00:01:52.240Well, it's smoky. Definitely some people feel the smoke, some don't. I don't. I feel it for first 30 seconds after I leave the home. After that, I don't care.
00:02:04.720Yeah, absolutely. Yesterday I had a big group on my Tiki board, about 12 people from Kelowna. They were enjoying themselves to the fullest and they said to me, well, we are from Kelowna. We're used to the smoke. Every August it happens. We don't care.
00:02:18.600you know that's interesting to me so you even have locals coming out to participate yeah because you
00:02:24.600can't have all of the items in your cash that makes summer fun so i guess no it's cheaper to
00:02:30.540rent yeah yeah uh then to store it maintain it pay insurance uh all of that um but uh fire yeah
00:02:40.360we have two fires north of us one fire just started south pretty big but it's quite far from
00:02:47.460Kelowna and we we know like people who live in Kelowna know it happens every
00:02:51.900year every other year and they know you know if something burned once it won't
00:02:58.900burn again for 20 30 years so these are safe places right right which is
00:03:04.380surrounded by burn it's a natural cycle of like before people came here it's
00:03:09.540very interesting because we drive through it like it's Armageddon on the
00:03:12.880here you should see my post oh but i arrive here and people are like remain calm man you need to
00:03:19.440you need to relax people are having a good time it's it's so everything's alive here on the
00:03:24.720waterfront yeah less people than usual i would say yeah for sure mostly tourists yes tourists
00:03:30.960because people watch the news vancouver calgary or there are fires there is smoke they won't go
00:03:37.200right right so yeah but uh i think northern ontario is having a similar experience where
00:03:42.560normally they would have a a summer boon it's a little more reserved this year but i'll tell you
00:03:48.240it seems quite alive here now tell me a little bit about your history here in colonna how did
00:03:52.960now obviously you weren't born in colonna where were you born and how did you end up here
00:03:56.960so you noticed i have some accent right i might have noticed that yeah yeah yeah so let me guess
00:04:04.800i'm very good at this you are mexican yeah i've been in mexico two months ago i can still hear
00:04:12.400the accent right from this visit right nope no you come from ukraine yes good guess you you
00:04:22.560guessed by my last name i did my research by talking to you right right right right yeah
00:04:27.280your last name is unlike the russian pronunciation but we'll talk about that another time yeah yeah
00:04:32.160so 25 years ago uh and a half i moved to this beautiful city straight from the capital of key
00:04:39.200of ukraine kiev and i never looked back what brought you here in the first place
00:04:48.320multiple reasons like i already made some business in ukraine career and so on but i saw
00:04:55.920a lot of corruption at the time and i don't like it i'm kind of moral man you know
00:05:02.080and i did not have kids yet but i was married already and we just wanted to
00:05:07.680kind of start the family have kids and we had two kids born here and the other
00:05:15.120reason that kiev when it become capital of independent ukraine started to grow
00:05:21.480so fast right there are so many so much traffic so much people so it was not the
00:05:27.120city that I was born and raised in so I did not like it become too big and when
00:05:33.720I kind of looked okay where do I want to go I've been in states in 99 just
00:05:38.720visiting my friends Florida Seattle I like Seattle not only Seattle but
00:05:42.960Olympic Peninsula and the nature is very similar it is right yes and I love the
00:05:47.820nature I've been seven times in Finland it's very similar to Finland and both
00:05:52.340me and my wife thought well would be nice to move somewhere here but move to
00:05:57.720U.S. it's not easy like you have to have lawyers and stuff and then a lottery you know and in
00:06:05.400general it's too diverse I would say something good about U.S. but we thought Canada would be
00:06:12.280similar but better okay right and the process a little bit and much easier this process
00:06:18.760like right now it's tight on it but at the time it will like I'm have IT background IT profession
00:06:24.840computer programming there was a special program was very easy to get in
00:16:01.700is that BC wines are really on the scene
00:16:05.260Oh, there are only two centers, Niagara and B.C. here, and it's interesting when I traveled through
00:16:13.340all the can on my Tesla just to give it a ride to Quebec City. Check this out, Dennis did it,
00:16:17.420he tested his Tesla by driving across the country. To Quebec City. Well done. Right,
00:16:23.260and then back with side trips to Saskatoon and Edmonton and even Grand Prairie. But anyway,
00:16:28.540in Quebec they have amazing food, but when I asked them about wine recommendations,
00:16:34.380in all the restaurants there were only two choices french and bc say i don't want bc i'm from here
00:16:39.500like i can drink it every day give me french but i said what about quebec wine right don't don't
