Unify Action - December 11, 2025


Business Owner Breaks Silence — DEMANDS Ottawa Step Up Immediately


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

160.13

Word count

2,113

Sentence count

82


Summary

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

In this episode, we discuss the impact of the federal government on the construction industry in Canada and the impact it could have on the forestry industry. We talk about the benefits of government support for the industry and the challenges that the government is facing.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Alright guys, we recently went to the Construct Canada conference in downtown Toronto, and
00:00:06.580 my purpose for going was pretty simple. I wanted to talk to some home builders and people
00:00:10.740 who work in the construction industry to find out what they are feeling like with the current
00:00:16.020 economy in Canada and the current Prime Minister, and if they're expecting any of the generational
00:00:21.100 investment that the government is currently promising. So that was our purpose for going,
00:00:25.940 and I got some very interesting responses from a lot of these business owners. And I didn't find
00:00:32.020 one of them that was receiving any sort of federal investment from the government. And some of them
00:00:36.400 didn't even know what this generational investment was. And I just attribute that to the fact that
00:00:41.140 they weren't very politically interested people. But I didn't find one that was receiving any
00:00:46.680 chunk of money from the federal government. So I was able to get some recording of the
00:00:50.780 conversations that I had with some of these people and the one that I will show you now is
00:00:55.120 someone who is heavily involved in the timber industry in BC and we've been hearing like a lot
00:01:01.200 about the sawmills going out of business in BC so I figured this would be an interesting one and I
00:01:06.600 specifically asked him because I thought he would know a little bit more about how industry and the
00:01:12.480 timber industry is going in BC. So this is the conversation that I had with him and you'll have
00:01:17.480 to forgive us there is no really good footage here so this all will be just audio capital
00:01:24.640 spending that will basically help us in the future so he's saying that we'll need to make sacrifices
00:01:30.160 now to make these investments so that we can have a brighter future as a country so he's talking
00:01:35.660 about all sorts of generational investment capital spending i'm trying to find the companies that are
00:01:40.820 receiving that like he's already spent a boatload of money and some of it i assume should have gone
00:01:48.120 to the private industry um i'm just curious so it will here's my take generally on it okay
00:01:54.860 for the forest industry in British Columbia 80 percent of what we manufacture goes to the
00:02:07.120 united states okay huge huge market price and here's the reason is i can have a customer in
00:02:17.020 alabama and i can phone that customer and we can talk about what our kids are doing in university
00:02:23.120 what our grandkids are doing whatever it is we have that commonality yeah they may talk football
00:02:30.500 we'll talk hockey whatever it is we have that commonality as I diversify markets
00:02:36.620 and let's say I try to do that in Japan that accounts for 7% of my sales right I
00:02:42.080 can phone mr. Nagasaki and ask him at 6 a.m. in the morning how his day went and
00:02:52.380 through an interpreter if his English is okay or my Japanese which isn't we can
00:02:58.340 have that relationship it's much easier for us to deal with it in North America
00:03:04.580 and in primarily with the US side so that relationship is been long-standing
00:03:11.900 it's under tremendous pressure right now with the Trump administration putting
00:03:20.060 barriers to that and that will change so we have sawmills in BC that are shutting
00:03:25.320 down and they're shutting down because there's a 45 percent tariff on that marketplace so we look
00:03:34.360 to government at a time now when it needs to be supporting manufacturing here it needs to support
00:03:42.680 housing here across canada and that's where i see the funds going because whether it's two years
00:03:50.360 three years or four years while Trump's in or maybe it's JD Vance that takes over from Trump
00:03:56.220 this could be a longer term impact on the way we normally have done business so that's where
