Steve Murphy - What will 2025 be remembered for?

What did 2025 really change? We sit down with Steve Murphy for a clear-eyed year-end that swaps noise for signal. The conversation starts with community—Christmas Daddies turning 62 and a bold decision to sell seized U.S. liquor to fund food banks—then widens into the defining fault line of the year: leadership tone and what it does to a country.

Politics loomed large without swallowing the local. Steve unpacks why style and truth-telling matter as much as policy, and how that set the stage for Mark Carney’s centrist moment. We dig into Quebec’s shifting currents, vote migrations, and the surprising places affordability now hurts most—from trades to homeowners staring at double-digit property tax hikes. Even Canada Post becomes a mirror for modern reality: less mail, more parcels, and a humane case for restructuring that protects people while matching the service we actually use.

The Atlantic lens brings fresh ground. Weather swung from drought to downpour, scorching berries and boosting certain grapes, while EVs and chargers quietly tipped from novelty to normal. City-building gets practical: Halifax needs a multipurpose stadium, a mid-size performance hall, and eventually a larger arena—not as vanity projects, but as social infrastructure that anchors tourism, keeps doctors and students here, and gives families reasons to gather. The airport’s expansion and new direct European routes prove demand is real; now we match it with venues, roads, and a plan.

Energy sits just beyond the horizon and right at our feet. Wind is a serious bet. Tidal is a fierce engineering problem begging for a Nova Scotia answer. Solar may not be our ace, but a portfolio of renewables could be. Through it all, we keep circling back to something simple: kindness is strategy, not sentiment. It draws visitors, calms politics, and holds space for the work ahead.

If you value grounded analysis, local stakes, and a conversation that respects your time and intelligence, press play. Then share this with a friend who cares about Atlantic Canada’s next chapter. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what headline from 2025 will history say mattered most?

Chapters

• 0:43 Opening Toasts And Setup
• 1:31 Christmas Daddies And Community Need
• 4:13 Selling U.S. Liquor To Fund Food Banks
• 5:07 Year In Review: Politics Turns Volatile
• 7:40 Tone, Truth, And Leadership Norms
• 12:59 The “Nice Agency” And Public Civility
• 16:26 Canadian Politics Reset: Carney’s Rise
• 21:59 Affordability, Taxes, And Postal Reality
• 30:43 Weather Shocks, Agriculture, And Fire Risk
• 38:45 Editing, Media Trust, And Interviews
• 45:26 Losses And Local Legends Remembered
• 50:58 Stadiums, Venues, And City-Building
• 59:57 Tourism Boom And Europe Flights
• 1:06:25 What 2025 Will Be Remembered For
• 1:14:13 Energy Futures: Wind And Tidal Bets
• 1:22:25 Closing Thanks And Holiday Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:28

Cheers! Cheers!

SPEAKER_00: 0:29

Cheers, I've had a head start.

SPEAKER_02: 0:31

Welcome back to the afternoon fight. It's a half point. Steve Murphy. It's a pleasure to have you back. You opened this year with us and you're closing this year with us.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

We've returned to the scene of the fight. There you go.

SPEAKER_02: 0:42

Pretty darn cool. So thank you so much for we're all drinking Murphy's in your honor. We're drinking Murphy's and you're honored.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Well, at least you'd have Murphy's glasses. I I can't attest for what to what's in it.

SPEAKER_02: 0:51

This might be the first time I ever had a Murphy's.

SPEAKER_00: 0:53

No, it's very, very easy.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Did you not have one last time we were? No.

SPEAKER_03: 0:56

I don't know. I know I did because I had a Guinness to start and then I moved over to Murphy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01

Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02

Murphy's is a little different than Guinness. Yeah. A little sweeter. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08

Not bad though.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09

It's it's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

Any beer is good on a Friday afternoon. Well, free beer has always been my favorite beer. There you go. That's true. Cold, wet, and free. So it's December. You gotta luck over odd. Uh Christmas Daddies is just around the corner. That's going to be this weekend coming, right? Uh this show's coming up next Tuesday, so December 6th or 5th.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28

So we are on the second for this program. Yes, Christmas Daddies is on the 6th. That's right, coming out this weekend. 62nd year. 62 years. 62nd. Congratulations. Well, I wasn't there for all 62, I'll have you know. But no, no, but really the community deserves congratulations for keeping it going. The the one regret I think is that we still need it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it would be nice to think that we don't need the sort of uh charity that we needed in 1964. But the truth is we probably need it more than ever we did then. In fact, as much.

SPEAKER_03: 1:59

Yeah. No, that's that's probably true. Yeah, there's a lot of people struggling right now. True. I mean, uh I mean, if we if you want to just hop to some, I guess some more recent news, but I mean, we're we're the local food banks are gonna be getting a four million dollar influx of uh money, it sounds like from uh the provincial government selling off that American booze.

SPEAKER_00: 2:19

So they had to do something with the liquor. I think it's a good idea. Obviously, I think we wanted to make a political point, and the and the government made a strong political point delisting it or taking it off the shelves. On the other hand, what we're gonna do with$14 million worth of hoodies. I really wanted some bourbon for Christmas, right?

SPEAKER_02: 2:35

Yeah, so so I think I'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 2:36

And you know what, you'll feel good about drinking it because it's going to a good cause. Well, that's you're feeding people. And if I might and I don't want to see politics in everything, but that's the genius of this decision. Nobody, the the the the state is not going to benefit, the people are gonna benefit. The the the Feed Nova Scotia network will benefit. Real people will benefit for Christmas. I mean, it's a perfect, yeah, it's a perfect time.

SPEAKER_03: 2:58

Yeah. I'm glad they some people I saw some, you know, some people saying, like, why wait so long? But I actually think this was the right time.

SPEAKER_00: 3:05

I think it's the right time. Yeah. And I think, you know, the other the other point is if the government had decided just to sell off the stock and take the profit, yeah, the question could have been fairly asked, what was the point? In other words, we we had a price and we now know what it is. Uh what we're seeing here now is that the the product was withdrawn and will not be reordered, and the profit will go to food banks. Right. I that that strikes me as being a pretty good way to have it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 3:33

So I just want to say real quick, this episode is for our listeners and fans, and particularly Atlanta, Canada. So thank you so much for being with us this year. We've seen the show grow to heights we cannot imagine. Uh, we've told a lot of stories from walks of life, people we've never met, learned things we never thought we'd learn. My gosh, so thank you so much to everyone listening, and that's a that's a big cheers to all of you at home. So thank you very, very much. Cheers to you folks. Yes. So, Steve, we thought what would be really cool this year is if we kind of did a a year in review with you, right? To talk about, I mean, at least some of the big events that happened in 2025. Sure. So started off pretty great. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

Well, it depends on the election. I don't think did any of us, you know, we were sitting here a year ago. I think we were in the same snug button. We were, yeah. We were in the exact same spot. I I we knew, I mean, Trump had been elected. We knew there was going to be a seismic change in politics in in the United States. I don't think any one of us, certainly I didn't have any sense of just how dramatic it was going to be. Right. No. I mean, we expected drama, but we got more we got trauma. We didn't get drama, we got trauma, we got both. With a TR trauma.

SPEAKER_02: 4:47

I mean, to this day, I I was on the TikTok account of the White House, and I could not believe what I saw. I'll just leave it at that. Like explicit lyrics and music, to um just people being looked at so harshly within their own country. Uh not political, but certainly not right.

SPEAKER_03: 5:05

Um I go as far as say this is not political because you know what? I sit and like more than ever now I'm seeing like replays of George Bush and Ronald Reagan and and and George Bush Sr., like HWNW kind of thing. And you sit back and you listen to some of the things they've said, and I'm finding myself going like because this is, you know, people look book it as a Republican thing, but I don't think this is a Republican-Democrat thing.

SPEAKER_02: 5:28

That's a different thing.

SPEAKER_03: 5:29

Republicans, I'm listening to them. John McCain was a said really beautiful, nice, great things. Sure. Reagan, all of them. They all had really great things. I watched something this morning with George H.W. and I was like, oh, I can resonate with that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:42

This is a different beast. This is a much different beast. I mean, this is not the Republican Party. No. No. I mean, it's it is still the Republican brand, but it is the Trump Republican or the MAGA Republican Party. And the thing is, I and I may have said this before, the the fair-minded can disagree about public policy. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, democracy rather depends on it. My my grave concern about what has been going on is the level of disrespect that uh that the the President of the United States has brought to the office. And I I think that I can understand bluntness and I can understand being tough. I find it hard to accept rude and crude. Yeah. Uh and particularly rude, crude, and disrespectful. And I I just don't think there's any need for it in public discourse. And I I I don't think it's helpful. And I and I wonder if that will ultimately be the undoing of it.

SPEAKER_03: 6:37

Maybe. Uh there's a part of me that because you know, people like yourself, if you were American down in Washington, you'd be going, you know, tete à tete with this guy calling you fake news and stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00: 6:49

Well, sure, but the the problem is, you know, the other thing that's been sacrificed with the the return of President Trump is is truth.

SPEAKER_03: 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:59

Uh Mr. Trump does not appear to feel in any way bound by any sort of not only rules, but any sort of facts. And he he can he says essentially whatever he wants to say, and there are very few people who are willing. Uh perhaps they're not courageous enough to challenge him, because he's very good at tearing people down and defeating people. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene and what has happened with her is a great example. Shocked me. You know, she was his greatest supporter, and now uh well, that's the old song, Cliff Richard, we don't talk anymore. You know, they're completely and totally uh out to lunch with each other. So Yeah, I I I don't know, but I I I do have a feeling that uh on on matters of policy, people will disagree and should. I I don't think that this is going to be maybe a question of policy disagreement in the end. It it's going to be tonal and it's going to be about the nature of leadership, the the the tone of leadership, and about the fact that there just are no guardrails around the President of the United States. I I I can't see how that can be sustained in the in the long term. But maybe I'm a fool.

SPEAKER_03: 8:10

No, I I've said that where about you have you you can you can disagree on you know where your tax dollars go and certain policies and things like that, but how you treat people should not like that's the line in the sand for me. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:26

Yeah. But anyways, but I also don't think he's worried about what we think.

SPEAKER_02: 8:31

No, he's really not, and I loved our nice agent in Canada that we had this year. Wasn't that great? That was great, eh? What a well gesture to see that actually go all over the world or all over North America.

SPEAKER_00: 8:41

Well, it went viral, but I I was actually thinking, and in fact, uh when this airs, I'm going to be doing an event with the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia, and I'm actually going to suggest I think we should set up a nice agency. Finally, it's still a good deal. And and and and actually, you know, have people go out and be nice, nice agents. Wouldn't that be awesome? And that was at this hour's 22 minutes idea. It was one of their brilliant ideas. Yep. But why not do that? Why not actually say we are going to send out across the province next summer, yep, uh, maybe a lot of young people, and say you're, you know, you're you're our guests, and we are the nice agents.

SPEAKER_02: 9:15

I was I mean, there was a lot of nicest last night, and there's still a lot of kindness in Halifax. I was downtown last night, waterfront with my family. We walked the waterfront, I photobombed some people jokingly, and then gotten their pictures and took their pictures for them. And, you know, I just had a lot of fun downtown last night. You know, there that there's still real good, there's still a lot of good humans out there. I want people to know that.

SPEAKER_00: 9:35

Absolutely so. But the thing that has amazed me is. And again, this hour is 22 minutes, is very good at taking serious subjects and lampooning them. They've been doing it for a long time. But the the Americans that the nice agent talked to, they actually thought, I think some of them, that maybe this is an agency of the government of Canada. Not all of that. And what the heck, maybe it should be.

SPEAKER_02: 9:55

Emotions were running high in the U.S. Some folks seeing this were quite like, wow, this is so beautiful. This is how you should run a country. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:04

Right?

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

It's like, wow. You know what interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 10:06

I actually like shout out to this hour's 22 minutes because 2025 has been a banger year from them. I honestly like, I mean, I've always appreciated them, but they've had some ups and down years. But Critch might be the best Trunken person.

SPEAKER_02: 10:19

Oh, I'm gonna do that. Critch is fantastic. He is. And they brought kids in the hall in as Kearney this year.

SPEAKER_00: 10:25

That was another great move. The thing is, you know, and I and I know some of the people who work on 22 Minutes. Uh 22 Minutes to me is a wee bit like Saturday Night Live. I think it's been consistently uh maybe not must see TV, but probably should see TV for a long time. And often must see TV. But it, you know, there's a sine wave. I think that they've had a great year. They've been great company.

