a weird moment because... You just kept eating that apple. It was such a good apple. It was so good. That's the thing.

And the thing is, I didn't even realize I was being taken. I thought it was a print interview. Oh, that's hilarious. That's why I think I was so relaxed. But so I'm in the most beautiful place in the world. If you ever, if you haven't been to the Okinawana, it's unbelievable. Like it's lakes, it's mountains, it's nice dry weather. And there's orchards and vineyards there.

Like, you'd love it. And so I'm in an apple orchard and I'm walking around just talking with people. And my staff says, this reporter wants to do an interview and I'm enjoying the apple. He comes up and starts asking questions. nobody who was there thought this was a moment like we thought nothing of it we dumped the whole thing my staff unbeknownst to me was recording my whole walk

we dumped this 15 minute video on the internet no one noticed it and like three weeks later my phone blows up and people say hey how about that apple what is he what are they talking about this apple thing and then you know within three days everybody's talking to me about this damn apple that I had almost forgotten about eating so well that conversation

sort of it embodied this issue. It really did because you have rational thinking and empty narratives colliding right while you're eating an apple like you're so casual about it you're actually eating an apple which was so perfect. I mean you couldn't if you planned on like if you had a PR team I think you should be eating an apple. They'd go like oh I like it so he's casual he's eating fruit it's healthy you know it was totally coincidence like out of nowhere not planned and not even noticed like I said no one thought this was going to be a moment.

We just, like, totally forgot about it. Well, it made it in America. It was viral in America. And we were like, how come that guy's not the prime minister? What the hell's going on? Well, in the meantime, you can buy ambrosio apples from the South Okinaugan. I'm really plugging a lot of sales for the Canadian economy today. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours.

We are here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition. Whether it's improving, Cash flow or exploring investment banking solutions. With Desjardin business, it's all under one roof. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk.

Business. You know what I found out about Canadian maple syrup? What's that? It is actually a superfood, and it is actually better for you than honey. Is that right? Yeah. It contains a bunch of polysherap. phenols and a bunch of like healthy nutrients.

I was not maple syrup was just a guilty pleasure you poured on pancakes. No, it's a totally Canadian thing. It's really good for you. So you take it before your workout? No. No, I just watched a Instagram video yesterday. Somebody said it to me. And I was like, what is this?

We'll have to send you a bunch of maple syrup from Canada. Oh, I've got a bunch. I've had a bunch of... We actually have a maple syrup reserve in Canada, like a reserve of excess stockpiles. Like oil reserve? Well, we don't have an oil reserve. This is something I want to change. I want to have an oil reserve, but I also want to keep the maple syrup reserve because we're Canadians, after all.

There's nothing more Canadian than that. Well, it's so delicious. I can't believe it's good for you. Make sure that's true. Are there nutrients? Let's put it into perplexity, our sponsor. I compared it versus honey. I'll give you what it showed.

That's not saying it's better. Maple syrup and honey are both sugary, but maple syrup is slightly lower in calories. Glycemic index has more minerals like magnaise, magnaise. calcium, while honey is a bit higher in calories has a slightly stronger impact on blood sugar. Well, this guy on Instagram was very convincing. I wish I saved it. I think it's convincing. I think you should go with it.

I'm in it. I'm done. Stick with it. It tastes better, too. Yeah, it's the best. It's fantastic. Put that with a little bit of Greek yogurt. You eat your protein.

Oh, yeah. That's what I do. Greek yogurt. And maple syrup. Maybe we start a trend. Because everybody uses honey on their yogurt. No, maple syrup from Canada. Because if it's not from Canada, it's not the real deal.

Well, there's a lot of fake syrup, right? There's a lot of junk out there. When you go to a pancake house and they have that stuff in the little plastic cups, that's garbage. Yeah, you don't want to have that's manufactured crap. Well, that's the case with honey as well. I had a woman in here once that was a beekeeper, and she was explaining to us that a lot of honey is not actually honey. They water it down with corn syrup. There's so much shit in our food these days.

Yes. I believe in eating clean. 100%. was one of the primary factors for me supporting this administration was RFK Jr. in this Make America Healthy Again initiative. Because I think, you know, I had my friend Brigham Bueller yesterday from Ways to Well on and, you know, we hammered this many times over and over again, but people need to hear it. We spend more money on health care and we're sicker than we've ever been before. And we have more chronic illness and we have more money. None of it makes any

sense. It's completely ridiculous and it's obvious that people are eating the wrong things. And there was so much outrage of him implementing all these healthy choices and trying to get rid of dyes that are illegal in Canada. Like the same cereals that the same factory sells in Canada, they sell with natural dyes. And in America, we demand them to be more colorful so we put poison in them. Really? Yeah. Is that, no, you know, what are the, what do you think are the dietary habits that are making people in the Western world sick right now? Like is it the dyes? Is it the sugars?

Is it the carbs? Like what's getting people? There's a lot of things. First of all, it's processed foods. Process foods is an enormous percentage of a lot of Americans diets. Things with massive amounts of preservatives in them. And that's like if you want like a general guideline, eat real food. eat real eggs, real vegetables, real meat, real fish, you'll be healthier.

As soon as you start having things that can sit on a shelf forever, except things like rice and, you know, normal beans, like things that are dried, that makes sense that they could sit there. But if something can just sit on a shelf for a long period of time and you consume it, how is it just not rotting? Exactly. I'm sure you've seen where they've taken a McDonald's Big Mac and they've just let it sit, taking a cheeseburger in a box, and the guy pulls it out like 10 years later.

it looks exactly the same. That's not food. The bacteria didn't want to eat it. They looked at it and they were like, I'm not eating that. If bacteria doesn't eat it, mold doesn't eat it, that's crazy. Why are you eating it? Like there's something in it preventing the mold from growing. What is that?

Well, that stuff fucks with your gut bacteria. It's terrible for your body and empty calories. And we consume an enormous amount of processed food in this country. And if you want to be a healthier person, eat real fruit. eat real food, eat real vegetables, eat real meat. Is that simple? Yeah. That would fix 90% of our problems when it comes to people's diets.

And we, like when my, my wife once looked at some of the baby formula we had and she said, she looked on it, she said, there's no expiry date on this. This never goes bad. That's crazy. That can't be, that can't be a good thing. Right. Meanwhile, breast milk, you have to freeze, right? Exactly.

Yeah. So, and then what about on the, like, the fitness side, what do you think we can? can do, I mean, beyond, you've done a lot just talking about it. With the size of your audience, you've probably got a lot of people off the couch. But what policies do you think we could push that would get people physically active, working out, moving again? Well, the real important thing is community. The easiest way to get fit is to get around a bunch of other people that are also

involved in the same endeavor, right? If you have a bunch of friends that are unhappy with the way their life is, like, just go walk together. say, hey guys, let's all go for a walk after dinner together. Let's all decide, like, as a neighborhood, to go walk. Just walk for a half an hour after your meals. It'll lower your glycemic index. It'll change your body.

It'll make you healthy. You'll feel better. Right. It just does so much for you, just movement and activity. And if you're involved with a group of people that are also inclined in the same direction, they're also trying to get better, trying to get fit, then you kind of, you know, you feed off of your atmosphere. Right.

People imitate the people that are around them and you get support from the people that around them. You know, make it a little healthy competition. You know, who can, you know, do the most exercise and who can do the most, you know, whatever it is. Like, whether it's a sport or whether it's a game or whether it's just something that you enjoy doing that's physically, physically taxing slightly. It doesn't have to be a crazy kettlebell workout or a jiu-jitzi.

do class, just take a, just take a walk. Just, if the world, if the United States or Canada or anybody that's got problems with their health, just decided to start walking every day for 20 minutes. It'll change your life. Absolutely. And then add things to it. Add some body weight squats. Add some push-ups.

Skip a little rope. Do something. Take a yoga class. It'll change your life. Right. Absolutely. You need activity. The human body has needs.

and when it doesn't, those needs are not met and your biological requirements aren't met, you develop anxiety, you get overweight, your muscles atrophy, your bone density decreases, you can't open up a jar anymore. There's all these problems that can be solved with just simple movement and activity. You don't have to become a fitness nut. You don't have to become a gym rat. You just do something and that alone. And then change what you eat.

