Afternoon Pint
Afternoon Pint is a laid-back Canadian podcast hosted by Matt Conrad and Mike Tobin. Each episode, they invite a special guest to join them at a pub or microbrewery to get to know them a bit better. Conversations cover a wide range of topics, including Entrepreneurship, business, Arts, pop culture, music, science, society, Life stories, experiences, you get the idea...
Our aim is to create a show for everyone (even non-Canadians.) We create a welcoming atmosphere where guests can share their perspectives with transparency. Essentially, Afternoon Pint is like heading to the pub after work to catch up with some friends through your headphones or stereo. We are Nova Scotia's #2 podcast, but we pretend we are number 1!
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Afternoon Pint
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois - Unpacking Grocery Costs, Quebec's Culinary Revolution, and... Texas?
The Food Professor is back for a third time to talk us through economic food trends in Canada for 2025! This episode discusses rising food prices, consumer behaviour, and economic implications tied to grocery shopping in Canada. Savvy shopping strategies, turkey prices, tariffs, carbon tax & emphasize of the importance of competition in the grocery store. Dr. Sylvain also shared some exclusive info about where he might be headed for work in the near future. Look out for the English edition of Dr. Sylvains book 'Poutine Nation' heading to bookstores this fall.
Recorded at Great Roads Brewing. A place so great that they even snuck our logo on one of their beer can designs. We encourage you to pop by in person to check it out. https://www.facebook.com/GreatRoadsBrewing/
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Kimia Nejat of Kimia Nejat Realty
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Oh yeah, it's got like a huge dashboard. No, it looks like it's good, cool, all right. Well, cheers, all right, cheers, all right. Welcome to the Afternoon Pint. I am Matt Conrad and I am here alone because Mike is recovering from surgery and I swear dry. January probably did it to him, I think, probably.
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 1:So we are here with our first three-peat, that's right, our first three-peat guest Listen.
Speaker 2:I'm honored. I'm honored, in fact, I think you'll recall Matt. Every time you invite me, I respond very quickly.
Speaker 1:You do yes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know what? Listen, I think it's great. I think we talked a little bit about this the first time we had you on. I've been listening to you speak for a long time now, probably since you said you've been here 10 years, so probably 10 years, and at one point it's one of those things where that's just a guy on the news and that's a guy who talks. It's a name that you hear all the time and you recognize his voice and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:And then, sure enough, here we are drinking beers for the third time, have each other on Facebook and all that stuff, and now I kind of know you on a personal level, which is really kind of cool.
Speaker 2:So I think that's the magic about Afternoon Pint, I think, because it's very personable, very authentic, and I think that's probably why you're having a whole lot of success. I mean, you've had some great, great, great guests over the last few years.
Speaker 1:Well, I I really appreciate that and your, your podcast is actually really taking off. You know, the food professor, we were talking before we started recording that. Uh, you know you just renewed with your, uh, with your, your sponsor, and you're on five years now.
Speaker 2:Yep Five years.
Speaker 1:And going strong and talking about a lot of great things.
Speaker 2:Our game is Harvard MIT McKinsey, and so people listen to us more than Harvard MIT McKinsey in Canada. That's our game, so we're very pleased with results. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:And it's so funny because you've been like I kind of feel like you've been doing this. I mean five years seems like a while anyway, and it's funny that you just got the sponsor, so you kind of just I think it's been six months or something like that, maybe eight months, a year and a half.
Speaker 2:Actually, is it a year and a half?
Speaker 1:Okay, because the last time we sat here and talked, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, it might be coming up to a year actually, so maybe my time is just being. We've had another sponsor and that sponsor was replaced by cattle, our current sponsor. We had a one-year contract and they just renewed, so we've actually had a sponsor for almost two years now okay, yeah, all right okay yeah, so it was cattle.
Speaker 1:So that's good. So the uh yeah. So there we, we have it like it's, it's um right now, I mean, we're in january but you know this is coming out in february, so yeah um, we, uh, by the time this airs, um, we are. Oh, actually, you know what? And I meant to congratulate you because you actually were named, uh, in the top five for apple podcast as well was I?
Speaker 2:yeah, really yeah. I didn't know that it's's on.
Speaker 1:LinkedIn. I think your producer put it up, oh maybe yeah, you were number four for our Apple Podcasts under a particular category. So Apple Podcasts Canada.
Speaker 2:Well, that's under management, so that's why. So, when we actually compare our podcast with others, because yours is much more open, I think yeah, because you're out there entertaining people, you want to inform people that's right we're about, you know, connecting with the food industry that's right, it's all about food for us and so we we look at that ranking very closely and we actually reached number three this year for the first time.
Speaker 1:So oh, wow, okay, so it looks like year end.
Speaker 2:You ended at number four, which is pretty awesome yeah, now, for some reason, in december, people are bored with their eggnog. Well, you know what it's?
Speaker 1:it's it's christmas time and I think you know uh, budgets and things like that food budgets go out the door oh my god, what am I gonna do? My turkey exactly. Yeah, it's all it's it's, and you know we can even talk a little bit about that too, like, but uh, it's, it's it, things go out the door, it's true. But uh, you know, we, and? But I know that you just came out with the food process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is Turkey going down? I think that's when you invited me back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly, it was when we saw that, so that's a big reason why we want to talk about it. But you have so much stuff that's happened since we put the invite out by the time this airs the tax holiday is gone and we're going to get to all that stuff trump will be in, trump will be in and all the fun stuff that's going to go along with that but the uh it I don't know about, like I don't know if it's true or not, but like our turkey's going down in price because my turkey was cheaper this year it was I bought two turkeys it was.
Speaker 2:yeah well, you're a savvy shopper because, because a lot of people always oh my God, sylvain, things are more expensive, more expensive. I got to say you're not looking around. And, frankly, what I'm noticing is that people are way smarter. When they go out and grocery shop, they leave the home with information. Listen, matt 10, 15 years ago, most people left their homes to go to a grocery store without really knowing how much they should be paying for carrots. Fair enough For turkey. Internet's probably helped with that, though, right.
Speaker 2:Just to know, but I think people started to feel the pain at the grocery store. 100%. They had less money to spend on food because of interest rates, mortgages and debt, and so people got really savvy about their finances and so when they went to the grocery store this is why the Loblaw thing kind of faded away, because I love some people felt you know, if something's too expensive, walk away.
Speaker 2:You have that power and people start to walk away. Yeah, which is why you're seeing sobeys and loblaws deploying different kind of strategies to cater to a more frugal market, and that's kind of what we're seeing right now. I mean, in ontario, loblaw just opened up three no-name stores. No-name stores are like dollar stores okay, for so.
Speaker 1:would they be better than the? What are they called the no Frills?
Speaker 2:It's 10,000 square feet. Oh, so they're smaller, yeah, basically it's kind of the size of a little bit larger than the size of this brewery.
Speaker 1:And yeah, just for that, we're actually at Great Roads Brewery, just to let you know, and we are drinking a very, very fresh seven-day ipa. Absolutely, it's very good.
Speaker 2:I've never actually drank a fresh ipa before yeah, it's very good it is.
Speaker 1:Thank you the brewer. Yeah, cheers there, cheers over there. So anyway, sorry, I cut you off, but yeah, so um what was I saying? You were talking about, uh, the smaller stores that they're opening.
Speaker 2:It's called no Name and no Name has no. So imagine going to the grocery store with no fridges.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That's no Name and it's coming here.
Speaker 1:So they don't actually have any frozen foods or anything like that they have freezers. Okay.
Speaker 2:But they don't have coolers, they don't have fridges and they a little fresh, no fresh. So the inventory, tour, turnover, all the labor you need, right, because when you go into a grocery store people will realize you know the inventory, uh in uh, vegetables with fruits you have to turn like twice a day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, yeah. So it's a lot of work, it's perishable A lot of labor, yeah, and you have to deal with that.
Speaker 2:So you can actually operate a 10,000 square feet store with about eight FTEs, eight full-time employees no way, wow, okay, so costs are really low.
Speaker 1:Yeah, costs would be really low.
Speaker 2:Yeah, costs would be really low and at that point… Ten years ago you wouldn't see a store like that in Canada.
Speaker 1:No, but now they have to. So they would basically have no produce and no meats and things like that Little yeah, things that last a long time, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly so you can see that really…. And it's the same with Sobeys, the same with Metro yeah, they're really more careful. And even Costco. I mean a lot of people say, oh, go to Costco, everything's cheaper. No, not everything is cheaper.
Speaker 1:No, that's true.
Speaker 2:Many things are cheaper. Yeah, it's 4,000 SKUs, 15%. That's their model. But not all 4,000 SKUs are cheaper. That's right, and people are starting to realize. I go to the meat counter at costco, right? Have you noticed? Okay, prices are pretty high.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so I I actually have this right in here. So the talking about meat and this is the thing I was talking about how I noticed like turkeys were cheaper. I don't remember I bought the turkeys this year, but I bought them and they were really kind of like. I bought smaller turkeys than usual because I always realized we have too much turkey.
Speaker 2:How big were they?
Speaker 1:I don't know the weight, but I know I was paying about $22 per turkey. Five to seven kilos Probably something like that, yeah, so I was like you know, normally you're paying like $30, $34, whatever comes on it, it's $40, right. And this was, you know, whole turkey 22 bucks. I think one of them was 20 bucks and one was 22. And we used the $22 turkey for the Christmas dinner. But we bought the $20 turkey because we were like, hey, you know what, why don't we just have turkey and have it right? And you know, what we did is that $20 turkey.