SPEAKER_02: 10:45

It's a local Halifax guy, plays both Pierre Pauliev and Trudeau, and he nails both of them. Chris Wilson. Just like Wilson nails it.

SPEAKER_00: 10:52

Trudeau, who's that? Which time last year he was Prime Minister of Canada. That's right. And I don't think again, and maybe we're not as now he's making fire for the first time. Is that where he is? No, but who who would have predicted, I mean, we didn't, that Mr. Trudeau wouldn't be Prime Minister.

SPEAKER_02: 11:09

Right. Well, I think a lot of people thought Alive was going to have that spot for a moment. Well, he was one of them. They weren't, they weren't. I still think he does. Yeah, but uh, I mean, to see what happened there, that massive shift was so crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 11:24

Yeah, but you know, I think there are a couple of parts of that that have been overlooked that are worth talking about. Obviously, in a democracy, uh, the person who gets the most seats gets the government. So Kearney won the election. Right. But you know, Polyev got more votes than any conservative leader since Brian Mulroney. Yep. That that's an accomplishment. And the other thing is the reason that Kearney did so well is because the NDP votes basically migrated to the Liberals. Yeah. If you if you were measuring uh the election outcome, and I I'm not not a particular fan of the style or tone of Mr. Polyev, but to give him credit, he did attract a lot of people to that tent. And he did it without the benefit of having I I'm assuming a lot of NDP voters uh go to him. So a lot of Canadians who had voted for maybe the Liberal Party or another party did go to the Conservatives. That's a fair point. In the last election.

SPEAKER_03: 12:11

It's a fair point. I I agree with you. Now, that being said, if we had another election right now, I don't think that would be the case.

SPEAKER_00: 12:19

Well, you may be right. We're not going to have an election right now. But I think the wild card in the next election, based on the situation as it is now, is going to be Quebec. Because we're seeing the the reassertion of the separatist impulse in Quebec, the sovereignist impulse in Quebec. And it would seem to me that if the Bloc Québecois does better in Quebec in the next election, it is more likely to be at the expense of the Liberal Party than any other party. Yeah. Because of course the Liberals did very well in Quebec. So I would think that the risk for Mr. Carney going forward might be with the resurgence of the of the sovereignist impulse in Quebec. Having said that, just lost his Quebec general, too. He did just lose his Quebec general, Mr. Gibot, who did the proper thing, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_04: 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:00

We know that Mr. Gibbot has been a strident environmentalist his entire life. That's right. And whether you agree with the pipeline or not is not the issue in our discussion. Clearly, Mr. Gibot could not abide that. So he did the right thing. He left the cabinet. Yeah. You'll notice he didn't leave the caucus. No, exactly. He did not defect from the government. That's right. Because, of course, that would be detrimental to Mr. Kearney, who's, I still think, trying to cobble together a majority. And I wouldn't preclude in 2026 that he tips that scale. It could happen.

SPEAKER_03: 13:30

I agree with you 100%. He's two seats away, and I think it could happen. I think he claws his way there. Yeah, I mean, I could talk about this all day because I I I think he's he's become s this centrist that people are starting to relate to a little bit, like almost uh Cretch-esque type of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 13:47

I think that's a good analogy, and don't forget that Jean Crécien with Paul Martin was not the kind of liberal that Pierre Elliott Trudeau was, and Mark Kearney is not the kind of liberal that Justin Trudeau was. Yes. Mark Kearney, I've got a number of friends who who point out that Mark Kearney is more of a cur a conservative progressive, which we used to call a progressive conservative. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 14:07

Much closer, even the line to what we see here in Nova Scotia. Well, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00: 14:11

And it w we we are very centrist in our politics in Nova Scotia. You know, curiously, Stephen McNeil was the most right-wing leader we've had. Tim Houston is is to is to the left of McNeil on many things. But I guess the point is that Mark Kearney may have found the sweet spot in Canadian politics at the right moment, which is back toward the center. And he may be he may be tipping a little bit center right, although he's clinging to some of Trudeau's initiatives, which clearly are more to the left of the political spectrum. I think he's just gonna leave them.

SPEAKER_03: 14:38

I think he's not gonna talk to them. I think what people this is just me talking, but I think what people got is that true there were certain things that were on the left side that Trudeau really liked to kind of like and I'm not saying I disagree with them. I'm just saying he'd really like to jam them down people's throats.

SPEAKER_00: 14:53

People felt that way.

SPEAKER_03: 14:54

And and I think Carney's just gonna like, I'm not gonna talk about that anymore. That's already a thing. No, I think you're right. Move on.

SPEAKER_00: 14:59

Yeah. I look, I don't like the the term woke, not because I don't understand it. I I I do understand it, and I think it has a meaning, an important meaning that we should try not to change. If you look at where the word and the notion of woke, the word came from. But I I'll use it because I think people generally understand it. Mr. Trudeau and the Democrats in the United States uh contemporaneously were seen as going too far in that direction. They were too concerned about identity politics and not concerned enough about the real issues that that people are experiencing, which and we started talking about Christmas daddies, but let's be honest about this. And you know, I can't speak for the two of you guys, but m my perception is that uh I I'm not having a hard time buying groceries. I mean, yeah, groceries are more expensive than they used to be, but there are a lot of people who are more than there are a lot of people who are, and they're getting a power bill that's too that's too high, and they're getting you know, they're trying to keep fuel in the tank in in the wintertime. And and it all adds up. Yep. And that is what political leadership needs to be addressing right now, which is why the last budget, the budget that did pass, ultimately I was shocked that there wasn't something in there that at least I I don't mean to pay lip service to what we call the affordability crisis, which is a term I also dislike. I don't like the term either, but you're absolutely right. There needed to be something in there that indicated that the government understands that a lot of people are having a really difficult time.

SPEAKER_02: 16:25

Yeah, I think I think the thing is too, is I don't think they realize how broad of a fact that hard times are reaching. It's people in the trades now. It's people that not it's not just talking someone who's entry level and they can only get a job at uh at at McDonald's. Yeah. I'm talking, you know, you you might have your uh journeyman, you might have a red seal. And believe it or not, as high in demand as we are for carpenters and the trades right now. You're absolutely right. Those people are not making enough money. That's right, right? I mean the the the layman's the worker, the ones that they really need.

SPEAKER_00: 16:55

Look at how these things cascade across people's lives, right? Let's take well, the budget in Halifax, I I know that's pretty local for your show, but yeah, yeah, you know, they're they're actually toying with a 10.5% property to increase come on. That can't happen. It cannot happen. People can't, people real people can't afford that. No. And then not only your property tax goes up by 10.5%, and then all of the associated costs go up. Of course. So it's gonna increase. It's gonna increase rent, it's gonna increase everything.

SPEAKER_03: 17:24

Like everything is gonna increase because everyone's gonna get paying 10.5% more. Oh, yeah. I honestly, this is one of the few times where it's like, I don't know, I I get so frustrated because city council, I ran 2020 to like in 2020, and like I've just been so frustrated with the decisions I've been making ever since then, and some of the reasons they want to run. And it's like we can find 11% to cut. I'm confident we can. Did Cogswell need to get done?

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

Well, do we need to do like well not not to not to argue with you, but uh I would say that if we're going to look at seriously reforming the cost of government, that we have to look at the the main cost factor, which for most governments and most businesses is the cost of staff, the cost of theaters. And by the way, when you talk about, and and I I said this on television, I'm gonna say it on television this week, and we gotta get we we have to let a lot of people at the post office go. We do. We have to have a smaller post office. But we have to do it in a re in a way that respects those people. Of course. You know, it's not it is not their individual fault that the post office is losing, it's probably lost like the better part of a million bucks since we've been talking. That can't go on. That's not sustainable. No, it's true. That is where the cost is, so we need to contain the cost. And I do think when it comes to government, we need to ask what services should the government be providing, and how many people does it take to provide an acceptable level of service at a fair rate of compensation? Yep. So there needs to be a rationalization of all of that. That's that that's hard-hearted because it does involve real people, and we need to treat those people with respect. But we do need to deal with the problem.

SPEAKER_03: 18:55

We and so I mean that is something that's happened this year is we've had two strikes. I actually feel that the strike has actually hurt them more than it's helped them, because I think it's uh helped people realize that they can actually use them less. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 19:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:13

I mean, they went on strike, and I don't like it. That sounds really arrogant. Look, the postal workers went on strike and really almost nobody noticed. Apart from driving by Almond Street and seeing the workers on the peckett line. No, you don't have to be a good one. And not seeing my letter carry, who's a great guy, by the way, talk to him every day. He's an old old style letter carry. But most Canadians don't notice when the mail doesn't get delivered because there's nothing essential in the mail anymore. I guess for this, really not.

SPEAKER_02: 19:37

I mean, just to kind of put a drop in their bucket though, too. I mean, I do realize back to what we were just talking about affordability, yeah. It's not a way of life for them anymore. That's true. And that's what sucks because they're being undercut by the um the cheaper outfits that you're paying guys next to nothing to get your package delivered to your doorstep.

SPEAKER_03: 19:53

But this is what I this is what I think Steve was on to, though.

SPEAKER_01: 19:55

A bit of a problem, right?

SPEAKER_03: 19:56

Is like there needs to be less of them so that the ones who are working can get paid more.

SPEAKER_02: 20:00

Get paid more.

SPEAKER_03: 20:01

You can't give everyone a five percent raise or more when you have, well, whatever, like a hundred thousand employees. But if you had fifty, maybe you could.

SPEAKER_00: 20:07

Maybe you could. But let's not forget, too, that this is not essentially a parcel delivery problem. This is a fact, this is the fact that all the Christmas cards I used to get when I was a boy growing up in St. John that came in the mailbox that was bulging with you get email from people now. That's right. It doesn't cost well, it used to cost six cents to mail a letter when I was a kid or four cents. It doesn't cost a buck and a half to hit send on your computer and everybody gets a beautiful animated Christmas card. Or they zoom them.

SPEAKER_02: 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:35

Oh exactly. Or you just zoom. But the point is that most of the routine communication we we we get from uh the banks, uh from our credit card companies, uh etc. It's all online.

SPEAKER_02: 20:47

So the business model that has failed is mail delivery once a week, and I was like, this is a way smarter system. Like, because I mean, you know, I only need to get the mail really once a week.

SPEAKER_03: 20:57

Pick up the mail once a week, yeah. Maybe twice.

SPEAKER_00: 20:58

I pick it up Friday. Well you have a super box, right? Yeah, yeah. See, I still have mail delivery. I live in the city, we get mail delivery. And it's a lovely old idea. Yeah, but it reminds me of Leave It the Beaver. I'm old enough to remember. Well, not not literally, but no, I but I do remember when the mailbox was bulging with stuff you wanted to get. That's right. But it's not anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 21:19

You didn't check your mailbox for a week. It used to be overflowed. Yes. You would not be able to I'm not kidding.

SPEAKER_03: 21:25

I went there last week and I looked, and the only thing in there was like, I think it was like subway coupons. Yeah. For like a week. I had a Canadian. I mean, it's great. Yeah.

unknown: 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:36

Get that 50% off a sub, but you know, but you know, truthfully, I remember this time of year when I was a kid, and I I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, but I I remember going to the mailbox this time of year, and you'd count the number of Christmas cards people had sent to my parents. You'd have 25 or 30 Christmas cards in there. And you would have sent a hundred yourself from your home, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 21:55

I guess it's kind of kind of a nice thing, though. Yeah. It is. And you know what? You're right. And I think when people get them, I think people feel more nostalgic and they like the idea more than they like doing it, because no one's doing it.

SPEAKER_00: 22:07

Yeah. Right? But it's not just because of the mail. Cards also cost like four dollars, five dollars, eight dollars each. They're eight dollars if you're getting those Hallmark cards. Oh my gosh, premium cards and every 10 bucks.

SPEAKER_03: 22:17

Whereas the email card is click, right? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, no, that's true. So but we did get Carney. Yeah, we got Carney. We did get Carney. Yeah, let's talk about that. What what do you what are your thoughts on him so far? Like uh, you know, he's he's had an interesting year, I think. Uh well, I think he was an interesting pick. Uh and uh a couple of things also, right?

