Pierre Poilievre: Why America Is Quietly Abandoning Its Allies (& What Comes Next)

0:00 Trump threw the election and then thereafter said that

0:02 Canada should honestly become our 51st state [laughter]

0:07 which is never going to happen.

0:09 Pierre Polyv, leader of his majesty's loyal opposition.

0:12 There's a significant probability that you could be Canada's next leader

0:15 and your team said I can ask you whatever I want.

0:19 Okay.

0:19 So it appears that the United States have made

0:21 the decision to kind of go it alone in the world

0:23 and that is a very big strategic mistake.

0:25 In Canada's case, we have everything the United

0:27 States needs if they treat us like a friend.

0:30 So, for example, we have the fourth biggest supply of oil.

0:33 And if you look at the leading five,

0:35 which of these countries do you think the United States can most rely on?

0:39 And I'm looking at the third vial there in the row, Iran.

0:42 Mhm.

0:42 Has Trump taken the right course of action?

0:44 The Iranian government has been extremely hostile and very dangerous to Canada.

0:47 [music] They are the leading world sponsor of terrorism.

0:50 And there's no doubt in my mind that the only [music] reason

0:52 that they are enriching uranium is for the purpose of developing a weapon.

0:56 [music] And there's a far greater risk to them

0:59 having a nuclear weapon than even North Korea.

1:01 So the initial actions were definitely necessary.

1:04 But how do you think this plays out?

1:05 And if Trump had called you and asked for your support, would you have given it?

1:08 Well, let let's put it this way.

1:11 What is the thing that you're most concerned about?

1:13 We're overt taxing our population.

1:14 We're punishing initiative.

1:15 We have 20,000 immigrant doctors who can't work in medicine.

1:19 Wages have been destroyed.

1:20 Young people can't start a family in this economy.

1:23 And that is why the working class across the Western [music] world is so angry.

1:27 The good news is we can reverse all of that.

1:29 And the other thing that I actually was really keen to talk about is this.

1:34 Wow.

1:35 I can see the emotion in your face.

1:38 Yeah.

1:37 It's still there.

1:39 Yeah.

1:39 I hadn't thought about that in a while.

1:50 This is super interesting to me.

1:51 My team gave me this report to show me

1:52 how many of you that watch this show subscribe.

1:54 And some of you have told us according

1:56 to this that you are unsubscribed from the channel randomly.

1:59 So favor to ask all of you.

2:00 Please could you check right now if you've hit the subscribe button if you

2:03 are a regular viewer of the show and you like what we do here.

2:05 We're approaching quite a significant landmark

2:07 on this show in terms of a subscriber number.

2:09 So, if there was one simple free thing that you could do to help us,

2:13 my team, everyone here, to keep this show free,

2:15 to keep it improving year over year and week over week,

2:18 it is just to hit that subscribe button and to double check if you've hit it.

2:21 Only thing I'll ever ask of you, do we have a deal?

2:24 If you do it, I'll tell you what I'll do.

2:25 I'll make sure every single week, every single month,

2:28 we fight harder and harder and harder and harder to bring

2:30 you the guests and conversations that you want to hear.

2:32 I've stayed true to that promise since the very beginning of the Dio,

2:35 and I will not let you down.

2:37 Please help us.

2:38 Really appreciate it.

2:39 Let's get on with the show.

2:42 [music] Pierre Polyv, leader of his majesty's loyal opposition.

2:53 There is so much I want to talk to you about.

2:55 I think you have a truly fascinating formative childhood.

2:59 One of which I've I've really seldom seen on this show,

3:03 especially when the person rises so high in their political ambitions.

3:08 But I think the most appropriate thing

3:09 to start with because [clears throat] it's just front

3:11 of mind for me at the moment is what the hell is going on in the world?

3:15 [laughter] And I mean that's genuinely I'm I'm up all night trying

3:19 to figure out if we're on the verge of World War II.

3:22 What's going on with all these alliances we used to have?

3:25 What is going on in the world?

3:27 The history of starts really in the post-war period with a massive

3:31 increase in the power and the wealth of the United States.

3:34 They unleashed the capitalist system.

3:36 They effectively buried the Soviet Union just by out hustling,

3:39 out producing and out outgrowing until the Soviet Union collapsed.

3:45 And then a new authoritarian power snuck up on the United States.

3:50 China went from having 80% of its population living on one less than

3:54 a dollar a day to being the second biggest economy in the world.

3:57 At the same time, uh, the American working class has been thoroughly screwed

4:01 over by relentless money printing that has inflated

4:06 their cost of living while also inflating

4:08 the wealth of of a small group of elites.

4:11 And I think this resulted in a major push back.

4:13 Now, some of that was justified.

4:15 That push back is justified,

4:16 but I also think some of it is very much unjustified.

4:19 Tariffing countries like Canada makes no sense.

4:22 uh if you're the United States,

4:23 you should want more friends, more trade with those friends.

4:27 And that's one of the reasons why I've been touring

4:29 the United States to make the case for Canada and to remind

4:33 our American friends that they are stronger working with countries like Canada

4:36 and the United Kingdom than they are pushing those natural allies away.

4:42 It appears that the United States have made the decision

4:45 to kind of go it alone in the world.

4:46 I mean, I was at Davos and I saw what Trump said.

4:50 I saw a variety of things in the leadup to there talking about taking Greenland,

4:54 turning Canada into one of the United States 51st states.

4:58 Is that what he said?

4:59 51st state.

5:01 That's never going to happen.

5:02 It seems to be very adversarial.

5:03 And through my childhood and through my adulthood, over the last 30 years,

5:08 the US has always been the strong ally,

5:10 not an individualistic isolated force in the world.

5:13 What's what's going on here?

5:15 I think that is a very big strategic mistake.

5:18 Uh I think America would be better off working

5:20 with the the traditional Western alliance that helped win the Cold War.

5:24 Uh we had a very big menace

5:25 as a nuclear armed Soviet Union that was expansionary.

5:29 Its empire was pushing eastward into Europe and the response

5:34 of the United States was to build a strong

5:37 NATO alliance and then to unleash its economy to just

5:40 outproduce the Soviets and bring them to their knees.

5:42 In Canada's case, we have everything the United States

5:45 needs uh if they treat us like a friend.

5:48 We have the fourth biggest supply of oil.

5:51 You can see it here.

5:52 That's right.

5:52 We could uh maybe pull that over here.

5:55 This is the oil reserves by country.

5:58 As you can see, Canada is number four.

6:00 And after us is Iraq and then the United States.

6:04 But if you look at the leading five,

6:07 which of these countries do you think the United States can most rely on?

6:12 Is it Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Iraq?

6:17 No, it's Canada.

6:18 It works very well with American refineries and we

6:22 sell it to the United States at enormous price discount.

6:25 Furthermore, we could build up an enormous reserve of this oil so that if,

6:29 god forbid, the straight of Hormuse were to be closed, just a random example,

6:35 you're from the American America's friends in neighboring

6:39 Canada would have a couple hundred millions

6:42 barrels that are already produced and ready for use uh if uh if it's needed.

6:47 So this is really uh kind of rocket fuel for the Canadian economy,

6:52 but it's strategically important for our American friends.

6:56 We could cooperate better on this if we got a friendly

6:59 posture and a fully tariff-free trade ar arrangement with the US.

7:03 What's interesting when I look at these uh vials of oil

7:06 that we have on the table and I see that Venezuela's number one,

7:08 Saudi Arabia is number two,

7:09 Iran, Canada, Iraq, and then the US is a lot of these countries

7:13 that have a lot of oil are in conflict with the United States right now.

7:17 That's right.

7:18 And it now as I look at this, it seems like I understand why.

7:21 So, Venezuela, I mean, Trump just flew in and took the leader of Venezuela

7:25 and his wife out of bed and sees the country.

7:27 Iran, US are at war with Iran now.

7:30 Um, Iraq, I mean, that's a a story already.

7:33 And Canada has been the other one where it's

7:34 been incredibly adversarial over the last couple of months.

7:37 Is this just all about oil?

7:39 Frankly, we don't really understand what the dispute

7:41 with Canada is about because we've been a very good

7:43 and friendly partner to the United States ever since

7:46 the early 1800s before we even formed as a confederation.

7:51 What I would say to Americans though is you

7:54 shouldn't have to worry about all of these countries.

7:57 If you're working collaboratively with Canada and you're trading

8:01 freely with a a separate country to the north,

8:04 then you will not be bound by what happens

8:07 in these other less stable and arguably more hostile countries.

8:13 What I believe we as Canadians need to do is use our natural

8:16 resources as leverage to get what we

8:20 want from this administration and future ones.

8:23 What we want is tariff-free trade for our steel,

8:27 aluminum, lumber, and automobiles.

8:31 And in exchange for that, we can produce more oil and sell

8:34 more of it at better prices to the United States of America.

8:38 [snorts] Oil is only one part of it.

8:40 There's also the strategic minerals that are necessary for, god forbid,

8:45 modern warfare, and we have those as well.

8:48 We are a resource superpower,

8:50 and I want to leverage that to get what

8:52 we want from the US and from other nations.

8:56 I'm looking at the third vial there in the row, Iran.

8:59 Mhm.

8:59 Has Trump taken the right course of action

9:01 in bombing Iran in the way that he has?

9:04 And the other question that's I think on everyone's mind is like,

9:07 how do you get out of this?

9:09 Is is this going to end?

9:10 Well,

9:11 the Iranian government has been extremely hostile and very dangerous to Canada.

9:15 They killed 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents

9:19 by shooting a civilian aircraft out of the sky,

9:22 PS752, uh for reasons we still do

9:25 not understand and with no explanation whatsoever.

9:28 They have unleashed agents into our communities and streets

9:32 to harass the Jewish and Persian communities of Canada.

9:35 and uh they are the leading world sponsor of terrorism.

9:39 It it is absolutely unacceptable for the Iranian

9:42 government to ever acquire nuclear weapons.

9:44 And there's no doubt in my mind that the only

9:46 reason that they are enriching uranium is for marshall purposes.

9:51 There's no need to enrich it to the degree

9:52 they have in order just to have nuclear power plants.

9:56 I have no doubt that they were doing it for u

10:00 the purpose of developing a weapon and if that were to happen

10:03 uh it could be catastrophic for neighboring countries but also for far

10:08 away lands if given the ability to develop uh long range missiles.

10:12 So uh we my view and the view

10:15 of the Canadian government is that the Iranian government cannot be

10:19 allowed to develop nuclear weapons and any action to stop

10:22 them from doing that is necessary for world peace.

10:24 Was this action necessary to stop that in your view?

10:28 I think that the initial actions were definitely necessary,

10:31 particularly the bombings four or five months

10:33 ago to target the nuclear development sites.

10:37 But I think any actions to degrade their nuclear capabilities,

10:40 prevent them from ever achieving them is favorable.

10:43 And I hope that it will weaken the regime enough

10:45 for the people to overtake it and claim control of their country.

10:50 It doesn't look like that's the case.

10:52 I think they've appointed the son of the Ayatollah to lead the country

10:55 now and they seem to be firing at everybody in the region.

10:57 There was some reports that they might have

10:59 ballistic missiles that could reach Europe as well.

11:02 Yes.

11:02 And and this is what we have to stop.

11:04 I mean the idea that they are they are carrying

11:06 out this aggression simply because they've been attacked is false.

11:10 They would have eventually carried it out.

11:12 The question is when and with what means.

11:15 And if we had just sort of slept and waited,

11:18 we would have ended up with a catastrophe.

11:20 This is different than North Korea.

11:21 North Korea was allowed to get nuclear weapons,

11:23 but they don't have the same celestial fundamentalist ideology there.

11:27 Ultimately, the regime in North Korea is

11:30 interested in its own survival and its power.

11:35 The regime in Thran has a theocratic dream.

11:39 They believe that there's an an afterlife in which they could be

11:42 rewarded for carrying out mass destruction on what they call the infidels.

11:49 They don't respond to deterrence the same

11:50 way that Pyongyang in North Korea would.

11:53 There's a far greater risk to them having a nuclear weapon than

11:57 than even having that in in a communist totalitarian state like North Korea.

12:02 But for Canada in this environment, our superpower is again our resources.

12:08 And that's why it has been one of my major obsessions to unblock our resources,

12:12 get them to tide water,

12:14 accumulate them in a strategic reserve that would allow us to really flex

12:19 our energy muscles in environments like

12:21 this and also reduce dependence on regime like Iran,

12:24 like Saudi Arabia, like Venezuela.

12:27 If Trump had called you and asked for your support,

12:30 had you been leading the government of Canada, would you have given the support?

12:35 This is the big conversation at the moment in the UK because K Starmmer was

12:38 reluctant to send troops originally and it seems

12:40 to have irked Trump in an interesting way.

12:43 So our prime minister did support the attack

12:46 and I agreed with Prime Minister Carney on that point.

12:50 That is distinct from contributing Canadian soldiers or sailors and air crew.

12:56 I'm not proposing that we send ground troops to Iran and we are not

13:00 in a position right now to supply a lot

13:03 of the demands that this conflict would require.

13:06 It depends on what they ask for um before we get

13:09 an answer from Canada on what what it is that we can provide.

13:12 You're someone that knows a lot about history.

13:14 You seem to know a lot about a lot, frankly.

13:16 Um [laughter] and I I don't know a lot about a lot.

13:20 So when you think through how this could go,

13:24 it doesn't appear that the Iranians are going to roll over very easily.

13:30 The the Iranian leadership are going to roll over very easily.

13:32 Trump doesn't appear to be a man that likes taking hits to his ego.

13:35 So it doesn't appear that he's just going

13:37 to pull out and let you know things unravel.

13:40 Uh and then the third option one would say is

13:42 that they double down even further and send troops to the region.

13:45 What how do you think this plays out based on everything

13:47 that you know about both history about Trump and from your pattern recognition?

13:51 Well, it could go a variety of ways.

13:53 Remember the first Persian Gulf War,

13:55 George Herbert Walker Bush decided that he had downgraded

13:59 and penalized Saddam Hussein enough for the invasion of Kuwait.

14:04 He declared victory and he moved on and ultimately

14:08 that left a lot of stability in the region.

14:11 his son then went and and and pursued a full

14:14 uh out-and-out regime change and that was a much longer enterprise.

14:18 Uh the the president will have to decide which

14:21 of those two Bushes he uses as a model.

14:24 But I think that the important thing is to know what the objective is for me.

14:28 The objective has to be to make sure

14:30 that the Iranian government never gets the capacity to send

14:33 long range nuclear missiles to countries uh or even

14:38 short and medium range to Israel for that matter.

14:41 Beyond that, I think it's up to the Iranian people to take advantage

14:45 of the weakness of the regime and rise up and reclaim their country.

14:50 I I I don't think this regime has popular support.

