Canada’s Record-Breaking Year Explained
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Summary
Jim Lang and Paul MacKinnon take a look back at the great things Canada did in the past decade, from tourism, travel, culture, and sports to a new commercial about being proud of what we do in our own backyard.
Transcript
00:00:04.760
And from all of us at TPL, all the best of the season and Happy New Year to you.
00:00:09.180
You'll find a bunch of shows between now and the end of the holidays that look forward to the new year,
00:00:14.460
look back on the year that we've just experienced.
00:00:18.960
This has been a record-breaking year for Canada.
00:00:27.680
Joining me, Paul Macucci, Jim Lang, the regs, as I like to refer to us here,
00:00:33.120
as we have a look back and we have documentation in front of us and everything.
00:00:37.420
But really what we're doing, guys, is having a look back at some of the great stuff.
00:00:42.280
I mean, we could really mountain a whole bunch of complaints,
00:00:46.000
and we do that effectively almost every day here.
00:00:49.660
But I thought this would be a fun opportunity for us to be proud.
00:00:52.680
We just came back from Ottawa creating a commercial about patriotism and pride here in Canada.
00:00:59.020
And so we thought it would be fitting that we try this out.
00:01:02.800
And for the first time ever, take a look at how Canada broke records in 2025.
00:01:08.220
And, gentlemen, I think you both would agree, as a nation,
00:01:10.340
we need to be better about patting ourselves on the back.
00:01:12.960
Because sometimes as Canadians, whether it's as a group or individual,
00:01:16.360
we do amazing things or we just maybe it's the Canadian nature.
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We don't shine the spotlight on us to show that.
00:01:23.260
So we allow us to do it for the people that did these great things.
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It's funny, but when we were making the commercial, we start talking to people around us.
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You know, what does it mean to you to be a patriot?
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You know, Canadian pride and that sort of thing.
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And he said that when he noticed the difference, and I even noticed this,
00:01:46.560
the difference between Mexico and Canada is in Mexico,
00:01:49.740
they kind of forgive themselves for the finer details and the things you can virtue signal on.
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And they trade that off in exchange for being proud of their best sports figures,
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proud of their writers, proud of their directors.
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You can't say something bad in my household about Guillermo del Toro, I promise you.
00:02:07.000
But that is something that Canada really could use an injection of.
00:02:11.920
And look, we do things in business, in politics, in the arts, in science, in healthcare.
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You name the topic, and they're on the world stage all the time.
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Hey, look, it's not all about someone from America or Europe.
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Yeah, you blew my mind with just talking about the Blue Jays.
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We'll get to sports in a bit, but let's kick things off.
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And the one stat that really popped to my mind was this was the highest summer tourism revenue ever recorded in Canada.
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59 to 60 billion in tourism receipts between May and August of 2025.
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Well, I noticed it, I don't know about you guys, but going to our, we have a cottage in Northern Ontario, that was people from, plates from all over the country visiting other parts of the country.
00:03:04.300
And something you had mentioned, you had mentioned about people keeping the money in the country, Paul.
00:03:11.480
And the government did a good job of putting programs together that subsidized, you know, travel.
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And there was benefit programs for people who wanted to travel across Canada.
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We're seeing, it's funny, there's a bunch of barbing going on between politicians cross-border the last week.
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Where, you know, our premier, Doug Ford, you know, is going back against Governor DeSantis in Florida.
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And, you know, they're having some fun jousting back and forth on the tourism numbers being down in the U.S.
00:03:38.360
And, you know, the whole nationalistic climate of North America right now is actually feeding into that tourism number, which is great.
00:03:47.300
And I think, you know, the more we stay home, the more we actually try to benefit Canadians by traveling to seeing the places we don't know.
00:03:57.160
I think Canadians are learning more about Canada now, which they never knew before.
00:04:02.500
So I think a lot of Canadians knew more about the U.S., you know, because the Americans do a really good job at, you know, it's my youngest son.
00:04:10.860
He knows more about American history than he knows about Canadian history.
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Yeah, I mean, you know, they glam it up and regardless how bad it was.
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And I was, Kelsey Grammer, I was listening to a history show the other day that he does.
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And even him sitting there reading this monologue about, you know, the Civil War in the U.S., it's actually wonderful to listen to because he does such an articulate job of actually telling the story, you know, about how Grant was a drunk and how, you know, he was going to spy.
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You know, it sounds very, just listening to it is nice.
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It sounds like our modern-day parliament, to be honest with you.
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But I have, real quick, just to add to that, I've had a number of friends who say, well, I was going to go here.
00:05:03.260
Now we're going to do a long weekend in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.
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And so I'm hearing that more and more, that they're opting out and going to, and we're going to go, let's go down to the Maritimes for a bit.
00:05:18.560
And so, as you said, Paul, exploring different parts of Canada and keeping the money here, and they're very happy to do it.
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No, and the only thing, you know, we're missing some sunshine.
00:05:31.820
Well, this is so funny because even in the midst of the greatest fire in the history of Canada, which, I mean, ruined a lot of summer for our friends to the south and many of us, it still was up.
00:05:43.180
And to Jim's point, check this out, Atlantic Canada cruise traffic hit an all-time high, 845,000 people hit to the seas out of Atlantic Canada.
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And the highest occupancy rate in hotels in August, 80.7%.
00:06:03.940
So tourism, keeping tourism real in Canada for Canadians really was a big deal.
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We see people want to travel inside of Canada, which is a magnificent thing.
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We finally got people interested in staying home.
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Why don't we build some better tourist attractors?
00:06:24.680
They're talking about Niagara being the next real redevelopment for, it's going to be the new Atlantic City, I think is how it's been described.
