SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to The Guy Up the Road. I'm your host, Dave Chevrier, and I am The Guy Up the Road. Each episode features engaging conversations with local people, community leaders, business owners, and everyday voices whose perspectives help shape the community we all call home. Well, this is a very exciting day on a personal level for myself because this is the inaugural show of the Guy Up the Road podcast. I am very excited to say that my first guest here is our MPP for Haldeman Norfolk, Bobby Ann Brady. Bobby, welcome to the Guy Up the Road podcast.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

Thanks, Dave. And before we get started here, I just got to know, you know, I've been referred to sometime as some at times as the the girl next door. And we we hear that, and it was a big thing in movies. And so what's with the guy up the road?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

The guy, the guy up the road, you're gonna witness it happen today, I'm sure. The guy up the road podcast uh idea comes from the name comes from the fact that I don't mind getting on my soapbox and having a rant. And my poor wife has heard these rants for many, many, many years. And I kept saying to her over and over again, I said to her, listen, I could go up and down the road with these thoughts that I have and these the way that I feel about things in the world, I can go up and down this road, and every guy up the road would think the same as me. I know that's not necessarily true, but at the end of the day, I felt that that the things that I was seeing, and certainly what I was hearing uh from other people when I talk about it. Now, I want to be a little cautious with that one because I know I'm a verbose guy and I do have the ability to talk and make things sound good and kind of get my point across. I've been in sales for a very, very long time. However, I do feel as a matter of principle that I was right about that, that uh the guy up the road is a representation of me and I of him. And that's why I wanted to call it the guy up the road because I think a whole lot of us feel the same way about a lot of the things that are going on in the world we live in today. And uh, you know, there's there's it's funny for me actually because did you have you ever watched Joe Rogan's first podcast?

SPEAKER_05 2:02

No, I I don't believe I've watched Joe Rogan's first podcast. No, I've lost I watched a lot of Joe Rogan.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, yeah. Well, he's literally the most listened to guy in the world. And and I'm not saying that that I'm gonna be on the same side as well.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

You kind of remind me of Joe Rogan, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, it's the hair. But at the end of the day, um, yeah, I I maybe so. And maybe people, when I ran this idea through some people, that they thought it was a good idea for me to go ahead and do this. And I hope it is. I hope it turns out to be that way.

SPEAKER_05 2:24

So, in a nutshell, the guy up the road means that you have the the courage to actually say what your neighbors aren't saying.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

100%. And I think that's the big thing we got going. That's why Joe Rogan's probably the most listened to guy in the world. Because I'm not saying I'm Joe Rogan. I'm just saying this this is the truth of it. He's the most listened to guy in the world because he says what other people don't say. And I'm not saying that I'm on par, not even on par, but in the same place politically as him. I don't think I am. But at the end of the day, uh, I think it's encouraging actually. I'm gonna jump back a little bit because if you ever watch his first podcast, watch it. That that ever developed into the most listened to guy on the planet is amazing because it's I swear to God, they're all baked and they're just trying to put together this podcast. That's what they're doing. So it's actually quite funny, but they put it together and then here we are today talking about Joe Rogan. Yeah, it's amazing. But I think that the success of programs like that is because he's willing to say what other people don't say.

SPEAKER_05 3:12

Yeah, like Jillian Michaels, too. Right. Oh, she says what she's trainer to the stars. And I mean, she is very brutally honest. And so yeah. I think I like listening to both of them.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah, I think it's fair. And it's it's interesting because you and I bandied this idea about a little bit of a notion of going forward in life and with politics and the way that our our governments at various levels operate. I think we have to come to a place, and we're gonna talk a lot about this in this meandering conversation that we have. But uh the one thing for me is that a lot of people feel the same way. They feel something's off in the country, federally, provincially, and municipally now. It's it's filtered its way into municipal politics. It just has.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

And I think a lot of people are feeling things that are that are off. And unfortunately, due to the politically correct way that we seem to have been thinking the past 20 years or so, um, it's silenced a lot of people. And a lot of people aren't talking about the things that they feel and the things that they see and how they how they actually feel about that. So I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 4:05

Yeah, we're we're an interesting time where people continually say, I just want government to tell me the truth. But then when they do actually have a representative who tries to tell them the truth, there are some people who do find that offensive as well. Yeah, right. So the truth isn't always comfortable. 99% of the time, it's uncomfortable, but it's the truth, right? And and I'm I'm really uh I'm seeing people who go who who have said to me, I just want to know these things, and then and then they find it offensive when they when they know the truth. It's almost like they want to pretend that things are better than they are, and they're not. Things are not good. We are in bad ways.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

We're in bad ways. And I think we we talked this morning a little bit, and I think you might have agreed with the statement, and you don't need to do that right now, but I'll ask the question how's the economy doing? How are we doing? Horribly. Horribly, I agree.

SPEAKER_05 4:51

Absolutely. And we talk about a housing crisis and yet we don't see houses moving on the market, right? I've got a house up for sale right now, and uh my neighbor has a house up for sale right now. They're neither one of them have moved, and we continue to build new houses for whom? Who are we building those homes for? And a lot of new Canadians, from what I understand, if I'm reading the numbers correctly, a lot of them who came 10, 15 years ago are packing their bags and they're hightailing it out. Because guess what? We are no longer the land of opportunity. The economy's sluggish, and we're no longer seen as being uh, you know, the land of opportunity and and they're packing their bags and they're going home. And and we're we're stuck now going, how do we afford all of the infrastructure that was needed and that we all went into debt for, right? And and continue to go into debt for. That's why I I speak out a lot about um mass development. People are not paying for themselves. Yeah, they simply aren't. We see flooding the past few weeks all over the place. Well, that's because we're paving over things and we're not investing in infrastructure to make things you know drain properly. We're paving over productive farmland, which acts as a natural sponge for for rainfall and everything else. Like we are, we're in bad ways, but the economy we I always say this we don't have, as Canadians, we don't have an income problem. We have an outcome problem that we cannot control because government has made really poor decisions.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

I'm in agreement there. It's funny because we we we don't necessarily have an income problem, but the cost of living, the wages have not gone where everything else has gone. And that's all there is to that. I mean, is numerous carbon price of gas, for instance. I mean, you look and when you when you see people that from from government initiatives are paying more for all the things that they want to do and their wages and following it, it puts us into a bad spot. Is it fair to say, do you think, a bit of a broad-based statement, but is it fair to say these economic woes that we have come from government? It comes from our government. I believe that that's true.

SPEAKER_05 6:42

Absolutely. We've seen government blow over the years. I and and I know even locally at the municipal level, there are managers managing managers. Yeah, there's nobody underneath them. And yet they're paying, you know, they're on the sunshine list and and that they stay there for a few years, they're up near $200,000 a year, and they're managing one or two people.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:02

Yeah, we can't we can't do this. We can't continue that way of thinking.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

So I've never understood really why. Like I see you should see the economy, things change in life. I mean, back in the day, there was there was a curious thing called a record, and you had a record player. Well, then a CD comes along. Now I got a CD player. Now, both of those things seem to be kind of gone. Vinyl's back a little bit, it's kind of a little bit of a niche thing there, kind of interesting. That's gone there. But all the all that kind of information, sorry, all that music and whatnot is now on Spotify. I love Spotify, I think it's fantastic. But I say all that to say things change. We understand that. Yeah. But one thing I'd never have been able to buy, number one, is that there's this notion, and again, I can be disagreed with here firmly, but this notion of having to have a strong economy that's always growing. I'd much rather have a strong economy than one that's growing, right? If given the choice. And I look at this and people say, well, how's the economy going to grow if we don't have immigration? We don't have these things. They say, Well, why does the economy need to grow? Why does it need it, doesn't it, don't we need it to be really strong?

SPEAKER_05 7:58

Weren't we doing well? We we were doing well. We were all living comfortably, yeah, right? We weren't living fancy, but we were living comfortably very comfortably. And um, yeah, it's it's an argument that I have a lot. People, people think that um growing means more prosperity. If that was actually the truth with the number of people who have come into Canada over the past few years, our taxes would be going down, not up.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Not up. Yeah, yeah. I've never bought the notion that as well. Like I really do feel government absolutely 100% influences our economy. Doesn't necessarily make it better, maybe some points in time. But when was the last time you could say that's a really great government initiative, f federally, provincially, that really did something really, really positive? Now there's gotta be something, but I'm struggling to find it right this second. But I look at it and say with the economy, this is very, very simple. I can reduce the economy to one thing toilet paper. Literally toilet paper. Because if you're eating and you're living in a house, you're using toilet paper. That's what you're doing. That's right. And when you see this ebbs and flows in the economy, things get bad, things get better, it's up and it's down, and it's in and it's out, and it's all these kind of things. I just don't understand why when all of us need to eat, we all have to do things, and we are doing that. When we are doing these things and we need to do these things, we're using toilet paper. So this drives the economy. It keeps us straightforward. But why all the all the all the ups and the downs? And you know, we're in a we're we're in a what are we in? A technical recession? Like what's a technical recession? Are we in this? Has anybody agreed that this is in fact the case?

SPEAKER_05 9:23

Yeah, we're in a recession, all right. I think in a number of ways, but um is it's also um, I think government has believed for a long time or has been coerced into but believing that they should be all things to all people.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:36

And being all things to all people has gotten us into some of this mess that we're in, yeah, uh, both socially and financially.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah, it's it's in my but in my mind, uh, for as long as I've ever had any thoughts about government, the government was here to represent all the people, not the special interest groups, not the loudest of the special interest groups, not these guys. This is not, they're here for all of us, not just some. You know, not that's I don't I don't like that. Like I know at Haldeman County, there's always some controversy there because there's a fourth flagpole. Well, which flag is gonna fly on that fourth flagpole at this time or another? And people always get it wound up about that. And uh I I'm not gonna lie, it's some some of the causes that seem to have a month here and there make me a little crazy. And I think that there should be three flagpoles at Haldeman County. Just three Canada, Ontario, and Haldeman County. Right. That's it. There doesn't those three flags encompass all of us.

SPEAKER_05 10:24

I I agree. Absolutely, 100%, Dave. And what it takes is um, you know, a leader with political will to say this is the way it's going to be. We're no longer going to fight about who's going to take that fourth flagpole. Right. This is the way it is. And we treat people with dignity, dignity, we treat them with respect. But these are the flags we're going to fly because they represent our three levels of government.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

All of us.

SPEAKER_05 10:48

And and all three levels of government need to respect everyone in society.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, I'm in agreement. Got to respect everybody. And that's that's I think how we well is it safe to say that certainly here in um certainly here in Haldman County, we've got a lot of division going on. There's like I'm running for Ward Five. This is a new world for me, man. I guess straight up, this is a new world. I remember why I got rid of my old Facebook account because I hated it. Now I'm looking at this now. I'm I'm I'm involved in this. I've got to be on top. I don't know how else to get the message out necessarily between, you know, door knocking, uh, signs, flyers, social media. Social media seems to be something you must do. I think it's fair.

SPEAKER_05 11:26

Absolutely. And I think a lot of that is purposeful in the sense that look what happened to mainstream media, right? So I took broadcast journalism in school. I studied broadcast, broadcast journalism. And just as I was kind of leaving my education, things started to change significantly, where there was no longer a cameraman and then the reporter. As the reporter, you did absolutely everything. I've seen a real demise in the news. Uh, then I was a uh newspaper reporter. I sat through Town Hall every single Monday night and went back and put the newspaper together for Tuesday morning, things like that. But there's been a real decline of what uh of how we've treated news over the years. Now everybody can be a reporter. Anybody can be a reporter. It goes on social media and people think it's factual. And unfortunately, uh, you know, campaigns and and political life is fought out on social media these days. And it's it's horrendous. I I've been in this uh government gig. I've been in government for over 26 years, 23 and a half with my predecessor. And um that is the biggest change in my career is watching how you actually have to um operate as a politician because before it was just the phone and mail and somebody coming into your office. Now everything follows you no matter where you go. 11 o'clock on a Friday night. I can get a private message from somebody who says, Hey, you know, I need help with A, B, or C. Well, can you call my office? You can't say that. You can't say, call my office Monday morning. You got to help them write that and there, or you don't care, according to them.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Yeah, very unfortunate.

SPEAKER_05 13:08

It's in the online world, I mean, I've I've seen it all about myself. Like I've read things that I didn't even know about myself.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Got a little education there, eh? Oh, oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_05 13:17

Yeah, look at that.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Wow, who knew? That's funny.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

Yeah, I didn't know I knew how to use filters for my photos. I don't know how to use filters for my photos, and yet I'm still accused of it. You know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

I hope the good listenership, assuming that there actually will be people that listen to this, the the good listenership appreciates the fact that I am not a social media guru at all. And I if something happens a little offside, it's probably because I just didn't know what the heck I'm doing. Right. You know, that's it, that's all.

SPEAKER_05 13:41

And it's good saying that it's funny because you you're running for municipal council, and and that's exactly how municipal council is. There are municipal counselors across this province who are making mistakes. You know why? Because they don't know any better. The training is horrible. Yeah, so so all of a sudden you go, I want to make my community better, I want to run for town hall. You win. Well, the training is like nothing, really. Nobody tells you, you know, how things are going to unfold and this is how you should handle, you know, scenario A, B, C, D. Nobody tells you. So you make a you make a mistake around the council table. All of a sudden you've got an integrity commissioner complaint brought against you. You're just going, I I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_05 14:22

Sorry, you know how we used to handle that in the old days, like the old days when I was a reporter, Monday night council. Oh, somebody would get up at Delhi Town Council and and and they'd say something that you know offended their their colleague the next week. They stood up and they acted like a decent human being. And they said, You know what, Dave? Last week I was a bit of a donkey at council, and I apologize. Now we use that mistake as a political weapon.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:49

Horrible.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

It is. It is horrible. You see it all the time. So so this is this is actually an interesting question. Um, so I'm gonna back up just a little bit, and I'm gonna go back up because I haven't started. So so um, but I will I will say this. Um you won the the first time you you ran, you won. And I did not vote for you. I have to tell you that straight up, I did not. I understand.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

Okay, I still won.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, you did 100%. And we'll get to that. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I was with my buddy Sheldon Simpson. Sheldon ran for the Ontario Party.

SPEAKER_05 15:15

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, yeah. Shelly's a great guy. I love that guy, and we're we've become very good friends. And uh, but he did not he did not win. You were victorious there. So, quick question why do you think that happened?

