Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome, everyone. This is Richard Rupp. And welcoming you to another edition of the Rupp Report, where we give you an inside view of politics, what's happening in Canada, what's happening in Ottawa, and what are the things that are affecting your daily life here in Canada. I want to thank all the American listeners. I'm really impressed and surprised to see subscribers coming from the United States listening to what's happening north of the border. I'm sure a lot of you are interested. You know, you're hearing on the news about Trudeau stepping down and, and you're hearing about the tariffs and, and, you know, a bit of a trade war between Canada and the U.S. so I want to thank those subscribers. I definitely want to thank the subscribers locally here in Canada. I'm really impressed and, and grateful for the growth in the subscribership that's happened, and thank you for the ones who've sent comments my way and positive, you know, positive feedback on information. I had a person, uh, just, uh, a week ago, uh, was listening to the episode about proging Parliament. They had no clue what are the rules are about prorogation. And they sent me a very nice note and several other people had also commented as well. So I just wanted to really thank you for the feedback because that, that really motivates me to put out these shows for you and provide this information that you will definitely not hear on the, on the news channels, the mainstream media. So I wanted to thank you about that again this week. I have my, uh, my co host and my producer Mike with me. Hello, Mike.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Hello, Richard. How are you? I bet you my mic sounds a little better than it did before, huh?
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Your mic actually shocked me. It sounds really, really good.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's funny. I had the wrong setting. Nice to chat with you again. This is so weird because this is the first time we're not face to face doing this.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: That's right. So, ladies and gentlemen, we're actually doing this episode remotely. I'm a little bit bogged down with some political obligations that have really occupied my schedule, so Mike gave me the opportunity to do this episode remotely. We're not face to face as we normally are. We will continue in future to be face to face, but this one episode we're doing remotely. And I hope the audio sounds good for everyone.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: So do I. You know, but please forgive us otherwise, but I think you'll be able to hear the, the better part of the show anyway. I'm not surprised to hear that you are bogged down over the last week as elections are, as the insider, based on what you do, elections are flying at all levels it seems in this country.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: They really are. I mean this is.
Things are changing hour by hour, day by day. Tariffs on, tariffs off, liquor sales being blocked. Okay. Then being released. Provincial election in Ontario, federal election. We're hoping coming up in Canada, nominations happening.
It's just a torrent of. Of political stuff happening, especially if you're in the beltway.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Richard, do you find that as you are dealing inside that world on a daily basis that there is sort of a consistent consensus on things like, for example, the tariff nonsense, if I may going on. Or is there a sort of a splintered opinion on all of this in your mind?
[00:03:44] Speaker A: You know, I think generally people are, are Canadians are of a cons very consistent basis in the sense that, okay, we understand America is doing America first, Canada should do Canada first. And I think it's united the country because we feel unfairly taken advantage. If you look at the trade between both countries, they're. The trade that Canada provides. The United States particular about dozens of border states is tremendous. I mean almost, almost every state Canada is their number one trading partner with with few exceptions.
You know, some, some trade more with China, some trade more with Brazil. It's very interesting if you look at the map, but the vast majority of almost all states trade primarily with Canada. So a trade war or a 25% tariff we feel is insane. And also, if you look at the statistics, the number of the amount of fentanyl that crosses the border from Canada to the US Pales in comparison from what's crossing the border from the US Into Canada. Same thing with illegal guns. I mean, the problem in Canada, we have much stronger and tougher gun regulation than the people south of the border in the US Have. And the guns that are committing crimes in Canada, by and large are illegally smuggled guns from south of the border. So we feel it's an unfair advantage of. Of what's going on. And you know, we don't have our best trading team doing the negotiations, so.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I would like to talk more about that. First of all, my feeling is that not only did Canada and Mexico re, but I have to ask you, how do you think Claudia Sheinbaum did in Mexico in dealing with this?
[00:05:44] Speaker A: So she dealt with it right away. You know, Canada dealt with it slowly.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Well, we had to have a little cry session amongst ourselves before we got down to business, apparently.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Christ session and oh, you know, singing oh Canada in unison.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: No, she can't do anything without fake Outrage first. It's disgusting.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Well, well, welcome to Canada.
No, Sheinbaum in Mexico definitely did the, the right thing by promising 10, 000 troops at the border and strengthening the border as well. It took us a little bit longer to acknowledge that, but it's more, you know, is it really an issue about what's going on the border or is this part of a bigger trade renegotiation for NAFTA and usmca?