00:06:35.260
Yeah, whatever we're going to do, but, you know, build some indoor water parks.
00:06:40.320
So theme parks, build, like, the technology is there.
00:06:44.140
Crepes, 15 years ago, I sat in a presentation for an indoor water park from a Japanese company where people were surfing, sun tanning.
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And they build these huge, massive, like, three-mile bubbles.
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And they do all these functions underneath these bubbles.
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And so why don't we spend the time now and, you know, in the west, in the east, where we create core tourist attractions.
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And connected to transportation hubs, rail and roads and planes.
00:07:30.840
No, we're getting to speed train, don't you know?
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But it is a great idea, actually, to try to figure that out and connect them via, you know, whether it's plane or crane.
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We haven't really done much as a nation that spends most of its year in the cold for really doing these protected.
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Like, this is a great idea to do these protected biospheres of fun for people that maybe have adjacent hotels that are not part of the.
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But at least you can make a tunnel trip over to the indoor park, the theme park, or whatever it is.
00:08:06.720
Your family, and you're looking at, do I take the family of four, which isn't cheap, to Mexico or Dominican Republic, or do I drive an hour and a half to this indoor bubble oasis for a weekend and enjoy?
00:08:22.140
I mean, first of all, it's cheaper, and it's a lot easier to get to.
00:08:26.720
Yeah, or do I go up and, you know, go into the Northwest Territories and, quite frankly, you know, go into a spa, you know, that I hike in during the day and do all my winter sports and then come back, you know, live in an igloo for a night.
00:08:48.320
So this is a big deal to us because Canada tourism, by the way, surpassed all previous summer seasons, driven by domestic travel and post-pandemic international demand.
00:08:58.920
So we're still feeling the effects of people not having been able to get here when they wanted to.
00:09:09.280
I don't love the phrase food insecurity, but food security I am interested in because this really is a study of how are we feeding ourselves?
00:09:18.320
And this year we had some record-breaking moments.
00:09:32.220
I would imagine that it's being exported mainly.
00:09:57.500
So even I was shocked when I read the number that it was up 21%.
00:10:01.300
And imagine what it would have been if they didn't get cut off by the Chinese.
1.00
00:10:04.960
So they were able to pivot and go to South Korea.
00:10:11.860
And quite frankly, I think the wheat guys, Ukraine, probably benefited them a little.
00:10:16.760
I'm not saying they wanted to be benefited by it.
00:10:18.940
But, you know, the fact that a lot was happening in the country with Russia and the Ukraine,
00:10:23.660
the wheat production here increased because there was a demand, right?
00:10:26.440
Well, the other thing is it gave a way to, as you point out, new customers out there.
00:10:31.400
When we were not allowed to sell to China directly and we had this excess,
00:10:35.600
it gave a lot of other countries a taste of Canadian wheat.
00:10:38.320
You know, a lot of people watched the show Clarkson Farms because it was kind of a cool show
00:10:42.800
and Amazon Prime and they thought, oh, that's what farming is like.
00:10:46.020
But until you've driven to the prairies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
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and seen the scale of these grain farms and canola farms, it's staggering.
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And the work and the science and the technology that goes into planting it, growing it, and harvesting it is –
00:11:02.880
and we just get better and better at it every year.
00:11:04.700
Have you seen these combines that they have, guys, like that you can go –
00:11:07.800
it's like they live in them for a couple of days.
00:11:15.920
So basically, once you get to the end of the row, you take over, you turn, and once you do the turn, you hit a button in the –
00:11:23.640
so all the lines are GPS straight, and then you just monitor all the gauges on the farm machine as it gets to the end,
00:11:35.980
I heard that they have full internet in these things.
00:11:38.260
Well, the technology is phenomenal, and Canada is taking it to a next level all the –
00:11:45.940
You're getting more off the ground, more to the market.
00:11:48.320
Well, since we're not building cars, my next automobile might be a combine.
00:11:53.360
And I'm talking about tourism and agriculture together.
00:11:57.460
I did it when I was 18, 19 years old on a motorcycle and drove from here out to BC.
00:12:07.740
Traveling the country is something I think that is a lost – it's a lost fantasy.
00:12:17.400
Well, when I was 15, 16, it's all I wanted to do.
00:12:21.900
How am I going to afford to get across the country?
00:12:23.720
What if the car break – like, it really became something in my mind,
00:12:31.600
I've got to go – I've got to traverse, and how am I going to see everything?
00:12:34.280
So, to make that challenge, that adventure in your life, it's a rarity now, I think, that needs to come back.
00:12:41.380
I think that our university students really – yeah, it's nice that you go to Europe and you backpack and everything.
00:12:46.640
See this country, it's got everything that you could ever want to.
00:12:50.080
When you leave southern Ontario, the changes in geography through central Ontario to the Canadian Shield,
00:12:56.120
to the top of the Lake Superior, to the Manitoba border, through the prairies, into the plains of Alberta,
00:13:02.820
it's shocking how many different geographical regions you go through in that drive.
00:13:09.140
I mean, it's – somebody told me one time that parts of BC are a rainforest, a temperate rainforest.
00:13:16.260
So, you can go from rainforest to tundra to, you know, the prairies.
00:13:20.560
It really has everything in one place, and to compare what we have to the rest of the world thereafter,
00:13:28.120
By the way, we had a record-breaking year all around in agriculture with all of the staple crops that make a difference in the planet.
00:13:41.280
And all the things we have coming up, you know, and that's something, given where we are with tariffs and everything else,
00:13:48.620
And we don't talk about it a lot, which is unfortunate, but we should because we could be growing.
