True Patriot Love - Why Canada’s Wage Debate Misses the Real Issue

00:00:00.000 today on true patriot love i'm lucky enough to be joined by mike wickson to talk about something

00:00:10.160 that's been on my mind for quite a while productivity and minimum wage hey mike hey paul

00:00:16.700 yeah no it's something we've talked about pretty consistently over the last couple of months and

00:00:21.260 certainly over the last two weeks we're trying to think about how to tee up this show because

00:00:25.940 it's not a really pretty picture to be honest with you minimum wage at a distance seems like a gift

00:00:31.620 like something we're entitled to or something we fought for as a nation but some of the

00:00:37.220 ramifications of it against other markets and against how our country's doing financially

00:00:43.620 it's a little scary actually it is it is remember you know i was coming in and i was talking to

00:00:48.740 christophe putting the show together today and we're in the car and he said to me well why why

00:00:54.260 Why did minimum wage come to bear?

00:00:55.980 What was the rationale for it?

00:00:57.800 And I said to him, remember the days when they used to give you a hot dog for your vote?

00:01:02.480 It got replaced by minimum wage.

00:01:04.800 So we started doing minimum wage by policy rather than by productivity.

00:01:10.060 And over time, it became almost an election campaign item.

00:01:13.820 So if you vote for me, I'm going to give you a dollar a year.

00:01:17.440 If you vote for me, I'm going to increase.

00:01:19.320 So all these people are like, wow, that's great.

00:01:21.440 And it's really wonderful.

00:01:22.400 but what they don't realize it actually reduces their wage and so i'm going to take you through

00:01:29.220 it yeah explain that one okay so you know and i've said on uh previous shows i've lived in

00:01:34.580 canada and lived in the u.s so i've seen it both ways so when i was living in the u.s uh and i

00:01:39.800 lived in a number of states from the west to the east coast the minimum wage in most states is

00:01:46.200 around seven dollars and twenty five cents he said oh my good i couldn't live on seven dollars

00:01:51.260 and twenty five cents no i agree and only 20 out of the 50 states that have minimum wage

00:01:57.640 are above 13 dollars so it's not as high as ours right because right now federally as of april one

00:02:07.060 we're at 18.15 federally right and provincially you know i'll give you ontario which is going up

00:02:14.440 in the fall to 17.95 and bc which is going up in the summer to 18.25 so we range between the high

00:02:23.000 16 to 18 that's kind of where we range in canada okay now the interesting part that in 2025

00:02:32.360 the average annual salary in the u.s was 59 000 this is in u.s dollars in canada it was 40 000

00:02:41.800 u.s dollars so the average canadian made about 19 000 less than the average american is that

00:02:49.740 because the average american minimum wage doesn't factor in productivity leads to higher wages

00:02:55.680 exactly so and that's really why so if you look at it this is some crazy stats so our gdp per capita

00:03:03.060 in Canada is $54,000.

00:03:06.160 In the U.S. it's $85,000.

00:03:09.420 So that's what we produce per person.

00:03:12.180 So, okay, let me average that down

00:03:14.240 against the Canadian productivity and our GDP.

00:03:18.840 It's about $25 an hour value out of each of our employees,

00:03:22.880 but our federal minimum wage is $18.15?

00:03:26.680 Yeah.

00:03:27.200 So somehow you have to make your business profitable.

00:03:31.400 Yeah, by paying...

00:03:32.440 keep the overhead and still stay competitive with very little to work with. Where do those

00:03:41.200 dollars come from? Well, they don't. And that's why you see businesses continually leave Canada

00:03:45.980 and not come here and not reinvest in Canada. So why productivity goes down is because I don't

00:03:51.800 reinvest in technology. I don't reinvest in equipment. I don't reinvest in training.