Drink more water. Stop drinking soda. Right. Stop drinking so much alcohol. You know, stop eating processed food. If we just slowly but surely get this in people's heads. For the longest time, people didn't think there was anything wrong with eating processed food. They didn't think there was anything wrong with, they thought sugar just gave you extra calories.

That's it. They didn't realize the catastrophic health consequences of consuming all this sugar, the increase in type 2 diabetes, all these problems that people are having, that people are having because of poor diets and a lack of movement. What's your theory, though, on how that happened? Why did that happen? Why did, what caused millions of people to shift their diets away from good, wholesome, real food towards the process garbage? Well, first of all, marketing, right?

And availability, right? They always say the center of the grocery store is what you should avoid because the center is all the stuff that does need to be refrigerated, right? Everything on the outskirts, all the vegetables. and the fruit, the meats, the milk. That's all the stuff that's healthy because it has to be refrigerated. Because if it's not, it goes bad. Things that can just sit on a shelf.

But things that sit on a shelf forever, those are the things that are the easiest to profit from. Because you don't have to worry about storage. You have to worry about refrigeration when you're processing or when you're moving them and transporting them. You know, just education is the most important thing because there's a lot of people that don't know how much their diet impacts them. And then there's also the problems that happen in this country where they should. sugar industry literally bribed scientists to pass the blame on saturated fat and pretend that this was the cause of all these heart issues that people were having and all the obesity, that it was just fat. So then people started eating all these seed oil rich foods like mayonnaise or excuse me like

margarine and you know corn oil and canola oil all this. When it's better just to have tallow or butter? Yes, it's like natural food. Your body knows what to do with it. Beef is like a superfood. A nice, fatty piece of beef, best thing you can eat. It's so good for you. You got iron, you've got fat, you've got protein and creatine. It's all packed in that one superfood. It is. And people, there's a lot of people that live very healthily off a carnivore diet and that astounds people. They don't understand it because they've been pushed into this idea. Well, one of the things they did in America that's great is they reverse the food pyramid. Our food pyramid was all grains at the bottom, was all wheat and grains, which is, like, there's something

wrong with eating that as long as you're being smart about it you don't eat too much of it but if that's your primary diet like guess what your insulin's going to spike you're going to be hungry all the time you're going to get fat this is not good it's not good to eat when i cut the carbs out and i went basically uh into ketosis um i felt great because instead of having all the ups and downs when my blood sugar was down when you're in ketosis you um you basically live off your fat stores yes you have like a consistent food of energy whenever you need it because I've obviously got some here and and so I feel lighter. I have to sleep less now.

I don't have to sleep as much because I don't eat the big heavy carbs. I mean, I cheat once in a while, but but the big heavy carbs that your body breaks down, you got to, you got to sleep more to work through all those heavy carbs. So. Well, you feel it when you eat them. I love carbs. Don't get me wrong. Like I love, I'm Italian.

I love spaghetti. Right. I love pizza. I love Italian subs. I love them, but I eat them sparingly. Absolutely. And when I eat them, I feel it. I feel it.

Like, it's amazing while you're eating it, and then you're like, oh. You got hit with a tranquilizer dart. It's just not good. It's not good for you. If I eat a steak, I feel great. If I eat a steak, I don't feel, I don't feel in any way tired after I'm done. I don't feel exhausted, like completely full. Also, they have a high satiety rate.

Like, if you eat just steak, you're only going to eat what you need. Like, your body knows when to stop. But if there's mashed potatoes next to the steak and spaghetti next to this steak and bread and all these other things, you're just going to keep eating. Exactly. And then cake and butter and ice cream and all this. You're going to keep eating and you're going to consume excess calories. But beef is really expensive now. Like it's really hard to put a steak on your plate.

For the average guy, it's insane. It's twice as expenses of pork in Canada right now. Well, there's also this dumb narrative that cows are responsible for climate change, which is just. Absolutely insane. And whoever started promoting that needs to go to jail. Because you've done a terrible disservice to people, especially regenerative farming that's, you know, actually sequesters carbon. Absolutely. And it's healthy for you.

No, the farming, the ranchers in my area are fantastic. They produce an incredible product. We've got this, the North America has the smallest cattle herd since 1951 this year. That's nuts. Very small herd. And that's why it's so hard to get beef. Why is that? I think there's been a demand spike in the last couple of years.

Beef prices were low for long, so a lot of ranchers got out of it. I just said, we can't, I can't stay in this business losing money every year. And then all of a sudden, prices started to go up. And moods have changed a lot on beef, even in the last three, four years. So now they're trying to keep up with the demand. But I'm happy to see the ranchers doing well, but I'm sure like to see middle class families to be able to afford to have beef again. But, you know, my theory on one of the reasons why the marketing has shifted

towards all this processed crap, and this goes back to my obsession, which is inflation, because instead of just raising the prices, they downgrade the quality of the food. They strip out the nutrients and they inject garbage into our food the companies do. That is ultimately less nutritious, but the price tag doesn't necessarily. necessarily look like it's changing. So it's one of the more insidious ways that the system is able to charge you to pass inflationary costs on without you seeing it in that the price tag that's underneath the product. They also engineer food to be compulsive. Like you're more compulsively is that right? Yeah, sure, especially like chips and stuff like that in America. What country do you

think does nutrition the best around the world? Well, that's a good question. Well, Japan has one of the lowest obesity rates, right? And when you look at Japanese food, like, what is it? It's like fish and rice and vegetables, and it's, they don't use glyphosate, I don't think. I think, I think the way they process their wheat is very different than ours. You know, we have higher glycine. We, we have higher gluten in our wheat because, like, we have more complex glutons in our wheat, so we have higher yield. And then on top of that, they dry all the wheat out with glyphosate at the end, which is fucking terrible for you. Interesting.

And they were trying to ban that in America, but then Trump passed an executive order stopping it. So this is one of the things that Kennedy kind of ran on is that he wanted to stop the ubiquitous use of glyphosate. Okay. And especially glyphosate, you know, used with wheat to dry it out. So it's not used as an herbicide. It's used to dry out the wheat at the end so that it does.

doesn't get moldy, which is crazy. You're spraying poison on wheat. And most Americans, if you test them, have glyphosate in their blood. You know, and the apologist will say, oh, but it's at safe levels. Well, we don't even really know what that means. You know, we're talking about decades and decades of consuming this stuff. That can't be good. I mean, it literally kills plants.

It destroys gut bacteria. It can't be good. It would be better. When you eat overseas, like if I eat pasta or bread in Italy, you feel better. It doesn't kill you like it does in America. It doesn't like, oh, you don't get that same feeling. Interesting. I don't know.

I don't want to think about glyphosate. But one of the things I have- Do you guys use glyphosate in Canada? I don't know anything about it. I feel bad saying that, but I should do my homework on that one. Well, we have corn that's engineered to survive glyphosate. We have round-up-ready corn. So that you could spray glyphosate on the corn.

that kills all the other things that you don't want growing. Okay. But how can that be good? Like, most, like, they did a test of California wines, and what was the number? It was like some preposterous number of California wines tested positive for glyphosate. Is that right? In the high 90s, I think. Okay.

Which is just nuts. Yeah, I don't know anything about glyphosate. I have to admit, I'll know my research. You've piqued my curiosity. The problem is in America, our food system is entirely dependent on it at this point. They want to change it, and so there's a lot of strategies. One of them is they have these machines that use lasers, and these lasers go over a field that actually target the weeds.

So instead of spraying poison on them, they just zap these weeds, and they can identify the difference between the weed and the crop. Really? Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. The wine was 10 out of 10 tested. But this is...

10 out of 10. I was looking at the Japanese obesity thing. They have an interesting law that they put in place in 2008, where I believe it says workplaces have to measure people's waists of adults over 40 to find out if they're potentially overweight. Wow. Those people don't get fined. The companies get fined.

So they have to then provide them counseling, diet advice, exercise guidance, etc. Wow. And they also use a lower BMI than we do. There's a starts at 25. it says it's because they have a higher risk in Asian populations for obesity. Interesting. I wonder why that is. I wonder if that's because a lot of rice consumption.