14:53 Uh I know a lot of Iranians, we're blessed to have a lot of very secular,

14:57 pro-western Persians who live in Canada,

15:00 are proudly Canadian,

15:01 and they will tell you that there's almost no

15:04 support for the regime among the people of of Iran.

15:07 Mhm.

15:07 They need to find a way to overturn the regime.

15:11 Uh, and that would that would give a a lot

15:13 of comfort and peace to the rest of the world,

15:15 but it would also give democracy to a deserving people.

15:17 What would you do if you were Trump?

15:20 Oh, that's a good question.

15:22 Um, [laughter]

15:23 and no offense to

15:27 like I said, I would focus on the core objective of making sure

15:30 that there's not a nuclear armed Iran

15:33 without getting involved in a permanent quagmire.

15:35 So everything's been bombed now.

15:37 Fordo has been bombed.

15:38 So is this the time to pull out then?

15:40 I think it all depends on the intelligence they have about the nuclear capacity.

15:44 That that is the the hinge point.

15:46 We cannot allow a nuclearpowered um Iranian military.

15:51 That is what they they need to determine.

15:53 For me at the moment it looks a little bit like

15:55 it's a little bit lose-lose for Trump in an interesting way.

15:58 And I think this is also reflecting the fact that nobody really has

16:01 a perfect answer for what to do next because it's all just trade-offs.

16:05 That's right.

16:06 That's right.

16:06 I mean, that's what the the great uh Thomas Soul said.

16:10 There's no solutions, just trade-offs in life.

16:12 And it's hitting the the price of um gas at the pumps in a big way.

16:17 Yes.

16:17 A way that concerns you or Well, it's funny you [snorts] should ask

16:21 because it shouldn't have to concern Canadians.

16:24 Our enormous supply of oil should actually insulate us from it.

16:29 Normally what what used to happen in Canada

16:31 is when the global price of oil rose,

16:34 our dollar would rise with it because people would be buying more of our oil,

16:37 which meant they had to first buy our dollar.

16:39 A more powerful Canadian dollar meant that we had more

16:43 buying power for internationally priced commodities like oil and food.

16:47 So, we used to be protected from international oil

16:51 price increases in a way that we're not anymore because

16:54 our sector is no longer as strong and as big

16:57 as it was as a share of our economy.

17:00 And so, uh, what I want to do is unleash oil production in Canada,

17:05 clear, uh, the regulatory bureaucracy, the government gatekeepers,

17:10 get rid of industrial carbon taxes,

17:13 and have a stronger dollar that makes life more

17:16 affordable and much more geostrategic power in the world.

17:19 There's a quite significant probability that you could be Canada's next leader.

17:24 And for you to achieve all those things you've just described,

17:26 you'll need to have, you know, productive relationship with the United States.

17:29 Trump if all follows the law won't be able to be elected.

17:32 So it'll probably be a different leader by the time that you were in power.

17:36 Although I know that you know there could be a vote

17:37 of no confidence which mean that you could get into power earlier.

17:41 Your relationship with Trump good, bad, indifferent.

17:44 I've never met him.

17:47 I've never spoken to him.

17:47 No, I don't have.

17:48 No.

17:48 Um I made the decision that uh we have one prime minister at a time

17:53 and because we are negotiating a trade deal or it's more like a review

17:57 of an existing deal uh I don't want our side as Canadians to be divided

18:01 even though I obviously disagree with my prime

18:04 minister on a whole range of policy issues.

18:06 I don't want to uh undermine in any

18:09 way the the Canadian side of the bargaining table.

18:12 I would only do that kind of conversation

18:14 with a teamwork uh with the current government.

18:17 But what I've said is that our approach visa be

18:19 Trump should be to focus on what we can control.

18:22 So why not focus on what what we can do at home?

18:25 Um unlock our resources, build up a strategic reserve of of minerals

18:30 that are important to our American friends, but also to our other allies.

18:36 Clear the way to export more goods to overseas markets.

18:40 uh build alliances with the United Kingdom, New Zealand,

18:44 Australia uh to diversify and become more self-sufficient.

18:48 You keep using this word unlock.

18:50 Yes.

18:50 And clear the way.

18:52 Yes.

18:52 What are you referring to when you say clear the way and unlock?

18:56 Removing bureau bureaucratic obstacles.

18:57 Um the the resources we have are massively

19:01 profitable for the private sector to mine, refine, store,

19:07 and ship as long as they can get the permits and the low enough taxes to do it.

19:12 So we need to remove those obstacles so

19:15 that it now becomes uh possible for private investment,

19:19 not subsidized by government, no handouts for business,

19:23 but private investment to unlock and unblock those resources.

19:27 You're just saying there you don't want to get in the way of Mark Carney.

19:31 Well, I I don't want to get

19:32 in the way of of negotiations with a foreign country.

19:34 I obviously my job is to to be his opposition

19:39 in the House of Commons on domestic issues and even on international issues,

19:43 but not to do so in a way that undermines the national interest.

19:46 A lot of countries aren't like that.

19:47 It was interesting because you're on Joe Rogan's show.

19:49 It's got a global audience.

19:51 Yes.

19:51 So, you know, if you talk about him there,

19:52 you're talking about him all over the world.

19:54 And you said you wouldn't criticize the leader

19:57 of the opposition unless you were in Canada.

20:00 But you know that you know you're reaching everybody everywhere all the time.

20:03 That's true.

20:04 No, that's true.

20:05 That's true.

20:06 But uh I I just think it's it's a good principle to follow

20:08 particularly during a negotiation that's happening

20:12 across the border in that country.

20:14 like you know I think it would be a little different

20:16 if we were in normal times and there was no trade dispute

20:19 or if we were in a country with which we have no

20:21 particular contention that for me

20:23 to say something critical about the government's

20:25 policy back home would not have any repercussions for the nation

20:29 but particularly over the next several months while these talks are are

20:32 hopefully going to go on uh I want to get the best

20:35 outcome for Canada and I have to put my country above myself.

20:38 Why are you better than the current leader of the Canadian government?

20:43 Well, what what what is it you offer that is better than what he has to offer?

20:47 My mission is to make Canada the most

20:51 affordable uh freest and richest country in the world.

20:55 My upbringing, I grew up in very humble beginnings.

20:59 I grew up surrounded by working-class people.

21:02 Yeah, these are my folks.

21:03 Yeah, that's an old one.

21:04 Got a photo of you there and your your parents and your is it your stepbrother?

21:08 Your half brother?

21:09 Half brother.

21:10 Yes.

21:10 So, uh it's my dad and my my mother.

21:12 or they were school teachers.

21:13 Uh my brother is my half brother because we came from the same

21:16 biological mother but a different biological

21:20 fathers adopted into the same family.

21:22 Kind of a complicated story.

21:23 Your biological mother adopted you at 16 years old.

21:26 Put us up for adoption at 16 years old.

21:28 She was 16 and then um then about 3 years later she had

21:31 another little boy and he Patrick was then uh adopted by the same parents.

21:37 And they were two teachers that adopted you and Patrick.

21:39 Yes, that's right.

21:40 Yeah.

21:40 I still remember when we went to pick him up.

21:42 It was uh so we we went to this um we got a phone call and he said,

21:45 "There's a little boy who happens to be

21:47 half brothers with your with with Pierre.

21:49 Would you like to to adopt him, too?" And he said, "Absolutely." So,

21:52 we went over to this building and we walk

21:55 into this room and there were all these rows of babies

21:59 and uh you know, we walked past them and then we said,

22:02 they said, "That's him right there." And that was when I met my brother.

22:05 You know, we picked him up.

22:06 That's why I thought that's where babies came from.

22:07 There was a store.

22:08 you know, we go to a store and get your your groceries.

22:10 There's a store where you can go and get a baby.

22:12 That's what I thought cuz that was my first experience with it.

22:15 And um we brought him home and and we grew up in working-class neighborhoods.

22:19 When I was about 3, fourish, uh we lost everything.

22:23 We got smashed by high interest rates.

22:26 My mother had had saved up enough to buy two little rental properties.

22:30 We lost those and our home and had to borrow from our grandfather

22:34 to get a down payment so we'd have a place to live.

22:37 My dad was driving this old mobile

22:39 that was falling apart and our neighbors were, you know, workingass folks.

22:43 They were just, you know, electricians, uh, oil workers, police officers.

22:48 So, that's those are the people I grew up with.

22:50 And I always grew up admiring those those people, uh,

22:53 admiring what they were able to do and believing

22:55 that they were generally taken advantage of by government,

22:59 never listened to, and definitely and kept on the outside of decision-m.

23:04 And my mission has been to bring back what I

23:08 call the promise of Canada that uh anyone can achieve anything.

23:11 It doesn't matter if you start off as an adopted kid uh raised by school

23:15 teachers uh or you know an immigrant from Batswana who uh grows up really poor.

23:21 If you you work at it, you should be able to buy a house uh launch a business,

23:26 become a you know a famous global podcaster uh or maybe cure a disease.

23:31 And that was what Canada was all about.

23:33 And that is what I'm trying to reinstate.

23:36 What age do you get to meet your biological mother for the first time?

23:40 21 22.

23:41 My adopted mother was very gracious because I said I won't

23:46 meet my biological mother without the permission of my adopted mother.

23:51 She did all the work of raising me.

23:52 all the hardships, all of my she put up

23:55 with all of my rambunctiousness and teenage years and uh

23:58 drove me to hockey practice and you know emptied

24:02 her bank account to pay for our food and stuff.

24:04 So I did not want her to feel like she

24:06 was going to be left behind or forgotten about or replaced.

24:10 And I asked her, you know, would you be okay if I met her?

24:13 And she said, "Yes, of course,

24:14 cuz I won't always be here and I always want you to have

24:16 a mother." And I thought that was um a really incredible thing

24:20 to do because it's so big part such a big part of um

24:25 a mother's identity is that they are the mother of that child.

24:29 But to have a love that's so much deeper than

24:33 that personal identity or interest is something I'll always remember.

24:37 It's one of the most gracious things I've ever seen.

24:39 I can see the emotion in your face as you say it.

24:42 Yeah.

24:42 It's still there.

24:44 Yeah.

24:44 I hadn't thought about that in a while.

24:50 What beautiful people.

24:51 Yes, we're very blessed.

24:52 And uh um and it's and it's it's it's people like these that inspire

24:57 me that uh keep me going in in uh in this crazy world of politics.

25:03 So you get to meet your biological mother at 21, 22.

25:06 Yeah, around that.

25:08 Yeah.

25:08 What does one say?

25:09 What are the questions one needs to ask if any?

25:15 I'm trying to remember.

25:16 We went on we went on a bit of a road trip

25:17 from uh Ottawa to Montreal and we just got to know each other.

25:22 Uh she had a lot of uh questions about how my life had

25:26 been and uh I had a lot of questions about our our biological family,

25:30 about her father who was a really great man.

25:33 I would go on to meet a great Irishman and um

25:37 the circumstances that led to my my conception and and birth.

25:43 And I really came to understand her decision to put me up for adoption.

25:46 And I've never been resentful for it at all.

25:48 She she was 16.

25:49 She just lost her mother to a heart attack.

25:53 She um didn't have a lot of means.

25:55 And she just made a selfless decision that we would

25:57 have more opportunity if we were raised by someone else.

26:00 Did you ever learn anything about your biological father?

26:04 Yes.

26:04 Yeah.

26:04 He he works at at a um a concrete plant in British Columbia.

26:11 And so I went and met him.

26:12 He's a great father with children that that he subsequently had

26:15 and raised and and so he he's a very good man as well.

26:19 And my my adoptive father is a a teacher and uh he gave me

26:23 a lot of uh wonderful lessons and I think is responsible for my way with words.

26:29 Marlene and Donald.

26:30 That's right.

26:31 So Marlene's your adopted mother.

26:33 Donald's your adopted father.

26:34 They divorce when you're 12 years old.

26:36 Yes.

26:36 It would be around that time.

26:37 I was in grade five.

26:39 very difficult time for parents to divorce.

26:42 Very difficult time.

26:43 I remember that that period of life very very

26:45 clearly because I remember one day my parents coming

26:48 to me and telling me that they didn't love each

26:49 other anymore that they were going to get a divorce.

26:50 They didn't.

26:52 Okay.

26:51 But I remember bit which you know I

26:53 think did enough damage for [laughter] but it

26:55 was around that age and I I remember where I was stood in the house.

26:59 I remember what I was wearing when

27:00 they said that to me cuz it's earthshattering.

27:03 It is actually.

27:04 I just can't I can't unforget it.

27:05 It was it was traumatizing.

27:07 Well, we were my dad told me and he wanted to tell me alone.

27:11 So, he we we got into uh the car.

27:13 He said he wanted to take me for a drive and we drove to the local

27:16 corner store and we parked in the car and he told me that there.

27:20 But it is very traumatizing and um but at the same

27:24 time like they were very very good parents.

27:26 So, I I I don't judge them for how they ended up uh apart.

27:32 Uh we were very blessed.

27:33 Uh, you know, they gave me a great start in life.

27:35 Even though they weren't together,

27:37 they they loved us very much and they gave us all all they could.

27:40 And Donald would would eventually come out as gay.

27:42 That's right.

27:43 One would assume that he was dealing with the conflict of feelings.

27:48 Yes.

27:48 For much of the time,

27:49 he had been raised in a very devotly French

27:51 Catholic household and that's why we have a French name.

27:54 And before he got married,

27:55 he'd even consider going into the priesthood and he

27:57 so he was a very devoutly Catholic person.

28:00 He genuinely loved my mother, but obviously he wasn't programmed uh that way.

28:05 You know, he has a wonderful partner and we're friends

28:07 with uh very close with him and his partner Ross right now.

28:11 Do you see how that's changed you as a man um as you've grown up,

28:15 whether it's your sort of your perspective

28:16 on what love and romance is or anything else?

28:20 I think that if everything just been,

28:21 you know, white picket fences and, you know, hu,

28:24 you know, totally predictable and as then then I

28:28 wouldn't be the kind of person I am today.

28:30 I think it's also, you know,

28:32 it's it's like you I would you have been as successful

28:35 as you are if you had had a very easy childhood?

28:38 I doubt it.

28:38 I bet all the the hardships that you had and the the twists and turns that took

28:43 you from Batswana to the United Kingdom

28:45 and and then onward probably gave you some superpower.

28:49 And so uh this I think it gave me

28:51 the chance to understand that you have you don't judge people.

28:54 You you love them for who they are.

28:57 My parents also taught me an important lesson

29:00 that uh Shakespeare says to thine own self be true.

29:03 Um my mother had when she was a a small baby,

29:08 she was in a car accident and her fingers were burned off

29:11 and she had horrible scars um horrible burns on her hand at the time.

29:16 And as I got to my adolescence, I said to my dad,

29:20 um did it ever bother you when you

29:22 started dating her that she she had this injury?

