Incoming Tariffs and Applying the STOP Principle

In this solo episode I talk about the potential incoming tariffs to Canada. I talk about the S.T.O.P principle and try to offer suggestions on how everyday Canadians can empower themselves by taking control of what they are in control of in these trying times.

Transcript

[00:00]  Russell: All right, folks. And we're back. Russell here with the Canadian Conservative podcast.

[00:05] And today is February 1st. It's doomsday today. Why is it doomsday, today's day, that the president United States Donald Trump is supposed to instill a bunch of tariffs on Canadian goods that could have drastic impacts to the Canadian economy.

[00:24] I don't think I need to rehash it too much, but I'll give the Coles notes version. Basically, Trump got in office and he basically said that he is going to look to collect a lot of revenue through tariffs.

[00:38] And then he implied that he was going to put 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. Now, I don't proclaim to be a economist, so I'm not sure what tariffs on what items or anything like that, but basically said he's going to make us pay.

[00:54] He's going to make us pay because we're not securing our borders well enough. We're not working well with the United States Fentanyl labs people crossing the border.

[01:04] And I think some of it too is just to kind of say like daddy's home, so you're gonna have to deal with me now. And the Canadian government's response. Canadian government was already not doing too well, was to crumble.

[01:20] It basically sent our government into upheaval. Already tumultuous times.

[01:25] And our government basically flatlined.

[01:29] The Prime Minister of Canada said that he intends to resign. He has not resigned yet. He's still making decisions on behalf of Canada.

[01:37] The Liberal Party basically stalled Parliament so they can hold an internal leadership race that's turned into a whole kerfuffle.

[01:46] And there's been no seated Parliament now for a month.

[01:51] It is now February 1st. Tariffs are coming into effect today.

[01:57] Unless there's some type of last minute change of heart, which I don't think there is going to be. I think people thought he was bluffing, but he's not bluffing. It appears so.

[02:07] Everyone's just kind of bracing for the inevitable. Bank of Canada reduced interest rates by 25 basis points.

[02:13] And the federal government's response to this has been nothing short of a disaster.

[02:20] They're trying to pump up Canadian patriotism. You know, we need to buy Canadian, we need to rally. The problem is for the last eight years, more than that, we have a government that's basically said that we're a post national state, that we don't have a core identity.

[02:36] There's nothing that makes someone Canadian other than a passport.

[02:40] And that is having severe detrimental impacts on the idea of any form of patriotism. You know, the leftists out there have been telling, telling you that you're terrible and horrible for liking Canada because Canada is a genocidal apartheid state that doesn't deserve to exist according to the left.

[03:02] And now suddenly they're saying, yeah, Team Canada, go Canada. We're going to buy Canadian. Yeah, we're going to fly our flag.

[03:09] So it's fake. They're scared, okay? They're running scared because they've destroyed any sense of unity in Canada and now they're trying to get people to circle the wagons and rally around Canadian businesses and Canadian consumerism and Canadian identity, which, like I said, they've said we don't have for quite a long time now.

[03:31] And if you did purport to have a Canadian identity, it only meant that you were some form of racist or sexist or some ist slur. So what does that mean for us?

[03:42] Well, there's been a lot of speculation. A couple of people reached out and said, aren't you going to do a podcast on this? Aren't you going to talk about this?

[03:50] And, I mean, I've been following it, been talking with people. I've kind of tweeted out a few things, read some opinion pieces from both left and right media just to kind of get where people are trying to settle in on this thing a bit.

[04:06] Basically trying to practice discernment because there's a lot of noise right now. People are making a lot of noise.

[04:11] You know, there was some people that were talking about doing another convoy in that and kind of response to that was the era of the Ottawa convoy. I don't think it's going to be able to make a comeback again because the system has adapted to it.

[04:26] So the things that made the convoy unique and able to make the system upset has all been accounted for now. So there's contingency plans on top of contingency plans to deal with those types of disruptions again, of course, we still allow Hamas protests every day, but that's a whole other topic.

[04:47] So, yes, a convoy to try to, you know, tell Ottawa to go back to Parliament and stop stalling things for a leadership race that's turned into a kerfluffle that's not going to happen.

[05:02] And so people are kind of feeling a little desperate right now, kind of looking to their premieres, which is probably better. Better than looking to the feds is looking to something that's more within their sphere of control.

[05:14] Now, mind you, the individual citizen sphere of control is very limited, and we're going to talk about that.

[05:19] But I do think if they're going to focus anywhere, it's probably better to focus on their premiers than it would be to try to focus on Ottawa. You have to think like the federal government's a very big leviathan and it's centralized in certain locations that they basically made impossible for the average person to access or move anything with.