00:13:53.280
You know, the technology exists to be – I think the word – I'll use the – people don't like the word,
00:13:59.100
but cloning or creating all our fruits and vegetables indoors here in Canada.
00:14:04.820
You don't have to be going out and shipping from abroad, you know.
00:14:08.460
And I know even now, you know, you go to your grocery store and you're looking at where all your fruits are.
00:14:13.960
Yeah, so a lot of it's still coming from these, not crazy places, but pretty far away.
00:14:20.660
Well, what it does is it actually evens the playing field on pricing.
00:14:23.540
So, if we take plums from Mexico, but we're growing plums here in Ontario, we might want the Mexican plums.
00:14:29.380
They might taste better or the, you know, Colombian fruit might taste better.
00:14:33.880
But evening the price and creating competition in the marketplace by just providing our own product makes a difference to the bottom line on all of those items.
00:14:42.560
Well, Jim, we've rounded it up to your neighbourhood here.
00:14:49.000
Multiple record-setting performances this year, Jim, in some really elite and national sport.
00:14:54.560
Summer McIntosh, we'll start with amateur.
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00:15:00.720
And she didn't just win races on the international stage.
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And when you watch her touch the touchline in these swim meets, there's no one else in the camera shot.
00:15:13.440
That is one thing that I think is one of the best memes in sports this year.
00:15:16.860
She's at the elite level competing against the top six or seven swimmers on the planet in her discipline.
00:15:28.420
What do you think, Jim, cuts her way so far from the pack?
00:15:38.280
I know our oldest daughter was a competitive swimmer at one point.
00:15:42.020
But to be at that level, like Summer McIntosh, that's twice a day in the pool, six days a week.
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The time and effort, dry land training, the commitment.
00:15:55.920
We have got some world-class swim coaches in Canada, both all over the country.
00:16:04.220
And then we had Penny Alexiak, and then she got older.
00:16:13.980
Like, she'll touch and wait for the rest of the pack.
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You know, it's such a – when you see a phenom in sports nowadays, it's rare.
00:16:26.040
Because it's almost fractional now, the difference between players often in sports.
00:16:31.120
But when somebody cuts so far ahead of the pack, it is remarkable.
00:16:35.200
And professionally, there's a young man, a quite unassuming young guy from Hamilton named
00:16:40.480
Shea Gilchrist-Alexander, who did one of the rarest feats in the NBA.
00:16:44.680
Only a handful – three or four players in the history of the NBA were named the league
00:16:54.180
And as we're taping this right now, he's averaging over 32 points a game.
00:16:58.020
And he's the kind of guy who goes back to Hamilton after winning the Larry O'Brien trophy
00:17:04.760
He seems to be a very low-key guy, which is so nice.
00:17:11.240
And for a lot of Canadian basketball fans, they're salivating at the possibility of him
00:17:15.940
leading the way in the Olympic basketball tournament because he's so good.
00:17:20.800
And right now, he's on pace to win the MVP again.
00:17:23.440
And when I was younger, we had Steve Nash, like, he's the best basketball player we've
00:17:28.820
Shea Gilchrist-Alexander has surpassed Steve Nash for his ability.
00:17:36.740
I don't know what he can do, but after the year he just had, he won the Northern Star Award
00:17:41.620
as Canada's Athlete of the Year, beating out Summer McIntosh and others.
00:17:45.000
And no one could dispute that after what he did.
00:17:47.360
Imagine the wealth that is about to be bestowed upon this young man, you know, and the accolades.
00:18:06.900
I want to get the right figure, right, because it's so outstanding.
00:18:12.380
Josh Lando ranked among the world's top male swimmers.
00:18:17.100
Yeah, which, you know, got kind of overshadowed by summer.
00:18:31.400
I guarantee you, in the next five years, he's going to have so much wealth.
00:18:43.020
Let's hope he has a business mind very similar.
00:18:45.580
And he can actually come back home, and he can do great things.
00:18:57.800
The speed with which they're playing the game now is just amazing.
00:19:12.640
The greatest attendance in the history of the Great Cup.
00:19:22.380
And the post-pandemic performance has really, as you pointed in a couple of these, really vaulted us ahead.
00:19:29.500
The Four Nations Cup, Canada beating the USA in the final, was so big.
00:19:37.860
So, forgive me when I say this, but my partner and I renewed our vows in Vegas at the end of February, just after Canada won.
00:19:46.980
And when we landed in Vegas, every TV at ESPN and everything was the...
00:19:58.420
And there were so many Canadians that got wrapped up, and especially with Donald Trump and the 51st state and all of that, to stick it to America, to win the game the way we did, it felt good.
00:20:09.520
You pointed out Google, the number one search on Google in Canada this year?
00:20:16.680
There were people watching it in Nunavut, in Tolfino, B.C., in Gander, Newfoundland, and all points in between.
00:20:25.560
And the number one Google search item in Canada this year was the Toronto Blue Jays.
00:20:29.900
If you want to find the Patriot and somebody asks them, do you want L.A. or the Blue Jays?
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First of all, they beat the Yankees to get to the World Series, which was amazing.
00:20:40.400
And then they played the Dodgers, and what some people say is one of the greatest seven-game series in the history of the World Series.
00:20:50.720
They don't start playing regular season games until the end of March.
00:20:53.080
They're like, well, I've got to see the Blue Jays.
00:20:55.720
Oh, everybody is just stoked for another season, for sure.
00:21:02.680
Under Environment and Climate Action, we had the strongest methane reduction framework ever introduced in Canada.
00:21:10.320
And if that sounds boring to you, trust me, it smells just as boring.
00:21:16.460
New federal methane rules target up to 75% emissions reduction from oil and gas in 2012 levels and most aggressive standard to date.