29:26 And he said, "No, because it didn't bother her.

29:29 She was totally at peace and she never hid it." It

29:32 wasn't long after we met that I forgot it was even there.

29:36 And the message that I took from that is be yourself.

29:40 Don't try to hide the scars.

29:42 Scars are the trophies of survival.

29:46 So those are some of the the lessons that my mother and father taught me.

29:49 And my dad was the same about who he was.

29:52 He just lived his life unapologetically and openly

29:56 and he never apologized for who he was.

29:58 And that has stayed with me.

30:00 When you speak of Marlene,

30:01 you you speak up with her with a great fondness and expression

30:03 in your face that you know I sit I've sat here six 700 times.

30:06 So you get to see who matters most to people

30:09 in their lives just by looking at their face.

30:12 And she's she's clearly on the podium.

30:16 Yeah.

30:16 She's a very feisty little lady, very short and very uh very forceful.

30:22 She she taught me a lot about being, you know,

30:25 pugnacious and fighting for what you want and what you need in life.

30:29 and um [laughter] and we argued a lot when I was a kid and I

30:33 think that maybe forged some of my current

30:35 uh political uh argumentation as well.

30:38 My wife is a has a big part of it as well.

30:40 She's a very strong feisty intelligent

30:43 lady with an incredible upbringing as well.

30:46 She's a a refugee from Venezuela and came with really nothing.

30:50 And so she has this sort of maggyver like skill set

30:53 to to get anything done no matter how difficult the logistics.

30:58 So I've been very very uh blessed with strong women around me.

31:02 At a very young age, it appears that you took a a liking to politics.

31:07 I mean you I mean you mentioned hockey first and Marlene taking you to hockey.

31:11 I've got a found a couple of photos of you

31:13 playing hockey which I found to be quite interesting but um yes

31:16 but politics when did politics come into your your psyche?

31:20 I would have been uh kind of in my mid- teens.

31:23 Well, I I got into football, hurt my back in football,

31:27 so I couldn't stay on the team.

31:28 My mother had always gone to these sort of local conservative meetings.

31:33 Um sometimes just bringing baked goods or uh attending a volunteer meeting.

31:38 And I said, "Well, why don't you bring me to one

31:39 of those cuz I'm bored out of my skull." And she did.

31:42 This gives me meaning.

31:44 This gives me purpose.

31:45 I want to go and pursue this.

31:46 So, I started getting more and more involved.

31:48 I got an internship uh making almost no money and uh and dressing

31:53 up in a used suit and really threw myself fully into this mission.

31:58 One of the books that I um I realized you'd read at that time

32:01 from some research is this book Adam Smith the theory of moral sentiments.

32:05 Yes.

32:06 So this is this really this book has

32:09 to be accompanied by its more famous sister book

32:13 which is the wealth of nations which that's

32:15 the book that most people know Adam Smith for.

32:17 think of him as kind of the father of capitalism because in 1776

32:22 he wrote this book which described what we now call the free market system.

32:28 And this was a really revolutionary idea because up

32:30 until then we basically had various forms of feudalism.

32:34 What's that?

32:35 Where a small group of lords and knights and aristocrats control all

32:40 the land and the the the great masses do all the work.

32:44 And so you called them surfs.

32:46 They would uh do all the heavy labor and then

32:48 the lords of the manor would would take all of the benefit.

32:52 Along came the system of free enterprise that Adam Smith describes which is

32:57 basically it has a very simple premise voluntary exchange of work for wages,

33:02 product for payment and investment for interest.

33:05 And that the economy rather than being guided by the iron fist of the king

33:10 or the state is guided by the invisible hand of the free market.

33:15 And this had been it had been thought that this was crazy.

33:18 How could the economy just sort of run itself?

33:20 And the answer is through price signals.

33:22 If the price of something goes up,

33:24 people just automatically start making more of it.

33:26 And if you need more workers to make that thing, well,

33:28 you raise the wages and all of a sudden, what do you know?

33:30 The workers arrive.

33:32 And this system is absolutely ingenious.

33:35 Like, it's why when you go into a coffee

33:37 shop and you buy your coffee, you say thank you.

33:40 They don't say you're welcome.

33:41 They say thank you because they have something

33:43 worth more to them than they had before,

33:45 the money, and you have something worth more to you than you had before.

33:49 And this voluntary exchange puts everyone on equal scale.

33:52 Even if you're a massive corporation,

33:53 you want to sell something to a 15-year-old kid,

33:56 you have to convince them that's worth more than the cost.

33:58 So, everybody has to be better off in the exchange for it to occur.

34:02 And that was how free enterprise formed.

34:05 And it has led to a spectacular increase

34:08 in the quality of living and the economic

34:10 growth 200fold increase in economic growth

34:12 in the in the free enterprise era versus the feudal era.

34:16 So a lot of people thought Adam Smith is only interested

34:20 in a in a system where people are out serving themselves their self-interest.

34:25 That's what they took from the statement in the wealth of nations

34:28 that it is not from the b benevolence of the brewer,

34:31 the baker or the butcher that we get our meal but from his own self-interest.

34:37 But that was only half the story.

34:39 The other half was in this book called the theory

34:42 of moral sentiments in which he explains how self-interest overlaps with virtue.

34:50 So what he said is that we have something called fellow feeling which is to say

34:57 we feel for the other person and we feel good when someone else does good.

35:03 It's why we explain that you know people donate to charity or they

35:07 leave the door open for a stranger or they might help an injured

35:10 person uh on the street because they feel bad when they see someone

35:14 else their fellow suffering and they feel good when they see him succeeding.

35:19 And that's why it's called sentiments because you feel these things.

35:22 I saw this in my own son.

35:24 He um for the first time he got a little toy and he gave it to his sister.

35:28 It was the first gift he'd ever given his life.

35:30 And he was so happy.

35:32 Like he literally ran in a big circle around our the foyer

35:35 of our of our residence and just laughing and screaming.

35:38 It just made him so happy.

35:40 Happier than she was to even receive it.

35:42 And this is the best of human nature that his interest,

35:45 his happiness was served by seeing his his sister better off.

35:50 And this is really laid out in some detail in the theory of moral sentiments.

35:54 And it for me it's like it like

35:57 brings together all of human nature in one place.

36:00 Now he's not naive.

36:01 He does accept that there are bad, you know, dark angels in our nature,

36:05 but he gives the only plausible explanation that I

36:08 have seen about how you intersect self-interest with altruism.

36:14 And how did that change your perspective

36:16 and therefore you know your policies and your career?

36:19 I have found that those who push a socialist ideology

36:25 have a gross contradiction in their view of human nature.

36:32 They say that human beings are wretched, self-interested,

36:36 greedy when they're in the private voluntary economy,

36:40 but they're angels when they're in the governmental economy.

36:43 And therefore they argue that the government should just control everything

36:46 because then we have all these angels that will decide for us,

36:50 decide what we get to where how our money is spent,

36:53 what we're supposed to believe in the modern day what kind of vehicles we drive,

36:58 what we should think.

36:59 Um but that is a a huge contradiction.

37:02 If a if a man if man is not capable of deciding for himself,

37:05 surely he's not capable of deciding for others.

37:08 And I think the worst the worst vices in human nature come

37:12 out when there is too much power and concentrated in their hands.

37:16 Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

37:18 So my ideology is that we should disperse power that it should be

37:23 a bottom-up system with as much freedom

37:25 and agency as humanly possible that people

37:28 should be free to choose for themselves and that the go the purpose

37:32 of the government is to do only those things people cannot do for themselves.

37:36 I guess if there's, you know, socialists listening now, they might think, well,

37:40 we tried this sort of capitalistic approach to the economy and it's resulted

37:44 in us being able to buy less uh food and vegetables for our money.

37:48 It's mean the price has gone up at the pumps.

37:51 People are struggling.

37:52 It seems that inequality has widened and the the working

37:56 class seem to be struggling more now than ever before.

37:58 They can't buy homes anymore like

38:00 my my parents or my grandparents could could have.

38:02 So clearly we need socialism they would

38:05 argue because the current system has not worked.

38:08 Well, what we have now is socialism for the very rich.

38:12 We have governments that are actively redistributing wealth

38:15 from the working class to the very very wealthy.

38:19 And that is why we see record inequality.

38:23 Government is actively intervening in the economy

38:25 to forcefully redistribute wealth up the chain.

38:30 Up the chain.

38:31 Absolutely.

38:31 And there are countless examples of it.

38:33 When they block home building with heavy regulations,

38:36 they limit the supply of homes.

38:37 Those who have mansions therefore are wit

38:39 richer because their houses are worth more.

38:41 But young people, newcomers, working-class people can't actually get a home.

38:45 Uh that is a one example of state intervention.

38:48 Well, we could do maybe do an illustration here.

38:51 Okay.

38:51 So, this is um this is the total amount of land in Canada.

38:56 Yes.

38:55 Where homes could be built.

38:57 And actually this is quite reflective I think

38:58 of the much of the western world even the UK and this is a penny.

39:04 Yes.

39:04 Do you you understand this demonstration?

39:05 Yes.

39:05 I think what you're trying to say is

39:06 that this is about how much land we live on.

39:09 Yes.

39:11 Yes.

39:10 So um Canada is a great example of this because we have

39:14 10 times as much land per person as the second closest G7 country.

39:20 And yet we have the fewest homes per capita to live in.

39:24 And why is that?

39:26 It's because that the vast majority of the cost that goes

39:28 into building a new home is not land, labor, or lumber.

39:34 It's government.

39:35 It's government taxes, fees, charges, uh, bureaucracy, lobbyists, consultants.

39:43 So if you think of this home here,

39:46 this home here in Canada, when you buy this house,

39:50 more of the money for your purchase would go

39:52 to bureaucrats in office buildings than to the carpenters,

39:56 electricians, and plumbers who actually build the home.

39:59 Why?

39:59 How?

40:00 Because the bureaucracy has grown like um any organism

40:03 in nature which seeks to to survive and multiply.

40:07 They uh give us the second slowest building permits of any country in the OECD.

40:13 They charge enormous development taxes which started out just to pay

40:17 for plumbing and and roads for the the related housing

40:21 but now have grown into just a huge cash cow

40:25 for local governments because sales taxes still apply on most new homes.

40:29 And all of that gets consp.

40:36 In fact, we [music] uh we are the most

40:37 expensive in the G7 even though we should be it

40:40 should be dirt cheap to own a home in Canada

40:43 because we have the most dirt to build on.

40:46 Uh and my goal is to remove all

40:48 of that bureaucracy speed have the fastest permits

40:51 in the world and and make it tax-free

40:54 to build homes so that everyone can afford one.

40:57 I was reading some stat that said, again, I might butcher this a little bit,

41:00 but it said that Canada needs to build between

41:03 four roughly 450,000 new homes every single year until 2035.

41:10 Yes.

41:09 Just to restore affordability.

41:11 That's right.

41:12 And we're building about 240,000 per year.

41:16 So, we need to roughly double our home building to do that.

41:20 The good news is we have 100,000 Well, it's not good news.

41:24 We have 100,000 unemployed construction workers who'd be

41:26 happy to pick up a hammer and start building.

41:29 We have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment that's ready to do it.

41:33 We have an abundance of land.

41:35 What we need are fast permits and low taxes so that we can unlock that building.

41:39 What is the case for slow permits?

41:42 There isn't one.

41:43 There isn't one.

41:44 Zero.

41:44 There is no benefit to having slow permits.

41:47 They do not protect the environment.

41:49 They do not uh protect public safety.

41:52 We used to build houses um a lot faster and they didn't fall down.

41:56 After the Second World War, permits were almost instantaneous.

42:00 We had a massive buildup of homes so

42:02 that our returning veterans could have a place to live.

42:04 In many neighborhoods of Canada, those homes are still standing.

42:07 They have not collapsed.

42:08 There's no I'm not saying we get rid of building codes.

42:12 They should all have to follow standards of environmental

42:15 responsibility and be fire resistant and and safe.

42:20 But it doesn't it shouldn't take seven

42:21 years to approve a subdivision to do that.

42:23 We we know how the the developers know how to build according to the rules.

42:27 They just need quick permits and freed up land to do it.

42:30 You'd think now with AI you'd be able to approve these permits within minutes.

42:34 Look, with all the technology,

42:35 housing should be so much cheaper than it than it was before.

42:40 Uh in fact, everything should be so much cheaper.

42:42 But this is another area where government is re

42:45 redistributing wealth from the working class to the super rich.

42:49 It's the monetary inflation where we're creating cash at a far

42:55 faster rate than we're creating the stuff that cash buys.

42:58 We've in Canada increased the number of homes over the last 10 years by 13%.

43:04 But we've increased the money supply by 100%.

43:07 In other words, there is now eight the the growth in the money supply

43:11 is eight times faster than the growth in the growth in the housing supply,

43:15 which means for the average person that it bids up the price.

43:18 Now, you might say, well,

43:19 if everybody's equally getting their share of that money, then who cares?

43:24 But they're not.

43:26 There's something called the Catalon effect,

43:28 which is that the first people to touch the money in a uh monetary

43:32 expansion are those who are already wealthy

43:35 and already connected to the financial system.

43:37 So when government creates cash to fund its deficits,

43:40 it doesn't just dump the the bills

43:42 out of an airplane into a suburban neighborhood.

43:44 It injects it into the banking system

43:46 by buying government bonds at inflated prices.

43:49 And those who trade in those bonds are the first to get the cash.

43:52 Those connected to the to the financial system are the first to borrow it.

43:55 they get to deploy it before it loses its value.

43:57 By the time it trickles down to the workingclass people,

44:00 it's lost its value and their wages have been destroyed.

44:05 And this has been happening on and off throughout all of human history.

44:08 But it's been particularly bad in the last 55 years.

44:11 And that is why I think the working class across the Western world is so angry.

44:16 Canada have consistently dropped down the sort of happiness league table.

44:20 Well, actually from 2015 we've gone from fifth to 25th.

44:24 the 18th.

44:25 We went from 18th to 25th just in the last year.

44:28 So you were the fifth happiest country in the world and now you're 25th.

44:31 That's right.

44:32 And part of it is food.

44:34 We have the worst food price inflation in the G7 today.

44:38 It's due to a lot of hidden taxes that are baked into food production.

44:41 Uh we have an industrial carbon tax that it charges on farm equipment,

44:46 fertilizer, and uh food producers.

44:49 We have a new fuel tax that's just come in.

44:52 single-use plastic is now banned,

44:55 which makes it that so that food goes bad about five days quicker.

44:58 So, it sounds kind of very virtuous.

45:00 We're not going to use plastic anymore,

45:01 but it ultimately means food uh goes bad and and somebody pays for that.