[05:46] So at the end of the day, what I've told people is that you got your shakers and you got your movers. So when you want something to come into existence, whether it be we want better economy, or we want our patriotism back, or, you know, we want to end vaccine mandates, those sort of things, you got your shakers, right?

[06:08] And the best way to put it probably is to put in like the old kind of 80s, 70s, left terms, because left is really good at this. They have good infrastructure for this.

[06:19] So back in the 70s and the 80s, you had your punk rockers, right? Those are your shakers, right? They're the ones out there, they're making bold statements. They're the ones willing to say things that are controversial and say things that might get other people into trouble.

[06:35] And they're willing to start to move the social opinion, social cue a bit. But then once the shakers have done their part, the movers have to do their part afterwards.

[06:45] Mind you, this isn't me inventing this. I took this from a really good video by a guy named Alex Hexagon, really suggest you follow him on YouTube. And so then the movers come in and so the movers were like the hippies, right?

[06:58] They're the ones that. That actually got things signed into law and. And they took what the shakers did and they moved it into existence.

[07:09] So in Canada, we have a lot of shakers.

[07:12] Social media influencers got people that participate in the convoy, whether it was people physically in Ottawa, the people that financially supported them, or just the people that were just sending their support and saying, hey, like, I can't go to Ottawa, but I really support you and I support your cause.

[07:31] So that was the shakers, right? So they moved in there and they. And they kind of stuck their finger to the establishment and the establishment was moved. The establishment blinked.

[07:40] Why do you think they went after them so hard? Because they. The establishment blinked. And to make the establishment blink is quite a big feat.

[07:49] But then it really wasn't followed up by any movers. And we had the People's Party of Canada. They were big. A lot of people that were involved with the convoy were involved with that Conservative Party.

[08:00] There was People in the Conservative Party edas and supporters that were also big into the convoy movement. There's even members of like the, what I call like the old liberals that were, that were there and supportive because they, they're all about working class protests and they feel very disenfranchised by the Laurentian elite style protests we've seen the last few years.

[08:23] So there was, there was some bipartisan support for the convoy, but the problem is the movers never moved the needle afterwards. And there was attempts, I'm not saying that, believe me, there was good attempts.

[08:38] But the people that needed to take action in the moment, they were silent. And I'm going to criticize the Conservative Party here for that. The Conservative Party's biggest problem to me is that they quite often wait until someone else does what they would like to do.

[08:55] They measure what the response is and then they do it themselves.

[08:59] So for example, Donald Trump says that there's only a man and a woman. There's no other genders. It's just the two, there's the two sex binaries.

[09:10] A few weeks later, or I guess feels like weeks, I guess it was just days later.

[09:15] Conservative Party leader Pierre Poliev says he's not aware of any other genders than male and female.

[09:23] So it's big for him to say that, but there's been a lot of ground paved along the way for him to be able to say that in a way that won't result in a million op eds and this fear that things are going to turn on him if he says the wrong thing.

[09:40] So that's a criticism I have. The Conservative Party is that it seems like a lot of times these stances, people really got to pave the way for them to be able to walk down the road.

[09:51] Now getting back to what I was saying on this is you need your movers and there wasn't a lot of movers. So now people are kind of in a state of flux because the shakers have done their job and they're still doing it.

[10:04] They're still trying to shake things up, but probably not as fiercely as before because they're not seeing that movement behind the shaking that they're doing. They're, they are absolutely shaking the tree.

[10:17] But no one's coming along to demolish it or move it or whatever type of analogy you'd want to use for that.

[10:25] So it's put people in a weird state of flux.

[10:28] Now we have Parliament not sitting tariffs. And now people are mad. And I will say this, people are mad.

[10:39] And so Some people that did part of the shaking are saying, well, there was no movement. But we're looking at the states now, and we're seeing that in the United States, the shakers shook and now the movers, the Trump administration, well, they're moving and they're moving beautifully fast.

[11:00] I want to be part of that because it seems like at least there something actually gets done.

[11:08] So you see people and they're abandoning ship and they're saying, well, Canada, you had a good run. Let's just become part of the. Let's become the 51st state.

[11:17] And there's a lot of people that have turned to that, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. In a more wider context of belief in political and cultural change here in Canada, because change here is painfully slow.

[11:37] Things change at a very, very slow rate here, and they're seeing rapid, immediate changes to undo years and years of globalist policy, years and years of cronyism.

[11:50] It's all being undone very rapidly to the point where it's a little whiplash, like where I think even some people weren't expecting things to move this fast.

[12:04] So what am I all building to here? What am I building to? I said earlier I want to talk more about, like the individual talk about the provinces. So I think people have given up a lot of their personal power.

