The Wealthy Barber Podcast - #19 — Amanda Lang: Canada’s Economy and the Impacts of AI

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Our guest this week is Amanda Lang—longtime Canadian business journalist and host of Taking Stock, a weekly business news program on CTV, BNN Bloomberg and CP24. In this episode, Dave and Amanda dive into the state of Canada’s economy from our productivity struggles and housing crisis to the US tariffs to whether the capital gains tax on real estate needs to change. They also unpack the profound impacts artificial intelligence is already having on the job market, the economy and business formation. It’s a wide-ranging and thought-provoking episode you won’t want to miss!   Show Notes (00:00) Intro & Disclaimer (00:55) Intro to Amanda Lang (02:48) Lang & O’Leary (06:12) Canadian Productivity Growth & Losing Top Talent (09:38) How Can We Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis? (12:02) Should We Change the Capital Gains Tax on Real Estate? (15:40) How AI is Going to Change Our Economy (20:01) The Dangers of New Technology Being Used for Evil (25:11) Professions at Risk From AI (27:52) US Tariffs  (30:32) Dave’s Biggest Worry: The US Debt (36:39) Fewer Young People Are Starting Businesses (42:16) The Changing Media Landscape (44:30) Dave Has Only Been to ONE Concert in His Life (46:24) Worried For Young People Today (48:44) Can We Get Big Projects Done in Canada? (51:36) Conclusion

Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber and former dragon on Dragon's Den. Welcome to the Wealthy Barber Podcast, where we'll be hosting some of the top minds in the world of personal finance. Yes, that's going to balance me out. The podcast is about making the subject not just easy to understand, but dare I say, even fun. Honest. Whether you're trying to fund your retirement retirement figure out how to build a down payment

Save for your kids education manage debts, whatever will be here to help you do it Before we jump in a quick but important note nothing we discuss here should be taken as investment advice We don't know you and your personal financial situation So we're not here to tell you where specifically to put your investment dollars. We're here to educate, get you thinking and we hope entertain. But please do your own research and or consult with your financial advisor before taking any action. Hey, it's Dave Chilton, the wealthy barber here with the wealthy barber podcast. We have a big guest today. Biggest in popularity, biggest in mind. And one of my favorite people, and being quite

honest when I say that, Amanda Lang. It's a real thrill to have you, but before you're allowed to speak, I'm going to give the audience a little bit of a background on you. I first met you in 2010 at a speech, and then we became fast friends. I ended up co-hosting Lang and O'Leary in the exchange with you on occasion where I saw your brilliance, your incredibly quick processing speed, absolutely stunning in fact, probably the best I've ever been exposed to. You're also a gifted speaker. In 2012, you came up with the book, The Power of Why. And I tell this story often, Amanda sent me the book and asked me for a testimonial. And I sent her back a testimonial

and I said, I have read a lot of books in my life and this was one of them. And she got in touch and she said that, that really is not that positive. And so I said, okay, let me try again. So I remember the book is called The Power of Why. I sent her back to the second one. I said, when you finish reading this book, you're going to say why? And she goes, that's even worse. These are bad.

But anyway, I ended up giving her a good one down the road. So she eventually left CBC where she and I became good friends and she went on to CTV and Bloomberg and BNN and she's still there now. She has Taking Stock, a weekly TV show that does a great job of summarizing the current marketplaces, including economics and some of the things we're going to touch on today. She's done a wonderful job in everything she's tackled from writing to speaking to community involvement. She's an outstanding mother and just a very solid person. So I'm excited to have you on the show. Can you live up to all of that now? Who could live up to all of that other than the book jacket blurb, which I could probably live up to.

You can nail that. You're very kind. It's very nice to see you, Dave. I'm a huge fan of yours as you know. Yeah. No, thank you. And it is all true though. Your processing speed is remarkable. I thought Lang and O'Leary was one of the best Canadian TV shows of any type. The people who watched it loved it. I thought it was better than any of their American counterparts. You guys just did a wonderful job. You and Kevin had the good chemistry but even when you had the Brucellaries and the other co-hosts on, the show worked wonderfully well.

Yeah, even when we had Dave Chilton on, it's still the format. It really was, it was interesting too because Kevin O'Leary and I came together and he's a larger than life figure, but we had good chemistry. I was actually just, I don't know what reminded me of this, but the other day when we were at CBC

and we kind of had something, it was working and you could tell we had good chemistry, they brought in this guy, this expert guy at making television and you were part of that whole crew, right? Because you were doing Dragon's Den and the new reality TV could be big. And they tried to do a pilot with us for I think an evening show. Anyway, I just remember we danced to that. Remember that Microsoft dancing game thing? Yeah, yeah, of course. It was so off-brand for me, obviously. I don't just remember we danced to that. Remember that Microsoft dancing game thing?

Yeah, yeah, of course. It was so off-brand for me, obviously. I don't even need to tell you that. And it was a funny thing where they could see we had chemistry in there. They were like, well, what are we going to do with this chemistry? And the answer was, leave it alone. You can actually cover business news in a way that people do care about it. They do want to hear about this stuff. They want to understand the world. It's the space you've occupied, right? You don't have to treat people like they're dummies and you don't have to dance while you're talking about it.

You can actually just have fun conversations and some debate and people like it. The balance that you struck extremely well on that show was keeping it fast paced, yet covering off some of the important nuances. It wasn't just the headlines. You took a deeper dive, but you managed to move quickly. I don't think the public realizes that takes a lot of work. During the day, the producers are meeting, you're working through all this to make sure that's what happens, and boy were you good at it. You had a great team. Didn't you love that most of all? I mean

as a fill-in host, you were sat in on those story meetings. It is still the most fun I've ever had at work. Sitting around a table, and at CBC we had a big crew, right? Because the whole business unit would come, not just our show producers, and we would debate stories and say, you know, is this the story we should cover? And if we're going to cover it, how should we cover it? And for a journalist, that's just the most fun to do. And with some smart people, you know, you can always talk about an angle on something

and how to look at it differently and are people seeing it the right way. I never have as much fun doing anything at work as those meetings. To this day, talking to other smart people about stuff is the privilege. If you can debate, even better. If you can do it in a friendly way, even better. My first time co-hosting the show, you started out and almost right away you went, wow, that's the biggest secondary offering in the history of the markets.