00:04:04.240 I look at it and go is it a good use of federal dollars I think build Canada homes has some
00:04:14.840 really good potential do i think it's going to impact my daughter who's 23 and is at ocat
00:04:22.740 or my son who's at ubc and is 21 doing forestry yes but i think it's a time now that you at least
00:04:33.000 have to look inwards and go we spent way too much time and effort in the u.s market just for the
00:04:40.980 reasons I was telling you versus looking at our own market which is here and we
00:04:45.780 haven't we've never been to this show because I don't need to sell a lot to Ontario until now
00:04:51.660 yeah and so that's why I look towards government for that connecting the support could they walk
00:05:00.960 out of it and say we're out yes we could will that impact our industry even more 100% will
00:05:10.140 the strongest or what? Yes. So those are tough questions. Those are long-term kind of...
00:05:17.740 Yeah. So do you see a lot of support? Like if the government's doing their
00:05:21.900 bits to support you? They are attempting, but in almost everything government,
00:05:28.440 there's that lag time. Right. And that lag time concerns me because of
00:05:35.040 bureaucracy and red tape interprovincial trade prime example yeah are those
00:05:41.880 trade fairs coming down they're coming down for our products
00:05:47.440 why it isn't yet because everybody's still you can't go to the Ontario
00:05:52.980 liquor or pick up BC wine right now why is that it's simple take it off it's about
00:05:59.300 market share it's always it's a super complicated issue that shouldn't be as
00:06:04.080 complicated as it is. Yeah so I'm curious like they did do a bill C-5 I think it was called
00:06:13.080 that was supposed to yeah is it something to do with it like they did a bill to interprovincial trade
00:06:19.020 yeah and it did everything minus as I understand it right now minus alcohol and there's one other
00:06:25.880 thing in there. Could be. They say they're working through them. I hope they do. We should
00:06:33.240 be more of the free trade in our own country. Still with the understanding that the U.S.
00:06:40.720 is still going to be a big partner for us, but we should be looking in our own backyard
00:06:45.060 as we are. Yeah, so the inter-provincial, just to understand you perfectly, the inter-provincial
00:06:50.160 trade has opened up since that bill yes it has okay all right i don't think it was there wasn't
00:06:56.220 any huge barriers for my industry so much okay um some building codes and stuff like that that are
00:07:04.620 still need to be ironed out but generally not a huge impact on us okay for me as a
00:07:14.960 let's say a representative of an industry i'm looking at um funding spent to diversify markets
00:07:23.600 a little bit i look at trying to come to some sort of solution with the united states under
00:07:30.320 kuzma and trade initiatives there about how to deal with tariffs how to deal with a mercurial
00:07:37.840 president that changes his mind all those things matter to me a great deal yeah
00:07:43.760 Yeah, so you heard him say that 80% of their production actually goes to the United States,
00:07:53.600 80% of their timber, and only 7% actually ships across the Pacific to a place like Japan. So he
00:08:00.560 gives us reasons for why we have had such a tight trade relationship with the United States, and a
00:08:06.440 lot of that is cultural, a lot of it is logistical, but the fact that our current government is not
00:08:13.500 putting their whole heart into negotiating with our nearest neighbor is to me really incredulous.
00:08:20.280 Why aren't they putting that time into it? And to have the kind of who cares attitude or to even
00:08:26.720 go into a trade talk and then almost make things worse is really like Canada. I know a lot of you
00:08:34.840 believe this, but Canada really did not pick the right prime minister for the job. They really
00:08:40.100 didn't. Like, I, we knew this when he was elected, but I'm realizing that more and more this man
00:08:46.520 does not have our best interest at heart. And he just certainly doesn't have our industry's
00:08:52.100 best interest at heart. Why is he, why is he not working on getting the trade barriers removed and
00:08:58.400 the regulations loosened on these industries? Instead, he's just throwing money at them
00:09:04.080 sometimes. Like, it didn't sound like this particular company was receiving any money at
00:09:10.840 all, but the fact that he's just throwing money out there, making inflation worse, making the