00:21:27.860
What I didn't find was the results from carbon reduction.
00:21:39.080
You know, the cost to do this is substantial, right?
00:21:42.280
This is a $14 billion program that's going to cost basically over five to seven years.
00:21:52.380
If the oil and gas companies can do it, so that's the good thing, the cost is going to be high.
00:22:00.660
So it's one of those things that it's getting a little bit of a, ah, because quite frankly, they already are getting, you know, between tanker bans and carbon taxes.
00:22:10.980
They already have some challenges, and now they're putting this on.
00:22:16.580
I think if you relax the carbon and go after the methane, I do believe that's a good step.
00:22:21.580
I think they have some work to do, but I think it's a good move.
00:22:25.220
I just, gentlemen, my thing is we as Canadians, even if you're not all in on the environment, have done our part as much as we can for the earth, for the environment, for nature.
00:22:36.900
I just wish Russia and China and India and some of these other high-polluting countries would do a fraction of what we would do, and it would make the earth a better place, because we're doing so much as a country and putting in rules to make us do even more.
00:22:51.260
And then at the same time, I'm seeing these other nations do nothing.
00:22:57.940
I'm sure that one of those leaders is tuned in today.
00:23:06.900
So, quite frankly, if they don't come aboard, you know, and that, as he just said, you know, it's not, quite frankly, it's not as critical an issue as we thought.
00:23:15.160
You know, I think that's what everyone's come to conclusion.
00:23:18.220
But also, you know, if you don't get the big countries with the big populations to come aboard, then, you know, countries like Canada aren't going to make it.
00:23:29.500
We're already giving the world the most oxygen.
00:23:33.280
The airline industry basically has instituted rules.
00:23:35.540
So, all the engines for the commercial airliners have to meet certain environmental standards.
00:23:43.380
You know, we've electric buses, electric trains, this and that.
00:23:49.000
I don't know how much work we can do that when now we need help from other countries to follow our lead.
00:23:54.620
By the way, you can go to tplmedia.ca and get your Go After the Methane t-shirt.
00:24:04.320
But to Jim's point, you know, my note on this was we have regulated ourselves into the best job we can possibly do.
00:24:13.220
Canada remained among the world's top 10 economies by nominal GDP.
00:24:32.800
As our productivity goes down, our GDP is starting to slip a little.
00:24:38.020
So, that's the biggest complaint or criticism right now is we've got to become more productive.
00:24:44.000
But, you know, we still remain in the top 10, which is great, ahead of a lot of countries, which we have to give accolades where they're due.
00:24:55.560
And, you know, we have stayed in that top 10 strata.
00:24:59.120
It's interesting because, as you know, Franco Teresano joins us on occasion.
00:25:04.360
He's got a fire in his belly about, you know, spending here.
00:25:09.140
Obviously, that's his job with the Federation of Taxpayers, Canadian Federation of Taxpayers.
00:25:14.460
But in our discussion, one of the things that we were talking about was a cost of living crisis, which I do believe that we, I personally believe we're in.
00:25:25.420
But things like the TSX delivering gains makes it a lot easier for us to make a basis rebound.
00:25:32.180
Energy and financials were the big wins for us.
00:25:42.340
But it did manage to keep us in the top 10, which gave us, this is going to sound crazy, economic stability, where there's a bunch of countries right now that are really, really struggling going into the holidays with a cost of living crisis beyond ours.
00:25:59.280
And how much credit does Mark Carney, with four decades of experience in finance and investment funds and big business and huge companies and understanding what it takes to be productive in different economic climates?
00:26:14.840
Maybe, I don't care what you think about the man.
00:26:17.420
He could, at this time, with everything going on, this expertise, this depth of knowledge, this wealth of knowledge, and this kind of big picture business is paying dividends for the country.
00:26:31.080
So I think it's a good move for the major products.
00:26:33.300
You know, a lot of mining projects on the deck.
00:26:40.600
And quite frankly, we need to value more Canadian ownership.
00:26:46.940
I think that's where we're losing it a little bit.
00:26:48.640
I think when he announces these projects, I look at it and I think to myself, is this just another project for another country?
00:26:57.400
And I think that's a mistake we've got to really look to correct in the upcoming year.
00:27:02.960
But, you know, to your point, we've managed through this year, right?
00:27:07.840
We're not tilting like a lot of other countries.
00:27:26.620
Poor Rosie Bart just tried to get a question in.
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00:27:32.260
I don't know if you saw that, but it did make me laugh really hard.
00:27:35.200
She, you know, she asked it a couple of times for her credit.
00:27:38.320
But she's no longer employed, and she lost her line at the table.
00:27:43.740
On to the next thing, which kind of ties into the economy, of course, is employment and workforce.
00:27:48.860
We had a labor workforce reached the largest in Canadian history.
00:27:59.300
It's increased mostly on the part-time component.
00:28:01.700
And quite frankly, immigration has been the driver for it, right?
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00:28:04.960
Because we had more people immigrate to Canada.
00:28:07.200
What they dropped into the labor force in a part-time capacity, a lot of students and everything else.
00:28:12.800
Well, also, it changed the labor force from full-time and full-contract to several part-time
00:28:19.940
and easier ways to manage financially for these companies, not necessarily great for the employees.
00:28:26.300
And we are going through a huge demographic shift with our baby boomers dropping out.
00:28:30.880
You know, over the next five years, you know, they're calling it an economic tsunami that we have to manage through
00:28:37.220
as they leave the workforce, as they retire, you know, in the last decade of their...
00:28:43.280
Economic in that the country has to pay for their pensions and stuff like that, or...
00:28:47.340
Economic, and then it's a what will happen to the wealth transfer.