Speaker 1:And if you want to be frugal, if you want to be smart with your food and save on your groceries, we took that $20 turkey on a Sunday and I roasted it Just like I would for any other thing, right, cooked the turkey up, basted it and all that stuff, made it like it was really good and cut it up. Obviously, we had turkey for different things. I ground some of it up, I saved whatever. I made turkey soup Like we made we, we ate. It was only turkey for that week because I made so much in fact I made so much that I just opened.
Speaker 1:We had to freeze some of the turkey soup so, and we just had some last week, um, but we made a ton of turkey soup like oh, you can do a lot of oh, I think I made like eight liters of turkey soup or something like that, and um, and on top of that, it, top of that, it was like all the different types of turkey, between grinding it up because I have a meat grinder Right and slicing it up and all that stuff, and we made a bunch of different meals. That was during the holidays, that was well. We saved one for the holidays and we had one that was like the first week of December or something like that, and we just had turkey that week, right, and it was like the first week of december or something like that, and we just had turkey that week, right. And it was one of those things where, just, we made different meals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, every day it was something different, a different texture of turkey or whatever it may be. And, uh, so I was sitting there, you know, and you're looking at it's like you know what, even if the turkey was 30 bucks, if all I ate was turkey that week, for the turkey, that means my protein for the whole week was only 30 dollars. Yeah, and then you just get to buy your veggies or if you have rice, pasta or whatever you want to mix it in and just be creative with it.
Speaker 1:Right, and we've been doing that more and more. My wife and I have been just being more creative. Now. Some of it is thanks to the smaller people in this in the city. Yeah, we have gateway. Obviously it's known for, but I'm a big fan of Kingswood Market. Kingswood Market I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker 2:Gateway is extending.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're huge now.
Speaker 2:And there's still some lineups outside. But that's why they're expanding, because there's more demand. But, uh, what you just described me is is the consumer of the 1970s, right, okay? Okay we're just recreating, we're reliving because I remember when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:I'm 54 years old yeah yeah, when I I remember seeing my mom do everything you just described. Right, and yeah, because that's how you did and because food was expensive in those days and inflation was at 15 percent, right, a lot of people were looking for work and so it times were tough and you would have been quebec.
Speaker 2:So I mean like honestly, it would have been a tough time in the 70s in quebec, actually yeah my, my, my family, my family wasn't rich, and so we, just, we went to the grocery store and if they and if there wasn't rich, and so we, just we went to the grocery store and if there wasn't a red tag on a food product, meaning that it was on special, we didn't buy it.
Speaker 1:You know what? It's a sign Like I mean, my father-in-law, who has passed away now and he was was older than you were, but you can see that linger, right, he would go to, like the maxi and stuff, like he would go to all the different places looking for the deals and things like that. So it's ingrained in him because he lived through, you know, the uh, the 60s and 70s of quebec and this was back when, you know, when they had the quiet revolution. You know, when they had the quiet revolution, yeah, and things changed a lot in quebec, right, yeah, it was. Uh, to speak french at your place of work was like no go. Yeah, right, like people don't realize, like we're built one-on-one and all that came from right, it's well the.
Speaker 2:The book I wrote about putin yeah, is goes back in during the duplessis years oh, yes, and I actually argue in the book that putin was kind of created because of this division between the Anglophones and the Francophones in rural Quebec. Oh yeah, no, the Anglos went to a restaurant where they spoke English and the French went to the well the shack.
Speaker 1:The fry shack.
Speaker 2:That's how it was and that's where poutine was actually invented.
Speaker 1:Get the poutine. Get the gavode I love gavode. It's, and that's where poutine was actually invented. Get the poutine, get the galvode I love galvode. Yeah, galvode, that's right, it's great, so yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and I think I feel for millennials, I feel for Gen Zs, because they're going through pretty much what you know the well, not the boomers, but Xers, like I am in the 80s and 70s and 80s, and it's not easy, but, uh, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll come out of it and they'll be fine and they'll do well, they'll do better. So I'm not so. A lot of people were, I felt like a couple of years ago, people were panicking and I went you know, if you just make some adjustments and and what you did with turkey is an adjustment no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Mike, who will be listening to this? I've been telling him for a year because he's he keeps saying like, oh you know, my waistline's going up, and I keep saying, actually, mine has been actually going the other way. I've been losing a little bit of weight in 2024 and all that stuff, and you're hosting the afternoon and we're hosting and we're drinking right, and so he's blaming it on the beer. I I need your recipe.
Speaker 1:I need your secret, you know what I keep telling it to Mike Cut out the snacks. Snacks I don't mean like a bag of carrots or something like that, but snacks are expensive and they're just kind of like empty calories. I'm not saying they're bad foods. It's fine to have them once in a while. I get a bag of chips here and there.
Speaker 2:But if I a bag of chips here and there and say, but if I get a bag of chips, I'm eating a bag of chips, yeah, so I just don't buy it. Right, good strategy, right it just it is what it is, because the snacking industry if I want to is going to uh, readjust to, uh, I would say, a new era. I'm not sure people appreciate how big glp-1 drugs are right now. They're huge.
Speaker 1:Ozempic. You had something recently about Ozempic.
Speaker 2:You know, last year in 2024, we actually released a study on GLP-1s and I wanted to realize that there's probably going to be anywhere between 2 to 3 million Canadians on GLP-1s by the end of 2025. This year, wow.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of people and that's supposed to be like a diabetic drug, right?
Speaker 2:Well, it was designed for diabetics, basically type 2. Yeah, but they realized you can actually lose weight. Type two, yeah, uh, but they realize you can actually lose weight. So we actually realized that about 30 on glp1s are actually on glp1s to lose weight. Yes, one of them is my, one of my students, actually graduate students and I thought, wow. So we released a study and we got two phone calls from two major cpg companies. I won't tell you which one, I will tell you which one. That's fine, yeah, but uh, these are companies you know, and everyone knows yeah, and they wanted a private session with us.
Speaker 2:Oh, what did you find out about glp ones? These companies are nervous because snacking is a big deal for them. Impulse buying impulse eating is a big deal for them, and so, if you remember, in the fall of 2024, nestle released Ozambic-friendly food. Oh, no way.
Speaker 1:I didn't know this. See, ozambic honestly, it wasn't even on my radar until maybe like six months ago. And it, you know, started people. It might've been somewhere in the back of my brain, cause you see the commercials or something like that, but that was kind of like uh, I started people started saying like well, I'm on Ozempic. And like my wife was like, oh, everyone's onto Ozempic and I'm like what the hell is ozempic? And then I started doing some reading into it and I was like, oh, okay, like it's a diabetic drug, that the idea is, hopefully the type 2 loses weight and therefore can maybe get off medication, blah, blah, blah. But then everyone else was like like what every fat is like when people go on keto or anything like atkins and things like that, it's like I'm gonna try it. It's not for me, but it works for that person, so I to try it.
Speaker 2:It's not for me, but it works for that person, so I'll try it too. Kind of thing, right? Yeah, absolutely so yeah, I must say I'm really intrigued by this phenomena because it's going to change. You see, when you talk to I'll just name a few companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestle, Mondelez when you talk to them and I talk to them, they say, oh, Sylvain, we mandalese. When you talk to them and I talk to them, they say, oh, sylvanian, we provide healthy food to people we have.
Speaker 2:we provide healthy solutions to canadians right and I'm going okay, so why are you nervous about glp-1s then? Right because so they're seeing the pharmaceuticals coming in with solution that it's actually working for a lot of people and so if and if you talk to someone on glp ones, they'll tell you salty can't do it. Um, sugar can't eat it anymore. I just don't crave it. Alcohol no more than one beer.
Speaker 1:It's a problem really ill yes, so that's kind of, I guess, how they kind of get so. Does it so that me wonder, does it actually help you lose weight, or does it help you just find those things that make you gain weight Disgusting?
Speaker 2:Well, that's kind of well. I'm not a medical doctor.
Speaker 1:No, I know, I know, that just makes me wonder, my focus is on how this phenomenon will impact the food industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and clearly it is impacting the food industry. So a month ago, cornell University in the US yeah Okay. Released a study showing that demand for food volume, not sales in dollars volume is down 6% in the US.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Because of GLP-1s? No way, yes, six of GLP-1s.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yes, 6%, that's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is. That's a huge amount.
Speaker 2:6% less food being bought because….
Speaker 1:That's billions of dollars, billions, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like 6% for us in Canada. So retail food retail in Canada is worth about $160 billion.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So 6% is probably about 160 billion dollars. Yeah, so six percent is probably about 10. Yeah, nine, ten billion. Nine, ten billion dollars of food by not not being bought because people are on these drugs. Wow, yeah so it's pretty significant it's hard to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's hard to say whether that's a good thing or not if you're relying on these, because, I mean, I don't know if it's a good thing or not I don't know because a lot of people are arguing well, it's not natural and and frankly, I've always believed that lead a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the best thing. Right and don't abuse like beer, for example exactly I have a beer, you know, once in a while it's great, great, exactly. But I would say, with GLP-1s there is some controversy. There is some discussions about whether or not this is a good thing for society in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's a couple of things that can happen there when I think about it, right, I mean I don't get too hung up on like what's natural and what's not. Everything's chemicals, everything is chemicals. Right, that's the science of things, right? So I don't too worried about that, because there's lots of man-made things that were great and are perfectly fine and all that stuff. Like we talked before about how corn, corn's GMO and it's science, but everyone eats it and everyone's like there's no such thing as organic corn. Sorry, folks, that's right. Right, so it's exactly so, it's like things like that. Like, I don't get too worried about that stuff. What I worry a little bit about is that people rely on Ozempic and, you know, all of a sudden it's like, well, I like to drink Pepsi and uh, but if you're telling me it makes them kind of not crave it, that's a good thing. I don't know what Ozempic does long term to someone's body, right, because we don't know, I guess.
