True Patriot Love - July 01, 2026


Rural Canada： Immigration & the Future of Agriculture ft. Eden Morchaev

Topics
immigration & rural Canada agriculture
Hosted by
Shara Micucci Mike Wixson
Guests
Eden Morchaev
Mentioned
Mark Carney Donald Trump
Hockey Night Canada： My Unforgettable Broadcasting Experience #Hockey Manitoba in Focus： Affordability, Opportunity, and Canada's Heartland

Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

207.09

Word count

7,503

Sentence count

—

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of the True Patriot Love podcast, I speak with Edin Mordecev, a Recruiter and logistics recruiter in Western Canada, about the challenges faced in the rural west of the country and the challenges the government is facing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 you have 100 000 refugees or 100 000 immigrants applying we can select who we want and we can
00:00:05 select do we want sales people do we want um warehouse managers do we want farmland people
00:00:12 do we want technicians we should be able to get the technicians and we should be able to set them
00:00:16 up in a proper way and and especially in rural canada western canada and put them on that career
00:00:21 path but they're not today on true patriot love i'm lucky to have edin mordecaev and we're going
00:00:32 to talk about canadian rural west and the economy and employment welcome thank you hey to be here
00:00:39 so interesting background i was talking to mike and he said i needed to talk to you because mike
00:00:44 just came back from the west coast of canada and he had crazy stories about what's happening in the
00:00:51 agri-world what's happening across western canada as far as employment so you're in that space yeah
00:00:57 so take us through give me a feel for what you're working with right now and some of the challenges
00:01:02 you're seeing yeah my as i mentioned before you know my background is in and global trade
00:01:07 compliance my title before was trade management executive so everything related to exactly what
00:01:12 we're talking about i currently lead a recruitment agency and recruitment in logistics hiring across
00:01:17 canada so everything from warehouse workers all the way up to operation managers directors and vps
00:01:24 everything related to logistics supply chain um so pretty much right up this alley yeah so what
00:01:30 you know people come to you i need i need someone from a logistics specialist on the west coast to
00:01:37 help me with my farming business with my rural cannabis who are they looking for right now so
00:01:43 this is the interesting because we do a lot of immigration shows and it's very interesting to
00:01:47 see in these shows you know they're saying okay we're not gonna uh we're not gonna get these work
00:01:52 permits extended we're not going to do this we're going to send people back who's who are they
00:01:58 looking for and why and and you know there's so many things going on with agriculture in the west
00:02:04 right now and so many opportunities and with automation and technology and engineering it's
00:02:10 so interesting to me that the government's not trying to redeploy the resources we have in the
00:02:15 country and they're taking this kind of you know brush and they're swiping across and saying all
00:02:20 you're going to go eventually um what are you finding uh the first one is they want to find
00:02:28 real trades workers right there's there's a difference from you know you mentioned immigration
00:02:32 and immigrants there's a difference from skilled trade workers and blue color workers right so
00:02:36 those who have certificates you know pretty much stuff like that um i understand that that that is
00:02:42 important and technicians and managing farmlands and managing logistics companies they need to have
00:02:47 those certificates yeah the government does give them the ability to go out and get those do they
00:02:53 get them it's a different is a different you know story right um i don't think they really did it
00:02:58 properly the first time of bringing in the correct you know the correct immigrants and the correct
00:03:02 people keep in mind that you know there is fault on the companies as well it goes both ways right
00:03:09 i mean let's take a step back right just from the rural side and we'll get right back into it
00:03:14 look at corporate america all across canada and united states companies are hiring and firing and
00:03:19 mass layoffs are happening right what happened in the 1950s 1960s 1970s you were a company man
00:03:26 you went and you worked for a company for 20 30 40 years you retired you were able to be a factory
00:03:31 worker and live on that and and buy a house with two car garage and you know go on vacation
00:03:36 and it really went away and it's funny you know you mentioned sending them back and and all that
00:03:42 when you look at meta when you look at google when you look at even canadian companies that
00:03:46 are doing mass layoffs it created the scarcity among people and you know we're a recruitment
00:03:52 agency and they can't the first thing candidates ask us right now has this company done mass layoffs
00:03:58 even there's a 78 on on employees that even though they weren't affected by the layoffs
00:04:05 they didn't get fired they still want to leave the company over the toxicness and the culture