00:03:56.280 Those are all the things that don't make you a more productive society. And by forcing our

00:04:01.320 minimum wage up you squeeze out the ability to do that right which ultimately leads to lower wages

00:04:08.100 for Canadians so you know I started digging into it and I'm going through it and as I'm going

00:04:14.720 through it it's interesting because the output per person from 1980 to 2024 between Canada and

00:04:24.360 us is roughly 300 and 385 000 us per person okay right so you know you look over those 14 years

00:04:35.000 sorry 24 years um if we would have no sorry 44 years if we would have actually kept pace with

00:04:43.320 the us right right that would equate it to another 14 trillion dollars in economic output for canada

00:04:52.040 now okay so now when i say i can so this is the interesting part so that's 14 trillion dollars of

00:04:58.680 output over 44 years that as we as as we became less productive with americans we weren't producing

00:05:05.960 as much per person which equated to 385 000 difference per person and that's when compensation

00:05:15.400 started to dip right so all of a sudden we started to make less as canadians than americans

00:05:21.480 over this time period so our gap widened right so all of a sudden we are so this is the crazy thing

00:05:27.320 if you look at that output and you figure out that it's a 33 uh tax to gdp on it so 33 tax rate

00:05:36.440 we would have been able to put into the public revenue fund roughly 4.5 trillion dollars

00:05:44.200 wow over the last 40 years so what that does is the government can use that 4.5 trillion dollars

00:05:50.680 to now reduce your tax leave more disposal income in your wallet so now create a pension system

00:05:58.360 that's actually a pension system so now what happens is your dollars don't go farther or they

00:06:04.520 would have gone farther so they could pay you less but you could actually buy more right the dollar

00:06:11.080 had better value here in our own country so that's what the americans so if you look at what the

00:06:15.560 americans did over the same time period now move that forward so then you go from now so then from

00:06:21.880 2024 to 2030 because it's grown so much the gap we're going to fall behind another 224 thousand

00:06:31.440 dollars per person in u.s dollars which equates to nine trillion dollars or three trillion that

00:06:38.020 we could have used again to benefit our own citizens for tax relief and everything else

00:06:43.120 You keep going on. It's crazy. If we look at the 50 years from 1980 to 2030, we're talking roughly about 7.5 lost trillion dollars that we lost that could have gone into our economy and infrastructure and benefit to the citizens.

00:07:07.100 It's a huge dollar amount, Mike.

00:07:08.600 Well, look at Norway.

00:07:10.560 They took the tact of, all right, we're going to live within means,

00:07:16.580 create health care, but we're also going to continue to develop our coffers

00:07:21.180 based on resources.

00:07:23.060 Now, it could easily sound like we're saying Canadians are not productive,

00:07:28.680 but that productivity is tied to a lot of things, right?

00:07:32.260 The productivity of a human being is tied to the environment they're in,

00:07:36.220 what they're actually doing, what the law has allowed them to do, what is expected of them in

00:07:40.900 a job. That's another thing. We do a lot of job describing here that kind of hems people into a

00:07:49.220 very specific job, meaning that we don't get as much value from them per hour as if they were

00:07:54.940 multifunctional. So a lot of these factors we need to consider. Well, yeah. And so it's interesting

00:08:01.980 that you go there so then i i took a look at uh 12 ways uh canadian work culture difference

00:08:09.740 from americans right and then so some of that and those lead to some of the productivity differences

00:08:15.900 so which is interesting so the first one that i found was annual work hours so and and this is

00:08:23.420 unfortunately canadians roughly work five hours less a week than americans okay five hours right

00:08:31.100 Well, at $18 an hour, there's $5,200 out of the Canadian's pocket right there.

00:08:37.640 Well, think about it.

00:08:38.620 So then in a year, if Canadians work 1,690 hours, Americans work over 1,790 hours.

00:08:48.020 Wow, that's significant.

00:08:49.260 It is.

00:08:49.720 It is significant.

00:08:50.560 And quite frankly, it's hard to be a productive nation if no one's working a 40-hour workweek.

00:08:55.680 Right.

00:08:56.020 Now, we all say we're working a 40-hour workweek.

00:09:00.200 But, you know, I know from business I have and I've lived in both, you know, both countries, we do we do not work a 40 hour work week.