Way lower. 4 to 6% compared to 42%. Wow, that's crazy. Their obesity rates are 4 to 6%. And we're 42. 42 is nuts. 42 is so crazy. I try to find out what the Japanese are doing.

My next stop is got to be Tokyo. Yeah, well, they eat healthy food, you know, and that, but that does make sense. I mean, implementing something like that, it sounds very restrictive, you know. I mean, I don't want to tell a guy he can't have a gut. Like, I have a lot of friends that are fat and I love them to death. I'd like them to be healthy, but I wouldn't, you know, I don't believe you should have that kind of control over people. No. I think you should encourage healthy behavior.

I don't think you should mandate it. Yeah, we need, we need carrots. not sticks. Yeah. Carrots literally. Literally. But the system is like, you know, I think of the opioid thing. That's an incredible story, really.

That's a horrible story. That's a horrible story. And, you know, the fact that no one's going to jail for that is infuriating. They should. What they did and what the deception that they use to pretend that that stuff is not addictive, that it's not the same as heroin is just absolutely atrocious. And the fact that they got. got away with it and the Sackler family, just that one family,

I don't know if you ever seen the Netflix dockey drama series. Yeah. Pain killer. Or was it, was it called Painkiller? They're the guys from Purdue, right? Purdue Pharma. Yes. I think they were Purdue Pharma, if I'm not mistaken.

I mean, how many lives were destroyed by that? When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere. and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board.

Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Well, half a million ended in the U.S. Yeah, at least. 50,000 in Canada. We lost more people in the last 10 years

to opioid overdoses than we lost fighting in the Second World War. Oh, my God. That's so crazy. And we, you know, these companies, I mean, it started in the states, Purdue and a number of others where they basically started lying to the system and paying, they actually paid bonuses to distributors for every overdose they caused. They actually tracked the overdoses and then paid bonuses to distributors because that was an

indicator of how successfully they were pushing the drugs onto doctors and pharmacists. and the system. No way. It all came out in the court because there was a huge lawsuit and they the companies had to pay $50 billion because of an American government lawsuit against them. But they actually paid bonuses for overdose rates. That's true. That is insane.

It's wild. And they basically, they were very, very strategic. They said we're going to go to working class neighborhoods where there's huge unemployment. So you know, in the Rust Belt of America where people were out of work and they said, they obviously had some minor industrial injuries and said, you know, this will solve every ache and pain. Take oxycontin. And it fell great when they first started taking it.

And then it spread into Canada as well. And then it mutated in from oxycontin into fentanyl, which is a hundred times more powerful than heroin. It can stop your, your lungs in 15 seconds, just absolutely deadly. And we, you know, these companies, these dirt bag companies should be paying hundreds of billions of dollars to cover the treatment and recovery of the people whose lives have been ruined by this. Well, it's just insane that they only had to pay a percentage of the amount of money that they profited. It is insane. They should have gone to jail. They should have had to pay, first of all,

give all the money back. Yeah. I mean, what you did was unbelievably evil. Absolutely. And you were allowed to profit from it, which is crazy. For years. Even the Sackler family, the amount that they got fined, was a small percentage of what they actually made. I don't know how people live with themselves when they do that. They're sociopaths. They have to be. They basically got into the entire system, the health care system, the medical community, and they pushed these over prescriptions.

And then they got this crazy idea that they pushed in places like Portland and Seattle and San Francisco that the government should start giving out opioids that are safer than the ones that are on the street as an alternative to keep people from having contaminated drugs. which made the problem even worse because those the addicts would sell those to kids so that they could buy the harder stuff off the street and it expanded it even more and so one of the things we're focused on my plan is is massive treatment to recovery programs to get people off drugs abstinence based treatment is incredible like it's very successful and we're saving lives now in canada you get them in you get them counseling group therapy treatment of sweat lodges for first nation people's physical exercise is a big part of it. I went to one treatment center in Saskatchewan and they actually bought these rusted out weights and they had the guys like lifting weights and the bureaucrats are saying well why are you spending money on weights? What does that have to do with it? He says what's been the best thing we had? These guys started

to see their biceps grow and they're like I want to look like this and if I take drugs I'm not going to look like this. So it was one of the best things they did. Then you get them into jobs and treatment and there's one guy that I met in B.C. see he was going to kill himself. He drove his car into a brick wall because he was so ruined by his addiction. But he didn't die. He couldn't even pull it off. So he actually went into treatment, turned his life around, started a business.

He's got six employees. And now he's going out on the street and like helping, you know, pulling guys off the street and bringing them in and saving their lives. So it's actually a really hopeful ending to the story. If we can get to shift all our resources over to treatment and recovery services, which is one of my big objectives. Are you aware of Ibegain? No.

So former Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is involved in this Ibegain initiative here in Texas. And one of the things that they found, you know, he works very closely with veterans. And, you know, obviously a lot of these guys, they come back from the war, they have PTSD, they have a lot of pain, they get addicted to pills, and then they have an incredibly difficult time getting off of it. And there's a treatment called Ibogaine. And Ibogaine comes from the abogatry. It's like a natural psychedelic that has no recreational use whatsoever. It's not fun. And it's apparently a brutal 24-hour experience, but it rewires the brain.

Really? Stopps the pathways of addiction. And just one Ibogaine treatment, one session, the amount of people that never go back to using those drugs is in the 80%. Really? When they do two sessions, it's in the 90s. Wow. It's incredible. So they're implementing it here. And Rick Perry, who was like a staunch anti-drug, hardline Republican guy, great guy, but realized from talking to these veterans, maybe you have to have an open mind and look at this, we have this blanket term that we use for drugs. And we say, oh, Iba Gain's a drug. You don't want to take drugs. But this.

This psychedelic, this ibogaine, apparently it's like a 24-hour review of your life that in some way, some chemical way, rewires your system and stops the pathways of addiction. It's like a factory reset. Yes. Wow. Yes. That's crazy. And so they're starting to implement it here in Texas and they're going to use it for veterans. So I've like studied this or they've done like a, and they've done, is it approved like as a treatment or what?

Well, it's being approved here in Texas. and they're trying to do it in other places. And I know a friend of mine, my friend, Ed Clay, he started a center down in Mexico. And the reason why he did it was because he got hooked on pills. He hurt his back. He got hooked on pills. He had to figure out how to get off of it. And he did one Ibogaine session, got clean.

Really? And it was like, I need to educate people and help people with this. And we start this system. And, you know, and it's very successful. I know multiple people that have done it, and especially veterans, that have done it and had profound changes in their life because of this. It's amazing. Yeah.

And again, there's no recreational use for this. There's no chance of abusing it. Okay. It's not fun. Like, to get people to do it twice is very hard. Okay. But even doing it once. But if you do it, it's incredibly effective, much more effective than any other form of therapy.

Really? Yes. Okay. Well, I'll have to look out for that one because we need it. We still have a challenge up in Canada. I can connect you with Rick Perry. Okay. And he's, him and Brian Hubbard are incredible with their advocacy and the promotion of this.

What they've done is really amazing. Yeah, we got to, we got to get people off these drugs. And, you know, we're doing, we're making some good progress in Canada. Our biggest challenges are, are just the long-term aftermath of the opioid problem. Like you have had now here. But, like, I think, I think we can overcome it. and we have to try some new things in order to get people off these things because they're because it's when you're doing fentanyl it's it's Russian roulette it could be you might not have

more than a day to live if you're still taking that stuff so it's so dangerous and it's in everything it's in so many different um street versions of pills that people think are safe right like Xanax there's like illegal Xanax like street Xanax and there's fentanyl in them people take it and they die right absolutely I've met so many mothers they just come up to me at my rallies and things and they tell me the story and they show me a picture and he's man it's a beautiful child that child looks healthy and smart and she went to a party and they were handing the shit out and there's a high school kid here in town that took a street adderol and had fentanyl and he died is that right yeah somebody sold them what he thought was atarol look that's what killed prince

that's what killed tompetty adderol no no fentany fentanyl they got street drugs from someone like they're both in pain and they become addicted to the pills. And then they got like a pill from a roadie. I didn't know that. And took it and died. I didn't know that. Petty, did he sing Last Dance? Last Dance for Mary Jane.