SPEAKER_02: 22:36

Well, I didn't see him coming. I mean, uh maybe maybe I was uh out of the uh I don't know what he was basically carrying any cash around anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 22:46

Yeah, I know. He used to sign it here. Yeah, yeah, his signatures are I once joked a couple of things. Yeah, there it is. No, no, he's not on there. I used to joke that everybody was carrying Mark Kearney's autograph in their pockets. He was Governor of the Bank of Canada a long time ago. Um I don't think that Governor of the Bank of Canada uh was a is a high profile job for most people in the country. I mean it's an important job, but I don't know that most people could uh tell you who is the current governor of the Bank of Canada, no. Uh although he's signing the money too. But nobody's carrying money anymore. But my whole point is that Kearney didn't really come from nowhere, but he didn't come from politics, and that was probably an advantage when it came to to running. Yeah. But again, I come back to something that I that I did say in a in a in a commentary I did earlier this year. In the end, uh Canada wanted a change, and we got a change when Mr. Trudeau left. That was the most important thing that happened, and it was almost one year ago that Christian Freeland really put the icing on the cake when she made it clear that she could not abide Mr. Trudeau, and many in the caucus finally were prepared to do it. Many here in Nova Scotia in America. Yeah, that's right. Me too. So we got a lot of change when Trudeau left. A lot of Canadians were ready for Mr. Trudeau to go. So there was a certain amount of change delivered when the Liberal Party changed its leadership. And then we had an election campaign, and it came down to the question of, well, who are you most comfortable with, who in terms of their style, their tone, their personality, their policies, and more people in more parts of the country, said Mr. Kearney. He won, by the way, a majority of seats in six of the ten provinces, and a plurality of the seats in British Columbia. So he's got a large majority, even though it's not a pardon me, he's got a large plural plurality, even though it's not a majority.

SPEAKER_02: 24:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 24:27

So yeah. But that that could be hard to sustain, particularly again if Quebec decides to go in a different direction, if there's any sort of surge in NDP support. And there may well be with this pipeline decision. There may be a lot of people in the West who British Columbia particularly who say, you know what? You know, liberals know. Jonathan Wilkinson and his crowd, they may they may say no. We we we want to go in a more environmentally uh sensitive direction.

SPEAKER_02: 24:52

I do wonder though, if like if Trump did not get in, would we have Kearney right now? I just wonder if that if that if if that would have shifted the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00: 25:01

I I I do I mean, it's an it's an unknowable.

SPEAKER_02: 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:05

I mean Kearney ran against Trump. Yeah. He did. But Polyev ran against Trudeau.

SPEAKER_03: 25:09

That's the problem. I mean that's also true. Yes. He was still talking about Trudeau, and it's like you you know he's he's not on the ballot, right? You know that, right? So I mean that's another reason why uh 22 minutes has just been banging because they've just nailed it, right? Yeah, yeah. But uh the the thing uh a question I had for you about um who do you think kind of came out to be the most about the carbon tax? Who do you think because there's there's two sides of this, right? Like someone was kind of lying to us about how it infected fla inflation, right?

SPEAKER_00: 27:12

Well, I I I don't it depends who you were listening to. I I don't know that anybody seriously thought that the carbon tax was a major cause of inflation. Supply chain problems were the major cause of inflation, and probably still are, uh although I'm I'm now getting a little suspicious about some price increases. Although Brendan Doherty, who runs this bar, was just telling me they just did the menu and didn't have to put up the prices. That's awesome. For the winter. Because things he said food seems to have settled down a little bit. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. But I I don't know that uh that many people thought that the carbon tax had a major impact on prices. It had some effect for sure. But the carbon tax had a tremendous psychological effect on people, and when the carbon the consumer carbon tax was lifted, it dropped gasoline prices, home heating prices, and so on. So I think it had a tremendous psychological effect on people, and you know, psychology is is a major driver in the economy. You know what dropped my gas bill? Buying an EV.

SPEAKER_03: 28:09

He bought a leaf. I bought an EV this year. Did you? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's uh I mean I'm three months in, but so far I love it. Right. Haven't been to a gas station in three months. Really? Yeah. It's no effect on your power bill.

SPEAKER_00: 28:21

Well, who knows? We don't get power bills. She has to run it backwards to wind it. Don't blow a pain in the eye. I was gonna say it's one of those Freddy Flintstone things where you've got feet on the ground. Yeah, it's kind of funny I see him do that.

SPEAKER_03: 28:31

I'm actually so uh my power bill has gone up maybe I don't know, five bucks or something. I think the afternoon pint has just turned into the afternoon two pints. Yeah, there you go. It's a plural one.

SPEAKER_04: 28:41

Cheers, thank you.

SPEAKER_03: 28:42

The uh yeah, I I don't uh I'm very fortunate because I don't have to plug it into my work very often or in my home very often because my work provides free charging for electric cars.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

You know, one thing I've noticed is the the number of charging stations that are suddenly popping up. And of course, uh a lot of it has been legislated, but very impressive at the airport, for example, all the number of public places there are for uh for EV charging. Do you know where I'm parked right now? Convention center and so on?

SPEAKER_03: 29:08

I'm parked right now at the Halifax Library. I pay for parking there because they let me charge the car for free once you're parking there. So you're paying for the parking, but what do you pay for parking? Well, it's what is it? We're Friday here, so I'll probably pay seven bucks. Okay. The power is probably a quarter or something. Maybe.

SPEAKER_00: 29:26

No, no, I'm not criticizing.

SPEAKER_03: 29:27

But I would have had to park pay for parking anyway. Yeah, that's true. Coming down, right? Yeah. So that's the thing. It's a Friday, so I would have had to have paid for parking, probably six bucks or something.

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

We're we're gonna reach a point if and I don't this is so far outside my area of expertise. I'll just observe that we are going to reach a tipping point with EVs as we've done with so many things. I I heard a gentleman on the radio the other day, and I wish I could think of his name because he was it was on uh with Matt Galloway on on the current. And he was talking about uh the the fact that solar panels were invented, I think, in the early 1950s, and it took fifty years or what have you for them to become economical. Yeah. But now a tremendous percentage of the power being generated in China is coming from solar panels. They have whole cities that are electric. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 30:12

Like you you I saw a video of a guy standing in a very busy, like traffic-wise, and he was he just said listen and you couldn't hear anything. Yeah, and cars are zooming by like so here's my question.

SPEAKER_00: 30:22

If if we could be so privileged as to come back to this planet in a hundred years, which you guys have a better shot than I do. But um no, but if we could come back in a hundred years and read the history of the early 21st century, I believe there will be narratives that say unbelievably, it took two thousand years for man to realize that there was an unlimited supply of sun and wind. You know, seriously. But you don't stop and think of it. There's an unlimited supply of sun and wind and tidal power, and eventually all these things will tip into being the way to go.

SPEAKER_02: 30:56

This might be a good time to plug my new show, Computer Saves World, coming out in 2026. Is this true? Yes, it is true. We're using AI to to uh help humanity move forward, and I'm writing comedic episodes with it, so I'm gonna come up with it next year.

SPEAKER_00: 31:09

Is this true? This is not a good idea.

SPEAKER_02: 31:12

The first episode's called Cooperation, not competition. Okay. And you're using AI. I'm using AI. I've I've actually used three comedians that I admire to help me uh uh uh give me the information. I love this. I started with Norm McDonald because I he's my lifelong idol. And I mean when he passed away, I uh I was I was genuinely sad because I loved his comedy too much.

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

And I still think not everybody got or gets Norm McDonald, but he's great. He looks better the the more you the more you watch, the better it is.

SPEAKER_02: 31:41

And so, yeah, and I mean I remember like there's parts like uh I read it, I remember reading his memoir and never having such a great time reading a memoir because it was completely fake. If you ever read his memoir, he just made a mistake. Is it all maple? Is it all fake? It's just just to troll you the entire time. And say terrible things. It's the funniest part I've done.

SPEAKER_04: 31:57

Very good, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:59

So uh but it's neither art nor deal. I used him, I used him at first, and then I said, no, that's a little too on the nose. And then I added uh a couple other comedians to help me with the writing or the creation of this character. And when when do we see this? Hopefully next year. I'll have to.

SPEAKER_00: 32:13

How will we know if it's real?

SPEAKER_02: 32:15

Um sorry Well, it's edited by me loosely, and uh and that's about it. Yeah, so then I'm gonna put it out. I'm gonna narrate in my own voice, and the joke is that the computer needed somebody that was you know a little more salt of the earth to to communicate his uh communicate its message because I see it didn't want to sound too intelligent, right? So it's using me as a vessel. Oh, I thought you were gonna say so it went with Walter Cronkite or something.

SPEAKER_03: 32:36

No, no, no, not at all. It had to sound less intelligent.

SPEAKER_02: 32:39

Oh, that's it, right? We needed to dumb it down because people weren't getting it, right?

SPEAKER_00: 32:43

So uh common courtesy and respect prevents me from commenting further on that.

SPEAKER_02: 32:47

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on. So um Matt made fun of me when we made this outline up this morning because he was like, You're obsessed with weather. He's like, weather, he said, Steve, Steve wasn't a meteorologist, but it's been a crazy year for weather. Yeah. If you think about it, I mean we had this no winter last year.

SPEAKER_00: 33:07

And then I I don't I don't live here in the winter, as you know. So I had a great winter last year. We're sunny at 28 every day.

SPEAKER_02: 33:13

We had a really mild winter until when? And then we just got pummeled with snowstorms and then into this.

SPEAKER_00: 33:20

And this dry the dry, the dry summer. Yeah. Really, really a problem. You know, the funny thing is, and it's not funny in the ha ha sense, yeah, but we we because we live in a in a in a maritime climate, we think sunny and dry is a wonderful thing. Yes. And look, it's a lovely thing. And it kind of was, but it's not a good thing. But it's not a good thing. It's not it's not good for no it's not good for agriculture. For example, you know, I I love honey crisp apples, and you know, we we grow some of the very best in the valley. I've found it hard to find some good honey crisp apples because there just wasn't the moisture for them. Some of the little ones are really sweet, but the nice big beauties that I'm having trouble finding. The price was up on them this year. Oh, way up. Way up, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:57

So bad for our berries and bad for a lot of things. Now, some some people have told me, and I I don't know a lot about this, that it's been good for some varieties of grapes. So maybe we'll get some good wine out of it.

SPEAKER_03: 34:08

Certain grapes are it's good for, yeah, because you don't want you basically, yeah, you want water to run through, not stay. Right. So that part is is good. Oh, okay. Um, I'll tell you one thing though. Uh, first year ever we decided to go do cherry picking because um strawberry picking wasn't super great. Blueberries was good. Um but blueberries, the blueberry industry wasn't good. No, but like when we went down, like we went and picked them. I got we got three big things of blueberries, and they were great blueberries. Um cherries for the first time. How are the cherries? The cherries were awesome. We bought like I don't know, it was like something like six bags. In the valley, yeah, down in the valley. There's uh Dempsey's Corner. Cool. And uh yeah, we actually froze, we still have some. We're we're pulling cherries out of the freezer now, kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_00: 34:54

I want to say something about blueberries. Apropos, nothing we're talking about. Um I've always loved blueberries. When we were kids, we had blueberry fields right near the house. We'd go down and pick them, we'd eat them. We we'd eat more than we'd pick, you know. But if there weren't some left over, we'd sell them to the neighbors. But it isn't until the end of our blueberry season, when we start getting the blueberries coming in from Mexico or Peru or wherever. It isn't until you get the the hard comparison that you realize how good our blueberries are. Oh, they're so good. Our blueberries, the wild ones particular, in particular, but our blueberries are without yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. No, they're they're yeah. John Bragg is on to something here. I mean, the reason that he's the blueberry king is because our blueberries are king. They're the best in the world. Yeah, they had a really hard year this year, though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:40

And they lost a ton of their crop and they didn't even know who was going to be, you know, that they'd have to lay people off this year. They didn't know what they were going to do. Like they've they've had a terrible year for blueberries. So it's a really scary thing.

SPEAKER_00: 35:49

It is, but it's not too late to go out and buy frozen berries. And again, I'm not I'm not here to shill for anybody, but blueberries are so good for you. We've got a great supply and they freeze perfectly.

SPEAKER_02: 35:58

Yes, they freeze great, and they're great in Cheerios. They are great in Cheerios. And you can have a night with a little almond milk, it's fantastic. That's fantastic. My nighttime snack, dude.

SPEAKER_00: 36:09

Blueberries and Cheerios.