00:09:09.000 So then that's a challenge. Union contracts, you know, and this is the difference.

00:09:13.700 Again, the U.S. and it varies by state. But overall, across the Canada and the United States, we have a 20 percent coverage in unions in Canada and only a 10 percent in the United States.

00:09:24.320 Okay. So we have a lot of friction from unions, driving up wages, reducing what can be done on

00:09:30.340 the work. Like if you, I'll give you an example. If you go to put an event on at a convention

00:09:35.640 center, you have to use the union guys for every single thing. It's a laborious process. You never

00:09:43.380 get what you want. And they're paid at a union rate. You wouldn't pay the guy working with you

00:09:49.120 to do the same job but that happens in the u.s and and you know honestly a lot of that wage kind

00:09:55.660 of forced wage increase that happens in in any environment would probably and and this is what

00:10:02.000 we're finding when we're looking at minimum wage if you if you policy direct wages you tend to

00:10:07.880 stipe uh you tend to drive them down right because you're driving them too fast and not in line with

00:10:14.060 productivity so if you wage increases we all want we want them for our own people i know my businesses

00:10:19.760 i don't i don't pay anyone minimum wage i pay everyone above minimum wage because my business

00:10:27.260 dictates that i can do that right so everyone's you know makes more than minimum wage of course

00:10:32.700 but you know that's because productivity is high and i keep a highly productive team that drives

00:10:39.060 my profit margins high enough that i can actually uh pass it down but you know what paul i think

00:10:44.820 that we take a look at minimum wage across the country and it's not the independent guys like you

00:10:50.100 that should be expected to make these changes take a look at federal employment in this country

00:10:56.100 take a look at how many people are employed in health care alone you know wages and unions and

00:11:02.260 And major industries and major employment centers in our country are union bound, are heavily endorsed by human rights, work rights, and all of these things that are very important.

00:11:15.540 But the pendulum seems to have swung too far at a time where we don't produce enough per person in Canada to make it worthwhile.

00:11:22.620 And that's leading to job cuts.

00:11:24.840 It's leading to people who normally would have a full-time job

00:11:28.440 and a decent wage working at Tim Hortons for minimum wage

00:11:32.520 because it's the highest-paying thing they can get unqualified.

00:11:36.700 That drives our youth out of part-time jobs

00:11:39.640 that normally would have been at Tim Hortons.

00:11:42.260 The effect trickles down and down and down.

00:11:45.320 Yep.

00:11:46.300 And then, honestly, on the corporate side, Mike,

00:11:48.980 you're forcing minimum wage up.

00:11:51.080 Who's paying the minimum wage?

00:11:52.360 so that it becomes a policy based on an election drive and all of a sudden

00:11:56.980 corporations are paying right it's it's not the money so it is another form of taxation

00:12:02.760 that's implied on you in an indirect way taxation a couple more dollars an hour more tax to pay on

00:12:08.540 behalf of your employee more tax your employee has to pay exactly so so you know so then you

00:12:14.640 reduce your labor you reduce your investment and all all of a sudden your productivity is going

00:12:19.300 down now we try to we try to subvert that or we try to go around that in canada by creating these

00:12:25.540 tax incentive programs we do a lot of that now the budget the last budget we went through there's

00:12:30.100 a lot of billions and billions and billions of dollars of ways you can directly expense your

00:12:34.340 your machinery you can buy equipment we do all these programs but quite frankly the major cost

00:12:40.660 for more corporations is the human resources that actually make the products right so that's the

00:12:45.860 challenge another thing i found interesting was vacation days believe it or not uh canadians

00:12:52.420 receive 19 and use them all and americans get roughly 17 days but americans traditionally don't

00:13:01.060 use all their vacations that was something i had to get used to when i came back to canada

00:13:05.380 i would finish the year and you know if if one of my team had three weeks vacation they wouldn't use

00:13:12.900 it they would use two and a half they use two in a couple days but it's it's kind of culturally

00:13:19.540 that if you give them more vacation they use less less than you give them yeah and they'll take if

