Full Comment - May 16, 2022


The nightmare of inflation was made worse in Ottawa


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

182.1002

Word Count

8,218

Sentence Count

169

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

16


Summary

Inflation has been creeping up across the price of food, gas, and other essentials. How bad is it going to get? And what can we do about it? In this episode, we talk to business professor Ian Lee about what's going on and what we can do to stop it.


Transcript

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00:01:27.460 Hello, I'm Anthony Fury.
00:01:35.000 Thanks for joining us for the latest episode of Full Common.
00:01:37.520 Please consider subscribing if you haven't already.
00:01:40.420 What is going on with the Canadian economy?
00:01:43.160 With the global economy?
00:01:44.680 The cost of living seems like it's spiraling out of control, at least in some categories.
00:01:49.300 Food prices are going up, and we've even been told to expect shortages.
00:01:53.360 Gas prices have hit $2 per liter in many parts of the country.
00:01:57.460 For regular folks struggling to get by, it seems like the struggle will only get more challenging.
00:02:02.780 And we're all told to buckle up for the long haul.
00:02:05.000 This stuff might be around for quite some time.
00:02:07.420 Words like stagnation, stagflation, and recession, they are all being tossed around.
00:02:12.540 How bad is it going to get?
00:02:15.000 What's causing it?
00:02:16.240 And what can we do about it, if anything?
00:02:18.700 We need someone to level with us.
00:02:20.140 Lay it all out straight.
00:02:21.040 And that's what our guest today is going to do.
00:02:23.780 Professor Ian Lee from the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University
00:02:26.680 is back with us.
00:02:27.960 Great to have him.
00:02:28.840 Hey, Ian, thanks for joining us.
00:02:31.140 Good morning, Anthony, and thank you for inviting me.
00:02:34.220 Now, I got to say, I talked to just a lot of folks about issues of the day,
00:02:37.980 and the thing I'm hearing about more and more is just everyone saying,
00:02:40.600 wow, did you see the gas price?
00:02:42.080 Wow, did you see the price of yogurt's gone up, or this or that has gone up,
00:02:45.680 or concerns about interest rates?
00:02:47.420 I mean, this is a very vibrant thing now for people.
00:02:51.120 This is front of mind.
00:02:52.400 And like I said, for folks who don't have a lot of cash in the bank,
00:02:56.380 I mean, these are getting worrisome times.
00:03:00.540 Anthony, I completely agree.
00:03:02.520 And I don't consider myself old, but I am old enough to have lived through the 1970s.
00:03:11.420 I came as the end of the workforce in 1972.
00:03:15.560 I was 18 years old, and I lived all through the 70s when the inflation started to creep up
00:03:21.680 and creep up and creep up, and it ultimately went double digit.
00:03:26.640 It didn't start out double digit.
00:03:28.160 People seem to think it sort of went from zero to 15 overnight.
00:03:31.200 It didn't.
00:03:32.080 It started out just like now.
00:03:33.500 What we've seen in the last two years, it was two, then three, then four,
00:03:37.080 then it crept up to five, then to six, and so on.
00:03:40.640 And it's very real and pernicious.
00:03:44.300 Inflation is really pernicious because it sneaks up on you,
00:03:48.440 and it becomes embedded in every aspect of our lives, everything we buy,
00:03:53.600 everything we purchase, gasoline, heat, food, car parts, repairs, trips, everything.
00:03:59.800 So it's not some theoretical conversation.
00:04:02.460 And that's why it is actually the nightmare of central bankers,
00:04:07.200 because they know how difficult it is to put it back into the bottle,
00:04:11.840 the inflation genie in the bottle, if they allow it to get out of the bottle.
00:04:16.560 And we saw, this isn't theory.
00:04:18.900 This is not theory.
00:04:20.440 I lived through it.
00:04:21.840 I was a mortgage manager.
00:04:23.760 Bank of Montreal, main office, Ottawa,
00:04:25.880 on Wellington Street opposite West Block of Parliament in 1980,
00:04:29.320 when interest rates hit 20%, that was not a theory.
00:04:34.000 That was reality.
00:04:35.940 And anyone who says high interest rates don't kill inflation,
00:04:39.080 have not looked at the data.
00:04:40.920 I can tell you, as the rates started to go from 10% to 11% to 12% to 14%,
00:04:46.420 I had fewer and fewer customers walking through the door.
00:04:49.080 And by the time the rates hit 19, 20%,
00:04:51.060 I was basically sitting there twiddling my thumbs because I had no business.
00:04:54.600 I had no customers.
00:04:55.400 Because mortgages and home ownership, to name one,
00:04:58.700 is extremely sensitive to interest rates.
00:05:01.000 But it's not just home ownership.
00:05:03.240 It drove the economy into a deeper session,
00:05:07.500 the worst we had experienced since the Great Depression.
00:05:10.440 So that's the antidote.
00:05:11.880 But the...
00:05:12.400 Well, let me ask, before we get into the antidote then,
00:05:14.980 people are going to say,
00:05:15.880 OK, in the interim, I'm worried about my family.
00:05:18.140 How bad can it get?
00:05:19.380 I just saw a headline.
00:05:20.720 John Katsomadidis, he's a billionaire.
00:05:22.480 He runs a grocery firm in Manhattan, a grocery chain.
00:05:26.100 He's also CEO of United Refining.
00:05:27.860 And he just said that diesel rationing,
00:05:30.400 he expects it will occur this summer,
00:05:32.240 at least in the northeastern part of North America.
00:05:35.220 To me, that seems like not just diesel costs being a problem,
00:05:38.040 but also getting food to places,
00:05:41.060 transportation of goods.
00:05:43.420 Ian, how bad are things going to get in the interim,
00:05:46.160 but before the antidote's brought in?
00:05:47.660 I think they're going to get worse.
00:05:50.380 Things are going to get worse before they get better.
00:05:52.140 And that's the inevitable, unfortunate, tragic outcome
00:05:58.560 of allowing that genie to get out of the bottle.
00:06:02.760 And I do believe, and I've said so since April 2021,
00:06:08.240 at the time of the budget of April 2021,
00:06:11.380 when the central bank and the government of Canada
00:06:14.720 continued to pour gargantuan amounts of stimulus,
00:06:19.600 monetary and fiscal stimulus into the economy.
00:06:22.260 I just want to stop and unpack that for a moment.
00:06:24.620 You said that on this program a year ago.
00:06:26.280 I remember.
00:06:26.960 I did.
00:06:28.020 The fiscal stimulus was,
00:06:29.820 I want to use plain English
00:06:31.320 because that's the way I speak.
00:06:32.640 And I talk to my students that way.
00:06:34.200 When you run up a deficit,
00:06:36.060 I don't care what you're spending the deficit on.
00:06:37.960 You could be, as John Maynard Keynes famously said,
00:06:40.000 have higher workers to dig a hole in the ground every day.
00:06:43.100 At the end of the day, fill the hole back in.
00:06:45.000 It really doesn't matter whether you're spending it
00:06:47.220 on income support or on this or that.
00:06:49.220 You are stimulating the economy
00:06:51.100 when you are running deficits.
00:06:52.740 I'm not one of those people who says
00:06:53.920 that all deficits are bad.
00:06:55.520 I don't believe that.
00:06:56.700 There's a time and place for deficits,
00:06:58.220 such as in very deep recessions or depressions.
00:07:01.040 That's very Keynesian.
00:07:02.260 But what we were doing in April 2021
00:07:05.380 was we were pouring gigantic deficits
00:07:08.820 and injecting gigantic amounts of money,
00:07:11.180 billions and billions.
00:07:12.500 And almost all of the jobs lost from the pandemic
00:07:15.960 had been recovered.
00:07:17.080 When you looked, in fact,
00:07:18.320 her own numbers in that budget speech,
00:07:21.700 she was bragging about the fact
00:07:24.420 that the economy was just doing gangbusters.
00:07:27.400 And it was growing at 5% or 6% GDP growth rate.
00:07:31.540 And yet here we were pouring hundreds of billions
00:07:34.120 of dollars in deficit financing.
00:07:35.660 And so we were stimulating,
00:07:37.860 overstimulating the economy
00:07:39.000 because the crisis from an economic point of view
00:07:42.100 had come to an end,
00:07:44.100 meaning we had recovered all the bad losses
00:07:46.880 from the pandemic of the year before.
00:07:49.200 On the monetary side,
00:07:50.740 we were running rates at the lowest level.
00:07:53.400 I looked this up using data
00:07:55.260 from the Federal Reserve of the United States
00:07:57.660 and the Bank of England.
00:07:59.100 They had a graph, each one,
00:08:00.560 had a graph going back 250, 300 years
00:08:04.140 to show the rate of interest over that period of time.
00:08:08.600 300 years is the long, long run.
00:08:11.720 Interest rates in that period
00:08:12.900 in neither UK or US
00:08:15.020 had ever, ever, ever, ever once,
00:08:17.220 not ever once,
00:08:18.360 gone down to the level we've experienced
00:08:20.480 in the last two or three years
00:08:22.180 down to one quarter of one point.
00:08:23.900 So the point is the,
00:08:26.660 and again, the economy had recovered.
00:08:29.260 They even, yes, there were still people,
00:08:30.700 I'm not denying people were still getting sick from COVID
00:08:33.180 and some were tragically dying.
00:08:34.500 Of course, I don't disagree with that reality.
00:08:38.480 What I'm saying is that the economy had recovered.
00:08:41.700 The job losses had all been recovered.
00:08:44.280 The GDP was growing very strongly
00:08:46.740 and we were pumping hundreds of billions of dollars
00:08:50.240 of stimulus,
00:08:51.840 unnecessary stimulus into the economy.
00:08:54.340 And I was predicting a year ago,
00:08:56.400 this is not going to end well
00:08:58.500 because we already had savings rates
00:09:00.920 that were historically unprecedented,
00:09:02.460 which told me in plain English
00:09:04.520 that the people,
00:09:05.880 all of us getting this stimulus,
00:09:07.800 these income support programs and so forth,
00:09:10.720 literally couldn't spend all of it.
00:09:12.480 We were getting so much stimulus,
00:09:14.560 we couldn't spend it all.
00:09:15.640 So we were banking it.
00:09:16.860 So we had,
00:09:17.680 our savings rate went from 4%
00:09:19.360 to something like 30%.