00:28:52.760
It's a delicate conversation that Canadians need to talk about more.
00:28:56.140
And you're seeing it a little bit, you know, as we're talking on housing shows,
00:28:59.840
as people are leaving the major cities because they're retiring,
00:29:03.380
they're deciding to get a lower cost of living, to Mike's point.
00:29:07.380
They're leaving, they're going to other places,
00:29:09.540
they're getting ready to transfer whatever wealth they have.
00:29:16.580
And that's kind of the challenge because the next generation of their families
1.00
00:29:21.560
are making decisions on whether they want to take that wealth and keep it here.
00:29:27.640
Like this is, we're doing a show in the next week.
00:29:29.900
There's trillions of dollars sitting on the table.
00:29:31.820
And where people decide to take it is now becoming a critical issue
00:29:35.440
because that generation, of course, you know, made up,
00:29:38.740
I think it's 20% of them made up almost 70% of the wealth in Canada.
00:29:44.620
So that's a huge component of wealth transfer that's about to happen.
00:29:47.840
I know our neighbours, and we're just north of the Toronto area,
00:29:52.900
They sold and bought a sort of a rural place outside of Moncton
00:29:57.940
with a big plot of land, so they decided to go to New Brunswick.
00:30:07.620
Guys, I can't tell you the number of people that I saw making a permanent move
00:30:15.980
And to Paul's point, there's not a lot of, I mean,
00:30:24.400
When somebody inherits this or their family wants to spread this wealth,
00:30:28.340
there's not a lot of inspiration to keep it here in Canada.
00:30:31.220
It can be very costly to your bottom line, your wealth overall, to do that.
00:30:36.580
Maybe it's time that we had a few accommodations
00:30:38.960
that reached the average Canadian with some wealth
00:30:41.860
and allowed them to keep it here in some fashion.
00:30:44.680
You inherit the money, spend it here, you get a break on...
00:30:50.500
You inherit, take it out of the country, you're taxed on it.
00:30:53.060
That seems to be, and many countries do it that way.
00:30:57.080
Well, we saw Chris, you know, did the real estate show.
00:30:59.620
You know, he's transitioning his life as he gets older right now to Mexico.
00:31:03.960
And he, you know, he was talking about why and how it made sense
00:31:06.840
and how economically he couldn't compare the two.
00:31:14.480
And going through his book and then talking to him later
00:31:17.020
about his kind of shift as he lives, you know, three months in Mexico now.
00:31:21.420
He's, you know, forming a new development down there.
00:31:25.620
I had heard stories, I don't know if you had heard them too,
00:31:28.040
that certain European countries are inviting people to come from North America.
00:31:32.900
For a dollar, you can live in a small town in Italy or Scotland
00:31:37.140
or these European countries as long as you settle there
0.90
00:31:41.140
Yeah, I think you've got three years to kind of settle in that area.
00:31:43.640
Yeah, but Italy is doing it in a big way because they have such an aging population.
00:31:50.000
And the transfer of wealth there apparently is not as drastic or as huge as ours
00:31:57.600
because they have so many generations in the same home, on the same property,
00:32:06.400
But they have an aging population that's not replacing people that are vital to their society.
00:32:14.520
We had the fastest population growth rate in the G7.
00:32:21.540
Yeah, a million people in a single year, permanent and temporary residents,
00:32:25.400
the highest annual growth rate since we started keeping records.
00:32:29.040
Well, and the only time, just I think a few days ago,
00:32:32.200
the stats can said there was a minute dip because of the reduction in immigration and foreign students.
00:32:39.200
But all in all, I think the last number was 41.57 million people in Canada.
00:32:48.520
And it just seemed like overnight we were over 40.
00:32:55.280
Sorry, I'm not going to throw out a conspiracy theory that you actually tell me.
00:33:06.900
And this is, and if you really dug into it and you were, you know, you did one of those head counts.
00:33:13.680
I personally believe several people are sharing an ID in this country.
00:33:24.000
And I think we don't do a good job of tracking that or paying attention.
00:33:27.700
And that, that's going to become a bigger issue.
00:33:30.480
Well, that's funny because the reason this becomes a big issue, it's, it, it may be something
00:33:34.820
to brag about, but certainly what it is, is worth looking at because, uh, you know, every,
00:33:41.360
by every measure that I found out there, when I was looking at population growth, we kind
00:33:45.540
of, we kind of blew it because we didn't have the infrastructure.
00:33:50.680
Uh, you know, there was, it, we're still trying to catch up.
00:33:56.120
We dialed to your point, Jim, we dialed it down significantly.
00:34:00.180
We shut all the, you know, these universities and colleges that popped up all closed.
00:34:09.040
We just, you know, immigration policy in Canada has been horrendous because it was an open
1.00
00:34:17.500
The other day we shut her down the other day, like, you know, following the shows in
00:34:21.460
the last six months, open, shut, open, shut, open, shut.
00:34:26.080
The near shows we do are like literally we're doing a near show on immigration, which I love
00:34:30.820
doing, but like the same day we're doing one, he's announcing a new policy on the show.
00:34:36.380
Like it's almost so that if you're, if you're a new immigrant to Canada right now, you literally
00:34:43.900
I can't remember the site, but they all look at the same site and they wait for the announcements
00:34:50.900
How many points do I need to be, uh, to get a really presence?
00:34:55.320
And it literally like, they'll go, okay, this month they're doing the lottery to see if
00:35:01.620
Like they literally do it on a daily basis and they all sit there and look at it.
00:35:05.260
So when the first thing most of them do when they get up is actually go to the site and
00:35:17.340
So I'm the mayor of Brandon Manitoba where I'm the mayor.
00:35:26.600
You're like, all of a sudden I got an influx of new people.
