Unify Action - December 11, 2025


Business Owner Breaks Silence — DEMANDS Ottawa Step Up Immediately


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

160.12833

Word count

2,113

Sentence count

82


Summary

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

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
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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.