00:13:25.860 you offer them the money you know some states you have to some states you don't but if you offer

00:13:30.900 them the money they'll take it graciously but they won't ask you for it interesting so that's more of

00:13:36.740 an american thing in canada everyone uses all their vacation plus oh and last year i had two

00:13:42.100 days left over and in 86 i missed a day uh of a vacation yeah yeah we tend to have these systems

00:13:48.580 that accumulate our earnings of time and uh compensation right yep yeah uh work from home

00:13:56.660 remote work canadians love it americans don't why do we love it so much i don't understand

00:14:04.340 i guess the winter the weather it's we double up americans in the amount of work from home

00:14:11.060 jobs we have. So we have like 26% of our work environment is work from home. Americans only

00:14:17.040 have 13. So we almost, we double it up. Do you want to work from home or would you rather work

00:14:23.020 with colleagues? Can I ask you this? You can be honest. Okay. Give me hands in the air for work

00:14:28.560 at work. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. We've got a unanimous thing. It's a very unusual thing in

00:14:37.020 my mind that people think it's okay not to go to work nowadays yeah i get it we changed we made a

00:14:43.520 change but that change the reason for that change is over now we all got vaccinated we all we all

00:14:48.500 get over the cold yep we don't want to go back to work we're not more productive at work paul

00:14:54.800 i feel we are you know sorry i don't i don't came at you on this my apologies i don't have

00:14:59.660 businesses where i can stay home right so no i so i don't have the option but i do think that

00:15:04.300 there's more productivity. And I understand people have to work. They have to get to work

00:15:07.560 and it's hard to do. Well, if you want to create productivity, and I know this is the premier of

00:15:12.440 Ontario always says this in his speeches, you know, having the person come back and run the

00:15:17.440 sandwich shop, run the diner, all the services that tie to people who actually have to come back

00:15:23.060 to work, creates the economy, creates productivity. It's a circle, right? It's a circle.

00:15:27.640 We've got transit systems to pay for. It's an ecosystem. Infrastructure. Yeah. Yeah. And you

00:15:31.820 to make that ecosystem work with people working within the ecosystem staying at home and if you

00:15:36.620 have 26 of your job staying at home it's very hard to keep a productive economy that makes perfect

00:15:41.900 sense yeah public transit versus commuting that was an interesting one i thought we're much more

00:15:47.820 likely to find a way to take public transit and walking and biking and everything than americans

00:15:53.980 by almost 20 percent they just drive to work they want to get to work as quickly as they can right

00:15:59.340 and then the punctuality to work because they don't have to deal with all the

00:16:03.900 messed up commuting um and i found this this was interesting this is when i when i had a business

00:16:09.420 in chicago i found it weird chicago a big city i'm a lot like toronto bad congestion bad roadways

00:16:15.100 bad everything else all cars nobody even tried literally it was very little commute very little

00:16:22.540 they have an extensive rail system in chicago they do it's people due to the violence that

00:16:28.140 People gave up on it many years ago.

00:16:30.040 They're trying to resurrect it, but it hasn't come back.

00:16:33.480 But you don't see, like you see the trains in the morning.

00:16:37.480 You see a few people, but they're not packed.

00:16:39.360 And so literally they adjusted by having one-way lanes into the city.

00:16:44.320 So they took highways and split them into like three lanes in, one lane out in the morning, and then the other way.

00:16:50.600 So they found a way to kind of get everyone into the course.

00:16:53.780 Yeah, it's a really good way to deal with it.