00:09:20.780 Unprecedented,
00:09:22.180 but more evidence
00:09:23.220 that we were over stimulating.
00:09:25.900 So I'm not accusing
00:09:27.200 the government of Canada
00:09:28.740 or the Bank of Canada
00:09:29.960 of causing inflation.
00:09:32.120 This is spiral in inflation.
00:09:34.500 I do not believe that.
00:09:36.080 It was caused by the
00:09:37.280 shutting down of the economies
00:09:39.160 around the world
00:09:40.120 in response to the pandemic.
00:09:42.480 And that blew up the supply chains.
00:09:45.100 And that was the original driver
00:09:47.380 of inflation.
00:09:48.740 But what we were doing
00:09:50.240 was exacerbating this inflation,
00:09:53.900 very seriously exacerbating
00:09:56.440 the inflation
00:09:57.540 by pouring more and more stimulus
00:09:59.960 when the economy
00:10:01.400 had already recovered.
00:10:03.620 And so I said,
00:10:04.540 this is going to drive
00:10:06.800 inflation upward further.
00:10:09.200 And the US was doing it
00:10:10.740 and Canada was doing it.
00:10:12.320 And so now we are unfortunately
00:10:14.600 reaping the wind
00:10:16.240 of those poor or bad
00:10:18.480 fiscal and monetary policy choices
00:10:20.680 over the past year.
00:10:22.800 So Ian, you're saying
00:10:23.300 you predicted this scenario
00:10:24.500 and you did.
00:10:25.480 Like I said,
00:10:25.960 you've gone on
00:10:26.500 multiple different programs.
00:10:27.940 You were here on this podcast
00:10:28.900 a year ago
00:10:29.360 predicting this very scenario.
00:10:30.760 And one would think
00:10:31.840 that some central bankers
00:10:33.300 and other economic minds
00:10:34.440 would say,
00:10:34.820 well, yeah,
00:10:35.060 this kind of happens
00:10:36.000 when you're just,
00:10:36.760 you know,
00:10:37.000 throwing all this cash
00:10:37.820 at the floodgates.
00:10:38.600 And to your point,
00:10:39.540 Christy Freeland even said,
00:10:40.760 oh, we're actually doing okay
00:10:41.760 in a number of indicators.
00:10:42.920 They kept doing it.
00:10:44.660 And the frustration is,
00:10:46.360 is why?
00:10:47.780 Because we're here
00:10:48.420 in this situation
00:10:49.220 where life is getting rough.
00:10:51.100 And I want to talk about
00:10:52.000 the macroeconomics
00:10:52.880 of the war in Ukraine
00:10:53.640 and other aspects
00:10:54.680 in a moment as well.
00:10:55.720 But they did something
00:10:57.220 knowing that it would cause
00:10:59.880 these distortionary effects
00:11:01.680 in the economy
00:11:02.440 where, I mean,
00:11:03.860 the people who have
00:11:04.640 banked those savings,
00:11:05.760 I guess they were in a position
00:11:06.680 to bank the savings.
00:11:07.540 But I know there's a lot
00:11:08.280 of people out there
00:11:08.880 who were not and are not,
00:11:11.320 and they are now feeling
00:11:12.440 the brunt of all of this.
00:11:13.760 That ain't fair.
00:11:14.840 Did they just do it
00:11:15.880 for political feel goods?
00:11:17.740 I mean,
00:11:18.060 did nobody in a position
00:11:19.840 of authority,
00:11:20.760 Bank of Canada governor,
00:11:21.780 raise their hand and say,
00:11:22.700 guys,
00:11:23.240 stuff's going to happen
00:11:24.380 and we're not going to like it?
00:11:27.080 The answer I'm going
00:11:28.400 to come up with,
00:11:29.240 and forgive me
00:11:30.060 for being sort of academic,
00:11:31.520 but it was a wonder,
00:11:33.160 I am an academic.
00:11:34.540 There was a wonderful book
00:11:35.960 written a couple of years ago
00:11:37.120 by a very distinguished
00:11:37.960 economist at Harvard
00:11:38.880 who's the former chief
00:11:39.820 economist at the IMF
00:11:40.700 and he said,
00:11:41.880 the name of the book was
00:11:42.800 This Time It's Different.
00:11:45.460 I remember that.
00:11:46.020 And it was a wonderful book
00:11:47.880 because decision makers
00:11:50.680 at the top of countries
00:11:51.840 tend to think that,
00:11:53.440 okay, yes,
00:11:53.900 I know the history
00:11:54.560 and I know the theory
00:11:55.420 and I know the research
00:11:56.320 and the scholarship
00:11:56.940 and the evidence,
00:11:58.060 but hey,
00:11:59.180 we're smarter than those people
00:12:00.560 because we know a lot more,
00:12:02.120 we're more modern,
00:12:03.060 we're more sophisticated.
00:12:03.980 I want to just give you
00:12:05.040 a quick historical example
00:12:06.220 and it is not
00:12:06.840 from ancient history
00:12:07.600 because it affected
00:12:08.500 my life back in the 70s.
00:12:10.860 Canada did not cause
00:12:12.140 the inflation
00:12:12.760 of the 70s in Canada.
00:12:14.420 It's widely,
00:12:15.500 the consensus view
00:12:16.800 amongst large numbers
00:12:18.300 of economists,
00:12:19.040 policy wonks
00:12:19.680 and so forth
00:12:20.200 was it was caused
00:12:21.460 by then-President
00:12:22.940 Lyndon Johnson's
00:12:24.160 very serious mistake
00:12:26.060 to fight both
00:12:28.100 the war in Vietnam
00:12:29.040 and his great society
00:12:30.860 war on poverty
00:12:31.640 with zero tax increases
00:12:33.500 and he threatened
00:12:34.640 the Federal Reserve,
00:12:35.540 don't you dare
00:12:36.180 raise interest rates.
00:12:37.340 So he was pouring
00:12:38.180 hundreds of billions
00:12:39.440 of dollars of money
00:12:41.040 into the American economy
00:12:43.440 not to stimulate it
00:12:45.520 but to fight the war
00:12:46.280 in Vietnam
00:12:47.180 and the war on poverty.
00:12:48.920 Because our economies
00:12:49.860 are tightly integrated,
00:12:51.260 that inflation seeped
00:12:52.460 over into Canada.
00:12:53.620 We could have responded
00:12:54.960 in the 70s
00:12:55.900 when that came into Canada
00:12:57.180 by putting up
00:12:58.380 interest rates
00:12:59.080 and cutting back
00:13:00.480 on our spending.
00:13:01.420 However,
00:13:02.120 the Prime Minister,
00:13:03.040 Pierre Elliott Trudeau
00:13:03.880 at the time,
00:13:04.820 didn't and they
00:13:05.960 started to run
00:13:06.880 fairly significant deficits
00:13:09.300 even though the economy
00:13:11.340 was growing
00:13:12.180 very strongly
00:13:13.840 throughout the 70s
00:13:15.000 and the interest rates
00:13:17.780 were kept relatively low
00:13:19.960 and relative to that time.
00:13:22.560 And so what happened
00:13:23.420 was inflation started
00:13:24.640 to become embedded
00:13:25.680 in the heads
00:13:26.820 of all of us
00:13:27.760 including me.
00:13:28.920 I bought my first house
00:13:30.100 in 1976.
00:13:31.720 It was a townhouse
00:13:32.800 on the edge of Ottawa
00:13:33.960 and the reason I bought it
00:13:34.980 was because
00:13:36.040 this casino mentality
00:13:38.180 had become embedded
00:13:39.520 in Canada
00:13:40.380 where it was
00:13:40.840 you were crazy
00:13:41.780 to save money
00:13:42.560 for the future
00:13:43.180 because you knew
00:13:44.340 that if you save
00:13:45.380 the price would go up
00:13:46.300 faster than the
00:13:47.360 in the succeeding months
00:13:49.000 or a year or two
00:13:50.220 than if you'd save
00:13:51.200 the money.
00:13:51.700 So what it did
00:13:52.340 was everybody went out
00:13:53.320 and spend, spend, spend,
00:13:54.800 borrow, borrow, borrow
00:13:55.680 because it didn't make sense
00:13:56.940 to save.
00:13:57.800 That's the pernicious
00:13:58.700 impact of inflation
00:14:00.060 and it took
00:14:00.920 a 20% interest rate
00:14:02.420 to finally kill it.
00:14:04.020 In this instance
00:14:05.000 to your question
00:14:05.880 Anthony
00:14:06.700 because it's an excellent question
00:14:07.840 I think that
00:14:09.340 and when I use
00:14:10.900 the word politicized
00:14:12.100 I'm partially agreeing
00:14:13.140 with you
00:14:13.400 I do not want to suggest
00:14:14.900 that Mr. Macklem
00:14:16.500 who's a highly educated
00:14:17.560 individual
00:14:18.020 highly experienced
00:14:18.840 is a partisan
00:14:19.840 in any way shape or form.