45:06 So, uh we we need I want to get rid of all of those taxes and fees

45:11 and unnecessary regulations that do nothing for our health

45:14 and safety so that we can have more affordable food.

45:18 But um more broadly,

45:20 we have to get rid of the the monetary inflation that I described.

45:24 As I said, we've doubled our money supply in Canada

45:27 from 1.4 trillion to 2.8 trillion in 10 years.

45:31 So, it is not actually that these things cost more.

45:34 It's that the money with which we buy them is worth less because

45:39 because we're creating so much of it.

45:41 And it's

45:41 and why why are you doing that?

45:43 To fund deficits

45:44 to pay for debts.

45:45 That's right.

45:46 And that's why all government, it's not just Canada, by the way,

45:48 it's across the Western world, they're creating cash to fund deficits.

45:52 And the deficits come from having a big government.

45:56 Yes.

45:56 Government that's too big.

45:57 That's right.

45:57 That's too involved.

45:58 That's right.

45:59 And the result is that we're we're creating cash faster than we grow food,

46:04 build homes, or produce energy.

46:07 And my mission, Stephen, is to flip that.

46:10 I want us to create more of what kash buys by unblocking food production,

46:15 energy production and home building so that we add those things faster

46:20 than we add what um we add the cash to the system.

46:24 Why I mean I saw this graph here

46:26 this chart which is GDP per capita with international counterparts.

46:30 So on there it has Canada, United States, OECD and it shows it's quite stark.

46:35 It shows that Canada has basically plateaued in terms of GDP per capita.

46:39 What does for the average person what is GDP per capita?

46:42 What does that actually mean?

46:43 It's your income really.

46:44 It's the it it ultimately the GDP gross domestic product

46:49 is the the value of all the things that you produce.

46:53 If you're producing more per person over time,

46:58 people will see their wages rise, their real wages rise.

47:01 If you don't produce more per person, then your wages are flat.

47:05 And so that is what we've effectively had in Canada over the last 10 years.

47:12 Why?

47:12 [snorts]

47:14 Because we we are not unlocking our resources.

47:18 Our biggest industry is oil and gas

47:21 and it's locked behind uh very aggressive anti-development

47:25 laws and bureaucracies because we're we're blocking home

47:28 building and because we're overt taxing our population.

47:30 We're punishing initiative with high taxes.

47:34 The good news is that we can reverse all of these things.

47:36 If we we have the most prodevelopment, and the fastest permits in the world,

47:40 if we cut taxes on work, investment, home building, and energy,

47:44 then we can massively increase our output of the things that we need

47:48 to have a good life and the wages that people earn to buy it.

47:53 This seems to be a familiar story across some Western nations.

47:56 It is.

47:57 What are those Western nations and what is

47:58 the thing that they've all got in wrong in common?

48:02 Well, I think that it's probably true in the UK and the European Union as well.

48:07 Well, let's take Germany.

48:08 They shut down their nuclear sector and they tried

48:11 to effectively drive oil and gas out of their country.

48:14 The end result was extremely high energy costs.

48:17 And this was another intervention that took

48:19 from workingclass people and gave to the very rich.

48:22 Those who were able to get the subsidies

48:24 for windmills and solar panels got fabulously wealthy, all very powerful people.

48:28 But the workers in the in the plants and the mines of rural

48:32 Germany ended up losing their jobs and paying higher prices for electricity.

48:37 All of which, by the way,

48:38 has been reversed because now the Germans are back to burning coal.

48:41 So it did absolutely nothing for the environment.

48:44 Uh this is another example of government

48:46 intervention totally screwing over the working class,

48:49 a phenomenon across the western world.

48:51 And this is the big lie.

48:53 The big lie is that when government gets big, it gives people their fair share.

48:57 What it does in fact is it gives the money

48:59 and the resources to those who have the most political power.

49:02 Those people are all rich and it pays for it by taking from the working class.

49:06 So my mission in politics is to reverse that entire approach.

49:09 Have a small government with big people,

49:11 a meritocracy that rewards work and a free enterprise system that requires

49:16 businesses compete for workers with higher

49:19 wages and consumers with lower prices.

49:22 I'm looking here at the GDP forecasts for various countries around the world.

49:26 In the United States, uh, GDP forecast looks like it's,

49:29 um, it's been pretty, you know, pretty strong relative to others.

49:32 Canada looks like it's going down.

49:34 2025 estimates 1.7%, 26 estimates 1.3.

49:39 The United Kingdom as well seems to have been lagging.

49:42 Um, both the United States and Canada.

49:45 And Germany, as you said, in 2024, their GDP growth was only 0.2, two,

49:49 which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds

49:51 and hundreds of percentages lower than the United States,

49:54 Canada, or even the UK.

49:56 But clearly there is a problem with GDP growth here

49:58 um for Canada, for the United Sta,

50:01 for the United Kingdom relative to a country like the United States.

50:04 It looks like the United States are doing something right.

50:06 If you look at GDP growth is the main measure.

50:10 Look, um there are some policies that we can learn from.

50:14 Um it's not just the United States though.

50:16 Look at uh look at Switzerland for example.

50:19 Uh the Swiss are among the wealthiest in the world.

50:22 They have the best money, the lowest inflation.

50:24 They have almost no inflation in Switzerland by the way.

50:27 They have very strong money.

50:29 The the Swiss Frank is the best currency in the world,

50:32 better than the euro or the American dollar.

50:33 What do they have?

50:34 Free enterprise, small government.

50:36 the share of of the economy consumed

50:38 by government spending is significantly lower than anywhere else

50:42 in the western world um outside of uh outside of Asia and so they do very well.

50:48 How is it that the Singaporeans have

50:49 become one of the wealthiest nations on earth?

50:51 They have no resources, literally nothing.

50:54 They have to import their water for God's sakes.

50:58 They they took an a swampy uh mosquitoinfested

51:02 island and three peoples who were struggling to survive

51:06 in their homelands and they came together and created

51:08 the wealthiest country in the world outside of the Gulf States.

51:11 Why?

51:12 They have free enterprise.

51:13 They have low taxes.

51:14 It's easy to start a business.

51:16 You're rewarded for your hard work.

51:17 This is the kind of thing we could be doing.

51:19 So looking at the numbers of Singapore,

51:20 Singapore operates in a league of its own,

51:23 outperforming both the UK, Canada, and the USA in terms of growth.

51:27 um and per capita wealth as a hub economy.

51:30 It is currently riding the wave of the global

51:32 AI boom because they've enabled entrepreneurship and it

51:35 is more than GD from a GDP perspective last

51:38 year more than double the United States GDP growth.

51:41 Um and I mean it's it's left uh Canada and the United

51:44 Kingdom and even Switzerland in its tracks in that regard.

51:47 Interesting.

51:48 It's a spectacular achievement.

51:50 And I mean uh Lee Kuanlu who founded the country and created

51:53 this miracle uh should be studied by every leader in the world.

51:57 Um because I don't think there's anyone who's been able to generate such

52:00 a a a massive uh increase in the quality of life and to do

52:05 it with literally no resources whatsoever

52:07 except for geography that and they managed

52:10 to exploit their geography as you said to be kind of like modern-day Nabotans.

52:15 They're a trading hub uh for for all of Asia.

52:18 Every sort of economic policy or philosophy does have a trade-off.

52:23 I mean, it's one thing you learn as a podcaster.

52:25 There's just always trade-offs.

52:26 And if you're not clear on what the trade-offs are,

52:27 then they might surprise you, right?

52:29 I mean, that, you know,

52:30 you can talk about socialism or you can talk about capitalism, whatever.

52:33 All of them have trade-offs.

52:34 What are the trade-offs of your economic strategy and philosophy?

52:41 Well, the the leadership has to have humility because it has to let

52:43 go of power and and and turn it back to the people.

52:46 And um that is a very hard thing for politicians to do.

52:50 Um I mean uh no politician wants to have written on their gravestone.

52:54 Um he stayed out of the way,

52:56 left people alone so that they could do great things without him.

52:59 [laughter] Although I think we'd be better off if more of them did.

53:03 But I should also say that like there is a role for government.

53:06 I'm not suggesting that there isn't.

53:07 There there should be a basic social safety net that provides

53:11 the things that people who are less advantaged would not be

53:14 able to have for themselves to make sure that everyone has

53:17 health care even if uh they can't afford to pay for it.

53:20 That there's basic schooling and roads and infrastructure.

53:23 But what happens is that once you get beyond

53:25 providing those basics and government starts to to metastasize

53:29 into well well uh all kinds of other

53:31 things that are not its core responsibility each

53:34 dollar spent has less and less return and then

53:37 it turns into a negative return where the more

53:40 they spend the more damage they do and I

53:42 think we're beyond that point on the curve

53:44 because I'm thinking about how immigration ties

53:46 into all of this and to GDP growth.

53:48 I think in Canada from the research I was

53:50 doing there has been a decline in birth rates.

53:52 Yes.

53:53 So there's significantly less people getting married.

53:56 There's significantly less people being born.

53:58 So how does one run their economy when you're not having new children

54:02 being born without bringing in lots

54:04 of immigrants to to help support that economy?

54:09 Well, first of all, I think we have

54:10 to ask ourselves why has the birth rate gone down?

54:12 And I I would argue that it's economic re reasons.

54:15 Uh if you cannot afford a home, then you have no place to raise children.

54:21 Um, you know, we have this phenomenon of in Canada

54:24 of 35-year-olds still living in their parents' basements.

54:27 And h how do you even get a date?

54:29 I mean, how do you bring a date home?

54:31 [laughter] You know, it's it's a challenge if if you're 35.

54:37 And these are great high achieving people who've got jobs,

54:40 but they just can't afford a place to live or they're stuck in a a small

54:46 apartment because that's all their paycheck will buy them in the way of rent.

54:50 And so I think for those economic constraints,

54:54 we we have a lot of young people who

54:56 otherwise would love to have children in their late 20s,

54:59 early 30s who simply have nowhere to raise them.

55:02 Am I right in thinking that a lot of these western

55:03 economies have allowed a lot of people into their countries

55:07 to make up for the the willingness or desire or the availability

55:12 of people to do the sort of low wage jobs?

55:15 Is this is what is this what's happened globally?

55:17 Because it's what people tell me in the UK.

55:18 Yes, I think I frankly I think that a lot of multinational

55:21 corporations have abused the immigration system in order to drive down wages.

55:26 Um in Canada, for example,

55:28 the government massively expanded um the international student

55:32 and temporary foreign worker programs and that allowed corporations

55:37 to pay artificially low wages to people who

55:41 do not have the same mobility rights and opportunities.

55:45 and that drove down wages,

55:47 displaced people from their jobs and ultimately ballooned housing costs.

55:51 And so my position is that we need

55:53 to to cap numbers um and ensure that the the economy,

55:57 healthcare and housing grows faster than the population at all times.

56:01 If you cap numbers, does that mean that these corporations, these entrepreneurs,

56:04 these companies don't have enough people to fill the roles

56:07 in their companies and therefore have to move somewhere else?

56:09 What what does it mean?

56:10 No, we have unemployment.

56:11 We have people without jobs.

56:13 But they just some multinationals don't want to pay full wages.

56:17 So they think, well,

56:18 I just undercut the wage by bringing someone

56:20 in from a very poor country who's willing to work

56:22 for a lot less and who has fewer rights because

56:25 they can't leave the job to go to another employer.

56:27 So it's uh kind of like easy street.

56:30 And so my view is that when you've got unemployed

56:33 people and you're trying to fill your workplace, pay higher wages.

56:36 Give uh give people a better return on their work.

56:39 You've got unemployment.

56:41 Are those people trained and skilled and willing

56:44 to do the jobs that Canada needs them to do?

56:47 Yes, absolutely.

56:47 I mean, we have 100,000 unemployed construction workers.

56:50 They could be building the homes that we need built.

56:52 Uh we have um young people coming out of um out of high school without a job.

56:57 We have a 30-year highs in unemployment among youth.

57:02 They should be getting those jobs.

57:04 And you know, Starbucks says, "Well,

57:05 they don't want to take them." Well, maybe you're not paying enough.

57:08 If you're not paying the right wage,

57:09 then you're not going to get the right worker.

57:11 But pay an equivalent wage and you'll attract

57:13 a worker who will who will do the job.

57:15 Again, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here.

57:17 So, you know, Starbucks increase wages.

57:19 Yes.

57:20 Which means that Starbucks then will increase

57:21 the cost of a cup of coffee presumably.

57:24 Well, unless they can find more efficient ways to run their systems.

57:27 You know, more competition in the system will allow

57:30 the worker to gain more and the consumer to pay less.

57:33 and the entrepreneur in the middle has to find

57:35 ways to to save and operate more efficiently.

57:38 That's the magic of the market is that everybody has

57:40 a a a vested interest in driving the most value for the lowest cost.

57:46 One of the interesting ways lots of employers are finding

57:48 ways to drive efficiencies is this new technology called AI, right?

57:52 And again, maybe somewhat ironically here, Anthropic,

57:54 who one of the world's leading AI companies, released a report two weeks ago.

57:58 I'll throw the graph up on the screen,

57:59 but it shows where job disruption will take place

58:01 based on how people are currently using their tools.

58:04 And one of the things they noticed is that there's

58:06 been a increase by I think roughly 14% in youth

58:11 unemployment because entry- levelvel jobs are the ones often

58:14 in white collar industries that are being taken out first,

58:17 right?

58:17 And you hear these things and you go, oh, you know,

58:18 that's some stats and whatever and it's,

58:20 you know, not necessarily tanked the economy yet.

58:22 But as an employer of hundreds and hundreds of people all over the world now,

58:26 I have started to notice that the case for hiring certain groups

58:31 of people is becoming much more tricky now because of these tools.

58:36 And doesn't make me sound great saying that.

58:38 It's not that we're not hiring hundreds of people,

58:40 but there's this certain set when I look at specifically entry level grads.

58:45 if they aren't really AI proficient, they are a lot less appealing in some roles

58:50 than people young grads that that are extremely AI proficient.

58:54 The problem is not many of them are.

58:55 And that just in a company like mine,

58:58 if you're AI proficient, really irrespective of age,

59:00 and you know how to build this thing called AI agents,

59:03 it's kind of like you come with 50 team members of your own.

59:07 Wow.

59:07 That's what it's like.

59:08 So, I've got a kid called Cass here.

59:09 You know, he's a young guy in his 20 his 20ies.

59:12 He's built a team of agents that now work for him.

59:16 So hiring Cass means I get Cass and his team

59:19 of agents because he's proficient in that technology.

59:21 Most of the workforce hasn't been trained because

59:24 of the education system to know a thing about this.

59:26 So it's becoming increasingly difficult to to hire entry- level

59:30 people but actually all the way up the board unless

59:32 you have deep expertise in a domain which would mean

59:36 that I can get Cass to make you the agents.