00:16:55.680 they have some really good traffic control and light control um but we do we do kind of lean

00:17:01.040 against oh i would the transit was the train didn't uh yeah okay so there's an hour out of

00:17:08.640 your work day yeah work days off we went the other way than the the americans honestly we actually

00:17:16.960 uh decided and we did this in the public sector that people on their days off can't answer their

00:17:23.440 phone can't use their computer can't so you almost get penalized from working on your days off

00:17:28.720 in the public service right okay americans um are much different than canadians radically different

00:17:34.880 on this front when americans are on holidays or vacation days they actually work so they actually

00:17:41.760 work uh twice as much as canadians when we did the stats so 66 percent of canadians plan to do

00:17:48.800 not plan to work at all on vacation only 37 percent of americans say that they won't work

00:17:55.440 the rest will work don't pick up the messages pick up the messages return the calls try to

00:18:00.400 make sales keep the ball do conference calls they'll they'll kind of work throughout they'll

00:18:04.160 do a workcation much different than we are uh breaks during the day so this was interesting

00:18:11.200 i'm gonna the next time i'm gonna uh accumulate uh and i didn't notice that when i came back

00:18:17.920 americans don't take their lunch they they primarily eat where they are and they don't

00:18:24.480 traditionally take all their breaks we do both we do do both here and we we're very proud of it you

00:18:30.400 know we take our half hour to an hour lunch we take our 50 minute breaks paul yeah i hate to

00:18:35.360 interrupt but it is my break time but it is what yeah there's a lot of that i've noticed yeah but

00:18:43.040 But you figure, you know, part of that stat, the, you know, five hours in a week, you know, difference, the 35 hours we work.

00:18:49.980 You can see where it's coming from.

00:18:51.360 Oh, you can see where it's coming from.

00:18:52.920 Culturally, we've kind of, but, you know, we've embedded these things in with regulations, right?

00:18:57.180 We've got a lot of, you know, we have a lot of labor laws and a lot of regulations that we are very strict on from a business perspective.

00:19:04.560 That's my point.

00:19:05.260 I think that Canadians would be more productive given the choice.

00:19:08.920 But your union won't let you do this.

00:19:10.740 Well, your your your job description won't allow you to do that.

00:19:14.420 Well, it's someone, you know, and someone watching this, I don't want to make it sound like I'm against any of these things.

00:19:19.380 But what I'm for is I'm for the people who work with me and work around me making more money.

00:19:26.920 I don't like the fact that there's almost a twenty thousand dollar divide by what American makes versus a Canadian makes.

00:19:33.000 Right. I want Canadians to make as much or more.

00:19:35.900 Because you want them to be able to spread their wings in their workplace.

00:19:39.080 well the selfish part for me number one from a business perspective i get more productivity

00:19:43.560 number two if they work more in the country the output per person grows in canada

00:19:49.560 my public service costs my road improvements my my taxes my uh property taxes all those things

00:19:56.520 go down right because i can i can generate enough output that i can actually pay tax on it

00:20:02.520 and my tax base gets higher i was gonna say that's the one part of the business that's not gonna

00:20:07.880 to change you're going to have to pay that no matter what so the closer you can get to that

00:20:12.600 line or past it the better everybody does you can give raises you can give more time off if that's

00:20:18.980 what people want and we don't want it's interesting because you know uh this has been coming up the

00:20:23.900 productivity and the gdp per capita and all these things come up from both uh parties primarily

00:20:29.500 i know uh pierre polyev on his podcast uh trips that he's been doing lately has been bringing it

00:20:36.200 up on the podcast but i find it interesting he never goes into the root cause today we're going

00:20:42.180 into the root cause so the you know this is what kind of tweaked me on it as i've been listening

00:20:45.900 to him and he's right our productivity is low yeah i'm not disagreeing with that and once again

00:20:50.880 that's not saying canadians are not productive the means and the the system that we've built

00:20:56.400 is preventative to us actually getting beyond that how many people do you know would love more

00:21:02.880 overtime hours but they're told by the workplace they're not allowed or uh somebody who wants to

00:21:08.400 actually do more hours in a week at uh at their own position to kind of grow it they're told no

00:21:16.060 no unless you're here for paid hours we can't have you here there's so many rules and regulations

00:21:20.340 that keep us less productive right and they do and those are the things the red tape that we

00:21:25.340 we constantly talk about red tape commissions to get those rules and everything off you know

00:21:30.360 So I really ask if someone, you know, take a look at the comparison between U.S. wages and Canadian wages and then really study it if you're doubting what we're saying.