[00:06:32] Speaker B: It's hard to funny because the last person that laid this down was Trump, you know, in his last term and it was the best deal in the history of mankind.
And now he's using tariffs to try to get us to do things we've already committed to doing. It's all for show. There is no way that legally most of these tariffs and in fact a lot of the executive orders that he's writing seem to be challenged at the moment. So this tariff one just seemed to me to be bolstering.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: And what I also found offensive is why Does Canada get 25 but China gets only 10% discount? China got a discount. Okay, fair enough.
You know, it's, it's caused havoc in our country and the media is just playing with it. And what they're doing, see, Trump is, it's, it's a self defeating thing what Trump is doing. If he doesn't want to have the Trudeau Liberals or the Liberal Party north of the border, he's doing the opposite by his tariff attack because now the Liberals are the government in power and Trudeau is playing Team Canada. Remember, he's still the Prime Minister until at least March 9, until the Liberals pick a new leader. And you know, it's, it's, it's really, they're playing games with polling. They're showing that the Liberals are stronger, they're picking up pace, and Canadians are just tired. But Canadians are just really just tired of 10 years of liberal policies that have only made the average Canadian poorer.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: That's a really poignant end to that statement because everybody's now so mightily impressed by Mark Carney. Well, I mean, he's standing next to Chris J. Freeland and with all due respect, she, she comes off a little bit unhinged sometimes in my mind. Anybody who looks calm and, and cool and collected. But he also has a real economic, strong economic background and financial understanding globally that I think gives people, the liberal side of people, a little more justification in thinking liberal again.
And he seems to already be the, the standout lead in this campaign so far.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Well, I've always predicted it for the last few years. And I've warned everyone. I said, this guy's the chosen one. And the reason he's a chosen one is very simple. He's an acolyte of the World Economic Forum. He is a former bank of Canada governor and a former bank of England governor. And you cannot be blessed by having those roles unless you are anointed by the global banking elite.
They wouldn't have him as a central banker if, if not. And then, and then on top of it, he is an extreme, uh, climate, uh, alarmist that talks all about, uh, climate change and what needs to be done. But now he's talking about, he's, he's backpedaling and he's basically saying that he would get rid of the carbon tax because he wants to now play Conservative, he wants to play Mr. Economist.
But we know that the moment he takes over the, the reigns of power, especially if, God forbid, he were to win an election, he would, he would put the, the carbon tax at 10 times what it is right now, if not two or three times at least. And it would be a real struggle for people to just pay their monthly bills. So he's playing a real, to me, it's a really shady game because let me explain it this way, but the Liberals are doing, and what I've warned people for a long time is Trudeau will have his best before date, which, you know, he was summarily hated even in the 2021 election and even more so now. The Liberals basically have a broken vehicle. Imagine you have a car that can barely start, it can't really move, it has a lot of mechanical problems. What the Liberals are doing is they're just putting a new paint job on that vehicle and selling it as if it's some new vehicle that, that's going to run. But the moment you put the key in the ignition and you turn the key, you have the same mechanical problems. Nothing is going to change. And with Carney, it's going to even be worse because all the people that were behind Trudeau and the put together Trudeau's policies and he was the front man pitching it to Canadians. They're the same people who are behind Mark Carney. And I think Mark Carney's just comes off as a little bit of a slicker salesman than Trudeau is right now. But you're going to have the same problems, if not worse, with a person like Mark Carney. So I hope he doesn't fool enough people by being a trickster that he is.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Well, you Hear opinions out there that, you know, he might just be smart enough to say, all right, we're going to take all of our money and we're going to give it to you, France, and, you know, we'll, we'll do a better deal with you than we would do with the US on the dollar. And we're going to buy all euros in France and bank it. No, there's no secret to it. He's going to do whatever it takes to get them closer to the budget, no matter who it hurts. And that's going to be his instinct.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: I think I, I think you wouldn't be wrong. And I know that there is this, this wave in Canada where they want to do more trade with other places, which I understand you want to diversify, but you have to also consider that if you're going to trade with Europe or you're going to trade with Asia, there is the added cost of transportation, of goods, whereas there's a, a streamlined transport straight to the United States and a demand market right there. For example. I'll give you a perfect example. Builders in California, especially after the Los Angeles fire, they need to do incredible rebuilding. And they've said themselves that no matter what, tariff or not, they have no choice. They need Canadian lumber, so they're going to have to pay if, if the tariff comes on the 25% extra because they need the lumber. There's not enough lumber in the United States, notwithstanding what Trump says. So, you know, we have established markets with the United States and, and established transit points and things like that.