SPEAKER_02: 36:10

I dropped 10 pounds this year, dude. So did you really? Yeah, yeah. Good for you. So yeah. I probably found it and picked it up.

SPEAKER_03: 36:18

So yeah, so I I agree about the weather. It was it was actually um it was a really great uh uh summer in the sense that it didn't rain very much, and so you get to go out and do things more. We went to New Like I went, my family went to Newfoundland, it was like beautiful weather the whole time. But on the flip side of that is we had forest fires, and obviously those are pretty scary stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:42

I remember being in Cape Bright this year, and just every night I was just worried that my house is going to burn down because I was so far away. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

And then of course there's the fact that it's been raining now for six weeks. I mean, we've had a lot of rain. Oh, yeah. And we need the rain. The water tables badly need the rain.

SPEAKER_03: 36:54

Yeah, we definitely I mean the the lake uh not far from my uh my my house I've noticed is it's starting to get up to normal levels again finally. But we went hiking uh like a month ago in the uh Blue Mountain area, and I saw a um uh a hockey net just sitting on the bottom of a lake. Like like the ground. Like so clearly there was people who played pond hockey there and everything, but it was just sitting like right on the ground. It's like yeah cheapers scary.

SPEAKER_00: 37:26

Speaking of weather, if the if the weather forecast is right for tomorrow, which will be December 3rd when this plays, oh gosh, it could be quite a snowstorm.

SPEAKER_02: 37:34

Yeah, seriously.

SPEAKER_00: 37:35

And by the way, if it if it turns out that there is no snow tomorrow, just forget that we talk about this.

SPEAKER_03: 37:42

Exactly. So yeah, um we have uh there's a bunch of other things that we want to talk about with the news. I mean, like there's been some international stuff that's been going on, like not just North American international, but you know, there's some crazy stuff going on out in the Middle East. Um and un some real unfortunate stuff. Been an unfortunate year for conflicts and stuff all around the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:04

Yeah. Uh well and I the the only comment I that I feel comfortable making about about it in general is the American response to all of it has been noteworthy. Uh you know, Trump may have brought some degree of settlement in the Middle East. I mean, uh it remains to be seen. It's hard to really know. But what's going on in Venezuela is of grave concern to me. That's in very much our our neighborhood. Yep. You know, I think sometimes we forget that Central and South America are not that far from us uh geographically. You look, you know, look at look at where it is. So that's uh that's of some concern. And you know, clearly um when when a superpower, and really there's only there's only one, although I would argue that China meets the definition, the modern definition of superpower. That uh when a superpower becomes proactive when it comes to attacking other nations, it's it's a serious it's a serious matter. And you know, Trump isn't wrong about uh about uh about drugs and the the drugs that have come into our lives have done palpable harm to our societies. Yep. But his response to uh to to a lot of this seems perhaps more political than it is based on sound policy.

SPEAKER_03: 39:14

But yeah, and just like there's just some yeah, unfortunate stuff that's been going on. And I mean, I you know what? Speaking of people who are going hungry, it's like I think about that uh all that food that was just burned to the ground there as well. Uh I don't know if you heard about that, but fills in real quick if you're gonna be able to do it. Well, yeah, but just basically they're over in uh where is it? Like I think it was Yemen or something like that or whatever, somewhere in around that region. Uh there was a warehouse full of like food that could feed like something like 70,000 people or something. And they knew it was there. There's been warnings that hey, like this stuff is about to expire, and it basically sat and they let it expire, and then they just decided to burn the whole thing down with the food in it. Total waste of food. Strange. Could have helped a lot of people out. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00: 40:00

And I mean, there's people hungry around the world, and but but to take that point and and uh extrapolate further on it, food waste is a tremendous scandal in the world.

SPEAKER_02: 40:11

That's something we should really be focusing on in 2012.

SPEAKER_00: 40:15

Even in Canada, like I commend I commend the grocers because some of them are now beginning to make sure that stuff that you know can't be sold is getting out to food banks or they're trying to find ways to do it. And we you know, yes, we need to make sure the food supply is healthy and and safe. Right. Yep by all means. Yes. But you know, best before dates have had an unintended consequence. I agree.

SPEAKER_03: 40:34

People confuse them with expiry dates.

SPEAKER_00: 40:35

Right, and best before doesn't mean bad after. A lot of food gets dumpstered because somebody presumably enforcing either corporate policy or regulation has decided that it's gotta go out. Look, we've got this isn't this it's immoral. Or or if food has a shelf light.

SPEAKER_02: 40:54

Get it out at a discount that it just goes out the door and doesn't go to waste.

SPEAKER_00: 40:57

Well, and you know, the gr the major grocers have gotten better at that, I think. I mean I see a lot more of the uh I see a lot more of the of the stickers going on the 50%. You know, what is it, the eat it tonight or enjoying it? Yeah, enjoy it. I see a lot more of that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 41:10

I uh I I for me, I I remember a few years ago I saw this uh thing where in France they actually uh they passed some legislation around this where food uh grocery stores could actually donate food to food banks and stuff, uh get a credit for it, so they benefit for it, so it incentivizes them, and also excludes them from any liability, which is something that some people may be worried about as well.

SPEAKER_00: 41:35

Well, I think you know, liability uh is probably a good thing uh uh excluding people from liability, that doesn't mean we want to exclude them from responsibility, but we don't want to we don't want people getting sued over good intent.

SPEAKER_03: 41:48

Exactly. That's the thing. I don't want someone throwing something out saying like I'd rather this go to the garbage so I don't get sued.

SPEAKER_00: 41:52

But I'm more worried about the unintended consequence of best before dates and so on. Look, the idea of protecting the food supply is a noble uh in fact, it's a i it's just an essential idea. Yeah, but it doesn't mean that we should enable or allow good food, completely safe food to be thrown away. Right. That that's it's just wrong.

SPEAKER_03: 42:15

A shout out to uh my local little farms market uh out in prospect, their Mables, because they do um they do they have two prices on bananas, like non-ripe and ripe. Perfect. Right? And that's exactly why.

SPEAKER_00: 42:28

That's brilliant because bananas are very much a matter of opinion.

SPEAKER_03: 42:31

Do you like green bananas? I will eat them, but I don't like I wait for them to get mostly yellow. I don't like when they start getting brown. Unless you put it in banana bread, and then I'm like really big fan.

SPEAKER_02: 42:43

I don't do bananas.

SPEAKER_03: 42:44

You don't do bananas?

SPEAKER_02: 42:45

No, I love blueberries. I like berries. You don't do bananas, bananas are a berry. Really? Bananas are a berry, yeah. Only if they're they meet the definition of banana. If you can in a salad, then I can have bananas. Like if they're in like a fruit salad or something, I'll have them, but not not. But don't tell me a banana is a berry. I mean, don't tell me a tomato is a berry.

SPEAKER_00: 43:00

It's banana.

SPEAKER_02: 43:01

Banana's tomato is a berry? Banana is technically a berry, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 43:04

And strawberries are technically not a bad thing. Not a berry's apparently. Because the seeds are on the outside of the battery. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 43:09

Oh dear. Okay, okay. I don't want to talk about this. That's all I know about that. And that's probably not enough to carry on. All right. Moving on again. No, just joking. Uh what uh what was I gonna say there? I lost, I had a trade of thought, and I thought. Well, that's what editing's for, so don't worry about it. Oh, yeah. We actually don't cut your L's. Because remember the first time we talked to you, you told us not to cut anything. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 43:31

We took that to heart. I'm not I'm kidding. We stopped editing.

SPEAKER_02: 43:33

We've honored the tradition. Because you know, now I just stutter for six minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 43:37

We started doing interviews on on the hour long newscast, which was 25 years ago. We said we were not gonna edit. And you know what? With very few exceptions, we did not edit. And I think it made the the content better. It wasn't always prettier, yeah, but it was it was usually better.

SPEAKER_02: 43:51

I sometimes like I'll I'll I'll I'll shorten a long, long pause. If someone's just getting information, I'll give them a minute. Or if somebody coughs or if there's a technical problem, yeah, by all means.

SPEAKER_03: 44:01

But the only thing is if someone says like you know, like, oh, I kind of screwed that up, can you take that out? We'll do it on respect of our guests. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 44:10

I wouldn't do that. The one time I did it with Stefan Dion. Yeah, we talked about trouble. No, it's true. But but you know, here's something else. And and again, uh journalists have the right of the responsibility, and whether you consider yourselves journalists, interviewers, what have you, uh journalists certainly have the right, some would say the responsibility to edit, but I would offer this view. It is the knowledge of the public or on the part of the public that things get edited that leads people to be suspicious of editing.

SPEAKER_03: 44:37

So yeah, I'll I will I'll clarify that to a little to a degree. When we talk to politicians, we don't edit anything out. Good. We um like when we had our debates and things like that, yeah, nothing gets edited. Good. You say it, you say it. The time we would do it is like sometimes like someone may have said something that maybe I'm too personal, and they'd be like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. It's like I might get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02: 44:57

He just does he just want to sleep on the couch, right? So we'll we'll help him out, right? You know, it's just like you know, like oh, I didn't mean it that way, it might have came out the wrong way. Could you fix that? I said, sure.

SPEAKER_00: 45:05

I look, I think there can be nuanced reasons for allowing some editing. But yeah, you know, for me, I think you know, interviewers, journalists are better when they don't get second chances. And frankly, guests, uh, you know, often political leaders and others, they're better when they when they when they have to give it their best shot the first time around. And uh I come from a live TV and radio background. Most of the work I did was live. Yeah, there's no editing in live. No, of course. You know, there's no editing. I mean, you you get one chance at it. And if you mess up, well, you mess up. But but I think the listener, viewer, reader, they know that people, real people mess up. Yeah, and they don't mind hearing the mess sometimes. Well, they like it.

SPEAKER_02: 45:43

They kind of like it. Yeah, like it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 45:45

Honestly, your your um spirit has lived in this show in 2025 because honestly, when we talk about editing and things like that, or whatever, and or if he's like, man, I gotta do some stuff here, I was like, nah, man, Steve Murphy said don't edit it. Like, honestly, so you you have lived throughout this show. Like, honestly, it's probably one of the advices that we've incorporated in our show that we've gotten all year.

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

Well, again, uh, and I I have taken flack from colleagues in journalism who say, listen, you know, editing is part of what we do. And I, yes, I respect it, I understand that.

SPEAKER_02: 46:15

Well, then when it comes to like live interactions are better left unedited, in my opinion. Instagram shorts, these YouTube videos, things people are watching the most of now. We were talking about this a little earlier, but me the media side, yeah, it's all heavily, heavily edited. So when you're watching somebody make a clip or a statement about something, that's like you, the listener, the watcher, has to really say that's uh a very short piece of a 10-minute conversation, a two-hour conversation, you really gotta figure that out for yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

The other I I don't want to call it a dirty little secret. Yeah, it it is kind of, is that some editing in journalism has been done to clean up the questions. Uh yeah, okay. And look, uh I asked lots of bad questions in in my life. No question about it. And and no question about it. But no, I mean we we all we all maybe wish we had a second pass. But I think it's better and it's more philosophically honest for the listener, reader viewer, if you don't clean it up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Anyway, no, we're gonna keep on living with that.

SPEAKER_03: 47:21

Can we take that part out? No, yeah, sure. Consider it done. No. So, okay, next thing is I think one thing that we've seen, and it's probably this has sunken into I think some of the elections that we've had. Uh uh, but it just in life in general is tradition versus change. Would you think that that maybe seemed to be a theme for the last 12, maybe 18 months?

SPEAKER_02: 47:42

Tradition versus change. Tradition versus change. Elaborate a little, Matt. Because I want I'm not sure exactly where you're going. Well, it's your theme that you have it right there. So anyway. Oh, that one. Okay, I know which way you're going now. Yeah. It's your theme.

SPEAKER_03: 47:55

Tradition versus change. Yes, because there seems to be a lot of um people saying, like, well, I mean, make America great again is a slogan that talks about when was America great and things like that. But I mean, there's other things not just in politics, right? Like we talked about it earlier about the mail, right? About how, like, oh, wasn't it great when people got whatever? Like cards in the mail.

SPEAKER_02: 48:14

I don't know if I put that in there very well. I just I I think what I was trying to get at in a weird way was are we going backwards or forwards right now as a society and the way that we're treating and talking about one another? Are we are we doing a better job this year? Or are we or could there be some room for improvement in terms of just looking at the real problems and not at each other? Boy, there are a lot of questions in there. There's a lot to there's a lot going back there. That was a lot, but uh that's kind of the big issue.