00:35:30.020
How do we like, and then they, they are, all these towns aren't built with the infrastructure
00:35:36.260
And then you get going on the infrastructure and by the time you get going, they've changed
00:35:42.100
So all of a sudden you change all your policy directives to meet the increasing immigration
0.95
00:35:48.580
Next thing you know, you're switching up because they're leaving again, which is, uh, what's
00:36:00.580
Well, that's, that's because don't forget the catalyst to get in the country guys is
00:36:05.640
So when those, when the rules change on that, the colleges are going to dry up.
00:36:11.140
I think that was one of the first things that we thought about, right?
00:36:13.540
Was, uh, the other thing that, that comes up is immigration is a primary driver of national
00:36:20.060
We have the largest labor supply available on earth.
00:36:22.880
However, to Paul's point, we're not making anything.
00:36:26.640
Um, no, so that's the, well, it was supposed to be, which didn't turn out that well.
00:36:32.540
Don't want to get into the details, the gory details of it, but we created all these labor
00:36:36.700
training programs, which turned out to be just bananas crazy.
00:36:40.860
So, and, uh, we didn't spend the money properly.
00:36:43.520
We didn't train the people for the, for the jobs requires.
00:36:46.700
And that is, you know, again, brought it up many times.
00:36:49.360
That's where countries like China and other countries do a really good job at figuring out
00:36:54.240
the, uh, direction of their country and training people to do the things they need to do to
00:37:02.620
That's kind of figuring out, you know, if you're going to be a mining country, then you
00:37:06.500
better go produce people who, you know, know how to use heavy equipment.
00:37:12.740
You better, like, those are the things you got to train because quite frankly, when you're
00:37:16.200
pushing those new immigrants up north, they all have to be trained to do that.
1.00
00:37:19.980
And I think the U S China, China better than U S right now, but they do a really good job
00:37:25.160
Like they figure out their strategic, uh, directions, their industries, and they push
00:37:29.760
people, you know, and they multipurpose these industries so that they're both
00:37:33.600
def national defense and corporate ring of fire highway.
00:37:37.920
They're building a far Northern Ontario, which is a provincial federal consortium.
00:37:42.780
Think about the logistics of building that highway north of well, north of Thunder Bay.
00:37:47.240
And then, as you say, all the specialized heavy equipment to extract the mineral.
00:37:52.240
Like it, it's a massive undertaking right in a, in a climate where right now, tell you
00:37:56.860
the truth, I don't know if you guys have, you know, do you have a local mechanic?
00:38:01.780
A lot of people don't anymore, but quite frankly, they just go to the dealership.
00:38:06.480
They have it under full warranty for a lot of them.
00:38:08.580
If they come, you know, depending on which company they buy from, they take it to the dealership.
00:38:14.160
The number of mechanics that are back in play, um, from a heavy machinery perspective,
00:38:20.500
And we haven't, we haven't, we haven't filled in anyone.
00:38:26.680
And I think, boy, that's going to be expensive.
00:38:33.320
Uh, you know, the next one on my list is housing and infrastructure, but to be honest
00:38:37.160
with you, I might blow by it because the records that we broke in housing and infrastructure
00:38:46.360
Hundreds of thousands of units under construction nationwide, a multi-year high in infrastructure
00:38:52.040
Nothing I could put on the list allowed me to, wow.
00:38:56.600
Canada entered a sustained building phase, not seen since the 1970s, another time of
00:39:04.600
But I regret to tell you the, the stat that we broke, uh, the record on was the least people
00:39:10.740
with their own home in Canada in the history of the country.
00:39:19.920
Canada remained in the top five global energy production, uh, producers worldwide.
00:39:24.820
Uh, five, uh, top five producer of oil and natural gas.
00:39:28.600
We're the third largest hydroelectric producer.
00:39:35.500
Uh, I, I put that in at the end because it's, it's hopeful.
00:39:39.260
I think we missed the market on it, to be honest with you, but yeah, we were a little late, but
00:39:50.180
Uh, trade and global commerce, uh, total trade volume reached historic.
00:39:57.560
I'd almost have to defer to you on that trillions and annual imports and exports went on.
00:40:01.980
And that was despite, uh, the, the, uh, tariffs that I don't even believe in.
00:40:07.760
Well, so remember when we'll lead up to the tariffs.
00:40:10.100
So this is kind of a funny year when you look at it, everyone's stockpiled.
00:40:14.820
So remember, we had some crazy economic figures.
00:40:17.500
So we had growth like warehouses are full to the rafters.
00:40:21.240
So, you know, everyone was shipping, receiving, uh, altering transfer pricing, just getting
00:40:27.300
ready for tariffs and then tariffs hit and they kept going for a while.
00:40:31.060
And then all of a sudden we've now hit where it's real.
00:40:34.700
So we had kind of that honeymoon period where we were seeing huge growth just because people
00:40:43.080
Paul, can all of those products pre-tariff that were, uh, excised or went back and forth,
00:40:59.340
So it doesn't, it doesn't get hit because it came in before.
00:41:05.340
So the mission is to have enough stock in the, in the bank so that by the time.
00:41:11.960
So we, we shipped in a bunch of steel from China.
00:41:14.640
We got, uh, cause we don't produce all kinds of steel.
00:41:20.220
So the question I have for you is how much does our weekend dollar help import exports
00:41:25.560
because people are able to make, get a bargain by coming to Canada?
00:41:30.960
And, uh, but now quite frankly, the U S is the, in the currency game, if you noticed
00:41:35.800
the U S has gotten a little smarter and they're not letting our dollar weaken as much.