00:14:21.080 I've met him
00:14:21.520 at downtown
00:14:21.980 professional events
00:14:22.800 I don't believe it
00:14:23.580 however I think
00:14:25.020 that in the last
00:14:25.740 10 or 15 or 20 years
00:14:27.640 maybe since the turn
00:14:28.620 of the new millennium
00:14:29.700 in Canada
00:14:31.360 and the US
00:14:32.360 but certainly in Canada
00:14:33.600 politicians
00:14:35.560 have become
00:14:36.260 absolutely freaked out
00:14:38.260 by the idea
00:14:39.220 of any negative growth
00:14:40.960 or any increase
00:14:42.080 in unemployment
00:14:42.740 in a recession
00:14:43.920 or whatever
00:14:44.540 and so the calls
00:14:45.880 come out
00:14:46.360 from academics
00:14:47.800 from think tanks
00:14:48.800 from anti-poverty groups
00:14:49.980 and so forth
00:14:50.540 hey you've got to do something
00:14:52.040 there's this crisis
00:14:52.860 GDP just went down 2%
00:14:54.660 the unemployment rate
00:14:55.640 went up 1.5 points
00:14:57.360 and so
00:14:58.220 they pour on
00:14:59.520 the call goes out
00:15:01.420 for massive spending
00:15:02.960 massive stimulus
00:15:04.100 even if it's a relatively
00:15:05.580 small problem
00:15:06.900 and in this instance
00:15:08.760 with COVID
00:15:09.480 I was watching it
00:15:10.420 from the moment
00:15:10.880 it happened
00:15:11.360 I'm talking to March
00:15:12.700 April 2020 lockdown
00:15:14.320 I knew right away
00:15:15.600 we all knew right away
00:15:16.520 that you know
00:15:17.140 if you send home
00:15:17.820 three quarters of the economy
00:15:18.920 you're going to drive
00:15:19.540 the unemployment rate
00:15:20.600 through the roof
00:15:21.040 but I also knew
00:15:22.320 that it was going
00:15:23.280 to be temporary
00:15:23.900 because it was
00:15:24.520 an artificial recession
00:15:26.520 it wasn't an organic
00:15:27.960 natural recession
00:15:29.080 where the economy
00:15:30.180 had run out of steam
00:15:31.360 in this instance
00:15:32.280 it was artificially
00:15:33.440 created by policy makers
00:15:35.040 ordering everybody
00:15:36.080 to go home
00:15:36.740 so what that suggested
00:15:38.040 to me was the moment
00:15:39.040 everybody
00:15:39.580 the lockdown ended
00:15:40.460 the economy
00:15:41.400 would snap back
00:15:42.540 like a sharp elastic band
00:15:44.040 a really stretchy
00:15:45.580 elastic band
00:15:46.420 and that's exactly
00:15:47.600 what happened
00:15:48.240 after each lockdown
00:15:49.720 the economy
00:15:50.340 snapped right back
00:15:51.520 and yet
00:15:52.420 the central bank
00:15:54.000 of Canada
00:15:54.780 and Christia Freeland
00:15:56.040 you read her comments
00:15:57.460 in that budget speech
00:15:58.440 it was truly
00:15:59.260 cognitive dissonance
00:16:01.660 in one paragraph
00:16:02.400 she was saying
00:16:02.960 the economy's booming
00:16:04.580 it's just doing
00:16:05.820 fantastically
00:16:06.760 and in the next paragraph
00:16:07.820 she said
00:16:08.300 we're in this deep
00:16:09.500 COVID recession
00:16:11.600 now you cannot be
00:16:13.060 in a deep recession
00:16:14.400 and booming
00:16:15.600 at the same time
00:16:16.760 A contradicts B
00:16:18.320 it is literally
00:16:20.340 and this cognitive dissonance
00:16:21.980 this absolute contradiction
00:16:23.460 it's in the words
00:16:25.280 it's not me misinterpreting
00:16:26.800 I highlighted them
00:16:27.900 in yellow
00:16:28.320 in my PDF document
00:16:30.320 my digital document
00:16:31.460 where she was
00:16:32.440 on the one hand
00:16:33.080 literally in one paragraph
00:16:34.120 extolling the extraordinary
00:16:35.380 growth and recovery
00:16:36.440 of the economy
00:16:37.140 and the next thing
00:16:38.300 we've got to spend
00:16:39.120 a lot more
00:16:40.080 income support
00:16:42.180 because we're in
00:16:43.320 this deep recession
00:16:44.120 well you cannot be both
00:16:45.340 but can't it be true
00:16:46.580 in some sense
00:16:47.200 because one of the things
00:16:48.020 that I'm trying to figure out
00:16:49.700 and maybe everybody else
00:16:52.000 is as well
00:16:52.740 maybe all the economists
00:16:53.500 are as well
00:16:54.140 is you've got
00:16:55.100 the class
00:16:55.720 the laptop class
00:16:56.900 and I'm a member of them
00:16:58.300 okay we were sent home
00:16:59.260 you're not going
00:16:59.680 into the office anymore
00:17:00.480 so I did not get laid off
00:17:02.140 so what happened was
00:17:02.900 I didn't spend
00:17:03.500 for transportation
00:17:04.140 and I didn't eat out
00:17:05.860 so not only did I just
00:17:06.800 not eat McDonald's
00:17:07.620 as many times a month
00:17:08.700 but I also just didn't
00:17:09.560 spend on that money
00:17:10.340 period
00:17:10.680 so you've got all that cash
00:17:12.220 and you have a lot of
00:17:13.100 middle class
00:17:13.860 upper middle class people
00:17:14.800 who I think now
00:17:15.400 their big concern
00:17:16.080 with inflation
00:17:16.640 is just oh I have
00:17:17.520 whatever it is
00:17:18.360 20 grand 50 grand
00:17:19.280 to invest
00:17:19.780 what do I do
00:17:20.340 I don't know the choices
00:17:21.060 to make
00:17:21.400 that's my big drama in life
00:17:22.440 and then this whole
00:17:23.300 other category of people
00:17:24.280 who are like yeah
00:17:24.840 nice problem to have buddy
00:17:26.360 me I lost my job
00:17:27.880 you know we're scraping
00:17:29.160 to get by
00:17:29.820 we live in an area
00:17:30.620 where I have to drive
00:17:32.320 an F-150
00:17:32.940 I have to gas up
00:17:34.060 to go to work
00:17:34.680 oh boy
00:17:35.340 I am really feeling
00:17:36.720 those gas prices
00:17:37.600 the grocery prices
00:17:38.800 are going up
00:17:39.180 have I gotten a raise
00:17:39.980 no I haven't gotten a raise
00:17:41.160 and I don't have that
00:17:41.940 cash in the bank
00:17:42.680 and those people
00:17:43.280 are really hurting
00:17:43.940 so I feel like we do
00:17:45.240 have these
00:17:45.700 I don't know if two solitudes
00:17:46.920 is the right time
00:17:47.720 but we do have
00:17:48.600 you know good problems
00:17:50.840 to have
00:17:51.280 and really bad problems
00:17:52.560 to have
00:17:53.020 Anthony I don't dispute
00:17:54.500 what you said
00:17:55.240 in fact the economist
00:17:56.840 at the time
00:17:57.520 about a year ago
00:17:58.280 summarized it brilliantly
00:17:59.800 they called it
00:18:00.400 the 90-10 economy
00:18:01.880 90% of the
00:18:04.080 and they estimated
00:18:05.020 their estimate
00:18:05.900 was about 90%
00:18:07.140 of the jobs
00:18:07.860 in the UK GDP
00:18:09.160 had
00:18:10.320 were still continuing
00:18:11.440 to be paid
00:18:12.060 they were working
00:18:12.960 from home
00:18:13.400 knowledge workers
00:18:14.080 professors
00:18:14.600 people like you
00:18:15.460 but 10%
00:18:16.740 the in-person servers
00:18:18.580 as I like to call them
00:18:19.540 people in restaurants
00:18:20.500 or hotels
00:18:21.160 accommodation
00:18:21.920 airlines
00:18:22.900 and so forth
00:18:23.720 were just absolutely
00:18:24.920 annihilated
00:18:25.500 and devastated
00:18:26.180 what we did
00:18:27.620 and the US did too
00:18:29.360 was we decided
00:18:30.680 to not just target
00:18:31.960 the 10%
00:18:32.600 who really were
00:18:33.580 suffering enormously
00:18:34.800 we way over stimulated
00:18:36.900 by dispersing
00:18:37.860 massive amounts of money
00:18:39.180 to people who should
00:18:40.180 never have received it
00:18:41.180 I was making
00:18:43.300 this argument
00:18:43.720 at the time
00:18:44.180 without the data
00:18:45.100 the data came in
00:18:46.000 only a short time later
00:18:47.280 from the OECD
00:18:48.400 that showed
00:18:49.480 that Canada
00:18:50.460 and the US
00:18:51.160 were the only
00:18:52.040 two countries
00:18:52.680 in the world
00:18:53.340 where GDP
00:18:54.860 went down
00:18:55.880 and income
00:18:56.580 went up
00:18:57.300 now normally
00:18:58.000 in a recession
00:18:58.880 in any country
00:18:59.700 because income
00:19:00.540 is a big part
00:19:01.260 of GDP
00:19:01.740 when GDP
00:19:02.640 goes down
00:19:03.240 income goes down
00:19:04.300 and that happened
00:19:05.080 in France
00:19:05.600 UK
00:19:06.040 Italy
00:19:06.420 during this last
00:19:07.300 period with COVID
00:19:08.280 we put so much
00:19:10.560 stimulus into the system
00:19:12.000 way beyond the 10%
00:19:13.580 of the population
00:19:14.940 that were working
00:19:15.720 and devastated
00:19:16.480 because they were
00:19:17.760 in restaurants
00:19:18.400 and bars
00:19:18.940 and so forth
00:19:19.520 we pumped
00:19:20.400 way beyond that
00:19:21.580 and as a consequence
00:19:23.400 we had GDP
00:19:25.060 going up vertically
00:19:26.100 GDP collapsing
00:19:27.560 vertically
00:19:27.920 and income
00:19:28.380 going up vertically
00:19:29.160 and again
00:19:30.300 that's evidence
00:19:31.120 of what I'm saying
00:19:32.020 we put too much
00:19:33.560 stimulus
00:19:34.280 we didn't
00:19:35.200 we were nowhere