SPEAKER_00: 48:44

Don't you think life is is the constant give and take between tradition and change and and sort of maintaining maintaining some of the things that we we hold dear and allowing other things to change to well respond to technology, for example. But you know, and again, I I I don't want to sound too too critical or I don't want to sound like a Luddite when it comes to technology, but many of the problems we're experiencing now where tone and uh style uh and discourse and respect are concerned are are being shaped by the the access that that we all have to social media. Uh and you know, all media are social, if you stop to think about it.

SPEAKER_04: 49:25

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:25

But the idea that every person who's carrying uh uh what we call a phone, and we should stop that, these are not phones, they're capable of being phones, they're capable of being radios, they're actually use it for the least. That's exactly it. When it ranges, like what the it's a it's a handheld computer. Yeah, this is what Bones McCoy had in Star Trek 1966, except he called it a tricorder. This is a multi-quarter. Yep, you know. But my whole point is that uh when everybody can publish every idea they have, you're bound to get some real stinkos. And and we are. And in the hands of the wrong person, or in the hands of any person uh who has axe, an axe or axes to grind, uh, any person who is mean of spirit, any person who is narcissistic, there's there is almost no limit to the amount of damage they can and will do. And that I think is what we're seeing on a very grand scale.

SPEAKER_03: 50:22

Yeah, people rallying together that maybe probably shouldn't have the ability to rally.

SPEAKER_00: 50:27

But but we're not gonna stop it. I mean it's it's not stoppable. No, no, it's not. The tooth the toothpaste is out of the tube, so you know we're gonna have to get used to it. But I think we can still demand a higher level uh of civility and decency than than we're seeing. And I I I don't want to turn this into an uh another conversation about you know who, uh, but the whole point is that the real reason to object to what's coming out of the White House is because it's rude, it's not respectful, it's not decent, it's not accurate. Forget whether the policies are good, bad, or otherwise. The style and the tone is not civil.

SPEAKER_02: 51:07

And when your world leader does that, or when your your country's leader does that, sorry, you know. Right. Everyone else starts to think it's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 51:15

Well it becomes normalized. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, again, uh it it's completely listen, lots of good people voted for for President Trump. Of course. Lots lots of good people did. They have their reasons for it. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02: 51:28

And some of the family that has, like uh ext on my in-law's side, but uh yeah, I have a family that did vote for Trump. And they're good people. Of course they're good people. The best people. They're so sweet.

SPEAKER_00: 51:39

And getting into and getting into why they feel the desire to, you know, express their political impulses that way, that that's a fair discussion to have. All I'm saying, and you know, if I were privileged enough to be granted an interview with Mr. Trump, I would ask him why do you need to be disrespectful? Why do you need to be crude? Why do you need to call people names? Yeah. If you believe in your ideas, if you honestly think that you have the answers to your nation's problems, why not present them in a way that appeals potentially to a lot more people by by using style and tone that doesn't offend. Why?

SPEAKER_03: 52:21

Would you would you want that interview? Like, is that something you'd want? Are you kidding? That'd be the best interview you'd like to get. Yeah, but do you think he'd get anywhere?

SPEAKER_00: 52:29

No. But that that wouldn't prevent. No, no, look, I think he I think he's a very difficult. I came close to getting an interview with Trump before he was in politics. Okay. He did an event actually in the Maritimes, and we were talking to his people about it. I think he would be a very difficult man to interview. Yeah. But I think it would be worth trying. I wish, I wish somebody would try. And I wish somebody would present the whole thing without cutting it up.

SPEAKER_03: 52:55

I think you're the right guy for it. I'm you know uh you know what? So I was I was talking to uh uh I'm I'm a manager at work and everything, right? So I was talking to my staff about why I was gonna be meeting you here today and everything, and uh they all told me to say hi and they miss you, by the way. Like, yeah, so a lot everyone was was uh saying like yeah, we we miss we miss that guy on TV. Well I appreciate that. Um But they uh a lot of them agreed that like you know, we we I think a lot of people recognize you as like you know an Atlantic legend in the news world and and and and and a great interviewer, but I think like some people I I think people are sleeping, not to blow smoke up your ass anything, but a lot of people uh I think don't say out loud that you were even better than I think some people think. Well, you're awfully kind to say that. Because like you you got it.

SPEAKER_00: 53:46

You you you went at people the right way, like you got your answer. I mean I I tried, and the thing is, you know, I didn't I didn't succeed every day. And I I had lots of people. Some people are impossible, though. Well, some people are impossible. I think Mr. Trump is hard to interview. Yeah but I'll tell you something. Um, one of the people, uh one of the interviewers I most respected is the late Tim Russert, uh, who anchored the NBC's Meet the Press. And Tim Russert was, in my opinion, a brilliant uh uh interrogator. He was a lawyer by training, never practiced, but he he brought a lawyer's approach to interviews. He constructed very good interviews. He interviewed people in a in a tough way, but he was a nice guy about it. Yeah. Unless you were giving him a lot of baffle gab and then he came at you hard. I, if I could, I would love to see Tim Russert with Donald Trump. I think if Tim Russert hadn't died prematurely, uh very young man, at the height of his influence and and and career, he might have prevented Trump from being president because Russert had a way of revealing you know, again, uh this is the kind of thing that gets you in trouble with with Trump, but he's not gonna hear this.

SPEAKER_03: 54:57

I would love it if he did.

SPEAKER_00: 54:59

Russert was great at exposing frauds. Uh and Trump, more than anything else, is a showman. And really, I mean his entire narrative is fraudulent. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and and again, I'm not gonna listen, he's the president of the United States. I respect the high office he holds. I wish he would do do the office the favor of being dignified about it. Yeah. But I I I recognize that, I don't argue that, but I don't think if he were properly interrogated at the right stages that that that he would have gotten the job. And Russert might have been the guy. Anyway, we'll never know. God rest Timmy Russell. Um and and with that too, we uh we lost someone else map that. Yeah, we lost uh Colleen Jones. Oh yeah. Yeah, that I'll tell you that was another legend. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 55:45

Well, no, she is a legend. Yeah. Would have loved to have her on this podcast. I'm really sorry we won't get the chance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:51

Oh yeah. You know, I uh I got to know Colleen, obviously. We hired her on CJCH uh 40 some odd years ago. And uh she got the job because she was a great curler and because she was a great person and didn't have any broadcasting or journalism background, but boy, did she ever take to it. Or did it ever take to her? I'm not sure, I'm not sure which. Because I don't think she changed one bit. She got obviously more skilled, but her nature, her personality didn't. Yeah. And uh the other thing that Colleen never changed and didn't apologize for was that she was a fierce competitor. I mean, everybody agrees she was a really nice, kind, decent person, thoughtful, funny. But anybody who ever was on the ice against her, yeah, she was tough as nails. Well, you have to be to have the six level of success that she's had. And that's why she was the world champion.

SPEAKER_04: 56:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:43

And I underscore world champion. Multiple. Yeah. And curling, it's not as if we only do it in two countries like candlin bowling. No, no, it's true. Curling is a world sport, and she was the dominant uh woman in her sport for a long time. Yep. And she didn't get to be dominant by just being a softball. Yeah. Even though she was just a wonderful, wonderful person.

SPEAKER_03: 57:08

First female sports reporter in ever in Halifax.

SPEAKER_00: 57:12

First sport, a female sports anchor. Yeah. But I will point out, with no disrespect to my colleagues at the CBC, she did that for ATV before she did it there. That's fine, yeah. But that's okay. She's still the first. She's still the one. She's absolutely the first. Very good. And she and she was she was uh she loved it, and people loved her. I'll tell you cheers. So see uh I always called her CJ because the radio station was CJ when we heard CJ and CJ. But no, she was a wonderful lady, really wonderful person. Yeah, uh, extraordinary in everything she did. Great mama, too. Like, you know, fierce. Uh Heather and I were out with uh with Colleen and her son at a at an event not that long ago. She was there with with her son, and uh fiercely proud mama.

SPEAKER_03: 57:56

Oh yeah, good. Yeah, we we've uh we've lost a couple local people. We lost Peter Bayless this year too, recently, too.

SPEAKER_00: 58:03

Oh, that uh well my son and I were talking about that today. My son's uh a Mooseheads fan, always has been, and as a younger kid, uh yeah, uh everybody, everybody well, everybody loves Bayless.

SPEAKER_03: 58:14

Uh honestly, uh to this day, I don't think I it's just something about him. I'm not saying he's the greatest singer or whatever, but something about him always hits when you hear him sing our national anthem. I I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_00: 58:32

And he was a very good singer, it's not a question of that. But it was the way it was the on singing our anthem, that's all I mean. Well, no, fair enough. And and you know what? He I don't think Peter Bayliss would argue the point. I don't think so either. But the thing is he it was the way he did it. It was the it was the passion he brought to it, the enthusiasm he brought. And you know what? Let's face it, he became an essential part of the game. I mean, obviously, you know, it is about 60 minutes of hockey, yeah, but it's also about Ian Robinson on the PA and Bayless doing the anthem and Bobby Mack in the crowd, and it's about all of that, and he was such an essential part of the 10. Big time.

SPEAKER_03: 59:06

Yeah, it's yeah, it was uh it's gonna be a good one. Here's the Bayless. Here's two of them. Yeah, go moose, go. Go moose, yeah. Go moose.

SPEAKER_00: 59:14

Boy, oh boy.

SPEAKER_03: 59:15

Yeah, so I mean This has all happened this year, too. Oh, I know. Yeah, this it's like it's crazy. The amount of news that has happened this year. It's like, you know, I'm almost gonna blame Steve because he said, like, you know, on this last one, he was like, we'll come back and talk about the year.

SPEAKER_00: 59:31

You know what?

SPEAKER_02: 59:32

I wouldn't have predicted any of these topics of a year ago. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, like, I mean, again, like I and that's uh one of the another like thing about Trump is is we do lose sight of our own Atlantic presence and our own Atlantic news and what's going on in our own economy. It takes up so much of the air, right? And uh I guess that's something else that's it's really been a theme of our show this year, and we fell in into it honestly, but the Atlantic economy. Yeah, I mean, um it's wanted to talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00: 59:59

But I'm glad you're bringing that up because I know Don Mills has been on here a couple of times. I had the great pleasure of working with Don and Dave on their book launch. I highly commend that book. That's a great book. Uh no matter what side you've got to do. It's not an easy read. I mean, if you want an easy read, uh there's a lot of good complex thinking in that in the book. But their book also is beautifully detailed, lots of graphs and lots of points. And uh it isn't just their opinion, there's a lot of facts. Sure, there's some opinion. And Don has Don Mills has never been shy about his opinions. Yeah. And now, you know, he's been tapped to lead this this panel, where hopefully he gets a uh, you know, a good bully pulpit and people people listen. I'm not saying Don's right about everything, but Don's right about an awful lot.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:43

And a lot of it is attitudinal. Another Don who I really respect is Donald Savoie at the University of Moncton, who's also written some very, very good books uh about what we need to do in Atlantic Canada to reclaim our place as an economic power because that confederation we were an economic power on the continent. Yeah, not just in the country. Halifax and St. John and Sydney, these were continental cities of importance, along with Montreal. And it makes a lot of sense to think about where we are geographically in Toronto. Yeah. Yeah. But uh no, no, I mean Halifax and St. John in particular were very, very critical to Canada.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:21

I actually asked uh uh when we had uh Don and David on, I actually asked them if uh they thought that uh Federation was actually uh may have hurt Nova Scotia slash Halifax, which was an interesting he he didn't think so, but uh did it hurt?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:39

I think you could make the case that things would be a lot different had there not been confederation. I think we sacrificed a lot to build a country. Yeah. I think it was probably a sacrifice worth making, but I wish the country would recognize it. Because when I when I hear people in other parts of our nation, and I hear this more west of Quebec, you know, Quebec and Atlantic, Quebec and the Maritimes have always had a great relationship. Yes, agreed. Montreal Halifax St. John was was a triangulated economy. My wife's from there, so I love Montreal. I mean I would take it. Well, my wife's from Quebec City, but another place out of it. Mont Montreal, fabulous global city. But my whole point is that we did we sacrificed quite a bit to help build this country. Yeah. And I'm not sure that and you can't live on your past on your past accomplishments, but th they need to be kept in context. You know, there wouldn't have been an American Revolution without the city of Boston, without the city of Philadelphia, without New York. You can't you can't just pretend that America would exist without them. You can't pretend there's any Canada without Halifax, St. John, uh the major maritime cities. We were critical to it. Yeah. And we we we we we paid a high price. Was it worth it? Some would argue it was not. I don't know what the alternative would be. No, exactly. Would we be a three-province uh nation? Doubtful. Might we have become part of America? Possibly. Maybe, yeah. Would you want to be there right now? No.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:03

No, not quite.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:04

Maine doesn't want to be there right now. I think we have a great country.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:09

Yeah, we do. But I I also think that we have had Canadian values and we've had Canadian culture and we've had Canadian traditions that are worth preserving. Yep. And it's become even more clear to me since we've been challenged on our patriotism by the idea of becoming 51st? Uh a state, which look we wouldn't be a state. We'd have to be ten states or at least five states. But the whole point is we don't want that. We we could have gone that way. We chose a different way. Let's not forget why we chose a different way. Let's let's not give up on those things. These are Canadian things. Yeah. You know, I love it. There's there's there's only one thing that's pretty hard for Canada.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:53

I there's only one thing that comes to the top of my mind where like Americans got it more right than we did, and that's fourth down versus third down.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:01

Oh, well, that's a matter of opinion. Yeah don't get me started on the CFL because you know what? Um I I and I've said this my whole life, never get into it because I never felt that there was a team that was our team. That's very the the owls were a team and then they weren't a team, so we had basically the CFL from Ottawa West. Yeah, yeah. Could we support a team here? Do you think there should be a CFL team?