Speaker 2:You have to take it for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the thing you have to keep doing, it, right?
Speaker 2:And it's not cheap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've heard, it's not cheap, it's not cheap.
Speaker 2:It's about my understanding it's, uh, it can cost you like in the thousands per year. So it's not, it's not for everyone, and that rate just right now, how it's designed, doesn't include so. With the liberal ndp alliance they wanted pharma care.
Speaker 1:It's not included yet right but I, I would argue we have an election coming and so they may not get what they want.
Speaker 2:No, but but any future governments, doesn't matter who it is. That's right. I think there's. There is a conversation that would need to be had here. So are we? Because I mean, I, I know of three or four people in my life. Their quality of life has vastly improved because of GLP-1s, because they were older, 65, 70. They were obese, they couldn't sleep well, they lost a ton of weight.
Speaker 2:Now, they sleep well, no sleep apnea, all that stuff. They eat well, they walk. They can actually go up the stairs without taking the elevator. There's lots of.
Speaker 1:so part of me saying I don't know, it doesn't feel natural, but a part of me is saying, well, maybe it actually can be helpful as well yeah, and I almost wonder if it can be used as like a temporary thing, because I mean, I think the hardest part when people are trying to get healthy, I think the hardest part is the beginning, it's getting started. It's like someone loses five pounds.
Speaker 2:Especially this time of year, especially this time of year.
Speaker 1:I mean we're going in like, like I said, this is February, so this is being released, so we have already had the Super Bowl, that's right, and this is chicken wing season and all this stuff. Beer and chicken wing season.
Speaker 2:right, yeah, and so it is funny because, my, my, uh, my son's girlfriend, she's a manager of a gym in halifax and, uh, right now she's seeing a ton of people. Oh, that's this time of year, yeah, yeah, let's actually lose a ton of weight, yeah, and she's been manager for two years now. Yeah, next month, half the people will disappear. That's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I think the thing is is I think what's hard is that someone goes and they lose like five to seven pounds and they're all energized and like yes.
Speaker 1:And then Super Bowl happens and they eat chicken wings and have beer and they gain that five pounds back in, like one day, and all of a sudden Five pounds in a day. I don't know Matt. Five pounds back in, like one day and all of a sudden five pounds in a day. I don't know, matt, I don't know. Maybe listen, if you eat enough chicken wings, you're ambitious, I can eat five pounds of chicken wings, but it's like you know.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean though it's like they have a bad weekend or something like that, and they gain the weight back that they of course whatever and all of a sudden it's like what was I just? I lost seven pounds in a month, which is is a reasonable, healthy amount of weight to lose in a month, and then all of a sudden it's like I took steps back and now I feel like that month was for nothing and instead of picking themselves back up again and going, they give up. They stop going to the gym. They think I'm never going to get anywhere, kind of thing, right, and I'm wondering if things, things like ozempic, could help people like especially for nova scotia.
Speaker 2:I mean nova scotia. Yeah, nova scotia is a unique province in that, while it has the highest food insecurity rate, it has probably, I think, the highest obesity rate as well. I have a theory about that.
Speaker 1:What is it? It's because a lot of people point to America about being, like you know, the fattest country in the world, but you know what the fast country in the world is. You might know it Cause you are the guy who's in this industry.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not a nutritionist.
Speaker 1:No, I know, but like you're about beer, but the fattest country in the world last I checked was Scotland, probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the weather, the weather, what we eat. The.
Speaker 1:East Coast diet is a lot of fish and chips and deep fried blah blah blah. And the weather and deep fried blah blah, blah and like what. And and the weather and uh, honestly, like we're a more mild uh province compared to the rest of canada, so we don't really have like winter sports. It's rains through pretty much like we're mad hockey was invented in nova scotia yeah, global warming's a thing.
Speaker 1:Though I can't, I can keep a ring. It was invented in Windsor, I know, I know. But you know what we can't? I can't. Sidney Crosby? Yeah, he did it inside right, and ice times are hard to come by these days. It's not like in Quebec. Still, you would have grown up with every neighborhood had a hockey rink.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And when I go back there to Quebec now, and I go up there, every neighborhood has a hockey rink. It's still minus 20, minus 30, minus 40 sometimes the weather I mean.
Speaker 2:I have to say I love Nova Scotia. It's mild, eh, I love, but winters suck, they do. What do you do here, like there's no we? We came back from the cottage. In in the laurentians there's snow. Yep, I mean, you're on my facebook page, you must have seen. I mean it's beautiful, you can do a lot of stuff absolutely with ice, snowshoeing and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:Here you can't do anything. So I mean, we, you know, we sit around and we're just kind of like, wow, it's kind of rainy and gray. It's like at least if it was snowing out you could do something in the snow I have a solution.
Speaker 2:All right, what's your solution? We need to pay more carbon taxes oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Okay, that is a great segue, because I wanted to talk about it was on your list it's 100 on my list. So carbon tax, let's just go right into it. The topic of 2024, probably 2025. Oh yeah, it's going to be an election Axe the tax, axe the tax. It's going to be a thing. So carbon tax, yeah. What does it actually do to the prices of food?
Speaker 2:We don't know.
Speaker 1:I am so happy you said that, because you know what I don't like carbon tax. I'll be completely honest with you I don't love the fact that I'm probably paying 23 cents more.
Speaker 2:Well, intuitively, why don't you like the carbon tax?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I don't like it, because, don't you feel?
Speaker 2:better about the environment when you pay a carbon tax?
Speaker 1:No, so and I like listen, I agree. Like I already made the global warming joke, I I know like global warming is a thing I'm not a denier of that. I think we should do things like that I think, I think we do need to invest. My thing is um, you know we pay about I think it's nova scotia. It's about 24 cents extra per liter is what the carbon tax is per gas and all that stuff. So I know that that must impact everything shipping and everything. The prices are inflated.
Speaker 1:It has to be because they factor prices into shipping, food and all those things. It also directly impacts me because I've got to fill up my car and I'd love for it to be 24 cents less. That's what I don't like about it. But the reason that I don't like about it is that I don't really trust that the money is being directly used to make things better.
Speaker 2:I believe we should be In that government black box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe we should be investing in renewable energy. I think we have the tides Like we have the most powerful tides Lots of energy there.
Speaker 2:We could probably have no tides. We have the most powerful tides. Lots of energy there.
Speaker 1:We could probably have no power bill. I very rarely will look to Saudi Arabia and think let's model ourselves after that, because they don't, but the thing that I will say is that they harvest their natural resources and their citizens don't pay any taxes because they're so wealthy citizens don't pay any taxes because they're so wealthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if we had this unlimited energy that we're getting from the. You know and I understand america has to make money and all that stuff. But I say like let's just buy it back and take it over, right, that's right, if we had control over our energy. We use the tides which could probably power this whole province tenfold, and just not charge anyone electricity because we or maybe a small amount to like for maintenance costs and things like that or whatever it may be, or it's just taken out of our taxes. Don't charge anyone any actual.
Speaker 1:To me, that would be, um, obviously lowering. Like you know, I wouldn't have to pay the 350 a month that I pay in electricity. That would be great. Um, and on top of that, we're now not using coal that we use now we, I believe in all of that 100, I believe in all that. I just don't trust that when they're taking carbon tax and I've read some of the science and I'm I'm listen I'm not fully like I'm not I don't understand it fully about, because a lot of people say carbon tax works in a lot of places and it's the best method, but it's not the best method when you don't trust it's being used properly.
Speaker 2:So I'm just going to talk about the agri-food sector which is the sector. I know very well and I've testified in Parliament twice about this and once at Senate. Yeah and so to claim beyond reasonable doubt that the carbon tax is impacting food prices is flawed. You can't do it. You go to a grocery store. Prices are impacted by a lot of different things that's.
Speaker 1:That's 100.
Speaker 2:I agree if it's sunny out and you go into a grocery store, you'll buy different things than when it's raining or it's snowing. Yes, it affects your behavior, that's true, and that will impact prices. Yeah, you got loss leading, you know you got promotions.
Speaker 1:So every economist out there trying to correlate the carbon tax policy with or carbon markets- or carbon pricing with retail prices presents a flawed methodology, so that's why our work has always been on competitiveness In your expert opinion, though, would you say that it probably has more of an impact on food prices in the wintertime than it does in the summertime, though.