00:09:16.700 business case in this country even worse, of course sawmills are going to shut down. So I just find
00:09:23.560 the whole situation ridiculous. And the interprovincial barriers that he was talking about
00:09:29.800 that Bill C-5 was supposed to remove. The barriers have been removed federally, but that's only 30%
00:09:36.380 of the barriers that need to be removed. Right now, provinces should be actually brought to
00:09:41.400 the table and they should be working very closely to get their provincial barriers removed so that
00:09:47.000 we can have free trade all across our country. That's one thing that this gentleman was saying,
00:09:52.420 and I think it's a good thing. We need to have zero trade barriers between our provinces.
00:09:57.260 is. Yes, so only 30% of those barriers have been removed. This just is another example of half
00:10:03.980 measures Kearney, where he's only going, well, not even halfway in this case, only 30% of the way
00:10:09.660 and saying that he's done the full job. And it's just, I just find this liberal government so
00:10:15.500 infuriating sometimes when they do these half measures, and it's not enough. So we need this
00:10:22.580 prime minister, who of course we know he won't do it, but we need him to bring all the provinces,
00:10:28.140 all the premiers into one room and get them to remove all of their provincial barriers or to
00:10:32.900 agree to do so. Some of the provinces are, at least there's work on that area, but this should
00:10:37.840 have been done long, long ago. And the fact that it's only been done 30% and we say that it's good
00:10:43.620 is just ridiculous. Half measures Kearney is really actually only 30% measures Kearney.
00:10:48.780 Yes, so that was just one of the conversations that we had that day.
00:10:53.040 But here is another snippet of another conversation that I thought was kind of interesting.
00:10:58.800 You'll see in just a sec.
00:11:00.500 He's saying that it is a sacrifice today for especially people of my generation for a possible better tomorrow.
00:11:09.160 That is what he's labeling it.
00:11:11.260 So it's a whole bunch of capital investment.
00:11:13.780 We're all in the back of my field asset management, so they're very well capitalized.
00:11:17.820 so we wouldn't be getting a cent.
00:11:19.160 Oh, okay.
00:11:19.700 No, no, no.
00:11:20.220 Sorry, what was the, which I said?
00:11:22.040 Brookfield.
00:11:22.580 You're owned by Brookfield, okay.
00:11:24.620 Yeah.
00:11:25.460 Edger's owned by Brookfield.
00:11:27.660 Interesting.
00:11:28.500 Okay, because I know that that, I know that that is.
00:11:31.020 Yeah, yeah.
00:11:31.640 We pay money.
00:11:32.560 Yeah.
00:11:33.300 I know that is Mark Carney's company.
00:11:36.240 Yeah.
00:11:37.240 Yeah.
00:11:38.500 Do you guys manage homes in Canada?
00:11:40.620 Like, like, involved in home, or Brookfield, I know.
00:11:44.020 Brookfield, so they, like, we're under their, well, I guess.
00:11:47.460 yeah under their umbrella but we offer like age back they just own us and operate us from
00:11:52.020 like a capital perspective yeah so that was fun uh this is a brookfield subsidiary and
00:11:57.820 i probably um missed an opportunity there by uh trying to figure out how closely they work with
00:12:04.300 the federal government as part of brookfield but i thought that was interesting that they
00:12:09.260 claimed that they weren't receiving federal funds because brookfield takes care of all their
00:12:13.160 investment anyway so that was our trip to construct canada and we talked to a lot more companies um
00:12:19.640 on and off camera but none of them are receiving any any support from the government um and we're
00:12:25.480 not seeing any real work from the government and a lot of them were not even expecting any real hope
00:12:30.120 of capital investment um so that was the synopsis of our trip and in the spirit of the holidays
00:12:38.360 right now, if you go to our YouTube homepage and you donate through that PayPal link to Unify Canada,
00:12:45.060 you will get 10% off that donation. And this is much like taxation, where you give a bunch of
00:12:51.080 your money to the government and only receive 10% return in services. So in the spirit of the
00:12:57.740 holidays, you can get 10% off. So go to that PayPal link and take advantage of this one-time
00:13:03.180 offer. Anyway, that'll do it for me. I'm Sarah. If you like this video, make sure to like,
00:13:08.580 subscribe, and comment down below. Bye.