[12:19] They've given it up to their job. They've given it up to government bureaucrats. Because the one thing, and I've said it so many times before, is in Canada, we like it when it's kind of easy come, easy go.

[12:33] Like we'll work hard. There's no doubt about there's lots of people working very hard.

[12:38] But we kind of, when we're working, we want things to be kind of taken care of.

[12:45] So we want to be able to go to our jobs, come home, relax and not have to worry about being too engaged. We want to hope that the politicians and our lobbyist groups that we support and that are going to handle things for us and that so that we can kind of relax at home and enjoy our downtime, which is not a bad thing.

[13:08] There's nothing wrong with downtime and wanting to enjoy your life, right? Because, well, I mean, we're all in time limit here.

[13:16] But that's kind of bred a bit of apathy.

[13:19] And the fact is, the federal government itself is very unassailable. It's very difficult to break into that sphere unless you're going to be part of a lobbyist group or a consulting agency.

[13:34] And then you have to Learn all the rules to how to be able to properly approach government officials and government services. It's very not friendly to the average Canadian.

[13:46] So what I would tell people is maybe we gotta focus less on the federal government. And you're probably thinking, what? That's crazy. Why would we focus less on the federal government?

[13:57] Well, you know, we gotta clean up some of our backyards first before we can really get out there and make those moves. So I would say it's important that people take a keen interest in their provincial politics.

[14:12] Because at the end of the day, confederation is set up in a very certain way. The Prime Minister is not the boss of the premiers, despite what you'll see on Twitter, despite what you'll hear in opinion Eds, and that the Prime Minister is not the boss of the premiers.

[14:29] Under confederation, everyone's supposed to work together, everyone's supposed to have a say at the table.

[14:35] And the federal government is supposed to be in a good relationship with the provinces. They have to take the province's needs into account. Now, I could do a whole series on how that is not happening and how that's been completely eroded, but I won't.

[14:52] For now, I will just say that we have to start thinking more locally.

[15:01] So even the provinces can be difficult to approach, especially the bigger provinces like Ontario. Very quick. Interesting side note, last year I was assisting the legion with their poppy drive and I was sitting at a co op and literally Scott Moe just dressed in regular clothing, had a handful of groceries and that just came up and got a poppy from us and shook our hands and said, thanks for helping out with this, it's really important.

[15:36] And then he just kind of walked away. And you know, it's, it's, it's a little bit different out west, I think, because, I mean, Scott Mo out here, yeah, he's the premier of the province, but he's also just shopping at Co op and people are walking past him, they don't even recognize him or they don't care that he's there.

[15:55] He's not a celebrity status or anything like that. He, you know, it's kind of an advantage of being in Western Canada is that some of the politicians, especially like provincially in that they, they just, they're more connected with people, I think.

[16:10] But that's just a, that's kind of a side note observation.

[16:15] So. But even within the provincial sphere, it can still sometimes be difficult to have that access and have that reach.

[16:23] So what can we do? What can we do? Well, I would say the best Thing that people can do is focus municipally, because that is where you are going to have the most direct access to democracy.

[16:37] It's where you're going to have the most access to the political class. It's where you can have the most effect as well.

[16:45] So I ask people, you know, when is the last time you actually went to one of your city council meetings? How do you think city council meetings would work if every seat was filled with people and maybe even people standing in the back watching?

[16:58] I can guarantee you there's going to be a different style of conducting themselves and conducting business when they see that everyone in the community is there watching them, not just people that have a pet cause or people, you know, going for very specific reasons.

[17:14] A few years ago, when Saskatoon was talking about their gender bathroom policy, or I think it was one of the centers or something like that, some city center, they held a public consultation and I actually went to it, and one of the remarks from one of the city officials there was that they were surprised and happy to see that there were so many people there, which not all the seats were full.

[17:42] So that just tells me that on a regular basis, people are not going in, they're not engaging with their elected officials, and that's a big problem.

[17:55] So if we're going to focus anything right now, although we need to get the federal government back up and running. Absolutely. This whole thing of shutting down parliament, we need to recall now, get people back there, we need to get butts in the seats and get people working on a solution here instead of just like waiting for liberals to run a campaign race that's just been a complete disaster.

[18:22] But even then, municipally, people are busy, people are working, people got kids, and they're enrolled in, like, a million different things.

[18:33] So what can we do? Because people, again, right now, people are feeling very apathetic. People are feeling kind of hopeless.

[18:40] And I always go back to the old acronym and the acronym is stop. S, T, O, P.

[18:48] Usually used when someone's lost in the woods, but it's a perfect acronym for getting your act together on anything, really.

[18:58] So when we're thinking the acronym stop, the first one is S and it means physically stop.