Speaker 2:Overtime, overtime. So what we've noticed in our research is that the carbon tax is impacting the sector's competitiveness. So in the US we can actually easily compare with the US, because they don't have a federal carbon tax.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly so when you compare both. In Canada, since 2019, when the carbon tax federal carbon tax was launched, our wholesale food prices not retail wholesale prices have gone up 40% more than in the US. Sale prices have gone up 40% more than in the US. So if you're a sole base or Loblaw or Metro, and you're looking at prices in Canada that are more expensive, you're going to go to the US. You're going to go elsewhere because prices are cheaper.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know it can increase your margins, right? Yeah, so, and in our research, we actually did notice that one of the factors that made wholesale food prices less competitive is the carbon tax. So I've always believed that the argument whether it's the conservatives with the axe attacks or the liberals saying absolutely not the carbon tax is not impacting food prices at all. The truth is somewhere in between. Fair, okay, and if you affect the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, you will eventually impact food affordability and food security in canada and and and. So your point about in the winter it's exactly that. So if you actually impact the capacity of an industry to produce in the winter, well obviously they're going to go south or it's going to go west.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, we can't grow it here Exactly? It's not like we can just go to the valley and get strawberries. We now have to go to, like you know, Florida, and this is the one thing that the liberals have never understood. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we have to heat barns here. We have to actually produce heat in the winter to remain as competitive as our counterparts.
Speaker 2:If we're going to have greenhouses and things like that to grow like four seasons. If food sovereignty is a very important issue for you, you shouldn't look at the carbon tax as the perfect solution. I've always believed, and this is my, this is my. I'm like you, matt, I actually, I actually think that the climate change, climate change is a big issue for the agri-food sector, for us to deal with, yep, and I think that most canadians want us to do something about it. I agree, okay. So instead of using the stick approach, the carbon tax.
Speaker 1:I've always believed that we should actually use the carrot approach, which to me is cap and trade. And you know what? Nova Scotia had a great system, I know, and unfortunately we had to like we were kind of forced, and Ontario did the same.
Speaker 2:But you know who actually has cap and trade Quebec?
Speaker 1:Oh okay, still today, still today. With California and if you go to the agri Quebec, like they kind of like I wonder if it really works for them because of the hydro, though, because, like Quebec really focuses on, they have the cheapest electricity rates in the country.
Speaker 2:They do they do, but at the same time it doesn't really. It gives organizations and companies options. If you want to believe, if you want to hummer, yeah, fine, pay right. But if you are, if you're investing in green technologies, if you want to reduce your carbon footprint as an organization, you get credits right and you take those credits, you sell it to the market and you can make money.
Speaker 1:Right, the environment for the people who want to right now the liberals approach is about penalizing.
Speaker 2:Yes, you pay a tax. You pollute, you pay a tax.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I'm of the mind that, yes, if you pollute you should pay. Yeah, but if you actually do well and pollute less, you should get credits.
Speaker 1:I like that and we had that for a long time, up until about three years ago, and then it was kind of the feds kind of forced us.
Speaker 2:I think it was a mistake.
Speaker 1:yeah, the feds forced us to take on In 2019?. Yeah, to take on a new, different approach, which was unfortunate.
Speaker 2:Now again, I'm only looking at agri-food. And I do believe that the cap-and-trade model is the best one for the agri-food sector, because you're giving farmers, you're giving processors, you're giving everyone an option to manage, mitigate risks and manage their finances based on their environmental stewardship.
Speaker 1:Right, that's it, and then also to the flip side of this too, because we're talking about, like you know, I don't want to sound like we're the axe, the tax guys, but the more of like, I guess, change.
Speaker 2:Well, the axe, the tax campaign, comes from a place, and this is as an academic. I'm appalled. Appalled by how the liberals have actually financed and bought academia. You don't know that and most people don't know this, but when you look at the smart prosperity institute, when you look at the cane climate institute, all these issues are funded by environment.
Speaker 2:climate change, canada right and they have a bunch of academics producing papers to tell canadians you know what? Don't worry. The context is the best model. But research is not like that research. You look, you're supposed to be looking at different options. You're supposed to have debates. There's no debates. No, there's no debates. And so when you when?
Speaker 1:that's what Pierre Poilievre is doing yeah with this axe, the tax campaign he's actually catering to a base, oh and I think it's a large base at this point, specifically axe the tax.
Speaker 2:To a cane population that has been ill-informed. We've never really had a good, solid debate about what can we do with the environment? How can we actually green our economy? The best we can without penalizing or compromising our food security. No one, we really didn't have that debate yet, so it was shoved into our throats the carbon tax, and we were told time and time again this is the cheapest way to actually green our economy, right?
Speaker 2:I think, there are other ways to do that. There are other ways to green our economy. Right, I think there are other ways to do that. There are other ways to green our economy without penalizing our farmers and distributors.
Speaker 1:One thing I know is like that I will be like kind of you know anyone listening and be weary about is just because attacks or the you know the, the axe attacks if it gets axed, I I think people. Obviously, if that happens, the immediate thing that we'll see is the pumps will go down. We will see 24 cents drop off the pumps and everyone will probably initially be very happy with that.
Speaker 2:Do you think that prices will drop?
Speaker 1:Well, okay, I'm leading to that. So this is the thing. I don't trust it no, I don't trust it I don't trust it.
Speaker 2:I don't. The conservatives are saying to people prices will drop if they ask the tax. It won't happen. No, you know, that's how markets work.
Speaker 1:This is the thing. So it's like. This is what frustrates me a little bit. I agree with you and I even and you could have sat here and told me and said, yeah, you, you know what, matt, if we ax the tax, everyone's going to save 10% off of their groceries. If you told me that as a matter of fact, if you told me as a matter of fact, you know what's going to happen, I'm going to go oh, that's great. And then what's going to happen is, I think, because I don't trust Loblaws and I don't trust Sobeys and I don't trust anyone major, I think they're all going to go, they won't drop prices.
Speaker 1:They won't drop prices.
Speaker 2:They're going to go.
Speaker 1:Everyone's been used to paying this much for groceries. We're just going to keep. We're just going to move our, we're going to make more money in the oil companies and the taxes and all this stuff won't make it.
Speaker 2:We'll make it, so, so by the time this episode airs, holiday, that's right. So yeah, so 14 in nova scotia, I can bet you yes. So that that's a dollar, that a lot of a lot of retailers, a lot of restaurants, actually, you know, wiggled, played around with prices because taxes are like the tide, right yeah when you look at a dock, you'll know what the high tide is, where the tide tide is right, there's a mark.
Speaker 1:It leaves a mark.
Speaker 2:That's what taxes do. It leaves a mental mark.
Speaker 1:We still have taxes from World War II.
Speaker 2:So right now I can tell you a lot of restaurants, a lot of retailers are readjusting prices. By the time we get to February 15th, the GST will be slapped back, or GHSD for us in Nova Scotia will be slapped back on higher prices.
Speaker 1:And so that's why it's called opportunistic pricing. Right Now I will say shout out to breweries, because man beer was cheap this holiday season. It was Holy smokes.
Speaker 2:I couldn't believe it, because there's competition.
Speaker 1:There's competition, but the beer is heavily taxed, and so Tim Houston, the PC government here, also decided to have a tax holiday as well, on similar things that the feds did. So the prices were the same and I remember I had to buy a bunch of beer for like, for presents and things like that, but also for me and everything, and I'm sitting there going like and I'm looking at the price. I'm like all these beers are like five bucks each or whatever.
Speaker 1:yeah, and I was like I'm adding up my head and thinking like this is how much it's going to be. And then I get up and it was. I'm not kidding, it was like half. It was 40% less than I thought it was going to be when I was adding the prices in my head. Wow, it was something like that. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:That's a lot.
Speaker 1:It's because beer is mostly taxed. It's, you know, sin tax right, exactly, yeah, so it's a lot of that. And I'm telling you I went there because I mean we were here at Great Roads and I bought a few others and I'm telling you I spent $50 on beer and I bought beer for three people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I spent $50 on beer, which that would have been honestly probably close to $100.
Speaker 2:Yeah, normally.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh okay, you know what Kind of like that I was, like I could get used to that. So I'll be sad when this holiday is over. Yeah, I could get used to that.
Speaker 2:So I'll be sad when this holiday is over? Yeah, absolutely. But the point I'm trying to make here is that you can't really assume that if you end a tax impacting the entire supply chain, it will actually have an impact on retail prices eventually. The GST holiday of course affects retail, Right, but you saw, there were a few memos. You probably missed it. But PepsiCo and other companies have said you know what, Our systems won't accommodate it. So right now you're dealing with grocers that are still paying a GST to their suppliers because they said F-U to Ottawa.
Speaker 1:They're so big. Because they're so big.
Speaker 2:The law was.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like the Facebook thing, right? Trudeau was like, hey, you've got to pay these independent journalists for writing articles. And Facebook was like, yeah, our GDP is the same as you. The law was adopted by a Senate two days before the holidays. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So a lot of companies said you know what, we're still going to charge you. I'm sorry, but we're still going to charge you and so right now, sobeys and Loblaws and Mitchell are playing nice and they're just not charging us, but they're still paying up the food chain.
Speaker 1:No one feels bad for them. No one feels bad for them.
Speaker 2:Especially in light of what happened with the meat scale.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you see that? No, no, no, no, no, no. I actually saw this today. You had the thing, so we were talking and this is the bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:I had in there.
Speaker 1:I'm pissed off so before we go on to that, though, the only thing I want to say about the tax holiday, the only thing that I think was a bit of a misconception and I think you actually on beer and things like that, and I went and bought gifts and stuff like that, but on food again, unless you're buying snacks or things that you probably could just pass on, the tax holiday didn't help you, because you're not taxed on tomatoes and meat and things like that, so there was no actual relief there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we actually calculated that the average Canadian will save about $4.51 over two months.
Speaker 1:For groceries At retail yeah.
Speaker 2:Now restaurants and beer.