00:16:45.820don't take it right you don't hear that when you go to ontario on occasion sadly you'll hear that as
00:16:50.460well oh but maybe you should try bc wine yeah so i think that we are often a little bit locally shy
00:16:56.700about our wines and we think there's no way they could they could be good but really bc uh okanagan
00:17:03.500wine is uh do you know about ice wine yes you know ice wine they make it what a perfect scenario
00:17:09.980for ice wine exactly you described the winters here to me as being very light and mild yeah that
00:17:15.820must give them an extended ice wine period well uh you can uh produce proper ice wine only when
00:17:21.820it's minus eight degrees you have to collect the grapes and uh here we still have continental
00:17:27.340climate so in winter uh we have two weeks it's every year except the last one city saved a lot
00:17:33.340on snow removing budget we have two weeks when it's cold only two weeks i observe it for 25 years
00:17:40.780and in this two so this it could plunge up to minus 20 right but it's very dry it's not like
00:17:46.700toronto right that you made cold yeah yeah so so i like it even you know just for for comparison
00:17:53.100only two weeks and it's exactly the time when it heats the freezing and then when they collect
00:17:57.260the grapes for ice wine and of course summer is super hot good for for growth for everything
00:18:03.820and create that rich soil that you need yeah uh you have that temperate uh scenario uh you know
00:18:09.500it's so funny our producer on the way here asked a poignant question maybe you know the answer to
00:18:13.820it maybe you don't does the smoke affect what what will happen with the wine the flavor of the wine
00:18:19.820well you see so many factors affected weather soil i'm sure smoke affected but it doesn't mean that
00:18:25.340it will affect it in a bad way right it will be just different taste for this year i wonder
00:18:30.940yeah there's nothing else it's not it doesn't make it bad okay so i make it different i've
00:18:36.940arrived in colonna and i've got the opportunity to do three things outside four i'm coming by
00:18:46.060to do some water sports what else do you generally recommend to people that that would be a great
00:18:50.860secret or something that they'll take home and remember for a long time well wine is the
00:18:55.260wineries are the must and with wines it's not only not only the wine itself but the
00:19:02.780wineries itself is where they located the views some wineries are really fancy made
00:19:09.900it's experienced by itself to go there and taste it right so it's not only the quality
00:19:14.380of the wine but the whole experience there are special wine tours and so on i even have wine
00:19:18.620tour to the to the winery that we have the only winery in north america as they say with its own
00:19:24.060dock it's friend winery so we just go on the board dock it there do the tasting wow what a fantastic
00:19:30.380day that is doing one oh what a fantastic opportunity yeah and and you don't need to
00:19:35.260go in air conditioned bus in the heat right no make your way just gas more and that's your air
00:19:41.260conditioning or jump in the lake what do they call that uh 40 air you could do 40 knots and there's
00:19:45.580your air conditioning exactly that's how it works and so now uh let's just break away for one moment
00:19:51.180because when we first met up right away i detected that uh you are colonna in your blood you said i'm
00:19:58.860a colonna citizen uh i said before doing this i was going to put your coffee cup here i was going
00:20:04.300to throw it out i don't want to i don't really think i'm littering across the country you might
00:20:08.060forget it it's a good point but a colonna citizen he is and i get the impression that that is
00:20:14.380something that really is a beautiful thing in your life that you feel you are home yeah not
00:20:21.020only are you home but you do remember your roots and as soon as war broke out between russia and
00:20:26.940the ukraine you got to work here tell me about what the uh about your humanitarian work with
00:20:33.500regard to the ukraine so i was not like i was just businessman i.t professional i was not involved in
00:20:40.620any you know non-profit or so on but uh when the war broke out and we watching the news in horror
00:20:47.260my son who was 19 at the time said dad you have to do something so i contact the friends put the
00:20:54.620announcement same day we had the rally right here by city hall and it grew up the organization uh
00:21:02.460kilona stands with ukraine i think the name matter too you know so many people love to put our
00:21:08.620stickers on their car just to support but it's also organization yeah right so we good branding
00:21:15.260good opportunity for the name yes yeah i get it yeah so uh we collected in total 400 000
00:21:23.980in donations most of it was spent for body armor like first month two months of the war
00:21:30.060it was completely unexpected in ukraine right so uh they were out of necessary equipment
00:21:37.100body armor, different tactical gear. We could not send, of course, weapons, but body armor.
