00:03:17.440It really was something to watch how logistically this plant worked and how much it fed Canada.
00:03:24.280And they would be unhappy, and they would go out on these wildcat strikes, and they would stay out.
00:03:29.120i remember i remember one year uh they were out for like three months oh wow yeah these were long
00:03:35.920strikes they were they were like wildcats where uh basically they would shut the plant down and
00:03:41.600they would blockade the plant um they would try to bring scab labor in and they would fight them
00:03:46.560on the line as people were trying this is not the the old days they would like you know smash windows
00:03:52.320and fight on the streets and and then they would go at night and drink and play cards while keeping
00:03:57.920the plant closed um and then over time as it went longer and longer and the the funds for the union
00:04:04.240dwindled guys would kind of take off and get jobs other places until the strike ended and uh you
00:04:10.080know that was my background now that's changed a lot mind you and you know when i dug into the show
00:04:15.760today um it changed a lot because i think the composition of union workers has changed right
00:04:22.160and as you're talking about even there that's a that's a private company at the time right and
00:04:27.360yeah you look at now where almost all of the unionized workers in canada are uh are public
00:04:34.080sector workers and then to even the the large share of the decline that we've seen in unionized
00:04:41.600work over the last few decades has been coming from the private sector now that it's not unique
00:04:47.200to canada either right uh but it it does go to show that yeah the the trends are definitely
00:04:53.680changing in terms of represented work. But yeah, I think it is a very interesting question as to
00:05:00.920what the future of strikes look like, because even we've seen over the last couple of years,
00:05:06.340right, the major ones such as Canada Post, that was a big one, even to the airliners as well.
00:05:15.560these you know not to discount but it's okay if you've got one uh one industry let's say
00:05:23.820like a meat processing plant that's pretty other than say a few grocery stores and stuff it's
00:05:30.560pretty confined right but you shut down something like Canada Post the the ripple effects from that
00:05:37.120are are massive and so even even I at the time you know uh another another venture that I've
00:05:44.460been working on we were using canada post to ship products and stuff like that and so when they went
00:05:49.860on strike we went oh our entire online store gone gone yeah um and so yeah the the ripple effects
00:05:57.220there are pretty crazy but to even see as well how the government has changed in terms of dealing
00:06:03.700with those uh with those strikes because yeah they they over the last few years uh they've been
00:06:09.880leaning quite heavily on on legislation to to intervene and to to shut down to shut down those
00:06:16.540strikes and so it'll be interesting even this right now they are trying to decide as to whether
00:06:23.980that legislation should stay in place whether it needs to be bolstered removed whether it's
00:06:30.940against the charter so there's big discussions going on because yeah essentially what they've
00:06:36.520been doing is there's a specific section of the Canada Labour Code section 107 I believe that
00:06:44.200allows the minister to override any strike so it doesn't even need to be voted on in parliament
00:06:50.880right wow and so I think that's probably where my issue would lie with it is that it's just all
00:06:58.900centralized and there is no essentially larger discussion or decision being made as to whether
00:07:04.500to shut down a strike but on the on the other end i do see a need for it right like if you if
00:07:13.780if you kind of you just want a better process in place for making that decision because even now
00:07:20.420you're seeing where this yeah this labor this labor code it's been been around since uh mid
00:07:26.1801980s as you're talking about that that last uh kind of hot spot for for strikes but it wasn't
00:07:34.100used at all until 2023 i believe and then since then it's been used eight times so
00:07:41.220yeah so they just started leaning on it heavy and uh and so yeah i think that's where you know you
00:07:48.180kind of have an issue is when you go oh there's this this kind of provision buried in there and
00:07:53.700we found out we can use it now we're just gonna start spam spamming it right well yeah let me
00:07:58.900take because this is interesting because you know you sent me over some notes for the show and i
00:08:03.060started digging into it and as i'm looking at it i'm thinking you know how many public sector
00:08:08.500workers are there right yeah so we're talking municipal federal and provincial so there's
00:08:13.620roughly 4.4.6 million people that work in some shape or form in the government crown corporations
00:08:21.780publicly funded establishments schools universities hospitals so that's the number of people in there
00:08:27.380the stats have it coming from stats can that 77 of these people are in a union they have a
00:08:34.240collective agreement that's buying so three and a half million people right so i'm thinking oh wow
00:08:40.100that's a lot of people right because i'm there's always an argument that we have here at a true
00:08:44.880patriot love is how many people are actually working in the country right and you know