00:19:36.200 near
00:19:36.840 surgical
00:19:37.960 enough
00:19:39.040 and you know
00:19:40.040 I think everybody
00:19:40.700 if I can use
00:19:41.380 a rather colorful
00:19:42.140 analogy
00:19:42.660 when you
00:19:43.080 if you have
00:19:43.840 a sadly
00:19:44.280 or tragically
00:19:44.980 or diagnosed
00:19:45.580 with cancer
00:19:46.180 and they decide
00:19:47.120 to use surgery
00:19:48.000 they want to cut out
00:19:49.240 as little as possible
00:19:50.500 so they don't
00:19:51.520 kill the patient
00:19:52.260 and what they did
00:19:53.740 here
00:19:54.180 was they cut out
00:19:55.300 huge amounts
00:19:55.940 I mean
00:19:56.240 they stimulated
00:19:57.020 the economy
00:19:57.660 to the tune
00:19:58.880 of three quarters
00:19:59.500 of a trillion dollars
00:20:00.620 in an economy
00:20:01.580 that's only
00:20:02.220 two trillion dollars
00:20:03.440 in absolute totality
00:20:05.000 so I'm not saying
00:20:06.680 we should never
00:20:07.320 have helped those people
00:20:08.120 of course we should have
00:20:09.320 and you know
00:20:10.020 Trudeau said
00:20:10.680 at the microphone
00:20:11.340 at the time
00:20:11.840 I remember watching him
00:20:12.840 and I was getting
00:20:13.300 so upset
00:20:13.920 he was saying
00:20:14.980 well you know
00:20:15.500 we got to break
00:20:16.080 a few eggs
00:20:16.640 you know
00:20:16.880 we don't exactly
00:20:17.660 know what's going on
00:20:18.780 this is bogus
00:20:20.420 Anthony
00:20:20.960 the CRA
00:20:22.080 I've been saying
00:20:22.720 this for over a year
00:20:23.720 because I use
00:20:24.480 the CRA data
00:20:25.340 the aggregated data
00:20:26.400 from the CRA
00:20:27.060 they have
00:20:28.300 awesome data
00:20:29.900 on every one of us
00:20:31.100 because all of us
00:20:32.220 30.5 million people
00:20:33.620 filed tax returns
00:20:34.440 last year
00:20:34.920 according to CRA
00:20:35.620 we are compelled
00:20:36.780 by law
00:20:37.320 to a file
00:20:38.340 a tax return
00:20:39.000 and tell them
00:20:40.000 everything
00:20:40.900 how much did we make
00:20:42.660 are we single
00:20:43.740 married
00:20:44.180 divorced
00:20:44.740 widowed
00:20:45.120 how many kids
00:20:45.840 do you have at home
00:20:46.280 did you buy a house
00:20:46.980 when did you buy it
00:20:48.000 they know everything
00:20:49.360 about us
00:20:50.020 in real time
00:20:51.200 because the employers
00:20:52.520 must submit
00:20:53.200 the withholding taxes
00:20:54.180 every 30 days
00:20:55.260 so they could have
00:20:56.320 very easily
00:20:57.100 the government
00:20:58.320 the cabinet could have said
00:20:59.420 to the minister
00:21:00.040 of Canada revenue
00:21:01.280 instruct your programmers
00:21:02.980 reverse the pipeline
00:21:04.420 the pipeline
00:21:05.160 is the flow of taxes
00:21:06.280 flowing into the government
00:21:07.340 every month
00:21:07.940 from the withholding taxes
00:21:09.140 reverse the pipeline
00:21:10.460 and pay
00:21:11.580 $2,000 a month
00:21:13.080 credit the bank account
00:21:14.340 of all those people
00:21:15.540 with an income
00:21:16.160 less than X
00:21:17.460 $60,000
00:21:18.440 $50,000
00:21:19.160 whatever
00:21:19.440 they could have
00:21:20.300 surgically targeted it
00:21:21.900 and they would have
00:21:23.000 paid out far less money
00:21:24.680 and would have only
00:21:25.580 gone to the people
00:21:26.500 that needed
00:21:27.160 the support
00:21:28.600 people filing tax returns
00:21:30.000 across Canada
00:21:30.680 as it was
00:21:31.940 they used it
00:21:32.880 as a political
00:21:33.780 opportunity
00:21:34.660 to stand up
00:21:35.740 and deliver
00:21:36.200 and announce
00:21:36.860 announceables
00:21:37.780 week after week
00:21:39.060 at the microphone
00:21:39.800 to demonstrate
00:21:40.660 to the Canadian people
00:21:41.460 we're in charge
00:21:42.220 we're doing something
00:21:43.260 to help you
00:21:43.860 and so we paid
00:21:44.860 a huge price
00:21:45.660 for that
00:21:46.160 we overstimulated
00:21:47.820 massively
00:21:48.600 over three quarters
00:21:49.480 of a trillion dollars
00:21:50.440 and that in turn
00:21:51.960 okay we're a rich country
00:21:53.380 we can pay
00:21:53.900 we can do that
00:21:54.760 but the
00:21:55.580 unintended consequence
00:21:57.240 they didn't even
00:21:58.340 think about this
00:21:59.340 what is this
00:22:00.300 going to do
00:22:01.080 to inflation
00:22:01.780 and that's far
00:22:02.880 more pernicious
00:22:03.680 and destructive
00:22:04.720 than the actual
00:22:06.200 excessive stimulation
00:22:07.880 that occurred
00:22:08.440 at the time
00:22:08.980 we'll be back
00:22:09.580 with more full comment
00:22:10.380 in just a moment
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00:23:25.200 you're richer
00:23:25.820 than you think
00:23:26.440 when I found out
00:23:27.720 my friend
00:23:28.180 got a great deal
00:23:29.140 on a wool coat
00:23:29.900 from Winners
00:23:30.480 I started wondering
00:23:31.940 is every fabulous
00:23:33.740 item I see
00:23:34.440 from Winners
00:23:35.120 like that woman
00:23:36.320 over there
00:23:36.800 with the designer jeans
00:23:37.880 are those
00:23:38.840 from Winners
00:23:39.460 ooh
00:23:40.200 are those
00:23:40.740 beautiful gold earrings
00:23:41.880 did she pay full price
00:23:43.280 or that leather tote
00:23:44.400 or that cashmere sweater
00:23:45.520 or those knee-high boots
00:23:47.000 that dress
00:23:47.900 that jacket
00:23:48.600 those shoes
00:23:49.560 is anyone
00:23:50.540 paying full price
00:23:51.480 for anything
00:23:52.260 stop wondering
00:23:53.640 start winning
00:23:54.580 winners
00:23:55.220 find fabulous
00:23:56.160 for less
00:23:56.920 professor Lee
00:23:58.740 I want to get
00:23:59.080 your take
00:23:59.380 on what's going
00:24:00.040 on overseas
00:24:00.700 particularly
00:24:01.420 the war
00:24:02.140 in Ukraine
00:24:02.720 the way
00:24:03.360 those macroeconomics
00:24:04.540 are playing a role
00:24:05.320 or not playing a role
00:24:06.260 in what we're experiencing
00:24:07.180 here in Canada
00:24:08.220 you've talked about
00:24:09.460 all the distortionary
00:24:10.480 things that
00:24:11.080 Justin Schuill
00:24:11.660 and Christy Freeland
00:24:12.220 just throwing billions
00:24:13.460 hundreds of billions
00:24:14.140 of dollars
00:24:14.600 out the door
00:24:15.820 we also hear from
00:24:16.620 people like
00:24:17.020 Professor Sylvain Charlebois
00:24:18.240 the food professor
00:24:19.040 saying look
00:24:19.680 there's stuff
00:24:20.120 that's going on
00:24:20.640 in Ukraine
00:24:20.980 that is messing
00:24:22.100 with what's happening
00:24:22.700 here with our food
00:24:23.360 supply
00:24:23.800 fertilizer
00:24:24.680 we get whatever
00:24:25.500 the amount is
00:24:26.020 a large amount
00:24:26.660 of our fertilizer
00:24:27.300 comes from that region
00:24:28.980 that's going to be
00:24:29.740 put on hold
00:24:30.260 it's going to mess
00:24:30.980 things up
00:24:31.460 a lot of concern
00:24:32.260 about rising price
00:24:33.100 of goods
00:24:33.600 cost of goods
00:24:35.260 even just scarcity
00:24:36.360 how do you view
00:24:38.060 the war
00:24:38.600 as affecting
00:24:39.640 all of this mess
00:24:41.360 regular folks
00:24:42.040 are dealing with now
00:24:42.760 I'm certainly
00:24:44.880 not going to deny
00:24:45.900 the impact
00:24:47.800 of the war
00:24:48.280 I should disclose
00:24:49.240 I taught
00:24:50.280 in Ukraine
00:24:51.360 over 30 times
00:24:52.560 from 1993
00:24:54.280 until 2010
00:24:55.800 I've been that
00:24:57.200 I know that country
00:24:57.980 very well
00:24:58.560 and it has
00:24:59.060 it's an
00:24:59.660 people may not
00:25:00.540 realize
00:25:01.000 it's one of the
00:25:01.660 great breadbaskets
00:25:03.080 of the world
00:25:03.680 I remember
00:25:04.140 being working there
00:25:05.260 one time
00:25:05.680 and I met
00:25:06.120 the agricultural
00:25:07.160 expert
00:25:07.760 from the US
00:25:08.540 embassy
00:25:09.400 and he told me
00:25:10.100 you know
00:25:10.440 he says
00:25:10.800 we're kind of
00:25:11.580 lucky that Ukraine
00:25:12.600 is so poor
00:25:13.420 which it is
00:25:14.040 was and is
00:25:14.740 they're still
00:25:15.620 we're still
00:25:16.080 farming with horses
00:25:17.120 in the mid
00:25:18.300 late 90s
00:25:19.200 and their productivity
00:25:20.280 was very low
00:25:21.060 and he said
00:25:21.480 you know
00:25:21.660 it's really lucky
00:25:22.300 for Saskatchewan
00:25:23.760 and Alberta
00:25:24.300 and Manitoba
00:25:25.300 and the American
00:25:25.860 Midwest
00:25:26.240 that Ukraine
00:25:27.060 is so inefficient
00:25:28.540 because he said
00:25:29.820 if they ever got
00:25:30.460 efficient
00:25:30.860 they would put us
00:25:31.800 out of business
00:25:32.280 because they
00:25:32.820 apparently have
00:25:33.600 the most fertile
00:25:34.760 soil
00:25:35.540 in the entire
00:25:36.760 world
00:25:37.480 he told me
00:25:38.400 and and so