Opening the, our trade to other markets is wise to diversify, but there are costs that have to be factored into it, and it's not something that we can just flip a switch and, you know, transfer our trade all of a sudden over to the eu.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Can I ask you some questions about the numbers of seats in the Ontario Legislative Assembly?
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Oh, now, this is going to test my memory, because everything I know is mostly federal, but. Yes, go right ahead.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Okay, so let me see if I've got this right. Doug Ford's in there with 83 seats, or 40%. Almost 41%.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Yes, sorry, 79 seats currently. Okay.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Marriage styles over there with the New Democratic Party has 31 seats. Sorry, 28 seats currently, and 23% of the Assembly.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: Bonnie Crombie with the Liberals, nine seats.
Oh, my God, that's only seven more than the Green Party has.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Well, she's lucky because they, they originally, in the 2018 election, they only had seven seats, and they were Everyone joked that they were the minivan party because it, you know, could seat seven.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: It's just really wild to me that there is at this provincial level a complete lack of credit given to the Liberals at all and they are in the election upcoming that they hope to have any sort of effect at the federal level.
While Doug Ford is using the federal problems and the wave of positivity for the Progressive Party to, to fuel an election that's just staggering in my mind.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Well, I know Bonnie Crombie personally and I know that she had wanted to be the leader of the provincial Liberals for a long time. She actually thought that Kathleen Wynn was going before the 2018 election and then she would rise up and be the Liberal leader. So she finally has her dream job, which I feel probably for is a bit of a nightmare, but she might enjoy it.
That being said, you have to remember that there's already been a couple of elections in Ontario, 2018 and 2022. And in both cases the Liberals were never able to even get official party status or official opposition status. It was the NDP who became the official opposition.
So the chances where they stand now, I think are slim to slightly better that they maybe are able to capture a few, a couple more seats maybe at the expense of either the Progressive Conservative Party or the ndp. But they're not really resonating too much. And if you look at the polls, Doug Ford is still in, the Progressive Conservatives are still in, you know, 40 plus territory and. And they'll sweep away with another majority.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Well, it seems obvious that that will happen.
And I know this. They've been booking the venue to celebrate in following the election already, which is, you know, fantastic that they have that kind of foresight and confidence. What else were you watching this week in, in the news in Canada and beyond from a Canadian perspective?
[00:17:02] Speaker A: So the main things that everyone is talking about now are the Trump tariffs and the unfair relationship that Trump has caused Canada.
You know, even you have to remember to our American listeners that by and large, whereas the United States is more split, more divided and a little bit more pro Trump in Canada, I would say it's probably 80 20, where the Canadians have just been so, shall I say, brainwashed by the mainstream media to hate Donald Trump. So there's a very small amount of people in Canada that, that really like Donald Trump. But he's even wearing on their nerves thin because this whole tariff, this whole unnecessary tariff thing has caused so much instability. I mean, the dollar, which was already weak from before at like 69 cents, US dropped down to 67 and was getting, continually plunging. It's now come back up to just under $0.70 u. S as of today. But there's so much instability. You know, Doug Ford, for example, I'll give an example in Ontario. Doug Ford said, okay, well if, if the tariffs come in, which by the way they've been paused now to march the first and hopefully maybe longer, I.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Think indefinitely, that's my call on this one.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: I, I, and, and I hope you're right with that.
But when it came in, when it supposedly was supposed to come in, the pro, the premier of Ontario, Remember, in Ontario we don't have like we have a monopolized liquor system in Ontario, let's put it that way. So the Ontario government said, all right, we're going to take all American alcohol off our shelves. So whether it's American whiskey or California wines, it's all going to go off the shelves. So there was a rush of people the day before just to stock up on, on wines from California, for example.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: I mean, there was panic in my family. Oh, do you think that I need to go and buy things today? They're going to be crazy expensive like toilet paper. No, no, no, the toilet paper is ours. That's, that's ours. We think, I think, you know what, Trump's playbook often involves making these big dramatic threats just to gain leverage and then either walking them back or using them as a bargaining chip. And right. 25% tariff on Canada would like wreck the supply chain in the U.S. right?