00:04:10 that they created when you look at why they created it when you look at why these companies
00:04:13 hire and fire and mass are in mass fire it's because they know that nobody wants to go work
00:04:18 for them and the truth is not just that recruiting for them is really difficult but the truth is
00:04:23 that they can now go to government and say hey look we can't fill this position it's been open
00:04:29 for a year well yeah you created that scarcity you created that culture where you know americans
00:04:33 and Canadians don't want to go work for you just so you can create that scarcity just so you go to 0.94
00:04:38 government and not bring in employees from other countries at a much lower rate now as shitty as
00:04:45 that is what they're doing right is they're getting the skilled employees they need when
00:04:48 the government finally approves them in Canada we didn't do that especially in rural especially
00:04:53 in farmland we didn't bring in those you know the right ones so it's kind of up to you and
00:05:00 how you want to look at it the fault is on both sides i like do you really want to get the 0.97
00:05:04 immigrants who wanted to leave there or blame them they wanted to leave their country at any cost
00:05:09 right they didn't come here knowing that the government didn't prepare them properly 0.80
00:05:13 um but that's the truth that they didn't prepare them properly yeah yeah yeah no in a lot of
00:05:18 senses you know they were sold the dream right the streets are filled with gold you're gonna
00:05:23 come here get a great job get an education and find a job immediately that's not working out 0.88
00:05:28 in a lot of cases right and as you know now in the agri world on the west coast right now so
00:05:34 it's interesting because we have uh we've done a few shows on it and you know we're starting
00:05:39 to see the development um and i think in a big way and probably uh in the agri world especially
00:05:48 when we're coming through all these kuzma issues you know with mexico you know the labor demand in
00:05:54 the agri-world and also what are you seeing from a logistics perspective with people starting to
00:06:01 figure out ways to grow things to build things to actually develop the agri-world out in the west
00:06:06 coast are you seeing a big change through technology or or in the demands that people are having
00:06:14 not as fast as it should be not as how other countries are doing it um uk believe it or not
00:06:20 has better technology with their farmers and they're giving it and we don't have that yet and
00:06:26 you know look at the immigration what are the numbers like 6.2 percent on i mean unemployment
00:06:32 but within canadian citizens 6.2 percent immigrants are around 11 but what's interesting is long-term
00:06:38 immigrants are almost the same numbers as canadian citizens like born in canada so long-term
00:06:44 immigrants have figured it out the new immigrants that are coming in within the last five years
00:06:49 have not i think five to ten years is 8.2 percent uh one to five years is uh um 11 and then long 0.99
00:06:58 term that over 10 years here are at you know 6.2 which is really great because it's long term as
00:07:04 well just like canadian citizens born here in canada um but they come here and you know they 0.98
00:07:09 don't want to do the work they don't have the right technology to do the work um and they don't
00:07:13 want to write spaces for it as well so do you blame them i don't know i'll tell you my my family
00:07:20 story we migrated here from israel when i was 80 years old single mom and you know four kids
00:07:24 not to get personal but my mom worked a bunch of factory jobs uh before her sister got her
00:07:30 job in orthopedic medical supplies you know small office for custom-made orthotics and all that
00:07:36 uh we then went and and it took years to get there but we opened up our own as a family and
00:07:41 we managed to buy a house you know four bedrooms a nice car and all that yeah so the question now
00:07:47 comes is the government setting up the right processes and working with farmers especially
00:07:52 out in winnipeg especially out there um what it you know exactly what what the process is is it
00:07:58 supposed to be a temporary job until you get yourself set up and ready to go and you know you
00:08:03 go out on your own venture and do things or is it supposed to be a long term you know for the rest
00:08:07 of your life job it is but they won't do it because they can't break their backs all day long
00:08:14 right uh but at the same time you need to do something so kind of works both ways yeah well
00:08:22 you know it's interesting because the it's been around since i've been a kid you know and i'm
00:08:26 going on my 60s right now and and farmers have always had a hard time convincing their kids to
00:08:32 stay on the farm and you know when i was i was in my 30s uh late 30s i actually spent some time uh
00:08:39 with a farm i enjoyed it immensely but then i looked at it and i thought is this a long-term
00:08:44 thing for me and i realized it wasn't quite frankly um i i was going to switch careers at
00:08:49 that point uh i made the decision to stay what i was doing and all the young people that were
00:08:55 around me and were working with me at the same time we're heading to toronto we're heading to bc