[19:06] Stop what you're doing. Stop doom scrolling, Stop looking at the next thing on Netflix, Stop whatever you're doing. And you need to ask yourself, am I in an emergency situation?

[19:20] And again, that might sound a bit dramatic, but think about it within the context of your anxiety and your fears.

[19:28] Think about in the context of your finances, your personal life.

[19:32] And that because all those things are going to be dramatically affected by increase in prices and turmoil in our economy.

[19:43] So you need to physically stop.

[19:46] Maybe finish listening to this podcast first, but then stop.

[19:50] And I can't tell you if you're in an emergency. I could get up here and I could on this mic and tell you that you need to this, this, and this is happening and you're in a bad situation.

[20:04] Now that would be easy for me to say, but only you can determine if you're in an emergency style situation.

[20:14] So physically stop and ask yourself, am I in an emergency situation?

[20:21] So the T is think.

[20:24] So you gotta physically stop, then you gotta think.

[20:27] So look at the news around you, okay? Look at all the different factors, your own anxiety, you know, if you're feeling that anxiety, why are you feeling that anxiety? What's informing that anxiety?

[20:41] You gotta start thinking about, am I an emergency? And looking at the factors that might determine if you're an emergency. Then observe. So this is where you observe your surroundings.

[20:52] So if you're lost in the woods, in the STOP acronym, you would observe your physical surroundings and you would see what you could use for resources. What time it is, is the sun gonna set, is it gonna rain, Things like that.

[21:06] Looking at it within the context of an economic emergency or a home emergency, you need to look at, okay, how much debt do I have?

[21:18] How hard am I working? What happens if I can't go out and buy groceries? Do I have three days of emergency food? Do I have enough resources within my household to sustain myself for a few days?

[21:33] If things get really bad out there, people start panic buying or, or there's a run on the bank or something crazy happens, you know, civil unrest, am I prepared for that?

[21:46] And so you need to take a good observation. So that means opening up your banking app.

[21:53] It means calling if you got loans with different companies, or that means calling them up and finding out exactly what your balance is. Right now, observing is all about gathering data, okay?

[22:07] And gathering as much data as you can within a realistic context.

[22:13] I mean, you don't have to go and watch like a three hour lecture on economics or anything like that. But you got to gather all your data.

[22:21] You need to look around. Is my own living area clean? Is it accessible? What am I doing? Am I just bumbling through life, kind of just making it work and reacting to situations as they happen?

[22:38] Or am I being proactive?

[22:40] And it's best to write all these things down too. Just write out all your observations.

[22:45] So it might be like, okay, the house is dirty, I Have two lines of credit. I owe this much on my credit card. Okay.

[22:56] Me and my spouse, we're not getting along very well right now.

[23:01] You know, the kids, they're miserable for whatever reason and it's time to really take stock and observe your surroundings and observe everything that you can.

[23:14] Even things later on that you might say, okay, well that's not relevant to this situation and that comes afterwards. But this is really, really important. You have to gather a bunch of data and you have to do in a way that's gonna keep you focused and because if you start just, well, I'm gonna learn more about, you know, what's going on with this.

[23:35] Well, you might end up just back to doom scrolling and then you're back at square one.

[23:40] So at this point you physically stopped, you kind of thought out things. Things aren't adding up.

[23:47] Now you're, now you're in the observation stage. Well, finally, once you think you've gathered enough data, it's time to enter the planning stage. Okay.

[23:57] At any point in time, if you determine that no, things are good, my finances are good, everything's good, we can weather the storm and that well, then you can kind of exit out of the stop algorithm.

[24:08] At any time.

[24:11] Now though, if you keep, if you're at the observation stage and you determine, yes, I'm still in an emergency situation, now you're going to enter the planning stage.

[24:21] So now you got, now you gotta take action.

[24:25] And it's February 1st. Tariffs are probably gonna be hitting today. Anytime now the official announcement's gonna hit and then things are gonna probably nothing's gonna happen for a little bit and things are gonna slowly start to the machinery of panic and price increase and all the other things that come with that's gonna start to steamroll and people's anger is going to also start to really ramp up.

[24:52] Like I told you, focusing on the federal government, we should always be aware of what's going on. Of course we need to be informed, but our ability to affect things very, very limited.

[25:04] Provincially again, our ability to affect change and things with the provincial government more of a chance, but also in general limited.

[25:16] Your ability to affect change municipally is much better. You can go to your city council meetings, you can engage with city councilors, you can look at agenda items, you can add your voice, you can ask for chance to speak, you can join a committee that they'll make decisions based on results.

[25:36] There's much more you can do at the municipal level.