SPEAKER_05 15:27

Because I had a 23 plus year um commitment to the community. The majority of people in the community knew that I had worked for Toby Barrett all those years, and they knew when they came to me with an issue, I was there to fight for them, right? And and countless times, Dave, when I went to a political staffer, when we were in government at, you know, at Queen's Park and I'd say, Hey, I need help with this, they'd come back with the bureaucratic answer. And I was the jerk who would go back to them and say, That this is shit. Get me the real answer. And and as a political staffer, your job is to go to lean on the desk of the bureaucrat and say, no, no, don't just give me the easy answer, the easy path, the path of least resistance. No, I want the answer that's actually going to help this person because they really need help. And after so many years, you get to understand what real help, what, who really needs your help, right? There's a lot of people who, you know, you got to lead them, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force them to drink, right? But there are people who have real issues that they need help with. And and I got to to understand the difference. And when I thought somebody was right and and the bureaucrats were were giving them a hard time, I I was like a dog with a bone. And people knew that.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:36

And uh, it's funny because um Sheldon and I actually had a conversation part way through that campaign. Um, he told me I was going to split the vote and I should just stop. And I said, no, I'm I'm not going to split the vote. I'm a bit of an election math guru. I've uh been called in to do election math in in many campaigns across the province prior to running. And I said, if anyone's going to split the vote, Sheldon, it's just you. And he he tried convincing me to drop out of the race. And I said, Oh no, I won't be dropping out. And I said, you know, that's that's democracy, right? And um we had a very good um professional relationship during that campaign, but it was uh it was interesting how and and I think too, you know, he ran for a party that was very unknown. And and I got asked to run for that party. I got asked to run for another right-wing party in the 2022 election. And I said, no, that'd be disingenuous, right? Um, I uh I'm a conservative, I'm a PC, but they're doing something to the people of Haldman, Norfolk that isn't right. It would be disingenuous of me to jump ship, go somewhere else. The safest, the most genuine thing I can do is be an independent.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah. So I I think that the whole independent thing is very interesting. Very, very interesting. Because I don't know, it seems to me, do we think that Canadians are losing their shine on party politics? Are they are they looking at this now?

SPEAKER_05 17:57

So around the around the globe, they are. There's there's all sorts of research. I do a lot of work with a guy by the name of Alex Marland. Okay. He's a professor at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. In fact, um, we did a fireside chat. You ever talking about listening while you're driving? If you go to my YouTube uh channel, it there's all these little videos and there's the entire fireside chat of Alex and I at the beginning of February last year. It ended up being a campaign kickoff. It was scheduled well before the campaign was called, but it just ended up being in the first week. And we talk about how um people are becoming more aware that party politics is not serving them. Alex has written a few books. One is called Um Whipped Party, Party Politics in Canada. That is a fantastic book. Um it's like my little Bible I carry around or like a textbook. I've got things highlighted, I've got things marked. Um, it tells the true story from the lived experience. So Alex can do the academic side, but then he goes and talks to people like me, people who have been in uh federal government, provincial governments all over Canada, and and talks about the lived experience. Some people want to remain anonymous, um, but it's everything in that book is bang on right down to like, you know, my colleagues on the PC side. I sit in the rump of the PC party, and when I walk into the legislature, whatever I'm about to say, Bobby and Brady wrote it. Like I I wrote it, so I know what I'm gonna say. Somebody walks a piece of paper over to somebody in front of me from the PC side, and they get up to say it and they stumble over the words. Why? Because they never wrote it. It's the first time they're actually reading it, and they're not saying it, they're reading it. And um, everything is very carefully scripted. Everybody is very much under the leader's office thumb. I don't have any of that.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

No.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

I can get up, I can say what I want, it gets me into trouble. But sometimes, you know, any news is good news. And um, and I can say whatever the people of Haldeman Norfolk want me to say. So um there's another um No Eye and Team is another one that recently came out by Alex Marland, and I'm I'm in the book uh four times, talks about the case for independence. And there is a there is a real um desire for independence in politics, but the party system has convinced people time and time again since the beginning of time that you know voting for an independent is is scary, right? And like sometimes I feel like the boogeyman, right? And and and it's not, it's it's just no monopoly on a good idea. What a concept. No monopoly on a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Novel idea. Yeah. Novel idea. It's funny you said the word whipped. Like I gotta believe that that's referring to the party whip.

SPEAKER_04 20:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Yeah. So I I became aware of a party whip when I was in grade eight. So I went to jail mitchner school. We went to Ottawa on a trip. Well, our M R MP at the time was uh was my dentist, actually, Bud Bradley.

SPEAKER_05 20:58

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

So this guy's a character, man. I yeah, I love Bud.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

Yeah, yeah, he was a mentor.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Is that right, eh? Okay, very I like Buddy. It was funny because uh as as we're doing it now, we're talking. But uh I go for a dentist appointment, spend 45 minutes in a chair talking to Bud. You don't get to their teeth yet, they're just other things. But it was funny because when we were up there as kids, we're in some room somewhere, Bud comes in, he talks to the room, and he talks about the party whip. And I thought, that's an interesting. I'm a kid, right? That's an interesting name for the but then he explained the role of the party whip. And I thought to myself, even then, I thought, well, the voters don't matter if we've got a party whip, because it's the party line that matters, not what the voters that sent them there for. So you may campaign on this or that, but the party whip says you're doing it this and it's gonna sound like that. So it's a different, it's a different it's a different thing. Um I'm sorry, it's not a different thing, but it's it's something that's very, very common. But I wonder how many Canadians know that that exists. They don't.

SPEAKER_05 21:49

They don't know and and that's why I continually talk about this book called Called Whipped, because when when Alex and I had this discussion last February, it was over two hours, and and the Jarvis Community. Community center was packed. And there were people who got up afterwards and said, We we could have listened to that all night long. We didn't know these things. And these are politically adept people. These are people who have a membership, you know, whether it was a former PC membership or now an independent membership, these are people who are paying attention. They still didn't know what whipped really means, right? And and I and I watched it. I watched it for years. I used to say to Toby all the time, I'm like, you need to bring this up in caucus. And near the end of Toby's career, he would say, Well, I tried. And some little short pants in the corner told me to sit down. And I would say to Toby, I'd say, Do you know how pissed off the people of Haldeman and Norfolk would be if they knew some short pants in the corner was telling their elected official to sit down and shut up? The whole reason they voted for you is so that you could stand up in caucus and fight, like fight their case, right? And people have no clue. They think that they they think that your representative can go to Queen's Park and do whatever they want, say whatever they want. And that's why I get really, really annoyed. And my detractors, they love doing this. They run around and they say, oh, she has no relevance, she's insignificant, except they spend every minute of every day on social media trying to destroy me. So if I was really irrelevant and insignificant, why would you spend so much time on me? But the truth is actually the opposite. Government has to make money flow to municipalities. Okay. I think Haldman County this year is getting 17% more municipal funding than they got last year. Norfolk County, 21% more than last year. And yet apparently no money's coming to this area because of me. It's a it's malarkey. Yeah. Right. But what I can do, that if I was under the party system, if I wasn't independent, I wouldn't be able to go to Queen's Park and ask my own party about the Caledonia Bridge. I wouldn't be able to ask them about Highway Six and Haldebrook Road. I wouldn't be able-big thing here. I wouldn't be able to hold them to account on gun ownership, on legal gun ownership, right? Um, all of those things I'd have to sit on my hands and I'd have to bite my tongue and I'd have to just keep my head down and shut the hell up.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah. I'd like this conversation to meander a bit, but I want to stick, stick here just for a moment. Um, so you win the first one. Happy day. You know, people say these things split the vote, this, that, no one saw her coming. She she snuck in the back door. Say a million and one different things. But what got to be very interesting. Now, was it before that election or after? Was it the first or second one where Doug Ford apparently said he could dress a monkey up in a suit and run that person in Haldeman, Norfolk? Was it first or second one?

SPEAKER_05 24:40

That was first. So let me back up a bit. So uh what happened January of 2022? Um, I'm the president of the local PC Association. I've told this story a million times. So I I'm I apologize to anyone listening who has heard this before. But I go, I go to the party and um let you in on a little secret. I was living with kind of third in command at the PC party at the time. And so, you know, I work through him and the people that I'm supposed to, and I say, look, you know, I'm the president of the local association. It's no secrets. So, so all the people who ran around saying Toby caught caught the PC party off guard with retiring, that's BS. Okay, because the first thing Toby did after winning in 2018, and I know this because I booked the appointment, is he walked up to the premier's office. He had an appointment with the premier's office, and he said, Look, you know what? I know I just won, but I am retiring in 2022. I will not be on the ballot in 2022. So it was no secret to the premier's office. And Toby said, We need we have a succession plan. And, you know, if anyone ever wants to talk to me about it, we can. So this whole idea that they were caught off guard is BS. So January 2022, I start asking about a nomination night. And I'm told, no, you know, COVID's reared its ugly head once again, and and we can't do this. I'm like, okay, interesting, because I'm watching my partner at the time go out the door and run nomination meetings elsewhere in this province. And I'm like, COVID's not that bad in holding it. Like, what the hell? February comes along, I'm given the exact same excuse. March comes along, I'm told no, we still have to wait. I go to Toby and I said, something's really not right here, Toby. Like, you need to go to the premier and you need to uh you need to talk to him. Like, I don't understand the holdup here, right? And um, so Toby, uh, Toby goes to the premier and it's about a month after. It's April 9th. It's a I think it's a Saturday night, April 9th in 2022. And I remember the day because my mom's birthday is April 11th, and I was making her a big deal and what or a big meal. And that and that's a big deal because I don't really spend all day in the kitchen normally. So um, so we're we're at uh we're just about to sit down for dinner, and my phone rings, and it's Toby. And I said, Look, Toby, like I got a whole house full of company, this, that, and the other. And uh he says, Well, uh, the premier's going to appoint you know, the mayor of Holland County as the PC candidate. I said, Listen, I don't have time for bullshit. Like, let's go. He's like, No, he says, Bobby, and I'm not kidding. So I said, Look, you know what? I I need to sleep on this. Uh I'm going to talk to you tomorrow. Uh I'm going to come to your house and I'm going to talk to you. Fine. Go to the table. My partner is sitting there. I said, like, did you know about this? Did you know this was happening? He claimed he did not know this, that, and the other. So the weeks go by, and uh Toby tries to convince Doug Ford, keep in mind Toby was the very first MPP to support Doug as leader when he ran. There's there's a real good definition of loyalty there, right? So Toby goes to the premier and says, Doug, like you this is this is unbelievable. The guy you're appointing, we don't even see him as a conservative, right? Like this is this is never going to fly. And the premier says, Well, I'm told this guy's my champion. You know, he's my champion. And Toby's like, Well, I'm telling you, he's not. So of course I'm having conversations at home with with my partner, and it comes out that, well, you should just run off and and run for mayor. I said, Pardon? I don't want to just run off and run for mayor. I said, I love provincial politics, right? And uh that's that's when it was said to me that we could run a monkey as long as it has a PC logo on its back and we will win. You will get less than five percent of the vote. You will commit political suicide if you challenge us. And I said, Well, that's on me. If I commit political suicide, that means God has another, you know, career path for me, and and so be it. But I'm a boxer. And and I always and I use this on the campaign trail in 2022. I said, you know, how many times as a taxpayer do you think you've been punched in the face? A lot, right? And as Canadians especially, we take it. And as a boxer, if I get punched in the face once, that's okay, right? That's fine. But I get punched in the face two, three, four times, that's a problem with me as a fighter. That means I didn't move and I didn't react. And therefore I deserve to have the snot beat out of me. The electorate is exactly the same, babe. If we don't move and we don't react, government, political parties will continue to punch us in the face over and over and over again. And I am so proud of the fact that the people of Haldeman Norfolk understood that. They were not afraid. When political parties said an independent is scary, Haldeman Norfolk went, Oh, we're not afraid. Right? We're not afraid of an independent.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

They didn't do that.

SPEAKER_05 29:49

It's unbelievable. It is one of Ontario's top pollsters a few days before uh election day in 2022 sent me a private message. I'll never forget it. And he said, Hey, Bobby Ann, Ontario has never been kind to independents. But if there's one person who can pull this off, because I think it could be you. And I knew right then and there that I had one because I knew he knew the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Interesting, right?

SPEAKER_05 30:15

And I thought it's not that Bobby Ann pulled it off. The people of Haldeman Norfolk went, screw you, PC party. You are not going to punch us in the face.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:26

Right? It's a we're we're a different breed and a good different breed.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Seemed to be. The funny thing, I was talking with Toby, and um, we'll talk about that in a little bit as well, but it was talking with Toby. And uh, to be quite frank, Toby was the reason I didn't vote for you. I I I just I didn't have a lot of time for Toby when he was an officer. I just found as a guy and and I like Toby. I've gotten to know Toby over the last little bit. Yeah, uh, my opinion of the person has changed quite a bit. But I quite frankly, you know what? When you call the office, you didn't always get a call back, you shoot them an email, you're not getting a response, you gotta send it 15 times to kind of get sort of one. It's not I didn't have any time for that.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Which is really crazy because I worked there for 23 years, and man, I answered like, you know, I we we pride, we did pride ourselves in good customer service, at least when I was there. Like I said, these are the people who vote for us. I don't care what the people in Toronto are saying, I don't care if you get back to them, but the people of Holland and Norfolk, you've got to get back to them.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Got to get back to them, and that just wasn't happening, and so now I'm sour about this and I don't like and I hate the world, and this is it, and I'm not voting for you because I hate everybody. Yeah, so at the end of the day, um I did vote for Sheldon, of course, because I I say I helped him with his campaign, I really did not. Um, all I did was introduce them to some people, yeah. Wherever that went, it went. And uh so I I can't say I helped him with this campaign, but I was aware and I liked the guy and I and he had my support, my verbal support. Um so that that that's but that was I bring that up just to say I did not vote for you the first time around. Yep. The second time around, I didn't vote for you either because I'm still mad. I'm still mad at the planet and I hate everybody. And uh, you know, I voted some obscure you know conservative type party. That's my vote. I'm changing the world with a pissy vote. Well, that didn't work. So no, it didn't work. It didn't work at all. No, so so this is where it brings me. Yeah. Um in the second election, they run Amy Martin, I believe. Yeah. So we run Amy Martin, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

Who's not who I I never thought she identified as a conservative either.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:12

All those years that I worked in for the PC Party, I was as the president, and then never ever recognized her as a conservative.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

I don't know a thing about her, but uh at the end of the day, she runs, and so I don't vote there either and to do my thing. Uh, but you picked up more votes than everybody. Like you literally did that. You picked up you you picked up just shy of two-thirds of the vote.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Yep, 20 over 21,000 difference uh between her, you know, first and second place. One of the highest pluralities. Um, there's arguably it was the highest plurality in the province.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, this is this is where it takes me, though. I'm not here to rub your back about the fact you smoked everybody. Yeah. Uh and that's a but that's a big that that's significant. You know, it's funny because in hockey, I learned a long time ago in hockey, not from when I played, but from when my son played, that if you want to win, you figure out what the winners are doing.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

That's what you do. You figure out what the winners are doing. So you got my attention there, like with that the sheer numbers of that. But my question now becomes why do you think you got that many? What was in your platform that made it so that many people would unite around a person that's not affiliated with a party? What's there?