00:41:40.100
So the U S is kind of, and they said that when they did tariffs, that they would actually
00:41:44.380
weaken their dollar to not allow people to undercut them.
00:41:47.840
So the U S kind of plays the dollar game really well right now.
00:41:51.180
So whereas years ago that, you know, the U S was like, you know, I'm going to keep the
00:41:58.120
There's so much, as you see, the U S dollar tends to weaken as ours goes down.
00:42:04.960
I did notice that over the summer, uh, that they, that they, they tended to follow us
00:42:10.620
one or two days, not to the same degree, but they did keep sort of a, uh, a softer follow
00:42:18.740
Uh, if we took a sharp downturn, you would see the, the slight dip.
00:42:24.280
The head economist for the U S and they're really tracking foreign exchange rates.
00:42:28.700
So they're not going to let you drop out of the market to beat them with terror.
00:42:33.420
We're kicking ass when it comes to going to new countries, uh, pre pandemic, mainly
0.75
00:42:40.040
Uh, that's the one thing I can say is, uh, we've been put into a position to get out
00:42:43.820
there and start to do some trade in other countries and, and to Carney's, uh, uh, travel
00:42:48.680
That's probably how a lot of that has, uh, started now.
00:42:54.300
He's certainly broke it in next on the hit list of, uh, places where we made some, uh, global,
00:43:00.180
uh, momentum Canada, maintain global leadership and AI research density, which is a big deal.
00:43:06.500
Toronto, Waterloo and Montreal ranked among the world's top AI hubs.
00:43:11.440
And there's also pockets in Markham, Richmond Hill, north of the city.
00:43:15.460
And, uh, as you said, Montreal and other pockets of the Vancouver area where they're developing
00:43:22.160
some world-class scientists in the field of AI and utilizing AI in different applications,
00:43:28.420
whether it's business and healthcare and whatnot.
00:43:30.620
Well, this must make you feel pretty good, Paul.
00:43:32.380
We're in a country where we're not really doing too much manufacturing.
00:43:35.240
We are kind of like hitting above our weight class, I think with AI and tech at the moment.
00:43:41.040
Compared to the government's spend on AI compared to the U S is just tiny.
00:43:47.520
Like, like we do not participate where, you know, literally the U S puts billions of dollars
00:44:05.660
So, you know, it's amazing to watch what we do compared to the Americans.
00:44:12.760
We, we were the, you know, Blackberry, all the amazing things we did in technology.
00:44:17.260
In the early days, we did have the lead, like we were the leader in tech, you know, whether
00:44:22.400
it be phones or radar or, you know, all the cool things we did do.
00:44:27.700
Um, and we kind of lost that just because we weren't good at our IP.
00:44:34.500
The government realized that they, they do a good job in actually helping companies now
00:44:41.080
They have a, a huge group up in Ottawa that deals with it.
00:44:44.480
So, so yeah, um, I think I'm very proud of what.
00:44:52.560
And this is where we should give some credit to some of the, um, universities in this country
00:44:56.780
producing young, these young men and women of elite level science, math, computer science,
00:45:06.440
So that's interesting because we, uh, we have done a good job with the new people coming
00:45:11.140
I noticed, uh, when I meet them, uh, how tech savvy they are incredible.
00:45:15.540
And how, how good, like they, they transition and they move into tech industries.
00:45:22.620
In fact, even among our own team, um, new Canadians, uh, are numerous in our tech department and
00:45:30.960
You know, they, they have multiple tasks at any given time that are fairly major.
00:45:34.560
And they're, when we release our website and our app, which by the way is underway right
00:45:41.640
now, as you're seeing this, congratulations, go to, uh, the play store, uh, go to, uh, Apple
00:45:47.180
and, and download the app and, uh, go visit the website.
00:45:53.460
This is going to make Paul McCoochie's head explode.
00:45:56.900
This could cause a fight between the two of you.
00:46:00.500
Uh, healthcare and life sciences, uh, largest healthcare workforce ever recorded.
00:46:06.120
In fact, healthcare became Canada's largest single employment sector, 2.5 million Canadians
00:46:19.620
And, uh, but you know, we do have a lot of people in healthcare, you know, we, that the
00:46:23.400
shows we've done, it's, you know, it's not for lack of people.
00:46:33.640
I want to give a shout out to a doctor in the university health network, Toronto, who,
00:46:40.740
It was the first person to do a heart transplant with a heart that had stopped beating.
00:46:46.840
So they've opened up what they feel is huge new avenues for heart transplants because
00:46:54.620
It always had to be a beating heart that they would transplant.
00:46:57.520
And this brilliant doctor was able to come up with the capabilities to do this.
00:47:07.460
When you think about some of the, and we just talked about it before we started, when it comes
00:47:11.480
to cardiac care, heart surgery, some of the, the best of the best are in this country.
00:47:17.000
You wouldn't, you wouldn't want to trade the doctors that you meet in this country, uh, at
00:47:21.500
the, uh, specialist level for just about anywhere in the world.
00:47:25.040
You know, they, you know, they have options, you know, you're a good cardiac surgeon and
00:47:29.780
which we have some of the world leaders, they stay here because they want to be here.
00:47:35.780
They want to be here, which is, that's a nice thing that we've done that, uh, defense,
00:47:43.520
Uh, how we as a nation, uh, participate on the, uh, on the global front, largest defense
00:47:52.100
This is maybe too little too late, but it is great news for our military that is desperately
00:47:59.080
in need of retooling, uh, refunding reorganization and, uh, and, and finding new members of its,
00:48:08.420
It's even beyond just jeeps and planes and boats and whatnot.
00:48:12.460
They just announced this week, uh, a massive infrastructure program for proper housing at
00:48:19.800
So they have proper apartments and proper housing.