Speaker 1:that's different, totally different. I noticed a significant difference there. I did notice it there. That was nice, yeah. But when it first kind of got laid out it's like yes, it will help at Christmas time, it won't help because it started to a degree will help at christmas time. It won't help because it started to a degree. It'll help men like me who shop late.
Speaker 2:but anyone who's you know better than I am, they've already bought their stuff, right and seriously like yeah, a tax rebate on video consoles right, yeah, no exactly but but when you buy I, I don't know uh running shoes to run to fit, you have to pay a tax.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I bought skis for my daughter for Christmas, I had to pay a tax on it, I know. But if I buy a Christmas tree or a video console, I don't pay taxes on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was short-sighted. Yeah, it was certainly short-sighted. It was political. It was political. Short-sighted is what it is right.
Speaker 2:But if you want, people to lose weight and be fit during the holidays.
Speaker 1:But I don't think that's what this was about, though no, it wasn't. I think it was specifically designed to hit the Christmas, new Year's and Valentine's Day In.
Speaker 2:December, I testified with David Dodge, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, at Senate in Ottawa about the GST holiday. Both of us, we were against it. We knew this was bad fiscal policy. It was just a bad idea. And I was of the mind you know what, if you want to play around with the GST, get rid of it. Don't put taxes on food. I am absolutely against taxing food, even snacks. No, I know, I agree with you, it's stupid. I agree with you. Let consumers decide. Yep, and taxing food is immoral.
Speaker 1:I agree with you Immoral. I agree with you.
Speaker 2:You mentioned snacks, but what about the ready-to-eat section of the grocery store? A lot of seniors, they don't want to cook. That's right, they can't cook. No, I know.
Speaker 1:They want to cook.
Speaker 2:They don't have time to cook. They can't cook, no, they can't cut, they can't prepare food at home. So they go to that ready to eat. Section of the grocery store and they're taxed for caesar salad. Right exactly, does it?
Speaker 1:make sense. No, no, no, you know what I actually. I agree with you on that. You go there and you buy a caesar salad and you are taxed on it, or even still, like you walk around like tuna salad. You know what? Today I was walking around, was walking around, I was at work and I went over for lunch and I was like you know, I'm going to go over and just grab something at the grocery store. And so I walked over to it was a superstore, loblaws, and I was walking around and I was looking at some stuff and it's like some of the things that they have that you have to basically like just throw in an oven. Yeah, it's not bad. Some of them are like $20, and it's yeah, there's like whatever. It could be like a lasagna or something, or a whole whatever.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it's fine. It's perfectly fine and realistically, you could probably feed a family for that for $20, right? Because I was looking at the portion size a family of four, if you divide it by four, equally, you could probably feed that.
Speaker 2:Those are probably. You could probably feed that. Those are fine, but they're taxed. Yeah, right, right now in canada, canadians pay about 1.2 billion dollars in taxes. Yeah, on healthy foods at the grocery store. The other issue and this is going to piss you off shrinkflation. Yes, so some products, oh yeah, when they get shrink flated, they become taxable because they become snacks. According to the cra, no way cra yeah. Four muffins not taxable, two muffins, the same muffins, that's taxable no freaking way, six granola bars in a box. Yeah, not taxable.
Speaker 1:Five, that's taxable, oh my and you know what I've actually noticed that there is five granola bars in a box. Now it's not six, which drives me nuts because it's not an even number 14% and people don't look at their receipts.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's disgusting. We shouldn't tax food.
Speaker 1:No, I agree, we shouldn't tax food, yeah, Okay, so let's move on, because you kind of alluded to like the whole. So this is the 10th anniversary of the bread collusion that was happening amongst the and you wrote about that. I think that was might even a chemo today. I think that you wrote about it and you talked about. Now there's like a meat collusion or like a misrepresentation or something like that we talked about.
Speaker 2:if you want to boycott, loblaw any grocers, yeah, that's a reason, that's a good reason.
Speaker 1:So okay, explain to the people listening like because I couldn't believe this. When I read the article from you today I was just kind of like because you encourage people to actually go out and buy a scale. In your article you said go buy $15, buy a scale Amazon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have one at home and so, yeah, absolutely, this is disgusting. And so Loblaw got in touch with me earlier this week and explained no, they made a mistake with scales. They you know, because the packaging changed and they didn't actually program scales based on the new packaging. So basically, people were buying meat but they were paying for the weight in relation to the packaging as well, for a while we don't know exactly how long, but it lasted a while, and not in just one store, over 80 stores.
Speaker 1:Oh, and that's at loblaws, at walmart, at soul bays and you also talked about fat content too in your article yes, because I mean that's because I'm trying to, you know, stir some, stir the pot a little bit that's my job.
Speaker 1:So because I want, because these things piss me off when I know that consumers are being robbed talk about shrink flation that's right, because people will be no butflation in meat, because if they pack a lot of fat in it, the fat just goes away and everyone strains it. So I mean it just goes away, right? So you're getting smaller.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you'll actually buy extra lean and you pay extra for it, right but it's not extra lean, right? Exactly, yeah, so the fat content should be no more than 11% according to the law, but sometimes it's more than that. But who's going to check? Who's going to? Are you going to go home and measure how much fat there is?
Speaker 2:I don't even think you can measure that, and you don't have A lot of people don't have scale, but that's why I said if by scale tests and if it's beyond 1% plus 1.5% more or less yeah report it to measurement canada or the cfia. Yeah, they can, actually there is there is a thing called measurement canada. Under industries canada it's the minister champagne's ministry.
Speaker 1:So if you actually oh so, okay, so that's the guy who actually we just found out today that he's actually withdrawing from the liberal leadership race that he was going to do For now, for this one, for this one, yes, yeah, exactly. Doesn't want to be the sacrificial lamb.
Speaker 2:I don't understand. I mean, mark Carney is a smart man, but I mean, listen, he's going to get clobbered.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's Carney, there's the guy from Ontario, which I think that's a.
Speaker 2:Chandra yes, who I met.
Speaker 1:You know what Huge mistake he made? A comment, this is January. So this is probably about the French. Talk about short-sighted. Talk about like oh my Christy Clark, I saw today she was. She pulled herself. She yeah. And you know what? I loved her comment. She said my french is not at a level where I would feel comfortable being able to communicate to the francophone canadians in order to run and represent them. Talk about stand-up, like she understands canada. This guy who's like I don't think they'll care.
Speaker 2:Just a bit of a story with him, chandra, I can't remember his last name Arden. I think his name is. So I was testifying in Ottawa with a colleague from down, samantha Taylor, so he's on the finance committee. I was testifying with her. He came after my colleague Samantha Taylor like very aggressively to a point that I had to intervene. Okay, I had a feeling that not only he didn't like French, but I think he had an issue with women.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I'm just throwing it out there, but he was really inappropriately aggressive with her. Like I remember it was in the morning we were testifying for two hours about credit cards, the use of credit cards, buying food. A lot of people buy food on credit. She's an accountant and he was disputing some of the stuff that she was saying, but she was more about. She was more like presenting ideas to the committee. So so mps can think about it and he was inappropriately attacking her and I I never. I hope he doesn't win like I hope he doesn't win.
Speaker 1:I don't think he has a shot. I mean like realistically, that you're gonna have some like mark kearney's a bit of a juggernaut in in terms of name and all that.
Speaker 2:Jamie Batiste from Nova Scotia is actually in Jamie.
Speaker 1:Batiste is running, so if he wins he would actually be the first indigenous.
Speaker 2:He doesn't have the money yet.
Speaker 1:No, he doesn't. That's a tall order. But if he won he would be the first leader.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised by how little media attention he got when he actually announced. Yeah, I know, Like nationally there was just zero attention.
Speaker 1:It was only Nova Scotia that talked about him and he's indigenous and he could and he would be the first.
Speaker 2:He would be the first indigenous. He's one win away to become our first prime minister indigenous.
Speaker 1:Not just first prime minister. He could be the first party leader. That's indigenous, that's right Federally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, federal party leader. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So like there's a lot of that. I yeah, exactly, so there's a lot of that. I mean Freeland's going to run, we know that's pretty confident.
Speaker 2:I met her in Ottawa, so we know that that's pretty confident. Her track record as Minister of Finance.
Speaker 1:I know, I know and you know what we're supposed to be talking about food, but I love politics so I get really caught up in it.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of politics in food, because that's why I'm often in Ottawa, and I actually have questions political about that, actually in terms of food, because my thing is the biggest thing. If I'm putting my strategic hat on, I am like I'm nonpartisan, right. I'm just honestly putting my hat on as a strategic political person and I think Kearney and Freeland so close to Trudeau and I'm not someone who hated Trudeau I honestly like I didn't like certain things, but I didn't dislike the guy either, right, I actually found it admirable that he was stepping aside, knowing that his popularity was low.
Speaker 2:It was too late, though. It might have been too late, because right now we're in a position where… I agree with you.
Speaker 1:It was too late, but at least he surprised me that he did it at all. But at least what he was doing when he stepped aside is he's giving Canadians another option that many weren't going to consider because he was there.
Speaker 2:So at the very least there's people like me who probably so you don't feel we should have actually had an election.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. You know what I don't actually With Trump and everything. I know that's a big thing, but you know what? Because right?
Speaker 2:now you know.
Speaker 1:Daniel Kahneman was in Florida.