SPEAKER_05 33:12

Because they saw they had from 2022 to uh February 2025 to see what an independent could actually do. So all those warnings about, oh, you know, she has no poll, she doesn't know. People actually saw their issues being taken from my boardroom where they met with me to the floor of the Ontario legislature. They have never experienced that before, right? When somebody calls my office and it's not good enough that they're talking to my staff and they say, I want to talk to Bobby Ann, I say, ask them what time they're up in the morning. Because if I'm driving to Toronto and they want to keep me company at five o'clock in the morning, or if they want to keep me company at 7:30 when I'm driving home, then I will call them. And there are times I'm I'm not going to pretend that human error doesn't happen, but there are times when, you know, somebody's, you know, I'm supposed to call somebody and it doesn't happen. And two months later, some they're pissed off and they're, you know, spouting off on social media that she never called. Well, you know what? Maybe you should have called back and said, Hey, has Bobby Ann forgotten? Because I get so overwhelmed, requests on on social media, requests via private messenger on Instagram, on on Facebook, texts, emails, all of this. But Dave, I call people back, right? And when somebody picks up the phone and I'm like, hey, it's Bobby Ann Brady calling, they're like, Really? It's Bobby Ann Brady? Yes, it's me, right? And I think people saw that they had that dog with a bone. This, this girl, you know, people, people may not like the fact that she taught a party a lesson and and she's being punished all the time, but she's got our back. I think the people of Haldeman and Norfolk really realize that I have their back. And could I have their back entirely if I was under the party system? No, I wouldn't be able to talk about legal gun ownership, right? And um, I wouldn't be able to talk about all the things that they want me to. I wouldn't be able to speak out against a city of 40,000 at the Nanny Coke Industrial Park. I would have to drink that Kool-Aid and I would just have to stay quiet. And it would, that would kill me, right? I I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Um, going back to uh, you know, the uh the other parties, um, I still get once in a while an email from somebody who says, Why don't you run for, you know, the new blue or the Ontario Party or whatever? And I'm like, How many seats do they have in the Ontario legislature? And they pause. I say, the answer is zero. How many seats does the independent have in the Ontario legislature? I have my seat.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

You do, yeah. Right? You clearly won. It was straight up just the sheer number of votes. Again, two-thirds, pretty almost two-thirds, wasn't quite, but close. That's that's monumental. And you know, I'm here rubbing your back on this to make everybody feel great about it. But that that's just the numbers. That that's literally it. Yeah. So the the thing for me, this happened before I decided to run for for Haldema Council. And I don't even know how long it was before it, but it was on my wife. So I don't have Facebook at this time uh at all. I liked Instagram because I I could see music videos and stuff I like to watch, hunting, fishing stuff, and these kind of things on there. I like I like Instagram pretty good. Facebook seems to be a tool at this point in time, but I I say all that to say I did not have Facebook. So I'm home, I'm at home one night, and it's maybe 10 o'clock, something like that. And my wife says something, she's it's about you, because there's a video on her Facebook, and it's it's you. And you I don't remember what the content was or what was going down, but it was basically you jumped onto Facebook, you were ready to go to bed. That's what you were doing.

SPEAKER_05 36:35

Oh, yeah, that was during a campaign. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

So you're ready to go to bed, and um, but you felt you something needed to be said and the people needed to hear this from you. So you kind of got the whole bed thing going there. I had my house coat on. You had your house coat on, you're doing this video. It's kind of funny. And um, so uh my wife says to me something like, This woman does work. And so I I said, I said, you know what? Grudgingly, I grudgingly had to agree. I did. Um, you've got to be straightforward, right? Like we're gonna talk truth to new kindness. Well, at the end of the day, we've got to be straight with each other. Yeah. So uh I said, grudgingly, he said, yeah, she does. And since then, I've changed my comments a little bit. Now I know I'm looking at you right now. But at the end of the day, I believe firmly you've done more for us as Haldeman County than any other politician has. Whether we like what you say or whether we don't, yeah, you've literally done more, you've engaged more, we see you more, we hear about you more. I mean, Toby was in that office for a long time. 27 years. 27 that that long. Yep. There was never this amount of engagement from that office before. It was, I think it would be safe for Doug Ford to say I could dress a monkey and stick, because I'm not saying Toby's a monkey. I'm just saying at the end of the day, that seemed to be pretty clear that that was this is a very, very conservative riding. Yeah. So in saying all those things, you just brought up now um you something about the MZO. I did we just talked about that. How much did that figure in, do you think, to your to your victory there?

SPEAKER_05 37:54

I think in in 2022, I think it it was smaller. Uh the idea, so that that was an idea that was floated um in the spring of 2022. Just before the election. So it was new, right? Empire had just come to Haldeman County Council and uh had said this is what they wanted to do. I believe in 2025 that played a significant role. Yeah, yeah. And and I I would think that the majority of people would would think it was the reverse, that 2022, right? But I I think people understood what the MZO meant more in 2025. And and they've also watched since 2022 um other surrounding communities that have significantly changed overnight and they're going, we don't want that.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

We don't want that. Right. Yeah. I asked that question. It's a bit of a loaded question from my perspective because at the end of the day, how much did that figure in? I think it would, I just believe that it would have figured in quite a bit. It seems to be a talked-about subject now. Uh having said that, more and more people are talking about it, but I don't find that there's still a lot of people that are well versed. They don't really have the understanding what it really means and what it what it could really mean going forward there. Right. But what my thing again becomes if we expect that that figured in prominently, and just shy of two-thirds of the people of Haldeman Norfolk said by vote, by recorded vote, you win, that that's a prominent thing. I think that that's their sentiment. And I find it very, very interesting. Call me crazy, that the provincial government right now is literally led by a man who is under federal investigation. Am I wrong in that? No, I'm not wrong in that. This is a party that's lit, and what's what is where is that federal investigation? Where is the federal negation at what's it about? What's the content? What's happening? Right.

SPEAKER_05 39:47

Right. And and one of the things that I explain to people is that the Greenbelt scandal spreads beyond the Greenbelt. The issues that that, and and I know all the key players from the Greenbelt scandal. Um, and and what I believe that the RCMP has a problem understanding is the difference between government and party and how those lines blur. Right. So so they're looking, they think they're looking at two different entities, but really they're they're one. And and they don't understand how those all those lines cross and how the party really micromanages some of the things in the premier's office. I think that's a huge problem for because it's hard. It's hard to get your head around. Unless you've actually worked in party politics for a number of years, it's really hard. Like people don't understand, you know, when I worked in Toby's office, you know, they wanted to ticket to a function for Toby and they would just come to the office. Well, I couldn't accept their money in the office because that's a government office, right? People were always like, what the heck? Those those lines blur. And um, I think that's where the RCMP really struggles. But um, you know, I'm curious, like, where where is this investigation? And at some point, like I'm waiting for the NDP or the liberals or somebody to stand up in the house and say to the premier, like, is this where the FOI stuff came from? Like, did you know? I I think at some point the RCMP are going to have to do something because they're starting to look a little bit guilty in the sense that this guy brought out, well, we're now going to exempt ourselves from freedom of information requests. Well, well, why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Like, who told you that? How can you do that?

SPEAKER_05 41:20

Who told you you should do that? Right? You're invest under investigation. Who told you you should do that?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah. Well, it's it's amazing to me that that that that this is in fact the case. And if I'm not mistaken, the whole Greenbelt thing was similar in nature. I mean, not nuance and minutiae, but similar in nature to what we got going on with the MZO.

SPEAKER_05 41:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

So that being the case, we literally have a leader in this province that is under federal investigation still. How long has it been running?

SPEAKER_05 41:43

The RCMP investigation?

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:46

Well, I think I want to say uh what are we, three years now?

SPEAKER_01 41:53

I don't know. I I honestly don't know. Seems like it's a long time. And the one thing that occurs to me is that if there was nothing here, nothing to be said, nothing to be seen, we're done talking, right? Right. How many years is it? Two, two and a half, three, something?

SPEAKER_05 42:06

Somewhere around there.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Two to three years. Is it a matter of there's a bunch of stuff there that needs to be unpacked?

SPEAKER_05 42:11

Are they doing a fulsome investigation or are they just waiting until we all become complacent and we forget about it? That that could be a very that would be a very, very bad thing for the RCMP to think.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

It would be very bad. And the unfortunate piece of that is that sort of true. It could be that way because we have short memories, right? There's always some issue here, there, or whatever. And then you know you forget about what happened two, three years ago, and then we're not talking about it anymore. And that's that's so unfortunate.

SPEAKER_05 42:36

But to be, I won't forget.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Oh, go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 42:39

I won't, I won't forget, right? And and um they owe us an explanation. And like I say, that has the implications of the um of of the green belt scandal, you're 100% accurate. It's all the same players, it's all the same type of thing going on right here at the Nanny Coke industrial park. And and I'm not shy to to say that an industrial park is a place for industry and for good paying jobs and careers.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

100%.

SPEAKER_05 43:04

Not for not for 40,000 people. And my detractors are like, oh, your math is your math sucks, really, because you're talking even 10,000 homes. How many of us have four people in our home, right? Husband, wife, two kids on average, you're looking at four per per home. You are, and and uh, you know, I would argue who's going to buy those homes? It's not going to be locals. And you go 24 north to Paris, and I've driven, you know, around those subdivisions when my son dropped him off at the Brant sports complex there for hockey, and I drive around those subdivisions, you're not talking four four people in those homes. You are not a lot of times, it's six to ten.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, that that's just the truth. Uh you know, there's a demographic that does this.

SPEAKER_05 43:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 43:49

And that's the way that it is. It's multi-general, multi-generational living, which in the right circumstances I don't think is the worst thing in the world.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Economically, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Economically, it's great. But I mean, if you got a farm somewhere and grandpa lives over there and we live over Here and one of the kids has got a got a little pad over there. Like that, that to me is sensible multi-generational, multi-generational living. Right. However, if you jam 10 people into a home supposed to have four, and this happens, whether people like it or not, does not matter. This happens, and it happens a lot. That overloads the infrastructure, and now it becomes sort of not functional. And this did happen. This happened in Brampton. That's the one thing I'm very, very sensitive about with the MZO is I was in Brampton in 1985. I went to school there. And uh I saw what it is, what it was then, and it was really just like Dunville here. It was just a town that had uh it had some big box stuff, but it wasn't a city yet. You know what I mean? It was still a town, big town, but still a town. And well, that's changed. That just changed. And you could see that change coming. And that changed from then till today. That that that it's 40 years, is it? Yeah, 40, 41 from then. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Wow, time. Uh so but 41 years. I mean, I hear people talking about the MZO and the housing development up. They say, ah, it's not gonna happen for 50 years. Well, let's talk to Brampton. What happened to 40? Let's let's take a look at the city.

SPEAKER_05 45:02

Let's talk to some of our neighboring communities who didn't think it was going to happen overnight either. Exactly. Paris is a fine example. I have friends who grew up in Paris who are like, I never go back because it makes me so sad. Yeah. Don't even recognize it.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Well, there's people that have moved out out here from city home. They lived in the city, now they're living here. And I come across one dude, I just happened to be walking around, and uh, I ended up talking to this guy. And uh, because I do that, I'll I'll talk to random people. I like that. So at the end of the day, I'm talking to this dude and I said, Well, where's home? Not from here, where's home? It says, Mississauga. And I said, Oh, well, what brought you out? He goes, I didn't recognize my home anymore. He says, I just couldn't, I didn't feel like I was at home in my own town. And he said he lived there for most of his life. And uh that that was very unfortunate. Like I look at that kind of development and I say, for me as an individual, I don't want that to happen here in our backyard. Yeah, I just not that that pumped.

SPEAKER_05 45:49

And I think the majority of us don't want that. And we're not we're shy, we're not shy to admit that here and hold menor folk, right? I mean, Norfolk is looking at you know, Caledonia, going, we don't want a Caledonian Norfolk. Yeah, not right. And and this idea that people are paying for themselves, it's not true. Uh if that was the truth, all of our taxes would be going down.

SPEAKER_01 46:10

Yeah, yeah. It's funny because uh the reason I was asking about um, you know, the elections and the and the two-thirds, almost two-thirds of the vote and so on. But I had a friend send me a video of our counselor. I'm in war two, that's where I live. And uh, our war two counselor is John Metcalf. I voted for John. And I like John. I want to have that right now. I want to say that right this second. As a person, I have time for Johnny LaRue. I have no, nothing bad to say about the man in any way, shape, or form. I like him. Um, the video that I have here is John, and he's speaking about how he went door knocking, and the people that were that answered the door were adamantly or fervently against. I can't remember what word he used, doesn't matter. The video's there. It's it's it's a public video. Some hold him account. Yeah, you see it? So he he says overwhelmingly, these people said no. Now, unfortunately, he seemed to change his mind on that. Um why? I'm not certain.

SPEAKER_05 46:55

Yeah, and I've I've I've wondered that too. Why, why did he change his mind? And and and why do a bunch of counselors continue to go down that road when the majority of people don't don't want this development?

SPEAKER_01 47:06

They don't. And and that that becomes my point. Like when people are when he's knocking on the doors, and and he he's saying the words, it's not me. I I can't, I don't need to put any words in his mouth with that video. But the video's there, and it states that this is how people feel about it. And I would just venture that that from that one counselor, if that's not evidence enough that the people of Haldman are not interested in this, let's top it off with the fact you picked up two-thirds, almost two-thirds of the vote uh on a similar sentiment that this is not what people want. That seems to me to be the statement. What I don't understand is why we have a group of people that want to follow the party, the conservative party line in in this province, with a leader that is literally under federal investigation. This isn't this is not made up. This is true. We have a leader that is under criminal investigation by the RCMP. Is that the right word? Is that a fair word? Criminal? Absolutely. Okay, so this is what's happening. And we have people that want to align with that and think that this project is a good one. I just don't understand how in a democratic process that that's okay.

SPEAKER_05 48:00

I've tried I've tried asking people uh online to articulate that, right? So so you don't like me because I don't like the city of 40,000.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:08

Um and and I can articulate my reasons for not wanting 40,000 people here, but they cannot clearly articulate their reasons for wanting 40,000 people here.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

I don't get it. I don't I don't never understand.

SPEAKER_05 48:20

So is it just, you know, like the the whole polarization thing where, you know, whatever she says, we're just going to say the opposite. Is that the kind of BS we're going through for here? But like that doesn't get you good sound policy.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

No, although so yeah, it's it's very, very interesting. I mean, I had to be corrected, not so much corrected, but I didn't hear myself to be clear. So I I got asked, you know, people say to me, Dave, are you in favor of development up in Nanacoke DMZO? No, no, I'm not. I don't want no development, I don't want none of this, none of that. And that's that's true. I I don't want any residential development up there. But I I didn't, I never said, I never qualified it. I never put it out there in in what I'm I never said what I'm about to say. So I had a friend of mine, actually, he's a buddy, uh, buddy of Chris here. Um, and what this guy was doing a podcast here with Chris. And so he's a friend of mine. And I I just went over to see him and his wife to talk about it real quick and say, where are you doing this? Because I've always wanted to do this podcast. Yep. But thankfully we're in a proper studio here at the and I'm gonna shamelessly plug Chris right this second. Chris and Fiona Alford owned Isle of Sound Studio and they do podcasts and all kinds of sound stuff. Great guys, great people. We're here, so thank you for them. Because if it wasn't them, it was gonna be an $80 Amazon kit that I bought off a marketplace.