00:08:50.100the government tells us consistently that 20 million people so we have 40 million 42 million
00:08:57.580people now i think in canada it's probably growing every minute um but let's use 42 million 20 million
00:09:03.860of them are actively working so take out seniors take out kids take out people on disability
00:09:08.920unemployment that's the number we have so roughly you know they use 20 we can never get to that
00:09:16.140number, Liam. So I told you before the show, we struggle because when we do the math, we can only
00:09:22.320ever find 16 million people working. And we do want to take unemployment and disability and
00:09:27.300everything out of it. So for this show, I'm going to use our math. All right. Because for the
00:09:32.060listeners out there who like to do test my math all the time and send me those notes about my math
00:09:37.540as well, just give a disclaimer, right? So that really is one in four Canadians are in the public
00:09:44.600sector under a collective agreement right now right an astonishing number if you think about
00:09:50.040it right so uh you know and as far as countries go you're not going to find a lot of countries
00:09:54.200that have one in four people in a collective agreement for the public sector job yeah that's
00:09:59.240a big number right for for a country that only has 42 million so you look at it and if you look at it
00:10:06.440only and this has gone down it it has gone down over the years if you're in the private sector
00:10:12.600in canada it used to be 30 of the people like that canada packers example i used were in the union
00:10:20.120now it's only 15.5 percent right so it's dropped in half but that's an that's a worldwide trend
00:10:26.920that we're seeing so we've seen that in all the developed countries the 32 map developed countries
00:10:32.840you've seen unionization going down continually continue continuing private sector businesses
00:10:38.280right and we can get into that in a minute but does that mean so when i'm i'm kind of de-layering
00:10:43.880this i'm thinking to myself so is the government kind of now figured out that because they've let
00:10:51.400the kind of the the cat out of the bag uh they're now have to figure out a way to manage it because
00:10:59.400all these unionized employees that they've hired they've built this mega you know industry of
00:11:05.400government public sector workers they've decided not to privatize businesses but to actually
00:11:11.240modernize them and keep control of them um and now even you know our prime minister has gone to the
00:11:17.000point where he's capitalizing projects so i find that interesting so now he's actually saying these
00:11:23.080are government assets these are government workers i'm going to run these businesses which used to be
00:11:27.560private businesses as our businesses yep so it but the challenge that comes with that now is because
00:11:34.680they're unionized how do you keep them working and now how do you deal with them when they're
00:11:39.480unhappy right right so it's your own you know it's that catch-22 is it not well and i think i think
00:11:46.200that is the biggest aspect of this discussion here is because you can think about it in standard
00:11:52.360terms of okay if you've got private companies dealing with uh employees and then let's say
00:11:59.880there is a strike there that affects the national economy then the government you could understand
00:12:06.040coming in as a mediator or a middleman deciding whether to allow the strike to continue or
00:12:11.320shutting it down as as we've seen but once the employer becomes the government like
00:12:19.080we're starting to see a major a major issue here when okay if you've got three parties essentially
00:12:26.600the uh the negotiators the company and the government well if now the government is two of
00:12:33.420those those pieces then i i see that actually is taking more and more away from that uh the the
00:12:41.400bargaining power of those those workers and those unions actually even in one of the cases i believe
00:12:46.780it was the WestJet example where they came in and quashed that strike. The CEO, even at the time,
00:12:58.680Michael Rousseau, he even said, yeah, we were banking on that the entire time. We didn't even
00:13:05.200put contingencies in place for negotiation. We didn't even worry about what we would have to do
00:13:09.760with these, what concessions we'd have to make, because we were just confident that the government
00:13:14.460was going to come in and stop it yeah and so so you do you would start to see more and more of that
00:13:20.560uh i would assume and then too even even as well i think it it adds an extra aspect because even
00:13:29.520okay if you look at say the the canada post strike this one that that i have kind of i guess qualms
00:13:37.480with in the sense where you look year after year the canada post revenue has been going into the
00:13:45.000drain to the point where they're running massive deficits now and billions billions and then so
00:13:50.600then you've got the employees collectively bargaining to raise the wages and you just go
00:13:57.560this goes against every single business dynamic you could ever think about like how how are we
00:14:03.080supposed to square these two especially then when you consider that it's the taxpayers that are
00:14:08.200bankrolling these deficits like it's not like it's a company that's eating it and then so so that's