00:21:45.380And then when they were supplied completely, we started to send pickup trucks. We sent
00:21:52.040the two pickup trucks that we bought here to the front line. But also what happened in about two
00:21:59.420months after the war started, the Ukrainians started to come here, refugees. So Canada had a pretty
00:22:05.660good program at the time yeah quiet program uh that allowed the ukrainians to obtain visa very
00:22:11.340fast free and so on and 200 000 people use this opportunity and i think it's very good to canon
00:22:17.340because uh all the people that i speak to uh that came from ukraine are very hard working
00:22:24.460uh with very good ethical standards they could not even imagine situation when they don't work
00:22:29.660they work two three jobs it's interesting you say that i i make the same observation that
00:22:33.980when when they had the opportunity to come to Canada they didn't just arrive
00:22:39.580to Canada and sit down I noticed the Ukrainian community reaching out to
00:22:43.800other Ukrainians to you know to say I'm here I've arrived I need yeah I need to
00:22:50.720get a job I need to but I think our government I I don't at the time I don't
00:22:55.440I'm not because big supporter of the government but they made right decision
00:23:00.440because they give work visa they did not give a refugee status they gave work visa right that
00:23:07.640was a smart idea it was smart in hindsight because right come here but you gotta work yeah exactly
00:23:12.360and so we'll help you but you gotta you've gotta work yeah you get to work you don't get any which
00:23:16.360what you point out is that's less debilitating to a migrant than saying you can't work yeah
00:23:24.440how they do in europe in some countries it's ridiculous yeah you know i know in germany some
00:23:29.400ukrainians say if you go to work we will earn less money than we if you don't right but they feel
00:23:35.080so many positions here like half of the cleaning industry in kilona like home cleaning is ukrainian
00:23:40.040now because ukrainian ladies go and clean you know like the minimum wage positions i mean they
00:23:46.680feel by by good people right now and we even had a petition uh to the parliament uh last winter uh
00:23:54.680all all canadian uh to provide some kind of pathway for permanent residence for the people
00:24:02.040who already arrived work here at least three years and is have established history community links
00:24:08.200and so on and they're still ignoring it but i hope it happened one day i do too yeah but as a
00:24:13.720canadian not as ukrainian but as a canadian i was going to say that's a canadian perspective i think
00:24:18.280Yeah. As a Canadian, I think if you lose these people, it would be a bad idea for Canada.
00:24:25.000Let me ask you, Dennis. I think maybe I've taken the perspective, right or wrong, that our government just keeps sending all this money to the Ukraine.
00:24:34.400What are we doing? Why do we just keep fueling this? Why is Canada sending so much money to the Ukraine?