SPEAKER_05 49:27

Thank you, Chris.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yeah, thanks for Chris. But at the end of the day, um that that is true, actually. It was 80 bucks. I almost bought the thing, and we would be sitting around a coffee table doing something ridiculous. But anyway, in saying that there, uh, what Greg says to me, he says, uh, I hear you're you're against development at the MZO. I said, Absolutely, I'm against it. I hate it, this and that. And he goes, What about industrial development? And I had to stop and think for a second because I hadn't thought for a second about that. I I was just so focused and dialed in on the lightning rod of residential development up there that I didn't pay attention to industrial stuff. Well, I am in 110% favor of industrial, it's what it's for. It's literally zoned for it. It's what it's for.

SPEAKER_05 50:06

Ontario's biggest industrial park. We shouldn't be jamming people in around it. We should be putting industry there.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Let's put industry there.

SPEAKER_05 50:12

We're expropriating what 700 acres of prime farmland in Wilmot Township for a project that could be out in our industrial park.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

This is it. And it's funny, and it's close to my heart, man. I gotta say, because uh growing up out here, my dad is an iron worker, and he was actually trade superintendent on Ontario Power Generation before he retired. So this guy's a wheel, he's got some stuff going on. So being a kid, I remember my dad working up at Texaca. Yeah, it was Texaco, it wasn't Esso, it was Texaca. That's how long that's been. Yeah, so dad worked up there doing that. He was always on shutdowns at Stelco or something going on at uh hydro at the time, you know, and and that's what was happening. So I'm all in favor of that's it's we need to have it. We must have it.

SPEAKER_05 50:54

Well, and that and that's the proper way to do things. You don't bring people and then go, oh, where are they going to work?

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

You create jobs so that you can bring people to the area so that they have a good paying job, so that they're not traveling highway six back to the greater Hamilton, greater Toronto area every single day. They're they're actually working in the community and spending their money in the community. All these people that, you know, we we know, we we know that the people who would largely buy homes in the industrial park are going to be unassuming consumers, probably from the GHA and the GTA, who are going to go, well, well, that's fine. It's inexpensive housing, taxes are cheaper. I'll just I'll just commute back and forth to work. Well, when you commute back and forth to work, you don't spend your money locally. Right? You stop your work here. Right. You you you you lay your head in this community and that's it, and you're the rest of your life is is in another in another part of um uh Ontario, and you're not leaving your money in your home community. So they my argument is uh is they they're not contributing. Sure, they are through taxes, but those taxes are never covering infrastructure. And when you talk about infrastructure, it's not just water, wastewater and and the pipes and all of that. You're talking medical centers, you're talking schools, you're talking police, fire. No developer pays for that.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

No, no.

SPEAKER_05 52:13

We do, we as the taxpayer pay for that. I mean, I was at the the grand opening of the the new school build in Caledonia, there, the joint venture. Wonderful as a joint venture. But when they opened that school, there were already a bunch of portables set up. They were already over capacity.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:30

That's insanity.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

That's insanity. It doesn't make a moment's worth of sense. No, it literally does not. And again, why we have people that want to push on that. And when the citizens of Haldeman County, I I just want to believe clearly said no, this is not what we want. And this is not just me talking by by the vote that that the last election provincially, um, you know, what what John had come up with the video knocking on doors saying, and this seems to be my thing. It's like I've only found in talking to people, I've only found like maybe one in ten. And I don't think it's one in ten. I don't believe it is. Uh, but let's just say it is, you know, so say it's 10% of the people that want this. Well, 90 are saying no, right? 90 are, but this seems to still be a topic. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

And it is, and now it's expanded. Uh it's it's very interesting because of the maralty race going on in Norfolk. So the mayor who uh the previous mayor of Haldman County is now running for mayor in in Norfolk. And so um very interestingly, um Norfolk County Council has never spoken about the city of 40,000. And uh there was a counselor last year, uh Counselor Brunton, who had brought forward a resolution to support an energy project. Council uh supported the the resolution. Uh the mayor and one other counselor did not support the resolution. They said they needed more um information. Well, you don't need more information to say, hey, look, you know what, we'd prefer an energy project out there rather than people, because one of the things, the one of the things that um the people of Norfolk are starting to clue into is if we had a city of 40,000 out at the Nanny Coke Industrial Park, which hospital do you think most of them are going to use? They're not going to say, Oh, I live in Haldam County, I'm going to go to West Haldam General or I'm going to go to Dunville. They're going to go to Norfolk General Hospital because as the bird, as the crow flies, it's closer, right? And so we've had a council in Norfolk who has stayed completely silent on this idea. Instead of saying, look, you know what, we're terrified. They're going to suck resources that people are going to suck resources from Norfolk County. We're going to get zero of the tax base. They're starting to pay attention now. This is no longer just a Haldman County issue. This is an entire Haldman Norfolk issue. And I would say that in the 2022 and 2025 election, Norfolk County was not voting with respect to the M's at a city of 40,000. But if you held a vote today, the people of Norfolk County would be far more engaged on the city of 40,000 than they were last February.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Yeah, I think you're right about that. The interesting thing for me is that, you know, there seems to be a group of people that that think that this is a positive thing. Happy day. The citizens of certainly of Haldwin have said, absolutely not. I mean, we can have whatever opinion, people can have whatever opinion they'd like to have about the organization called Card. I I I I am not a member of CAD. I have never attended an official meeting. Me neither meeting. No, I've never been.

SPEAKER_05 55:19

Despite what is said.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

I'm aware of who these people are. It seems to me that these are good people. They come from a good place in what they what that they want to say. Now, whether you agree with them or not, that's neither here nor there. But they're good people. They're not terribly organized. I'm just gonna say that. They're not terribly organized.

SPEAKER_05 55:32

Are they still together? Like I don't even I don't even know. And yet I'm associated with them all the time online. And I'm like, I I don't even know if these people are still getting together.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

You'll get a kick out of this. So so you you are aware, you're 100% aware of Team Toby.

SPEAKER_05 55:47

It's called Team It's Team Toby and we and we and we all belong and we don't know that we're on the team.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

I didn't know there was a team. And I figured that for a guy like me, as verbose as I am on this kind of stuff, and the way that I've said what I've said, it's pretty clear. There's people out there that don't even agree with what I've said, but they've said as far as Ward 5 goes, that um before, not not necessarily recently, but they said before, as far as Ward 5 goes, there's only one candidate out there that has made his position abundantly clear, and that's me. So I figure that if there's a team, Toby, with a position like that, I'm on that team. That's right. I'm on the team. Here's I'll get a little funnier with this. So at the end of the day, I I have come, I I was at a meeting that was not a CAD meeting. I wanted to meet with the people who are the leaders of CARD because I wanted to understand what's going on here. Like what's happening, because I'm driving around and seeing these signs. Right. Right. But here's what I where I'm going with that. I don't see other signs that say the MZO is so great. There's no arc, there's no organization out there saying, hey, here's our signs. We think it's the greatest thing in the world, and here's why there's no organization for that. But there is one that's disorganized.

SPEAKER_05 56:48

I'm not using the word dysfunctional because there could be more organized than the people who are in favor.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

And there's no team, Toby. Right. There's no team. Like, like I'd like to so early on, and you and I spoke about this. So earlier on, I thought that it would be a good idea to have a bunch of different people with the same thoughts running strategically for these kind of things. And um, I said to Toby, we should be talking, sharing resources and stuff like that. He never engaged on it. He never did it. Now, I I think he didn't do that. I'm only putting my thoughts on that. I think he didn't do it because it's not necessarily the thing. We would then at that point look like a voting block. 100%. You look like a party.

SPEAKER_05 57:23

And that's exactly what we don't want on councils. And that's what I've said to people. You you don't want to get a slate of people together and and go out there as a group and say this was the slate, because then you're no better than what we currently see at Haldman County Council with four counselors continuing to vote the same way.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:38

We would be no different. Yeah. And so I've said to people, I don't belong to this whatever team you're you continue to uh talk to me about. I I don't I don't get it. And and going back to your point about um, you know, where where are those people who are working on on the other side of the issue, I called them out on it a while back. They they were like, Oh, you know, there are people who are in favor. I said, Well then then, you know, compose a com a petition that says that you're in favor of the city of 40,000. Articulate your points as to why you are in favor, and and you know what, I'll I'll read that into the Ontario legislature as well. But I guarantee you, you are not going to collect as many signatures as this side. Right? So I said, I encourage you to be part of democracy. If you believe your opinion really should count on this, then start a petition, go door to door. The woman who was talking about it retired. I said, go to door door to door. Good luck getting signatures. Well, guess what, Dave? A petition never appeared.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Hasn't happened. Right. There's no organization, there's no signs out there. That that that I think that's very, very, very interesting. Yet this is still, it still persists. It's still there. And um what I what I thought was very, very interesting to go along with that and the whole team Toby, team Toby, and very funny. I I'm chuckling about it as I I think it's very funny because again, I'll say it, there's no team or I'd be on it. Right. But but having having said all those things in there, no one comes up with any great reasons why it needs to be there. And one of the one of the big things for me is sheer numbers. So let's I I I said to Toby, there's no team, Toby, because I said to I I've argued with Toby about this. I said, enough of this rhetoric of 40,000. We know that if there's 15,000 homes there, it's not gonna be 40, it's gonna be 70 or 80. Yes. But here's my big thing with that. If that's to be true, let's just say it's not 70 or 80, let's say it's 50, because it's gotta be more than 40, just gotta be, but let's not go crazy here. So let's say it's 50. Well, the population of of Haldeman County is in about 50.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

And you're doubling. Yeah, but here's the thing of the population about 50. I don't believe those are all voting people. So it's less than 50. How long is it before if we go down this urban style development in Haldeman County, before the voices of the old stock voices of Haldeman County, like the old, hey, we're in Dunville here. Well, here's the fact of the matter there's families out there, they're named uh pick pick one. There's a million and one Rickers out there. Why am I aware of that? Because I married one of them. I joke about it all the time. I'm now cousins with three-quarters of the population of Dunville here, you know. But you go through these old names, Ricker, Bell, these things, all through the area here. Fantastic people. You go through these people, and um I'd look at it and say, that's the old stock voices. These are the people that made this place what it is today, that what it could be for us. Did they know they were doing it? Probably not. They were building their lives, they were doing their things, they were having children, they're doing life. But when those voices aren't heard anymore because they're drowned out by the people you brought in that aren't from here, that's a serious issue. This will not be Haldamin County anymore. And that why I think that that's incredibly serious is because we've seen what's happened elsewhere. We've literally watched what happened. So, right now in Brampton, I saw some numbers. I uh if someone wants to say to me, hey, what's your source? I can't tell you because I can't, I don't remember where I saw it. But at the end of the day, 59% of Brampton's population today is foreign born. They don't seem to have a whole lot of interest in being a part of what Canada is. Now it's funny for me because um my dad is old stock Canadian, old stock French, uh French Canadian, native background, all that, like deep, and it goes deep and it's a long way back there. Uh the first Chevrier came here prior to 1700. So wow, been here for a long time. Yep. But my mother's an immigrant. My mom was an immigrant. Mom came from London, England, and it was very funny because I've I brought that up to some people. I say, Well, my mother's an immigrant. They'll say to me, Well, where's your mom from? And I say, England. Oh, that's not an immigrant. I don't know. I mean, you come here in different clothes, speak a different language, you come from a different place. This is so that looks to be immigrants to me. But uh in in sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:41

Well, you know, just this weekend, I I was I was telling you about this earlier, and I brought this up with a few people, and and I know this guy, I think he's a war ten counselor in Windsor. Okay. And um at at Town Hall, Windsor City Hall, the Palestinian flag was raised.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Come on.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:58

No, I'm serious. And uh this was Doug Ford's 2018 candidate, PC candidate in in Windsor West.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:07

And uh on the weekend, and of course it's getting a ton of um a ton of press, right? Um it imagine imagine you know this community, and all of a sudden we we talked about that fourth flagpole. What if that fourth flagpole now was you know something that that we don't really recognize as is being Canadian here?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

It's not Canadian, it's not our problem. I sympathize with the nature of the struggle. Yeah, it's got nothing to do with us. I'm not trying to to discount that. Right. I'm just saying that we are here. This is this is the thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:38

And and where does it end?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

It doesn't seem to have one at this point. Yeah. It doesn't seem to have one, which is why I like I like that saying that you know, truth is a new kindness. We have to start dealing in truth here. And it's it's actually one of the truths that when I go back a little bit to the old stock Canadian stuff that we were just talking about there. Um, it seems to me that big issues in in this this municipal election, uh, and correct me if you think I'm wrong here, the MZO is a big one. It's the one that's on the plate for sure. But the next ones are interesting to me. What I've been hearing from people is they want to know where their recreation dollars could go. What's out, you know, splash pads and these kind of things. Um I I was I'm not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed that the waiting pool got taken out of Central Park up there. Now I didn't know it was gonna come out. I I obviously wasn't paying enough attention, but it's gone now. That's the thing. Wouldn't it have been nice to actually add a splash pad around that? Just add to it rather than take care of it. Now, maybe there's a reason it needed to go. Maybe there's a practical, sensible, engineering-based reason it needed to go. Fine, we can deal with that. But I like the idea of recreational stuff happening. I want families to be out there, kids having fun. I I grew up here. I had the time of my life growing up here. This was the greatest place to be. Can we please maintain that and get it going forward? So it seems to me that people want to know recreation dollars, these kind of things. And then the other big one to me that that I gleaned from different studies and stuff that has happened out there is that people like our small town feel. I like it too. We just so I welcome you to the show, show, because we got a show now, but I welcome you to the show. And here's the thing. But what did we do prior? Here's what we did. So we, you and I spent a lot of time together today. Yep. So we went to Sunnyside Up, right? Go to Sunnyside Up. Fantastic, fantastic place to eat. It's a beauty. I love it. Great. People are great. Yep. People are beauties, and that's what we're doing. Then we go over to the gun club over here. I call it the gun club. Dungalo district hunters and anglers. We're there for an hour and a half, shooting, having some fun, and then we then we come over here. People have said clearly they want us to maintain our small town feel. Now, I like the small town feel because I happen to know just about everybody. And I love when I walk down the street and I don't see somebody that I know, I make eye contact with them and say, good morning.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Why do we we're hockey people? You and I are both hockey people. Why do we love hockey so much? Because of that small town feel. And and those of us who grew up in small town Ontario playing in an old barn, we don't want to see, like, you know, I believe the OMHA has done a disservice to small town hockey by um having organizations amalgamate. And I guess you have to do that to survive in some cases. But I mean, I was on a hockey executive where I really fought against that. I was like, no, you know what? We we like our rivalry with Simcoe, Dover, yeah, Langton, right? And it's a good rivalry. It's a it's a small town pride thing. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to maintain that. No, no, zero wrong with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:22