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Both, it would wreck us both here and there. I mean more so it wrecks the United States because the, he's imposing tariffs. So everything becomes, everything from Canada becomes more expensive to the United States. Even our natural energy, oil, etc, natural gas becomes 10 more instead of 25. It's only, was only 10 more but it become more expensive for, for Americans. That being said, now Canada then does commensurate tariffs on American goods. So everyone's being penalized on both sides of the border. It really created instability and chaos and now the dust is settling slowly. But, but that's only good for the month of February. We'll see what March brings. So it's a constant instability that's being weighed into the system and it's just creating financial chaos.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: I mean his, his sweeping executive orders are unbelievable to this point. And like you say, I think even, even people who, I think a lot of people are like, okay, okay, okay, we want Trump, we want Trump. Oh my God, what did we do right? What have we done? I think that north of the border.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Yes, that's what I think.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Even south of the border. You know, anybody who has any sort of understanding in, in the states that are so reliant on Canadian trade, even they, their reaction to this, some of the immigration and border security issues, the social policies that he's, he's, you know, totally eliminating, things like the usaid, it seems like a huge drain of funds, but it's also how they remain diplomatic in a lot of countries.
You know, the National Energy emergency declaration, That's a wild one. Come on, drill, baby, drill. A lot of this seems to be, like I say, hot air, you know, renaming geographical landmarks. The Gulf of.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Gulf of America.
I joked with an American friend about that today, and they, they thought that was just foolish. But, yeah, I, I think it's interesting what he's doing. I mean, usaid, yes, traditionally, I mean, if we would now want to talk from a U. S. Perspective, traditionally is meant to be part of the carrot and stick diplomacy that the US Use. But if you actually look at the money and how it was dispersed, particularly under Biden or Obama's tenure, it was not used.
It was given to some very interesting, let alone possibly nefarious, NGOs and, and nations around the world. And actually, no, to pivot back to Canada, I had, for many years, since Trudeau has taken office, gone through what used to be called Foreign Affairs Canada, now global affairs on their website. And you could see, if you searched by certain criteria, you could find out money that was being given to other nations, for example, for gender studies or women's empowerment or, you know, LGBTQ + reasons. All of a sudden, their website went offline today, that part of their database was taken offline and you can't find out where the money is going. And there's been millions upon millions of dollars, like, for example, the Aga Khan has just passed away. I remember researching shortly after Trudeau came into office, while he was on vacation at the Aga Khan's island, there was millions upon millions of dollars given to his foundation year after year, you know, under the guise of women's empowerment and things like that. But I was told that the real use of the money was not really for women's empowerment. So we say we believe in foreign aid. The question is, I think if we go through it line by line with a fine tooth comb, you will really see that a lot of it is a lot of woke.
Woke DEI aid that has a certain bias and a certain agenda that does nothing to benefit in the, in U.S. aIDS case, USAID you the United States's agenda, or in Canada's case in particular, the Canadian Western agenda that would benefit Canada.
Millions, millions have been going out the door. And I do hope that in the next Conservative government, if there is in the next election that the Conservatives win, that they start going through the books and seeing where is this money going to and why was it going to these organizations? What was the end goal? What was the real purpose about it? Because I really think there's been a lot of questionable money going out at the taxpayer's expense.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: It's so interesting. I did a quick search the other day and I, I just brought it up in front of me of what countries make better sense for us to do trade with than even the US and the top three kind of shocked me.
The first was the European Union because we have ceta, you know, and that removes almost all the tariffs doing trade between our countries. And that means Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, all included in this tariff free zone. And like, you know, everything from energy to agriculture is almost untouched. You know what I mean? We haven't really expanded there. United Kingdom was another one. There's a brand new, I can't remember what the new agreement is.
We have a new agreement that replaced the CEDA agreement.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: You know, Japan is another country.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Interesting agreement. Yes, yes.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: So, you know, South Korea, not shockingly, we, we have an agreement already in place. You know, it's basically almost trade free in Japan and Korea with development and technology partnerships in place.
We may, we may just be lazy, Richard. We may not be getting on the bus and going far enough to do business like we should as Canadians.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: I, I see, I don't see it's laziness. I think it's been mismanagement for a number of decades. And here's, let me explain what I mean. When we do business, for example, with Germany, which I love, and many German products in my home, I drive a German car.
We're buying finished goods that are manufactured in Germany and importing them here.