00:08:59 none of them were staying on the farms and working and it becomes an issue of how do i then
00:09:04 how do i sell my farm get someone to come and take it over and if canadians don't want to do it 0.99
00:09:11 how do we get new immigrants to do it and that's the challenge especially now with all the
00:09:16 technology farming you know farming is not i think you hit on it farming has become technologically 0.99
00:09:23 very complicated it's not like when i was you know younger and used to see the guy out there
00:09:27 with just the basic tractor now you know it's ai driven it's gps synced it's you know that
00:09:33 you almost have to be a computer software engineer to run a farm just to make it work
00:09:38 how do you find how do you find new canadians coming in that actually will do that work
00:09:43 you know that's the challenge and make the financial commitment to do it thousands i mean
00:09:49 a lot of people are applying it's who we're taking right it's who we're accepting into it so
00:09:54 you have 100 000 refugees or 100 000 immigrants applying we can select who we want and we can
00:10:00 select do we want sales people do we want um warehouse managers do we want farmland people do
00:10:06 we want technicians we should be able to get the technicians and we should be able to set them up
00:10:11 in a proper way and and and especially in rural canada western canada and put them on that career
00:10:16 path but they're not um they're just not they're kind of coming in within an open territory and
00:10:22 you can do what you want when you want how you want again that's that's fine but the problem with
00:10:27 it is i don't think they're giving them the proper choice because if you're not educated on what
00:10:31 you're going to do then you're not going to have the proper choice let's put it this way you're
00:10:35 coming here from iran right you and your entire family um you get one year of a little bit of
00:10:40 help from the government um and then you're out there on your own now you're coming in here and
00:10:44 you're being sold a dream and you don't have the right expertise to do anything well then you know
00:10:50 that's kind of on you and it's kind of on the taxpayers as well um we can help them out get
00:10:55 them a proper you know equivalent of a ged and high school diploma and go and and that's fine
00:10:59 you know not a lot of people are educated but they still come here and they make a lot of money
00:11:04 but what are we doing to fix the rural issues in western canada especially in farming agriculture
00:11:09 logistics we can definitely bring in people who are not the exact fit but um 80 fit 70 fit
00:11:16 and retrofit them given their proper education they'll take it over the government yeah no no
00:11:21 i'm with you and the government continually tries to do programs like the rural and northern
00:11:26 immigration pilot plan uh you know they say they work you know they say whether it's in you know
00:11:34 saskatchewan or other places i don't know if that's the right approach it hasn't been effective
00:11:40 okay it hasn't it's not sorry when i said that they're not they're not doing it effectively
00:11:44 yeah they're just not they're not doing it effectively the education is not done properly
00:11:50 for them uh it's a lot easier you know when first of all i got to give credit to mark carney in in
00:11:56 some things right i understand what's happening to him he took over during donald trump you know
00:12:02 second term era when just pure craziness happened huge portion of our trade is with the us now he
00:12:07 has to go and try to renegotiate with all these different countries that we've never done business
00:12:12 with um and that's going to take time so i'll give him a little bit of credit for that he's trying to
00:12:16 figure it out all right fine um but that's more for the expert side of things um and when it comes
00:12:22 to produce when it comes to agriculture we can produce plenty over here we can export plenty
00:12:27 plenty over here i don't think the right people are in place i don't think the right uh government
00:12:32 programs are in place um he's inherited a really bad government um and he's he's trying to figure
00:12:38 it out yeah yeah so he's about to go into kuzma so let's talk about kuzma for a minute in agriculture
00:12:44 so he's about to go into you know there's discussion the doom and gloom coming up to july 1
00:12:50 right and so you know we've done a number of shows on this uh the us is kind of tinkering with
00:12:57 them i think yesterday we're starting to start discussions on steel coming out of the g7 um so
00:13:02 that is positive i guess discussions are coming other than the hot mic incident with uh carney
00:13:08 and trump yeah you know that didn't go well but but you know planned or not that's what it was
00:13:14 you know agriculture and kuzma because there's the really tough part right now we have all these
00:13:19 crazy supply management issues when it comes to milk and other things that we're not willing to
00:13:24 concede on the us is saying well if you're not willing to concede on it you know then we're not
00:13:29 budging either so that's going to cause a problem and then you look at what happened in mexico
00:13:34 between shy bomb and and uh greer on the last discussion when they went first it doesn't look