No, it's it's it's zero wrong. It's the way it should be. And it's funny because you bring up the rivalries and stuff. I was just on a coaching staff the team this past season, and um, and I gave them a talk, and it was like we're in this game. We were we were in the game, like we were right there with an opponent that they had a couple players that maybe we shouldn't have really been in the game, but we were in the game, we're right there. I gave them a talk and I said, I grew up in Cuga, Ontario. I played hockey. Do you remember that old Barn? Do you remember that? Oh, yes, I do. The old Cuga arena. Yeah, well, I played all my hockey there. There's a snot in your nose and freeze. That's right because it was just so bitterly cold in there. It was awful. But it was great. It was great, great, great fun. Yeah, and the fun place. I was sad when it got when it came. Down. I understood the need. I mean, yeah, you can't keep flogging this thing, but we needed to change that up. But I gave these guys a lecture on those kind of rivalries, and I went through the guys that I could name. And I remember playing against Waterford and playing against a guy named Littlewood and a guy named Pond and a guy named Mackenzie. Rotten bastard. I remember playing against Six Nations. You're playing Warren Squires, you're playing Lyle Jonathan, you're playing Jody Porter, you're playing Jeff Jeff Bomberg. This is, believe me, it's zero fun because these guys are competitors. The res guys are lacrosse players. They like to use their stick on you like a lot.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:35

Small of the back, you get the stickers.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

Then you hate them on one hand. But I now I now would love to see these guys and say, thanks for being a rotten bastard and a great competitor because you made us all better. We were all better. And then it anyway, you go on and on about the hockey thing. It'll never stop. We better stop it now. But uh and saying that, that's our small town, man. That's who we are. And when I bring up about Brampton, I didn't move back. I I I I had someone challenge me. I said, Well, when are you when are you packing up your house here in Haldeman and moving to Brampton? Well, I'm not. Why not? Well, if this is what you want, you want this kind of urban-style development here, that's what's going to come with it, whether you like it or not, and whether it hurts anybody's feelings or not, it doesn't matter. These are the truths of the matter. And that we just don't need or want that in Haldeman County, that people are saying it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:20

I remember um years ago, I was in the office in Toby's office one day. I think I was the only one in there, and a woman comes to the front counter and uh she's going off on me about um no oncologists in Norfolk County. And I kind of giggled and I said, Oncologist? I said, Well, damn, you know, you're you'd be lucky to find a family physician. And she goes, Well, why do you find this funny? And I said, Well, where did you come from? She says, Well, I came from Milton. I said, Oh, and I said, Did you need uh like did your family need an oncologist before you left Milton? Well, yes. I said, Did you do any research on whether or not we had these types of health services in in Norfolk County? And she paused and I said, Okay, second question, why did you move here? Well, I like the Carolinian forest and I like Lake Erie. I said, Well, you're you'll be hard pressed to find a uh an oncologist in in the middle of either of those, right? And she she was so mad, she was so pissed off at me that I was actually talking like this. But I said, she goes, You have you don't have a problem with this. I said, Look, you know what? I love my area, I love my way of life. And I understand that if I if I get cancer, I'm diagnosed with cancer, I'm driving an hour either to Hamilton or to London to see an oncologist. That's what you do. And that and and I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

It's life. I'm okay with that. 100%. That's life here. That's the way it works. Yeah, it's interesting. These kind of things have already happened. So um, I know with the MZO they talk about, you know, put X amount of homes in in the Lee of Stelco somewhere. Um, that's just a dumb idea. That's all there is to that. Why? Because people complain about stuff after the fact. There'll be people that buy those homes and then start to complain and then put some heat on industry. So this concern that these jobs are going to go away and there's some pendulum of opinion there. I mean, there's some people say Stelco never said that. And Stelco did say that. I don't know if Stelco did or didn't, but at the end of the day, that's makes sense because it's already happened. Right. So here's what happened. When I was a kid, I lived on Indian Line. Probably as a crow flies three or four miles from uh, yeah, maybe four or five miles from Dragway Park. I'm a kid. Well, it was cool to live there because all the dragsters used to go by and I used to sit there and watch. Oh, were you? I was. Is that right, eh? So anyway, I'm I thought this was great. Like I just a kid watching these hot rods go by, you know. And I never was frequented Dragway Park, even though it's up the road. But here's what happened some years later as an adult. I hear there's people that bought homes close to Dragway Park and they got mad. The noise because it was loud. What are you thinking? Yeah, like you literally moved beside Dragway Park. And now you see what Dragway Park has had to do over the years. Yeah. That stuff was never there. It was a flat place. My friends of mine cut grass there for their summer jobs. You know, it was a flat place, but now it's all kinds of different why because it's loud. People come in and complain. I just don't think we should have heard those complaints. No, you moved in, you moved right beside Dragway Park, Cuga. It's not new, it's been here for decades, but we accommodated that. Do we think it would be any different in Haldeman? Or sorry, at in Nanacoke, if they stick a bunch of homes in there 10 years down the road, everybody's mad because they're they live in the backyard. Well, that's where you bought.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:27

It's funny you're talking about this because um a funnier situation. I was at a ball game last week in Dover, and uh the foul balls uh often go into the backyards of people.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:40

And all of a sudden, partway through the game, uh a foul balls tip foul behind behind home plate, and and you hear this person just freaking out, just losing their mind. And I'm like, what the hell's going on? And they're like, Oh yeah, that guy, that guy's always angry when foul balls. And I'm like, but he his house, like, why would you buy that house? That bull diamond has been there since the beginning of time, right? Like I'm just thinking to myself, oh, why?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

Why? That's literally the question, why? And that that's the other thing, too. Like uh it's gotta be the same in Norfolk County. We get someone that moves in, like, I'm so lucky, and so cute. I got the greatest neighbors, I have the greatest people for neighbors. There's one that doesn't fit in, and that's really about the extent of it these days, but doesn't fit in, and that's it is what it is, it's no big deal, but everybody else does. And why I say that I got the greatest neighbors, I got a guy right behind me, and he's got a little guy. Um, I love his little guy, and I tease him all the time because the little guy is now playing hockey in Cuba. Well, that's where I played as a cube. I'm a cube guy, so we're cuga guys, yeah. You know, and we flex our muscles at each other and call it cuga guys. That's what cue guys do. Yeah, so anyway, we're having some fun with that. How it works in Haldeman County is really simple. I understand people got property rights. Most people in Haldeman County choose not to exercise them. Just so it seems. Now, there's always one or so that does, and it is what it is, it's uncomfortable. And why it why it works in Haldeman County, we don't do that, is my neighbor behind me, our property lines are right there, no problem. And behind my barn, which is not his property, it's mine. But also the the property lines right there. It's shitty back there. It's just shitty. It's weedy and shitty. And we've said for a while we're gonna clean this up together, we're gonna make it go. So we're out there the other day talking about what we're gonna do. We're gonna do it together. Right. And this is what now he's young, much younger than me, so he's probably gonna do most. But at the end of the day, we're gonna do this together. And um, we get say so. He says to me, Where's where's my property line? And I go, I don't know. I think it's that post over there, which it is that post, but you can't see it. It's behind some shrubbery and some bullshit, and you can't see it. So at the end of the day, it's it's over there somewhere. But what's the what's the purpose of the conversation? We're gonna clean it up together. It's gonna make both our places look good. We're gonna feel good about it. His kids to look cute guy, we're gonna flex our muscles. This is what we're doing. That's what we're doing. That's a held of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:57

Common sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

Just let's we're neighbors. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:59

Let's just make be neighborly.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:01

Let's be neighborly. And the thought of not being neighborly isn't there. So it's just not there. No. And that's what I love. So here's the thing, right? And correct me if I think I'm wrong. Person moves in from the city. What's your first? Yeah, you raise your eyebrows because I'm I do the same. Okay, what do we got here? Is this a city? We got a name for them. We got a name for these people. Is this a city or not? And fortunately, it seems to most of the time seems to not be. And this not that this particular individual, but there's been other ones around that come from the city and stuff. They don't understand some pumps. They don't understand a septic bed. We had a lady across the road that lived there for some time, thought she was paying sewer and water. No, you got a well in the septic system. Right. That's what you got there. But some of these people they don't understand that. But this is the Haldeman County way. Yeah. And I look at it when we hear infrastructure, we hear this and that. Infrastructure to me means Rainham Road. Right. That's what it means. You know, that's the that's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:54

Yeah, it's it's interesting you say this because um it's been one of I've got a I've got some um farmers in Norfolk County who who never liked. Um few years ago, Doug Ford dangled three lots per farm, several severance, three lots, three uh severances per farm. He just dangled the idea. Well, Ontario Federation of Agriculture, you know, was like, whoa, what are you doing here, right? And and this is where that whole irrelevance as an independent, you know, these people always say, Oh, she's irrelevant. Well, I questioned it. I didn't say I didn't like it. I stood in the house and I said, How do we go from zero severances to three? What is the significance of three? Why not one? Why not two? There's a significance if the government is floating the idea of three. And I also said to the government, you got to be really careful because not every farm in this province, you can't paint every farm with the with the same brush. Not every farm can can handle one severance severance, let alone three, right? Some farms could maybe tolerate more than three, but like what's the significance? And one farm family um really was really, really offended by this. And and they continue to follow me around this riding and and punish me for my stance on on this. And um, you know, I've I've boldly said to them, look, you know what? I I know that if some folks from the city came and purchased an acre several, like an acre lot from you, and they bitched and complained about the smell of manure, or you starting your your tractor or your piece of machinery at 5 30 in the morning because you want an early start on the day, you'd be the first one to call my office and say that your city neighbor doesn't understand it, but but you made, you know, you made $500,000 off of selling them a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:48

Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:49

Yep. Well, it's interesting on that note because when when I was challenged about the notion of uh development at Nanacoke, and I I again I want to make that clear for myself. I'm I'm all in favor. Like I'm excited that there was $500,000 given to explore. OBG, yeah. Let's explore some possibilities here. Please, yeah, please, let's do that. I mean, we love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:06

That's what Mayor Bentley and I have been fighting for since 2022. Turn this in, make an energy project, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

Well, I don't know how well it's known because I didn't know. Uh when when they shut the old hydro plant down and made it go away, they lost four million in taxes. Now we get 30,000 or something like that. Let's get something back.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:23

And yet all the infrastructure still, there's still all that infrastructure infrastructure that exists. Why wouldn't we put that to use? Especially when the government, this provincial government, needs something like 75% more power by 2050. This is the place to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:38

Right? 100%.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:39

And I've said to the Minister of Energy, you you need to go have a conversation with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and make sure he's not going to jam in, you know, 40,000 people by signing off on that MZO. Oh, well, I can't really get involved in that. Well, well, where else? There's only so many places in this province that you can generate power so easily. The Nana Coke Industrial Park is one of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:01

It's all there. Right. Why wouldn't we use it? It doesn't make any sense. The infrastructure's there. Let's let's make use of it. So to speak further to that, uh, what kind of development would I be in favor of? Just this Dave Chevry, the guy up the road. Uh for me, there's a few different things. If um I I live in in uh the Silk, and so there's when I moved there some 25 plus years ago, there was a farm still there. The farm is there. Um, and that time, maybe just before we got there, that farmer had severed a bunch of lots along the front, and then along, along now. I don't know who severed them. I'd be clear about that, but they were severed there. And every once in a while, a house goes up. You know, for me, I'm fine with that. I just look, hey, you know, a new house going up there. Honestly, for me as an individual in that little village there, there's not been a lot of kids around there, not been a lot of children. And it seems like there's more of them coming, younger families are coming there. And I like that. I like to I like to hear the kids and see the kids run around. But anyway, I'm I'm fine with that kind of development. You know, further up South Kigo Road, there's a developer up there, a home builder, his name is Keysman. I don't even know which guy he is. Oh I don't know. I don't know his name. Ike. Okay, I first I've heard his name. But I drive by his house all the time. We wave to each other constantly because I hunt back there, I take my dogs back there. We do so I'm constantly waving to this guy. Seems like a good dude. If that dude from Haldeman County wants to build some homes, I'm all for it. 100%. Build your home, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:17

And I've had these conversations with this friend of mine. And and but the problem that I see, I see, and we were having this discussion, a very passionate discussion about this recently. Um, because he he just went, Ike Keysmat just went before Norfolk County Council and talked about their increasing their development charges like like through the roof. That doesn't help a builder like Ike, right? A guy who wants to build 10 houses at a time. Not 10,000. No, yeah. 10. Okay. That's the kind of building we want. We want our small guys, but I've been warning these guys for years. We saw it with farmers. Government doesn't want to deal with 10,000 farmers. They want to deal with 10 big guys because it's much easier to manage.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:00

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:00

And in instead of having all these 50 acre farms, now we're gonna have thousands of acres per farm and we're going to have less farmers, much easier to manage. Home building is the exact same way. I said, I'd much rather issue 10 permits to Ike Keys Matt, 10 permits to this guy, this girl, whomever, right? And have them put up quality, solid homes in our communities that we can be proud of.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:26

Instead of one outfit coming in and slamming up 10,000 homes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:32

I'm with you, man. Like at the end of the day, you know, Keys Matt, and I go back to the 90s, the Henning brothers building homes. Yeah, they didn't build shit. That's right. They built quality stuff. Yeah. And they employed local people. Absolutely. And this is what, and I'm all for that. I'm I'm absolutely for that.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:44

When I was knocking on doors in 2022, I'll never forget it. It was uh Nell's Corners. Uh, young guy answers the door, and and I said, you know, I'm I'm Bobby and Brady. And he's like, Yeah, he goes, I want to talk to you about something. He says, like, he I think he was a trim guy. I think he did trim. And he says, Here I am. He says, middle of the day, and you're talking to me. And he goes, I'm not going to mention the developer, but they're all over Haldman County building these houses. And he says, Here I am. He goes, You know who I'm waiting for a call for? I'm waiting for a call to go work in Niagara or go work closer to Toronto because these guys come into the community and they're not hiring local guys like me. They're bringing in their own folks from the cities and doing the work here that I could be being paid for.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:30

Right? Keysmat, Hennings, all of these guys, they they all they all have local guys that work for them, like local guys and gals.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

And they do quality work. I mean, it's it's funny because we just met the guy at the sunny side there, Bruce DeBoer. He's a buddy. And uh, you know, dad, my dad's talking about getting a new roof, eh? And so I said to that, Dad get steel. Oh, I don't know, subscribe. I said, No, dad, listen. It's 40% more. Get steel. I said, I'm gonna team you up with my buddy Bruce. Listen to Bruce. Bruce's price is not gonna be the lowest, but it's gonna be the most value laden. Right. And if you have a problem, they will be there with bells on to fix it. That's the way it's gonna be. And that is the way I I I sold for them for a while. I'll tell you, I I could sell for them because they do quality stuff, but it's it's our stuff. It's our cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:36