[25:40] But even closer than that, you got to imagine it's a circle. Federal government's on the outside, middle rings, province.

[25:48] Inner ring is municipal. But then the core, the core, the thing that makes everything else possible is your personal and family.

[26:00] So when you're planning, you should be planning from the core outwards.

[26:07] The citizen that can affect the, the country the best is the citizen that has their own life put together.

[26:14] And it's essential that we have our lives put together because you start getting involved and you start getting into those outer rings. Things can spiral pretty quick. And if you don't have those inner rings managed appropriately or at least considered appropriately, then you're at, you're putting yourself at risk.

[26:34] So planning, okay, I got, especially Canadians, middle class Canadians are in love with credit. Okay.

[26:45] We have a very, very dysfunctional relationship with credit and companies that will give us credit.

[26:54] So you need to really sit down with your finances and you really got to suss that out, as the kids would say. You got to figure it out. You got to, you gotta say, okay, how much do I have asset wise, what are my liabilities, how much do I owe, how much do I make?

[27:13] And the fact is, as the economy gets worse, you might have to consider really tightening your budget. You may have to go without some of the creature comforts for a while.

[27:23] Yeah, I know it sucks and it's not fair. And I know people work really hard. I know.

[27:31] And sometimes we have to simply put stuff aside so that we can ensure long term viability for our families, not just for us. You know, if you're living by yourself, I mean, that's one thing.

[27:44] But if you got spouse, you got kids, you got to think about them too. And you got to think about their future as well.

[27:53] So finances really important.

[27:56] How do we tighten the budget? How do we manage ourselves?

[28:01] You know what's very hard to control? It's very hard to control someone that doesn't owe anyone any money.

[28:08] But if you owe lots of people different amounts of money, they're the ones that are in control because then you can't afford to change careers or say something too spicy because you lose your job and then you lose your house, you got to go bankrupt.

[28:22] And then your life just turns into an endless spiral that can end in really bad addictions and poverty.

[28:28] And poverty really is bottomless. It really is. There is no bottom to poverty.

[28:35] Anytime you think that there's a lower threshold, it can go lower.

[28:40] So I think people take take control of your finances because finances really are destiny. We're a capitalist economy.

[28:48] So you can keep buying things and you can Enjoy those things.

[28:54] But you should be buying things. Of course, that's going to not only produce enjoyment for yourself and your family, but it also needs to be something that's going to be sustainable.

[29:06] If you're just buying something because you get a thrill from buying things, well, then you got to find a new hobby because there's different ways to get thrills that doesn't involve buying things.

[29:17] Anyways, I could again whole other episode on financial management and that and I actually will have a financial advisor 20 plus years on the show end of February, and we're going to be talking just about that.

[29:33] Canadians and our obsession with credit and the obsession with our government and private sector with giving us credit and money and how with the amount of money that some people are getting, how they're in any debt at all is a mystery.

[29:50] Well, not really, but I'm going to discuss it with Mimi. She's going to be on the show end of February. Should be a really good episode. But then you need to look at other things, too.

[30:01] So it's not just your finances. Look at the state of your space.

[30:06] Is it a space that commands respect for yourself from other people?

[30:14] Are you in control of your space?

[30:16] If you're not in control of your space, well, you got another task to do. Because again, it's all about managing yourself and managing your family.

[30:26] That's what it comes down to. The family unit is the most important unit of measurement for how much influence you can have in the governmental sphere, in a worldwide sphere.

[30:40] And it all starts at home.

[30:43] So take stock of things. And here's the thing. If you got a whole bunch of stuff, well, it's a great opportunity because you can get rid of that stuff. You can trade it, you can barter it, you can sell it, and you can use money from that to pay off more debt.

[30:59] Build up your savings, all right? If you got savings, I don't know, use it to buy gold, all right? Or crypto or whatever else.

[31:09] Whatever is going to be an asset that is going to help you weather the storm.

[31:15] The thing is, these are actions that have to be taken pretty quickly. Like I said, it's already February 1st. Tariffs supposedly dropping anytime now. Been watching the media sphere all morning.

[31:28] So it's important then, as I said, take care of your finances and control your household. Basically control your immediate surroundings. Again, these are things that are within your control.

[31:43] Next thing you do is you got to take stock of your family situation because guess what? Tough times are coming.

[31:52] So right now, you and your husband, your wife, you Gotta be like a solid unit right now, okay? Like you really do. If you're single, that's one thing.

[32:03] But if you have a family, you have to be a solid unit right now. Because those little things, those little things that are under the surface of the niceties and the, and the feel good moments, those little tensions and bad times, they're just going to continue to grow and grow.