00:13:40 like a great picture on the ag side you know he really was very tough on mexico with respect to
00:13:45 agriculture saying you better give up some of your energy uh resources or quite frankly we're going
00:13:51 to cut off your egg are you getting any sense of where he's going with this in canada and where
00:13:57 kuzma is going to affect uh rural canada and the west trump said he's going to dismantle kuzma
00:14:02 nobody knows exactly what that means um you know he claims that uh canada is robbing them which is
00:14:09 not anywhere near true we're selling them our oil at record low prices which we could be selling to
00:14:13 other countries at much higher prices remove that from the equation and you know we're at a very
00:14:18 clear um export import you know within the deficit it's not it's not true at all it's a lot of
00:14:23 rhetoric and i understand him from his point he's trying to fight the best for his country he doesn't
00:14:28 care about canada nor should he but we need you know our prime minister is not necessarily fighting
00:14:33 it christina freeland was one of the worst you know of people to go and negotiate a deal i think
00:14:39 there's a video online with us in the european trade union on negotiating christina freeland
00:14:44 went and and she i think there's a video of her crying with tears like our trade with europe has
00:14:49 not done much all you have to do is go sign the contract and and even then and donald trump took
00:14:53 look at it and said i'm going to dismantle canada when it comes to kuzma if that's the people
00:14:56 leading it um when carney took over he replaced him but i don't know if they're any better than
00:15:01 that um kuzma is going to be as strong as we can negotiate it for and we have two choices
00:15:07 we're either going to give up or we're going to hold as long as we can until trump leaves office
00:15:11 it's one of the two right um in canada agriculture we better not give up on the milk i i re that's
00:15:17 my personal opinion i come from the world of global trade compliance there's a lot of you
00:15:21 know you talk about jobs and farming and all that if we negotiate on this and we give up these things
00:15:26 we won't have um the proper jobs for it we won't have anybody to employ for it so we need to hold
00:15:32 up as much as we can um we need to create a better trade agreement with the rest of europe forget
00:15:37 america you know at this point you can't have all of your eggs in one basket imagine you have a
00:15:42 company right you own a corporation you have one client that makes up 80 of your revenue are you
00:15:46 okay with that what happens if the client leaves what you need to diversify and of course we don't
00:15:50 have any of that um canada where we're becoming really good in agriculture is uh vertical farming
00:15:56 and greenhouse farming we're now able to grow tomatoes at record numbers we're able to grow
00:16:01 uh cucumbers at record numbers uh bell peppers at record numbers and if the government just
00:16:05 invested into it we'll actually have something to export when it comes to agriculture and we can run
00:16:10 it all year round um it's something that i hope the the government really supersedes and you know
00:16:17 when it comes to kuzma i'm not going to say forget about it it's a huge trading partner of ours but
00:16:21 we need to diversify that should be the number one goal of ours yeah well i think you know and
00:16:26 that's a great point greenhouse farming and the vertical i think we definitely need to focus on
00:16:32 given where we're going with this and i think we've been slow to the market on it um i hope
00:16:37 we're going to accelerate that and put some money into it we talk about productivity and canadians
00:16:42 all the time on this show so how our productivity levels are so low when farming now's the time
00:16:48 given where we're going with kuzma in my mind we got to accelerate that put more money and when we
00:16:54 put money into programs like for example uh you know anything to do with farming on the west coast
00:17:00 we need to make sure that we're getting the return and we're getting the productivity levels but
00:17:04 right now it's hard to get people to go onto those farms that's the issue we're having how do we how
00:17:09 how do we convince our citizens to move from tech jobs that they hope to get
00:17:14 sitting in the main cities to move back to the farms?
00:17:17 And that's the tough, you know, because if I'm sitting, you know,
00:17:19 I don't know about you, you're definitely younger than I am.
00:17:23 How do you, how do you go into people your age and younger and say to them,
00:17:26 okay, transition back to the farms,
00:17:29 use your technical skills as well as your technology skills to actually
00:17:33 advance yourself. You're going to make a good living.
00:17:35 Cause I know myself, I knew a number of farmers,
00:17:38 like I mentioned throughout the Windsor-Essex corridor
00:17:40 when I was involved, they made a great living.
00:17:45 They had a great life.
00:17:47 And it's just how do you convince people
00:17:49 to move out of the main cities again?
00:17:51 There's been studies on this in other countries
00:17:52 and how to get people back into those rural jobs,
00:17:55 not in Canada.