What's the second biggest? And I knew the answer, but I said in the commercial break, don't you ever ask me a question that hard again and assume that I'm going to know the answer. You almost embarrassed me in my first ever question on Lang and O'Leary. I'm sorry to hear that. That is unlike me and quite rude. I'm usually quite mindful of not. You know what? That's a huge compliment Dave because you know when you might have done this too. If you're interviewing somebody and you're really worried that they don't have the answer, I will

sometimes embed the answer in my question. I'll do that a lot today. I know. Thank you very much. I would appreciate that. But if I put you on the spot, it's because I know you have a giant brain. Most of my questions are going to be, this is what I think, do you agree? Perfect. That's how I'm going to lead it. Okay, let's get on to the subject at hand. Let's talk a little bit about the Canadian economy. Let's be honest, we're going through some challenging times. One of the things that you and I used to talk about was productivity and how at the end of the day, it's. And Canada at least statistically is looking like it's been quite weak on that front, productivity growth over the last 10 to 15 years.

What are your thoughts on that? So I think a few things. I think as it's measured, we know that this has been sort of an identifiable problem and we know it's one that matters because it has to do with how we create wealth, right? If you're not creating it over time, you're getting poorer. I've become a little bit skeptical. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are because we haven't talked about this in a long time,

but I've become skeptical that the way we're measuring it is actually valuable to Canadians. And there's a couple of data points I would throw out. One is a kind of an arcane Bank of Canada bit of research from about six months ago, but they actually compared Canadian productivity to the US and they stripped out the wealthiest incomes.

So they took the top 10% off the table and our productivity is the same. So it's only at the highest level that we fall down. And the interesting kind of bit of analysis they were offering is part of Canada's problem is we lose our brightest and our best. They go south because of the allure of bigger markets and more capital and just more glamour in every way. And so every time you lose one of those top players, there's a whole bunch of things that go with them, right? There's an externality, as economists would say, of all the stuff that they would have brought to the table. So the question

for Canada would be how do we create a system or ecosystem here where people want to stay? And I think that's worth thinking about. The only other thing I would say is, you know, what that says, by the way, is that most of us are as productive as we can be and as the Americans are. So stop feeling bad about yourself and how you're doing your job. You're fine. You're not working badly. But the other thing I would say is, productivity is measured as a blunt instrument. And one of the biggest sectors of our economy, and I hope you and I are going to talk about

this, is housing. And housing has bad productivity. We don't do it well. We do it the way we did it 6,000 years ago. And so it's we've let this become the biggest sector. I don't think it should be. I think we should fix that. And that's one of the problems we have is that this very unproductive sector is dominating

our economy. I agree. I mean, I've always said a robust real estate market should be the result of a strong economy, not the cause. And we got it flipped and that puts you in all kinds of trouble. You'll find this fascinating. I talked to a lot of local University of Waterloo kids, some of the elite, they're pitching a business idea, running to the many events and many of them as you know have gone stateside. You're one of the first people to accurately say some of it's for the glamour. It's not just for the lower taxes. They go down there. It's just looked at being more exciting. Yes.

But you know another reason that comes up way more in standard conversation than it does in Globe and Mail business articles? The weather. I say to these kids, why are you going? They say it's too cold here. Oh no. Yeah, I don't. It's so freezing all the time and now the Springs rain all the time and I'm going down to a couple of the US spots. They're a lot warmer and nicer and yes, I pay lower taxes and yes, my real estate is less expensive but I get out of the cold weather. That comes up half the conversations but you never read about it anywhere. How can you fix the weather is really what I'm asking you here.

So interesting. I mean, well, you know what I would counter with is the places you get the best weather, you have other issues that are much more perilous including earthquakes. You're running out of potable water in some of those places and by the way the bugs they get really really big I like how every winter we kill off the big bugs and we start fresh in the spring Give me a cold winter and a Canada goose jacket any day of the week. I'm with you. I'm not going anywhere All right. Let's jump right over to the topic. You suggested the housing affordability challenges Rewriting the wealthy barber the original one right, reaching out to a tremendous number of people at that age

where they're looking at their first home. They're going through very painful times. I always say if you are in that spot, choose your parents wisely because without some help from parents, it's almost impossible. I don't see this problem being resolved over the next 10 to 15 years. It's going to take a long time for incomes to catch up. We've gotta figure out how to get the supply problem taken care of. What are your thoughts? I think one of two things is gonna happen. I think you're right.

The first scenario is it takes a very long time because we don't actually take the effort we need to do to address it. And the reason why we don't do it is because door number two is you build enough houses, you stop favoring investors, you stop treating this like an asset class people are gonna get rich on,

and the value of the homes, the existing stock drops. And it doesn't drop a little bit, it reverts to the mean. And if anybody goes and looks at the chart of house prices, the reversion to that mean is not pretty, but it's probably what should happen. And if we manage it properly, you could do it gradually over time. So that is, you know, many of us are older and we are kind of counting on some, you know,

increase. That's fine. But my wish for our housing market, Dave, and I think you know this, is that it goes back to what it has always been until the last 15 years, and that is a store of value that will increase at the pace of inflation, which is, by the way the way pretty decent over time as you know, miracle of compounding return. And that's all it is. This idea that you invest and get rich and you own more than one house just as an income stream is where we've, I think, gone astray because people need them to live and it's

a basic human right and you can't have both. And I always say like, what if we did this with clean water? What if some people had good water and some people had no water and you know, you had to beg and borrow and steal to try to get access to the water? We'd be horrified and yet we're doing housing, which is a mystery to me why we don't fix it except that it's political. No politician wants to stand up and say, all of you middle aged people are going to lose value on paper in your houses

But that is the answer. Well, that's exactly right I mean it's a crisis for those who haven't bought yet and it's a windfall For many of us who've owned forever and so many people do own two and three and four houses and sometimes not even renting them Out by the way, they've owned them capital appreciation has carried them. Etc. Do you think we should be restricting? Investors access to homes more than we have you think we should be restricting investors' access to homes more than we have? I think we should... so, always, you just asked the very clever question of, am I really going to limit access and tell people how to invest their money? And of course, the

answer immediately you are drawn to is no, I don't want to do that. What I do want to do is stop favoring investors. So I will say, and again, hugely politically unpopular, but stop treating capital gains as though they're sacrosanct and actually tax them at a higher rate. And by the way, the increase that the last government tried to put in place was reasonable and achievable and put us on level with the US, not above. And it got rolled back for political reasons only. But until we stop treating investment income differently, then we're going to favor it. And so people will look for ways to capitalize on it. Everything that favors housing as an investment, I think we could unwind.