00:14:14.360where i see you get to this point where the the taxpayers are the ones that are really eating the
00:14:21.560the cost here it's not it's not its own little business um and so you know for me okay our taxes
00:14:28.280are helping uh fund this this business but then the business shuts down and my business is affected
00:14:36.440and so like what am i supposed to pay those taxes with now and then yeah you just do kind of get
00:14:41.560into this downward spiral with with these kind of industries that are nationalized effectively
00:14:47.400yeah no no i'm with you you know let's go back for a minute because you hit on something you hit on
00:14:52.280something very interesting which we're on the cusp of right now and i'm trying to figure out where
00:14:57.320this is going so we didn't see the enactment of this legislation until 23 right and you know it's
00:15:06.680very interesting because strikes and i i hit on at the beginning of the show with canada package i
00:15:11.960took a look before i said they were much more prevalent during the 1970s and 80s right in 1980
00:15:19.640alone the number of person days not worked due to labor disputes were 9.1 million days
00:15:25.960right so this legislation came in 84 or 87 that sat on the books until now
00:15:33.320but you know i i was talking to you about it earlier we you know we at that time of uh of
00:15:39.960uh in the world were living through this massive inflation and i remember my dad um you know because
00:15:45.960he had also a business that he ran on the side and i remember him and you know being in the truck and
00:15:52.120him saying to me man i'm paying 12.5 uh interest right but i'm getting a great deal you know i'm
00:15:59.800thinking wow i'm thinking 12 and a half percent inch like it's crazy right yeah but inflation was
00:16:04.920the same like we were at we were at times when interest rates and inflation were skyrocketing
00:16:10.840people were not happy so now i'm looking at and i'm thinking to myself okay now you have this
00:16:16.360interesting time where you know we have oil disruptions uh we have uh basically affordability
00:16:24.040issues with uh you know our tariff challenges with the us it's inevitable we're going to see
00:16:30.760spiking inflation i think though for the people who don't think that's going to hit us because
00:16:35.160you know we're also uh borrowing a ton of money to keep ourselves afloat as a nation
00:16:41.240and we have huge interest servicing components of our budget every year that we have to satiate to
00:16:47.480stay alive and we've just gone out um in april we set a record record uh bond offering uh sale
00:16:55.960that sold 43 of our percent of our total bond portfolio portfolio to foreign entities
00:17:03.240so we're paying huge interest to them you know for them to to carry our debt um and now we're
00:17:09.960we're going to be sitting on this inflation these people who are working you know the public sector
00:17:14.600and people work in the industry uh who have unions are going to be coming back to the table it's
00:17:19.320inevitable history has shown us that that's going to happen and to your point you know governments
00:17:26.200they can keep legislating them back to work but then i guess people at that point are going to say
00:17:34.120that's where i think you're going to see the you know the loggerhead where people are going to say
00:17:39.480okay union what are you doing for me now because my inflation is going up my cost to live is going
00:17:45.640up my wages aren't matching you're my union and they're going to be saying well they're going to
00:17:50.520legislate us back to work isn't this inevitably going to hit a it's going to hit a wall at some
00:17:55.480point is it not i would i would almost be happy if there was a wall because because i i view it more
00:18:04.440like more like a spiral because these things happen they're they're they're positive feedback
00:18:09.800loops in a sense where if you think you know to take it outside of economics for a second it's
00:18:15.560very similar to say for instance drinking or something like you drink because you're stressed
00:18:21.160but then the next day it the fact that you drank it raised your cortisol levels so you feel like
00:18:26.280you need to drink more and then you just kind of end up in this this spiral yeah and i look at that
00:18:31.000very similarly to our economy where okay there's a bunch of quick fixes being thrown around like i
00:18:38.760would see whether whether the government you know they can only quash these things so long as you're
00:18:43.960saying so eventually they will cave at a certain point but then what does that happen is then all
00:18:50.040of that is going to be the process of deficit spending so you're just going to see more get put
00:18:55.720onto the public debt and then what does more deficit spending give you is more inflation
00:19:01.640so then you're going to have them demanding for more money and so you're just going to kind of
00:19:05.960see this this spiral we've seen it many times before you know whether it be the argentinian
00:19:12.200economy whether it be the venezuelan economy all of these kind of things as they as they become
00:19:17.800more centralized and more controlled and i think that's the that's the real trend that we're seeing
00:19:23.960here. Even, too, as you were talking about, more people are being employed by the public sector.