00:17:56 I mean, not any successful ones in Canada,
00:17:58 but you have to look at it from a generational point of view.
00:18:01 Like you've heard Starbucks trying to get into,
00:18:03 I think it was Japan, and it was essentially non-existent.
00:18:08 right? A coffee wasn't a thing in Japan for anything. Starbucks and all that wanted to get
00:18:13 into it. They knew that they couldn't get into it right away. So what they started doing is going to
00:18:17 children's television shows and all that and then putting advertising coffee in it. Within 10 to 15
00:18:23 years, it just blew up and now coffee is everywhere because the next generation took over that, right?
00:18:28 Tea drinkers. And they took the same methodology in other countries and added it to it. We need to
00:18:33 train the next generation. We can't focus on this one. We need to focus on children between the age 1.00
00:18:38 of 10 15 16 and show them the benefits of it uh right now we're not going to do that so you either 0.54
00:18:43 have two choices you're going to do it that way and think of a long-term solution there's no quick 0.99
00:18:47 fix or the other one is exactly what we talked about before immigrants there are very very 0.82
00:18:52 selective immigrants we should be bringing in um in in in the actual interviews with them we need
00:18:58 to talk about hey this is where you'd be living this is um you know how you you do this they tried 1.00
00:19:04 they didn't do it properly there's nothing effective about how they're doing it they have
00:19:08 government programs it is not effective whatsoever um you can create it by the way it's not about
00:19:14 buying a farm it's not about any of that you can make an incredible living by becoming an
00:19:20 electrician servicing all the farm equipment oh yeah and and you start your own company you get
00:19:25 four or five farms that you do it for you have a business making you know four or five hundred
00:19:29 thousand a year we're not talking about going to the farm and doing the physical work on a regular
00:19:33 day-to-day basis there's plenty of jobs in an entire ecosystem based on it um you know it
00:19:39 doesn't have to be one thing it could be any of it yeah well i spent a lot of time early in early
00:19:44 in my life i spent a lot of time with horses and so quite frankly and i was involved in horse
00:19:49 racing in a big way i was always amazed at the spin-off jobs that came out of horse racing
00:19:54 whether it was uh you know the blacksmith whether it was the tack shop whether whatever it was
00:19:59 you know the vets so that spinoffs of just being involved you know in rural canada are amazing for
00:20:05 the community i was lucky enough to be involved in a program where we funded a significant amount
00:20:10 of um it was horse racing and quite frankly that spun off you could see the economic impact
00:20:17 effects directly the people buying new trucks new trailers getting involved i i've seen it in
00:20:22 my lifetime i know it works it's just trying to convince people to do it and that's the tough
00:20:27 part right now and you know you're it's interesting you brought up the point when we came so my uh my
00:20:33 family came from italy of course and when we came we were actually ushered up to the north
00:20:39 because quite frankly my grandfather had uh lumberjack so you know worked on a farm uh had
00:20:46 the lumberjack experience you know cutting trees so he went up and that's what he did he worked on
00:20:50 the docks and then lumberjack and that was his skill set and they actually uh when he came in
00:20:56 through halifax that's where they sent him directly was uh northern ontario and so he moved up there
00:21:01 and you had to be sponsored by family in those days so quite frankly all our family was up past
00:21:07 the sioux and so we were all sent up and that's why we worked where we worked and it's very
00:21:11 interesting you know that that's uh we're seeing programs now but we don't see what we did in the
00:21:16 past and how that works so well yeah but you know i think there is an opportunity here and i'm pretty
00:21:21 sure you're going to agree with me on this there's a really big opportunity to convince canadians
00:21:26 right now to go and move up there um we're burnt out we're i talk to candidates every day from the
00:21:32 corporate world right we have we're in the recruitment agency we do corporate jobs and we do
00:21:36 um warehousing logistics jobs they're burnt out they're burnt out from the nine to five they're
00:21:41 burnt out by giving it all to a company that would fire them in a heartbeat um they they try to hire
00:21:46 the lowest you know possible salary um within one minute they get fired it takes them eight months
00:21:50 to find another job they get fired from that as well um i talk to people all the time right now
00:21:55 that are trying to move away from downtown go more up north where they can get more land
00:21:59 more dollar for value and they're raising their kids up there um right now there is an opportunity
00:22:04 to do it i wouldn't know how to do it do you i maybe you do because you come from from that land
00:22:09 i i ensure you take a family of two kids living downtown i live in core downtown uh in a very very
00:22:15 family-oriented building um you ask him how would you do it they have no idea they don't my neighbor
00:22:21 is an engineer um you ask him how he would do it he would have no idea i think educating them
00:22:26 and showing them really how easy it is and what the benefits are they'll be able to do it in a
00:22:29 heartbeat oh yeah yeah i think so it's interesting so i uh one of my businesses i actually had a beer
00:22:36 salesman and he came to me one day his name was uh justin i love justin he was a great guy
00:22:41 he came to me one day and uh he said i'm i'm leaving i said where are you going he says i'm
00:22:45 I'm going to go run a cattle farm up north.