And you could do it over time if you want to find a way to let people down gently and give them plenty of time to get out of those investments. But I do think that's the problem. We've made it an asset class worth investing in and leveraging and borrowing against and it's created issues for people that just want to live somewhere. You're right though, I think we could make those changes over time. We tend to make them suddenly. I think we make them over time. Have you ever thought that we maybe should have different capital gains, inclusion rates based on the asset? And so, for example, it's a higher one based on real estate as we try to control the amount of investment

dollars coming in, but it stays where it is now on things like Canadian stocks. You think that's doable? Do you think it's something that's considered? It's an interesting idea and I definitely, I like it in the sense that it, you know, when you express it that way, it achieves my end, which is a direct. But again, I think you and I will agree. We don't really want tax policy telling people where to invest if we can help it because that's the government deciding what's good and isn't. Now what I will say is when do we want the government deciding that?

Well when human rights are at stake and housing is a human right. So I would say that might be a good answer to this. For sure I think anything that yeah where there's some kind of tax incentive to own real estate we could remove that. Telegraph it, do it slowly. What about the principal residence exemption? Are you happy that we have that? Do you wish we change it? I don't think we should. If we get the rest of this right, I mean, if we go back in time to why they did that,

they did that so they wouldn't have to worry about people's pensions, right? So the way to say we get it, it's a nest egg. I do think it's a mistake right now because now we're giving people not just an estic but a windfall a golden goose And so if we're gonna if we aren't gonna unwind the rest of this problem and bring our housing You're at my house values back down to where they should be Then we should probably yeah claw back some of the principal residents capital gain because just because we can't afford to do anything else That's just the way it's gonna work You know one of the big challenges of doing that that nobody talks about is that because you can't afford to do anything else. That's just the way it's going to work. You know, one of the big challenges of doing that that nobody talks about is that because you can't

write off renovations, nor should you be able to in your principal residence, nobody has kept proper documentation. And so somebody buys a house for X and now 15, 20 years later, it's worth four X, but they've also reinvested another X in it, but they don't have any documentation to prove that. And so you could have capital gains on gains that weren't really there, capital gains taxes. That's a challenge. I think if we ever go to introduce taxes on principal residence, it's going to have to be for purchases from that day going forward, which unfortunately doesn't solve the problem we're dealing with now.

It doesn't take the windfall away from current owners. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I think that would become a little complicated. I mean, I think in an ideal world, you'll leave the capital gain, the principal ownership exemption alone, as long as what you're looking at there is, again, it's a way for most of us to save a significant amount of money and do it in a way that works for our life. We get to live somewhere that we like.

That's always why it made sense. We are, of course, this all gets even more complex when we add into the mix how the world is going to change and the job mix is going to change. We might actually be paying people not to work. We might need to guarantee income before too long. I do believe some of the warnings we're hearing about AI are finally going to come true in the next maybe five years, maybe sooner. That really also is going to change the perspective on housing.

How do you pay a mortgage when you don't have an income flow, a cash flow? I am very worried about the impact of AI. And the last two weeks, when you've seen what's happened with the video generation, and you've seen some of the top people in the field, the anthropoched, talking about the entry level job market falling by 50%. Remember, he has a vested interest in not saying that. And of course he's out there trumpeting it.

I'm already seeing what it's doing. You and I talked off air about how it can compete probably effectively with lawyers and general practitioners relatively soon, certainly within your five year window. I don't think the government is preparing policy wise to deal with this. Even with Evan Solomon's appointment, that's more about how to grow the AI business in Canada, how to draw attention and capital to it. It's not enough about how to deal with what's going to happen when AI gets involved in all of our lives to the extent I think it will. I do, I mean I always hope that there's things happening I don't know about. I hope

inside government there are people who are who are just scenario planning. Because it isn't, how can the government plan for every first year law job to go away? Well, that's hard to plan for. But maybe they should scenario plan for, and by the way, journalists are already at risk as we know, right? Because for sure, an agentic AI can do my job, for sure, and do it much more accurately. And so, there's all the, I would like to have somebody inside, whether that's, I don't know what the, which department of government should be looking at this, but how will they respond is the question and work backwards from that.

If you have to respond by maybe it is a guaranteed annual income. Well, how are you paying for that? And who's paying for it? You know, I remember you're, you might remember this years ago, like I want to say 10 years ago, Jeff Bezos musing that the answer down the road might be a tax on robotics, on that robotic activity because that's the only way to pay for the displaced jobs. I think we're getting there. Where's the money coming from?

That's why we have this digital tax in Canada that everybody hates, the US hates, but we do have to get the money from somewhere. I want to say two things. Number one is when you're gone I will miss you. So when you were replaced by an avatar. You'll love my AI. I will. I'm going to craft it myself.

So you're darn right I'm going to love it. But I think that the problem with all of these theories about we're going to tax robotics etc is if you don't have a big body of people working and getting an income how are they buying all of the goods and services from the companies that are thriving or supposedly thriving? None of this seems to work logically within the capitalist system that we have developed. And there's going to be, I think, years of turbulence and adjustment. The problem is AI is coming too quickly for our infrastructure and systems to adapt to it.