[32:21] And people generally don't rise up to occasions, they fall back on what's most comfortable. Okay, that's a very well known army style quote where people don't, people don't rise up to occasions, they fall back on their training.

[32:39] Well, for people that are not talking like a military or corporate context, we're just talking about at home, most people are going to fall back onto their comforts. So you really have to get on the same page and you're going to have to bring your significant other into this and everyone's going to have to turn the phones off and everyone's going to put the distractions away for a few minutes and sit down and say, listen, we have to plan this out.

[33:03] How are we doing?

[33:05] Are we doing okay?

[33:07] Times are going to be really tough.

[33:10] So we have to be a solid unit right now. We have to be on the same page. That means if you're not sharing your financial stuff with each other, well, it's time to be open about that.

[33:20] If one person relationship is a spender, the other isn't, well, time to get everyone on board with the budget.

[33:26] If one person controls the space around the home but the other person doesn't, well, it's time that everyone, we have a solid routine and everyone is pitching in. Like I know it sounds kind of like I'm lecturing here, but really it's about building up your home base.

[33:43] It's about building up that core.

[33:46] And if you got a solid relationship with your spouse, then you got to make sure that things are going good for you know, if you got kids or if you got other people living with you, they got to all be on the same page too.

[33:58] Everyone has to be on the same page. You have to be a solid family unit. This is very much like the basis of conservatism as well. You know, the family unit is destiny.

[34:10] And then once you have your immediate family kind of figured out in the planning and everyone's on board, then you have to kind of look at your extended family, you got to kind of look at your neighbors and that because those are the people.

[34:23] As times get tougher, you're going to have to lean on your friends groups, your neighbors and your family members. You are going to have to probably lean on them or they're going to have to lean on you.

[34:34] So you have to look and you have to say, okay, like, you know, do have I cultivated the right people into my life.

[34:43] And if you haven't, you gotta figure that out.

[34:47] So if you got that, if you got that brother that's always asking you for cash, you know, or you got that sister and they constantly need you to come and solve their problems for them, you might have to have a conversation, say, listen, like, you got to figure these things out.

[35:05] We're figuring them out, you know, and if you have the time and you're able to and you're not, and it's not going to enter into like a drama triangle or anything like that, you know, you can help them out as well.

[35:17] But you have to cultivate the group that's going to be supportive for you and the group that's going to support each other. Because again, once you have your family figured out, the next most powerful thing is your, is your friends group, your family group and your community.

[35:36] And the good part is, I mean, you can't choose family, but you can choose who you want to associate with in your family. Is that that's where you start to make choices.

[35:45] They're still within your control.

[35:48] Well, you can't control your neighbors.

[35:51] You can control who's within your neighborly group. So if you're in an area and it's being hit by, by, by crime, you know, talk with the neighbors that you trust.

[36:01] And maybe they have a few neighbors too, that they say, hey, listen, you know what? I also trust this guy. This guy's good. And, you know, we're going to have a neighborhood watch.

[36:07] And maybe it's nothing official, maybe it's just a WhatsApp group. And you know, hey, like it's 1am and this guy's walking down the alleyway checking out houses and whatever, checking door handles.

[36:19] And you let the group know and think little things like that they make the neighborhood safer. They really do. Because people are communicating, people are coordinating.

[36:28] So again, focusing on the family group, then building slightly out. We're still within the core here.

[36:35] We're still within the family sphere. We're within the immediate neighborhood.

[36:40] Okay. The next thing to look at is like, associations.

[36:43] So who are you associating with? So this is one still within the core, but it's one more, I guess, vector out from that.

[36:54] And so do you have supports within community organization?

[37:01] So that could be your kids sports team, that could be a local charity that you volunteer at, Knights of Columbus Optimist Club and things like that.

[37:13] And so you need to look at that and you need to say, okay, is this something that I still need to be part of my life? Because again, we're looking at our life and we're looking at what works best for us.

[37:22] So if you say, listen, things are going to get difficult and I need to be strong and so I need to go to the gym, let's say. But you have an NGO that's you're volunteering with.

[37:34] And they're like, no, no, I need you to come here and do this and that, this and that all the time. And you're like, well if I do that, that means I can't work out or it means I'm not going to get good sleep or it means it's going to put tension with me and my spouse because I'm never home and there's duties at home, whatever it is, then you have to take a stock of that and you have to say, okay, well do I still need to be part of the nation?

[37:59] And if your organization that you've been volunteering with, let's say they're starting to go woke or something like that, then that's another thing you got to consider as well is, you know, am I getting my value for this as well?

[38:10] Are they still representing the values and norms that I want in society?

[38:16] And if not, well, it might be time to pull the plug and find something that.