00:22:48 And I said, do you have any idea about cattle?
00:22:51 He says, I've been reading about it.
00:22:53 So this kid, I call him a kid because when you're my age,
00:22:56 everyone who's younger than you is a kid.
00:22:57 So he leaves, and I kept track.
00:23:01 After COVID, I haven't talked to him that much,
00:23:03 but before COVID, I was keeping track of him.
00:23:05 He actually made it work.
00:23:07 He's doing it.
00:23:08 He's actually doing it, and he's bringing his family up.
00:23:11 He's living up north.
00:23:13 You know, Justin, if you get it watching the show, please call me.
00:23:16 But, you know, he figured out that his lifestyle being in Toronto, traveling around in traffic and the day-to-day grind wasn't for him and his wife.
00:23:27 Sold everything, leveraged himself, went in, bought a cattle farm and actually is doing fairly well last time I talked to him.
00:23:33 And you hear these stories, but, you know, with automation and everything going on and the capital investment, you're starting to see the government, which is great.
00:23:42 and I'm seeing it through BDC programs, which is really nice,
00:23:45 the Business Development Corpse,
00:23:47 they're starting to put a little money into this.
00:23:49 And a lot of money right now in AI.
00:23:51 So you can see a ton.
00:23:52 So if you have an AI company, BDC is funding those companies.
00:23:56 But you're starting to see they're actually putting money
00:23:58 into farming and manufacturing in a big way.
00:24:01 And I think that's a good use.
00:24:03 As long as there's KPIs, key performance indicators with those loans,
00:24:08 I think that's a magnificent thing to do to get people to actually go and start to participate.
00:24:14 Because if I can get that initial capital hurdle out of the way, yeah, hey, I'm going to take a risk.
00:24:20 I'll tell you one thing.
00:24:21 We are a recruitment agency, and I've invested more than you could imagine on coming out with the software side of recruitment.
00:24:27 It's launching very soon.
00:24:29 It's called Recruitable. 0.64
00:24:30 It's an African tracking system, AI-powered. 1.00
00:24:32 I didn't want to do this because I wanted to. 0.96
00:24:35 i was just so frustrated over the the the software that my recruiters and i use i'm like i'll rather
00:24:41 just go and invent her own and um i decided that i'm not going to incorporate that business in
00:24:46 canada i'm going to incorporate in the u.s and and and i didn't want to deal with canada anymore
00:24:49 especially under you know trudeau's um more money than you could imagine uh went into this uh a lot
00:24:57 more than i thought and would have reconsidered it before starting it probably yeah i knew it
00:25:00 before the product even launches we're spending around eight grand a month on servers data centers
00:25:06 and all that um and i didn't mind it and but i'm like i'm not i'm not doing it canada is a huge
00:25:12 problem and with canadians that are starting their businesses in the us so we're not even
00:25:17 paying taxes here for corporations we're all paying for it in the us his new program um they
00:25:23 actually if you're using a canadian data center they'll refund you about 50 of the cost if you're
00:25:29 using azure or or aws if you're using a canadian based uh data center like they're they're a small
00:25:34 company in canada they'll refund you out of 75 80 percent i look at that i looked at all the other
00:25:40 government government programs mark carney created in the new i think it was june 4th when he announced
00:25:45 it i i said i'm moving my corporation back over here oh nice i did it yeah i i i said i'm going
00:25:53 to move it back over here it makes sense finally to be here in canada um and i did it you know
00:25:58 microsoft gave us um credit uh the government of canada gave us credit and it made sense to
00:26:03 bring businesses over here um agriculture over here we're still not innovating we're buying
00:26:08 we're purchasing from other countries and and you think you think canada would be the number
00:26:13 one innovator because it's cold you know 70 of the year we can create ways around it and and
00:26:20 we're not um so innovation is where it should be i don't think the credit should just be to go and
00:26:24 just incorporate ai into your existing but to innovate ai is where it should be um we need to
00:26:30 have you know governments going in and properly funding actual businesses not just saying that
00:26:35 hey if you incorporate ai so they have a chance to do it you know who does this really well by
00:26:40 the way who israel when you look at israel i was gonna ask you yeah when you look at israel it is
00:26:45 you know a very very tiny country yeah um it has one of the best agricultures in the world i went
00:26:50 to costco the other day and i saw pomegranates from israel because they're they're one of the
00:26:54 best when it comes to vertical farming um they don't even import that much because they can
00:26:59 they just grow their own fruits their own vegetables for such a small country and they