Sure, we we could have quoted on that garbage, basically, that was put in there. And and I'll give you an example, like uh blinds, like the components for window blinds. Yeah, you know, those those are plastic components on there. We were actually quoting on you know, steel components or whatever. We we could have quoted on that, but that's not our quality assurance. No, right? We we actually provide a quality product that's going to stand the test of time. And I would say the same thing about our local home builders. They're going to build a home that's going to stand the test of time. And those are the people that we should be rolling the red carpet out to build homes in this area. And and I'll go back to that idea of um the severances. And I do, I do uh support the idea that if we're going to look at a chunk of land, uh productive agricultural land, and the farmer wants to create an invest a reinvestment lot or a succession planning lot, that will actually keep that entire farm in production. That's better than that farmer going, I have no other choice than to sell out to the developer.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:54

Give them the damn succession planning lot or reinvestment lot, then allowing a developer to come over and pave over everything so the whole town floods.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:03

From in my eyes, I do not understand why there's one moment's worth of concern with that notion. At the end of the day, there's just some large well, growing up out there, there was a whole ton of hundred-acre dairy farms when we were kids, right? Yep. Milk truck used to come around. That's not the way now. Milk truck still comes, but it ain't the way it was. Right. So that's fine. It is what it is. Technology stuff's happened. But there's a lot of huge farms, like huge farms and well-known people, good people. If one of those farmers there says, Hey, you know what? Uh, this is our family farm, and it's uh some other, however, it doesn't matter how large it is in my mind. Uh my son's gonna work this farm, it's a family business, and we need a house for him. Yeah. Please check these boxes, bring in your stuff. Well, pyramid will be waiting.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:44

Common sense and discretion. Pyramid will be waiting. It's gone though. Common sense and discretion is completely gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Oh, it's completely gone. It's it's all about actually, it's it's so ridiculous. But I'll stand by that. Like if these people say to me, I'll pick somebody, Richardson's farm. I love those guys. At the end of the day, you know, they want to build a house there because their son's gonna work the family farm with them, build that house. Right. If they say we want to build another house because we got a lot of workers that work here, because it's an industrial operation now. It's not like father-son anymore. You need housing for these people. Here's your permit. Let's get it done. Let's I call that kind of development organic. That's organic to me. It's not some vested huge corporate interest. It's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:21

And those decisions, those should be local decisions. And I've said this, uh, you know, I've had a Norfolk County counselor, she'd come at me on this all the time. And I said, you know what? Then I'm gonna put you in charge. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, when I can call the shots, then I'm gonna put you in charge so that you can go out to farms and you can have a look and see, hey, what makes what makes sense here? Right? What we should be making decisions on what makes sense on that parcel of land.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:48

Not a blanket. No, not blanket policy from Toronto. Right. From from towers downtown Toronto that may not even know what end of the plant comes out of the ground.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:58

This is just it. Like it's funny. Uh, we'll get off this pretty quick because we can consume our entire lives. But uh this came across my plate. So I I found out from a local uh firefighter that's out of the self-cuga hall that they had an event there recently, and it's like a car show and a vendor event and this and that. It's always a popular event in the community. Lots of people go. I was there, my wife goes to work at this is what we're doing. So, anyway, um attendance was a little down this year on that, and uh just just talking a little because it was cold out. It was a really it wasn't a shitty cold day, but it was pretty cold. It was enough to make you go, uh, maybe I'm not gonna go. I'm not going. But anyway, I was talking uh to this girl and she they she said that they didn't run a turkey roll, they didn't run a turkey raffle. And I thought, what fire department in any rural community is not running a turkey raffle? You gotta be kidding me. Like this is a regular thing. So I I talked to her about it, and they they didn't do it because they would have to change their association to a non not-for-profit association and then apply to the OLG. The OLG. Why? Are we are we have we become that stupid? Like, quite quite, that's the word I'm going to use for that. Because here's the thing for me these are literally the people in our communities that go get trained, volunteer, get paid a little bit. They're not doing it for the pay. They're not doing it for the pay. At the end of the day, this is what they're doing. These are the people that when the alarm goes off at three in the morning, they get out of bed. They come to save your life and your property. That's who these people are. And I think that they should be well equipped. And if they want to have a turkey raffle every damn day, go ahead. Let them get the money because you need equipment. This is what you so I asked what they do with the money. And she said two things they'll buy equipment that they need or they'll give it into the community for people in need. Let's get OLG involved. Yeah, let's have some corporate bullshit where we've got to change the structure.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:47

Bureaucrats bureaucrats telling us what we can and cannot do in our small towns.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

Right. Right. This is not where people are full-time employees of the fire department. They're volunteers.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:56

I always think of two, how many of us died from school bake sales or from community dinners, where potlucks where people brought food? Nob nobody. Nobody died from bad food. And and yet we all now have to have a certified kitchen. We have to have safe food handling, all of this stuff. That is what going back to your point about the economy and and government making life more expensive. There's so now we're paying somebody probably, you know, that's been in that job safe food handling for you know 15 years, and now we're paying them well over $100,000 to make sure that we all just exercise some common sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:36

Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. So at the at that very event, they like to have a bouncy castle. But what you take your kid there. I mean, I got four grandkids now. I take my grandchildren there, what's happening in that thing. That's what's happening. That's the way it is, that's why it's there. So it's so ridiculous. These people they they rent the bouncy castle, they also have to hire a person to keep the bouncy castle safe.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:59

So they put

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

Pay and it's a it's some sort sort of insurance liability thing. They gotta pay. They got trained firefighters, trained in rescue, trained in first aid, trained. We've already paid them. And they have to hire the person shows up, God bless this person. It's a kid. It's literally a kid that's had none of the training of that professional. Right. None.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:18

And and then we're not allowing kids to be kids. My son says this all the time. You know why kids are soft now? Because we don't allow them to, you know, go do this in the creek and go in the woods and do this. And you know, I sometimes I was a helicopter parent too, but there's so much of this like, let's wrap them in bubble. Put them in the bouncy castle. And chances are, you know, two are gonna hit heads and they're gonna cry or whatever. But you know what? That's how you grow as a person.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

You do. It's funny because last night I was out walking my dog and uh I hear it. I can hear it coming through the bush. There's kids on dirt bikes. I was a dirt bike kid, so I know what those guys are up to, right? Right? How much fun is that? Right. So anyway, these dudes, they're ripping. And so then they come flying up the road, not supposed to be on the road. Yeah, but I was a dirt bike kid. I know what's going on here.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:05

This wave.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:06

Right? And I I hear them, they're going up the road. This is what they're doing. And I thought to myself, you know what? There's gonna be someone who's gonna bitch and complain about these kids bombing around their dirt bikes. I would go to their defense, leave them alone.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:19

It happened to my kid during COVID, yeah, right? So can't play hockey, can't do this, can't do that. My kid's been on a dirt bike since he's little, whatever. Dad owns 17 acres of farmland. Well, subdivision over here, right? So middle of the day, and and my my kid's very respectful in, you know, he's not riding his, he's not wrap at like at 9:30 at night or five o'clock in the morning. This is the middle of the afternoon. Well, yep, one of the neighbors, right? Well, my baby's sleeping during the afternoon. Well, you know, my kid's like, well, when am I supposed to ride then? Right? Like, do you run the vacuum when your baby's sleeping? Do you do all these things right? And and and I had a letter written. I was like, ready to go with this. Like, if my kid was downtown doing drugs and and and selling stuff and scamming people and everything else, is that is that what you actually want my kid to be doing? Because he's doing something completely harmless and you still find a problem with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:13

Let kids be kids. Yeah, let's as long as they're not harming other people, as long as they're, you know, not doing things that are going to get them in serious trouble. You have to let kids go out there and experience the world. You gotta let them fall down.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:27

100%. You gotta. That's just the way of it. Like I look at the way we grew up, and I know I like I am that guy. I'm 60 years old, my next birthday. I am lamenting for the 70s and 80s, man. It was a great time to be alive, was it not? It was a great, great, great time to be alive. I I I don't know that we'll ever see life like that again. And it makes me very, very sad.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:49

We were taught, we were taught uh I got a dirt bike story for you, I gotta tell you, but keep going. Yeah, we were taught in the 70s and 80s, you know, as a kid, that if you worked hard, you would be fine, right? We also had a shit ton of opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:03

We sure did. Different world, different world.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:05

And I feel sorry. This is why I do um a lot of what I do as as a as a politician or representative, whatever the hell you want to call me, because I look at our young people. Our young people are beautiful, oh yeah, beautiful people. They get a bad rap because for for no good reason, but they do not have the opportunity that you and I had. They don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

They don't. It's a different world. It's it's funny because I go off my rants, as I alluded to earlier. I don't think I've done that yet. But at the end of the day, that's Chris. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I do go off on rants. And um, I went off on uh now, you know what? My I lost my train of thought on that. I don't know where I was going with it. So I'm gonna go back back to dirt bike story. I'm gonna go back to the dirt bike story. So so I my dad, uh dad was uh dad did very well financially, and uh what we do is you buy a house, a shithole, fix it, sell it. And when we moved a lot, man. Like I from from in my school years, I think I moved eight times with this guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:03

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:04

If you gotta move your house, don't call me. I'm good at it, but don't call me. I'm not interested. But anyway, anyway, so we go from from South Kyuga into town, into Cayuga. We moved right into town. Dad hated it. We were out of there in short order, but anyway, but I have my dirt bike, and so some dudes had done the the lines on the ball diamond, brand fresh new lines, and I got a dirt bike.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:25

Oh, so you were you were framed, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:28

I was totally framed. Yeah, and it was funny because I tore up the doll. I I'm not proud of this. I was I was about 12, so I mean complete dick brain, but at the end of the day, I'm 12. And I tear up the tear up the ball diamond, and uh I get home and uh because you're not supposed to ride your bike everywhere, right? So I'd I'd stop, get off it, and push it when I got close to home just so it looked like I'd had to ride again. Right, right, yeah. So anyway, I get there's a there's a cruiser sitting in the laneway, and uh and uh it's one of uh a guy that I knew from town because I went to school with his kids, and he ultimately became one of my coaches uh in hockey. I love this guy, he was a great cop. Uh, his name was Dan Ziggler. Okay. So anyway, Zig umstead of talking to my dad. And so I get close. I get close enough, and dad looks at me and goes, Hey boy, you tear up the ball diamond in your butt with your bike? And I went, nope. Zig looks at him and goes, I watched him do it, chef. So uh, so they're just buddying it up over here. Like I'm in I'm in mortal peril here. Like this is this is about to be bad. Yeah. And so uh dad says, Oh, hey, you know what? Don't worry about it, I'll take it from here. Uh it's good to see you, man. I hope all's well. Take care. And he's driving away. I'm thinking, don't leave me here with this guy. This is ridiculous, eh? So anyway, I heard about it, felt it, and uh and it was like, you know, see that bike? That's the way dad had talked to you, right? You see that bike? You're looking at it? You see it? Yeah, don't don't look at it. You know, I'd riding it for two months. And that's what happened, you know. But I tore up the ball diamond, right? Yeah, and uh dictive. Oh, I guess a complete trip. Like just brutal, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:51

But that's the that's the that's how we were raised. Uh, you know, when I started playing hockey, my brother and I, well, we we had we were forced to figure skate first. My mom was a championship figure skater, so she she of course thought that I was going to follow her in her skates, and uh I didn't love figure skating. My brother, though, he was long and lean and he looked beautiful as a figure skater, right? But anyway, uh I'll never forget the first day we went to our figure skating lesson. I can still see it in the old Delhi arena. And um my brother looks down at me and he says, Bob, no matter what, don't cry. And I said, Oh, I know. And the whole reason he said that is because my my mom had said to us, You get on that ice and you cry, I will take your skates off, I'll hang them at the end of your bed and you can look at them forever. But you'll never put them on again, right? So we knew, right? We knew. And then I was a I was a girl hockey player playing boys' hockey. Yeah, I was not allowed to cry. Don't you dare cry.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:58

And if you're bleeding, you can come off the ice, but unless you're bleeding, you don't come off that makes you that makes you strong.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:05

It does. I remember what I was gonna say, but I got one thing to say before that. So, and what I was gonna say involved safety, so you have to remember that word safety. Safety. So the funny thing. But I grew up in Cuba being dirt bite kids up there, and I was friends with the Marshall family, uh, Justice Marshall and his kids and whatnot. I so I was good friends with them. This is just a side note in its completeness, but um the his second daughter is a girl named Julie Marshall, and uh she was a great athlete, man. I tell you, I swear that I'm right about this. I I got some background in hockey. I swear I'm right. At the end of the day, if Jewel was if there was Team Canada girls hockey, she's not only on the team, she's a captain. Captain, she's running it. Right, and I'm not kidding. I'm serious about that. I haven't seen her in many years.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:48

So this would be Albert's sister.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:50

Albert's uh Albert's one older sister, yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:53

I've never heard this story before.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:54

Yeah, she was a great athlete, she was good at everything. She baseball, she she played like a dude. She didn't play like a guy, played like a dude. And she could play, and she was good at everything. And that didn't really change. Like as we got older as hockey, she was always the best hockey player amongst us. It did change when we got a little older and we we started to turn into men, you know what I mean? She she's not but uh a man. So it did changed a little bit, but she was a great athlete and a great competitor, yeah, and well accomplished in life too. She's done well for herself, from what I understand. Uh it's good. That's anyway. Yeah, good. I liked her a lot. She was a good friend. But um safety. Safety. So one day I'm on my rant. I'm on a rant. I I used to sell exhausts, so I'm in, I'm in all kinds of, I love that job. I was in all kinds of exhaust shops and stuff talking to people. I had some great customers. I'm in there one day and I'm having a rant. I'm on about the government. And uh, anybody that's liberal or even left of liberal, and I mean, if you go back into the 90s, it's a little bit different world when it comes to the word liberal. But anyway, uh I call them commies. I say that these are communists, like these people. So I go on and on about that. So I happen to be having a rant in this shop, and I'm going on about the commies. And uh, as I leave, uh getting ready to leave, this guy approaches me. He goes, I just I heard you talk in there. And I'm thinking, oh God, what have I done? I really believe I'm thinking, you know what, I've lipped off in a customer shop.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:07

I've blown it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:08

Yep, I've lipped off in a customer shop about something political. I should have just kept my mouth shut, which I'd never do that, but I should have kept my mouth shut, not said a word. I really was starting to go, you know, oh my God. And he goes, he says to me, he goes, uh he goes, You're not wrong. He's told me, you know, thick accent. He says, I came from a communist country. He says, and you are correct. He says, and what they do, they will, and this goes towards what we're talking about with kids and stuff like that. The kids are soft and these kind of things these days. He says, uh, what they do is they cover it under the guise of safety. He says, and when I left my country, you could not get out a ladder and clean your gutters without having a permit.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:45