Japan used to be a lot of, we used to do have a lot of manufactured goods from Japan, but they're Japanese companies that a lot of them manufacture in China.
All these nations are providing us finished goods. Italy, France, Japan, what are we providing them? A lot of times what we're providing even to the United States, even to China. We're providing not manufactured finished goods that are made in Canada, giving people higher paying jobs. We're providing the raw materials that they take because we've been so blessed in our nation to have amazing raw materials though. We have the largest fresh water supply in the world. We have gold mines, we have oil and natural gas, we have diamonds, we have all minerals, nickel, zinc, potash, we have all sorts of things naturally in our country, uranium etc and we're providing the raw materials which are sold at market value and then taken to those other countries. Manufacture. They manufacture a finished good at a markup and then sell it back to us and we're buying these goods. Why are we not manufacturing things here in Canada? Why are we always a resource based economy focusing only on our natural resources and selling at whatever the market dictates? At that time we used to be a really brilliant country. You know remember back in the day our telephones were all made by Northern Telecom which was later called Nortel.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: What happened to Nortel? I mean Nortel was a leading telecommunication network. What happened was China spied on Nortel and all the patents were ripped and stripped from Nortel and used to build up Huawei in China. And Nortel went under the same thing. You know back in the early 80s we were the, you know, the Americans had the space shuttle but we had the Canada arm which was invented here. Great technology that they couldn't have their spatial okay, could transfer, can transport back and forth but without the Canada arm to actually work like a crane and move things around in space, the space shuttle would have been semi useless. So we lost all that great brain power. A lot went south of the border. A lot of our intellectual property has been stolen by China with no recourse.
We have a government that seems to turn a blind eye to what's happening in China. We have Chinese police station. At least the United States has been sharp to shut down a Chinese police station in Manhattan or the consulate in Houston. It's not the case in Canada. We have literal industrial espionage happening in our country and they're taking all of our brilliant ideas and they're using it over there. Why don't we start manufacturing things again here and have made in Canada and put Canada first? Because if the United States is going to do America first, why shouldn't we do Canada first and specialize in the things that we really have great technology on? Look, for example, we used to be the leader in cellular technology when BlackBerry came out. Right? Research in motion. Yeah, yeah, they're all, they're all gone. So what are we doing? We're selling our resources which are being depleted at market value and, and the world market dictates that. But we're what we would make much More money is if we create and invent things here and manufacture them here, provide higher paying jobs and sell those made in Canada items around the world.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: It would be interesting to see Canada create some more export hubs in Europe and Asia so that we don't have to import through US Channels necessarily.
But, you know, and, and then do it basically tariff free. We just don't seem to take the time to do these trade missions to actually get Canadian businesses to, you know, there's no programs certainly that I know of that in Canada that say, hey, listen, we want to do business with the eu. Here is a tax credit if you help us start that trade. You know, there's not a lot of that inspiration. If there is, it's deeply hidden.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Well, I think federally it is deeply hidden, you're right. And it's, and it's very specialized. So businesses that want to trade with other trading partners, for example, can go to Business Development bank, the bdc, and they're one avenue. But if you want certain grants or finding certain grants that allow you to do trade with other partner nations, it's very difficult. Like there's no, there's no easy streamlined process. And people, businesses need a specialized person who just focuses on that to help them expand their markets beyond just the United States. So yeah, we should do a little bit more to build those trade relationships and expand our trade options so we're not just so focused only on the United States, you know, and not just so focused, for example, selling raw materials to China where they send the finished goods back to us and we're buying them, we're buying it off of them.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: That's. That. That sounds like a reasonable approach. Would you please run for office?
[00:32:51] Speaker A: Maybe one day, maybe one day that will happen.
I'm certainly open to the idea. When the timing is right and this country calls upon me. I'm happy to do that. And, and thank you for your vote of confidence. I truly appreciate that.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: You want to play a game?
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Okay. It's trivia news. Trivia of the week. First question.
Each question, by the way, has a multiple choice answer. So you can play along at home if you want. All right, question number one. Trump's tariff tantrum. This week, Donald Trump threatened Canada with a 25% tariff. On what? A maple syrup, B lumber and steel, C moose exports or D, poutine ingredients.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Is there not an E, all of the above.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: There was not an E, all of the above. But that would qualify. I'll give you the point on that one. How about this.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: So let's say lumber and steel.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: You were correct actually, sir, but I think most of the things were covered. I think he even covered the air that we breathe. Question number two. Ontario's election drama. Doug Ford's government called for a snap election in Ontario this week. Richard. But what was the biggest controversy? A ballot. The ballot accidentally included Tim Horton's drive thru as a polling station.