00:27:03 they're agriculture experts their innovation it is incredible um you look at a country that is just
00:27:10 based on survival and forget the politics behind everything else just let's let's talk about the
00:27:14 innovation side of it um they have no resources whatsoever zero they have no natural they have
00:27:21 known they were just in the desert um yet they managed they knew that they needed you know to
00:27:26 get have control over their own water um they are the number one country and the innovators and the
00:27:32 founders of distilling water from the ocean into into drinkable water in fact israel has a problem
00:27:38 that they have too much water uh the drinking water so they ask people to actually leave the
00:27:42 faucets on and all that they did such a good job at it but they did it because of survival they
00:27:47 needed it for their own survival and they innovate and they create it now they're actually going to
00:27:51 all the other countries around africa and other parts of the world uh and they're training them
00:27:55 on how to build that entire system to take ocean water um and convert it into drinking water and
00:28:00 then all the access salt they actually sell into chemicals and you know skin care and all that where
00:28:05 you can actually make money off of it but that's what happens when you you have a need and you did
00:28:10 same thing with agriculture by the way they realized that hey we can't depend on any other
00:28:15 country we need to do this on our own and now they're exporting it and the technology
00:28:18 so what is canada doing to innovate on the technology side i i generally don't know i
00:28:24 don't have that i i tried i really really tried googling it when was the last time we had a
00:28:28 company in canada go for an ipo i think it's been years yeah no we're not doing anything we're not
00:28:33 i don't think we've had a real canadian company go for an ipo um it's one of the let's see the
00:28:38 actually opposite the truth they're delisting more than they're listing so yeah yeah so when you look
00:28:44 at your your first question how do you get canadians back over there we we first of all we
00:28:50 need to train them we need to educate them about all the jobs all the opportunities i live downtown
00:28:55 i don't know a single person has done it but also um you know within the world of downtown i don't
00:28:59 know a single person has ever even thought about farming or thought about innovating um but at the
00:29:04 same time out of all my friends i'm the only one who lives downtown everybody else moved up north
00:29:09 king city and and you know are even more than right than that so there is an opportunity oh i
00:29:15 think there is i think there is you know the void though you know and i think you hit on it it's
00:29:20 trying to figure out a way to get people through to get those skills to actually do it and and get
00:29:26 there going to countries like israel so that's an interesting one because you know all the focus on
00:29:32 on israel lately but you know techno technology wise they're very savvy country they've actually
00:29:38 figured out a lot of processes like you said being in the middle of the desert we do a lot of shows
00:29:43 actually where we talk about norway because norway has been a very interesting focus of ours for the
00:29:49 last few months and and you look at norway and you look at all the innovative things they do in their
00:29:55 climate it's amazing like israel they've advanced their technology they've created a wealth fund
00:30:00 you know they use oil strategically they do all these really cool things that actually build the
00:30:05 communities we have it we talk about it we talk about us being mineral resource water resource
00:30:11 we talk all about all these things we need to start figuring out how to do it and align it
00:30:16 that's the crazy thing that i'm so happy you you said i'm moving my company back to canada that's
00:30:22 amazing now you know trying to help this government figure out how to align the pieces that's that's
00:30:28 you know where we talk a lot on the shows we do at tpl um to try to get people and you know one
00:30:35 of the things we're we're constantly talking about is you know how to use ai um strategically to do
00:30:43 that the challenge right now is you know ai ai in agriculture or ai in the rural west um it's being
00:30:51 rebuffed a little bit right people are kind of going oh i'm okay i don't need a data center i
00:30:56 don't need any so we're kind of as canadians we're kind of hot and cold on this idea do you when you
00:31:02 talk to your clients you know are are they talking about kind of data centers in the west you know
00:31:08 what they're going to do they need employees that's what they talk to me they need employees
00:31:12 their companies clients are getting upset clients are leaving them there and the client is just
00:31:19 going down to another logistics company down the street and that is facing the exact same thing