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:45

That's what he said. And he said, and he says, that's what'll happen. They will do it all under the guise of safety. And someone come up to me now and tell me that he was wrong. Like right now, you see all the stuff safety, safety, safety. Everything's safety. Well, I mean, I like seeing kids on dirt bikes because I know for sure what's gonna happen. My son, you are gonna run that into a tree. You are gonna wipe that thing out, you are gonna understand what it means to drive a car safely because you have driven vehicles and it went sideways on you. That's right. These lessons we don't seem to get anymore, and it's so unfortunate. Yeah, it's funny to me growing up. You know the kids that didn't get sick? The Dutch kids playing in the farms, playing in the barn. I played there with them. This is what we're covered in manure half the time. It's not because you're shitty. It's just this is what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:29

Built an immunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:30

You sure did. And under under the guise of safety, we don't do that anymore. They all everybody's got hand sanitizer, this kind of stuff going on.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:37

My son should be sitting here because uh dirty, like, like always had his bath at the end of the day, had a bath in the in the morning, but in between, yeah, he'd be like, Yeah, no, I'm building an immunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:49

Uh yeah, this is this being a kid.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:51

And my my niece always has her hand sanitizer out, and whenever he sees it, he's like, Do you know how many chemicals are in that? They're trying to kill you.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:58

How bad that is for you, straight up, right? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting, the human condition. We'll move on here a little bit. So, what do you what do you think about the current state of the media? What do you got?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:09

That's um yeah, I'm disappointed in the media. Somebody who was trained in media. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I'm very disappointed. I don't, I don't uh there's there's too much um uh like kind of the shock and awe factor, but then there's not the when we talk about truth, right? Um you know, kindness without truth is deception, and I see a lot of deception. 100%. Um I at Queen's Park, for example, uh I'm always disappointed. I've I've had reporters say to me, You ask some of the very best questions in the Ontario legislature. But but am I on the six o'clock news?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:45

No, it doesn't fit an agenda.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:47

Doesn't no, that's that's that's the thing for me. I I look at it, you can see it clearly. It's the the bias is absolutely ridiculous and unbelievable. You could you could have anecdotal evidence all day, every single day, no problem. But what what distresses me about the media is this all of what we've just said is very distressing. There's no objectivity there, it is completely slanted to the left, and there is no objectivity whatsoever. But uh, I don't know if you're aware of this. I I'm gonna hope you you were, but if we're if not, I I I understand. What I'm understanding here is running for Ward 5, there's a lot of shit going on. There really is. So try to keep your finger on the pulse of it all. It's a it's not a reasonable expectation for someone to be able to do that. I I don't I don't think I see that. Yeah, but in anyway, in saying that, um the state of the media is a serious, serious problem. And the problem is that not a lot of people know to look outside of that for information. And this is the information that they're getting. Does it make them stupid? No, it doesn't. It's just this is what's this is what's happening. Unfortunately, to turn on the news, you can see what's what's happening.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:44

Uh so a young guy, I know who he is. He was outside my office a few years ago. They it was part of a rally, and it was with respect to some COVID stuff. And and he said to me, Bobby Ann, um why why is this stuff being hidden? Why why aren't we being I said it's always been this way. We just didn't have our eyes wide enough. They've been doing this to us. Government and the media has been doing this since the beginning of time. But you know what we did? We trusted. We trusted that government and the media was looking out for us, and neither one of them had been looking out for us.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:22

No, I agree.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:23

At all. And I said, so everything has been done in plain sight, all of it. But we've been too lazy to go and try and find the truth. Yeah, but we have just went, oh, these folks are telling us the truth, and we've never questioned it until recently.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:39

Yeah, that's fair. It's funny. It's not funny at all. So I started to pay a lot of attention to what was going on. I I want to believe that I was well informed, particularly federally. I've I find myself paying more attention to the flag, the banner of the flag is Canadians. You know what I mean? Uh province is what it is, municipality is what it is for me. Uh, but I was always dialed in pretty much on the on the federal stuff. COVID comes along, I start to pay a different type of attention. I see different things now. And I'm watching this. What I saw, what I learned through that period of time was what happened prior to COVID. So were you aware? This is not a gotcha question. This is just a straight up where you'll say whether or not we'll figure it out, right? But at the end of the day, were you aware that it was? I wrote the date down too, so I could have it. June 21st, 2019. There was a law that was repealed in this country. It was cleverly hidden with a bunch of other stuff. They repealed this law, and the law was about broadcasting a falsehood, knowingly broadcasting a falsehood. That was repealed. The rationale behind it was what got me very interested. So that it had happened, I thought this is this is a disaster. That if we don't have a law that says you if we don't have a law against a national broadcaster taking information on their own agenda, not objective, completely subjective, and blasting that out there, that's wrong. If we don't have a law to stop that from happening, this will be mass public deceit. Right. So prior to that, we're gonna go to May 4th, 2019. Justin Trudeau is standing there at some sort of liberal fundraiser and he's jesting in such a way, but it ain't funny, and it wasn't a jest. At the end of the day, what he's saying is he's he's saying about how people are uh mad because the liberals are getting absolutely fantastic headlines. This is what he's saying. And he says, frankly, I find it insulting that we get uh that people are mad about those uh headlines because we should be getting them because we're paying them $600 million a year.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:24

I remember that. Yeah. The video's there.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:26

Yeah, it's 100% there. Is it any surprise after that type of announcement that that shortly thereafter the law is repealed? Now, were you aware of the rhetoric behind not the rhetoric, but the reason, the rationale behind repealing that law?

SPEAKER_05 1:43:37

I forget. I remember at the time, like I knew at the time, but I forget. Remind me.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:41

Ernst Zundel. Do you remember that name? Ernst Zundel, the Holocaust denier. That's right. They said that Ernst Zundel could, in fact, go ahead and do this stuff and deny the Holocaust, print it out and deny it. Yes, yes, yes. And that that um then brought in the challenge, the charter rights to freedom of speech. And then they said, since there is no no no reason to have a law there, we'll just get rid of it. Right. Well, I look at that and say, who in their right mind thinks that's a reasonable idea? Ernst Zundel as an individual could be just like Dave Chevrier and say whatever you bloody well want. You can go say whatever you want, and it can be received however it's going to be received. However, that doesn't apply to a national broadcaster that is in fact funded by the government. Because if the government doesn't fund them, they don't got jobs. They don't work. But there it is. There it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:26

Right in front of our face, blatant, not even hiding it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:30

Not even hiding it. How many people do you think know that? Those two things exist. That that law was repealed, and that that that announcement was made, and that's how we've been living. That's right. That's what we've been doing. Yeah, so people want to talk about the media, do a little digging and see what the operating premise of the media is today. And it's very unfortunate. Is it any wonder why they and I'm not saying I'm a fan uh of uh I I'm actually not a real big fan of the rebel news, only insofar as that the the I don't mind what they say and how they say it. Do I think they're always right all the time? Maybe, maybe not. But to me, they WWF the news. It's WWF. You know, it's like stop, just give me this, give me the information. Yeah, but at the end of the day, they try to stop these people from operating and having the free speech that they get the government to pay them for.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:13

Yeah, it's it's insane. And it's a prime example of the polarization in our society. So you you have the the government paid left wing media, and then you have like the right wing. And and the further these guys go, the further these guys think they have to go. Yeah, right. And all we do is this get this deep deepening of the polarization.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:36

And it's so bad for all of us. This is where you get all the hatred. This is where you get people online just at each other's throat all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:45

Yeah, it's it's disgusting.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:47

It's all very purposeful.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:48

I agree. I agree. It's agenda-driven, and it's so unfortunate that that lots of Canadians haven't seen it, they're just not aware. But again, I go back to the first time I ever spoke in any sort of political fashion at the town hall meeting, town council meeting there. And I said at the end of the day, people aren't stupid. I had a friend of mine say, Chev, people are stupid. No, they're not. They're busy, they're occupied, they're all these kind of things. However, I will concede a little bit there. I don't like the word stupid, but we're not paying attention. And if we're not paying attention, does that make us stupid? I think we're wanting in that capacity.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:18

Well, if we're not paying attention, um, it's for two reasons. Number one, we're busy and we think other people are doing the job for us. Or secondly, we just want to pretend things aren't as bad as they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:27

Maybe there's an element of that.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:28

Right? Yeah, you know, yeah, I don't I don't really like things, but you know, it it seems kind of uh depressing or it seems nasty if we actually talk about the truth.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:37

Yeah. Right. And it's so apparent. Like I've been following along the the war in Iran, and uh I follow that pretty good. Uh that's that's that's determining a lot of not policy, but a lot of what would you say? And while it's affecting the economy, obviously. That that's all we need to say. It's affecting our lives huge time. And uh, but what I've been doing is I've been watching news. So I don't watch Canadian news. I don't watch CBC or these guys because it's nauseating and I can't stand it. But I so I watch uh CNN, which is equally as nauseating, but at least it's not we're not paying for that. So at the end of the day, um I watch some of the CNN stuff and I watch Al Jazeera and I watch uh El Arabia. I'll tell you straight up, and Fox News I watch two. Those four, the North American media is drastically different from what's said over in the Middle East from that media there. Which one's right and which one's wrong? I don't know that. However, I will say this the way that it's played out looks to me like Al Jazeera and El Arabia are giving us a lot more accurate picture of what's going on, and it is almost the polar opposite of what you see in the North American media. Isn't that wild? It is, it's it's absolutely incredible. And the number of people that are riveted to global, CTV, CBC, CNN, they think it's the gospel. They do. They think, and it's so unfortunate. Just take a different, get a different measure, you'll see a different different thing here.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:49

That's why I do a lot of podcast listening, right? I I listen from all over. Uh I very seldom turn on a a news channel.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:56

Yeah. Very seldom. Yeah, I mean, same thing. I I'm full of crap. I turn on every morning I catch up on all those what I've just spoken of. And I sometimes I'll do it at night before I go to bed just to see what's kind of gone on in here. But it's so unfortunate that the masses are not getting accurate uh objective information. And I think that's something in our society that just needs to change, period. And it's so unfortunate, man. I tell you, when I was a young guy, I had a job where I drove across the province. I serviced max milks in all these small little obscure towns. Like it's amazing to me how many towns had a max milk.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:27

Delhi had a max milk.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:29

Well, I'm talking small towns in the north, man. Like they didn't even know it existed. They got a max milk. So anyway, I'm in all these places. Well, it was funny because the only news that was available was actually CBC up there. Of course. But it was funny because you drive through the town and they'd say, Oh, we're gonna give you Friday night's ball hockey scores. Here's one, oh, a little Donny Brook happened here. This is this and that.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:47

A Donny Brook.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:48

A little Donny Brook.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:49

You you know what a Donny Brook is.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:50

I know exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:51

So do you do you know Hank Lees?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:53

No.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:54

Uh he's a uh a farmer here in Haldman County. And uh he showed up to a meeting of mine a few years ago on this three lots per farm, by the way. Okay. And uh, you know, Haldman County guy who uh would have a hard time growing stuff on Haldman County Clay. And and he's he's taking on some of my Norfolk County guys who are who can grow anything and everything, right? And uh, Hank, I said, You damn near started at Donny Brook that night. And he says to me finally, one time, he goes, Bobby and he goes, What the hell's a Donny Brook? And I said, What? How do you how can you be from Haldeman County and not what oh Hank's gonna kill me for this one?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:28

Where's he where is he from?

SPEAKER_05 1:49:30

He's from Haldman County here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:31

Yeah, is he like a Dunblill guy?

SPEAKER_05 1:49:33

Uh oh my gosh, why can't I think of where if he's a Dunboel guy and he doesn't know what a Donny Brook is? No, he's he's from oh I'm not going to say. I I I'm not going to say because I'm going to get it wrong, but um, I can't remember exactly where Hank is from is from, what town.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:47

Yeah, yeah, that's funny, eh? Yeah. That's that's that's again, you know what? That takes me right back to my whole thing of not wanting a major amount of development in Haldeman County that's not organic. Yeah. Because these names, these people, these stories, and stuff like that, it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:58

It is fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:00

Live over here, and I love where I live there because there's a whole cast of characters, man, in these back roads. Some of these people are the smartest, most intelligent people around. Absolute truths. Amen. Absolute truth.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:11

Problem solvers.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:12

Complete problem solvers, solutions on a tool.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:14

Adapters, you know, they know how to adapt, they know how to pivot.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:18

Yeah, you know, so a beauty thing happened here. A good friend passed away. John Hart passed away. God bless the guy. And um when he passes away, there's a huge function out of the gun club there. And where we just weren't, so we're there. And coming out of there, uh, a guy that I went to school with, I hadn't seen him since basically school. He get he's in the ditch. Well, I got a jeep. So we're gonna pull him out of the ditch. We end up in the ditch. So we're all in the ditch. Everybody's in the ditch. And so someone in the in the building called over to Haldeman County and said, Hey, this event's going on out here. The snow is blowing, there's people in the ditch. Get out here, get this road cleaned off, yeah, and let's do well. Sure enough, moments later, Haldeman County truck shows up. He's throwing sand down there. Get what do we do? Solution. That's what we did. Solution was right there. That's right. Happened in minutes, happened on a phone call. That's the Haldeman County way. Yeah, that's the way it works here.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:10

Yeah, that's the way I'll you know, I'll I'll let you in on a on a little secret. I won't say which town, but um, you know, I get invited to a lot of events, okay, a lot of stuff. The places that I get invited to the most are the smallest places.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:27

Because they understand that sense of community. They love getting together, they love raising money for that small community and investing back.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:38

And and that is the honest to God truth. I get the most invites from the smallest communities.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:44

It's amazing, eh? Yeah. Well, it's what's interesting to me is a little village like Fisherville does a great job on their ball diamonds and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:50

Love Lions Club there. I'm gonna give them a shout out. I love that Lions Club.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:53

Floyd's out there crushing cats.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:55

Doing it for the kids.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:56

He's my boyfriend.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:57

Is he? Yeah, Floyd is. You picked a good boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah. But those guys doing that, that Fisherville's a great. I think Jarvis is another one that does a really good job. But I really liked in Haldeman County when when when, you know, because actually, I'm gonna back up just a little bit. So I really believe in my heart of hearts that Haldeman County is an 80-20 thing for me. 80% of what happens here is pretty damn good. And 20% maybe needs to be a little better. True. A lot better when it comes down to division and these kind of things. But when it comes down to division, I got a I got a question. What are we divided about? What's on the table? Who brought it?