00:21:39.840 Because when you really dig into it, you see it pretty transparent that that's the reason why.

00:21:45.620 It becomes, you know, and forcing minimum wage through policy versus productivity is the key element.

00:21:55.440 Now, a couple of the other ones, communication styles.

00:21:58.800 So that's an interesting one.

00:22:00.040 And I've brought this up on other shows and polite language.

00:22:03.880 There are two that I lump.

00:22:06.540 And I'm going to call this basically conflict resolution, polite language, and communication styles.

00:22:17.620 Oh.

00:22:18.180 Right?

00:22:19.120 An American meeting is very about finding a solution base.

00:22:24.380 It's not about sitting and talking and having long meetings.

00:22:28.080 They're very they're very cutting meetings. The polite language traditionally isn't used.

00:22:34.420 It's basically the solution is found. They're told to move forward. They're told to go in that

00:22:39.580 direction. And then everyone gets out of the room and goes. It's a different style. Conflict

00:22:44.380 resolution, honestly, is a lot of times in the U.S. very argumentative. You know, you're watching.

00:22:50.040 And again, you know, I bring this up when we sit in the morning all the time because everyone comes

00:22:54.640 in it goes did you see what what uh trump posted today right and you know yeah comedians are stunned

00:23:00.960 uh yeah you know and he's he's you know dressed up like jesus on an ai uh wow that was today you

00:23:08.500 gotta admit he does some wild stuff he does some wild stuff but but but that you know that is the

00:23:14.220 culture you know they're the the polite uh diplomatic long-winded solution-based building

00:23:21.820 team building scenarios usually don't occur right they got to get they got to get to the solution

00:23:28.760 they got to get profitable and they got to get productive and feelings really aren't considered

00:23:32.840 i think often in these processes you know you might you might be the guy who's the the focal

00:23:39.060 point paul it's on you you've got to get it together you failed everybody we need a solution

00:23:45.060 for what paul's screwing up on get it get it done yeah that's that's more of the rhetoric right so

00:23:51.020 So, you know, those cultural aspects and the thing we brought up make for the difference in the productivity.

00:23:56.700 It really does.

00:23:57.380 And I think we have to go back and look at it.

00:23:59.360 Now, I'm not saying we need to do less holidays.

00:24:01.700 I'm not saying we need to do less hours.

00:24:06.340 We definitely need to do more hours per work.

00:24:08.820 That's the other thing.

00:24:10.660 When the day's up, when they found in the studies, Americans don't go home whether they're paid or not.

00:24:17.160 They continue on until the job is done.

00:24:19.640 Go home when the job is complete, not when their hours are complete.

00:24:23.980 So when they did all the studies and when they came out in the different studies,

00:24:28.060 they found out that Americans were more task-oriented and less hours-oriented.

00:24:32.520 So it didn't matter. 0.67

00:24:33.260 If they got paid for eight and they needed to take nine, they'd stay and do the nine.

00:24:36.860 They'd feel it's on them.

00:24:37.960 I didn't get my thing completed today.

00:24:39.840 I could have.

00:24:40.440 I got to get it done.

00:24:41.260 I got to get this task done because I don't want to come tomorrow and have to, you know.

00:24:44.960 Hold up the rest of the team.

00:24:46.160 Hold up the rest of the team.

00:24:47.300 I want to keep this job, quite frankly.

00:24:50.020 It's very competitive in the job market for certain jobs, depending on what you're in.

00:24:54.020 So I want to work that to get through it.

00:24:56.300 It's a difference, and it's a productivity-driven cycle, right?

00:25:00.180 It's the capitalist market.

00:25:02.160 So we are starting to fall behind because we're not endorsing all those things.

00:25:09.760 It's a tough pill to swallow that we need to be more productive.

00:25:13.300 Yes.

00:25:13.720 And that minimum wage is not the answer to this.

00:25:16.360 But as you pull it apart, the orange in each section has merit that we need to reconsider this.