00:24:39.760i hear it i've i have felt it myself thinking okay we should support but to what end and to what pain
00:24:48.000what do you what's your response to that you said very interesting word fueling it
00:24:52.480why we are fueling it it's not canada of course like all the western countries that help right
00:24:57.120right so what would happen without western health i i think it's very little but it's just enough
00:25:04.320to keep ukraine afloat russia would occupy ukraine there would be massive genocide how they do already
00:25:11.360in occupied areas so first of all uh people of the world uh honest people they would regret
00:25:22.960that it's because of them it had they let it happen let it happen i can it's like i think that's
00:25:28.480it's like holocaust in some extent if you could if you could have spent anything to stop the holocaust
00:25:33.600exactly and i think that's the break point in my mind i mean i detest our government overspending i
00:25:39.600have to be honest with you and spending it in other countries makes it even tougher i think for
00:25:45.040canadians to digest but when i think about it i take your perspective and i think uh yeah but if
00:25:50.560we let that country just that would just be an abomination of what you should do for society
00:25:56.560that's first reason the second reason uh russia uh would feel on the rise if they
00:26:04.960occupy ukraine in ukraine they want to go momentum i think it's putin mostly but many russians speak
00:26:10.640the same they got momentum they wouldn't wait baltic countries it's nata canada is just across
00:26:17.360a little ocean from russia right right uh i mean i mean it's contested it's compressed the ocean you
00:26:24.400know right yes russia and canada do not agree about the border right right with global warming
00:26:30.400the this pathways opening in the arctic uh shelves for drilling and so on it could be conflict between
00:26:38.240russia and canada easily and it would cost much much more money because ukraine is fighting for
00:26:43.920the free world right now i think we rarely think of that perspective that that arctic threat is a
00:26:49.200real thing and canada just keeps we keep building our presence and we've made large commitments
00:26:55.920with equipment and subs and everything uh to protect that and and when you think about it
00:27:01.520the reason is russia of course specifically right so uh i gotta be honest with you you might be the
00:27:09.520first ukrainian i've had the opportunity to say what do you say to me when i say where's all my
00:27:14.720tax dollars going it's a good perspective and it's a good cause that you guys have put together
00:27:21.600to help end that war i'm sure the last thing you want is it to go even one step further no
00:27:28.720what do you predict the end of this war looks like
00:27:33.920well uh realistically uh if nothing change from now on uh i think more sooner or later
00:27:42.480russia will just give up yeah right because especially in the last uh few months ukraine
00:27:49.600is so successful attacking all this oil refineries and all of that uh so do you think putin's getting
00:27:56.480pressure from within now he does but that's the problem it's completely complete dictatorship
00:28:02.960he is a single uh decision point so one day he might die or be hosted it's happened in russia
00:28:10.240many times as soon as it will happen the war is over there is another scenario they have nuclear
00:28:15.520weapons that's the problem yeah if they would not have nuclear weapons it will be long uh
00:28:21.200finished as many conflicts or many disputes with russia have so i i i could not tell the
00:28:27.760only thing i can tell that especially this year uh i'm proud of the efforts that ukraine is doing
00:28:33.840Ukraine became one of the military powers in the world with our own so much
00:28:44.360technology developed like even when Iran attacked Arab nation they were
00:28:49.560using Ukraine for help so it's it's Ukraine the shield of Europe and I'm
00:28:59.760I'm sure that nobody would allow Europe to fall, no Canada.
00:29:03.760No, but it's wild to me that it's gone this long and maybe, you know, as much as I complain about putting money into it,
00:29:11.760should the world have stepped in a little heavier, should NATO have taken this on right away, it's hard to say.
00:29:18.760But the one thing I will say is that when I hear that there's a Canadian out there organizing to make a difference right there on the battlefield,
00:29:28.760It does make me feel proud as a Canadian.
00:29:30.760Moreover, there are Canadians who fight in Ukraine.
00:29:32.760I've witnessed this and I've met them.
00:29:34.760One of my friends, he is born in Kelowna.