Speaker 2:Doug Ford will be in Washington soon. You can feel that premiers right now are panicking because we have a leaderless Ottawa.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing I mean. I understand and totally agree with all that.
Speaker 2:Who's the prime minister of Canada right now? I would say it's Daniel Smith, the premier of Alberta. She's the one. Really she's the one, because she's got a lot to lose. We got Melanie.
Speaker 1:Joliet.
Speaker 2:There's many people that say Dominic LeBlanc is one of the most powerful men in Canada, though but he's actually dealing with the liberal mayhem, because the biggest issue we have to face right now is the United States of America.
Speaker 1:What is Dominic?
Speaker 2:LeBlanc doing right now.
Speaker 1:No, they're in the middle of a leadership debate. No, listen, you raise great.
Speaker 2:So he went to florida, yeah, with the prime minister yeah and we came back with this 51st state. Don't even rhetoric. That really pisses a lot of people off yes that's what happened. He's daniel smith, went to florida and we got a conversation going, a a real conversation, because it's about energy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so that's why I give a lot of credit to Daniel Smith for stepping up, and Doug Ford also in Ontario. Yeah, yeah, and my guess. I mean, if Tim Houston were the premier of a larger province, I suspect he would be doing the same.
Speaker 1:Listen, and I don't hide anything, I'm a big Tim Houston fan. I think he would make a great prime minister. I would hate to lose him as the premier of Nova Scotia because I think he is Nova Scotians first and he puts Nova Scotia first. So I'm a big fan of his. Yeah, that's a whole other topic, but I mean he'd be a great person. But I agree with you.
Speaker 2:If he was a part, we need a rob another, robert stanfield he could be the robert.
Speaker 1:He honestly could be the robert stanfield. I think he's got charisma, he does, and you know what?
Speaker 2:he's just level-headed. I don't know. Does he speak french?
Speaker 1:I don't know, he might not, so I mean that might be the hard thing for him, right I? Don't know if he does, I uh I wouldn't be surprised if he does it wouldn't surprise me either, because a lot of his cabinet is actually bilingual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so the whole thing with politics is like anyway, I was saying to you as well, it's like Carney and Freeland might be too close to Trudeau and we know that. You know, polyev is probably going to say same person, different face.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's already started to say it right, but in your opinion, what can politics really do in a free market of food? What do you think that they can do? Is there anything they can do to actually bring prices down?
Speaker 2:I've always argued that the role of government is to enable conditions to increase competition. Yes, so make Canada attractive.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I would say that right now, over the last nine years, I'm afraid to say it's been the opposite. Okay, we have a new tenant in the white house, uh, and that new tenant is making the american economy more competitive, less bureaucratic. Okay, energy costs are going down all the stuff we're not seeing in Canada right now, yeah, okay. So, if you want to make the agri-food sector more competitive in Canada, reduce energy costs as much as possible, okay. Make sure bureaucracy gets eliminated, eliminate inter-provincial barriers. Okay, we just saw Alberta accepting wine from BC.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness Joining.
Speaker 2:Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. Finally, we're still waiting for Ontario and Quebec, but anyways. So there are so many barriers making Canada a hard place to do business in.
Speaker 1:Alcohol particularly too. Alcohol particularly, yes, and back to that holiday beer got the pass, but our last. We had an episode in January when we talked to JD Shore and their distillers and they weren't too happy that they got kind of snubbed during what they feel is their season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and winemakers we have such great winemakers and they can get included in this kind of thing yeah, the, the, the winemaking industry, the wine industry in nova scotia, uh, should prosper even more. Yeah, uh, if, if, you eliminate these barriers. So those are some of the things. And and, like I said, taxing food is just a bad idea, yeah, and so there's lots of things that governments can do to actually make food more affordable, more competitive, giving more choice, because right now, the irony is that we're not seeing any new competitors coming into the market in canada, while canadian grocers are going to the us. Okay, so loblaw just opened up two stores in the us this year and we're not seeing any new players in canada that's a sign.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a sign meaning in canada we're not open for business, we're penalizing business and I guess I kind of go back to it.
Speaker 1:Like you know, if politicians make these changes and everything like, can we actually trust grocers to make changes in the food, like for prices to go down, or are they just going to be like you know well, they're used to it, right?
Speaker 2:I? I don't think I mean.
Speaker 1:Trusting grocers is an oxymoron I mean, I think you could trust the local. It's not? It's not so they'll.
Speaker 2:They'll focus on their consumer trust thing, yeah, as a business, yeah, but. But at the end of the day, it's up to the government to decide whether or not it wants to make Canada a good place to invest. I mean, I agree with you there and, like I said, in the last nine years I haven't seen any of that. I mean, it's all about if you talk to any groups farmer groups, if you talk to any trade groups, they'll tell you it's been exhausting because you feel that Ottawa is always after business, attacking business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a common. Unfortunately, that is a common thing, they're playing defense.
Speaker 2:They've been playing defense for nine years. They're exhausted. All they want is some support, some acknowledgement, some understanding. But honestly, when you look at cabinet right now in Ottawa, most people have never actually run a business. They don't understand business at all and they don't want to. The carbon tax.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just one example. You believe in the carbon tax? Fine Measure its performance. Stephen Guilbeault, the environment minister of canada, acknowledged twice that his department is not even measuring the impact of the carbon tax on the environment. Okay, okay, so we're asking people to pay billions of dollars in taxes, but don't we even know if it's actually making a difference with climate change and I think canes actually would want to know that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah you kind of know you're paying more at the pump, yeah, and you'll feel okay, I'm, I'm paying more, but I'm doing well for the environment I'm doing something with the environment are you fair enough?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the thing, too is like you know, because we mentioned a couple times, like we mentioned some of the smaller grocery chains. Like we mentioned Gateway I'm a big fan of, just because I'm not on the Dartmouth side, I'm on the Halifax side, but I go to Kingswood Market. Oh yeah, like Kingswood Market, I don't think these are chicken prices from 15 years ago. Like anyone in chicken wing season here, I bought 1.4 kilos of chicken wings for $7. That's insane. Yeah, chicken breasts boneless, skinless chicken breasts I bought. It was like 1.5 kilos for $14. That's amazing. So I? But how is it that? Like no, I drove, I told you today I went to Superstore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is it that, like no, I drove. I told you today I went to superstore. Yeah, I saw it was like just shy of six dollars a pound for chicken breast. Yeah, for the same thing that I just, and I got a kilo and a half, so you know a lot more. And this is almost six dollars a pound, like 590 a pound. It's like why can these? At one point, buying power used to mean that you could get things for cheaper and therefore sell things for cheaper. Why is it that these local folks can sell chicken and beef and all that stuff for way cheaper?
Speaker 2:oh, well, so the, the gateways of the world. Yeah, they actually manage their supply chain very differently. They'll actually narrow down a couple of of suppliers, right, and they'll just basically nurture those relationships. And they'll get phone calls and and they say, listen, I got, I can't, I need to dump kilos of this. Okay, that and that's they buy, that's how they offer.
Speaker 1:But they're operating 365 days a year. Yeah, so I mean like they, but they have 1500 SKUs.
Speaker 2:They don't have like 20,000.
Speaker 1:No, that's. True, Fair enough.
Speaker 2:So it's easier. And I mean, let's face it, when you walk into those stores there's no lighting, smells the aesthetics.
Speaker 1:I don't want that, though you don't want that. I mean to a degree, you know what, to a degree I say that you know what? When I go to Quebec, every time I always have to go to an IGA, because, man, I love IGAs, they're the best. It's a labyrinth of smells and colors, and it's different. But you pay for that. That's true. Yeah, when I go to great way, I you know I walk in with my cart and you fight with everybody, fight with everybody, and it's great yeah that's.
Speaker 1:That's the experience there and uh, but people are all there for a reason to save money yeah, and the farm markets, like the farmers markets, seem to be really kind of helping out like I'm fortunate enough, I live out in gate, or I live out in prospect, and there's a place called mabel's farm market over there and, uh, you know, I walk into, I walk into no frills, which is supposed to be the discount right, and I walk in there. I walked in there a couple weekends ago and I saw cauliflower 488 for head of cauliflower. Every single time I walk into Mabel's, $2.99. Not on sale, not a flyer special like it was for $4.88. Every time I walk into that place, $2.99 for a head of cauliflower. I've gone there and I've bought a week's worth of groceries for $26.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm talking like we had salads three to four or four to five days a week and you had to eat healthy and you're eating healthy. And you spend 25 bucks. So I go buy a turkey. We'll say for 30 bucks or less, I guess $20 to $22. And then I go buy $30. It's like, are you telling me I spent less than $60 and I'm eating for a week? Yes, the answer is yes, I've done it.
Speaker 2:I have done it.
Speaker 1:It? Yes? The answer is yes, I've done it. I I have done. It's possible. It's possible now. That's a privilege though. I get to drive around, I get to go to the I'm a smart shopper and I go to. You know, I'm lucky that I have a farm market that's five minutes from my house and I'm lucky that I can I have a car that I can drive by and go to kingswood market on my way to work, because it happens to be. It's a privilege. Like, yeah, the people who have the least amount of money, maybe not have a car, aren't commuting by places like this. They have to go to the closest grocery store to them, and sometimes that closest grocery store is Sobeys, and most of the times that's more expensive.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of the unfortunate part when it comes to that. But you know, when I see things like chicken being two to three times more, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:You were asking me what governments can do to actually Property controls. We need to end them. There's plenty of them out there and most people actually don't see that. See that, but when there's a sobe's nearby, uh often they'll actually there's.