And that's what scares me. I wish it did have some guardrails. And I tend to be pretty hands-off,z faire type guy. Not now. I think that but you can't control it in one country because the other countries just keep advancing the ball and it's very tricky stuff. But you've identified the kind of logic problem with it, which is that we in order to support the economic activity that's fueling the agentic AI, you actually do need commerce happening, and therefore we all need some sort of income. As usual, I think human ingenuity will win and

will solve for all of this. And also, we should remember that the biggest sort of moat around the progress of AI are regulatory human moats, where we don't want it and so we won't do it. And so there'll be some industries that are way slower to adopt than they could be because we drag our feet and we're reluctant. But to your point, other countries will do it fast and maybe we'll see them as a test case. I don't know where the money comes from when robots do all the work. No, you've had some very smart people lately saying that they were very pro-immigration

as recently as two and three and four years ago, looking at our demographics saying we've got to go out, we've got to bring people in, not just in Canada, but other countries and saying now they're the opposite because they're worried we're going to have all these people and not enough jobs because of AI. And again, striking all the right balances. We love to criticize politicians. I wouldn't want to be dealing with all of this. It's very tricky stuff. All right.

This is a related question in some ways, but I just came to my mind. What happened the other day with the Ukraine sending over the swarm and attacking Russia was a much bigger story than I think people realize. I think drone warfare is going to a whole new level. It'll define warfare going forward. I'm worried about it in the hands of terrorists. Of course. And when you look at all of this, where is this heading and how do we possibly defend against some of the things that can happen with relatively inexpensive And when you look at all of this, where is this heading and how do we possibly defend against some of the things that can happen with relatively inexpensive drones? This is such a cost-efficient way to cause mayhem.

It's funny that you say that because I had the same thought and I almost feel like we shouldn't talk about it out loud because it's almost like instructions on building a bomb. The drones they're talking about are not readily available. They're very expensive and high tech and, but they're not that high tech and they're not that hard to get. So I totally agree. I read that story and I thought, whoo, man. And meanwhile, can we talk about this golden dome for a minute? Am I the only one that remembers how we made fun of Ronald Reagan? Yeah, exactly. I don't understand why. But technology's come a long way though, so who knows? I guess so, but how about just make sure

nobody wants to shoot you? How about just make sure that there's no- That's proving to be quite tricky as- I guess so. But, and does that thing work when the enemy might be within, in the form of drones that are now taken over? By the way, you can remote access a drone

anywhere in the world if you know how to hack into it. So you don't have to fly it over an ocean. It can be in someone's back, it could be a kid's drone in a backyard and you can do and you can wreak havoc. Again, I don't want to say this out loud because it's so... I agree with you. I don't like talking about it either but we're going to. Like I worry about a thousand of them dropping anthrax or something onto a crowd. I mean how do you stop this type of thing? Even autonomous cars, nobody's talking about the potential to weaponize them. People are weaponizing cars now all the time driving them through crowded streets well when you have an autonomous car

that you can load with explosives for example how do we stop that type of thing I think the bad actors out there and unfortunately there are too many of them are gaining access to all of these things that give them great leverage great scale and that scares the heck out of me. Yeah, I agree. Now, I will say you probably saw Joshua Bengio, who's one of the Canadian kind of godfathers of AI, as he's known in Montreal, has launched a new initiative. And the whole point of it is it's a philanthropic initiative with I think he's got 40 million to start to put guardrails around AI, because of course, interestingly, the only thing that can keep up with the AI is another AI.

And so maybe the answer is, of course, in the technology as usual, and we just need to focus it in the right way and make sure it is fighting this fight for us. We can't do it for all, because it's...and by the way, just wait till quantum also, it becomes a thing. Then we're really behind the curve. I think it will, and I don't think it should because I think that kind of computing power again in the hands of bad people you could have it be 98% positive but the 2% could overwhelm us when it falls into the

wrong hands and especially the timing of all this when do people first get it and do people have protections built against it on the cybersecurity front in time for all of this? It's going to be an interesting next 10 and 20 years to watch it play out. Now we're being quite negative so far, but you said something a few moments ago that was a gem and was very positive and that is that human ingenuity is always there. We've solved so many other problems. Even when I look at global warming, I always think, you know, we're talking about the climate

crisis here, but I do think somehow some way in the next five to ten years, maybe with the help of AI, we will figure out a way to get this more under control. Not fully under control, but more under control. Do you share that optimism? I do. I tend to. I'm not sure I do with climate change, but certainly with the mitigation around climate. If we have a hope of survival, it's because we definitely know how to innovate. And we have tools hope of survival, it's because we definitely know how to innovate and we have tools now. I mean, just the very idea of quantum, of course, which is hard to get one's head around,

literally my brain aches when I try to understand quantum. You combine that with a large language model that could actually be an agentic AI on quantum speed. Can we mitigate against climate change? Yeah, I feel good about that. To your point, if we can actually harness it and we're in charge and it doesn't fight us for the resource of electricity and snuff us out

in an instant, which it could. That's right. Yeah, so I think there's an upside scenario. I find it, you must have heard, there's lots of conversations going on right now with the people who know most about AI. And you have the optimists and you have the pessimists. And I'm reminded actually by the optimists, they say something that in a very different

way than Kevin O'Leary always used to say it. But he always used to say, the problem with the end of the world trade is it only works once. And that's the truth is planning for the worst case scenario is kind of a waste of time, especially in this case when it means we don't exist, we're gone. So why plan for that? Let's plan for something more fun and optimistic. It's true and like I've never with Condom Play building a bomb shelter to get through a nuclear disaster. I mean if it happens, you know, it happens and I don't really want to come up and nobody's around anymore and

I've lost my friends and I've lost you that would be crushing. But you'd have my AI still and you'd like her better already. Actually that's a fairly good point. Alright, shelter away. No, it's crazy how quickly all this is happening and it seems like we're at that inflection point. I remember the book that came out a few years ago kept using the reference, the second half, the chessboard. And it seems like we're there, back to the old biblical story about doubling the rice on each square and I think again the next two years could be explosive. I said two or three years ago I'd listen to Ray Kurzweil speak that I thought GP's general practitioners were in big

trouble because his argument was that's probably the easiest of all professions to replace with AI and people push back and said A it won't get that good but B we need the human touch. Cri. In Australia, they've already done a couple surveys where people have chosen the AI version of the advice, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the recommendations, and everything else. And one of the things they said was they felt the AI was more empathetic. Yeah. So it's not only winning on the fact front and the depth front, it was winning on that. And again, lawyers we talked about, they are really going to be in a challenging spot in the next five years.