[38:21] And the reason why I include stuff like that is, you know, volunteerism in Canada. I've talked about this on the show before. It's, it's like you have when you're part of voluntary, when you voluntarily associate with a group.

[38:40] Okay, I'm not talking collectivism, I'm talking about, you know, you have a group people and they tend to agree on something so they, they practice voluntary association.

[38:49] Collectivism is more hive mind than that. But when, when you're voluntarily associating with a group and that you are, you still retain your individuality but you have comm.

[39:03] And the individuals within there with their individual Personas can use their individual skills and talents to help that group succeed. Collectivism is when everyone has to fall into a hive mind and that of belief structure.

[39:18] And if you stray out of it, then well, you're like an apostate.

[39:24] And NGOs and charities that they have power, they really do because politicians listen, go to them to get advice on things you're able to the actions that you take have an effect in your community and that.

[39:39] So again don't discount them. I think they're a very important thing. I don't think enough people are volunteering personally and that's why a lot of these organizations have been allowed to go so woke because the, the wokies and that they're attracted to these organizations because they can exploit their policies and implement their own D structures.

[39:58] And that again topic for another time. But again it all correlates.

[40:04] Okay, so you've gotten yourself figured out, got you've got a community structure, community base figured out. Now it's time where you can start to really make those implementations at the municipal, provincial and festival.

[40:21] Now you can go to your city council and you can propose changes and you can work towards changes and you can work with them on a committee or whatever because you have the time now because you've, you're structuring your time effectively in a way it's healthy for you health.

[40:38] And then provincially you, you know, you join a provincial EDA or you join like a focus group or something like that or you do your democracy check ins. Why do I call it democracy check ins?

[40:49] Well that's kind of like you know when you're sick you go and you visit your doctor if you can find and when your democracy isn't working the way you want it to, that's when you're going to go and you're going to have a visit with your member provincial parliament and your member of federal parliament.

[41:05] So your MPP and your MPs. In fact they should know you by name, they should know you on first name basis.

[41:12] But just don't go there, yell at them and tell them that the globalists are taking over the world, they're turning the frogs gay and all that sort of stuff. Now you got to go there and you got to say listen, I done my research into this.

[41:23] You know, these are the facts as I've seen them. These are, this is what I think we should be doing this how I think we should achieve it. I mean people go to politicians all the time and they just throw their problems at them.

[41:34] They say you solve this.

[41:36] Politicians like okay, well I mean we'll take into consideration but of course their tensions divert a million in 10 different ways. So if you go there and you say listen, here's some studies, here's the research on for the CAS review, here's WPATH files.

[41:52] I've highlighted some key things in here that affect Canada. Canadians, family structure, That I think you should really look into it and you know, you could develop policy from this.

[42:03] Wow, that's great. We're going to send that to our policy resolution committee. Thank you. So you're going there and you're talking about a problem, but you're offering some, maybe not solutions, but this is what I've done so far.

[42:17] And, and again, you gotta, these are skills that you have to have. You have to be well versed in communication, you have to be versed in presentation. So those are skills, right?

[42:26] They're just like anything else. Skill, it's a muscle, you gotta exercise it. Because I mean, anyone can sit there in front of a member of Parliament going an unhinged rant where they're not in emotional role themselves.

[42:39] And I mean, I'm sure the MP will listen. As long as you're not making threats or anything like that. They'll probably listen, but at that point it's just catharsis, it's just release of emotion.

[42:49] It's not about problem solving, it's not about trying to.

[42:54] But again, if you have your home life under control, if you develop that community, then you're probably going to be pretty emotionally stable at that point, which means that you're going to be able to look at things rationally and your consumption of media and your consumption of things is going to be looked at with better discernment, being able to sort out what's odd.

[43:16] Now again, I'm saying this as I said a few times, and I'm saying this on February 1, the day the tariffs are supposed to come in. So we're already in it, we're in the trenches on this already.

[43:28] It's never too late. I know people have been saying you should have been doing this years ago. I've been doing this since the scamdemic and that. And I'm like, hey, you know what, good for you.

[43:39] But it's never too late. And when people finally say, okay, I gotta make some changes and we gotta make some changes here and we're, we're ready not just to be shakers, but to be movers.

[43:51] I think we gotta, we gotta take people where they're at and we gotta, and we gotta work with them and we gotta support them. So, yeah, moving from the planning stage into the implementation stage, that's the final stage.

[44:03] And that's the hardest stage I think, because that's taking everything that you've planned out now. It's got, you got to turn it into reality. So you have to take an idea that's in your head, something you've written down on paper.

[44:17] Now you have to actually affect the material reality around you.