00:25:40.000 Russia and Ukraine
00:25:41.620 produce about
00:25:42.720 30 percent
00:25:43.500 of the world
00:25:44.000 supply of grains
00:25:44.980 so this is not
00:25:46.440 to be sneezed at
00:25:47.320 and not to be
00:25:48.020 trivialized
00:25:48.920 and yes
00:25:49.800 this is disrupting
00:25:51.440 the food market
00:25:53.860 the agricultural markets
00:25:54.980 there's no doubt
00:25:55.600 about it
00:25:55.980 and of course
00:25:56.740 Russia is one
00:25:57.880 of the top
00:25:58.420 three producers
00:25:59.380 according to the
00:26:00.720 IEA
00:26:01.440 the International
00:26:02.120 Energy Agency
00:26:03.280 which is a UN body
00:26:04.540 Russia
00:26:05.940 Saudi Arabia
00:26:06.880 and US
00:26:07.320 are the top
00:26:08.200 three producers
00:26:09.420 of oil
00:26:10.340 and gas
00:26:10.840 Canada by the way
00:26:11.560 is number four
00:26:12.180 albeit a distant
00:26:13.540 number four
00:26:14.140 and so
00:26:15.000 when you
00:26:15.780 suddenly disrupt that
00:26:17.240 or the Russians
00:26:17.980 disrupted it
00:26:18.780 and then cause the
00:26:19.420 blowback
00:26:19.900 which is to shut
00:26:20.740 down or try
00:26:21.400 and reduce
00:26:21.920 purchases
00:26:22.640 it's going to
00:26:23.460 create shortages
00:26:24.140 so those are
00:26:25.580 factors that are
00:26:26.740 feeding in as well
00:26:28.180 I don't deny
00:26:29.160 or dispute that
00:26:30.100 that's all the more
00:26:30.760 reason for being
00:26:32.240 prudent at home
00:26:33.320 given that you
00:26:34.200 cannot control
00:26:35.180 forces outside
00:26:36.500 of your country
00:26:37.340 but you can
00:26:38.480 control forces
00:26:39.760 to a greater degree
00:26:40.720 inside your country
00:26:42.600 and so
00:26:43.280 this is
00:26:44.340 these
00:26:44.740 disruptions
00:26:46.220 are occurring
00:26:47.240 it's going
00:26:47.940 to take
00:26:48.340 probably
00:26:49.300 Anthony
00:26:50.080 and I've been
00:26:50.480 reading up
00:26:50.940 on this
00:26:51.300 on supply chains
00:26:52.160 both agricultural
00:26:52.940 and otherwise
00:26:53.500 you know
00:26:54.220 the estimates
00:26:54.680 I'm reading
00:26:55.180 is it's going
00:26:55.680 to take
00:26:56.100 and assuming
00:26:56.800 that the work
00:26:57.400 comes to an end
00:26:58.180 fairly quickly
00:26:59.340 and I don't mean
00:26:59.960 in five years
00:27:00.580 but sometime
00:27:01.080 this year
00:27:01.620 and that's
00:27:02.220 an assumption
00:27:02.660 but assuming
00:27:03.660 that does happen
00:27:04.460 it's still going
00:27:04.940 to take
00:27:05.220 probably two
00:27:05.920 to three years
00:27:06.760 for the supply
00:27:08.180 chains
00:27:08.820 plural
00:27:09.340 to come back
00:27:10.780 into equilibrium
00:27:11.720 or balance
00:27:12.600 wow
00:27:13.100 so one year
00:27:13.900 of mess
00:27:14.420 and three years
00:27:15.800 of sorting
00:27:17.100 all the kinks out
00:27:17.800 I mean
00:27:17.980 that's like
00:27:18.840 basically what
00:27:19.560 you're saying
00:27:19.820 about COVID
00:27:20.320 as well
00:27:20.780 you know
00:27:21.280 you shut
00:27:21.700 you lock down
00:27:22.480 for two months
00:27:23.020 here
00:27:23.200 two months
00:27:23.620 there
00:27:23.880 four years
00:27:25.220 of unintended
00:27:26.560 consequences
00:27:27.360 Anthony
00:27:28.160 I really want
00:27:28.840 to just
00:27:29.120 just to pick
00:27:29.880 up on that
00:27:30.280 just for a moment
00:27:30.960 and I'm not
00:27:31.820 trying to get
00:27:32.240 into the debate
00:27:32.860 that the
00:27:33.220 conservatives
00:27:33.640 are having
00:27:34.240 about lockdowns
00:27:35.120 and so forth
00:27:35.520 but I was
00:27:36.680 and by the way
00:27:37.660 I believe in
00:27:38.360 vaccines
00:27:38.880 I've had four
00:27:40.100 I'm one of
00:27:41.680 those rare
00:27:42.080 comedians
00:27:42.420 I've had four
00:27:43.060 and I'm looking
00:27:43.740 for number five
00:27:44.720 before I go back
00:27:45.500 in the classroom
00:27:46.100 in September
00:27:46.620 so this is not
00:27:47.800 an argument
00:27:48.280 against vaccines
00:27:49.260 I assure you
00:27:49.960 but I was
00:27:51.020 arguing even
00:27:52.220 then that you
00:27:53.020 know locking
00:27:53.480 everybody up
00:27:54.320 because the
00:27:55.240 most vulnerable
00:27:55.820 statistically
00:27:56.620 and it's even
00:27:57.480 more clear today
00:27:58.440 but it was even
00:27:59.060 clear a year
00:27:59.760 and a half ago
00:28:00.520 people over 65
00:28:01.760 are vastly more
00:28:02.740 vulnerable
00:28:03.200 than people under 65
00:28:04.760 that's why I have
00:28:05.560 four vaccines
00:28:06.160 by the way
00:28:06.640 I can read the data
00:28:08.020 and I'm talking
00:28:08.860 the death data
00:28:09.980 death is not a theory
00:28:11.100 that the CDC
00:28:12.640 Center for Disease Control
00:28:13.940 publishes for the
00:28:15.240 totality of the
00:28:16.360 United States
00:28:16.920 not cherry-picking
00:28:18.020 data from one
00:28:19.020 hospital or one
00:28:20.220 part of the country
00:28:21.000 or one ethnicity
00:28:22.040 this is the
00:28:23.000 totality of that
00:28:24.820 population of
00:28:25.800 330 million
00:28:26.740 and you look
00:28:27.940 at the actual
00:28:28.560 death from COVID
00:28:29.640 statistics broken
00:28:30.620 down by age
00:28:31.420 and it's overwhelmingly
00:28:32.980 skewed to over
00:28:33.940 65 year olds
00:28:34.800 same with the
00:28:35.500 Canadian data
00:28:36.600 so the point is
00:28:37.700 we did these
00:28:38.300 lockdowns
00:28:39.060 and we did it
00:28:41.160 to protect
00:28:41.720 everybody
00:28:42.340 but the most
00:28:43.280 vulnerable
00:28:43.700 by far and away
00:28:44.360 the most vulnerable
00:28:44.960 were over 65
00:28:45.680 sure we had to do
00:28:46.920 things to protect
00:28:47.580 them
00:28:47.860 no question about
00:28:48.720 it
00:28:48.940 but we never
00:28:49.960 asked the question
00:28:51.140 at the time
00:28:52.480 we just went
00:28:53.600 you know
00:28:54.400 hell-bent for
00:28:55.100 leather
00:28:55.380 into the lockdowns
00:28:56.440 without saying
00:28:56.940 wait a minute
00:28:57.400 people
00:28:57.680 what are the
00:28:58.740 knock-on effects
00:29:00.420 what are the
00:29:01.460 unanticipated
00:29:02.580 consequences
00:29:03.220 now you can't
00:29:03.940 predict the future
00:29:04.560 perfectly
00:29:05.020 but it does not
00:29:06.460 require a PhD
00:29:07.360 in economics
00:29:08.080 to understand
00:29:08.620 that if you
00:29:09.060 shut down
00:29:09.660 three quarters
00:29:10.580 of the economy
00:29:11.580 that you're
00:29:12.440 going to blow
00:29:12.900 up the supply
00:29:13.560 chains
00:29:14.040 you're going
00:29:14.680 to blow
00:29:14.980 up everything
00:29:15.480 you're going
00:29:15.820 to blow
00:29:16.200 up energy
00:29:17.040 supply chains
00:29:17.880 agricultural food
00:29:19.080 supply chains
00:29:19.920 store supply
00:29:20.880 chains and so
00:29:21.580 forth
00:29:21.820 so what I'm
00:29:22.860 saying is
00:29:23.360 I think that
00:29:24.340 we overreacted
00:29:26.200 and we didn't
00:29:27.260 have the data
00:29:27.900 showing it at
00:29:28.640 the time that
00:29:29.220 it was going
00:29:29.560 to save huge
00:29:30.280 amounts of lives
00:29:31.580 and so I think
00:29:32.320 that we're going
00:29:32.940 to learn a lot
00:29:34.000 from this
00:29:34.720 so that there's
00:29:35.980 going to be a
00:29:36.580 ton of learning
00:29:37.360 that comes out
00:29:38.400 of this
00:29:38.740 pandemic
00:29:39.520 both economic
00:29:40.640 learning from
00:29:42.180 the data
00:29:42.620 in terms of
00:29:43.960 the impact
00:29:44.400 on supply
00:29:44.860 chains
00:29:45.160 the impact
00:29:45.600 on inflation
00:29:46.160 and also
00:29:47.220 from the
00:29:47.660 healthcare side
00:29:48.280 and I'm not
00:29:48.800 that's not
00:29:49.360 my area
00:29:49.840 do they want
00:29:50.560 to learn
00:29:50.860 though
00:29:51.060 because I
00:29:51.580 think there
00:29:51.860 needs to be
00:29:52.220 accountability
00:29:52.620 there needs
00:29:53.160 to be
00:29:53.400 royal commissions
00:29:54.040 there needs
00:29:54.360 to be an
00:29:54.620 inquiry
00:29:54.940 at every
00:29:55.880 province
00:29:56.340 every level
00:29:56.940 but it's
00:29:57.680 not politically
00:29:58.180 advantageous
00:29:58.900 for anyone
00:29:59.300 because we
00:29:59.580 haven't
00:29:59.800 changed
00:30:00.020 governments
00:30:00.580 so it
00:30:01.200 means is
00:30:01.500 Doug Ford
00:30:01.880 going to
00:30:02.140 investigate
00:30:02.480 Doug Ford
00:30:02.980 is Justin
00:30:03.400 Trudeau
00:30:03.640 going to
00:30:03.900 investigate
00:30:04.280 Justin
00:30:04.640 Trudeau
00:30:04.900 I don't
00:30:05.360 know
00:30:05.600 I think
00:30:06.200 we need
00:30:06.580 to get
00:30:06.800 to the
00:30:07.020 bottom
00:30:07.160 of this
00:30:07.440 stuff
00:30:07.780 but I
00:30:08.900 think
00:30:09.060 they want