Right. That's really sad. Oh, he sung a bunch of amazing songs. American girl. I mean, Tom Petty was a legend and died because of fentanyl. Prince is one of the great musical genius of human history. And fentanyl got him to. Died from fentanyl.

Unbelievable. He had hip pain. He needed a hip replacement. His hip was blown out. out and he was in agony all the time. So he started taking pills and then next thing you know, you're hooked. And I've had family members that got hooked on it. Is that right? Did they get through it? Well, one of them didn't. Yeah. I mean, he hurt his back doing construction and started taking pills and now he's a waste. That's the sad thing. That's the sad thing is it's they're good people and they're not

law-breaking people. No. Often it's folks who work in physically demanding jobs. They get an injury. Exactly. And it's easy to judge. but when you're in excruciating pain and you find something that makes it go away, it's understandable. Also, if you're not educated in these subjects and you just trust the doctor, you go to a doctor and the doctor says you need pain medication, and then all of a sudden you're on it. It's easy to see how people get locked into that and then they can't break loose. Well, the pathway to physical addiction is it's so well known and studied. It's very, very addictive, which is why it's so horrific. which is why it's so horrific

that they actually promoted the fact that these things are not addictive when they were promoting them. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were absolute crooks. And I'm hoping we get big settlements out of them the way you did down here and I want to put all that money

into treatment and recovery, get people off these drugs and rescue them. I think we can save these lives. Treatment, it works. It's tough. Like the people who go through it, they say it was the worst experience of my life to go through that withdrawal,

but it can be done. And you come out, stronger on the other side. It can be done. And I think the most important thing is prevention and education and letting kids know, like, hey, this is not what you want to get involved with. You want to have a happy, successful life. This is going to stop that.

This is going to keep you from having it. This might kill you and it's definitely going to ruin you. Yeah, but you're right about fitness though because when I was young, I hung around with a lot of people who got into a lot of trouble and I could have ended up there. The reason I didn't, frankly, is sports. So I had something else to drive me. So it's one of the reasons why we need to get our young people's active in sporting activities when they're in that age group. Because if you're not giving them an outlet, then they'll end up down that scary path.

Oh, 100%. And also you realize that if you want to be effective in sports, like you can't party. Exactly. It's like it'll rob you of your vitality. Exactly. It'll rob you of your performance. No, when I played hockey and I showed up a few times hungover and I was just shit. Like it was terrible.

But you learn pretty quick that you got to be on your game. So we've got to promote more of the fitness at the, at the, at the, you know, at the youth level as well. And is that happening here? It's funny. I remember when I came down here as a 16 year old. I haven't been here in 30 years. We got into town and the people who were hosting us,

were driving us to their home. And we saw this stadium and there's like 20,000 people. And it was in Houston. And I said, is that the Cowboys playing? And they said, no, no, that's a high school league. It's like, okay, in Canada, we don't have high school leagues with 20,000. thousand people coming out.

But the sports are so massive here. Oh, football is gigantic here. It's a religion. Yeah, it's incredible. It's crazy. Who do you cheer for, by the way? In Texas? Yeah.

For you, you personally. Well, I've got into UT football. Okay. I really love going to the UT games. It's so fun and it's so, they're so enthusiastic. And they just love it. It's like when you're a part of it, when the touchdowns get scored and everybody's cheering. It's like it's so contagious. Right. It's really amazing. And it's just like the enthusiasm

they have for it. It's like, you're like, wow, like this is a great, these people love this here. Yeah. But I've been to high school football games and it's the same thing. Like pack stadiums for high school football games. And you're like, this is nuts, man. These people love their sports. We're like that for hockey in Canada. Oh yeah. It's serious, serious. Like parents are very fixated. And I think, I think it's actually a good thing. Some people say, oh, it's terrible. I think it's great to have parents that are competitive because they're pushing their kids to be better and more excellent. And even if they don't end up as NHL hockey players, it gives them a competitive ed. And I want us to be a more competitive society. Well, when I was a kid, I worked at the Boston

Athletic Club. And one of the people that I was a fitness instructor when I was 19. And one of the people that I worked with was Bobby Orr. Oh, really? Yeah, Bobby Orr used to come there and train him. We used to have to help him get on the VersaClimber machine because his body was so. So wrecked. Really? He had so many surgeries. His knees were so destroyed. He had scars all up and down his knee.

He had knee surgery back when they were just experimenting. You know, they didn't really know how to fix knees. They just cut you open, screwed things back together again, and then it would blow apart again. And then you'd wind up having another surgery. So he had many, many knee surgeries and he could barely walk. But he was still doing some kind of physical activity? Oh, yeah. He was playing racquetball.

How old was he at the time? was he at the time? This was 1986, so, I mean... Jeez, that's like, what, 40 years ago? Uh-huh, yeah. So he was, you know, he was probably in his 50s, 40s or 50s.

He was, but he's, he could barely walk. I mean, his knees didn't straighten out. Really? They were always, like, slightly bent, and they only bent that much. His range of motion was very small. So you had to help him, like, get on, machines, but the nicest guy.

Right. A legend. Like, you couldn't believe he was really there. Like, he would walk into the gym and you're like, oh, God, it's really, as I was 19, I never met a famous person. And I was like, that's Bobby Orr? Absolutely. This is nuts.

But it also made me realize, like, boy, knee surgeries, no joke. Like, this guy was like an incredible athlete, and now he can't even straighten his leg out. Yeah, it's all temporary. You got to take care of yourself. Yes. Do you have, like, residual injuries from fighting? back in the day? Oh yeah, yeah, I've had three knee surgeries, two reconstructions.

Was that from Taekwondo? Mm-hmm. Yeah, and Jiu-Jitsu. One of my ACL injuries was from Jiu-Jitsu. And what, like, what injuries are the most common injury issue? Knees, backs, necks, shoulders, those are the big ones, elbows. Is that because of the arm bars and all that stuff? Yeah, not tapping.

That's a big one. A lot of guys get hurt just because they're ego, because they don't want to tap. And you don't, you don't, you don't, strike me as the type of guy who taps very quickly. Well, when I was younger, I was really stupid, and I wasn't into tapping. Right. But as I got older, I got a lot smart. Fortunately, I got a lot better, so I wasn't like in a situation where I had to tap a lot.

Right. But if I did, I did. I just tapped. And that's the smart thing to do. And I would tell people, treat it like you're playing basketball. Don't treat it like it's your life or death. Right. The game is life or death.

The game is if a guy gets you in an arm bar, he's essentially breaking your arm, he breaks your arm, he can kill you, right? That's the game. But don't treat it like that. Treat it like you can tap and keep going. Right. Or you cannot tap and your arm's going to be destroyed maybe for the rest of your life. Right. And I've seen that happen with people where their forearms snaps and they have to have plates in it

and then it's a chronic injury for the rest of their life. Right. Yeah. No, I can imagine that. And what about in Taekwondo? Like you told the story once about how you really clocked a guy. I think it was a wheel kick or something. Yeah.

And that like freaked you out. I changed my whole outlook on fighting because I realized that could happen to me. And I had knocked people out before, but I'd never knocked anybody out where they didn't get up. Like usually they get up and they're wobbly and, you know, they get sat down and the, you know, medics take care of them. And, you know, after a while they're walking around. And this guy never got up. And I never really got over that. I never had the same lust for hurting people because it was just, I was young, you know.

19 and when you're 19 you think you're invincible or you don't you don't think about the consequence I knew I could get hurt I've been hurt before I've been kicked really hard and punched really hard before I knew I was vulnerable but I didn't think it would going to be anything permanent did the guy ever get into the hospital I don't know really I don't know what happened to him well maybe I don't know what happened to him maybe he'll hear this show and give you a call and say that he's all right oh no no he probably don't want to talk to me well your sp your spinning back kick is incredible I saw you and GSP doing that video where you were showing him how to do the back kick.

Yeah. Did he ever use that in a fight? Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. He landed it? Yeah, he used it a lot. It's a thing that, like, you have to almost grow up doing it. Right.