59:38 So like on my CFO, you know, for example,

59:41 you know, 50 50 years working in finance, etc.

59:45 deep expertise.

59:46 I just need her and then she can build out a team of AI agents to work with her.

59:51 Back in the day, if you'd got 5 years ago,

59:52 I would have needed her and her to have a massive team of people, right?

59:57 I say all this to say that there's a certain group in society,

59:59 people that have deep domain expertise and people that are

1:00:02 technical that I think are in higher demand than ever before.

1:00:05 and everybody else um as AI continues to replace them

1:00:08 through things like autonomous driving and um robotics is around

1:00:11 the corner um is I I think there needs

1:00:15 to be a real conversation about what happens to these people.

1:00:17 Can I ask you a question?

1:00:20 So throughout history we've had

1:00:21 these scares where new technological developments

1:00:26 have threatened to replace and in reality have replaced certain human labor.

1:00:31 So you had like the during the industrial

1:00:33 revolution machines were replacing muscular power and then

1:00:36 you had the lites who came and tried

1:00:38 to smash those machines to protect their jobs.

1:00:40 In the end they just got different jobs with higher

1:00:42 pay because they could do more with these machines and they

1:00:45 didn't have to walk behind a you know a mule's ass

1:00:47 pushing a pushing a plow in the hot sun all day.

1:00:51 They had a tractor that would pull the plow um and so on and so forth.

1:00:56 But and then in the in the dotcom era,

1:00:58 we were told again that people are going to lose their jobs to computers.

1:01:02 In fact, they were made more productive by computers.

1:01:04 Do you think this time is

1:01:06 fundamentally different than those prior technological revolutions?

1:01:10 I would say first thing is nobody knows.

1:01:14 The second thing I'd say is yes.

1:01:15 Okay.

1:01:16 And the reason I'd say yes is just the speed of disruption.

1:01:19 So unlike the in the industrial revolution where you know

1:01:21 it takes some time for the new technologies to become adopted

1:01:24 because of the nature of their of what those technologies were

1:01:27 this technology is built on the internet which has global distribution.

1:01:30 So open claw is a good example of a technology

1:01:33 that is very to to simplify it for the audience.

1:01:37 It can do anything on my computer.

1:01:40 So if I put a computer here on this table I can text

1:01:43 openclaw on WhatsApp and tell it to go on this podcast right now.

1:01:47 Look at the part of the conversation that was most replayed by the audience.

1:01:51 Clip it.

1:01:52 Add subtitles to it.

1:01:53 Tweet it or send it to my Slack channel.

1:01:55 I can get it to I'll tell tell you something I did the other day.

1:01:57 I was in my house in Los Angeles and it was

1:02:00 very very hot cuz there's a heat wave at the moment.

1:02:02 So I said to it, can you can you go on take a look at my house

1:02:04 online um buy me a umbrella that I can put because I like to work outside.

1:02:10 I actually voiced it this and what it did is it went on Google Maps.

1:02:13 It looked all around my house from all around the outside

1:02:15 because it knew where I lived for some bizarre reason.

1:02:17 It knew that I charcoal umbrella at a certain

1:02:20 size would suit that table out there.

1:02:22 It went on Amazon, found the charcoal umbrella,

1:02:25 it ordered it, arrives at my house, and it transacted like you

1:02:28 transacted because it had my my login

1:02:30 details to transact on this particular website.

1:02:32 So, but it's just, you know,

1:02:34 the framing is it can do anything that you would you would do on a computer.

1:02:37 um a lot of people work on computers

1:02:39 and the speed of adoption that we're seeing is is staggering.

1:02:42 So my my concern is actually the sort

1:02:44 of near-term displacement before we figure out the types

1:02:47 of jobs that um the types of new jobs

1:02:50 and then with robotics on the way, you know,

1:02:52 you hear someone like Elon Musk saying that there'll

1:02:55 be more humanoid robots than humans, you know, and people say, well, you know,

1:03:00 he's saying that because he's a he's got a vested interest, right?

1:03:03 However, what I'd say is his timelines have sometimes not been right.

1:03:07 But when he said he was going to make those spaceships land on chopsticks,

1:03:11 the spaceships eventually Oh, he's a brilliant mind.

1:03:14 Don't underestimate him.

1:03:15 And my car out there drives itself [laughter] without without intervention.

1:03:19 So, I don't know.

1:03:21 It's a really interesting time.

1:03:22 I can both see why this techn is going to change

1:03:24 the world for the better and I believe it will.

1:03:26 But then I'm just really concerned about certain economies and countries

1:03:29 that aren't taking it seriously because they're so distracted by other things.

1:03:33 Like a lot of them race baiting.

1:03:34 A lot of them are like immigration seems to be the winning lever.

1:03:37 Like just say the brown people are the problem.

1:03:39 But I'm like maybe the alien is something else.

1:03:42 Maybe the alien is are these agents that are actually going to take our jobs.

1:03:46 I believe the basic human need is is meaning to have the a purpose in life.

1:03:52 And often the question we have to ask is how can we guide this uh revolution

1:03:59 in technology so that it empowers people

1:04:03 to do things that continue to give them meaning.

1:04:05 I think it was John Adams who said something to the effect

1:04:08 of my father studied warfare so that I

1:04:12 would have the security to study commerce.

1:04:15 I study commerce so that my children will have the prosperity to study arts.

1:04:20 If these new systems give us the ability to focus on the things

1:04:25 that we love doing that give us meaning in our lives

1:04:28 and that could be a different thing for each person while

1:04:32 at the same time supplying with us with a lot of our material needs.

1:04:35 It could be very positive.

1:04:37 If it simply strips away our own utility and leaves

1:04:40 lots of people without the ability to work at all,

1:04:42 then it could be very very dangerous to to our our our lives.

1:04:47 So, uh I think that we have the public policy objective

1:04:50 is to to to ensure that it becomes an enabler of humanity,

1:04:53 not a replacement for it.

1:04:56 So, you could come into power in is it 2029

1:04:58 if there's no uh overthrowing of the the current leader?

1:05:03 [snorts]

1:05:03 2029 is going to be an interesting time.

1:05:05 uh if these sort of forecasts that we're getting from some

1:05:07 of the world's leading experts

1:05:09 in artificial intelligence and robotics come true,

1:05:11 have you thought much yet about how you would counteract that?

1:05:16 What you would do to make sure that there

1:05:18 isn't huge job job disruption because you know a lot

1:05:20 of a lot of people like Sam Alman have suggested through

1:05:23 their actions that they might support things like universal basic income.

1:05:27 In fact, Sam Alman's Sam Alman being the founder and um co-founder of OpenAI,

1:05:32 which makes Chat GBT.

1:05:33 I think his other startup is called WorldCoin,

1:05:36 which uses your retina scan to to validate that you're a real human being

1:05:41 so that you they can distribute money to people because in a world of AI,

1:05:46 we're going to need to find a way to distribute wealth.

1:05:48 And if you listen to Elon, he says, "We're going to live in the age of abundance

1:05:51 where working is going to be optional." He says,

1:05:53 "Now, if you're a surgeon and you're training

1:05:55 to be a surgeon," he says, "Absolutely don't.

1:05:56 Because in a couple of couple of years time there's

1:06:00 going to be no human that's better than any AI surgeon.

1:06:03 Wow.

1:06:03 So if these things are true like surely you should be making plans and you

1:06:09 know when a lot of smart you know I know they have an incentive

1:06:11 they're raising money and they want they

1:06:13 have a certain narrative which helps them

1:06:15 raise money but if they are right the future looks very different from the past.

1:06:21 That's true.

1:06:22 Do you have a plan?

1:06:24 I I have principles that I would apply as these technologies present themselves.

1:06:29 And the principle for me is how do we make sure that the AI

1:06:34 enables and empowers people to make more decisions for themselves and have more

1:06:39 freedom and a and um to pursue their own meaning rather than replacing

1:06:45 and rendering them um giving them a sense of of lost meaning and purpose.

1:06:52 And so, do I think it's great that every minimum

1:06:56 wage worker might have a personal assistant and a chauffeur vehicle?

1:07:00 I do.

1:07:00 Because that that would make more of their life uh uh they

1:07:03 could spend on the the things that thrill them and make them happy

1:07:07 and less of their life would be spent on the drudgery of having

1:07:10 to drive in a traffic jam or uh or, you know, sweep their floor.

1:07:14 Um but uh at the same time we have to make sure that that people have

1:07:19 the ability to work and contribute and and give

1:07:22 themselves a sense of meaning in their lives.

1:07:25 So the other thing I would say is that as these technologies bring down costs,

1:07:29 those savings should be passed on to people.

1:07:33 They should not be inflated away.

1:07:34 The government should not use this as an opportunity

1:07:36 to just print more cash to reflate the cost of living.

1:07:39 We should actually seek as our goal to lower the cost of living,

1:07:43 make life more affordable, make our dollars go further,

1:07:46 which is which hasn't happened in in generations.

1:07:49 And so if technology is going to allow us to produce more for less,

1:07:52 then let's make sure that the workingclass people actually

1:07:56 enjoy that benefit rather than having it inflated away.

1:07:59 It is quite concerning that you know if wealth does acrew

1:08:01 to these big companies and you know people like Elon who incredible entrepreneur

1:08:06 is going to become the world's first trillionaire right

1:08:09 I don't think he'll be the last the way things are

1:08:11 going with with artificial intelligence that and then if there is job

1:08:15 disruption I do think there's going to potentially need to be

1:08:19 some government intervention corrective government intervention

1:08:23 do you not I don't know nobody knows exactly what's going to happen I

1:08:27 mean it was you know um Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prizewinning uh economist

1:08:33 who embarrassingly predicted that the internet

1:08:35 would have no more impact on our lives than the fax machine.

1:08:39 And and [clears throat] he's a Nobel Prize uh economist,

1:08:41 I think, from Princeton or Yale or something.

1:08:43 So nobody's Nostradamus on these things,

1:08:46 but we have to have guiding principles and and mine are

1:08:50 the rules around technology should always

1:08:52 be geared towards giving people more agency,

1:08:54 more meaning, and more control over their lives and not less.

1:08:59 It's funny cuz I don't hear it reflected enough in political discourse.

1:09:03 I hear us focusing on other things.

1:09:04 And one of those things is immigration.

1:09:07 across the western world, the subject of immigration seems to be

1:09:11 a bit of a winning formula for political leaders.

1:09:13 If I think about the UK, what Trump said about, you know,

1:09:17 being invaded by rapists and murderers from the the southern border,

1:09:21 do you feel that it's a it's a sort of a weaponized,

1:09:23 divisive tool for people to get elected,

1:09:26 complaining about the brown people or or foreigners?

1:09:30 I I'll just give you the Canadian experience.

1:09:32 So for roughly 200 years,

1:09:34 we had the most successful immigration system in the world by far.

1:09:38 In fact, other countries,

1:09:39 both Republicans and Democrats in the United States used to say,

1:09:42 "We need to study the Canadian system because it has been so successful." We had

1:09:45 a point system that that measured whether someone

1:09:48 would be a good fit for our labor market,

1:09:49 whether they would would integrate well into our our system.

1:09:53 And overwhelmingly, people integrated, intermarried, uh, you know,

1:09:57 my wife is a is a refugee from Venezuela.

1:10:00 That is not an uncommon story in Canada.

1:10:02 What we encountered was a very sudden and inexplicable

1:10:05 increase in the numbers uh in the period

1:10:08 from 2021 to 2024 that was strictly out of line

1:10:13 with our our ability to absorb people into housing, healthcare, and jobs.

1:10:19 And this upset the the social piece on immigration

1:10:22 that we had had for two centuries leading up to it.

1:10:25 And um now everyone across the political spectrum

1:10:30 agrees that it went too far too fast.

1:10:33 And the approach that we're taking is that uh

1:10:36 that we have to make it a lawful system.

1:10:39 It has to follow the rules.

1:10:40 You people have to come in legally in numbers

1:10:43 that we can absorb and ultimately integrate into jobs,

1:10:48 society, and uh our way of life.

1:10:51 population cannot grow faster than the housing stock

1:10:54 or you'll run out of places to live.

1:10:56 It can't grow faster than the number of jobs

1:10:58 or you'll run out of paychecks for people.

1:11:00 And so we need a a controlled

1:11:03 orderly system that's both compassionate and common sense.

1:11:06 It's such a divisive subject.

1:11:07 You've seen what's happened here in the United States with ICE, right?

1:11:11 Yeah.

1:11:11 It it's a it's a different situation in the US.

1:11:15 Um we the immigration problem in the US goes back many many years.

1:11:20 uh many many years of chaos at their the southern border.

1:11:23 We didn't have that in Canada.

1:11:24 Like that was unheard of.

1:11:26 We we had roughly 1% of population immigrating to Canada for 200 years.

1:11:34 It was uncontroversial in Canada up until this very strange,

1:11:39 inexplicable spike that really only helped very wealthy landlords

1:11:45 and employers that wanted to drive wages down and rents up.

1:11:49 they were the only beneficiaries of the extreme increase in numbers.

1:11:54 If you don't get the replacement rate back up

1:11:56 to a level where you're having enough kids in Canada,

1:11:59 does it track that eventually you would have to rely

1:12:02 on more immigration to solve for the sort of GDP issues?

1:12:07 Look, economic immigration of high-skilled um people to our country

1:12:12 is is has always been successful and uh nobody resents that.

1:12:18 Uh, one of the things that we have to do though is when people get to Canada,

1:12:21 they have to be able to fulfill their potential.

1:12:23 In Canada today, we have these gatekeepers that block

1:12:27 immigrant professionals from even working in their field.

1:12:30 So, for example, we have 20,000 immigrant doctors and 32,000 immigrant nurses

1:12:35 who can't work in medicine because they can't get a license to practice.

1:12:39 There's this incredibly bureaucratic system they have to go through that takes

1:12:42 eight or nine years to prove that they actually have the qualifications.

1:12:46 I have it's so crazy that when I went in for my eye surgery,

1:12:49 there's a technician there who literally flies to the UAE

1:12:54 to do eye surgeries 10 days a month and then comes back to his family in Ottawa

1:12:59 where we only let him work as as a technician.

1:13:02 And so UAE is a more technologically advanced country than Canada.

1:13:07 And eyeballs are the same in the UAE as they are in Canada.

1:13:11 immigrants in Canada have historically been more educated than

1:13:15 our Canadian-born population just in terms of their credentials,

1:13:19 but have not been able to fulfill

1:13:20 their work because our licensing system shuts them out.

1:13:24 So, I want to fix that with a merit-based test that gets

1:13:27 them into the high-paying jobs that will actually strengthen our economy.