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:23

I think there should be, and I think we could. Yeah. I think if we if it it can't be like we can't go out there and like call a team the Halifax, whatever. It does need to be the Atlantic. I agree. I mean, obviously you still need Halifax. It can't be in Moncton. Uh like you know, it can't be in New Brunswick, unfortunately, because people from Halifax aren't gonna go there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:41

Yeah, well, the interesting thing though is if you if you look, and this is not my idea, I think this may be Don's idea, actually, Don Mills. If you look at what he calls the Moncton Halifax Corridor, and it does it does leave out a couple of important population centers, but they're not far away, Fredericton and St. John. Yep. But if you and the Annapolis Valley and and so on. But if you look at the amount of population in the corridor from Halifax to Moncton, it's a big, big population group. Sure is. Yeah. Because it includes obviously the 500,000 plus people in the Halifax metro area. It includes all the people in the Truro Bible Hill area, even really the catchment area into the Annapolis Valley into Picto County, it's not that far. So you then you put the stadium halfway, is what you're saying? No. No. No, I think you put the stadium in the place where a stadium can be supported otherwise. And by that I mean, and there's a nice little stadium at the UDM. Yeah. Uh it's a small stadium. I think that Halifax is the right place for a stadium, uh, but not just because of football, but also because of soccer, also because of concerts. Right. We have the we have the tides here now, too. We do. Yeah. But we also have a half million people within a 35-40 minute drive of the building. Yep. I think that's I think that's the I think that's the that's the deciding factor.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:56

But I think people will come. I mean, they already they like people come from Moncton and Cape Breton to go to IKEA for freak's sake. True.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:02

But you see, Ikea, you know, again, here we go. This is a little too commercial, maybe. IKEA is a stadium. Think about it. No, no, Ikea is a stadium. You know, the first IKEA in North America was in Halifax. Do you remember that? It was in Burnside, but it was a small store. That's right. But it was their first foray into the North American market. Yeah. Then they closed. And it took a long time to come back, but you'll notice they came back really big. Did they? With a stadium-sized store.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:31

I go, well, I am forced to go there sometimes with my wife and son because they like to just walk through it and look to see if they like things and get meatballs. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:42

I get lost in there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:43

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan. Uh I I mean that I'm not a Costco guy either, though. I don't like any of the pictures. I don't like being in most stores. Yeah. But I will say, IKEA, Costco, I mean, like the Costco's great. They have food, they have good prices on things and everything, right? IKEA, again, they have affordable things for people to buy and all that stuff. It's great. I just don't like being in stores. That's not an IKEA problem. That's not an Ikea problem.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:09

That's a me problem. But your point, your analogy, though, to a stadium is a good one. People do come from all over to shop there because it's a stadium-sized store. It is. It's a major market venue. How are we supposed to get Taylor Swift here if we don't have a stadium? Taylor Swift was here, you know that. I do know that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:26

She did open for uh uh what was it uh Durban or something like that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:30

Somebody who's been forgotten in the ash heap of no no.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:33

Yeah, there was a picture just posted of her actually just. I've forgotten that she played here, but she didn't. Yeah, she was like 15 at the time or 16 at the time or something like that. Whatever happened to her anyway. Just complete flop of career.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:44

Maybe it didn't work out for Taylor Swiss. Yeah, no, it's doing okay. She's doing all right. Yeah, she's only a millionaire. She made it through 2025 on Ski thing for the most part. Yeah, she's engaged. Yeah, engaged. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:54

Congratulations, Taylor. Cheers to you. But back back to stadium, yeah. We we we should have a stadium. I by the way, I think what Derek Martin has done with uh with our football here, soccer is fantastic. Okay, but I don't think we should build a stadium. No disrespect to Derek. We don't we don't want to build a stadium for that purpose. I agree. I think we need a stadium that can can multipurpose. Multipurpose, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:16

Needs to be multipurpose. And I we talked about this with Donna. I mean, I I can understand like back in 2019, 20 specifically 2020, I guess, because we're in the middle of a pandemic and a lot of funds are going towards fighting a pandemic. Uh, I don't think that was the time to put dollars to that. But now is the time. And I'm okay with tax dollars because we want doctors, we want professionals here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:36

And those people agree with all that. But uh, you know, again, to me, this this debate has too often come down to the role of government. I think government does have a role to play in all public infrastructure. I mean, uh let me go down a small rabbit hole before we merge at the other end. Do you remember the great debate about whether to build a convention center? Do you remember the great debate about we don't need a convention center? Okay, I just did an event for the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia at the convention center we go Saturday night. We had 600 people there, they raised 450,000 bucks for mental health. That's one of that's awesome. That's one of many major local events that goes on in the building. I said to Mr. Ramier when I Joe Ramia when I saw him the building is not just a convention center, it's a community facility. Sure is. It's part of our social infrastructure, it's where we go to celebrate and raise money. Yeah, like I mean, yeah, we're and the stadium's the same thing. Yeah, but the government didn't build the building. Yes, the government put money into Joe Ramia's building. Joe Ramia built the building. Yes. So let's get some people here who want to build a stadium. Yes. They want to invest in the infrastructure. Yes, government's got to step up. Yep. But we need good private leadership to step up too. We need a new Metro Center, too, by the way. Agreed, yes. We do.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:50

Not because I mean I love going to the Scotiabank Center.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:53

No, it's the Metro Center.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:54

We'll always be. Well, we'll be able to do that. Don't talk about tradition versus change. That's true. But let's not deny Scotiabank. You know, they put a lot of cash in there. They've they've really helped improve the joint. No, they have, they have, it's true. But I mean, great many memories in there. But you know what? We're we we can we can uh we we can make the case for a bigger than a 10,000 seater now. I think. I think we need a 15,000, 16,000 seat building. Uh mooseheads are busting at the city. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:14

They are they're busting at the concerts even, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:18

But with all due respect, I I don't want the government to build it. I want some I want somebody in the business community to say, let's build the building and then bring all the all the players to the table.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:27

But they I think we will if we have government saying we have tax dollars available to help. To help. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:34

Yeah. Same with the stadium. I'd like the universities to be involved in the stadium. And I know the universities are on are on hard times because of foreign students. Yeah, they're down, yeah. But I think we've got some great uh we've got some great universities in this town, and they're economic engines, often overlooked as economic engines, but Dow and St. Mary's particularly, and and the mount. These are economic engines in our community. But they also are in a position to invest in this kind of infrastructure because they can use it. They can use it for their own purposes. They have football teams, they have soccer teams, they do, track and field and all that stuff. But they've also got a big donor base. They also have a big donor base. They do. No, you're right. And and they do a lot of good work in the community, not often recognized, but they do. And they they fund scholarships and they're they're educating a lot of young people. And uh I give them full credits for that. But get them to the table too.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:25

And it's great for another thing, too, which uh I think you're leading another uh show this week, weekend you said, uh, of tourism. You know, it's been a great year for Atlantic tourism. Um that's something that's been tremendously up. So maybe that's people staying away from the U.S. We don't really know. Yeah, it is. Um people staying home. People staying home staying home. Uh but I mean I've I've certainly I had a pretty well we went oh my gosh, I didn't get a chance to tell you. After our first conversation, I went to Ireland with my dad and my brother. You did, yes, good for you, and it was awesome. Absolutely loved it. We went down to Galway, went up kind of like the uh east uh western side of Ireland. We didn't go to Northern Ireland, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:03

So go back and go to the north and go to the earth. Make sure you go to the east too, the ancient east of Ireland's beautiful. Oh man, it was unbelievable. That's right. I'm gonna take an opportunity again. It's a bit of a name drop, but yeah, hasn't the airport been doing a great job? Hasn't Westjet stepped up? Yes with European destinations. Look at Air Canada, just added Brussels from now.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:21

We uh we my my wife and I were ready to go. We had our trip pretty much planned out that we were gonna fly into Munich and we were gonna go from Munich and drive and hit Italy and Sylvania and down to Croatia. And WestJet comes out and says direct flights to Portugal. And we're like, whoo!

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:37

So you're going.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:37

Yeah, we've it's booked.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:39

Don't you do I mean if you don't mind me asking, what did you pay for a flight to Portugal?

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:43

Do you remember? Uh for three tickets, yeah, picking our seats and carry-on, or whatever, check luggage or whatever, everything was 2400 bucks. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:54

Three and that's door to door, and by that I mean Halifax Airport to Europe and by the way. Sure it is. No, and we uh Heather and I went to we did Amsterdam and then uh connected down and met some friends in in Italy. Look, how great it is that Halifax is emerging as a European destination. And you know what? We may have President Trump to thank for that. Because maybe if we're not traveling down there, we're traveling over there. And WestJet, by the way, which has not been uh an Atlantic Canadian operator, nope, is now running what is it, is it 10, 11 European destinations? Yeah, it's 11, I think. I think it is 11, yeah. And Air Canada steps up with Brussels, which is a great airport to connect to U.S.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:33

And you know what? Yeah, kind of shout out to some of some we talked about this uh with Don Mills too, but shout out to someone who else we want our on our show is Joyce Carter. Get her on, hope to get her on next year. Yeah, we want to get her on. Uh obviously she's leading the way, kind of really selling our airport and doing a great job at it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:48

And Halifax Airport will be nice if they ever get it finished. I mean it's but you know what, that's a sign of a growing airport. No, that's true. And and again, I don't I don't love the plywood when you come in from Europe because it's it they're under renovations. Yeah, yeah. But it's a good sign that the airport is building and rebuilding. Look at all the places to go out there and get a pint or to get a meal compared with a few years.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:09

I just I just flew into I just flew into Pearson and like half the stuff was under construction when I got there. Oh yeah. Right? Same thing. Like I flew there in in October. Yeah. And like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:19

So what's what is this Atlantic tourism thing about that you're doing this week?

