Confiscation, Compliance, and the Canadian Malaise

In this wide-ranging and unsparing conversation, Trevor and John dissect the growing gulf between political optics and lived reality in Canada and beyond. From firearm “buybacks” that punish the law-abiding while leaving criminals untouched, to a judiciary and regulatory state increasingly detached from consequence, the discussion exposes a nation drifting from aspiration toward compliance. They examine Canada’s structural economic decay, energy self-sabotage, and the quiet loss of confidence among its youth, before widening the lens to China, the United States, and a rapidly shifting global order. At its core, this episode asks a dangerous question: what happens when optimism is replaced by administration—and Leviathan fills the void? 

Trevor Parry has an encyclopedic knowledge of tax and an unmatched determination that you will pay less of it. 

A lawyer with exceptional academic credentials and a profound believer in personal responsibility, he is on a crusade against the overreaching mega-state. 

For Trevor, creating Canada’s most innovative tax-saving strategies is not a job. It is a calling. 

There remain but a few strategies for starving #Leviathan of tax, and but a few experts who can execute them. 

#leviathanmustbestopped #taxlawyer #taxrelief #taxlaw 

Website: https://trevorparry.com/ 

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Transcript

0:06

Once again, welcome to Leviathan Must Be Stopped, where I know all my good Canadian friends sitting inside in the frozen tundra are at home reading, of course, the scintillating agenda of our wonderful Prime Minister Mr. Mark Carney. I actually recommend people, actually go to the library and borrow it. He doesn't need the royalty money, but it’s certainly worth the read. And as I said before, anybody who uses“normative” in a sentence, you simply can't trust. We are joined today by my dear friend, the vanquisher of arguments, the scion of Durham. One day, we got to get you a King's Counsel somehow Johnny, but Johnny Wakelin is joining us for a frank discussion over some of the topics that we face in Canada and abroad. Thanks for having me, Trev. It's always a pleasure. So, this morning I was preparing for our call, and I received an email from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police informing me that the Minister of Public Safety, Gary the Tiger as I call him, because his name was found in an RCMP investigation into a funding organization linked to the Tamil Tigers, and clearly he is an imposing figure, a cherubic little man that he is, has sent out notice to all peoples with registered, and who have the ability to legally own a firearm in this country, that they are announcing this wonderful buyback. And of course, the buyback is imperfect. Large swaths of the Canadian population, if you can check the box, First Nations people are largely exempt from this. But folks like myself, who threaten public security by shooting paper targets and clay pigeons from time to time, are firmly in the gunsights of Gary the Tiger, and they would like and are offering, not quite market compensation or anything close to it. If I were to own any of the offending scary-looking weapons. And that's all they are, because I'll get into the technical elements of it if you wish. But they’re offering me a handsome buyback if I register before the end of March. And it is not guaranteed that I would receive any money because it is a fixed amount. And of course, they tried this buyback in the crime-ridden area of Cape Breton, where I believe 15 firearms were recovered. Luckily, most of the sensible provinces, as in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and I am very impressed with their NDP Premier by the way, the guy doesn't strike me as a dipper at all. And Douggie Ford in Ontario have all said, you know, we are not complying with this. Saskatchewan and Alberta have actually passed legislation saying they want nothing to do with it because it is simply gun confiscation. And it is something that was started by the little prince as he spoke to his constituents, because we’re not allowed to have scary-looking firearms. I'm sure he'd rather us, I don't know, running around with a feather boa or something like that. But Johnny, what is your thought on this gun confiscation malarkey? Well, I am going to say two things. First of all, you know regarding Gary, my good friend Frank’s a personal friend of Gary, says he’s a good guy. I suspect he is taking marching orders. He’s had a rough start in Cabinet, but you know, if he survives, all I'll say is“vanakkam, Gary”. That’s “hi” in Tamil. But I think generally, I don’t agree with these buyback schemes. I don’t think the problem of guns is going to be solved by these policies. These are just political optics, right? Exactly. The big risk of guns, and I say this with all due respect, Trevor, I know you, anyone that breaks into your house is going to have a really bad day. The last day, actually, Johnny. But you know, the real risk of guns is of course that your kids get their hands on them and will shoot themselves. Sorry, let me rephrase that. The real risk of guns is suicide by someone in your family. The odds of you defending yourself in your castle are almost minimal. It almost never happens that you need to. And the real risk of guns is suicide. I know that from personal experience with a close family friend. And I think that having said that, I also don't agree with, with government policies to take the guns out of circulation because clearly that's not a big risk. The risk that ordinary gun-owning citizens like yourself who have taken the training, who practice, who keep them well-oiled. Yeah, trigger guards, in vaults hidden from the rest of the family, all of the above. Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't even jaywalk. I mean, you're a very law-abiding guy. People like you are not the problem. People who are lawful gun owners aren't the problem and people who are criminals don't care. And I would also suggest, frankly, it's naive because in 2026, what are they going to do? Confiscate printers and the medium to create guns? You can print a gun now. So it's a, anyone who's really dedicated to becoming, you know, some sort of an assassin or some kind of a danger to society will find a way. So this is just this is just fluffy optics for left wing people, and maybe part of a government plan to make sure that we're all unarmed and a little more compliant. Unarm your opposition, it's also to placate Quebec, which growing day in day culturally, politically is not part of traditional Canada, but that's a whole other conversation with it, about that. Absolutely. Gun control. We have some of the strongest gun control in the Western world. It is extremely difficult for someone to go out and own a long gun or even more so a handgun. And remember when we talk about rifles, long guns, you are limited to a five-round magazine. Even if it is an AR-15, it is limited to a five-round magazine, and they are very stringent and very bold in enforcing that and we all comply. If you want to buy a gun, legally, yeah you can go to a gun store, it's difficult to buy handguns, you can't any longer. But the problem the with illegal guns in this country, and this is coming from a guy from Scarborough where gun control is hitting what you aim at, you simply find another criminal to sell you one. We don't go down this road, but they're coming across for the large part on native reserves, and were the government of this country to possess the stones and fortitude to actually place RCMP on those offending reservations, you could interdict very, very overwhelmingly the flow of illegal guns that are coming in from the United States. It has nothing to do with crime whatsoever. Now add to that the mess that the, unfortunately, the judiciary in this country, since Mr. Trudeau and carried on with Mr. Carney, the litmus test, in my humble opinion, is, are you a Liberal donor in good standing and possessing the appropriate social justice warrior credentials? Again, a topic for another day, but I mean. If I could just add, many moons ago when I ran for parliament, federally, I was at an all candidates debate and somebody asked me this very question about gun control and I said, you know, I'm absolutely at a loss why we don't have two separate laws for rural Canada and urban Canada. I'm quite fine with everybody inside the 905 being disarmed and everybody up north being able to use long guns. People up north use guns for all kinds of things. Hunting, you know, at my cottage we have a bear that lives on the back hill that we've seen on the dock. There are dangerous animals that need killing. There are people that hunt for sport. People up north are not the lawbreakers. When have you been carjacked in Muskoka? That's not where the problem is. So, we could have, and I pitched this at that debate, we could have one rule for urban centres like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and a completely different law for the rest of Canada. Well, the problem is the sprawl of urban, of the urban jurisdiction. I live in Ancaster, basically in a forest. You've been to my house. Technically that's part of the zombie apocalypse that is Hamilton. We have coyotes in our backyard. Now I haven't had to take out a long gun and take out a coyote, but the logic of needing, needing to defend against wildlife. I think it's blurred when you look at where, where's the urban lines. And it only works, disarming a population only works, well usually if you're an authoritarian government, but if you can disarm the criminals and there's absolutely no attempt to disarm the criminals, we've got court cases where these people have been let out on bail, although they've been caught with illegal guns, because you know, the judge doesn't want to jeopardize their immigration status. It's part of a larger malaise that exists in this country that has been just, you know, on steroids since the Canadian population eleven years ago in the hopes for free pot decided to elect Justin and his band of merry men. And Mr. Carney is certainly far more qualified, or at least he looks the part, but I see no substantive changes in policy with regards to crime control. And well, and just by taking out a coyote, Trevor, I just want to clarify for clarify for viewers. You don't mean taking out a cartel human, cartel human smuggler. I shall, you might say that I couldn't possibly comment. Johnny let's move on to Mr. Carney's continuing world vacation, where he went off to Beijing to genuflect to Emperor Xi and came back with, I think it's his first tangible trade deal. And I loved, I loved the look on the face of one of our most competent Premiers, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe when Mr. Carney, and I'm sure you can read it between the lines in this, declared that he is moving in the face of the new or to accommodate the new world order, which I guess means that we all bow to Beijing at a certain time of the day. Your thoughts on that? In some ways I buy