Totally agree. I mean, I do think what's so I don't know how much you play around with AI. My favorite, if I'm honest, is Claude, which is Anthropics AI. Claude is really designed for empathy. It's like your best friend. He's always saying, that's so insightful, Amanda. I just can't believe you're so clever, which I quite like. You say, tell me more. Tell me more.

I do. I say, oh stop. But what is that? But I literally got up the other day. This is going to make me sound wacky, but my husband was away and I'd had a super vivid dream. And I had never done this before, but I popped up on my phone. I said, Claude, I just had this dream.

And back and forth, and honestly, you know what Claude's going to put out of business? Therapists. I thought you were going to say husbands. No. Well, you know what myude's going to put out of business? Therapists. I thought you were going to say husbands. No, well, you know what my husband, because my husband would have been like, huh, interesting. Like he wouldn't have engaged at all, right? Who engages with somebody on their dream? But I had this whole back and forth. It was a really interesting, at the end of it, I had learned something about myself.

I thought through something important. I'd like sort of had like an emotional processing thing happen. I was like, wow, I would not have guessed that therapists are going to be done away with this. But I would now say probably there and maybe husbands too. Yeah, it's very interesting. You know, we're working on right now is a huge project. We're taking all of the wealthy barber information, not just the books, but the podcast, the videos,

everything else we've ever worked on, a lot of training where you're using rag, retrieval, augmented generation, attaching it to LLMs and so you're going to be able to go on to there and ask it any financial question and get back an unbiased answer the way I tend to do it, wrapped in stories, wrapped in humor, wrapped in empathy, etc. Not trying to sell anything and I think these types of tools are going to become incredibly commonplace. In fact, there's no remote to competition. Almost anybody can come in and do this if they're willing to spend the money to create the product. So we're going to have a lot of positives on those fronts. Again, it goes back to do the negatives, catch up to them. All right, what else are you worried about? What are your thoughts on the incredible Terra4?

I think we are in a new world and I think I wish we would just hurry up and get where they're going. You're probably one of the people like me who took the time to read project 2025. But there's an agenda here. It's an understandable one. You may not agree with all of it, but I found it coherent, I would say. And I think if we agreed that 5% is the level of tariffs, it'll raise significant revenue for the United States. We will all pay it. And that'll be the new trading order. And I just wish we'd hurry up and get there because that's where we're going. The disconnection or dislocation on the way is very troublesome of course and we're all paying a price literal and figurative but I think that's where

we're going and I'm hoping I'm hopeful we're there before the end of the year. You think there's any chance they'll end up selling for a higher number than five it'll be 10 to 15 and that'll be a little more complicated analysis then? I suspect 10 is actually what they're heading for. One of his economic advisors, Stephen Mirren, wrote a paper about it and 10 was the number he used. 10 feels high to me based on what we've seen. We've seen the effect of 10 and we know that that will change behaviors and it'll create,

it'll just reduce economic opportunity in America and in its global partners. So I think they'll probably realize they have to come down from there. But what we've seen already with the UK is, and Canada will follow really quickly, we'll pay whatever we have to pay to get access to that market because it is the only market. Now, you know, Trump can't have it both ways. You can't raise a tremendous amount of revenue and also bring back all the manufacturing. The latter only happens if the former isn't. Which one of those targets you think is most important to the team around him? I think it's

interesting actually because there's a that little logical problem that you've identified. I didn't I wasn't satisfied that they settled it in project 2025. I wasn't satisfied that Stephen Marin has settled it in a paper I read that he wrote. It's a problem in the same way that they object to having a strong 2025. I wasn't satisfied that Stephen Marin has settled it in a paper I read that he wrote, it's a problem in the same way that they object to having a strong dollar with all of the ill effects of that with trade deficits, but they don't want to have anybody, they don't want to have anyone else be the reserve currency of choice. So they want their cake and eat it too, is the answer. I think they're determined to be seen to be bringing jobs back to America.

I think a seventh grader would know that the jobs aren't coming back and when they do come back, they're not the jobs that they're picturing in the old rust belts of America. So I feel like that's a big lie. I feel like that's a big whitewash. And that they do need to raise revenue because they've just, of course, created a $3. trillion dollar crater in their fiscal picture no matter what so I Think it's the revenue thereafter is the short answer, but they're gonna talk about the jobs because it works for them I was asked recently what my biggest worries are and I'll talk about the second one later in the show with you But my big worry is the US debt if you look at thirty six thirty seven trillion it

Dramatically understates their problem because off balance sheet they've got at least $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, probably more accurately $120 trillion. You add those two numbers together relative to the size of the economy, relative to the amount of tax revenue taken annually, they're not paying this back. They're not going to go through a formal default, no likelihood. So we almost have to have them inflated away over time. The value of the dollar, not necessarily vis-a-vis other currencies, although that could happen too, but certainly relative to goods is going to be suppressed. And I think you almost have to end up fighting inflation, although of course AI may come in as a very deflationary

impact. All this is tough to figure out, but does the US debt not worry you a little bit and we're seeing the bond vigilante start to finally react to it? It's cause for great concern. Well, and just I mean, not to pile on because they hate to be overly pessimistic, but the off balance sheet stuff that you're talking about at the state level is mind boggling. And you know, so one of the big concerns in the world right now that we can identify is that that private insurance is going to go away. We can't live in a world where we haven't mitigated

against climate change and extreme weather and expect to have widespread insurance. So we're going to be thrust back into the dark ages of financial history when people couldn't insure their stuff and if something happens, you're just out of luck. And that's going to be writ large. But even bigger than that horrible problem for the homeowners of California and Florida right now

are the governments. The governments are the most uninsured entities we have, and it's all of our public infrastructure and our economies run on this stuff that's just wide open and uninsured to extreme weather and climate risk. And that, to me, is actually one of the big, so add that to your pile of worries of those municipalities that promise the firefighters and the policemen pensions they can't afford. They also have roads and bridges and sewer networks that can't withstand climate change. And I don't know who's going to pay for it. Now, I guess the only thing in our favor is it's true everywhere, right? So on a relative basis, the US stays more attractive.