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:22

Uh well it's uh they uh Thank you, sir. They uh it's the uh Tourism Industry Association uh is having a major event in town. Uh they haven't done it for a couple of years. And uh I'm down emceeing their awards dinner. Oh it'll be tonight, December 2nd, at the Weston. Nice. And you know, we've got a lot to celebrate in tourism in this province. Sure do. Um when I came to Halifax in 1980, tourism as an industry was worth a fraction of a billion dollars, which is law money. You know what tourism is worth uh this year?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:55

Ooh, I'm gonna go with I'm gonna show to 1.8 billion.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:02

You are about half of the value of tourism. Wow. It's three point five billion dollars. Wow. It's a three point five billion dollar industry. Yeah, and when I in Nova Scotia alone. In Nova Scotia alone. When I came here in 1980, I think it was around half a billion, and they were saying we can grow this to a billion. They've grown it to three and a half billion. Yes, it's 45 years, but three and a half billion dollars. That's a major industry in this province. It's it's up there with all of our top industries, always has been.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:31

What's PEO yet? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:35

As a percentage of their gross provincial product, it's probably more. Probably a little more than they're small and they're seasonal. Yeah, yeah. But when you stop to consider that uh, you know, Nova Scotia, we are we forget this because we live here. Yeah, we're at the edge of the continent. You you you have to come here on purpose. Yes. You you don't drive through, it's not like Saskatchewan. You can't do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:58

He's like, I'm in the armpit of Canada. Uh what movie was that? Gosh, it was like Trader or something. It was this old movie. It came out 20 years ago. Gosh, I guess. Sorry, but anyway, so we're going to go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:07

I'm gonna have to go Google it. Yeah, yeah. But my whole point is Nova Scotia is a purposeful destination. We come here on purpose. Yes. That's why we need to keep a ferry. That's why we need the flights from Europe, that's why we need a big airport, that's why we need good roads. You have to drive here on purpose. That's right. You're not gonna get here by mistake. All right, uh, so yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:28

It's all a good job with that. That's the thing that that that's the you're you're kind of laying out the the thing that I always say, that everything is connected here. Like you we need leadership, uh whether it be private or public, that understands that if you want to attract doctors, you need entertainment, which means you need a stadium for whatever whether it's sports or other music or whatever, right? Plays, whatever. Agreed. So if you want those types of people to stay here and and you have to try to compete with the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Toronto Blue Jays, you need things for them to do. Right. Right? It's the same thing with tourism. You need the roads because you don't want people like banging up their cars as they're driving along.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:04

Well, they won't come back.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:05

They won't come back, exactly. It's all those connectives. We need leadership that makes those decisions.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:09

Just to backtrack on something you you just said, uh another piece of social infrastructure we need here is an intermediate building between the Rebecca Cohn size and the Metro Center. That's fair. So I was uh we were down to a few shows at the Metro Center this year that at Scotiabank, they've had some good shows. You know, Foreigner was in there, they had five or six thousand people, it's a quite great show. But we need about a 5,000 seat auditorium because there are a lot of uh acts and a lot of uh good good acts. Great standup acts, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And they're not gonna play in the Metro Center. That's fair. They're not, yeah, and and and the cone isn't big enough. So we need an intermediate-sized building, and we also need a bigger building than the Metro Center. Yeah, um, but again, I want to see the private sector step up and take the leadership on this, and then I I would like to see government see where it can fit in. But I really do think there's a good case to be made for those two pieces of uh of critical social. I call it social infrastructure, but it's yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:04

That theme was around in 2024, Matt, and it's still going on. So build a stadium. I guess that's been going on forever. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:11

I'd like to see about a 20,000. Yeah. I think maybe we could do a 10, we might do a 12,000 seat that could expand to a 20. That might be something we could do. Um 20,000 would be that would be large.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:23

Uh that's on the larger side of the NHL stadiums, but I mean, easily we could do 16, 17. Oh, you mean for hockey and so on?

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:32

Oh, I'm at a I'm at a stadium, like an outdoor building.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:35

Sorry, uh you know my brain was in the investor center.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:37

We're saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:38

But yes, no, a hundred percent outdoors, yeah, we need 20. Oh, 100% we need 20.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:42

Or at least expandable to 20? Yeah. Because not every event you're gonna do, I don't know, can Derek Martin put twenty in there for for soccer? Maybe maybe he can, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:50

I don't know, but I mean I don't think in a lot of cases like this, depending on how uh detailed your stadium is, uh, you don't need to fill your stadium to make it worth it, right? I mean, you look at uh the um if you go to the the Quebec Stadium, the name is escaped me. But I think it's videotron. Videotron, thank you. Yeah. So I've been to that stadium a few times, and it's it's a it's a bare bones, like you know, I know they wanted to bring they built that to bring the Nordique back, and I was in there and I was like, eh. It's it's a step up from the Metro Center. It's NHLable though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:25

They they could put NHL.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:26

They could probably fit some things in there, but if you go to the Bell Center, if you go to the Scotia Bank Arena, those things blow them out of the water. It looks it looks like the Metro Center.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:36

I was at the Bell Center two weeks ago for Paul McCartney. Oh, sweet. Oh wow, nice. Yeah, yeah. What a building, but hey, what a show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:43

How long do how long was it set? Like, did he stay for a while?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:45

Would you believe two hours and fifty minutes? The guy's 83 years old. Wow. And he went hard for 250. Remarkable. He doesn't look 83. My God. And he doesn't behave 83. You know, the amount of energy he brought to the and and and the interesting thing is, uh sorry, we're going way off topic. That's great, yeah. He's not doing it for the money because he's one of the richest musicians in the world. He's like a billionaire or something. He he he's doing it because he still likes it, and you can see that he takes genuine joy from walking out there and being venerated, no question.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:17

Of course.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:17

He's one of the greatest songwriters of my lifetime. But the whole point is he's doing it for the joy of it. It isn't about the money. Oh, the amount of money they're making. He's probably making a ridiculous amount of money. 75 bucks for a t-shirt, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20:31

Oh my gosh. I got to do it. Well, I guess the Beatles Anthology showed Paul is really good, eh? There's a there's a brand new Beatles anthology show that just came out uh on Disney. Uh Disney Plus or whatever. I really want to watch it. It looks fantastic. There's a new McCartney doc coming as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:46

Oh, is there cool? McCartney started the set, by the way, with a Beatles tune, which he's been doing on this tour, which he never did, but he started with help. Yeah. There you go. Nice.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:54

Anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:55

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:55

That that's kind of the news, but there's something that I want to like talk to you because there's something you said to us that you really wanted to like, because we asked you what's next for Steve Murphy. So like, what have you been doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:08

Well, I'll tell you what I've been doing. Um, I've been doing well a lot of the charity work that I always did. I'm still doing Christmas Daddies, uh, the IWK. I've been doing uh some speeches, uh some MC work. I've been doing uh television every other week, of course. Uh I've been doing a little bit of writing. When I'm away in the winter, I still uh contribute things to uh ctv.ca. And the other thing I've been doing uh that isn't you know by way of work is catching up on all the reading I didn't get to do when I was reading for a living. Uh because you know when you're doing an interview, you've got to read the book. What do you like to read?

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:45

Yeah, what do you like to read?

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:46

Well, I'll tell you, Heather and I are both into Louise Penny's Inspector Gamash series right now, which is I highly recommend it. She's brilliant. She's got a new one out, uh Black Wolf, which just came out this year. But it's a 20-book series, set in Quebec in the Eastern Townships, beautiful book, uh, beautiful series. And we're into it, and it's very addictive. But there is an end coming because she's only got 20, 21 books. And I think Heather's almost finished, and I'm at book 15 or 16. Uh so no, but but I'm still I I'm reading a lot of uh fiction because I never got a chance to read fiction. Okay, cool. That's fair. Yeah. And I'm reading a lot of non-fiction. I just finished 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Yeah. Probably I I can't think of a book I enjoyed more this year. It's a brilliant take on the stock market crash of 29, what really led to it. All of the personalities that led to it. And they're all in there, all the bankers, but Churchill's in there, Roosevelt's in there, Coolidge is in there, Herbert Hoover's in there. All these fascinating people are in there. And it's a great, great book. So yeah, lots of lots of that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:52

Great question.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:53

Yeah. I thought it was the accuracy. See, you know, because I know I know you wanted to, you know, you're not you're retired, but not retired. I say rewired. Rewired.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:01

I think it's a good way to be, a good way to live. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, we had something there, Matt. Maybe you can ask the question. My phone's off. So um uh uh what's I had it near the end there. Yeah, that uh the headline one? Yeah, that's that one.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:17

So what headline story from 2025 will history say mattered the most?

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:24

We took a second.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:25

Here's where you might end at a long pause. I'd have to let me think about that. The headline story from 2025 that mattered the most. That's a very, very clever question. Because you're not really asking uh so much about the the present. You're asking maybe in in the future when we look back, what will be the most significant. Don't say 6'7, okay? Because people will not be able to do that. I I don't even know what that is. I I've tried to it's a bit like crypto. Like I I I keep reading the definitions and the explanations, but I walk away going, no.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:01

It'll be like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The answer is 6-7, you know, instead of 42. Oh, is that it? Did you ever read the Hitchhiker's Guy to the Galaxy? Long time ago.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:11

Oh, it is a great book. Cool book. Okay, the most so we're talking about the most impactful boy, that's that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:20

Big event of 2025 that'll carry on.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:24

Ooh, boy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:26

Aliens are looking or we're looking at ourselves back on this year.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:29

What's the big thing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:31

Well, I mean, the headline might be, although it uh it actually occurred in in 2024 that that uh President Trump was re-elected. But um, you know, it I I it's whether you like him or not, it's hard to argue that everything Donald Trump does has uh significant effect. Global implications almost every everyone in the globe talks about everything that man does.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:55

Exactly right. And it certainly the effect that Mr. Trump has had on our own country, uh nobody in this country voted for him, except American Americans who live here. But you know, uh we have been more affected by Donald Trump and his policies, probably uh than by almost anything that's happened in Canada.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:15

I think he's helped unite us when we were starting to fall apart a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:19

Yeah, yeah, he has had a unifying effect. And you know, the the the the election of President Trump and his policies influenced the the election in this country. Did did it elect Mark Carney? I'm not prepared to say it's quite as simple as that, but no, it was certainly a factor. But I think that probably when the the history of the period is written, Donald Trump is going to be one of the major figures. I'm not going to draw any hasty analogies to other figures from politics, but the the rise of political figures, individuals, uh in the 20th century often did have very wide-ranging effects for generations.

SPEAKER_03: 1:25:57

I will I'll I'll say this and hopefully I don't get any flack for anything, but uh I mean I technically didn't get it, but uh I uh I had some family who went to the US this year and came back with a gift for me because they thought it was funny, but they came back with a MAGA hat. And uh so I do have it, the red, you know, 45, 47. And uh something like you know, my wife was like, why do you want that? Why we why would you keep that? I'm like, this is going to be history in the making.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:28

And already historically.

SPEAKER_03: 1:26:31

So it's like I I I it hangs, you know, in the back of the closet, like not on display or anything like that. He puts it on every once in a while, just looks at himself in the mirror and smiles. No, but I just uh I I I was like, you know what, this is gonna be a piece of Americana that is going like you know somebody somebody I know uh said they were going to give me a MAGA hat.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:50

Oh yeah. And it said make America go away. But you know, uh can I I I maybe I shouldn't say this. No, I think I should say it because I think a lot of Canadians feel this way. I don't dislike America. I don't, and I don't dislike Americans. We still love America. We love everything about America. I just don't I don't care for the style and the tone that's coming from the top.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:11

But I still think that the United States has been a force for so much good in in in the world, in our lifetime. Of course. And I think that you know, I always loved and my son Brendan and I went to he's a huge baseball fan. I'm a Red Sox fan. I'm not a blue days. Yeah, Brendan is too. We went to a major league ballpark every year for for his 28 years. Uh we were at Defenway many times, but we were also in Washington and both buildings in Chicago. We were in Milwaukee and we were in Atlanta. I mean, the whole point is I love the United States. Yeah. I I never wanted to be an American. I don't want to be an American. No, I like I like it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:48

As a kid, you dream of going to California. Like did like I mean, when I was a kid, I thought California sounded the coolest. Have you been to California? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've been there since. It's well, I mean, I mean, as a kid, one of the best but you dream of these iconic American. Oh no, it's true. No, you're completely.

SPEAKER_03: 1:28:02

One of the best vacations I had ever been on was just last year, like last summer. Um, and uh my my wife and son and I, we went to we flew into Vegas, and we went to Utah, Arizona, and then back to Vegas. Very nice. It was one of the best vacations I ever have in my life. And I've been, you know, to Europe a handful of times and like traveled around, went down south. This was one of the best vacations I'd ever gone on because the the terrain is good. We did some hiking, like there's just some like really cool things to experience.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:33

Yeah, it was great. And and and again, I think it's important maybe for us to remember, and we are you know, we're closer to the United States geographically, physically than any other people on earth, with our friends in Mexico. Yeah. Uh obviously they're very close uh as well. But uh America, to me, the United States of America, has always been sort of a bit of a tougher country than we are in in some respects, but it was never a mean country. Yeah, it was never mean. You didn't have to agree with them all the time, and and I think quite often we didn't. Right. But I I I never had a feeling that the Americans were were mean people. And there's a meanness about America now that doesn't seem to be American.