00:19:29.980Private sector isn't seeing that increase. And you're seeing more government spending into these
00:19:36.280projects. You're seeing more, essentially, heavy-handedness in cracking down on the strikes
00:19:43.480and so on. And so, really, when you take the meta-analysis of it, you are just seeing more
00:19:49.180and more of a centralization of the economy as a whole and i think that's gonna yeah just
00:19:54.520you know as as a as a guy that tends to follow free market principles uh i i see that just
00:20:02.360adding more and more to the to the problems and so yeah it's gonna be yeah yeah band-aid fix here
00:20:10.400more inflation band-aid fix there more inflation and just continue it is well you know it's
00:20:15.940interesting because you know with with globalization we started to see and we talked about it earlier
00:20:22.220we started to see unionization in the private sector decrease and i looked and i thought to
00:20:26.480myself okay i kind of knew that and so i dug into it i said why did it go down and it went down
00:20:32.800because eventually in order to avoid the unionization they pushed it offshore so you know
00:20:38.520this is kind of the donald trump you know i want to bring jobs back home but it's a little bit of
00:20:44.120catch-22 for him you know you bring jobs back home into highly unionized industries then you have
00:20:50.920those industries now totally controlled on your homeland so then you have to create strike
00:20:55.800legislation that doesn't that is fair to everyone right so we've kind of balanced we've done it we've
00:21:03.080done a little differently because we've actually uh like you said consolidated more public sector
00:21:08.600workers um we're trying to capitalize uh assets on our government books and take over projects
00:21:15.800um they're trying to do the opposite they're trying to force more private sector jobs but
00:21:21.080the challenge with what they're going to have is the us which i worked in for 12 years is highly
00:21:26.520unionized so they're going to hit a highly unionized environment and therefore they're
00:21:31.240They're going to be at the, you know, kind of the beck and call of the unions to call the shot in different industries that are key, whether it be auto.
00:21:41.240You know, we just saw the port strikes that took place in California last year and how devastating that was to trade in the U.S. and to food supply and costing everything else.