it, in some ways I don't. I think that a lot of this is based on old thinking of five, ten years ago. The world has been transformed in the last few years in ways that I don't think people who wrote those books and went to those meetings in Davos really anticipated. So firstly, I buy the Peter Zeihan thesis that China is no longer growing into the first, number one economy. I think China is now, I think it peaked and I think it's going to stay in number two and America is surging and China is in somewhat of a decline. I don't believe their growth numbers are true. I don't believe any of the stats coming out of China. But I would say that, I would say that Mr. Carney is doing what is probably optically better for the Liberals right now with the Americans pursuing a, I guess, a trade war with Canada and using it to beat us over the head. It makes sense to suggest, oh well we have other options. I don't know that we do. I mean, our other option is doing business with a communist regime. I think it's pathetic that any Western leader wouldn't just finally come out and admit that we're dealing with a communist authoritarian regime. It's like doing business with Nazi Germany and saying, well, “thank God America's bullying us on softwood lumber. So we're going to do a deal with Hitler.” That's effectively what he's saying. The fact that the media covers it up and makes it look like China's this benign, you know, normal actor in the world. No, China is an authoritarian regime. They have concentration camps. You know the story. So, I think it's just a smoke and mirrors. I do think it is part of a sort of a globalist world, new world order kind of thing. But I also suspect that, what else is he going to say? If America is shutting the door, you want to make it look like you have other suitors. I also don't think the Chinese are going to play fair. Doing a deal with China is idiotic because I think China is just going to do everything they can to offshore our jobs and you do everything to their advantage and destroy Canada. I mean ask anyone that had stock in Nortel. Yeah, exactly. I have no trouble to, dealing with China on an economic and to some extent cultural basis because we've got a very large and contributing Chinese population of Chinese Canadians in Canada. However, I go back to what Ronald Reagan said, which is “trust and verify”. You have to be able to deal on the basis of goodwill. That means recognition of intellectual property, all those the rule of contract. All that kind of stuff. Emperor Xi, as I call him, is a Chinese nationalist, not in the Shanghai Shek model, obviously, but certainly the proponent of a more bellicose Chinese foreign policy. I don't know if Zeihan's right or not, but I think that he has some excellent points. Now, what my counter pose to you though is what, you say, what is his alternative? His alternative is very simple, but he won't do it because Mark Carney owes his political existence to a boogeyman that they have created in the form of Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump is bellicose and says things, but he also back-channels things and you can read between the lines as to what he wants. And I am a firm proponent of accepting a lot of what Donald Trump says is wrong with the Canadian economy.$8 butter controlled by a banking cartel, a, ridiculous cell phones when the cell phones barely work. There is so much wrong in this country, goes to the heart of the productivity issue and over regulation that we can fix ourselves. And Mr. Carney or one of his lieutenants, and he's surrounded by these Trudeauites. I mean, if he really wants to win Canadians over, fire half your Cabinet, call by-elections, you'll probably in this age, you'll probably win because unfortunately I think Pierre Poilievre is searching for relevancy and has not found it yet. So, Mr. Carney does have an alternative, and it's to drop this elbows up crap, because what are we going to do. subsist on a diet of maple syrup? No, the Canadian economy is inexorably entwined with that of the United States. I hate to tell you elbows-up-guys, we have the same culture. We have regional differences, but we go off the same, we sing off the same song sheet. And what I find and what disturbs me in Canada, is the Americans, if you read things like the Tocqueville and things like that, they have in their, embedded in their DNA, the ability to change things. I worry Canada doesn't, but Mr. Carney does have alternatives and he's missing them. I agree with you, Trevor, but I think it's more, I think that the barn door’s open and the cow’s out of the barn. I think the moment and the time for Canada to pivot and try and fix some of its structural problems was like ten years ago, maybe even five. But, you know, I realized COVID was a big event economically. But you know, COVID didn't stop people approving pipelines. COVID didn't stop us pursuing a disastrous policy on energy. And that's an old, everyone talks about energy, but I don't think Canadians quite realize how much of their Ontario healthcare budget is being paid from revenue created by the oil patch. Now that Trump has flipped Venezuela potentially, if that Venezuelan crude comes online for which the Texas refineries are designed, that means that Canada is no longer the sole source of oil for those refineries. It's also, is it $10 a barrel more? I don't know the exact number, but it's uncompetitive. We are about to face an economic apocalypse in this country, and it can't be fixed. They can't build pipelines fast enough to fix it. Our dollar’s