You know, unless you're dealing, like, John Jones developed it later in his career. I saw that. He's a wizard. But he kind of, like, started implementing it, like, sort of three, two-thirds through his career. Did you teach him how to do that? No, no, I did not. He worked with a tag with no coach in Albuquerque. Okay.

And he just really worked on that one technique specifically when he went up to heavyweight because the guys would be, first of all, less agile and mobile. And also it was the kind of technique where you could stop a guy with one shot. Right. And when you're a guy who's smaller than most heavy weights, which John is, because he was a light heavyweight, so he's fighting at 205 most of his career and just as a challenge decided to go up to heavyweight. But he's so intelligent. He realized, like, I need a one shot that I could put people away. So he spent hours and hours every week just going over the spinning back kick. Really?

To the body or the head? Yeah, the body. Yeah. It's like getting hit by a car. Right. You get hit with that. Like a wheel kick to the head is really difficult to develop. It's like a fast twitch thing that it's almost like your body has to evolve and grow doing that.

To really develop the kind of speed that you could pull it off on a skilled opponent. And the accuracy. Yeah. like to try and time that all. That must be incredible. I mean, there's, there's freak athletes that could pick it up later in life. There's some people that are just really good at everything. They just have amazing dexterity and coordination. But for most people, like, I learned it when I was a kid.

So, like, my body matured doing those things. Right. My body matured kicking. And it became a part of, like, just my average, like, normal movement of life. Right. You know? That's amazing. And the spinning back kick, though,

So is it typically a body kick? Yes. When you throw, I've thrown it to the face, too, especially a jump spinning back kick to the face. Wow. But the- Taekwondo, wasn't it really the Koreans that developed so they could actually kick a man off a horse in war?

Is that why the kicks are so high? I don't think so. I think it was just because they were, they're smaller in stature, and they realized that you had to have more powerful kicks. Okay. You know, like, because your legs are always carrying your body around.

There's a lot more mass to your muscles and your legs, and there's a lot more force you can generate with your kicks. Did you ever see the fight between Rick Rufus and that Muay guy? Oh, yeah.

Wasn't that incredible? Yeah, that changed kickboxing. We've showed that fight a hundred times on this podcast. It's amazing because it was like Americans versus Thai and... Well, we didn't really understand leg kicks. Right.

Because PKK karate, and I found this out later because of Benny Urquitas, who came in the podcast, he told me that the reason why they didn't allow leg kicks in PKK karate was because of Bill Wallace. So Bill Superfoot Wallace famously had one leg that he kicked with.

It was because his other leg, he had a bad knee. Right. And he didn't want anybody kicking his legs. Interesting. So he promoted this idea that only have above the waist kicks. Right. And that's what we had in America. Like, that's what Johnny Fetria fought most of his career.

He did. He fought Rufus himself, actually. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was incredible because if you looked at the art form, Rufus was so much more beautiful to watch than the Thai guy. He came in, he broke the guy's jaw in the first round, I think.

Hey, he knocked him down a few times. Was it once or twice? He knocked him down a couple times, I believe, but it was... And the guy just kept chopping his leg, and then I think he went out in a stretcher, because his leg was busted in like nine places or something. He didn't know what to do. He didn't understand it. What was really interesting is his brother, Duke, became a Muay World Champion after that fight.

Was that the guy who was at the guy who was at the... fight commenting after the fight? Yes. Yes, I remember that. He was saying it doesn't take any skill. There's no skill. Yes, I remember that. He was embarrassed by that later in his life because he became one of the top MMA trainers. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he took on Muay Thai. Yes. Well, he became a Moitai world champion and he developed Rufusport, which is a great gym in Milwaukee, a top gym, developed world champions like Anthony Pettis. So he was, you know, he was a pioneer. I was one of the guys that had to figure it out. And, you know, he spent time in Thailand. They all learned it. They had to learn. And where's the best place in Thailand to go?

Is it Fouquet? Is it Bangkok? Like where do you go? Oh, there's so many good places. Thailand's the real motherland of Maita, obviously. And it's like, you know, Pouquet's amazing. Bangkok's amazing. I mean, there's so many amazing gyms that are in Thailand.

They're tough guys. There's whole strips in Fouquet. My wife and I were there on vacation once, and we just stumbled on this whole street. And you could do, there was sort of American-style boxing. There was a cross-fit type thing. Then there was that Tiger Moitai and a bunch of other Moitai facilities. And then there's like street vendors that were cooking meals specifically for people who are their training. Like you could buy a beautiful hard-boiled eggs and avocado and chicken strips.

And it's like high-protein just catered to the people who come from around the world to train for like five, six weeks in a clinic. And there's people that do it just recreationally. My friend Mark, he's a businessman. He's in his 60s. And he did it? He went over to Thailand. Did he survive? Yeah.

Wow. He spars all. I saw him the other day. He had a black eye. He's in his 60s. I'm like, what are you doing, man? So if you were starting from scratch, you wanted to be a MMA, would you do like, you go to Thailand and do like two months there and then go to Dagestan to learn how to wrestle? Is that, that would be the best combo?

If you were starting out, if you're a kid, I would say wrestling. Wrestling's number one. Yeah. That's the most important. thing to learn because if a guy can take you down he could do whatever he wants to if you could take you down and hold you down and beat you up if you don't know how to wrestle you can't fight right you need it at least to learn wrestling just to understand wrestling take down defense but you did jih Tjitsu later in life didn't you yes right I didn't start jihitsu until I was

29 I think yeah and who are you like right now who do you think is the most interesting fighter to watch these days oh there's so many it's impossible to say the most interesting There's a guy from Spain, Ilya. Tuporia. Yeah, I really like Tuporia. He's what David Gagans calls uncommon amongst uncommon men. Want some more coffee than here? No, no, thank you.

I'm good, thank you. He's a freak. I mean, he's just incredibly talented. Like, weirdly talented. Like, his last three fights, he knocked out three all-time greats. Holloway? Yeah, Holloway, Alexander. and Charles Oliver.

So that's crazy. Volcanovsky, who's like one of the greatest featherweights of all time, knocked him out, knocked out Max Holloway, another one of the greatest featherweights of all time. And then Charles Olivera, one of the greatest lightweights of all time. He knocks out three guys in three fights. There's no one has a resume like that. And he's not like, as I understand, he was a Greco-Roman guy.

Right. And he became a boxer later on. He's just talented. How do you describe, like, so I'm not, I'm not knowledgeable in this area, but the way he, he almost looks like he has a Philly Shell. Is that a Philly Shell what he does with one arm down? It's a little bit of that. Well, he has amazing defense. It's just amazing awareness and he, pattern recognition, technique.

It's like, he's a combination of all things, right? Incredible confidence, incredible intelligence, insane discipline, work ethic. but just great training methods. Like he does everything right. And then insane confidence. Like his confidence is insane. He, when he fought Charles Olivera for the lightweight title, he celebrated his victory the night before.

He had a party to celebrate the night before the fight. And then went out and knocked Charles out in the first round. And said he was going to knock Charles out in the first round. That's incredible. One punch. Boom. But you know what impresses me most about him is how he got up after that kick to the head he talked. I know.

That was incredible. And you know who else did that was GSP? Remember when GSP took that head tech? And he went down, but he recovered quickly. And he was talking to me about how, because I said to him, like in politics, you get hit, you get hit, right? And not physically, if you're lucky, but you have to be able to get up quickly and react to it. I asked him, how did you do it? How did you, like, how does your brain go from taking that kind of hit to getting back in the fight and turning it around?

And he said he, like, it's two very deep breaths through the, nose and then out through the mouth and get some oxygen back into your system and focus your mind. I thought that was an incredible lesson. Well, I mean, it's all in how you get kicked because you could just get knocked out. And then it's over. There's nothing you can do. If you get shut off, you get shut off. Right.

Certain people get shut off. It just, you just get kicked. You can get kicked and it kind of glances off of you or you can get kicked and it just slams right in the side of your neck and the lights go dark. Right. But if you're still able to, recover and think quickly. It's incredible to have that kind of pre-programming to ready you for a moment like that.

Well, I mean, that's a big part of his, what I was talking about, the camp that he comes from. I mean, for us, the hobby is like one of the most intelligent and one of the most brilliant trainers in the sport. Who's this? For us a hobby. He's the guy from Montreal. Oh, that's, TriStar. So he's the guy who trains his, uh, trains GSP.