00:21:53.420so you know he's got he's got a whole set of other issues that by cutting off globalization
00:22:00.780we did it you know in canadians we've done it for the most part like americans were doing
00:22:05.580it in the democratic days we've done it by basically offshoring it yep yeah we kind of
00:22:10.540you know it wasn't that unions weren't here it was that we bypass unions by sending the
00:22:15.180jobs other places yeah yeah well and that's that that you know just reminds me of the
00:22:21.020the great thomas soul lesson that we could all stand to learn which is you know there's no such
00:22:25.940thing as solutions only trade-offs and so you get to pick your problems you don't get to pick a life
00:22:31.360free of problems um and so yeah i don't think there's necessarily you know one decision that
00:22:38.040would be consequence free you essentially get to decide what the consequences you want to deal with
00:22:43.780are um but that's something i think a lot of people forget when they come especially say on
00:22:51.380the labor side when they are arguing for whether it be and i'm not even saying i can't understand
00:22:57.040the the drive to want these things whether it be increased pay whether it be more vacation days
00:23:03.640whether it be improved uh improved work life uh standards or whatever but when you make demands
00:23:12.500to a certain point and again this is more general than any specific uh specific strike but you do
00:23:21.080put a pressure onto that employer and as you were pointing out okay well you know what we'll just
00:23:27.420move our manufacturing offshore or you know can we automate some of these jobs away and all of this
00:23:33.160kind of stuff and so i think you do kind of end up getting into a point sometimes uh on the labor
00:23:38.860side where if you push for things so hard you actually just end up uh maybe making the the
00:23:44.940job itself go away and so yeah i think i think globally as you were talking about with globalization
00:23:52.460as well i think what we're seeing is that trend start to fracture and so i you know i made this
00:24:01.660call back when trump first got into office in the end of globalization that uh that now it's gonna
00:24:08.700be you're gonna see like prior it was almost as if certain nations were pushing their chips and
00:24:15.020their economic chips all into a pot because globally because it was benefiting everybody
00:24:19.900who did so well now you're gonna see each of those nations whether it be canada whether it be america
00:24:25.420whether it be the uk and so on if that shared pot is no longer growing between everybody it's it's
00:24:32.700going to be a fight to see who gets to take the chips off the table and so i think that's where
00:24:36.700you're going to see largely the economic trends go is yeah there's just going to be more and more
00:24:41.420battle over these kind of things and the international pressures will definitely play a
00:24:45.420major part in them yeah well it's interesting so you know and and getting to where the unions kind
00:24:51.180of are going um i took a look at the last 30 years because i was interested getting ready for the
00:24:56.540show i'm sitting there i'm thinking okay we we you know globalization took the private sector
00:25:02.620unions down to half of what they were over a 30-year period which was very interesting to me
00:25:08.140because i i lived through those 30 years and i remember all like i said my dad and the experiences
00:25:13.740i had you know i remember running food to union halls and sitting with strike votes where they
00:25:20.140they were playing cards and, you know, the company, we used to, it was interesting.
00:25:25.980I went through a couple wild card, wild cat strikes I mentioned to you with my dad.
00:25:31.660And I would sit there in the back and I'd listen to the votes on the strike votes.
00:25:36.860And they would actually settle the strike and the company would come to them and say,
00:28:26.100Again, I'm showing my age a little, right?
00:28:28.200I'm in an era where we used to drive down to Buffalo,
00:28:31.420and catch most of our flights out of Buffalo.
00:28:34.620there was a time in canada especially in central canada where flights were so cost prohibitive
00:28:42.020due to the monopoly on flight you know airlines we used to actually it was most of my um my when
00:28:50.060i started my own business and i did a lot of work in the u.s most of my time was spent actually on
00:28:55.420the road to buffalo so i used to get up at two in the morning get to the buffalo air park it's the
00:29:01.060first flight out uh you know and when i'd be heading home i'd fly into buffalo pick up my car
00:29:06.040you know put on the radio and just slowly make my way back hoping that you know the traffic wasn't
00:29:12.560too bad because of the long weekend or whatever but that that was kind of life and we were all
00:29:17.100in the airport there used to be a group of us we used to meet each other every you know couple
00:29:20.980weeks in the airport to and fro buffalo are we like we did it and we you know we managed through
00:29:28.760it is is like an airline and essential service is yeah i mean you know we have couriers is post
00:29:36.120our post office essential services i i get they are like your business but you know you would
00:29:41.160switch out to a courier i guess right and yeah that's that's what's tough is because who gets
00:29:46.180to define essential right because even back during say for instance the lockdown days there was a lot
00:29:51.660of things where i was going i thought that was essential but i guess not or or vice versa where
00:29:57.100go wait why is mcdonald's essential yeah and so it's killing me anyway right so it's kind of uh
00:30:03.580the the eye of the beholder on that one because i because i am the exact same as you in terms of
00:30:08.940you know if it's even if it's pretty much anywhere in america like or north america for that matter
00:30:15.580i'd rather drive i just i don't like the airports even for instance once you get somewhere like i
00:30:21.900had a i had a gig out in california at coachella a few years ago and i said you know what just
00:30:25.820toss me the plane ticket money for gas and i'll meet you guys out there because yeah i'll stop
00:30:30.220along the way once i'm there i've still got my car with me i don't and or even close or if it's
00:30:35.900something like say even going to boston nine hours you look at that you go yeah sure it's a nine hour
00:30:40.940drive but the hour drive to the airport the three hour wait there the two hour flight the hour takes
00:30:47.820to unload once you're there i'm like it's pretty much power actually and i'm probably more comfortable
00:30:51.900in my car um so so to me i i look at that and go yeah it's probably not uh i wouldn't classify air
00:30:59.540travel for me essential but then you know yeah who's who's to say there's somebody with a certain
00:31:05.340business or whatever that uh that relies on that like like say for instance i would canada post
00:31:10.920for for shipping products uh then then yeah they they would probably argue it differently so
00:31:16.780So, yeah, it's definitely, I think that one's pretty tough to give an answer to.