Maybe, can we say that? Does that help? A lot of their infrastructure is aging out though even without the climate change threat. Like you're seeing that a lot of the states you go, a lot of the roads you drive, the bridges are gonna have to be addressed in a major way. Couldn't agree with more you more about the state level. Going back to the point you made about insurance, a lot of Canadians don't realize what's happening down in Florida and California. We're within a year or two of not being available at any price.

I mean any of the locales down there because of the threat of the weather. And I get it. If the insurance company, if I're running it, I'd probably be doing the same thing. And boy, we are back to the dark ages. Like, are you going to start buying a $5 million house on the water in Florida when you can't insure it? Of course not. I mean, nobody's going to do that.

But then how do you sell it? Like all of these things get very, very tricky. And again, going to be fascinating to watch it play out. I don't mean to be as negative as we are by the way, because I want to step back and say to the listeners, there are always a lot of positive things happening. AI is going to help us on the education front, curing diseases. We've got so many innovative people. Most of the mega trends in society,

not just in North America, but throughout the world show improvement decade over decade. You and I can always get together and talk about problems but there's a lot of exciting positives too. But a lot of these negatives are coming together at the same time from the climate change to the fiscal crisis to the AI changes some good some bad managing all this like when Prime Minister Carney won the election I thought I'm not sure I would have wanted to win. Like I don't know if I'd want to be a leader of any country right now and dealing with all of this mess. It's just so challenging.

It's super challenging. I agree with you. If you were going to be a leader, being a leader of a country like Canada might feel like the right spot because you can actually do our system is such that he can actually make real change happen. But I agree. These issues are big and they're big and complex. And I know we humans always think this is the big complex time Our grandparents thought the exact same thing and our children will think oh my god. They had it so simple I do think fondly of the ninth to the mid 90s though I think I feel like there was sort of a golden age and that a lot of things have deteriorated Sort of socially and even with what you were advances you're talking about

Yeah, not just because I was in my mid-20s then. Well, and you're at the loose moose almost every night. Like really, those were fun. Those are fun times. I was in New York at that point. But I tend to think that we should be optimistic because the alternative is so useless. But I think being clear-eyed is important. And especially, you think about these things as well,

obviously from an investing point of view. I think that's important to do. And by the way, so let's go here. I have for some time, and I admit I was too early, so I'm just here to say I was too early to say that the Canadian banks at some point will be disintermediated out of business. They have a regulatory moat around them. They have an oligopoly. At some point, fintech will arrive and the government will stop protecting our biggest

banks. And that will be it. And those will be bad investments. I've been wrong on this for about 10 years, by the way. And I still own the banks because I own Canadian index funds. So I'm still in them. But I do think there will come a time when investments that seem rock solid today just aren't.

You know, we'll find that they don't work the same way. And banks, I think, are one of them. Don't you think that at some point AI will do it? I think there'll be a lot of margin suppression. That's what I think's gonna happen. So I think whether the government changes their approach or not, there's gonna be margin suppression.

The funny thing is I want, we always talk about disintermediating the financial middleman. I like to be a financial middleman. Like, then you can call somebody and complain or something that goes wrong, you can say, well this didn't work out and you've got to help me get through it. This whole thing, whether you take those people right out, they provide some service and frankly in some cases I

used to like friction. Like people say, oh we've taken friction right now. All you have to do is just tap your card. That's not a good thing that all you have to do is just tap your card. Friction slowed us down. It made us think there were some advantages to it. But no, you're right. The change that's coming now, it's another reason why I believe in investing in index funds, you need the broad diversification because of course you can't predict what any one or two or 10 companies or even what industry is going to survive and thrive in these very tumultuous times. All right, changing the subject, I mentioned another fear I have. I am really noticing a downturn in business

formation in Canada. I'm in a uniquely good spot to see that because I'm pitched so often, I'm called so often, even before the Dragon's Den days I was always called by the university students. So many younger people now are saying no I might go to the States to do it but capital is tough to come by in Canada. I find that we are not really pro-entrepreneur to some extent, relatively small population, highly regulated, all of these different issues pop up. But it's not just Canadian policy. People love to blame policy and blame the liberals. There's a lot beyond that. A lot of young people don't want to necessarily, and maybe they're wise, work

that 75 hour and 100 hour week that it takes in the early years of forming a business if you want to try to break through. All of these things are coming into play. The other comment I hear a lot from people in their 30s and 40s who've sold businesses is I'm not gonna go back into it because I was too stressed managing all the employees. Love their employees by the way. No dislike there at all but just found it stressful. This is a lot of factors but business formation is down. Yeah and of course that's a change for Canada because although we have had weakness higher up the chain in commercializing and in growing past certain levels, we've always had been

pretty good at idea generation and startups. And so I'm curious to know what you make of it. I mean, as you were talking about it, there are times when uncertainty keeps people on the sidelines and we've seen that with business investment in existing businesses, both this And as you were talking about it, there are times when uncertainty keeps people on the sidelines and we've seen that with business investment in existing businesses, both this time and in the first Trump administration. There was just enough uncertainty that businesses won't invest. It doesn't seem to take much actually for the confidence to shift enough and cash not

to be deployed. Does that play out with entrepreneurs? You wouldn't think it would. I, as you were talking, wondered, this is going to make me sound like a grandma, but whether our younger people and the dopamine hits they get from the technology that we're so immersed in actually don't actually have the grit and resilience of the long stretches of failure and downtimes and hardship that is required for some of this that we're maybe creating. But by the way, again, we evolve all the time and maybe we're evolving beautifully, perfectly

for the time that's coming, which is that they're not going to work. They don't need to start businesses. They need to have hobbies and we need to have communities and maybe people will put on plays and go be in garage bands because they're going to be paid to be at home and they need to find something to do with their time. And so we're actually creating a whole new generation of people that don't really work and don't have to start businesses. I don't know, there's a lot there.