A candidate was caught using AI to generate campaign speeches. Ford. That was B. C, Ford promised free beer if reelected. I thought that was. Oh no, it was beer in gas stations. Or D, one of the main opposition leaders resigned mid campaign.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Well, I thought the big one was the gotcha moment off off mic where he said he was happy. That or Ford Premier Ford said he was happy that Trump got elected. But then now it's Trump 2.0 and Trump basically bit him in the behind with the tariffs. I thought that was the big issue.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: I'll give you points on that one too. What the heck.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: But what's.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: I mean I had chosen D. One of the main opposition leaders resigned mid campaign.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Who is the main opposition leader that resigned?
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Wasn't it?
Maybe I'm wrong. Okay, well, I'll give you the point on that one. Sorry. By the way, if you're listening at home and you're having a hard time following the game, I understand.
Here's number three, Celebrity meltdown of the week. Which A list celebrity made headlines this week for storming out of an interview after being asked about their failed NFT venture. Was it Elon Musk? A, B, Paris Hilton, C, Matt Damon or D Logan Paul?
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Oh my goodness, that's a great question. I'm really not up to speed on celebrities. Should I guess? If I'm going to guess, I'm going to say Logan Paul.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: You got it correct, sir. Elon Musk was too busy being the. I don't know what it is.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Doge. He's the head of Doge.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Oh, he's the Doge master.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Two more questions. Number four, Canada's economy takes a hit. Which major Canadian company announced mass layoffs this week due to economic uncertainty? Was it Tim Hortons A, B, Shopify, C, Canadian Tire or D Air Canada?
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Oh, oh, oh. I would say either Shopify or Air Canada.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, we'll give it to you. It was Shopify. But you win yourself a standby ticket on Air Canada to be treated badly most of your flight. You know, they're saying at Air Canada, we're not happy till you're not happy. Number five, the most ridiculous executive order. Let's do this one. Which bizarre executive order did Trump allegedly sign this week? A, rebranding the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. B, declaring ketchup a vegetable.
C, requiring all government emails to be written in all caps. That one I can get behind.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: I can see that one.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Or D, banning woke coffee brands.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Well, I would assume it's A, the Gulf of America because he did sign that with melt McKinley.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: He actually really did do that. Yeah. Nothing screams diplomacy like renaming an entire ocean. Way to go.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: Yeah, no, he. He did. He's called it. He signed an executive order. I mean. I mean, of course it's up to Mexico to accept it. The funny thing is, if people didn't follow this in the news, there was a press release coming out of Florida, and the press release coming out of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis quoted mentioned something about the Gulf of America. They didn't call the Gulf of Mexico. So Florida was the first one to acknowledge, after that executive order, they accepted it and they called it the Gulf of America in a press release.
[00:38:01] Speaker B: Unbelievable. Apparently you can hear airlines announcing as you fly over it, American Airlines being one of them. Hey, listen, here's one for you at home. And if you want to send us your answer, you could win absolutely nothing. Which Canadian politician was caught on a hot mic this week saying, I don't even read half these reports. I just win it? Hint, it wasn't Trudeau this time. Or was it?
[00:38:27] Speaker A: Well, let's see what the answers are. I'm willing to. I'm excited to hear what the audience has to say.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Richard, thanks for another great show.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: My pleasure. Listen. Thank you to all of you to listen. For listening. I really hope that you are enjoying this and that you are subscribing and sharing this with your friends and. And I really hope that people are getting information about it, about what's happening in Ottawa and across the country and even south of the border. I really appreciate all of you who are listening. I really thank you for that. I really thank everyone for their feedback. The ones who've given me feedback. It's been really fantastic.
And just, you know, even the subscriber base has really taken off and I'm really thankful for that. So I just want to say thank you to everyone. Please continue to share this, Please continue to like it, please continue to subscribe, let your friends know about it, and if you have any questions, please contact me and I'll be happy to answer them on air.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Still no subscribers to My only fans. Come on people. Let's go.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: I don't know if they want that, Mike. Sorry.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Ah, have a great weekend.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: You too. Thanks, guys.