1:13:32 Much of the reason most people haven't posted content or built their personal

1:13:35 brand is because it's hard and it's timeconuming and we're all very very busy

1:13:40 and if you've never posted something before

1:13:43 there's so many factors in your psychology

1:13:45 that stop you wanting to post what people will think of you am I

1:13:49 doing this right is the thing I'm saying absolutely stupid all of these result

1:13:53 in paralysis which means you don't post and your feed goes bare I'm

1:13:57 an investor in a company called Stanto which you've probably heard me talk about

1:14:01 and what they've been building is this new tool called Stanley that uses AI,

1:14:05 looks at your feed, looks at your tone of voice, looks at your history,

1:14:07 looks at your best performing posts,

1:14:09 and tells you what you should post, makes those posts for you.

1:14:12 You can also just use it for inspiration.

1:14:15 And sometimes what we need when we're thinking about

1:14:16 doing a post for our social media channels is inspiration.

1:14:20 Building an audience has fundamentally changed my life,

1:14:22 and I think it could change yours, too.

1:14:24 So, I'm inviting you to give this new tool

1:14:26 a shot and let me know what you think.

1:14:28 All you have to do is search coach.stand stand.store now to get started.

1:14:33 You know, every once in a while you come across a product that has

1:14:36 such a huge impact on your life that you'd probably describe it as a gamecher.

1:14:42 And I would say for about 35 to 40% of my team,

1:14:47 they would currently describe this product that I

1:14:49 have in front of me called Ketone IQ,

1:14:52 which you can get at ketone.com, as a game changer.

1:14:55 But the reason I became a co-owner of this company

1:14:57 and the reason why they they now are a sponsor

1:14:58 of this podcast is because one day when I came to work

1:15:02 there was a box of this stuff sat on my desk.

1:15:03 I had no idea what it was.

1:15:05 Lily in my team says that this company have been in touch.

1:15:07 So I went upstairs tried it and quite frankly

1:15:10 the rest is history in terms of my focus,

1:15:13 my energy levels, how I feel, how I work, how productive I am.

1:15:17 Game changer.

1:15:18 So if you want to give it a try, visit ketone.com/stephven for 30% off.

1:15:22 You'll also get a free gift with your second shipment.

1:15:25 And now you can find Keton IQ at Target stores across

1:15:28 the United States where your first shot is completely free of charge.

1:15:33 We have finally caved in.

1:15:36 So many of you have asked us if we

1:15:37 could bundle the conversation cards with the 1% diary.

1:15:40 For those of you that don't know,

1:15:42 every single time a guest sits here with me in the chair,

1:15:44 they leave a question in the diary of a CEO

1:15:46 and then I ask that question to the next guest.

1:15:48 We don't release those questions in any

1:15:50 environment other than on these incredible conversation cards.

1:15:54 These have become a fantastic tool for people in relationships, people in teams,

1:15:58 in big corporations, and also family members to connect with each other.

1:16:01 With that, we also have the 1% diary,

1:16:04 which is this incredible tool to change habits in your life.

1:16:07 So many of you have asked if it was possible to buy both at the same time,

1:16:10 especially people in big companies.

1:16:12 So, what we've done is we've bundled them together

1:16:15 and you can buy both at the same time.

1:16:17 And if you want to drive connection and instill habit change in your company,

1:16:21 head to the diary.com to inquire and our team will be in touch.

1:16:25 What is the biggest threat do you think

1:16:27 to the western world and the western way of living?

1:16:28 Cuz people often, you know, they point at Iran, they say China, they say Russia.

1:16:32 I think it depends on what China decides to do.

1:16:35 I China is a a spectacular and brilliant civilization

1:16:40 with so much to contribute to to world harmony.

1:16:44 if that's their choice.

1:16:45 If the if the government decides that it's going to to direct the immense

1:16:50 um successes of that country towards

1:16:53 um trading and working with other countries,

1:16:56 then there's no nothing to worry about.

1:16:58 But if it is a very aggressive Bellose approach using technology

1:17:03 for espionage uh interference in foreign countries as they have done in Canada

1:17:08 uh invading Taiwan then China and Beijing in particular the regime could

1:17:14 become the biggest risk and threat to our country and our world.

1:17:18 What does history say about this kind of moment

1:17:20 in time where there's seemingly two world powers?

1:17:23 Mhm.

1:17:23 Well, there is an incredible book called Thusidities

1:17:26 Trap uh which a professor named Allison um said

1:17:31 that throughout history he took I think 20

1:17:34 occasions where the where an incumbent superpower was caught

1:17:41 up on by a challenging superpower and in I

1:17:45 think the majority of cases it did end up in war and now he said it's

1:17:49 not necessary though and it doesn't have to happen.

1:17:52 it can be avoided and uh he lays out a plan in his book for it to be avoided.

1:17:57 I think it can be avoided as well if uh Beijing can be made

1:18:01 to understand that it is in in the interest of China to be part

1:18:04 of the community of nations to work collaboratively to trade freely to uh to be

1:18:09 a partner rather than an enemy and I hope they make the right decision.

1:18:14 Is it fair to say that the United

1:18:15 States is really at war with China now already,

1:18:18 but just through proxy wars and other types of sort of economic wars?

1:18:21 And because now that they both have nuclear weapons,

1:18:24 you can't really have a direct conflict, can you?

1:18:28 Well, let let's put it this way.

1:18:30 Um, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba,

1:18:37 these are all countries that were in the realm of influence of Beijing.

1:18:41 and um they're the countries where the United States is pursuing uh change.

1:18:48 So there there is the the war that we watch on the evening

1:18:52 news and the the real interest behind them that that is driving it.

1:18:57 Canada doesn't have nuclear weapons, does it?

1:18:58 No, we do not.

1:19:01 Why?

1:19:00 We made a decision, I think it was about I I want

1:19:03 to say about 40 or 50 years ago not to pursue nuclear arm.

1:19:06 We didn't think we had any need need for it.

1:19:09 lots of nuclear power, lots of uranium, but we don't use it for for weaponry.

1:19:13 Do you think Canada should have nuclear weapons?

1:19:17 I don't see a need for that.

1:19:18 Um I don't know what we would get from it.

1:19:20 We don't uh we don't have any desire to to threaten anyone with nuclear weapons.

1:19:25 So, um uh I don't I don't see a purpose for that right now.

1:19:32 [laughter] What you think?

1:19:34 Sounds quite Canadian.

1:19:36 That's true.

1:19:38 But listen, we are a warrior nation.

1:19:40 Uh make no mistake about it.

1:19:41 We were in the World Wars two years before the Americans.

1:19:44 Uh and we we are we're kind of like a a golden retriever.

1:19:49 Uh we're friendly.

1:19:50 We're likable.

1:19:51 Uh we like to get along, but if provoked, we will fight back.

1:19:55 Canada is building up its military.

1:19:59 Absolutely.

1:19:58 Why?

1:19:59 because there's a consensus that we have not done

1:20:01 enough to to protect our territory from the incursions

1:20:06 of hostile powers and uh we often say in Canada if you don't use it you lose it.

1:20:12 Uh there's large territories of our country that are very hard to live in.

1:20:16 We have an incredible Inuit population but obviously you know

1:20:20 you can't heavily populate the Arctic archipelago with industry and stuff.

1:20:25 So, how do you assert sovereignty over those treasured uh territories?

1:20:30 Well, you have to have a military presence there.

1:20:32 What's changed for Canada?

1:20:35 It's it's that we want to maintain and ensure that we

1:20:39 can make our own decisions without relying on the Americans

1:20:42 because the Americans have expressed that they are

1:20:45 maybe not going to be as collaborative and friendly

1:20:47 and we want to be able to decide for ourselves.

1:20:49 We want to be masters in our own home.

1:20:51 uh in Quebec they say mashu and uh so if we want to control our own

1:20:56 destiny and territory we have to pro we have to be able to protect ourselves.

1:20:59 It has been very good for Canada to be next

1:21:03 door to the biggest military power the world has ever

1:21:05 seen and have friend friendly relations that go back

1:21:08 to um the early 1800s before we were even a country.

1:21:12 We had largely friendly relations with this enormous power.

1:21:17 But what has become clear is that we

1:21:19 cannot simply rely on the Americans to protect us.

1:21:22 We have to be able to protect ourselves.

1:21:24 And that requires a massive military buildup for a country of our size,

1:21:28 the second biggest country anywhere in the world.

1:21:30 We have the longest oceanic coastline, even longer than Russia.

1:21:34 So that takes money and it takes a a buildup like we've never seen.

1:21:39 And that's what we're we as Canadians agree has to happen.

1:21:42 Now, this is in part because of Trump.

1:21:45 In part, yes.

1:21:46 because Trump threw the election and then thereafter said

1:21:48 that he was going to make Canada an American state [laughter]

1:21:53 which is never going to happen.

1:21:54 But that you know with the the leader of the most

1:21:58 powerful military on earth says even jokingly that they are about

1:22:02 to take your country you can laugh but at the same time

1:22:07 one if I was leading Canada I'd go wait is this possible?

1:22:11 Are we ready to defend ourselves?

1:22:13 we uh as Canadians react very badly to that and uh we're we're we're not going

1:22:18 to uh ever be the 51st state or or any part of the United States of America.

1:22:24 The American people are our friends.

1:22:25 They've been our top trading partner, our closest ally.

1:22:29 As uh President Kennedy said,

1:22:31 um history has made us friends, economics has made us partners.

1:22:35 Uh geography has made us neighbors and necessity has made us allies.

1:22:40 those whom nature have thus joined together.

1:22:43 Let no man put us under.

1:22:45 But he understood that that Canada was

1:22:47 a separate country that had its own unique interests.

1:22:50 And I think the American people understand that as well.

1:22:54 I I think the American people are very fond of Canada as a neighbor and friend.

1:22:58 Um but they understand we will always be a sovereign country.

1:23:01 You would have been negotiating with Trump right now if um the election,

1:23:05 the recent election in Canada had gone your way.

1:23:08 This is a pretty uh pretty stark graph that I've just lid you.

1:23:12 It shows that you were leading in the polls seemingly

1:23:15 up until the very very last moment in the elections.

1:23:19 Is that accurate that poll?

1:23:20 Yeah, I think that's probably a weighted average,

1:23:22 but yeah, I think more or less.

1:23:24 What happened?

1:23:25 Well, if you look what happened, we our support didn't drop that much.

1:23:28 Uh the other parties collapsed in behind the Liberal party and uh it

1:23:32 was largely due to the uh the Canada US issue that you raised really.

1:23:38 So, but at the same time, we got the biggest vote count we had ever received

1:23:43 and the highest share of vote that we've received since 1988.

1:23:48 So, we did perform very well.

1:23:49 Our opponents performed even better.

1:23:52 And now we have to build on the solid base

1:23:54 that we've accumulated in order to win the next election.

1:23:58 Just as the election comes into the home stretch,

1:24:01 your polling basically stays the same.

1:24:04 Um, slight little bit of a drop, but roughly stays the same.

1:24:09 [snorts] What caused the drop in that sort of home stretch there?

1:24:11 Do you think what one of the challenges I had was I wanted

1:24:14 to focus on the things that were going on in people's lives,

1:24:17 the doubling of housing costs, the rising crime rate,

1:24:21 the inflation crisis, and my solutions to all of those problems.

1:24:26 But a lot of that was swept off of the conversation

1:24:29 because everyone was focused suddenly on the the tariffs and the president

1:24:35 the president saying that he was going to take Canada as a state

1:24:38 but also him saying that he was going to apply tariffs.

1:24:40 That's right.

1:24:41 And those tariffs are still in place.

1:24:44 Why did that impact you and help Mark Carney?

1:24:47 That's a good question.

1:24:48 I think I think it allowed the conversation

1:24:52 to move away from the domestic record of the government

1:24:54 and on to two external factors and that always

1:24:59 helps the incumbent and hurts the challenger.

1:25:02 How was this emotionally?

1:25:04 Oh, it was a roller coaster and it was like so

1:25:07 things were changing so fast and moving so quickly in the moment.

1:25:10 It's like you don't really have time to feel anything.

1:25:13 you're just doing so much so quickly

1:25:17 that um your emotions they're put on delay until after it's all over.

1:25:23 So after it's all over, I've got this wonderful photo of that.

1:25:27 Yes.

1:25:26 You and your family.

1:25:28 You said the emotions came after cuz you were going going going.

1:25:32 Yes.

1:25:32 So my leadership started in 2022 as we were coming out of co and there

1:25:37 were so many people who placed so much hope in me who had suffered so much.

1:25:42 They would tell me they felt like they lost control

1:25:44 of their lives and that they vested hope in me.

1:25:47 So I'd get young people would say,

1:25:49 "You have to win because I want to start a family

1:25:52 and I can't start a family in this economy." Or mothers would say,

1:25:58 "We just can't afford food anymore." Or police officers say,

1:26:01 "I've arrested the same guy four times this week and he

1:26:05 keeps getting released." You have to win to fix these problems.

1:26:08 It's not about you, Mr.

1:26:10 Polyv.

1:26:10 It's about the stuff that's happening in our lives and and you have to fix it.

1:26:15 You know, uh I had a lady come to one of my rallies

1:26:18 cuz when you vote in a to choose a leader of a party,

1:26:21 you have to pay $15 to join the party.

1:26:24 And she came up and told me about her life story.

1:26:27 And then she went up to the membership desk and said,

1:26:29 "Can I borrow $8?" And they said, "What do you need it for?" She said, "Well,

1:26:35 I only have $7." They said, "Oh, well, there's a bank machine downstairs.

1:26:38 you can go get some more cash.

1:26:40 And she says, I don't have a bank card.

1:26:42 And they said, well,

1:26:43 is there perhaps could you go to your car and get some money?

1:26:46 She said, well, uh, I don't have any money in my car.

1:26:48 What about your home?

1:26:49 Um, because we're not allowed to buy them under the rules for other people.

1:26:53 And she said, I don't have a home.

1:26:55 I live in my car, and the $7 is all the money I own,

1:26:58 and I'm spending it on a membership so that I can vote for Mr.

1:27:01 Polyia because he is my only hope.

1:27:03 This is the only chance I have.

1:27:06 So, I wanted to deliver for these people and when we didn't win,

1:27:12 uh, I felt I felt terrible that I hadn't delivered for them.

1:27:15 What does that look like?

1:27:16 The disappointment of not delivering for people

1:27:18 the night of election, the day after,

1:27:21 if I'm watching you as a fly on the wall, what do I see?

1:27:24 You know, I didn't spend a lot of time on that.

1:27:26 I just got back at it because at the end of the day,

1:27:29 you have to focus on what you can control.

1:27:31 And my my approach in life is to zero in on what is in your control.

1:27:37 That is the greatest thing you can do

1:27:39 for your mental health and for your output as a person.

1:27:43 I believe in a stoic approach.

1:27:45 So I didn't spend a lot of time sort

1:27:47 of rolling around on the ground um in melancholy.