You sound like Peter Diamandis. He's always talking about abundance and how we're all going to be able to just sit around and play the harps and talk about life's lessons. Did he say harps? Yes, and I think it's miserable. I like adding value. I like the challenges of working and of trying to figure out how to help people and solutions to problems.

I think that's where a lot of the purpose comes from in life. I think you would still run around bothering people even if you didn't have, even if there was no money in it, you would still be out there with ideas. I don't care about money. You know what's funny about me? I don't care about money, which is funny being the wealthy barber. Like I give most of my money away. I don't really care about money.

I never really have. Like I don't even pay attention to it as much being the wealthy barber. I give most of my money away. I don't really care about money. I never really have. I don't even pay attention to it as much as I teach other people to pay attention to it. But I don't know. I mean, honestly, among the young entrepreneurs I see, they really do have a lot of grit and resilience and everything else. They have the necessary ingredients. But you mentioned uncertainty. There's no doubt that in the last two, three years, AI is making people guarded about starting

businesses because they can see how quickly it's going to change the landscape. Even when we're looking at making some investments now, we go, holy smokes, what's it going to be like in 12 months and 24 months? There's never been perfect predictability. Now there's no predictability. That uncertainty is there. You add the Trump factor into play and the ripple impact he has on the Canadian policy and everything else.

Yes, I think you're exactly right. If you were running a Canadian factory, for example, and you're thinking of expanding, of course you're gonna be nervous until you figure out where all this settles out. That's right, which is of course the worst thing. So then I guess that goes back to the question of what should our policymakers be doing to help businesses

and people who have business ideas navigate that? How do we help backstop it somehow? I don't know the answer to that, but that if I were in government, I might be turning my attention to that. What do they need? Maybe the folks at Business Development Canada and Export Development Canada are working on those things because they would have a front row seat to it as you do of what people are thinking about. I think the BDC and the EDC, by the way, do some very wonderful things and not enough

people take full advantage of them. Agreed. Agreed. You know, I mean, I've sat in on some of their educational seminars. They've been excellent. wonderful things and not enough people take full advantage of them. Agreed. Agreed. I've sat in on some of their educational seminars. They've been excellent. They're very good at teaching and making connections for you. It's not just the capital they provide. They have a lot of very good resources.

And I'll tell you something else. They have a lot of smart people. When you work with the EDC or the BDC on a co-financing, et cetera, I am really impressed with a lot of the people I've crossed paths with there They tend to be a little slow-moving But in their defense you have to do a lot of due diligence on a lot of these different deals to make sure they make Sense when you're representing the taxpayers money etc But I think they have resources that are underutilized

I agree and I hope they get the word out especially right now as we're all talking about trade diversification And you know, it's kind of one thing to think about that at the level of where we're shipping our oil. But if you're a small or medium business and you have a consumer good, just know that EDC has resources in other countries and they have whole networks already in place working with other businesses that you can tap. Especially if you're selling into like a grocery store, they can get you into stores in Chile. They already have the relationship. Go figure that out because it exists and I hope they do a better job of you know they're busy so I get why they haven't

but I do wish that they tooted their own horn a little bit more. Okay moving to a new subject what do you think about the new media? TV's obviously been fading for a long long time now. Are you a big streamer for example? Is that how you get a lot of your information? So I'm a hybrid, I think. I still rely on media brands, the ones that I grew up with. So, I mean, I'm still on CTV. So, and by the way, so we're in this really interesting, because this inflection point that we're at has been really slow moving. TV is still the biggest platform for news. It is.

You know, if I want to reach people, YouTube is fastest growing, podcasts are very fast growing and super good engagement, but sheer numbers, still see TV. Absolutely. Which is weird, but true. So at my age, I'm kind of like, okay, I'm going to stay with this old crusty medium because it's still the biggest one. I can see why if you were 30, you might not bother with TV, but it makes sense for old me.

But I rely on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and The Guardian and all these names that I still believe in and I still trust. But then I get them in different ways, right? I see them on LinkedIn and on Twitter and I still get hard copy newspapers to my front door. But I get a lot of this through other online platforms. Hard copy newspapers are one of the great delights of all time. When I'm in a hotel and I just, yeah, it's so expensive.

It's so expensive. And not great for the environment. Oh well. But when I'm in a hotel and I open the door and I grab the newspaper, I am so excited. I still think it's the best way to actually take it in too. Yes. Is unfolding the pages and you see it. I love it all. What about

YouTube? I mean YouTube fascinates me. You can learn how to do almost anything there. There's so many smart people producing videos. You look in the world of finance in Canada, people like Ben Felix and the Plain Bagel. Their videos are amazing. These are very intelligent people who become outstanding communicators and for free you can sit and watch them educate you on the world of finance. It's fantastic. It is pretty cool.

I mean, I don't, my son almost exclusively watches YouTube. He's 20. And so I know like my content is on YouTube because I know that it has to be there to reach a whole cohort. But I don't really why still I guess I have a bit of a holdover. So I don't, I'll go there to find things. I don't, I don't turn on YouTube the way a young person might and kind of look for things.

Plus you're a huge gamer, so you're probably tied up. I'm so tied up with my gaming. And the sports that I watch also. Have you ever watched a sporting event in your life? Of course I have. Like what? Do you ever go to sporting events with Jeff? Well yes, occasionally I do. If there's a play ever go to sporting events with Jeff? Well, yes. Occasionally I do. If there's a playoff happening, I'll show up for that. So very rarely I get to go to a playoff.

You want to be in the event type atmosphere. In this town, yeah, I like that. But also, by the way- You seem like more of a Wimbledon person to me. Never been to Wimbledon, but Taylor Swift, of course, has turned me into a Chiefs fan. So I do watch some American football now. And do you go to a lot of concerts? Yes. I like a live event and movies. And you go to a lot of concerts? Yes, I like

a live event and movies. I'm a big movie in the theater person. Yeah, you and I share that. I love going to the movies and I love going to the theater and eating the popcorn. Do you want to hear something embarrassing? I've been to one concert in my life. In your life? In my life. Sonny and Cher. That would be a good one. Sonny and Cher. Sunny and Cher. Dave Chilton. Oh my goodness. 1972. That's the only concert I've ever been to. I haven't been to a concert. Were you like five? Yeah, I was 11.