Oh, GSP. Yes. Okay. And I mean, I think that is, that's a big part of. why GSP was able to recover. Like, they prepare for everything. Right. You know, it's like there's nothing left to chance.

Like, he hires people to try to knock George out in training. That was one of the things he did. He would give them more money if they could knock him out. So they would just, so he would be like fully prepared. Right. When he was fighting. Like, they leave no stone uncovered. Don't you have to like budget though the number of head shots you take?

But he was pretty confident that George, I mean, it wasn't like he was doing this with a beginner. Right. was doing this with a world champion, one of the greatest of all time. Okay. He, you know, he wanted George to be in danger, you know, so George had to fight like he was going to fight inside the octagon. Right.

In danger. Because John Jones said somewhere that he had, like, every time he gets hit hard in camp, he said, like, I just, that's part of my brain budget that's been taken away. Well, that's why John's so smart. He recognized that. There's a lot of people that don't think that out of the way. John also famously won't take a fight on short notice. Is that right?

He wants to be fully prepared for a fighter. Even a guy, like when he fought Chale Sondon, they offered him a Chale Sondon fight on short notice, and he said no. Like there is not a time, no disrespect to Chale. He's a great fighter. No, there's not a time on this life in this earth where Chale Sondon is going to beat John Jones.

It's just not going to happen. He could have taken that fight on one day's notice and still beat Chale Sondon. He's that much better than him. But he still wouldn't take it. He's like, no, I'm going to be fully 100% prepared. That's smart, though. Yeah, also he hated Chale.

And so he wanted to make sure that there was not a chance that Chale could do anything to him that he would have been able to, wouldn't have been able to do if he was trained. Do these guys hate each other? Sometimes. But most of them do they respect, or is it depends on the fight? It really depends. Like, when Ilya fought Charles Olivera,

he actually apologized to him before the fight. He said, I'm sorry it has to be you. I really like you. Kind of crazy. He's got to be careful. But he's hated people, too. He's hated people he fought too. I mean, there's some people that just rub you the wrong way.

There's some people, there's strategies to get inside your head and fuck with you and for you to fight with emotion. Well, he'd be angry with, um, Connor McGregor. With McGregor, he really hated McGregor. He was going to almost didn't let go when the tap happened. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was, that was something else. Is Connor ever going to come back, do you think? Only Connor knows.

I mean, if he's going to, he has to do it soon. I mean, I think he's 30. How old is he now? 37? He's jacked now, eh? Yeah, well, not anymore. Oh, he came back down? He was on the Mexican supplements for a while.

Okay. Because he was trying to recover from his leg break. Right. So when he fought Dustin Porier. I remember that. He got on some stuff to try to recover for that. I don't know what he got on, but clearly it helped. He got huge.

He got super jacked. The problem with getting super jacked like that is then you get addicted to what got you super jacked. Because if you're on steroids, you feel like Superman. You know, you feel like you could just run through walls. And then you get off of it. And now your endocrine system has to kind of catch up to the fact that you've been giving it exogenous testosterone for all these months. And so it takes a long time for you to get back to a normal, healthy level. So you feel like shit. It's hard for these guys to get off of steroids. Right. I can imagine you get addicted to being nuts from. I've never done it. I don't plan on it.

How old is he? 37, almost 38. That's getting up there. Who's the oldest fighter that's ever been in the Octagon? Like who's a serious competitor? Probably Randy Couture. I think Randy won the world title, the World Heavyweight title in his 40s.

Wow. Yeah. But Randy didn't even start his mixed martial arts career. I think, I was there at his first fight in 1997, and I think he was 34 or 35. before he ever had an MMA fight. He was just an elite wrestler who, you know, made his way into MMA because, you know, there's no real professional outlet for actual amateur wrestling.

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Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Did you ever interact with the Gracy's? Because I remember way back in, like, I remember MMA or UFC 2. It was the second one. That was when it really kicked. Because the first one was a little bit strange. It was that big fat guy who's tooth went flying out.

Yeah. But number two was the one with Shamrock and Gracie and Dan's, Severn? Was he in number two? Dan Severn, the wrestler? I think he was later. He might have been three or four. Yeah. But that was kind of the first generation. Uh-huh. Of big names. Oh, Hoyst Gracie changed the world. Yeah. With his, he

was a slow style though, man. You had to have patience to watch him because he's just lie on his back and wait, wait, wait, and then choke. Well, with Dan Severn he did, because he had to catch him in a triangle. Right. He eventually tapped him, and no one even understand what was going on. Like, why is he, he's got his legs wrapped around him? What the hell's

going on? And then all of a sudden, Dan Severin, tapping out. You're like, this is crazy. So a man who weighed literally a hundred pounds more than him or close to it. Right. On top of him and Hoyst beat him. Well, Dan Severn didn't appear to have any finishing moves. Like he's thinking, I got you on your back. I've pinned you. I've won the wrestling match. He would kind of give you a little nuggies, right? But then, of course, eventually that anaconda comes in and either chokes you out or takes your arm. Well, no one understood Jiu-Jitsu until Hoyce came around, you know, other than the Brazilians. And he was his dad, wasn't it? His dad that introduced it to the family?

His dad and his uncle. So it was Carlos Gracie and Ilyae, who were the real founders of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and then Carlson Gracie. Okay. And those guys were the pioneers and they were having no rules fights in the 1930s and 40s.

Wow. Yeah. And did they bring it over from Japan? Maeda brought it over from Japan and they taught the Gracies. And then, you know, Ilio Gracie famously had a, match with Kimura, who is a Japanese judoka, who broke Aalio's arm with a Camura.

And that's how that technique, that's why it's called a Kimura. Really? Yeah, in catch wrestling, they call it a double wrist lock. Okay. But we call it a Camura because Camora broke Aelio Gracie's arm with this. Really? Yeah, he just refused to tap, and it's like, ah! And eventually it snapped his arm.

Wow, that's incredible. They're having these long, no-rules fights in Brazil. long before anybody had any idea what MMA was in America. And then Hoyce's brother, Hickson, who was the best out of all of them. Hickson was fighting people when he was 18 in like these big arenas in Brazil. Really? In Brazil. Yeah.

Unbelievable. And then they, I guess Dana White brought it in with UFC. No, it wasn't Dana. It was, there was another organization before Zufa owned the UFC. and this other organization, they started it with Hory and Gracie. So Hory and Gracie was the guy who founded the UFC. Okay. And originally they were talking about putting like a moat around the cage and having crocodiles in and shit.

They wanted it to be like completely insane. Because what it was for Horean, Horian's a brilliant man. And what for him, what he wanted was to promote Jiu-Jitsu. And he's like, this is going to be the best way to open up schools all over the country and to show this art that my father. had created. Right. So they had really taken some of the ground techniques of judo and really refined them to a razor sharp edge. And also one of the things that helped a lot was that Ilya was a small man. He was only like 145 pounds. And so he had to use only technique and

leverage. He couldn't rely on brute strength. And so it was one of the best sort of advertisements is to have hoise, who was also fairly small, he was only 175 pounds. beat all these big, giant muscle-bound guys with pure technique because they didn't understand what he was doing. And he was like, this is going to be brilliant. This is going to...

And it worked. I mean, the name Gracie and jujitsu are synonymous. It's everywhere now. Like, we even have them in Canada where these schools will have the Gracie name and obviously they have no attachment to Gracie's, the Brazilian Gracies, but everybody wants to learn the Gracie style.