1:27:52 Do you think that if Trump hadn't have said the thing

1:27:54 about taking Canada and he hadn't have done the tariffs,

1:27:57 you would be leading Canada right now?

1:27:59 We'll never know.

1:28:00 I mean uh these are the kinds of uh things

1:28:02 you speculate about but at the end of the day

1:28:04 what what good does it does it uh do

1:28:06 to speculate and I also don't like to make excuses.

1:28:09 I like to say look I'm uh if if this person

1:28:12 hadn't done X then I then I would be in charge.

1:28:14 I have to own my result and that's what I do.

1:28:17 As someone that doesn't know a ton about this stuff I'm asking

1:28:20 kind of for me I find it interesting to see how consequential

1:28:24 these what do they call them?

1:28:25 not um butterfly effect or just how the unexpected

1:28:29 dominoes can fall and change the course of history.

1:28:32 So if Trump hadn't have said those things, if we were to speculate,

1:28:36 do you think it would have changed the outcome of the election?

1:28:39 I don't know because we we don't know

1:28:40 what would have happened in absent of that.

1:28:43 If you had to bet your house, I don't have to bet my house.

1:28:46 So outcome either way.

1:28:47 I I don't I don't want to blame someone else

1:28:49 for the outcome of the election because at the end of the day,

1:28:51 the people voted and they made their decision.

1:28:53 I have to be at peace with it.

1:28:55 So, I can't spend my time thinking

1:28:57 on whatifs because if that whatif hadn't happened,

1:29:00 then there might have been another whatif.

1:29:02 So, I have to focus on what I can control.

1:29:05 Dealing with those moments.

1:29:06 You mentioned stoicism.

1:29:07 I found this book u meditations by Marco Surelius,

1:29:11 which I think was quite formative for how

1:29:13 you see things in some respects and generally stoicism.

1:29:16 Yes.

1:29:16 Um it's it's a great book.

1:29:18 The amazing thing about it is it's so readable.

1:29:20 Like he he talks about um this is just

1:29:23 a random page but it's a very interesting uh excerpt.

1:29:26 When you wake up in the morning tell yourself

1:29:28 the people I deal with today will be meddling,

1:29:30 ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and sirly.

1:29:33 They are like this because they can't tell good from ego evil.

1:29:37 But if you go in and read it, what it basically says is expect these things

1:29:41 and if you do but don't be controlled by them.

1:29:45 These are control.

1:29:46 These are factors outside of your control.

1:29:49 Put all of your emphasis on the things that are within your control and it

1:29:54 will bring a tremendous amount of peace because

1:29:56 when you're focused on what you can control, you're the boss of your life.

1:30:00 And that's what that's what stoicism has done for me.

1:30:03 I heard you say you're not the you're not acted upon.

1:30:06 That's right.

1:30:07 When you're when you focus on what you can control,

1:30:10 you are the actor rather than the acted upon.

1:30:13 If you say if you spend a lot of your time thinking

1:30:15 about the things you can cannot control then you become a helpless victim.

1:30:19 Whereas if you if you focus on what you can then you you

1:30:22 become uh like the driver of the car you decide where it goes.

1:30:26 And um you know as my favorite poem says uh Invictus that um Nel Nelson Mandela

1:30:33 used to read himself when he was in prison for all those years in South Africa.

1:30:37 He he would he would recite to himself the the poem Invictus to remind him

1:30:42 that he he could focus on what he was in control of which was his own soul.

1:30:47 I am the master of my fate.

1:30:50 I am the captain of my soul is how it ends.

1:30:53 And that that gives you a lot of peace.

1:30:56 One of the things you often find in stoicism and other

1:30:58 sort of uh teachings of that time is this idea

1:31:01 of being flexibly minded in terms of being able

1:31:04 to learn and being growth minded and being able to evolve.

1:31:06 Mhm.

1:31:07 I was wondering as you went on that campaign trail

1:31:09 and generally over the last 10 years of your career,

1:31:11 it's it's clear to me that your your core principles have been quite consistent.

1:31:15 I I uh have this um this document you wrote when you were I think 20 years old,

1:31:21 which was part of a contest where you won $10,000.

1:31:26 That's right.

1:31:27 For explaining what you would do if you were prime minister,

1:31:30 um if you were leading Canada.

1:31:31 You even dug up the check.

1:31:33 I found the check.

1:31:33 It wasn't cashed.

1:31:34 No, it's a it's a fake check.

1:31:35 We'll go have lunch.

1:31:36 So, you won $10,000 for submitting this.

1:31:41 Yes.

1:31:40 When you were 20 years old,

1:31:41 explaining what you would do if you ever became the prime minister.

1:31:47 Yes.

1:31:46 And I would like you to actually

1:31:47 just read the opening three paragraphs because it

1:31:50 it does um it is quite interesting to see how you've evolved if at all.

1:31:54 Could you just read those first three paragraphs and give

1:31:56 me any other of the context which I might have excluded?

1:31:59 Sure.

1:32:00 Although we Canadians seldom recognize it,

1:32:02 the most important gardening guardian of our living standards is freedom.

1:32:06 Freedom to earn a living and share the fruits of our labor with loved ones.

1:32:10 The freedom to build personal prosperity

1:32:12 through risk-taking and strong work ethic.

1:32:15 The freedom of thought and speech.

1:32:16 The freedom to make personal choices and the collective

1:32:19 freedom of citizens to govern their own affairs democratically.

1:32:22 Government's job is to constantly find ways

1:32:25 to remove itself from obstructing such freedoms.

1:32:28 Human beings are graced with the gifts of creativity, wisdom, and ingenuity.

1:32:33 The the best way for a society to go about improving its living standards

1:32:37 is to allow citizens to apply

1:32:39 these qualities to the challenges of everyday life.

1:32:42 Asking a prime minister to single-handedly improve the living standards

1:32:46 of 30 million of the world's brightest is as about as realistic

1:32:49 as asking him to take to an Olympic sprinting track

1:32:54 to help a lineup of worldclass athletes reach the finish line.

1:32:58 The more the government becomes involved in the race,

1:33:00 the greater the number of hurdles competitors will encounter.

1:33:03 Therefore, as prime minister, what I would do to improve living standards is not

1:33:08 as nearly as important as what I would not do.

1:33:10 As prime minister, I would relinquish to citizens as much of my social,

1:33:14 political, and economic control as possible,

1:33:16 leaving people to cultivate their own personal prosperity

1:33:19 and to govern their own affairs as directly as possible.

1:33:23 In the last decade, since you've been out on the road,

1:33:26 more speaking to people, campaigning, where have your views evolved?

1:33:34 I would say my temperament has matured.

1:33:37 10 years ago, I did not have a wife and kids.

1:33:40 As a father, you end up having

1:33:42 to grow in a tremendous amount of patience because

1:33:45 kids don't do what they're told or they

1:33:47 have needs that are that must supersede your own.

1:33:49 You're constantly making compromises uh with a spouse in order

1:33:55 to juggle all of the difficulties of family life.

1:33:58 And that necessarily spills over into your political approach.

1:34:03 I think temperamentally I've changed.

1:34:06 I'm much more careful and thoughtful than I was

1:34:11 say in my late 20s and and early 30s.

1:34:15 The people that have um you know opposition

1:34:17 parties have often referred to you as Trump light.

1:34:20 And what do they base that on?

1:34:22 I guess because you're both conservatives,

1:34:24 I guess that would be much of the the argument.

1:34:26 And you both you both have spoken out against this term wokeism and DEI.

1:34:32 Yeah.

1:34:32 Look, I I on the on DEI and I

1:34:35 don't think that is something particular to President Trump.

1:34:38 I mean, there's a lot of people around the world who for their own

1:34:42 reasons and based on their own

1:34:45 experiences have criticized that particular ideology.

1:34:49 What I think has changed is that liberals used

1:34:53 to believe in liberty and conservatives believed in conserving it.

1:34:56 You know, they used to say liberals were the gas pedal,

1:34:59 conservatives were the brake,

1:35:00 but we were both heading in generally the same direction.

1:35:04 But what I think happened with wokeism is

1:35:08 that it it it is a deeply illiberal ideology.

1:35:13 It is liberalism, traditional liberalism was was a color-blind ideology.

1:35:17 It was based on total equality regardless of gender,

1:35:23 sexuality, race, or anything else.

1:35:26 Wokeism is exactly the opposite of that.

1:35:29 It's it like accentuates all of those differences and disagreements.

1:35:32 It groups people based on what should

1:35:34 be irrelevant characteristics like race and gender.

1:35:38 And then having divided people into groups,

1:35:40 it seeks to expand state control over their lives.

1:35:43 What I believe in is uh is treating people

1:35:46 as individuals and letting them live their own lives,

1:35:49 judging them exclusively on their own merits.

1:35:52 And I think that was the consensus view of both liberals

1:35:56 and conservatives up until this toxic ideology came along and divided people.

1:36:03 One of the things I you know I'm a black man.

1:36:06 Mhm.

1:36:06 I was I moved from Botswana when I was

1:36:08 a baby and came to the UK and thank God uh

1:36:11 there was sort of social systems in place because I

1:36:13 don't think that I would have had the outcomes I'd had.

1:36:15 One of the things that I did know though when I was um 18,

1:36:18 dropped out of university and started to get into a world of business is I was

1:36:22 aware because when you look at like funding

1:36:23 data for entrepreneurs that are black or especially women,

1:36:28 it's clear that there's like a systemic disadvantage of some sort and I

1:36:32 I wonder someone like yourself who's against this sort of DEI ideology,

1:36:36 how do you contend with like

1:36:37 systemic institutional discrimination towards certain

1:36:41 groups which does pose objectively real disadvantage on them being able

1:36:45 to climb the ladder cuz you said something earlier about your goal

1:36:48 being in Canada to make sure everybody like has a fair shot.

1:36:52 That's right.

1:36:53 How does one counteract the systemic issues around race or gender

1:36:57 or whatever it might be that stop that being possible?

1:37:00 Cuz I I find myself in an interesting position where like

1:37:03 on one end I'm like I want to be treated like everybody else, right?

1:37:06 And I've always felt that way.

1:37:07 And I've always I've always actually to some degree cringed a little

1:37:11 bit when I felt like someone was giving me special treatment because

1:37:17 my skin color was different because it in some way made me feel

1:37:21 like I was at a disadvantage which I know can become quite self-fulfilling.

1:37:24 However, on the other side of the spectrum,

1:37:27 I do also believe that there is like systemic discrimination that is going

1:37:31 to hold certain groups back if there

1:37:33 isn't something done to level that playing field.

1:37:38 So, look, I think the answer is equality.

1:37:41 There has to be strict equality and equal treatment regardless of race,

1:37:46 gender, uh, ethnicity, religion.

1:37:48 And that is the that is the ideal to which we were all striving.

1:37:53 And I think if we get back to that, then we

1:37:56 can give everybody a chance to achieve based on their own merit.

1:38:00 Uh what we need is a meritocracy that is colorblind

1:38:04 and and judges people based on what they can do.

1:38:08 People aren't color blind, though, are they?

1:38:10 No.

1:38:10 I think I my dad said to me when I was younger, he said,

1:38:12 "Everybody's prejudice." I remember sitting in the back of the car,

1:38:14 "My dad's white." [laughter] And I was and I'm thinking,

1:38:17 "My dad just said that he thinks everyone might

1:38:19 be like might be racist and everyone's prejudice." I'm like,

1:38:21 "Is my dad racist?" But um as I've got gotten older,

1:38:24 I realized that he to some degree is telling the truth.

1:38:27 That prejudice is part of how we survived

1:38:29 as humans and we're able to understand danger from not.

1:38:31 So prejudice is something that I think is very prevalent

1:38:34 in society whether we believe we're not and everyone else is.

1:38:38 So if prejudice is very prevalent in society,

1:38:40 does there need to be measures that counteract

1:38:43 that to give everybody a fair chance?

1:38:45 Our institutions have to be conscious about making sure that we

1:38:48 are judging people based on their merit and they should you

1:38:52 know work aggressively to make sure that there is that everyone

1:38:56 regardless of where they come from their background has a chance

1:39:01 to succeed get the job get the promotion move up

1:39:04 the ladder I don't think that is achieved by breaking people down

1:39:08 into more and more different groups and divisions by trying

1:39:12 to build the barriers between pe people based on race and gender.

1:39:18 I think it's by actually removing them.

1:39:20 So the the problem I have with with wokeism

1:39:22 is it it seems almost designed to divide people.

1:39:27 And that is exactly the opposite of the objective that we all sought when

1:39:32 we uh when we pushed for racial

1:39:34 equality and personal and personal freedom and responsibility.

1:39:38 How does one contend with the systemic issues though the like the prejudices?

1:39:42 I I I remember reading about studies where like if you they got

1:39:45 a bunch of people and got them to apply for jobs and just

1:39:47 based on the names whether they were like a a typically white

1:39:51 name versus say a typically black

1:39:52 name the response rate is marketkedly different.

1:39:56 Well, I go back to my first principles.

1:39:58 I think that government is responsible for a lot

1:40:00 of the the barriers that are put in place.

1:40:03 So, [clears throat] let me give you some examples.

1:40:05 When government brings into place these anti- housing policies that I described,

1:40:10 they v they they impact far more on minorities

1:40:13 and disadvantaged people than they do on established uh

1:40:17 people obviously because if if you're new to a country

1:40:20 or you come from a a poorer background,

1:40:22 you won't have a house and then you're the one who's going

1:40:25 to pay the biggest price for the fact

1:40:26 that government is making housing unaffordable.

1:40:29 If you think at the occupational licensing rules that I just described

1:40:32 that block immigrants from having working

1:40:34 in their professions even when they're thoroughly qualified,

1:40:37 those are government-imposed obstacles that prevent people from getting ahead.

1:40:42 Also, a lot of these soft on crime policies have been sold to us on the grounds

1:40:47 that they're going to help minorities by ensuring that they

1:40:50 we we don't have as high a conviction rate.

1:40:52 Well, what they've actually done is that in many minority communities where

1:40:56 the law-abiding people are now suffering

1:40:59 as a result of criminals of all backgrounds.

1:41:03 And so, ironically, it's actually government policies that are

1:41:07 causing people of disadvantaged backgrounds to suffer even more.

1:41:11 So, wokeism accentuates all of those problems rather than solving them.

1:41:16 So I'm interested in solving problems to give

1:41:18 everybody the opportunity to live a safe, affordable, opportunityfilled life.

1:41:23 And wokeism is not doing that.

1:41:25 The actually get creating a free market,

1:41:28 free enterprise economy with free people who have free speech.

1:41:31 That that's the the single best way to give

1:41:34 people of all racial backgrounds a better chance in life.

1:41:37 Again, I'm holding the position of uh the DEI to try and I

1:41:40 like the clash of ideas because it helps me to think through these things.