gonna tank eventually when the oil in Venezuela really comes online and replaces Canadian oil. The Alberta oil patch won't be able to recover because once you shutter those, shutter the equipment down and you can't find any way to ship it. We have no way to sell our oil. We can't pump our own oil to either of our own coastlines. We can't refine it. We can't sell it. And so talking about becoming an energy superpower is just nonsense. It's rhetoric. You don’t have, they don't have the time to do it. They missed their chance and they missed it because people voted Liberal and now they've done it again. I also don't think that the Liberal Party wants to do it. I think they'd rather just wait out the economic decline of Canada in the hopes that fusion or something will replace oil. That's what I think they plan to do, while they lie to everybody and pretend that they have common sense. So I don't, I really don't think that, I also don't think that the Liberals or the Canadian regulatory regime is flexible enough. They can't, they can't get rid of all the regulations with a wave of a wand. It's going to take years to change this way we do business here. I don't think we can. I don't think we can, Johnny. And I look to the fundamental ethos of the country being sick. And I go back to Mr. Carney's book. Mr. Carney presents an excellent history of the philosophical development of capitalism as part of the Protestant Enlightenment. And he's quite right. And his position is that capitalism has lost its moral way. And the only way to fix it is the heavy hand of the state. That is his mantra. I don't think that's changed. Yes, he's a big corporate guy, but I think you can that the concept of statism and giant corporatism go hand in hand. Canadians need to, at a fundamental grassroots basis, have to become aspirational again. And I think our hope is with the youth, because these guys, 20, 30-year-olds are realizing the potential for them to own something, own a home, is for the vast majority of them a pipe dream of the first order. Until we at a DNA level, rediscover aspiration and the wish to get ahead, the pursuit of happiness, then this country is a carcass. And I just don't see a change happening. You see, you know, hopes of it, but I don't see anything concrete. And there’s something that I think Mr. Poilievre needs to ground himself in. Let's talk about the world briefly. So, kudos to Mr. Trump for one of the most effective military raids since Bibi Netanyahu's brother gave his life in the rescue of hostages from Entebbe. But taking out Maduro and, you know, arguably now changing the course of Venezuelan government and oil production, well done. And then for me, it's kicking out one of the legs of the chair of Russia and China. I think Iran is next. I think that the groundswell of support by largely the business community in that country, I think is the death knell for the Ayatollahs. I think it's going to be a bloodbath of the first order. And a lot of the mullahs will be hanging like Christmas ornaments from lamp posts, and that's well deserved. But let's start with something light. Is Greenland going to become the frozen Puerto Rico? What say you? No, no, you know, I'm fascinated. I will admit, I find Trump's style extremely interesting. I got The Art of the Deal. I thank my clerk, Lindsay, for providing me a copy. It's fascinating. You know, so Trump's method of doing negotiations is to create this kind of chaos, to make maximalist demands, to keep his opponents off balance. And this kind of aggressive rhetoric is typical. I find it problematic because when you're buying an apartment building or you're buying an office building with somebody who you only have to do a negotiation with one time, you don't care if you burn the relationship to the ground. It's a one shot. But when you're dealing with someone that you've had or a country that you've had a relationship with for decades, that is a more interesting question. Does it serve your interest to destroy the relationship for a short-term gain like acquiring something that you want? I'm not sure it does, but I also don't believe that's what he's doing. I don't know, but I don't believe it. You notice the last time this talk of Greenland ramped up was right around this time last year when he was getting all of his very controversial Cabinet picks confirmed by the Senate. And all of a sudden it was Greenland, Greenland, and nobody was talking about Pete Hegseth. Well, guess what? Now Pete Hegseth is in his position. We know what the result of that has been. Yeah, he's basically assisted Trump in taking over 50 % of the global energy supply potentially without firing, you know, without losing a casualty, whilst China and Russia sort of sit back with their mouths open. I also noticed interestingly, did you notice that Trump just invited Russia to participate in the Gaza, whatever the, the Board of Peace, the Board of Peace, which I do hope works because I would love to see the permanent cocktail on the Hudson River exited because the United Nations, as to what it was supposed to be and what it has become, it's become truly a tentacle of Leviathan, which we all know must be stopped. I have not in its modern, in the last twenty years, have I been in favour of governance by the United Nations. Look at what's going on in British Columbia with the concept of Native title. And you can lay that at the feet of one of their ridiculous documents. Yeah, I mean, I mean, so I think Trump is polite to his adversaries. You know, Confucius said thousands of years