Speaker 1:There'll be some arrangements, not to have another food retailer close by, you know.
Speaker 2:So they don't want competition, they don't want competition, and and that's to me that that is wrong okay that is wrong and there are a couple of cases in alifax, to be honest, in the HRM, and in smaller towns like in Bridgetown and even Truro, I can tell you some grocers have actually bought land and they're not building anything because they don't want the next guy, the other guy to build.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes a lot of sense too.
Speaker 2:That needs to end.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's the thing. There's this guise of like free market but like there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:That's not the federal government, it's provincial and everything on the way down. Yes, everyone. If you have tim back on your show, ask him he'll come back.
Speaker 1:He told me actually, just you know what, like I said, I'm a fan of tim, but actually, uh, you know, this is what. You know what. This is an example of what makes Tim a good premier, in my opinion. I mean, you can't do this to everybody, but Tim called me on my cell phone on the 23rd of December to wish me and my family a Merry Christmas. Wow. And I was like I didn't answer it because I was busy and was working and all that stuff, and I didn't listen to the message until I got home. Home and I pick it up and all of a sudden I hear tim's voice and I said to my wife is hold on a second? I said this is the premier of the prophets. I said I rewound it and said listen to this. And he just yeah, I wish this happy birth or happy and it's not like a record recorded call.
Speaker 2:It was no, it was him saying, matt, I want to thank you, he goes.
Speaker 1:I'd love to come back on the podcast in 2025. You know wishing you and your merry christ. You know your family merry christmas and you know thanks for all you do in the community. That's great lights out, like like the dude. I've heard other stories like the guy goes out and campaigns or whatever, like knocks on doors alone. Right, that's what makes him great, right. And so I mean you know people can with me saying that people can paint me with a certain brush, but the fact is that I just like the guy, right.
Speaker 2:He could leave Tim Altman, he's in his cabinet. Yeah, he lives close by to where I live. Yeah, he was at my house twice during the campaign. I said, tim, you're wasting your time here, exactly, but he wanted to bring some volunteers so they can meet me. Right, and it was so cute, it was so cute, it was great. There's a lot of people like that surrounding Tim and I think it kind of makes him feel that way and he's very community-oriented.
Speaker 1:So much. So I mean, I've heard a lot of things. You know what he, if you know and if people want to say, oh, you know, that makes mad a team blue, um, it doesn't. The fact is is that tim could leave tomorrow and I probably I wouldn't paint myself in blue brush.
Speaker 2:Right, it's the guy, and that's what I've seen and what I've seen the improvements on, and all that well, most nova scotians, what I've learned the last 10 years most of the scotian will want to vote for someone they actually like. Yeah, yeah, beyond the colors, I agree. On the colors, I agree. And so steven mcneil, uh, who you will be interviewing, became premier of the Sprouts probably because he was liked yeah at one point At one point, at one point, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And let's be honest, tim, at some point you'll you know, of course it happens, it's inevitable His tenure will end, but I do think that he won his election because people liked him Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:So before we go on, so what we've been doing lately is 10 questions, so we're going to get to that in a minute, okay, but before we do that, you know you've been doing a lot of traveling since we last spoke and I saw that you recently shared because we're Facebook friends, so you've shared that you were in Ennsbruck, that you shared that it was 10 years since you've come back in Innsbruck that you shared, that it was 10 years since you've come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and you see, but you've been doing a lot of traveling, Like you know. You've been in Texas, as we talked about, and all this other stuff, like lots of traveling. Yeah, you know, I know you said that you had, like you, insinuated that on your Innsbruck post.
Speaker 2:That there's. You know, something's going to be happening.
Speaker 1:That's right. You have an announcement that everyone is, you know, and many people were like come on, man, Don't sit. You know, have us sitting here waiting. But we talked about it and you said you're okay to talking about it a little bit, that you're going to be taking a little bit of a leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Well, I mean, we take leaves as professors. Well, let me ask you a question, matt. If you're, if you were to be asked by an ivy lee school in the us to manage the number one agribusiness program in the country and number three in the world, would you say yes?
Speaker 1:yeah I mean well, hold on, let's say this no, because I don't know anything about that, but I would probably fail miserably. Um, but that being said, like, yeah, if someone came to me and offered me something that, uh, you know could be very interesting, that's something that I knew about, or whatever. Yeah, it's hard to turn turn down.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, so it's, it's texas a&m, and uh, and, and, frankly, uh, my family and I were not willing to move. We were very happy in alifax but I'll be commuting, I'll be helping out with their master's degrees in agribusiness which is the number one program in the country, number three in the world great football school.
Speaker 1:Like you know, I'm really jealous. You know, if, uh, if you want to, like you know, maybe bring me down for a football game, like you know, I'd be open to that yeah, maybe we could do a podcast recording we could do a podcast recording, yeah maybe I should invite you down and talk to the aggies hey, that would be by the
Speaker 2:way, just a little anecdote. So when I was teaching down there, you know in november, uh, I was teaching a seminar and one of my one of the professors said you know what, if you want the attention of students, just say howdy, okay, howdy, just how, howdy, just howdy, howdy, all right. And so because students were actually working in groups and I wanted to get their attention Right, so I said howdy and everyone said howdy.
Speaker 1:All right, then it's the code, because you were just there, like, just like, whatever it was, a couple months ago. At this point it would be a couple months ago. Yeah, because I remember I wrote to you and said like you got to go to a football game and you were like I just missed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because the stadium is huge. That's true Texas is football. I mean, like it would be Well you go into every restaurant they have the schedule of the Aggies.
Speaker 2:Wow, because you do not want as an adult, you do not want to be close to the stadium on game day, I might I'd want to go. You know what tailgating is? Yes, people tailgate two days before.
Speaker 1:I love this Again, and beer, ribs, chicken wings, beer, all the things two days and they have.
Speaker 2:They have, uh, poor potties like everywhere. It's just unbelievable, but and the place is clean, it's really okay. Oh, the campus there is just immaculate, immaculate, the. The one campus that reminds me, I mean in Nova Scotia, I must say San FX is probably in my view, in my opinion the best-looking campus we have in this province.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. My wife and I so my wife also from Quebec we went there.
Speaker 2:So Texas A&M? It looks like that.
Speaker 1:Does it?
Speaker 2:Yep, oh wow, yep.
Speaker 1:Because my wife and I we went there early on. My wife's been living here for whatever. Well, she's been coming here for 15 years and living here for like 11 or 12. And when I first time I took her to St of X, we were on our way to first trip to Cape Bright and everything. And we drove around St of X and showed her around and she was like you know what she's like I've been, she's like I've done tours of Harvard. And she was she's like I've done tours of Harvard. She's like this place stands up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, st Evans is a beautiful, beautiful school, so if you're telling me it looks like it, that's an incredible looking school.
Speaker 2:It's just a beautiful place and I was impressed.
Speaker 1:I was impressed.
Speaker 2:Tuition for their corporate MBA is $250,000.
Speaker 1:US for two years? No way.
Speaker 2:$100,000 a year, or 125, 125, yeah, wow. So it's just a different, it's just a different level yeah, university is a different level there. Yeah, it is, yeah, so so I know what people uh texas, uh guns, and that's not what I saw, like I really like people are.
Speaker 1:That's not everything that they are they're.
Speaker 2:They're incredibly polite, super nice, uh, I mean it's just yeah, there is. I fell at home for real, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean all all that texas barbecue and all that stuff, like we need a lot of meat.
Speaker 2:The, the, the food professor I think they made sure I wasn't a vegetarian.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, probably. Food professor is probably going to be gaining a few pounds in Texas, a little A little scoop for you.
Speaker 2:My Poutine Nation book is going to be published in English, coming out this fall, october 25th. Okay, so this actually is perfect, because I that's great, because I actually the first question question, so we have 10 questions.
Speaker 1:We've been having fun doing 10 questions. We tried this right with the premiere and we've just been having fun with it ever since, so we got 10 questions. Uh, I tried to stick food related for you. Okay, so have some fun. So first question is don't air putoutine. Yes, just yes. Yeah, yes, no, which one? Which one do you prefer?
Speaker 2:oh, we gotta pick one like a place.
Speaker 1:No, no donair or poutine like which oh, donair or poutine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought you were saying donair, poutine, no, donair or poutine.
Speaker 1:You gotta pick one. Oh it's, it's poutine sorry folks some of these. You know what the first three questions are going to be prying at your. Quebec and East Coast grounds.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be torn, you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so you're picking poutine for questions. So question two Ragu boulette or the pâté chinois, or shepherd's pie?
Speaker 2:Ragu boulette yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm with you on that one man.
Speaker 2:Pâté chinois is it? Oh my God, no.
Speaker 1:I mean, I like it. I like shepherd's pie, don't get me wrong. Oh, it's not bad on a Monday night.
Speaker 2:Oh, ragout boulette, Ragout boulette's for Christmas and special events. Yeah that's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, question number three Tortillette or rappy pie?
Speaker 2:Tortillette.
Speaker 1:Yeah, du Lac Saint-Jean. Oh, I know, if you go up to Lac Saint-Jean it's different, it's square.
Speaker 2:There's more vegetables in there, sweets.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, that's right, and there's actually did.
Speaker 2:You know that there's Tortilla Poutine now no.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do know yes.