SPEAKER_04 1:52:26

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:26

Why is it here? What happened? So if we're divided about something, it's because people are starting to pay attention here now. And I think that that's a positive thing. But when they when they started to build, you know, new arena for Dunville, new arena for Cuga, new arenas double pad for Caledonia, Hagersville Arena's been refat, re refurbished and so on. We got great facilities here. We've got good stuff going on here. And we need to keep it that way. We need to keep our small town vibe because that's what people want. They want the small town vibe. Well, you're not going to keep that. Let's go ask Caledonia how excited they are about small town vibe up there now. It's not. So it's changed. We need to keep these things. But I love the fact that the community gathered and got a new arena. And these are nice ranks. They're nice. Beautiful. Now, could there have been a little bit more foreplanning there to some of the initiatives that we're talking about now? You know, the pools and these kind of things. Probably. But it is what it is. We've still got some great stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:12

They still have small town feel, though. You know, I've I've been in um some pretty fancy arenas in this province, and um, they're not practical, right? One one, I won't say where it was, a great big glass wall. I'm trying to watch a stinking hockey game, and the sun's coming in through that glass wall. You can't see anything on the ice. The glare is so bad, all this stuff, right? Ours still feel like they're small town rings.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:38

They rinks. They're rinks.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:40

They're barns still.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:40

Still barns, yeah. And we got some great old barns here, that's true, but you know, we got better facilities now and they're updated.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:45

Langton Arena. I I will I will chain myself to that place if that there's been talk that, you know, we're gonna get rid of it, this, that, and the other. And uh going back to John Metcalf, he he always tells this funny story. He goes, Yeah, he was a goalie, right? Yeah, he was. And uh he says, Oh yeah, Bobby. And he says, When I I hated going to Langton Arena, I said, Oh, because it was so cold. And he has this funny story that we were all so rich as tobacco, tobacco farmer kids in in the community. He goes, You guys were so rich, you guys didn't throw pennies at me. He says, I found dimes in the crease.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:19

Dimes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:20

Like, you're so full of shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:22

Well, I'm with him, man. I hated playing in Langton because they were always, when we were younger, they were always the first round.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:27

Farm kids, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:29

They were those guys were big, strong Dutch farming kids that like to compete and wanted to hurt you. That's what we had.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:38

Belgian kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:39

This was, yeah, it was like just my God. But it was funny because I remember going to Langton is zero fun, and first round of playoffs typically, and you get beat out, you know, by those guys. So yeah, it was funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:50

Sad because their like Langton Minor Hockey Association is still going, but they struggle, right? Um, just doesn't they don't have the numbers that they used to. And um, but I I tell you, that that's that's become my home arena. Delhi was my home arena, that's where I grew up playing. But as I've gotten older, uh that Langton, that Langton arena has has been a godsend to my my family. And it's good that the guys and gals that work at their top notch. And there's there's an example of, you know, they're out there in the middle of, you know, kind of Norfolk County. Nobody bothers to go check on them and they they do a bang up job of running that arena, um, but they do it with common sense. Yeah, right. And so I I always say if I won the lottery and they were talking about closing that place, I'd I'd buy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:37

Yeah. That'd be interesting, eh? It's it's funny. I I remember those stories, it's so incredible. When we were kids growing up, and and this is what makes me a little bit sad when I think about um the way that these votes and stuff have gone and counselors shifting their vote and whatnot. What makes me a little sad about that is that when I was a kid, uh my dad played for the the Novas, the old timers team at Cuga. I I think it might still be going. But at the end of the day, I I think the Haldman Novas, old timer guys, right? And so dad played there. So me and a bunch of the kids that I went to school with and grew up with and played hockey with, we would all go there because our dads were playing. And so we would um we would ask the guys, Harold and Merle, um, were the guys that worked at the arena, the old Cuga arena at the time. Harold Brooks and Merle Walker. So at the end of the day, um, we would be there, just little boys. And so we'd say, could you guys, could you guys open the Metcalf Hall? That's what they call us in Metcalf Hall. Could you open Metcalf Hall? We're gonna go there and play ball hockey, you know, not like with a stick, just on our hands and feet. Yeah, our hands and knees. And so they'd always they'd always give you a tough time first. And they'd say, You rotten little bastards, you left it a mess the last time I let you in there. What makes you think I'm gonna let you in there again? So as he's walking up the stairs to let you in. Right. So we let us in. But it was so funny because we would we would used to call, again, we're just kids, and so we would call the rink and say, Hey, is there any ice time available for rent? And so one of those guys said, You rotten little bastards, you didn't pay for it the last time you rented the ice. Come on over. It's available at nine o'clock, you know. And so then you go over there, you you put your dimes and stuff together.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:02

And that doesn't happen now. It doesn't, it doesn't well, it does in some places if if nobody's yeah, right? But it's so unfortunate. Yeah, yeah. You want to rent ice now, you gotta go through this portal or you gotta Yeah, you do liability, insurance is in whatever just happened, and you're we're paying somebody to coordinate all that when all we really need to do is call Harold or Yeah, and say, hey, look, you know what, can I come, can I come use the ice?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:26

Well, it's funny because they so this this is what these guys would do. They complain at you the whole time. If the ice was available from nine, chances are pretty good it was available at 10 and 11 and 12. And those men would sit there hauling on a stogie and not kick us off the ice after they complained up and down about how rotten little bastards we were. Yeah, but they let and that that that to me that's Haldeman County. That's right. That's where we live. This is how we do things here, regardless of what the conservatives want to do with their MZOs and all that this is who we are.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:56

Yeah, and we gotta cling to that. We do. We have to cling to it. And yeah, I'm I'm not I'm not going to apologize for wanting to cling to that. I grew up in the same way in Norfolk County, um, same mentality. And um, you know, it takes they say it takes a village to raise children. And um, you know, we need to we need to um subscribe to continue to subscribe to that way of thinking or or we're we're going to look like the rest of the We will.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:24

We will look like the rest.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:26

And you know, I I I'll leave we'll we'll move on just a little bit. We're gonna end here momentarily. But uh I I will I'll I'll stand by that. I'm not gonna apologize for the fact that I do not want Haldeman County to turn into other places I didn't want to be. Nope. I will not apologize. I do not ever want to hear any mayor, mayor Bentley, mayor anybody, ever have to call the provincial government because we have a demographic that has brought crime with it that has increased crime by like 800%. I'm not excited about that. I'm not apologizing for it. Nope. That's all there is to it. Nope. But let's get off of all this heady stuff. Let's let's get to know Bobby Ann Brady for two minutes and then we're gonna get out of here.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:00

All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:00

Favorite band.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:02

Favorite band. Oh my gosh. I don't know. Um I'm a I'm a country, I'm a country girl. Um, not a band, but I'm a big fan of Alan Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:14

And I got to see him two years ago, and um he's done now. He's done. Sadly, yeah. Um, always a big uh Bon Jovi girl.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:24

Seeing him a number of times. Okay. And um, no, I'm I'm pretty simple when it comes to music. I listen to anything and everything, and and I don't, you know, I don't spend money going to see anyone really other than seeing Cher a few times. No, I've seen Cher, I've seen Ellen John, but the the John Bond is is one of my favorites, and my dream was always to see Alan Jackson.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:44

And uh so yeah, but like band-wise, I don't really have a band band.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:49

Okay. Yeah. That's too bad. What about um favorite hockey team? What do you got?

SPEAKER_05 1:59:54

Montreal Canadians. Come on!

SPEAKER_01 1:59:56

You're a Habs guy. Well, welcome to Habs Nation. I'm qualified to get you in.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:00

Okay. Oh, yeah. Amazing. So I I always say the very first jersey that I had was uh I think a Russ Courtnell jersey.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:08

And um, and then I was a big fan of Steve Penny, and nobody ever remembers who Steve Penny was, but a goalie, no? A goalie. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So uh my very first uh hockey card was a Steve Penny card. So that sticks in my head, and then I would say and I met Russ Courtnell um when I was in in college. I I um volunteered for the four-on-four hockey challenge that they held at Cops Coliseum at the time. And I got to meet like Doug Gilmore, and um my my dream was to meet Russ Courtell and and I did it. I actually played on the same ice as he did. We had a a little game on the Sunday morning of this four-on-four challenge, and and I suited up with a few of these guys. So um, yeah, Habs.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:50

Habs at a boy. Well done. I love it. Yep. So next one, death penalties coming your way. What's your last meal?

SPEAKER_04 2:00:56

Macaroni and cheese.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:57

Macaroni and cheese, bacon? Put bacon in it?

SPEAKER_04 2:00:59

No, come on, no, just a good homemade macaroni check.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:01

Try some guys, put some bacon in there, it'll it'll set it off. What else could we ask you? That'd be interesting. Um what would we say? Favorite car. If you had a car you could have.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:11

Favorite car?

SPEAKER_01 2:01:12

Ever, which if you have one car to have ever.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:14

Porsche 911.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:15

Porsche 911. All right. All right, very good. Yeah. Well, tell you what, I feel like we're wrapping up. And you know what? We've done exactly what we knew we would do, which is cover off most of not cover off, most of what we wanted to talk about.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:27

Yeah, yeah. So it's a good conversation. We could probably sit here for many more hours, but poor Chris.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:32

Yeah, Chris has had enough. Chris wants supper. Chris is looking to get out of here. But I I I really appreciate your time in doing that. Again, this is the first kick at the cat. I yeah, I I don't know how this is gonna go over. I hope it goes over well. I actually think it's important because I I know that you know in campaigning and stuff for Ward 5, and uh these and I understand, I I get it, but you know, ever integrity, transparency, uh, accountability, all these kinds of things. Though those are things to me that those are just part and parcel of what should be happening. The reason I've been doing these videos and whatnot is because I think that people need to know who we are, they need to understand who we are. Like, like you can vote the party line, you can vote this, you can vote that or vote that. But when you're gonna, you know, for me, I'm uh I'm on and on about direct democracy. We maybe cover that at a different time. But at the end of the day, I'm on and on about that. People need to engage. We really need you to engage. If you're hearing this, please vote and please engage. And even if you don't vote for me, please vote. Like, let's get our voices out here. We have to engage.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:29

Seek out the truth.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:30

We have to seek out the truth.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:31

You know, don't just don't look at those who are or who um say they're telling the truth. Don't look at them as shit disturbers. Try to figure out what they're saying and try to connect the pieces because there are people in our community who are trying to tell the truth. And and they they get labeled.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:50

They do.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:51

And um, and it's a small number that label them, but the masses listen to some of these labels. And and I say to the electorate locally pay close attention.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:02

Pay close attention. You must pay close attention.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:05

Eyes wide open.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:06

Eyes wide open. That's it. I I want to I want us to wrap up here, but I do got one thing, maybe two, that I want to ask you real quick. How how I already know the answer to this question, but how do we counter the notion that an independent can can't get us any money?

SPEAKER_05 2:03:19

Uh well, I have the numbers. So as I said, just just um the simple one is Haldman County is getting 17% more money than they did the year before. Norfolk County getting 21% more. Um, there was an announcement in Norfolk. This is this is a great example. So, you know, on the Monday, uh the mayor and some counselors were saying we don't get anything because of Bobby Ann Brady, da da da. And you know, the Tuesday, 16, a historic 16 and a half million dollars for um water. And and so I'm like, you you can't on the Monday blame me for not getting money, and then on the Tuesday say, oh, uh, well, she had nothing to do with getting that money, right? So I I have a bunch of stuff that I am going to be working on this fall that's going to prove to those people who say an independent can't get anything done. This past session, spring session at Queen's Park, this government adopted four of my ideas. The one uh teachers' college from two years to one, I tabled a motion in shortly after the 2022 election. And I think I tabled again after the 2025, the government picked up that idea. Um, limiting foreign ownership of our farmland, government picked up on the idea. Um can't uh guns. Um, I pushed on legal gun ownership and this government to stop standing and speaking at us both sides of his mouth. You can't say, hey, you know what? I I really I really like that guy who who held that intruder to account by pointing a gun at him. The premier stood up and said that. Okay, but but then Doug, you you can't leave legal gun owners in the lurch by not helping them like Saskatchewan and Alberta and saying, well, you know, if you if you don't hand in your guns, just go to court and say that the premier of Ontario, you know, said to hold on to my guns. No, we actually have to have a a tiger with teeth. So we either got to bring forward our own standalone legislation that that helps and supports and protects our legal gun owners join the on join the the Supreme Court challenge. And so after me pressing and pressing and pressing, um government house leader walks over to me one day after I uh presented a petition for second or third time and he says, Can I have a copy of that petition? I said, What are you going to do with that copy? Um I'm going to stir some things up. I said, in a good way or bad way? Well, in a good way. So, okay, then you can have a copy of it. Three hours later, the premier announced he was joining the Supreme Court challenge. So those are some very solid things that I have done just this spring.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:55

That they've adopted my idea. Do they ever say it was Bobby and Brady's idea? Of course not. But I don't give a shit. You know what? If it's a good idea, that whole idea of no monopoly on a good idea. You want to steal my idea, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:06

Let's go. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:07

Absolutely. Let's go ahead. I had a number of people uh say these words to me um about uh infrastructure and so on in in Haldeman County. And the words that they were using to I'm paraphrasing and putting some words here, but what they were saying basically was uh the infrastructure is crumbling. Uh we got no financial plan to take care of it. Council has spent money recklessly. Uh we're in trouble financially. And so I said, you know what? I can't have this argument. I'm going, I so I went to four people uh at Haldeman County. Two were elected, two were not. Uh and I asked these people all the same question. I'm not gonna name the person that said this, not because it's something to hide, there's not. I just he's not aware that I'm talking about this. I don't want to sandbag him with a surprise. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I said to him these kind of things. He says, he says, no, um, we get quite a bit of money, actually. And he brought up the last one. And he said the last one he goes was $11 million for in Hagersville for I don't know if it's the last one. This is the one he brought up. Yeah. Um, eleven million dollars for Hagersville for a water main. Well, I was aware that that was going in because I had to drive around it. So these are the things that happened, but people believe we get nothing because we're independent with an independent. And that's just not the truth. His his comment was we actually get quite a bit. We get a lot more than people would know. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:15

So that's that's not but but from the the perspective, so I have some counselors uh say in Norfolk County who you say this, and and there are counselors in Holdman County who say it too. You know why they say it? So that you don't actually question them as a taxpayer what the hell they're doing with your money. So it's very convenient to say, oh, we don't get these monies because of Bobby Ann. Because if you actually knew you that the county was getting all of these monies, the taxpayer would go, then why am I being hosed?

SPEAKER_01 2:07:43

Yeah, I mean, that's not unfair at the end of the day. That's a fair question. What's going on here? So what the net result was our infrastructure is in good shape. There is an asset management plan. The finances are there for it as part of the plan, and they're constantly upgrading and doing what they need to do to make it so it's a good place. So again, I'm back to my 80-20. I look at 80-20, I think that most of what happens here is pretty damn good. Yeah. And could 20% be better? Sure. So the glass is half full. Way more than half. Yep. Way more than half. Hey, man, I appreciate you. Yeah. Thanks. It's been good fun. It's been great. Yeah, it's been good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:15

A good way to start the week.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:16

A good way to start the week. So I hope uh I hope we gain some traction here. I hope that people kind of listen to the show. The good listenership listens to the show and we can uh keep on keeping on.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:25

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:26

Yep.