00:30:09.380 to pretend
00:30:09.740 the past
00:30:10.060 two years
00:30:10.300 didn't happen
00:30:10.820 the reason
00:30:12.660 why it's
00:30:13.120 not from
00:30:13.540 my point
00:30:14.300 of view
00:30:14.500 it's not
00:30:14.920 to sort
00:30:15.360 of point
00:30:15.740 fingers
00:30:16.180 at people
00:30:16.660 and say
00:30:17.060 you know
00:30:17.360 you screwed
00:30:18.280 up
00:30:18.540 it's more
00:30:19.260 to learn
00:30:19.660 and say
00:30:20.020 how can
00:30:20.780 we make
00:30:21.100 sure
00:30:21.320 we don't
00:30:21.820 do this
00:30:22.220 again
00:30:22.600 I mean
00:30:23.360 you know
00:30:23.860 we just
00:30:24.180 can't
00:30:24.620 I mean
00:30:24.960 really
00:30:25.400 I mean
00:30:25.760 the cost
00:30:26.460 to people
00:30:27.460 and lives
00:30:28.560 I mean
00:30:29.020 I'm
00:30:29.560 a professor
00:30:30.460 I'm affluent
00:30:31.320 I'm comfortable
00:30:32.100 you know
00:30:33.060 yes
00:30:33.720 I'm annoyed
00:30:34.600 paying two dollars
00:30:35.380 a liter in gas
00:30:36.100 but quite frankly
00:30:36.760 it doesn't hurt me
00:30:37.440 I'm being very frank
00:30:38.520 and the food prices
00:30:39.260 I mean
00:30:39.660 my kids have left home
00:30:40.940 I don't support anybody
00:30:42.500 and I'm well paid
00:30:44.160 but there are lots
00:30:45.540 and lots of people
00:30:46.440 who are really
00:30:47.800 really being affected
00:30:49.460 very very badly
00:30:51.000 I'm talking
00:30:52.100 young people
00:30:53.460 low income people
00:30:54.560 people on modest incomes
00:30:56.100 that are seniors
00:30:56.700 and they're being affected
00:30:57.980 by this
00:30:58.440 so I don't think
00:30:59.240 that anybody
00:30:59.920 can argue
00:31:00.620 that the lockdowns
00:31:02.040 were an unqualified
00:31:03.540 good thing
00:31:04.900 there were a ton
00:31:06.060 of costs
00:31:06.720 the other one
00:31:07.760 that really bothered
00:31:08.520 me enormously
00:31:09.280 Anthony
00:31:09.740 was the number
00:31:10.480 I had friends
00:31:11.160 who were being
00:31:12.080 denied
00:31:12.860 cancer treatment
00:31:14.560 they were told
00:31:15.620 to go home
00:31:16.520 because of the lockdowns
00:31:17.700 we got to create
00:31:18.380 space
00:31:19.040 in the hospitals
00:31:20.080 for anticipated
00:31:21.400 COVID patients
00:31:22.280 and we were telling
00:31:23.180 people who had
00:31:24.300 advanced cancer
00:31:25.360 just to go home
00:31:26.540 and you know
00:31:27.240 suck it up
00:31:28.960 I mean
00:31:29.300 and I just thought
00:31:30.260 that that was
00:31:30.920 again it was
00:31:31.900 the privileging
00:31:32.780 yes of one group
00:31:34.500 of people
00:31:35.020 at the expense
00:31:36.140 of many many
00:31:36.880 other groups
00:31:37.520 and we didn't
00:31:38.040 make the trade-offs
00:31:38.960 that is the very
00:31:39.940 core of public
00:31:41.240 policy decision making
00:31:42.420 that every decision
00:31:43.560 involves trade-offs
00:31:44.500 and we pretended
00:31:45.540 for the past two years
00:31:46.600 there were no trade-offs
00:31:47.640 whatsoever
00:31:48.020 and we made a huge
00:31:49.640 mistake because
00:31:50.380 people died
00:31:51.360 who were on
00:31:52.620 on queues
00:31:53.340 waiting for treatment
00:31:54.120 for cancer
00:31:54.760 and heart
00:31:55.180 and stroke
00:31:55.640 and so forth
00:31:56.200 and we introduced
00:31:57.720 this massive disruption
00:31:58.960 to our supply chains
00:32:00.700 and now we've
00:32:01.960 embedded inflation
00:32:02.860 which in turn
00:32:03.780 is going to drive up
00:32:04.760 interest rates
00:32:05.320 I predict with
00:32:06.140 absolute certainty
00:32:07.300 we're going to see
00:32:08.200 much higher interest rates
00:32:09.300 as a consequence
00:32:10.120 to deal with these
00:32:11.820 problems that were
00:32:12.520 induced by the
00:32:13.580 shutdowns that
00:32:14.540 blew up the supply
00:32:16.320 chains in the first place
00:32:17.120 Ian I want to ask you
00:32:18.440 your thoughts
00:32:19.460 because you're talking
00:32:19.900 about the long view
00:32:20.540 of history
00:32:20.900 you were referencing
00:32:21.560 the 70s
00:32:22.180 you're referencing
00:32:22.640 other eras
00:32:23.260 I want to get
00:32:24.380 your thoughts
00:32:24.720 on the relationship
00:32:25.360 between economics
00:32:26.600 and culture
00:32:28.200 and social turmoil
00:32:29.820 because when you
00:32:31.180 just summarized
00:32:32.220 the cancer treatments
00:32:32.920 being cancelled
00:32:33.540 I'm a pretty chill guy
00:32:35.060 and I have these
00:32:35.680 academic discussions
00:32:36.500 it just gets me pissed
00:32:38.080 it's an emotional thing
00:32:39.680 the blood boils
00:32:40.720 it frustrates me so much
00:32:42.300 I personally
00:32:42.840 do not believe
00:32:43.620 those things
00:32:44.000 need to happen
00:32:44.840 I don't want to
00:32:45.240 re-litigate
00:32:45.780 the finer points
00:32:46.340 but I know
00:32:47.060 a lot of other people
00:32:47.900 have gotten emotional
00:32:48.580 they've gotten pissed
00:32:49.460 in the past two years
00:32:50.840 there's been a lot
00:32:51.400 of powder keg going on
00:32:52.480 whether I think
00:32:53.520 the George Floyd
00:32:54.380 Black Lives Matter
00:32:55.060 protests were certainly
00:32:56.200 the passions
00:32:57.320 were much more acute
00:32:58.200 because remember
00:32:58.840 there were lockdowns
00:32:59.640 then that was
00:33:00.020 during COVID
00:33:00.480 that happened
00:33:00.920 we had whatever
00:33:02.040 you think of
00:33:02.640 the Ottawa Convoy
00:33:03.560 I mean those
00:33:04.080 were raw energies
00:33:05.580 raw passions
00:33:06.360 that would not
00:33:07.140 have come about
00:33:07.880 were it not
00:33:08.260 for these other things
00:33:09.120 part of me says
00:33:10.540 are we just beginning
00:33:11.980 a period of social turmoil
00:33:13.340 and I don't have
00:33:14.860 that same
00:33:15.380 you know
00:33:15.760 longer view of history
00:33:17.000 having lived
00:33:17.560 you know
00:33:18.420 I hadn't lived
00:33:19.300 through those other
00:33:20.360 periods the 70s
00:33:21.320 I took out
00:33:21.920 Mark Kurlansky's
00:33:22.700 great book
00:33:23.020 1968
00:33:23.840 and I thought
00:33:24.800 ah Fury
00:33:24.980 you're kidding yourself
00:33:25.680 because they would
00:33:26.040 have a single protest
00:33:27.160 in the US back then
00:33:28.040 where like eight people
00:33:28.940 would die
00:33:29.420 at just one protest
00:33:30.340 oh come on
00:33:31.060 we're nowhere near that bad
00:33:31.960 but it's like
00:33:32.740 do we have
00:33:34.080 the ingredients
00:33:35.280 for that sort of stuff
00:33:36.560 because food shortages
00:33:37.740 gas prices
00:33:38.560 your cancer treatment
00:33:39.420 people are pissed off
00:33:42.660 and it's hard to blame them
00:33:44.060 Anthony
00:33:45.140 I do agree with you
00:33:46.160 and I'm
00:33:46.720 completely non-partisan
00:33:48.480 I don't have a membership
00:33:49.720 in any political party
00:33:50.840 whatsoever
00:33:51.200 but I do watch
00:33:52.880 the rise of
00:33:54.640 Pierre Pauliev
00:33:55.320 and the crowds
00:33:56.180 I'm not getting into
00:33:56.960 you know
00:33:57.180 who should be the candidate
00:33:58.000 I'm not commenting
00:33:58.700 on that whatsoever
00:33:59.260 but I do note
00:34:01.140 and I have
00:34:02.840 I have students
00:34:03.780 you know
00:34:04.080 I have 250 students
00:34:05.580 a year
00:34:05.920 flowing through
00:34:06.400 my five courses
00:34:07.260 and let me tell you
00:34:08.460 they give me an earful
00:34:09.820 and they are
00:34:11.360 I think younger people
00:34:12.620 are really
00:34:13.360 really upset
00:34:14.080 they're upset
00:34:15.060 of the fact
00:34:15.460 they can't afford a house
00:34:16.420 they see my generation
00:34:17.980 the boomers
00:34:18.660 as having
00:34:19.220 you know
00:34:19.940 sort of cornered
00:34:20.720 the market
00:34:21.160 and housing
00:34:21.720 and we've got all the wealth
00:34:22.800 and they don't
00:34:24.080 they've been left
00:34:24.660 with the leftovers
00:34:25.380 and the scraps
00:34:26.200 and so I think
00:34:27.420 that there's a lot
00:34:28.100 of anger out there
00:34:29.640 and I think
00:34:30.680 that Pierre Pauliev
00:34:31.620 is tapping into it
00:34:32.940 anger about gas prices
00:34:34.500 and food prices
00:34:35.620 and housing prices
00:34:36.620 so I think it's very real
00:34:38.180 those crowds showing up
00:34:39.420 being reported
00:34:39.980 on CTV
00:34:40.620 and CBC
00:34:41.300 and Global
00:34:42.240 are not fictitious
00:34:43.500 those are redrawing
00:34:45.360 large crowds
00:34:46.200 so yes
00:34:47.080 I do think
00:34:47.700 that that's very real
00:34:48.520 I want to put
00:34:49.280 another thought
00:34:50.080 out there
00:34:50.500 or not a prediction
00:34:51.780 but I like looking
00:34:52.900 at these sort of
00:34:53.460 big trends
00:34:54.140 and where are we going