SPEAKER_02: 1:29:14

I don't think Americans are mean. I think I think is uh it's a very slim minority. It's the loudest voices from the darkest corners and probably in the worst situations.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:23

And here's a bitter irony for all of the talk that is going on now about uh immigration in America. Yeah, by the way, Canada has had to curtail immigration. That's right. Curtailing immigration doesn't necessarily mean you're anti-immigrant. We've had some problems in Canada because of population, and immigration is part of that. Yeah. But when America turns on immigrants, it's turning on its own history. 100%. I totally agree with that. 100%. That's what they were founded on, right? And so were we. So are we, a hundred percent. I mean, not none of us is here because of thousands of years of the city.

SPEAKER_03: 1:29:54

No, no, no, no. Exactly. I you know, some of that, like, you know, you know, we'll call it to the old triangle. We'll we'll we'll we'll look at like some of the stuff like the the rate, like, you know, racism that it is, where it's like people will sit, you know, they see parades of a you know a culture that may have you know maybe from overseas, and people are like, what do you think of this? And I'm like, uh I think it's no different than a Santa Claus parade.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:16

I think it's fantastic. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:17

Right? It's great. You know what? I I like to experience other other cultures and other cultural cult other cultures' food.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:24

So if they can bring it to me, then you know that's but but again, this is this is why when I hear meanness of spirit one more meaning coming from the top in the in in the United States.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:36

Like I said, it it doesn't feel right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:38

It comes from the White House media social media accounts. It's not just it's at the highest level you're getting thrown down, and then that just entices an audience of the right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:48

And let me also say this I mean, in in this country, uh there's some meanness in our politics. Of course there is. But most Canadians are going to bristle against meanness. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:59

I'm gonna ask for a prediction from you, speaking on the topic of meanness. Sure. Indirectively Do you think sixty days from now there will be a different leader at the uh Federal Conservative Party?

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:15

Sixty days from now, being December 2nd, uh February 2nd, will there be a different no, there will not. I think Mr. Polyev will survive his uh leadership because he gets to basically set the rules. I mean, you know, Joe Clark got 66 percent support and said it wasn't enough. Uh Pierre Polyev would not say that, yeah, but I think he will get more than 66 percent. Interesting. But I do think the Conservative Party, the whole party, including uh the various factions that include progressive conservatives and others, need to ask themselves about the style and the tone of the leadership of the. The party. I think Pierre Polyev is quite a smart man, by the way. Oh, I don't think he's dumb. I've heard a lot of people calling Mr. Polyev a lot of names. I'm not into that. I think I've listened to him over the years. He was always sharp. He was always chirpy and chippy. Yep. He needs to be less chirpy and chippy. And the Conservative Party needs to ask itself: is it really the party of the reform movement of Preston Manning? Yes. Or is it the party of Peter McKay and Brian Mulroney? Yes. And then it needs to reassert what it is. And uh you maybe have to set aside the question of what do we have to say to get elected. Yeah. Because Pierre Polyev got more votes than any conservative leader since 19, I think it was 84. Maybe 88. Wow. But he's not Prime Minister of Canada, and the reason he's not is because there was resistance to his style and his tone as the agent of change.

SPEAKER_03: 1:32:52

And I think he wouldn't have gotten that if Kearney had more runway.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:58

You may well be right. Right. Kearney was quite uh I don't I don't like to call Prime Ministers by their last name. It's weird. Uh Mr. Prime Minister Kearney uh was relatively untested and unknown when he got elected.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:11

Yes. Yeah. It's uh Polyev was better known. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:17

I was thinking when you got Michael Myers in the hockey room with him. That's what I think he won, personally. But you guys you guys think what you wanted.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:23

You're saying that to be funny, but I think you're not wrong about it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:27

It flipped the whole thing around. It was just like, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33:30

It showed the boring banker had some humor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:33

But the boring the boring banker image is only one of his images. The guy's actually a pretty good athlete. He was pretty good as a hockey player. He played at a quite a high level.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33:40

But he also exercises a lot of humility. And I think that's something can't a lot of Canadians do take a certain sense of pride in. And I think that's where Mr. Kearney.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:51

Who was it who said that it's important to know what you don't know? And uh I can't remember who coined that or who I'm quoting. But Mr. Kearney got to be Prime Minister by knowing that he didn't know a lot about politics. And who's even leaning on since he's been Prime Minister on the hard politics? Who is the Trudeau minister who is still an important minister to Mark Carney? The most able politician in the cabinet is Dominic LeBlanc.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:22

Dominic LeBlanc, I've known Dominic LeBlanc for many years. Dominic LeBlanc is a very able guy. Dominic LeBlanc is the kind of guy who's got the brass knuckles and he can deliver the hard punch, but he will do it in a way where you'll ask him to do it again. He's he's very skilled. And Mr. Carney has leaned on him heavily for the politics.

SPEAKER_03: 1:34:45

Lean on the on the politics side, but then one of the things that I've really enjoyed is um I and I think we talked about this with Don, is uh what I've liked about what he's done is he's uh traveled around the world, finding new partners to deal with, and he's done it uh like relatively quietly. And what I mean by that, obviously there's press releases and there's photos and stuff like that, but like it's not it doesn't feel as showboaty as some of the other politicians in the past that I've seen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:19

Interesting because uh you know he's he's new to politics, but he's got a very impressive Rolodex. Yes, you know, a lot of people will take his call because they've already talked to him. Exactly. I'm sure when he calls Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Keir Starmer doesn't need somebody to say, oh yeah, he's the Prime Minister of Canada. He's thinking, oh yeah, he was Governor of the Bank of England. Exactly. And because we've been at the same cocktail parties. Yes. So I think that he's played that very well, and I, you know, I think we need a a lot of that. Yeah. But on the on the subject of hard politics, Mark Carney is not a uh well-experienced politician. He's been around a lot of politicians. He's only ever won how many elections? Yeah, the one. One. Right. He had to he had to get elected leader of the Liberal Party. But he's only been elected member of parliament once. By the yeah, by the people. So that's why he's he's leaned on a guy like Dom Lavlaw, who I think Dominic's been he's been MP, he's not an old he was elected as a boy, practically. No, and Dominic Libre. Some people say that he's one of the more powerful people in this country. Oh no, he is. Yeah. Oh, I don't think there's any doubt that he is. Yeah. And I think that the fact that we don't know that is part of the reason he's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:29

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:31

Yeah. But politically, he's very, very astute. And I have no I have no doubt that uh if there is going to be a trade deal with the United States, and by the way, I'm not convinced that there will be, uh, but Dominic LeBlanc will be at the table when when the arm wrestling goes on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:36:47

Yeah. There's been some interesting thoughts around the whole trade deal stuff. Some people are actually thinking that uh they uh might come up ahead. Well, we might come out ahead because the longer, yeah, like that that's what uh Don was saying is like the longer this goes, actually the better it is for Canada.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:03

Uh debatably. But don't forget the Prime Minister is sending some messages when he says things like, who cares? And uh well, I talked to Trump, but it wasn't newsworthy. Yeah. He's sending another message, which is that maybe this isn't what we should be so preoccupied with, and maybe we can get by without it. Right. But we won't get we won't get by without it without without. If for no other reason that they're just over there. That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_03: 1:37:34

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well they're they're they're a big client and they're right next door. But we're a big client. And we're right next door.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:39

Yeah. Doug, listen, it's back and forth. I I have I have a sense that automobiles are going to be the big change. Yeah. That and energy, which was actually here somewhere.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:51

We might have skipped over it, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:53

We're gonna win on energy. We might we might lose on automobile.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:56

Energy is the thing. I think politics, I I had a question in there. Uh we I don't even need it was I don't know where the heck it was. Maybe I deleted it, but but uh but but it was about energy and how I think energy is going to drive politics in the future, right? This is going to be the basics. Right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:13

But there's a lot going on with like the progressive conservative right now, and like our current government in Nova Scotia, they're focusing on energy. It's in the forefront right now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:21

Yeah, we didn't get into that. Yeah. Uh I thought it was interesting that in the past few days the Premier's been talking about oil and gas because he's been all about wind. Yes. Oil and gas is a very time to pull another thing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:37

But yes, oil and gas is this week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:39

We'll see whether any companies want to go after oil and gas. Nobody wanted to go after uranium yet. Right. Yeah, there's no no bites on that, that's for sure. Wind though? I don't know. I I I kind of hope that Premier Houston was right about wind.

SPEAKER_03: 1:38:51

I hope so too.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:52

Sounds like a huge prospect of it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:38:55

I mean, I I love the prospect of us having this having something that really drives our economy that, you know, quite frankly, we we set and forget. Yeah. I mean, not to sound frank, you know, but that's what you want, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:06

And there's there's wind's gonna be forever. There's those rumors of that uh like tidal uh like hydro might be back in the top. I know it's been difficult, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:18

Yeah, well, I mean uh the the the curiosity there is that the reason the tidal power hasn't worked is because the tides are too are too strong. Yeah, that's an engineering problem. And I'm sure you guys know some engineers. Engineers love problems like this. They do. And you know what? They'll figure that out.

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:34

Right. I and I hope they do because they will. Like uh every day could probably power this entire province, like no problem. No question. Yeah. The power, the force that comes in through you know, through the Bay of Fundy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:45

Well, don't forget we had a little demonstration project down there in Annapolis Royal. We've had tidal power in Nova Scotia. Tidal power isn't theoretical. No, no, it's not theoretical. The question is, is it possible at the the high level?

SPEAKER_03: 1:39:56

We've had yeah, we've had some damaged equipment and eaten up fish and all this other other problems that we need to figure out. But uh yeah, once someone figures it out, I think that's a renewable energy that Nova Scotia could be like we'll we'll be Canada could light up the globe if we can figure that out. Like, yeah. Here's that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:16

Better that we go with tidal power and and wind and sun. Yeah, that's not super efficient. The sun doesn't always come out. That's true. That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:25

That'd be that'd be maritime luck, you know. You build a whole solar power system or something, and you just get no sun for a year. Yeah, yeah. That would that'd be true maritime luck. For a year. No more droughts. We just go away that year. Yeah. It's the year.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40:40

Yeah. No, sometimes it seems like a year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:40:42

Steve, this has been awesome. Awesome. Uh I I want to say that I I didn't want to say anything because I did not want to stop this episode. You're our longest episode of the year. Maybe you should end this. No. Not not happening, my friend. Oh, well, what's it? But uh, but thank you so much for for coming back with us, closing of the year. I hope we can talk to you again sincerely in 2026.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:04

I enjoyed it. And by the way, I had tremendous feedback uh the last time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:08

Awesome. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:09

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:10

What did they say? Did they say, like, you know, that young guy needs to learn some journalistic skills? Did they say anything about Matterai? They we need to we need to shut up a little more, starting to be able to do that. No, no, no, keep it in.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:22

I gotta learn. We need to it's always interesting to me. What people actually hear and what they listen to. Yeah. And I it for me, it's always a a valuable uh metric to know that people I heard I heard you on the Afternoon Pipe podcast, or I I heard you on the Todd Vino show, or I you know I saw your piece on TV. To me, that's more valuable than ratings because it takes, first of all, somebody has to actually hear it or see it. That's fair. And the second thing is they actually have to come up to you out of the blue and tell you. Yeah. So yeah, that that matters to me. Cool. It's great.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:53

So anything we should fix for next year, you think?

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:56

You mean on the podcast? No, you know the way we're going. Give us some work with it, because a little little bit of well. Do your listeners know you're doing well? And that's that's important. Uh and I think that's great. Because finding finding uh an audience in the podcast universe is not easy. As you guys well know. There are millions of podcasts. Yes, there really are. And some of them are listened to by three people. Yes, right. Yeah. And sometimes two of the three are the people who did the podcast. So if if you can make a case, a business case for your podcast, you're doing something right. And you are. So good audience.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:29

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. And thank you so much if you're still listening to the super long episode. We we totally appreciate it. We appreciate you. Christmas Daddies. Cheers to 2025. Please check out and support the Christmas Daddies. It's one of the best charities, maybe ever going in Nova Scotia. And uh, and I guess the last bit is we have one more episode. It's just our Christmas special, which is not an interview guest, it's just a very uh terrible um uh what should I say, revamp of a Christmas Carol radio show done by Matt and myself. Do you give sarcastic gifts to people and things? Oh, yeah, yeah. Swing Entertainment's in that one and and uh Laura Fleming. Yeah. Uh please join in and and hear our hear that last one. Thank you so much, guys, and and have a great one. Cheers to all of you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for listening to us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:14

Thank you. Thanks.