00:48:22.220
Uh, so you have, you know, you, you have an uptick uptick in the amount of people trying
00:48:29.080
They had an increase in the recruits year to year, 2024 to 2025.
00:48:33.780
And now with the plans in place to increase the reserves, increase the regular force and have
00:48:44.200
They're about to modernize the, the rifles that the Canadian army use built at cold Canada and
00:48:50.620
So they're really utilizing Canadian manufacturing, Canadian companies for clothing, for vehicles,
00:49:00.180
And unfortunately it's because of what's happening in Ukraine, the modernization of a military
00:49:07.700
And the way battles are fought and the weapons they use, they're using $500 drones to destroy
00:49:15.680
Well, as a nation, no matter who you are, you have to be ready for that.
00:49:19.100
They're using a $200 Chromebook to take down a financial system.
00:49:24.220
Uh, we have committed more to NORAD than we ever had.
00:49:28.460
And our Arctic surveillance and NATO readiness puts us in to play again, uh, protecting ourselves
00:49:36.020
to the North, uh, and actually maybe protecting our sovereignty in, in being, uh, cool partners
00:49:41.060
with NATO and the U S, uh, NORAD being a key player in that.
00:49:47.440
Once you're spending this kind of money and you're actually, uh, putting your mouth money
00:49:53.100
So when you go to the international stage and you're with world leaders, they're going
00:50:02.660
You know, I've said this before on the show, you define a country by, you know, you have
00:50:08.760
Those are all the things that define you as a, as a country and as an economy in a country,
00:50:15.680
And we were laughing at it and quite frankly, we were starting to see the effects of it
00:50:19.440
as time went on, how, you know, our nationalism in our country was dwindling because we didn't
00:50:33.080
He's, I think he's doing a good job at getting his, his head around the issues when he got the
00:50:38.120
Um, and, you know, we've done shows on housing, healthcare and, you know, they're responding.
00:50:44.840
They're starting to come up with a plan and they're getting into gear.
00:50:54.300
And, and, uh, now the next thing, quite frankly, is as we get trained up and we figure out the
00:50:59.780
reserves is how do we celebrate it as Canadians?
00:51:03.360
So then, you know, which we haven't done in a long time and then start to bring them
00:51:08.460
out and start to do a little bit of a PR campaign.
00:51:12.620
You know, I like, you see a lot of it in the U S.
00:51:18.680
And, you know, during the, it feels like an infomercial.
00:51:21.360
It does during the Anthem, you know, those, the, the Navy, the army, you know, the air force,
00:51:26.340
just someone from each one standing there with flags, you know, you go, you know, they're
00:51:30.600
calling out, uh, someone who's just come back from my, uh, Iraq or during the game.
00:51:36.020
Like they're, they do a good job at celebrating their men and women of the armed forces.
00:51:44.840
And unfortunately, the world, the way it is, as we look at a 2026, the fact remains, there's
00:51:51.240
going to be a country in Scandinavia, in Europe, that's going to say, Canada, we need your
00:51:56.200
help because, and so we want to be able to, as a nation to step up with equipment, with
00:52:03.780
And that helps us in the big picture in the world stage.
00:52:07.360
Those, those men and women in Lafayette now, like you and I've talked about it, Jim, you
00:52:11.980
know, when, when that's over and they come back, like, you know, they should be celebrated
00:52:16.220
because, you know, really they were the last, uh, the last line of defense until Europe
00:52:22.620
was, uh, and they sat there knowing that, like they were, survival rate was probably
00:52:30.260
Not, not, if that, yeah, if that occurrence happened and they had the courage to actually
00:52:36.700
And they're going to be there for a few more years.
00:52:40.960
Some records were broken and, uh, we, we sit around and we, we do analyze.
00:52:45.060
I don't know if you guys notice this as a group.
00:52:46.560
We analyze a lot of stuff, keeping an eye on it with a raised eyebrow, but it's worth raising
00:52:52.140
an eyebrow to the things that we accomplished, uh, and in 2026, uh, an eye on much, much
00:52:59.740
I would be remiss of it and say, we should be proud of what we're trying to build here
00:53:05.340
And I, the one thing I enjoy about working with everyone here on and off camera is the
00:53:10.620
fact that we also are acknowledging other people, other men and women in the country
00:53:14.180
who are doing their own thing and making a difference through media, through social
00:53:20.960
We have a lot of talent in this country and we see it end up being exported, uh, around
00:53:28.640
And whether it's reporting at foreign wars or what happened to Bondi beach in Australia,
00:53:33.940
or just talking about, you know, domestic situations, you know, we, as Canadians have created
00:53:39.900
some great journalists, great individuals, great voices for that to be heard.
00:53:45.400
And I'm hoping, Jim and Mike, I'm hoping as the year goes on, 2026 comes up, is coming
00:53:55.000
The joy of long form podcasting is you get to tell your story.
00:53:58.600
And as we, you know, as we contact people and we start to talk to them, the more people
00:54:03.320
get to know us, the more they're starting to come out and, you know, we're booking people
00:54:08.720
And, you know, it, it doesn't always have to be out about a critical issue.
00:54:19.600
And that's, that's hopefully, you know, we'll hear more of them in 2026.
00:54:22.600
And we're blessed in this country, Mike, that there are so many fascinating stories
00:54:29.000
I'm not sure we broke a world record, but we produced 200 shows in a very short period
00:54:44.240
There's new stories, new people, and we're proud to do it.
00:54:47.600
Uh, all right, let's, let's look back fondly, but get 2026.
00:54:54.600
Don't, don't, don't feed the points that are to your cat.
00:54:57.600
Uh, and thank you for joining us over the holidays.