ago, a man who, I'm gonna butcher this, but“a man who compliments you is your enemy”. So, you know, Trump is, people say he's a sycophant to Putin, but that's not really how I see it. He enables people, while he's in the middle of basically destroying, his enemies overall geopolitical goals, you know, he's, Russia's out of Syria, they're potentially out of Iran, you know, Venezuela, then he invites him on The Board of Peace. If you heap on insult and humiliation onto your adversary, you back them into a corner and they can't save face. Conversely, I'm confused, a little confused about why he's all over Greenland and being so, so, his rhetoric is so hostile to Europe. But I also want to make one last point. America is an ally of Europe. Question is, which Europe? America under the conservative, whatever you want to call it, the nationalist right in America is the ally of the nationalist right in Europe. I want to be clear, not Nazis, not far right. I'm talking the kind of right that your grandmother was or even your mom. Okay. The normal right. You know, England, you know, France, you know, whatever, rah rah rah, like the normal, normal level of patriotic right. You know, old school values, tradition, Christianity, whatever, these are not bizarre far right concepts. These are the concepts that built civilization. Trump is an ally and MAGA is an ally of that Europe, and they are the adversary of the Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, leftist, socialist, you know, fading socialist left of Europe. So, there's two Europe's and if you ever listen to Starmer or any of these people, they keep talking about our values and we in Europe. Who's “we”? Who's “our”? The right and the left don't share values in Europe. So Trump is the adversary of the European left and he's running the table on them. And he's the ally of the European right. And I suspect that Nigel Farage and the conservative, the real conservatives in the UK, they know that Trump is their ally and they are fine with whatever he says. I mean, on my tour in England in the summer, I can tell you, I found all kinds of UK-MAGA alliances in the pubs. I'm enjoying the Greenland thing because it is pointing out the fecklessness of just what you said, the globalist, statist Europe. How can anyone be afraid of Emmanuel Macron and the French army? They haven't won a war by themselves since they put a schoolgirl in charge of their army. Keir Starmer is, he makes Clement Attlee look like Rambo and he will be discharged from office. I don't even think he'll be in 10 Downing to face the next election. And Nigel Farage should walk into one of the biggest super majorities in British history. And you see it, you know, countries like Belgium, you know, they're lost basically to horrible immigration. The calling this out, I mean, they sent troops, I assume the Bundeswehr sent the stenographer pool. Canada sent, I don't know, probably two or three DEI officers to defend Greenland. It's a ruse. The Americans tried in 1946, Harry Truman tried to buy it for $100 million in gold, which is about $15 billion equivalent. I think there will be a deal done. It'll be monetary, it'll be trade. Denmark probably gets, you know, a hundred years of access to royalties or something like that. But strategically, I have no trouble with what Mr. Trump is talking about. I don't think it is part of an Anschluss plan for Canada. I think that's the elbows up ridiculousness. But I'm enjoying him, watching him kick out the various legs of the stool so that Mr. Putin one morning is going to wake up and realize he is not the president of greater Russia, but the president of the Archduchy of Muscovy. It's classic history and that's where this is going. Can I make a, can I make just one last comment on the Greenland thing? Bessent was on TV on Fox yesterday. Yeah, last night, very, very sensible guy. And he said, it's not the move, it's the move after the move. And he's the guy in the room, you know, with Trump. So that's all I need to hear. That's his way of saying he's not going to invade Greenland and people who say America could invade Greenland are idiots. I think what he's doing is exactly what he did and what he describes in The Art of the Deal. He's making maximalist absurd first demands and you're so relieved when his second move and his second request, the more palatable request is offered. So he's trying to create that pressure. And I think the tariffs are not tariffs to say give us Greenland or else. The tariffs were a rebuke for Macron and Starmer and their lefty friends basically in public trying to push back in public and say, and he's slapping them down for trying to show spine, and pre-empt the negotiations. He wants the negotiations in private. He's never said he's going to invade Greenland. All he said is he's not taking options off the table, which is again, classic style if you read the book. He never takes options, any options off the table, because he keeps everybody guessing so their own, you know, fears prey on their mind. But for Starmer and Macron to then pretend he said he was going to invade and then send troops and try and look like tough guys, that's what the tariffs are about. They're about their little tough guy photo op. That's what they're about. And with that, I'm gonna call a close to our wonderful talk. We'll reconvene in a couple of weeks. And once again, thanks for joining me and folks keep tuning in. It's great to have a growing audience. Leviathan must be stopped. And go Habs Go. Thanks Trev, except for the last part. Go Leafs.