00:34:54.940 I think we may look back
00:34:57.080 in three or four
00:34:57.720 or five or ten years
00:34:58.640 from now
00:34:59.000 and say you know
00:34:59.940 the whole pandemic
00:35:00.940 and our decisions
00:35:03.000 in the pandemic
00:35:04.400 starting with the lockdowns
00:35:06.000 precipitated
00:35:06.840 a major rethink
00:35:08.760 of health care
00:35:09.900 in Canada
00:35:10.740 I think that
00:35:11.820 that's going to happen
00:35:12.840 I'm not predicting
00:35:14.080 an American style
00:35:15.040 health care
00:35:15.620 I'm predicting
00:35:16.640 that what we're going
00:35:18.020 to realize
00:35:18.700 it's sinking in now
00:35:20.320 that what I call
00:35:22.480 the centralized
00:35:23.360 top down model
00:35:24.900 of most health care
00:35:27.020 has to be delivered
00:35:27.740 in hospitals
00:35:28.380 any serious stuff
00:35:29.320 I don't mean going
00:35:29.900 to your GP
00:35:31.340 with a sniffle
00:35:32.120 but on anything serious
00:35:33.560 you got to go
00:35:34.040 to a hospital
00:35:34.420 I have arthritis
00:35:35.180 the arthritis clinic
00:35:36.300 in my city
00:35:37.040 is in a hospital
00:35:38.960 and it's just a clinic
00:35:40.140 where doctors sit there
00:35:41.200 and they grab your fingers
00:35:42.240 and you know
00:35:42.900 it could be in a clinic
00:35:43.960 in an industrial park
00:35:45.880 where the costs
00:35:46.540 are vastly cheaper
00:35:47.600 and I think
00:35:48.860 that what's going to happen
00:35:49.760 is when we saw
00:35:50.620 all of those people
00:35:51.420 being denied
00:35:52.340 health care treatment
00:35:53.760 and remember
00:35:54.300 the premise
00:35:55.280 of public health care
00:35:56.280 in Canada
00:35:56.820 was you will never
00:35:58.440 be denied health care
00:36:00.340 unlike the Americans
00:36:01.300 because you don't
00:36:01.900 have any money
00:36:02.580 well we got denied
00:36:03.860 health care
00:36:04.340 for a completely
00:36:04.940 different reason
00:36:05.680 but we were still
00:36:06.600 denied health care
00:36:08.320 treatment
00:36:08.740 when we needed it
00:36:10.440 and I think
00:36:11.180 what's going to happen
00:36:12.160 this isn't to me
00:36:13.760 ideology
00:36:14.300 it's about
00:36:14.820 centralized top-down
00:36:16.360 models
00:36:16.760 which I've long
00:36:17.880 been critical of
00:36:18.640 you and I
00:36:18.960 have talked about it
00:36:19.700 I think the top-down
00:36:20.940 planning is a failure
00:36:22.180 everywhere it's been tried
00:36:23.320 and decentralized models
00:36:25.620 are more efficacious
00:36:26.660 and productive
00:36:27.220 and so I think
00:36:27.840 we're going to see
00:36:28.580 the emergence
00:36:29.520 and greater support
00:36:31.120 for things
00:36:32.100 decentralized health care
00:36:33.560 so decentralized MRI clinics
00:36:35.680 that are not in hospitals
00:36:36.840 eye clinics
00:36:37.800 not in hospitals
00:36:38.720 arthritis clinics
00:36:39.680 not in hospitals
00:36:40.540 they're going to attack
00:36:41.260 it as private health care
00:36:42.680 because the hospital CEOs
00:36:43.860 most of whom are not doctors
00:36:45.040 and they make 500k
00:36:46.940 but if they can lord over
00:36:48.060 a greater domain
00:36:48.700 they make 550k
00:36:49.940 they make 600k
00:36:50.940 if they can get more
00:36:52.000 and more
00:36:52.360 under their little empire
00:36:53.960 and if you
00:36:54.960 what you're suggesting
00:36:56.240 is very
00:36:56.940 you know
00:36:57.380 it's just private
00:36:58.220 delivery of health care
00:36:59.360 but it's still
00:36:59.920 universal access
00:37:00.780 it's still paid for
00:37:01.540 by the taxpayer
00:37:02.160 it's still regulated
00:37:03.080 it's still monitored
00:37:03.860 it's still investigated
00:37:04.480 and they will go to war
00:37:05.980 to stop that from happening
00:37:07.600 which just brings
00:37:08.540 better service
00:37:09.360 to the citizen
00:37:12.580 to the resident
00:37:13.260 and I think you're right
00:37:14.200 the past two years
00:37:14.860 have really opened my eyes
00:37:15.880 to all of that
00:37:16.940 that we're not being
00:37:17.740 well served
00:37:18.320 by the healthcare
00:37:19.700 not the frontline heroes
00:37:21.320 but the people
00:37:22.660 lording over the domain
00:37:23.700 exactly
00:37:24.620 and we're seeing it
00:37:25.360 I mean
00:37:25.680 and again
00:37:26.120 I am completely
00:37:27.220 in support of
00:37:27.960 a so-called
00:37:28.780 single-payer model
00:37:29.560 the Canadian model
00:37:30.720 which is supported
00:37:31.960 by something like
00:37:32.680 85-90% of Canadians
00:37:34.360 year after year
00:37:35.060 in healthcare
00:37:35.840 in polling data
00:37:37.160 but this is not
00:37:38.600 again about
00:37:39.360 an American style system
00:37:41.020 what it is
00:37:41.860 is we realized
00:37:42.820 when you've only got
00:37:43.780 a handful
00:37:44.200 first off
00:37:44.660 these hospitals
00:37:45.260 are frightfully expensive
00:37:46.280 we're building a brand new
00:37:47.180 one in Ottawa
00:37:47.680 called the new Civic
00:37:48.580 it's going to cost
00:37:49.560 it's budgeted
00:37:50.440 at 5 billion
00:37:51.140 which means
00:37:51.860 it's probably going to
00:37:52.620 come in at
00:37:53.040 closer to 10 billion
00:37:54.520 for one hospital
00:37:55.220 we just don't have
00:37:56.260 enough resources
00:37:56.960 to build hundreds
00:37:57.720 of hospitals
00:37:58.340 at 5 and 10 billion
00:37:59.340 a pop
00:37:59.720 and whereas you can
00:38:00.800 decentralize
00:38:01.700 I'm not talking
00:38:02.660 the big ticket stuff
00:38:04.140 trauma
00:38:04.700 emergency
00:38:05.700 you know
00:38:06.740 heart attack
00:38:07.340 cancer
00:38:07.800 the big stuff
00:38:08.800 but there's
00:38:09.920 huge amount
00:38:10.520 I've been going
00:38:11.040 to hospitals
00:38:11.560 routinely
00:38:12.080 for routine
00:38:12.780 stuff like blood tests
00:38:13.840 what on earth
00:38:14.920 am I doing
00:38:15.400 getting a blood test
00:38:16.180 at a hospital
00:38:16.780 you know
00:38:17.400 why am I going
00:38:18.140 to a clinic
00:38:18.820 so they can poke
00:38:19.840 my joints
00:38:20.460 you know
00:38:20.920 once a year
00:38:21.480 and take x-rays
00:38:22.420 when I can go
00:38:22.920 to a clinic
00:38:23.440 and so
00:38:24.060 and it's also
00:38:24.800 the most expensive
00:38:25.800 type of healthcare
00:38:26.700 by the way
00:38:27.300 inside a hospital
00:38:28.340 and so I think
00:38:29.460 that we're going
00:38:30.160 to see a revolution
00:38:31.220 I'm going to say
00:38:32.800 something very
00:38:33.560 provocative Anthony
00:38:35.100 go for it
00:38:35.940 even though
00:38:36.340 even though
00:38:36.860 the COVID crisis
00:38:38.100 was horrible
00:38:38.880 and people tragically
00:38:40.140 died prematurely
00:38:41.400 before their time
00:38:42.300 had come
00:38:42.780 there is going
00:38:43.820 to be
00:38:44.260 once we get
00:38:45.060 to after it's
00:38:45.640 all over
00:38:46.080 we're going
00:38:46.420 to realize
00:38:46.860 that there
00:38:47.200 are a lot
00:38:47.540 of unintended
00:38:48.100 good things
00:38:48.700 that came out
00:38:49.140 of this
00:38:49.420 a recognition
00:38:50.220 that we've
00:38:50.880 got a poor
00:38:51.940 ineffective
00:38:52.500 model of healthcare
00:38:53.620 we're realizing
00:38:54.680 we can deliver
00:38:55.460 education
00:38:56.160 through Zoom
00:38:56.960 to a degree
00:38:57.680 we can have
00:38:58.540 people working
00:38:59.160 from home
00:38:59.660 and alleviating
00:39:00.320 the pressure
00:39:00.780 on congestion
00:39:01.560 in the downtown
00:39:02.600 so there's going
00:39:03.200 to be a lot
00:39:03.700 of unintended
00:39:04.180 consequences
00:39:04.860 that are positive
00:39:05.680 for society
00:39:06.620 and we're starting
00:39:07.620 to realize that
00:39:08.700 you know
00:39:09.000 and so yes
00:39:10.800 it was horrible
00:39:11.380 that all those
00:39:11.960 lives were lost
00:39:12.880 but it forced
00:39:14.280 a lot of changes
00:39:16.040 and big
00:39:17.460 big changes
00:39:18.340 to society
00:39:19.080 and it reminds me
00:39:20.040 of that book
00:39:20.600 by Mancour Olson
00:39:21.760 some years ago
00:39:22.560 brilliant economist
00:39:23.400 the rise and fall
00:39:24.480 of nations
00:39:25.020 and he argued
00:39:26.320 that as nations
00:39:27.420 become more mature
00:39:28.420 each organization
00:39:30.420 and institution
00:39:31.040 developed coalitions
00:39:32.040 of stakeholders
00:39:32.640 that just won't
00:39:33.780 allow change
00:39:34.560 to occur
00:39:35.200 and his thesis
00:39:36.420 was it's only
00:39:37.480 when something
00:39:38.000 really horrible
00:39:38.740 happens like
00:39:39.340 a world war
00:39:40.020 or a country war
00:39:40.880 that it breaks
00:39:42.200 everything down
00:39:43.020 and allows all
00:39:43.880 kinds of change
00:39:44.780 and permutation
00:39:45.560 to occur