00:31:20.520But I think when you look at as to who the one that would be dealing with the fallout, again, when a lot of these things fall under federal purview, not to say WestJet's a publicly owned company, but whether it be the airports and all of this kind of stuff or the ports and where you see these come intertwine with public industry,
00:31:43.920then all of a sudden i think you're going to see the uh the the heavy hand go go in the favor of
00:31:51.360whatever benefits the government in that in that that decision well is it a self-fulfilling prophecy
00:31:56.500then so are you creating are you so then really what you're saying is you know eventually this
00:32:01.480will will peter out because the only place when this was the interesting thing so then i said okay
00:32:06.280we've kind of seen this this trend uh aside from public sector workers in canada where unions have
00:32:13.560been going down so america's kind of seen it all europe has seen it um so we've seen this decline
00:32:19.860is there any place it's going up or it's stable and it was interesting because nordic uh countries
00:32:27.200are the exception i was like oh okay so what they do is and this is interesting they've figured out
00:32:35.520a system where the trade unions and Denmark and Sweden and
00:32:41.520Finland is have linked their unemployment compensation system
00:32:46.580to unions and how and how what's the link there that they're
00:32:50.340making so they so if you go on strike or if you as a trade
00:32:55.140don't have a job your benefits for unemployment are paid
00:32:58.860through the union okay so the union so in order to encourage
00:33:03.240trades this is a very interesting thing to think about right again because you know we have shows
00:33:08.640where we talk about the lack of trades so you know and you know you're a good friend of ours you know
00:33:14.140jonathan who i that's how i met him as a trade uh working on a project and you know he was working
00:33:19.840too with his dad you know those days are kind of going away where you know the only guys left are
00:33:25.680his dad right you know like i don't even know if his dad's i think he's still working but
00:33:29.900But most of the guys I'm working with on the trade side right now
00:33:33.640when I meet are my age or a little younger.
00:35:05.980if they've attached the unemployment system to it.
00:35:09.220Right. Yeah, that would be interesting.
00:35:11.640I think we are going to see a natural push
00:35:13.500towards more people entering the trades as well
00:35:15.480because even, you know, I think a lot of the forecasting
00:35:20.280for say how much AI is going to drive unemployment,
00:35:24.600I think a lot of that is overestimated, but I do think there will be obviously some, some shakeup, but I think you're going to see more and more people understand that trades jobs and those kinds of things are actually much more solidified or at least not on the table for getting automated at the moment.
00:35:45.840And so, I mean, if I was, if I had a kid that was 15, 16 right now, wondering which direction to go, would I push them towards a high debt education for a white collar job that might get automated away within the next five to 10 years or something that's low lift, low debt amounts, plus maybe, hey, maybe even get an apprenticeship or something along the way that you're making money while you're getting educated.
00:36:11.540Yeah. And then you're safer on the other side as well. And to even even like now with especially, you know, you look back a few decades and yeah, maybe the concern would have been how how how much can I rely on this work or will I be laid off seasonally?
00:36:27.980But now even, too, you could look at, say, most guys, whether, okay, if I'm going to get laid off from my union job or whatever for a couple months, well, now there's an endless list of little side gigs and hustles that I can find on Kijiji or Facebook to go, maybe it's just, you know, grandma down the street needs a little renovation job in her bathroom or something.
00:36:50.280And so I think you can probably fill those gaps on your own a lot more if you have the initiative.