[44:23] And it's not easy. And there's going to be setbacks. And I mean, the thing is we, we get comfortable, we get a routine and we get comfortable in that routine, even if that routine's not the best thing for us.

[44:32] So we still have to go through the stages of change. There's, there's going to be painful things that's going to be involved in making these changes. There's going to be some pain for it.

[44:43] But change and success is always on the other side of pain. You know, instead of coming up here and telling you, you know, Mark Carney is going to ruin this or Christia Freeland or liberals or the globalists and that my message to you is that we can't control the globalists.

[45:01] It's good to have knowledge that there's bad forces out there that are trying to undermine our society. It's good to have that knowledge. No doubt, in fact, we need to have that knowledge, needs to be kind of knowledge that we keep in the periphery of what we're doing.

[45:20] But it all comes back to key, core fundamental conservative principles that almost none of this change, none of the movement to move things in the right direction can happen in an order without the base being built first.

[45:43] You have to have the base built first. It has to be a solid foundation. It can't be built on sand or silt. Has to be a solid.

[45:53] And so that would be my advice.

[45:56] The fact is, there's very little that we can do at this point to effectively change things.

[46:06] We have some power at the provincial, we have the most power at the municipal. But the ultimate power lies in how we control ourselves, especially in difficult times, because there's going to be a lot of people that aren't going to control themselves and they're going to do things, I think that are going to be very damaging to themselves and **** their people.

[46:30] And we have to be for that.

[46:33] So anyways, that's my thoughts. People have been saying, you got to talk about this. And I'm like, well, what was there really to say? If he's going to put the tariffs on, he's going to put the tariffs on.

[46:43] Well, do you think Canada should be a 51st state? Do you think Canada, you know, what about patriotism and lifters?

[46:51] And I could have put out a bunch of clickbait content about it as well, saying, oh man, you know, this is happening next week. Everyone be scared, be Scared, because, you know, fear.

[47:01] And that drives. Drives views, it drives clicks. And I've noticed that there has been people that have been going really out of control with that recently. We'll say to a limited extent on social media.

[47:14] I've reposted some stuff that's maybe a little bit hyperbolic in that myself.

[47:21] And it happens. We get caught in those traps all the time.

[47:25] But I will say the message, I would say, is build your foundations now, if you haven't already. It's not too late.

[47:33] But the best thing that Canadians can do right now, it's going to suck for the economy because I know our economy is already struggling right now, is voluntarily withdrawing the majority of your finances out of the economy instead.

[47:48] Applying that to me is probably going to be the most effective tactic, is that Canadians got to crawl themselves out of debt.

[47:57] Really sad to see lots of Canadians talking right now about, you know, that they're basically insolvent at this point.

[48:04] They've extended themselves to so much, so much credit that they're almost insolvent at this point, if not there.

[48:13] And I agree there's a certain point that people reach where simply they will have to clear back.

[48:22] And that really sucks because that makes your life hell to try to live in society and try to rebuild that up over the next few years. I mean, it is an option and it's there.

[48:34] There's credit consolidation and things like that, you know, steps before bankruptcy. Talk to a financial advisor that you trust, someone that's not just trying to sell you some ****** products, trying to sell you.

[48:48] But my biggest advice right now, although it sucks because it means that it's going to hurt business a bit more, is like people just have to try to get themselves out of debt, get the credit cards paid off, get the lines off, because with these tariffs, it.

[49:08] Things are going to spy quickly.

[49:10] And so, yeah, it's probably going to be lean diets, it's going to mean limited fast food, finding alternate ways to keep your entertained other than, you know, buying movies or buying video games or paying subscription services.

[49:26] Everything's a subscription these days.

[49:28] It might mean just having to get back to other means. And I mean, that's easier for people that live in areas that's not covered in snow and minus 30 like today in most of Canada.

[49:40] But people have to figure it out. And I trust Canadians are very tenacious, I think.

[49:48] And for some reason we seem to thrive best when we're under stress. Like under extreme stress is when we tend to thrive our best. It only it takes people to pushing people in Canada to get really mad for for them to to suddenly start thriving under pressure but for some reason that seems to be a Canadian thing where where so many people suddenly as soon as the pressure is really on now they're now they're gunning for a fight and they're ready to go.

[50:19] So anyways that have for today we'll have to see how February goes and I appreciate everyone that's listening and I hope everyone here was able to get something from this and the goal is to have more guests on the show and talk more about this and once the tariffs actually come and talk realistically about how it's affecting people again.

[50:45] I've tried to not put anything out that's just going to make people more anxious or more confused because that doesn't help anyone either try to put out stuff here that is going to empower people to make better decisions and to make the decisions that are going to be best for their families and themselves in these trying times.

[51:07] So with that take care.