1:41:43 I've never had the chance to ask somebody these kind of questions before.

1:41:46 And on that point of housing, one of the things that I I found

1:41:49 to be quite surprising was that black mortgage applicants are

1:41:53 up to 200% more likely to be denied a home

1:41:56 loan than white applicants with the similar financial profile.

1:42:00 This is in Canada.

1:42:01 These stats are for the West.

1:42:02 So, okay, but but what is going on there?

1:42:06 because it says that they have similar financial profiles,

1:42:09 yet their their applications are being denied

1:42:12 up to 200% more than white home buyers.

1:42:18 So, I had not seen those data that data point before,

1:42:20 but I would say that this is these sound like

1:42:22 really stupid bankers um because they're making a bad decision

1:42:26 to deny people a mortgage and ultimately deny themselves the business

1:42:31 um if they're if if that's how they're making their judgments.

1:42:34 And then DI comes in to make sure that their judgments aren't stupid.

1:42:37 [laughter] Well, I'm not sure that DEI cures stupidity though.

1:42:41 In some cases, we've seen it cause more.

1:42:44 That's how it shows up, right?

1:42:45 It's like a logical next step,

1:42:46 which is there's prejudice going on in the system,

1:42:49 which is making it in inequal.

1:42:53 And it's a DEI becomes this corrective measure

1:42:55 so those stupid bankers don't make stupid decisions.

1:42:58 But but DEI has been in place now for several decades.

1:43:02 and how is it working?

1:43:04 You're reading the statistics to show that it's not.

1:43:06 So maybe it's not actually doing what it's designed to do.

1:43:09 Maybe it's doing other things.

1:43:11 The other thing that I actually was really keen to talk about,

1:43:12 I just realized, is um Sure.

1:43:14 is this Oh, that's little Valentina there.

1:43:18 She loves to be on daddy's shoulders.

1:43:20 How old is Valentina?

1:43:21 Valentina is seven years old.

1:43:23 Seven years old.

1:43:23 And she's she's non-verbal.

1:43:25 She's non-verbal.

1:43:26 Yes.

1:43:26 What does what does non-verbal mean?

1:43:29 She is autistic.

1:43:30 She's on the spectrum.

1:43:32 So, um, she her biggest the biggest difference between

1:43:36 Valentina and other children is the ability to communicate verbally.

1:43:42 Um, so we're working very hard on that.

1:43:45 She's making some encouraging progress,

1:43:48 but she does uh have some challenges in that area.

1:43:51 She's um very acrobatic and rambunctious.

1:43:54 She loves to climb, swing, bounce, jump, and she is extremely affectionate.

1:44:01 And one of the superpowers she has is that whatever she does, she does 100%.

1:44:06 She's also 100% authentic.

1:44:09 So, and that's not the case once kids get

1:44:11 old enough to manipulate to get what they want.

1:44:13 They can put on acts and artififices.

1:44:15 She doesn't do that.

1:44:16 She's a the real deal all the time.

1:44:19 Uh you know exactly how she feels because she indicates it.

1:44:23 and she's very blessed to have a a little brother, Cruz,

1:44:26 who adores her and treats her better than anyone else in the world.

1:44:32 I often hear parents talk about their concerns with, you know,

1:44:37 someone like Valentina growing up in the world as non-verbal.

1:44:39 You're not going to be here forever to protect her.

1:44:42 And you know, I was saying to you before,

1:44:43 my brother has three kids under the age of what, seven years old now.

1:44:46 and I've noticed uh just how much he thinks

1:44:49 about how they're going to be when he's not here.

1:44:53 How does that relate to Valentina being non-verbal

1:44:55 and and how you think about the future?

1:44:58 Well, a lot of things.

1:44:59 Like one, we obviously have to build up a nest

1:45:01 egg for her so that if she can't earn income,

1:45:05 she will have uh uh the resources for a great life after we're gone.

1:45:10 And second, we're really hoping that there we forge a very permanent and um

1:45:16 deep bond between her and her brother Cruz because he will be there.

1:45:21 And he one of the things he says again and again

1:45:23 is my job is to protect Valentina from bad guys.

1:45:27 So um this is a good attitude especially that they

1:45:31 are actually in the same class even though she's older.

1:45:33 She is in his class at school and so she's

1:45:37 daddy he's daddy's eyes uh to protect our little princess.

1:45:42 But I think when he's older I I believe based on his nature that he's

1:45:46 going to be there for her and um we we are building a plan towards that.

1:45:51 My job is to protect Valentina from bad guys.

1:45:54 That's right.

1:45:54 [laughter] [sighs] It's it's a it's a great instinct.

1:46:00 How has it changed your politics?

1:46:06 It's reinforced my sense of um compassion

1:46:13 for people who can't provide for themselves.

1:46:15 And you know, I've talked a lot about how government should be limited.

1:46:18 I do think there's a very real role for government

1:46:22 to help people who genuinely cannot provide for themselves.

1:46:25 People who suffer from with disabilities being probably the best example.

1:46:29 And um it has reinforced to me that we have

1:46:33 to also have policies that recognize the inherent worth of every individual.

1:46:39 Too often governments have seen people with disabilities as just someone

1:46:45 they have to care for but not someone who can contribute.

1:46:49 And I believe that everybody has something to contribute

1:46:52 and that we should try to unlock that in every human being.

1:46:56 Um, we don't know exactly what Valentina will do,

1:46:59 but I believe she will do some kind of a job at some point in the future and um,

1:47:04 I'm very passionate about policies that enable

1:47:08 people with disabilities to have work opportunities,

1:47:11 even if it's just very limited,

1:47:12 to design programs so that when they have a, for example,

1:47:16 cash or medication support,

1:47:18 it doesn't get robbed from them just because they get a job.

1:47:21 So, it has focused my mind a lot on people.

1:47:24 It gives you a sense of compassionate because when you see somebody

1:47:27 who might be different like I see my daughter in that person.

1:47:31 I see my daughter my often my wife is very good at this.

1:47:34 She'll see someone who might be acting differently in a crowd

1:47:38 and other people are looking at that person and she'll grab my hand.

1:47:41 She'll say I think he's autistic and then she will often

1:47:44 go and talk to that that boy and make him feel loved.

1:47:47 Um so compassion is about feeling what the other person feels.

1:47:52 And you have but a greater ability to do that when

1:47:54 there's a loved one close to you who has the experience.

1:47:59 An interesting range of emotions to be the father,

1:48:02 the parent of a autistic child.

1:48:05 I know this because I get messages on mass

1:48:08 from our audience members who have an autistic child.

1:48:13 Yes.

1:48:13 What what can you say to to the range of emotions you feel?

1:48:16 My wife was able to discern that there was something different

1:48:20 about Valentina very early on when she was still a baby

1:48:24 because she didn't make a lot of eye contact and there

1:48:26 was a period during which she was not very communicative at all.

1:48:30 Um even in ways that babies normally are.

1:48:33 Uh there wasn't a lot of reciprocal communication to start with.

1:48:38 So when we went for the diagnosis we were not that shocked.

1:48:43 So, you know, when the when the I think she was a nurse or she was a specialist

1:48:48 gave us the diagnosis and she was like

1:48:49 paused like waiting for us to burst into tears.

1:48:51 I mean, we were just kind of like, "Yeah,

1:48:54 we we expected that and let's get on with it." And then

1:48:57 we just started doing the things that we had to do.

1:48:59 And my message to parents of autistic children

1:49:01 is just focus on what you can control.

1:49:03 Get on to the things that you have to do.

1:49:05 Get a speech therapist.

1:49:06 Get the play structures in the house that they love.

1:49:08 with Valentina.

1:49:09 It's it's a it's a b bouncy castle and a little

1:49:12 trampoline and a lot of building blocks and enjoy them.

1:49:16 Like they they're she she's so much fun.

1:49:18 Like she's a fun little girl.

1:49:20 She loves to jump.

1:49:21 She's scared of nothing.

1:49:23 If anything, the problem is she's a bit too much of a daredevil,

1:49:26 but she's she's a thrilling little girl to be around.

1:49:29 She loves to like you see all the pictures with her on my shoulder.

1:49:31 She always loves to climb on my on my back and she loves to run.

1:49:35 She loves me to run with her on her shoulders.

1:49:37 So like en enjoy the special things

1:49:40 that they bring because they they they are magical.

1:49:43 They're they're they're wonderful.

1:49:45 They're just they they call it autism because they're autotapping on something

1:50:01 might might give her a tremendous sensation that we can't appreciate.

1:50:06 On the other side, minor irritants that you

1:50:09 and I would brush off might drive her completely crazy.

1:50:13 And so, if she's having a meltdown, it's not because she's a bad kid.

1:50:16 It's because she's going through a horrific

1:50:18 sensation that we can't quite understand.

1:50:21 So, but you just have to embrace it all.

1:50:23 And um it's a lot of extra leg work

1:50:25 that goes into a child that has these um conditions,

1:50:30 but it's worth it and it's rewarding in the end.

1:50:33 She uh you know obviously not met her, but from all

1:50:35 the photos she she makes you smile just looking at the photos.

1:50:38 She makes everyone smile and she's got uh she's very popular at school.

1:50:42 The kids are very nice to her, by the way.

1:50:44 Like we we we get secondhand reports and it's like they love her.

1:50:48 They're sweet to her.

1:50:50 Um she has a little boy that has a crush on her, so I'm keeping an eye on that.

1:50:55 Um but she's so affectionate.

1:50:57 Like we went to a fall fair one time

1:50:59 and there were these little old ladies sitting there

1:51:01 and Valentina just decided she liked this little old lady

1:51:03 and went and sat on her lap like complete stranger.

1:51:07 But that's how she is.

1:51:08 She decides she likes you and you're in.

1:51:11 What are your um what are your closing statements?

1:51:12 We've got listeners that are, you know,

1:51:14 all over the world, the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK.

1:51:18 If you um if you had to send one final message to them,

1:51:21 what would that message be in this moment in time that we find ourselves in?

1:51:26 Well, I'm actually optimistic about the future

1:51:28 and I think Canada's got a very bright future.

1:51:30 Um, I think the world should look to Canada.

1:51:32 We have the most resources of anyone in the world.

1:51:34 We have probably the most uh diverse and educated population.

1:51:38 Uh, we have uh the the most fresh water, the um uh the second biggest land mass.

1:51:45 Uh, and I think it's going the future belongs to Canada.

1:51:48 We're going to be an incredible place.

1:51:50 Uh, the MB of the world if and so if we if we do the right things.

1:51:54 I don't want to be egotistical about it,

1:51:55 but I think it would help if I were prime minister as well.

1:51:59 I love Canada.

1:51:59 It's one of my my favorite places in the world for so many reasons.

1:52:02 Um when I told you when I went to Toronto for the first time,

1:52:04 I felt like I was at home.

1:52:06 Yeah.

1:52:06 Um because I think you know Brits and Canadians have a lot in common.

1:52:09 Absolutely.

1:52:09 Including a king.

1:52:11 Um yeah, you would be very uh wellreceived in Canada.

1:52:13 So consider um coming.

1:52:16 I I go all the time when whenever I'm uh whenever I'm

1:52:19 invited to go and I've been once or twice on vacation as well.

1:52:21 So I hope to be back there soon.

1:52:23 And uh actually going to do a tour there at some

1:52:25 point with with the Dio to meet all the people that listen.

1:52:27 So very excited about that as well.

1:52:28 Oh, you'll bring you'll bring up big crowds.

1:52:31 Oh, it'll be fun.

1:52:32 We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves

1:52:34 a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for.

1:52:36 And the question left for you is h [clears throat] what are

1:52:42 you most afraid of and how do you deal with that fear?

1:52:50 Hm.

1:52:51 [clears throat] I don't have a lot of fears.

1:52:54 I mean, for myself, um I would say going back to family,

1:52:59 it would be that something would happen to my kids.

1:53:02 Uh you know, just you hear uh terrible terrible things in the news.

1:53:08 I was just uh unfort you know, unfortunately I I had to go to a funeral

1:53:11 for uh mass shooting victims in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia.

1:53:16 And I just, you know,

1:53:18 every parent worries about something happening to their kids.

1:53:21 I think that would be my biggest fear.

1:53:24 What about for Canada at large?

1:53:26 The biggest fear I have for Canada is

1:53:27 that we just keep blocking our own potential and declining

1:53:35 and opportunity vanishes and slowly our people lose the promise

1:53:40 that the country gave me and so many generations.

1:53:45 And so my fear is that we become the the frog in boiling water

1:53:50 and it just gets slowly warmer and warmer

1:53:53 and warmer and the frog really never notices.

1:53:56 Is that the trajectory of travel?

1:53:58 I think it is unfortunately but I think we can change

1:54:01 that trajectory if we make uh some big reversals uh in direction.

1:54:05 And lastly, what about for the world generally the western world?

1:54:11 I would say my biggest fear is that uh

1:54:13 the western world does not stay true to its foundational principles.

1:54:18 I want the western world to stay true to the to the basic

1:54:21 principles of that that grew out of the Magna Carta,

1:54:24 a freedom of um government that is servant

1:54:28 uh people that are masters and that the free

1:54:33 democracies not only succeed at home but work

1:54:36 together abroad to preserve the that that uh civilization.

1:54:41 Thank you so much.

1:54:41 Thank you for taking the time to to come have

1:54:43 this conversation with me and answering all of my questions.

1:54:45 Um, it's, you know, I don't like

1:54:47 interviewing politicians because they are very slippery, right?

1:54:50 And they slip and slide away from answering things

1:54:52 in a way that makes the the very essence of why

1:54:55 we started this show feel like we're um like we're

1:54:59 not delivering for the audience who want to know the truth,

1:55:02 whether it's ugly or indifferent or whatever it might be.

1:55:04 And um, I've really enjoyed the conversation because I feel

1:55:06 like you answered my questions to the best of your ability.

1:55:08 Thank you.

1:55:09 And that's often that's not usually the case with politicians.

1:55:12 And thank you.

1:55:13 I think they think that's the right approach,

1:55:15 but actually I think in a world that's now more of a glass box than ever

1:55:19 before and not a black box where you

1:55:20 can paint the image of something on the outside,

1:55:22 being transparent and being willing to come into these environments

1:55:25 and your team didn't tell me anything was off limits.

1:55:27 They didn't say there was anything I couldn't ask you, right?

1:55:30 They didn't ask to be able to edit this.

1:55:31 And I would like more politicians to to follow in that vein.

1:55:35 YouTube have this new crazy algorithm where they know exactly what video you

1:55:39 would like to watch next based on AI and all of your viewing behavior.

1:55:43 And the algorithm says that this video is the perfect video for you.

1:55:47 It's different for everybody looking right now.

1:55:49 Check this video out and I bet you you might love