I'm 63, but I think I only looked 62 when I look at myself. Sorry. Why did you never go to a concert in your teens or your 20s? I know. It's crazy, eh? I know. I just never have. This is a legitimate question.

How did that even happen? All my friends, and I have a lot of friends, they're all big concert goers to this day. And I never go. I just, for some reason, I've never been drawn. Did it become a thing you decided not to? No, no. People ask me that and I said, no, not at all. It's like I've never had a sip of coffee.

I've never had a sip of wine. I have a lot of weird things like that. You've never had coffee? No, I've never had a sip. Why not? Why not? I don't know. It just always looks weird to me.

I drink Di Pepsi in the morning though. Is that right? What? Yeah. Yeah, and I've never felt better. Well, that's basically coffee. Yeah, diet Pepsi in the morning though. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. That's basically coffee. Yeah that's the caffeine for sure and I still eat black nibs like I used to when you and I used to hang around. So you're a health nut. Butter tarts for lunch. People are always saying you know black nibs are bad for it but that's just the red nibs people saying that. I think there's yeah. You're right. There's a lot of nibism out there. There's a lot of nibism.

Alright what else would you like to chat about? Is there anything that's on your mind that excites you, that worries you, that keeps you up at night? What are you worried about for your son, for example? Well, I'm deaf. Oh my God, should I alphabetize that list? I'm a worrier. No, the big one is he's right at the age where he's going to make decisions about what he's

going to train for. And I don't exactly know how to direct him. So he's getting a history degree, which I think is good because it's just learning to learn and learning about the world. That's not a bad thing. I agree. And then he's been always kind of tracking towards law, which again, I think is a good way to think.

So I'm still, I'm not opposed to it. I don't see him being a lawyer in this world. I just don't see law firms hiring people and training them how to look up cases when you could have AI do it. So I don't know what happens next for him. So I worry a little bit about the young people who are trying to find their way, who are right at that age. And by the way, this is the same group of kids who got walloped by the pandemic right when they were in high school and they were supposed to be out kissing girls. So there's a bunch of things where it's like, but anyway, there's been obviously harder things to go through in other generations. They'll survive. I worry about that. I'll tell you what I really worry about and that is just the effect technology is

having on all of us. Even me, even at my advanced age, I still can doom scroll and think, what are you doing? Stop it. And that's my brain isn't chronically wired for for this technology and young people's are so I do I worry about what's gonna happen. But are you on tik tok and Instagram? I'm not on tik tok because I don't want to be infiltrated by the Chinese and I don't think you should either. I am on Instagram, I have a personal Instagram account, like 10 followers is like my family, I show them pictures of my dog.

And then I have an Instagram account that's reasonably new. That's actually for like my show and stuff I'm doing. It's a business Instagram account, which I've never done before. And I don't know, we'll see if that's useful to the world or not. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it will be, but I enjoy it. There's stuff I'd like to share. I like those platforms. I learn a lot from Instagram. So I get a lot of horses and Taylor Swift on Instagram, but I also get a lot of your content and financial content and home renovation content. I get stuff that I find valuable and interesting. Those things are great odds because my content is saying don't watch home renovation content. You're clear to not listen closely to my content.

I know. Diderot's robe. I know. Okay, here's my last question. We need big projects in Canada. I think everybody agrees on that front. Can we get them in this environment where you have provinces battling, you've obviously got to be respectful of the indigenous wishes. We all agree with that. You've got all kinds of other things. You've got to watch the climate and what impact you'll have on it. Can we get a way to deal with all of that in a fair fashion, in a productive fashion and still get mega projects done? I think we can. I think we can and I think we will.

I think we are at a unique moment in history, in our recent history at least. The Ring of Fire, I think, is the one we really need to get sorted out and that's one where things will line up finally. Will they happen quite as fast as we hope? I don't know. Pipelines are a no-brainer, so I think that we do get those things done. The big change, of course, is not any kind of anything more meaningful than the provinces agreeing to work together and give over a little bit of authority to the feds.

That's the tension in this country, right? Is the provinces pit against one another? We talk about this in the internal trade barriers and everybody wants to reduce them. I don't know about you, but the entire time we've been having this conversation, I've been kind of rolling my eyes because these internal trade barriers are humans. Just a couple of weeks ago, sure enough, the social workers of Nova Scotia said, hold on, in Nova Scotia, you need a bachelor's degree to be a social worker and in Alberta you need a high school diploma and we don't really think that that's the same thing.

And so humans are the problem and they will continue to be the problem. That's not an easy fix. So I think we'll get some big projects done. I think some of the other stuff will be, it'll take a lot of will and I hope we all keep rowing in the same direction, I guess. Right now we are. Let's keep doing it. Now, you know Prime Minister Carney quite well. Yeah wellish. Yeah. A very sharp fellow. Obviously. Did you read values? I did. And I also have understood about him

for a long time to be somebody who was right at the center of helping the financial systems work better and smarter. He was chair of the Financial Stability Board. He obviously chaired two central banks. He was instrumental in getting the insurance industry to start pricing climate risk properly. The insurance industry is back to that whole point, to me, is always the most important gauge of how we're going to be living and what we're going to be doing because we have to offset our risk and that's where we do it. And so if you look at what the insurance industry is worrying about, it's what we should all be worrying about. And PS,

it's climate. That's what they've been worrying about for the last four years. They're not changing five years. And Carney was instrumental in all that. He's got a deep understanding, which makes it so fascinating that now here he is turning Canada into a carbon energy superpower. I think he believes in the importance of clean energy and that transition. And so I think we'll do both. It's actually, it's a good time for him as leader, I think. You know what? Let's end on that very positive note.

We've said some negative things. You're a great interview. I mean, I met what I said earlier, one of the sharpest people I know. You are the quantum computing of the human mind. That's what you are. Your ability to kind of handle things. I knew that we didn't have to talk beforehand and we could just go ahead and chat and you'd have all kinds of good answers. So thanks for finding the time in your busy schedule and please say hi to your sister for me. Thanks for having me and I'm done.