00:31:24 they need they need employees that's the first thing they're thinking of yeah uh it's they're
00:31:29 not filling jobs they're not and we're trying to and uh we're trying to figure it out we're
00:31:34 we're trying to figure out how to exactly recruit candidates um for them but the truth is it is very
00:31:39 very difficult right um that's the number one thing data centers we looked them for we looked
00:31:46 at them for different for for recruitable for our software company and again i i think you kind of
00:31:50 have to stick with the big ones which really sucks rogers is not doing a really good job with it to
00:31:55 be honest rogers is getting more subsidy than anyone else yet they're innovating the least
00:32:00 i don't understand why we're giving money towards them and for their innovation it makes absolutely
00:32:04 no sense um data centers could be you know huge but if we had if we had the electricity cost if
00:32:12 we had everything else it makes no sense it just doesn't we have the we have the cold we have the
00:32:18 water we have the hydroelectricity you know bell's gone into it big time right saskatchewan you hear
00:32:24 about it um but you know uh they've been rebuffed in other places you know alberta just shut down
00:32:30 kinetic core right so there's there's hit and miss when you go to the west coast to see who's
00:32:36 really gonna get into data centers and make it work and and it's a shame because manitoba also
00:32:42 you know jet ai got turned down so how do you how do you balance that out and if you can't find the
00:32:48 right people even to get into farming how do you get people to go into technology in rural
00:32:52 uh canada in the ai centers it's tough it is um i think this is where you know we start blaming
00:33:01 the government we start blaming you know companies where they need to give them more
00:33:05 incentives to to go over there companies you know i recruited for a company they had an incredible
00:33:11 incredible guy over there who was bringing in you know x amount of number this was a
00:33:15 for a logistic sales job um let's let's say i'm not going to give the action but let's say it's
00:33:19 a million dollars a year in toronto they offered him 130k base and and and about 250 000 ote
00:33:26 in winnipeg the the candidate brought in more than the the guy in toronto yet they offered him a a
00:33:31 smaller salary and he's like why because that's the cost of living but he's driving more revenue
00:33:37 who cares what the cost of living is he's driving more revenue to your business and they're like no
00:33:40 okay well then now you're going to come to me and complain that you can't find people
00:33:45 how is that on us he you know he drives more revenue how how is that on us right um so you
00:33:51 know companies need to figure that out as well yeah well hopefully we will we're growing right
00:33:56 so that you know and every day i think we're learning you know before you go i just wanted
00:34:02 to talk tell us a little more about your company because we at the beginning you kind of gave me a
00:34:06 you know a quick snapshot of it you're doing recruiting you're doing uh resourcing yeah you
00:34:13 know just tell the tell the folks because i think it's interesting you know you came back
00:34:19 you're making it happen how can you help like how can you help if i have a farm or i have a
00:34:24 business out west how can you help them yeah if you have you know if you need employees anywhere
00:34:30 you need operations directors technology people you need you have you know logistics employees
00:34:35 uh we have logistics talent agency and what we do is we go out and we head hunt so we convince
00:34:40 people to leave their current jobs and go out and you know to your job we need to create a business
00:34:45 case of why that needs to happen we we've moved candidates from toronto to winnipeg it's happened
00:34:49 we've done it multiple times we've done it from vancouver to eastern canada we've done it multiple
00:34:54 times uh most people don't know that those jobs even exist right they don't know that it's an
00:34:59 option it's it's very very doable uh i can i can assure you based on what we spoke before
00:35:05 um people in toronto want to leave they want a quieter life they want all of it so as long as
00:35:10 the companies offer the same salary and they realize hey i make 120 000 a year over here
00:35:15 um you know here i'm getting all i can do is live paycheck to paycheck with a one-bedroom
00:35:19 apartment if i move to halifax if i move to winnipeg i can get a house yeah with it um that's
00:35:24 that's what we do we convince them to leave their jobs and and realize that there's a much better
00:35:28 you know life elsewhere uh but i'm going to put the blame back into the company and say you need
00:35:33 to offer him the same wages thank you and thank you for taking the time today yeah great insight
00:35:39 yeah thank you appreciate it all the best thank you looking for reliable and convenient personal
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