Well, they probably do have a... Like Gracie Baja, which is a huge affiliate of gyms. They're all over the country. country in the world. They're everywhere. Are they good? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's, like, it's very difficult to have a bad jiu-jitsu gym today. Why is that? Because they're so competitive. It's too competitive. Okay. There's too many good people. There's too many good gyms. Like, in Austin alone, Austin alone is like 10 amazing jujitsu schools. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Do you go, do you go and roll quite often still? There's a place right up the street, 10th Planet Jiu-Soo, which is the school that I started with

in California. Well, I started with the Macha. Well, I actually started with Hicks and Great. I started, I started, I started with Hicks and Gracie and then I went to Carlson Gracie and then I and that was just because I didn't know there was any difference in the Gracies and Carlson Gracie was closer to my house I'll go to this Gracie place it's closer this one I was a white belt I didn't know anything and then when they closed when that gym closed then I went to Jean-Jacques Machadoes and so I started training there in 1998 and that was that was in the Valley in California but then one of John Jock's black belts my best friend Eddie Bravo he started

10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu, and then I trained there as well. Okay, and in Canada, we see a lot of places where they do moit-tai and jiu-s. So you're striking and you're grappling all in one studio. 10th Planet here has a moitai program. Oh, is that right? So that's common now. A lot of those gyms have that.

And you went to your first, as a commentator, you did it like for free, didn't you? No, no, I got paid in the early days in the 90s, in 1997, but it wasn't much. I was losing money. But when the UFC was purchased by Zufa in 2001, that was when I was on Fear Factor. And I met Dana White, and I became friends with him. And he asked me as a favor to do commentary on this one show that they had, UFC 37 and a half. It was on Fox Sports, whatever it was. There was a cable channel.

So those best damn sports show period had this UFC show. And he said, would you do me a favor and just do commentary on this one event? Right. And I said, okay, I'll do it for this one. And he's like, I want you to do it again. And then I was like, okay. So I was like, I just wanted to do it for fun. Like for me, it's like, I like going to the fights and I like going with my friends and having a good time.

And I did like the first 15 of them for free. I just, I knew they were hemorrhaging money and I didn't need any money. But you loved it. You loved being there. He was like a kid in a candy store. Well, also I was very happy to try to promote this thing because for me, it was the ultimate expression of martial arts. Like, we need to find out what's the best style. Right. And I'd kind of, I had been so engrossed in that world in Japan with pride and all these other organizations

that they had over there. It's like, what happens if an alligator fights with a tiger? What happens with a lion fights with a bear? We've got to match them up and find out. Well, it's humans versus humans. Right. Right. It's just style. It's like we needed to know. Because you want to waste your time doing something that didn't work. Right. And there was a lot of people that wasted their time doing stuff that didn't work. And we didn't really know what that was until the UFC came along. And then we're like, oh, and now the evolution of martial arts from 1993 when the UFC started to 2026, in those years, martial arts have evolved more than they have in the last 30,000 years. Right. Well, it's like the gap between theory and practice. Yes. And like Bruce Lee, when he, when he started with Wing Chung,

but he said that a lot of it was just ornamental, and he called it dry land swimming. It's like, you know, you wouldn't actually do that in a fight. And then he got into a lot of contention with the scholars of the art form. It's a very beautiful art form, Wing Chung, but I don't know if it, I can't imagine it works that well. Well, it is, Wing Chung is effective.

There's a lot of techniques in Wing Chang. If you got into a fist fight between like a Muay guy and a Wing Chung guy, who would come out on it? The Muay guy. Yeah. But it doesn't mean that Wing Chung's not. effective and you could use Wing Chung in Muay Thai or in an

MMA fight but you have to know everything that's the reality of it it's like Taekwondo like Taekwondo is not effective by itself in an MMA fight but if you know MMA and you know Taekwondo then you could do like what Edson Barbosa did to Terry Eddham and knock him out with a wheel kick

it's spectacular fashion like it's learning all the techniques Like he has some Moitai some karate some yes that's what MMA is mixed martial arts. I mean, it's like, you take all, and that's Bruce Lee's philosophy,

absorb what's useful. Right. He was the real first mixed martial artist. And when it was very dangerous to do that, because people hated him. I mean, they would attack him. He would have to have fights with people because they thought that he was disrespecting their art.

Right. And he combined Western boxing and wrestling. He learned judo from Gene LaBelle. He learned things from everybody. He learned karate, savant. He learned all these different. martial arts and was absorbing what's useful and putting his own. So G. Kondo, his style, was really the first mixed martial arts style. Is that right? Yeah. Do people use it anymore?

Well, yeah, there's G. Krundo schools, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of what Krav Maga is the Israeli martial art is like kind of a combination of things along the same lines of the way Bruce Lee did it. Is Krob McGraw a good, effective martial art system? Every martial art system is effective if you have a great instructor. Okay. Right? But on their own, like the best styles are the really strong styles like Jiu-Jitsu, Muay wrestling.

Those are the best, Western boxing. Those are the best styles on their own. Okay. But what Krob Maga is is a combination of all those styles. And so if you have a great instructor in Krob Maga, yeah, you'll, You'll learn great Muay. You'll learn great jujitsu. It's essentially mixed martial arts.

But with a lot of emphasis on real world applications, street fights, you know, dirty stuff, like eye gouging, you know, poking people in the eye, kicking them in the nuts. Yikes. Stuff that works. But that's what you, like, you see it in an MMA fight all the time. A guy gets poked in the eyes like, hang on. And he has to stop. Isn't that against the rules? It's against the rules.

So this guy's getting punched and kicked. And look, Tom Aspinall, he was in the heavy. way title fight and he got eye poked in the first round, he's had to have two surgeries since then on his eyes and he hasn't been able to fight. They had to stop the fight in the first round from an eye poke. Oh my God. It's very effective. But in Krav Maga, they're like, go for the eye. Because in a real world fight for your life scenario, it's a good technique. It's for the Israeli military, I think. Exactly. So they have to prepare for, you know, unusual situations where you're trying to survive in a, you know, a situation with your arm has been, your

your weapon has been removed and you're just trying to fight for your life. Exactly. Well, just in a situation with hand-to-hand combat, you need to learn how, you need to know every, you need, if a guy takes you down, you can't be lost. Oh, we have to get back up so I can fight. No, you have to be able to fight on the ground. And that's the idea of it, like incorporate jujitsu, incorporate leg kicks, Muay, Western boxing, even Jekundo techniques, even Wing Chun techniques.

Really? There's a lot of hand trapping and things in Wing Chung that can be very effective. It's really cool what they do with that wooden dummy. Uh-huh. Yeah. It looks... Exactly. I've never really got into that, but if you do get into that, you'll learn blocking

techniques and you'll learn... That actually work? Yeah, sure. Okay. But they'll work if you know the other stuff. They won't work if a guy just shoots a double on you and takes you down and starts pounding and you don't know what to do when you're on the bottom. Right.

You have to know how to... And this is what really MMA has taught the world. It's like, you have... to be able to defend yourself everywhere. Standing up, on the ground, you have to be effective in all the realms. Right. But still we have a lot of people that are pure specialists that do really well in mixed martial arts because they're so good in one area like Alex Pereira, who is the middleweight champion,

light heavyweight and now he's going up to heavyweight and he's going to be fighting at the White House card. Alex Pereira is one of the greatest kickboxers of all time. He's a two-division world champion and kickboxer. but his style is all kickboxing, but he just developed, take down defense. He can do it all. You can do it all.

But he doesn't submit anybody. If you're fighting him, you're going to get, you're going to get, it's going to be a stand-up fight. Unless you could take him down, he's not going to try to take you down. He's going to try to fuck you up. He's going to try to knock you into another dimension. Thanks for the warning.

I'll try to avoid the guy by shooting on the street. The buddy's thing I ever saw was there's this video of John Jones on the street somewhere, and he bumped into, he was talking, and he leaned on some guy's motorcycle. I think he might have been in Asia or something. The guy had no idea who he was, and he started screaming at him. Oh, no. And John said, I'm very, very sorry.

And he turned around. He ran away like he was terrified. And it was obviously he wasn't in any danger, but it was so hilarious that this guy had no idea who he was picking a fight with it. That's hilarious. The guy has no idea. Life flash before his eyes.

But he took it well because he was like, you know, I don't have anything to prove. Yeah, John's not the type of guy that would do anything to. I mean, also, what a lawsuit, you know. Oh, yeah, your hands are weapons. I mean, his whole body's a weapon. Yeah. But most of those guys are really nice guys in real life. Is that right? Yeah, because they get all their aggression out. They don't have anything to prove. They're not the type of person. They know what they can do. They don't have to prove it to anybody. Well, you should come to Winnipeg. They have a fight coming up. I think it's in April. It's in April. A UFC in Winnipeg, yeah. I've avoided UFCs in Canada. Well, come on up.