00:39:46.040 he was not
00:39:46.820 advocating war
00:39:47.760 by the way
00:39:48.300 he was just saying
00:39:49.160 what are the
00:39:49.800 consequences
00:39:50.340 when you have
00:39:50.900 a hugely
00:39:51.560 disruptive event
00:39:52.700 in a civilization
00:39:54.140 and his point
00:39:55.220 was it breaks
00:39:56.060 down all
00:39:57.000 the barnacles
00:39:57.740 that attach
00:39:59.320 to universities
00:40:01.000 and to hospitals
00:40:02.660 that don't allow
00:40:03.700 any change
00:40:04.360 to occur
00:40:04.960 because there's
00:40:05.880 nothing pressing
00:40:06.660 them to change
00:40:07.620 and then along
00:40:08.620 comes some
00:40:09.280 cataclysmic event
00:40:10.600 in this instance
00:40:11.280 the pandemic
00:40:11.980 that forces people
00:40:13.580 to re-examine
00:40:14.640 many many
00:40:15.680 the things
00:40:16.780 how we have
00:40:17.440 structured our society
00:40:18.480 I think
00:40:19.440 universities
00:40:20.260 and hospitals
00:40:21.480 are going to be
00:40:22.400 two of the areas
00:40:23.400 that are going
00:40:24.080 to go through
00:40:24.520 profound change
00:40:25.600 as a consequence
00:40:27.360 of the pandemic
00:40:29.180 and that's a good thing
00:40:30.440 Ian Lee
00:40:31.460 before we go
00:40:32.320 I'd like to get
00:40:33.520 your sense
00:40:34.140 of where all
00:40:36.080 this heads
00:40:36.620 in the short
00:40:37.340 and medium term
00:40:38.440 I know you said
00:40:38.860 you're not optimistic
00:40:39.600 that's going to wrap up
00:40:40.460 sort of immediately
00:40:41.440 and things are going
00:40:42.080 to return to
00:40:42.700 you know
00:40:43.640 rosy economic situations
00:40:45.340 but what do people
00:40:46.500 need to know
00:40:47.240 in the next
00:40:48.000 two three years
00:40:49.120 as they make
00:40:49.860 as they make
00:40:50.440 the big life choices
00:40:51.340 we all inevitably
00:40:52.060 have to make
00:40:52.640 about our lives
00:40:53.240 our kids
00:40:53.680 our jobs
00:40:54.240 our savings
00:40:54.840 our where we live
00:40:56.520 what should be
00:40:57.500 front of mind
00:40:58.040 as people attempt
00:40:58.680 to navigate
00:40:59.220 this seemingly
00:41:00.040 new terrain
00:41:00.640 well this is
00:41:01.780 a Canadian
00:41:02.240 podcast
00:41:03.360 and
00:41:04.300 podcast
00:41:05.900 excuse me
00:41:06.560 and I appreciate
00:41:08.240 the question
00:41:08.780 because it may sound
00:41:09.700 like I'm very pessimistic
00:41:10.880 I've been great
00:41:12.400 really really fortunate
00:41:13.480 I've traveled
00:41:13.960 around the world
00:41:14.540 I've been teaching
00:41:15.040 in China
00:41:15.460 once a year
00:41:15.980 since 1997
00:41:16.660 I've taught
00:41:17.760 over a hundred times
00:41:18.520 across Europe
00:41:19.140 and the former
00:41:19.620 communist countries
00:41:20.340 including Russia
00:41:21.100 and Ukraine
00:41:21.880 and many times
00:41:22.640 in Poland
00:41:23.080 and so forth
00:41:23.700 and where I'm going
00:41:24.860 is out of all
00:41:25.820 the regions
00:41:26.300 and countries
00:41:26.800 of the world
00:41:27.320 the two most
00:41:28.700 fortunate countries
00:41:29.900 are the US
00:41:30.800 and Canada
00:41:31.420 we're surrounded
00:41:32.400 by oceans
00:41:32.980 on three sides
00:41:33.740 as you know
00:41:34.400 in Canada
00:41:35.720 and there's thousands
00:41:37.340 of kilometers
00:41:37.860 across that ocean
00:41:38.740 to other
00:41:39.260 the parts
00:41:40.240 of the world
00:41:40.720 we have all
00:41:41.780 of the resources
00:41:42.440 essentially of Russia
00:41:43.600 but we're rule of law
00:41:45.180 we're not corrupt
00:41:46.260 like Russia
00:41:46.900 we're not authoritarian
00:41:48.100 like Russia
00:41:49.280 we don't invade
00:41:50.000 other countries
00:41:50.680 we have incredible
00:41:52.680 resources
00:41:53.340 and so I'm actually
00:41:55.360 and we have immigration
00:41:56.980 whereas countries
00:41:57.700 around the world
00:41:58.220 are going to be
00:41:58.860 depopulating
00:41:59.880 see John Ibbotson
00:42:01.700 and Daryl Bricker's
00:42:02.460 book Empty Planet
00:42:03.340 or the great
00:42:05.320 demographic reversal
00:42:06.380 by Charles Goodall
00:42:07.480 in UK
00:42:08.940 the retired profit LSE
00:42:11.020 and countries
00:42:11.920 around the world
00:42:12.420 are going to be
00:42:12.800 depopulating
00:42:13.400 causing great
00:42:14.120 economic dislocation
00:42:15.300 we are still growing
00:42:16.980 because we have been
00:42:18.100 for 150-200 years
00:42:19.640 very pro-immigration
00:42:21.220 and we believe
00:42:22.100 in immigration
00:42:22.600 in the two countries
00:42:23.600 so I am actually
00:42:25.060 very optimistic
00:42:26.040 much more optimistic
00:42:27.340 for Canada
00:42:28.580 and the US future
00:42:30.020 as opposed to Europe
00:42:31.500 or Africa
00:42:32.460 or Asia
00:42:33.380 where they are
00:42:34.300 confronting
00:42:34.900 very very serious
00:42:36.360 problems
00:42:36.920 in terms of
00:42:38.100 younger people
00:42:38.900 because they say
00:42:40.340 well okay
00:42:40.620 that's all very fine
00:42:41.460 that's very macro
00:42:42.280 philosophical
00:42:42.840 what about us
00:42:43.660 I just want to remind
00:42:45.240 everybody
00:42:45.680 that according
00:42:46.260 to the pension estimates
00:42:47.400 BMO Pension Group
00:42:48.420 and a couple of others
00:42:49.280 there's a
00:42:50.280 somewhere around
00:42:51.140 a 2 trillion plus
00:42:53.900 wealth transfer
00:42:55.880 that's going to take place
00:42:57.280 in the next 10, 15, 20 years
00:42:58.900 from the boomers
00:43:00.060 as they pass on
00:43:01.140 and it's going to go
00:43:02.120 overwhelmingly to their children
00:43:03.220 because we have stats
00:43:04.260 very good stats
00:43:04.980 showing that
00:43:05.460 most people
00:43:06.400 98%
00:43:07.120 pass on their wealth
00:43:08.420 to their kids
00:43:09.100 and as opposed to
00:43:10.820 giving it to a hospital
00:43:11.720 or a university
00:43:12.440 and there's very good
00:43:14.160 data on this
00:43:14.920 and so
00:43:15.980 the inequalities
00:43:17.700 that we're worried about
00:43:18.780 are diminishing actually
00:43:20.000 I've got stats
00:43:20.860 I do these presentations
00:43:21.880 showing our poverty rate
00:43:23.320 in our country
00:43:23.900 even though the activists
00:43:25.080 claim it's skyrocketing
00:43:26.220 this is simply false
00:43:27.320 the poverty rate
00:43:28.940 in 1965
00:43:29.500 was 25%
00:43:30.700 of the population
00:43:31.420 in the mid 90s
00:43:32.820 when Harper left office
00:43:33.900 it was down to 15%
00:43:35.060 it is now down
00:43:36.440 latest data from StatsCan
00:43:37.620 is down to 6.5%
00:43:39.420 it's almost disappearing
00:43:41.640 in our country
00:43:42.580 elder poverty
00:43:43.740 has collapsed
00:43:44.640 in this country
00:43:45.920 the wealth
00:43:46.900 of this country
00:43:47.460 we are one of the
00:43:48.220 in terms of
00:43:49.020 per person income
00:43:50.180 we're fifth
00:43:51.120 or sixth
00:43:51.700 wealthiest country
00:43:52.880 on planet earth
00:43:54.340 and so
00:43:55.300 if you want to go
00:43:56.940 medium term
00:43:57.860 yes we've got
00:43:59.040 short term problems
00:43:59.820 no question about it
00:44:00.860 we've got to deal
00:44:01.800 with the incredible
00:44:03.380 shortages of workers
00:44:04.440 and we've got to
00:44:06.080 integrate immigrants
00:44:07.280 into our country
00:44:08.060 we've got to recognize
00:44:08.980 their credentials
00:44:09.640 and so on
00:44:10.300 but for a young person
00:44:12.380 in this country
00:44:13.000 and I tell my students
00:44:14.260 this
00:44:14.560 out of all the places
00:44:15.680 in the world
00:44:16.260 if you said
00:44:17.400 where would I most
00:44:18.340 want to be
00:44:18.920 for the rest of my life
00:44:19.880 to minimize
00:44:20.360 the risks
00:44:22.100 of living
00:44:23.080 I would say
00:44:24.020 Canada and the US
00:44:24.960 because I've been
00:44:26.500 to these other countries
00:44:27.340 and they have
00:44:28.020 big big problems
00:44:30.040 well it's good
00:44:31.800 to put it all
00:44:32.300 in perspective
00:44:32.900 some negatives
00:44:33.940 for sure
00:44:34.480 but I guess
00:44:35.240 some notes
00:44:36.140 of optimism
00:44:37.440 Professor Ainley
00:44:38.180 always appreciate
00:44:39.340 your expert insights
00:44:40.160 thanks so much
00:44:40.940 for joining us
00:44:41.380 for the conversation
00:44:41.980 today
00:44:42.320 my pleasure
00:44:43.260 Anthony
00:44:43.540 thanks very much
00:44:44.140 for inviting me
00:44:44.820 full comment
00:44:46.160 is a post media podcast
00:44:47.480 I'm Anthony Fury
00:44:48.560 this episode
00:44:49.540 was produced
00:44:50.040 by Andre Pru
00:44:50.800 with theme music
00:44:51.820 by Bryce Hall
00:44:52.580 Kevin Libin
00:44:53.520 is the executive producer
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