Speaker 2:You eat tortilla and there's actually, and it's stuffed in there, yes, in, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the tortilla I heard this rumor. I don't know if it's true, I didn't fact check it or anything, but it's a Quebec rumor. That tortilla, when it was first invented up in the Saguenay region, is where it came from, and I heard it originally came from a mixture of beef and a particular bird. And and I heard it was originally came from a mixture of beef and a particular bird and that the Quebecois ate that bird into extinction. And I don't know if that is true or not, but it's a funny little myth.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either, but it's a good story. It's a great story, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know what? And the funny thing is like I agree pretty much all Donair and poutine, like that's the hard one for me. Yeah, because I love donair and from here and everything.
Speaker 2:It's just the sauce that doesn't work for me. It's sticky.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 2:Actually my first donair I ate in front of a class? No way, yeah. So I was teaching one night at Dow, yeah. And I said, yeah, teaching one night at dow, yeah. And I said, yeah, I never ate donair. And people were looking at me you never ate a donair, no, so you have to eat a donair yeah of course I mean. And once you have to eat a donair in front of us?
Speaker 1:oh no, okay, yeah, so they forced you I ordered a donair for everyone.
Speaker 2:No way. The next, the next class yeah, I ordered on there for everyone and I ate that donair in front of people, but when I was done I had to wash my hands. It was just so sticky. Yeah, it's part of it. It's fun Not when you're sober.
Speaker 1:It is, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Question number four so what is one restaurant that you have eaten at the most, excluding fast food? So what's a restaurant that's like your go-to Excluding fast food? So what's a restaurant that's like your go-to NHRM, anywhere? I mean? I assume it's probably NHRM in the last few years.
Speaker 2:Actually I would say the Bicycle Thief is a favorite.
Speaker 1:And. Café Lunette is our second favorite, also a great spot, yeah, great spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those are two really great ones.
Speaker 2:I mean we're blessed with some really good restaurants in HRM.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Much better. When we moved 10 years ago it was great, yeah, but it's really gotten better. It has.
Speaker 1:I mean we also have Bar Kismet, which is ranked 14th best in Canada. If we had a Michelin star in Canada, that would probably win it yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:My personal favorite actually is the Press Gang. I love the Press Gang.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. You need a mortgage to eat there. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know what you're saying, and to reserve there you have to book a month in advance.
Speaker 2:You do have to book a long time. Yeah, it's been a while.
Speaker 1:I mean I'd say once every two years, it's probably been a couple of years since I've been there, but the last time I had it was Burger Week and I had the kangaroo burger. Right, oh boy.
Speaker 2:I'm a big fan of the boardwalk.
Speaker 1:That's true too. They've done such a great job. They have.
Speaker 2:So when you have a nice dinner with your wife and friends, you want to have that nice little walk yeah, I agree, Right next to the water. So that's why both Café Nunez and Bicycle those restaurants work for us. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:I like it. Favorite dish all time. What's your favorite?
Speaker 2:dish all time.
Speaker 1:After poutine. If that's it, no, it can be poutine. Yeah, that's fine. I love oysters, I just, oh, okay, it's not a dish. No, it's not. It's not a dish, that's fine. I love oysters too. I would eat oysters all day. So would I too. I would eat oysters all day, so would I. And you know what?
Speaker 2:particularly with uh paired with caesars yes I love an oyster, like a bunch of oysters with caesars yeah, no, so uh, and and you should come up with us, you know, and the other thing I mean when I, when I came to nova scotia, I I realized how fish and chips should taste like oh yes, fish and chips here. I can't how fish and chips should taste like oh yes, fish and chips here. I can't eat fish and chips elsewhere than Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1:now, you know what. So again, I spoke to him about my father-in-law in the past earlier in this episode and one of his favorite dishes was fish and chips and he used to go. He loved the Magdalene Islands and he used to go and get fish and chips there and I remember we went there and got fish and chips there and I was like almost fell out of my chair because this was in 2013, before a bunch of prices increased and for fish and chips it was $18 for fish and chips there. And I remember like falling off my chair because I was like we can get fish and chips for like eight bucks in Halifax. I mean now it's kind of gone up and caught up and everything I hate chips for like eight bucks in halifax. I mean now it's kind of gone up and caught up and everything. I hate to see what the prices are there now yeah, yeah, but fish and chips, yeah, that is it's.
Speaker 2:It's pretty good it is pretty not all places are good but, it's very tough to find bad fish and chips here. Yeah, yeah, they're pretty good yeah, uh, okay.
Speaker 1:So question number six so give me one restaurant recommendation that is that you've ever been to. That is an absolute, like you gotta have before you die, type of thing. Like one restaurant, yeah, what's your, what's a restaurant? You were like you know what, if you could eat in one restaurant, it be uh, I don't know, like I, you know I, I think I told you the last show that I'm, I'm.
Speaker 2:I don't look at the menu when I know that's right. Yep, you did tell me that so I kind of I'm flexible like I when I go to. I did it on friday with some friends uh at uh the whole henry house oh, the the Henry House is awesome.
Speaker 1:I love that place.
Speaker 2:I mean, is it a guilty pleasure? Or I mean I actually love that place.
Speaker 1:First of all, hand-pumped beer yeah, so authentic UK-style beer, I know. And they have the Ultimate Burger, which is a burger patty with smoked meat, with like jalapenos, yeah, like it's, it's very good, amazing.
Speaker 2:So my son actually lives close, like on tobin street right there, right now, right there we meet each other at the at that place. I just love that place. Listen for a last meal. I'd settle for the old henry house to be honest Wow, that's huge.
Speaker 1:That's a huge showdown oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:To me it's just so authentic. You feel good when you're there. Yeah, nobody's pretentious. Yeah, the service is great.
Speaker 1:Agreed, yeah, yeah not only the fireplace. There you go, yeah, so I can leave that place and die you know what, honestly, I, I I thought you were going to pick something way different. Like you know, like some you know michelin star level restaurant and that's an well.
Speaker 2:So my, my, podcast producer is a michelin kind of guy yeah, so we go to whenever we meet in material or toronto we gotta go to these expensive places. I don't care. Fair enough, I don't care. As long as the service is good, then I'm all good.
Speaker 1:That's the best, yeah, okay. So, speaking of kind of fine dining in the city, the Five Fishermen was a restaurant that was a morgue back when the Titanic sunk what, yes, and they actually brought a bunch of the bodies from the Titanic that they actually were able to recover and they were actually laid there. It was the morgue there.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that.
Speaker 1:Yep, so it's a haunted restaurant. So my question to the food professor is do you believe in ghosts?
Speaker 2:No, and I've been to that restaurant a few times. Yeah, that's a great one. I'm not sure anymore if I'm going to go back Spooky.
Speaker 1:Exactly who's in the kitchen. It's actually you know what. You'll be safe. It's actually the women's washroom. Apparently, you hear a little girl crying in the women's washroom. So you may be safe. You may never have to deal with it.
Speaker 2:You've listened to Harryry potter that, that movie where?
Speaker 1:oh that girl but it's not this. You know what?
Speaker 2:when you go to universal, yeah, and you go to their washroom, you can actually do.
Speaker 1:They play like laughter or whatever in there.
Speaker 2:No way, I was actually on my own and I go who the hell is talking man all? Right, I didn't know that. Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I got a bizarre question for you, yeah you know, I got a bizarre question for you, so question number eight is chicken, pork, beef and fish are kind of viewed as like the big four in the protein world. Right, there's also a big four in sports, and that's hockey, baseball, basketball, football.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:What protein would play which sport in your opinion?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, fish would be baseball. Okay, yep, beef would be football. Okay, chicken basketball and pork hockey.
Speaker 1:All right, does that fit? You know what? I would agree with that If you were to substitute pork for football and beef with hockey. I think that would have been fine. But I think that lines up pretty good, yeah, I don't know what the logic of the question is? I don't know either. It's just a question I thought of because I thought it was funny and people can debate about it in the comments section. Yeah, exactly, thought it was funny and you know people can debate about it in the in the comment section, exactly.
Speaker 2:so question number nine, if you could travel to one country based on food experience only. What country would it be?
Speaker 1:japan.
Speaker 2:Oh okay, I've never been to japan, I've never been, and I, that's up there for me too yeah, uh, I, my daughters, actually want to go to japan, and but the problem is that it's just it takes so darn long to get there, that's true, so for spring break or Christmas, we just don't have the time, so we settle for the south or whatever. We're going to New York for Easter, but for colony experiences Japan.
Speaker 1:That's a pretty solid one. So, last question, this is where we can end it on. That's a pretty solid one, yeah, so last question, this is where we can end it on. It's the question of 2025 that we're asking everybody, and that is what is one piece of advice that you were given that you'd like to give me, or the people listening that you'd like to pass on Live in the present. Live in the present.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the present as much in the present. Appreciate the present as much as possible, like I'm appreciating this moment, like right now. Yeah, a lot of people are always worried, concerned about what people think what's going to happen tomorrow, yeah, and there's a lot of that. There's too much of that. I love that. Just focus, appreciate what you have. Yeah, and yeah, enjoy the moment.
Speaker 1:That's perfect. There you go, yeah, so let's end it on that. Cheers, cheers. Sylvain Chalabois, my glasses are empty. Thank you, yeah, they're empty now, but thank you for the three-peat we appreciate it. And yeah, and yeah, we'll have to figure out how we get you on for the four-peat in Texas. That's right, and say hello to Mike. For me, I will certainly. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, take care.