00:25:26.420 Because if Americans are making more per capita by actually just earning more per capita and generating more per capita,

00:25:33.900 the likelihood is we're going to get more contracts internationally here.

00:25:37.580 Well, you know, and hats off.

00:25:39.380 I know she's gone now, but Chrystia Freeland brought this up, and I've said it on many shows.

00:25:44.360 Wait, are you complimenting Chris here, Freeland?

00:25:47.160 I am.

00:25:47.620 She brought it up, and she got panned in the house many times,

00:25:52.060 about three or four times.

00:25:53.620 And she said, listen, we got to focus on productivity.

00:25:56.940 We got to start benchmarking ourselves.

00:25:58.860 And everyone just kind of eyes glazed over.

00:26:01.400 She kind of went on.

00:26:02.680 And, you know, everyone criticized, oh, you know,

00:26:05.260 you want to get rid of this, you want to do this.

00:26:07.460 No, you are better off without it, quite frankly.

00:26:11.640 you're better off to work on productivity and you'll make more money if you do. And that's

00:26:15.860 what she was trying to say. And the country will be better off.

00:26:18.940 You can't just print money.

00:26:20.920 Well, look at, look at my, because where does the money come from in the end?

00:26:24.940 Look at it. Look at our Canadian reserves. Dollar wise, you know, the IMF right. Came

00:26:29.940 out the other day. Our reserves are being basically, uh, sold off, right? Our valuation

00:26:37.000 of our dollars is dumping at the moment. It's dumping because the world is picking up on

00:26:41.560 our lack of productivity among other things our debt is getting too high and our productivity is

00:26:46.600 going too low as canadians we got to figure that out it's you know we have all these conventions

00:26:52.720 and we do all this great conversation about what's going on and affordable this and affordable that

00:26:58.320 this is one we really have to look at right now and say okay how do we get how do we get product

00:27:03.920 productivity up and how do we start stop boring so much money to keep the country afloat because

00:27:10.240 that's what's causing the devaluation of our dollar.

00:27:12.740 And that's where, quite frankly, Pierre Polyev,

00:27:15.100 when he says it on these podcasts, he's bang on.

00:27:18.200 But he's, you know, being a politician,

00:27:21.400 he's not taking it further and doing the root cause and else.

00:27:24.880 That is the root cause.

00:27:27.200 So we always like to be, I guess, hypothetical solvers of these problems.

00:27:34.020 What do you think the solution is here?

00:27:35.700 The solution is, I think you do away with minimum wage, quite frankly.

00:27:42.120 It's high enough now.

00:27:44.620 The projects that you are as a government promoting and putting your money behind now

00:27:49.140 have to be measured on productivity growth.

00:27:52.000 So there's no point in putting it into another park, another theatre, another project.

00:27:59.240 You need to put it into items that have increased the output of Canadians per capita to get

00:28:05.660 it at least back on par get rid of it exactly structure mining mining yep you got it build

00:28:13.340 into the country the things that are going to make us more productive right red tape for safety you

00:28:18.860 got to keep red tape for just having red tape you got to get rid of people employers need the

00:28:24.620 flexibility to have people work to produce things if they're all they're doing is spending all their

00:28:29.660 time stuck in red tape and they're going to pick up and leave they're not going to invest any money

00:28:34.540 in the nation those are the things you got to get rid of sounds like a good solution thanks for this

00:28:39.820 man thank you patriotic means looking up for each other and fixing things together true patriotism

00:28:54.140 is being in the country you love surrounded by people you love and great weather being a patriot

00:28:59.340 is being a part of your community and caring for it it doesn't matter who you are or where you're

00:29:03.500 from patriotism is the one thing we all share it's okay to be critical of government and still be a

00:29:10.300 patriot it's gratitude to your country of course i'm a patriot i'm canadian it's my home well

00:29:16.300 Actually, true patriot love is the mission.

True Patriot Love - April 17, 2026

Why Canada’s Wage Debate Misses the Real Issue

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