I've avoided it just because of the government, just because of what was going on as a protest. I was like, this is so fucked. Well, we'll come back up. But if you win, I'll go up there. How about that? We should get you up before that. You become prime minister,

and I promise I'll do all the UFC events that they have in Canada. We need you up in Canada to come to do one of your comedy shows, and it would be great for Canadian tourism. I used to love going up there. I used to love going to Massey Hall. Yeah. I used to Toronto? Yeah, I love performing there.

I did. You used to do Montreal and, and how old? Were you when you were in Montreal? Oh, I started. I think the first time I was up there, I was like 25. Such a beautiful city, eh? Yeah, 26.

Oh, I love that. Quebec is lovely. It's amazing. Beautiful province. Amazing food. Shout out to Joe Beef, one of my favorite restaurants in the world that's in Montreal. Yeah, they're, uh, Montreal is a great place and you should come out to the prairies, too. Go to the Calgary Stampede.

I've heard that's awesome. Oh, it's amazing. I've been to Edmonton. I've been to Alberta. Yeah, that's my home promise. I've performed in Edmonton a few times. And I've hunted in Alberta. Where?

Well, my friend John and Jen Rivett, they have a guide. I mean, they guide people up in northern Alberta. It's all like, you know, black bear hunting. Yeah. So it's like there's a lot of great hunting. I don't hunt myself, but there's a ton of great hunting, a lot of hunters in Alberta. Oh, yeah. Well, there's talk about Alberta separating.

That won't happen. What was that about? It won't happen. happen. People, some people are frustrated, but they, you know, there's some legitimate frustrations, but at the end of the day, Canada's going to be united and Albertans, I'm born and raised Alberta, and Albertans are seriously patriotic. Very patriotic. Yeah, they're great people, hardworking. Some of the nicest people you ever know across. They are great people. Hardy. They are a hardy people. It's cold up there. It is cold. Exactly. You've got to be tough to survive the cold in Canada,

to carve a country like we have out of that cold weather on that big open land. But people just keep on going. And Alberta's got a real kind of rugged individualism. Yes. And people love their agriculture with great ranches in Alberta, beautiful grasslands in Saskatchewan. Doesn't Brock Lesnar have a place up there? I didn't know that. I think Brock Lesnar bought land in Alberta.

Really? I think he owns a ranch up there. Actually, I had heard that from somebody. Yeah. I've never seen him. He fell in love with it. Well, he's a big hunter as well. Right.

He fell in love with it up there because it's just, it's so magnificent. It's so gorgeous. It's a great country. And the woods are so dense and beautiful and you've got wolves and bears and moose and everything up there. It's an amazing country. The Canadian Rockies are spectacular as well. They're, you know, a worldwide attraction.

You know, you go to Lake Louise. It looks like a tropical lake because it's all this runoff from the mountain melt. And you'd think you were in the tropics because it's this, this turquoise. green. That's where I grew up. I love Calgary. I love Southern Alberta. That's really my home. And so you got to come to the Stampede. Greatest outdoor show on earth. A lot of Texans go up for the Stampede. Because it's a rodeo. It's a huge rodeo. Yeah. People don't think Cowboy Canada. They don't think of that. But yeah. Calgary, they've got some serious Cowboys there. No, they really do. Yeah. Look, I love Canada. I just, if you did your comedy show in Calgary, you'd get a massive turnout.

It would be great. Think it over. I see when you... Well, I was a lot. Well, I was a supposed to be up there before COVID. I was supposed to do a show up there for 420 for April 20th. I was going to do it in Vancouver. That's another great city. Every year I would do these 420 shows like these you know 420 is the marijuana number and Canada now you guys have legal marijuana too. I've been legal for 10 years which they should have in America it's so ridiculous. They just they just recently decided to make it schedule three. Is it state by state? Yes. It's legal in a lost dates, but it's still not legal federally. It's goofy.

If alcohol is legal, marijuana is far safer. It should be legal. It's ridiculous. It's also a personal freedom thing. Leave people alone. It's like no one's robbing bank smoking weed and fucking killing neighbors. It's crazy. That's a personal choice thing.

It's not heroin. It's not opiates. It's not like, maybe you shouldn't do it if you have mental health problems, right? But there's a lot of people that just like take a pot gummy and go to bed and make some sleep better. Like, leave them alone. Like, leave people alone. Let people have a glass of whiskey. Let people have a glass of wine with dinner. Leave them alone. Like, stop coming up with laws where you can impose your values and your morals and your judgments on other people. Let them have, make their own personal, look, if you want to eat a fucking cheeseburger, eat a cheeseburger. You know,

if you want to go and have five Big Macs, you should be able to. I don't think you should do it, but I don't think there should be a law stopping you. And I think that should apply to a lot of things in life and we'd be a lot better off. Well, the bottom line is, is if you cannot trust a man to govern himself, how can you trust him to govern for others? Like if you think, if you think that human nature is so flawed that people cannot make decisions for themselves, then how could you possibly trust human nature to make decisions for other people to impose decisions on their lives? And who watches the watchman? We're constantly told we need to be, We need to be kind of guided by these people from ivory towers.

But who are these angels anyway? They're just human beings like everyone else. So when you give them more power and more you give them the power to impose their will on people, then that ultimately gets abused. Yes. So even you're right, even when somebody is doing something that I don't agree with and I would think it would be better for all of us if they didn't do it, the mal that is done by giving me the power to impose my decision making on them is worse than the benefit of trying to direct them towards a better decision. Well said. That's my philosophy. That's why I like you.

Well, that's where I come from. You make a lot of sense. It's pretty simple. I think all the best things in life are simple. You know, we overcomplicate things. Government is way too complicated. You know, I think we need to get back to the simplicity. The greatest speech in the English language was Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address, 271 words.

You know, Einstein compressed mass and energy into a five. character equation. Bruce Lee was an advocate of simplicity. Like simplicity is a virtue, and I think we have to get back to simplicity, especially in government. Simpler, clearer, easier to manage.

That's the kind of the philosophical take I pursue. Well, I appreciate that. And I think that philosophy and that perspective from a leader is what we need in this world, you know? Well, I think leaders have to have humility because the problem is that if you are an egomaniac and you're in power anywhere in the world, then you're going to want to just continually impose new rules and laws to make yourself bigger. Whereas if you believe in freedom, then you have to take you have to be able to say to yourself, I don't know better for this other person. He knows better what's for him. And, you know, it's hard, but politicians have to think that they have to trust the people.

But, you know, nobody wants to have, he left people alone on their gravestone. They want to think, oh, he built this. He imposed that. He made this grand initiative that he imposed on the people in order to have a legacy. My legacy is just to let other people build their legacies in their own lives. I think the idea of forging a legacy based on controlling people and imposing your will is ludicrous. Exactly. Yeah.

And so. But the problem is history is littered with people like that. Absolutely. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan. There's so many people that impose their will and left a legacy. But is that good? I don't think it is. And it's also, they're dead.

They are. Exactly. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Nobody walked by one of those magnificent tombs in Petra and said, boy, I'd really like to be inside there. Exactly. What is happening while you're alive is what's really significant in the most impactful thing. Like, do well, do good for the people.

And I think your message resonates with me. Thank you. And if I was a Canadian, I would vote for you 100%. Thank you. Thank you for that. Well, it's a privilege to do this work. And I consider it very humbling and I'm very proud to be Canadian and to take the message of Canada here to our American friends. Well, I'm glad you're here doing that.

And I think this is going to have a big impact. I really hope it moves the needle up in Canada. Absolutely. And down here, we've got to get these tariffs gone. Yeah. Get the tariff's gone. Well, let's work it out. Right on.

And if you win, I'm coming up there, I promise. Well, we're going to try to get you up there earlier. I'm going to keep working on you. Okay. And you look at that maple leaf on your new kettlebell every day. Eventually, we're going to work subliminally into your subconscious and get you up. Well, look, like I said, you don't have to sell me on Canada. I love Canada.

And I love that gift. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thank you for being here. It was awesome. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Bye, buddy.