Western Standard - Episode 3： The Danielle Smith Show

00:00:00.000 well greetings friends welcome to another edition of the danielle smith show this is episode three

00:00:29.200 You know, I've already run afoul of YouTube. Can you believe it? And at least it's not censorship in the usual sense. I apparently violated copyright by playing a couple of videos for you on Wednesday. Now, the reason I played those videos on Wednesday was to give you some background on this conference that I attended this week.

00:00:50.840 It was the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, and I wanted to make sure that you understood what Bitcoin was all about, because it's a little bit confusing.

00:00:59.520 I mean, anytime you talk about how money is created, you're going to end up with confusion, because money is a confusing topic.

00:01:06.640 We don't really want to look at the mechanics of how it gets into our bank account.

00:01:10.560 We just want to make sure that it is in our bank account and that we can buy things with it.

00:01:14.800 So I thought that I was doing the right things.

00:01:17.100 when I was in mainstream media, as you know, I'd play videos all the time. And part of the way I

00:01:22.680 would play videos is that my view in media is you must source, you must give credit. That's

00:01:30.580 my paradigm. I'm not trying to pass something off as not being of my own. My view is that if I tell

00:01:37.220 you where it comes from, you're going to say, oh, great, look at what interesting things The Guardian

00:01:40.960 does. Maybe I'll just mosey on over to their website and see if they've got more interesting

00:01:45.040 things for me to look at same with the federalists i thought the same thing but apparently

00:01:49.360 youtube has an algorithm and if you use another video from one of their stock all of a sudden you

00:01:55.520 get put in the doghouse so you probably weren't able to find we're disputing that by the way

00:02:01.360 because i i don't understand why people wouldn't look at it as a compliment that others want to

00:02:08.720 give profile to their work and drive more traffic to their website that is my that was my thinking

00:02:15.180 It's going to be a constant problem, I understand.

00:02:18.540 But we are disputing it with YouTube.

00:02:19.880 Hopefully, we'll be back up again.

00:02:21.280 Apparently, the censors at Facebook and Rumble are not as sensitive.

00:02:24.580 So if you want to have a look at it, that's where it would be.

00:02:26.580 Because the thing I've been trying to do throughout the course of the week is build on our knowledge of what changes are happening in the world.

00:02:35.020 And I'm not going to stay obsessed with cryptocurrency and with the monetary system and with Bitcoin and with money.

00:02:41.680 But one of the things that we really need to be aware of is, number one, that the world is in a major transition away from the traditional currencies.

00:02:54.320 I don't want to frighten you about that.

00:02:55.800 I mean, it's happened before.

00:02:57.480 We used to have a gold standard all the way up until 1971, and then they came up with the Bretton Woods system,

00:03:03.360 which if I was to describe our current monetary system, it was to de-link from gold, but to link

00:03:11.120 with oil so that all of the oil transactions in the world would be denominated in the US dollar

00:03:18.660 currency. It really is. This is why we kept getting called in Alberta. It kept getting called

00:03:23.920 us having a petrodollar because whenever oil would go up, the value of the Canadian currency

00:03:29.880 would go up, which would anger those in Eastern Canada who were relying on imports from the US

00:03:34.960 for machinery and equipment to fuel the manufacturing sector and created some of the

00:03:39.680 division that we have in the country is because when we look at how we sell our oil and gas,

00:03:44.520 it's denominated in US dollars. Now, the reason I say this is breaking down is because of look

00:03:50.500 what's happened. I've been watching this for a couple of years now. The first time I noticed it

00:03:56.340 was when China and Russia inked a deal for China to buy gas from Russia denominated in yuan backed

00:04:06.200 by gold. I thought, ooh, that's interesting. That's stepping outside the system. Now we've

00:04:11.420 also heard, of course, because of the Russia invasion in Ukraine, they're now saying that

00:04:15.760 they want anyone who purchases their oil and gas. And let's face it, they provide a lot in the world.

00:04:21.320 And so as much as the war is taking place, you still have our allies dependent on Russian oil

00:04:26.680 and gas. And so they're still buying it. But Russia now wants it to be paid in rubles backed

00:04:31.560 by gold. So you've got Russia now stepping out of the American dollar system. This is only going to

00:04:38.120 accelerate. Maybe the other example I would give is Venezuela. When Venezuela was having their

00:04:43.200 dispute with the Americans, I think they still are, they announced their own cryptocurrency,

00:04:48.640 a petro-currency, so that they would be able to transact business on the Venezuelan oil and gas

00:04:55.260 supplies as well. I don't think it worked out so well because the Venezuelans, unfortunately, 0.66

00:04:58.960 have a government that is keen to inflate their currency. Oh, wait a minute. So do we. Everyone

00:05:04.500 in the world is doing this. So I'm just making you aware of the broad trends that have been

00:05:09.820 occurring over the last few years. And I don't know when it's going to come to a head. It's going

00:05:16.040 to come to a head at some point. And I think that there's, as I've mentioned, the path that I think

00:05:21.340 that is most likely, because many of you are very concerned about where this is heading to. And I

00:05:26.060 want to read as a way of framing this out, because I know many of you are not convinced by my

00:05:32.040 enthusiasm for decentralized currencies. I hope after today, I will convince you. So first of all,

00:05:38.480 let me go from one of my locals posters saying, I'm afraid I don't share your enthusiasm for

00:05:43.660 cryptocurrency. Governments currently have a monopoly on money creation. And as you can see,

00:05:49.960 the worldwide assaults on cryptocurrency, they are not willing to give it up easily. Blockchain is

00:05:56.400 interesting and very useful technology, but cryptocurrency, I'm not convinced. I think we're

00:06:02.860 far more likely to have nationally, maybe internationally mandated central bank digital

00:06:08.900 currency, which has all the built-in control advantages so appealing to budding authoritarian

00:06:15.440 tyrants. Now, building on your post from last week and the week before, I agree that Alberta

00:06:19.960 is a populous place, and I think as an aspiring premier, he would be well advised to shelve the

00:06:26.020 crypto enthusiasm and concentrate on Alberta first. He goes on to talk about how this will

00:06:31.900 require a mean negotiation with Ottawa and so on and so forth. Look, I am going to put to you

00:06:37.160 that the very best way to fight Ottawa is going to be to embrace this emerging industry. And in

00:06:47.800 particular, the mining of Bitcoin, and it will make us the richest jurisdiction on the planet.

00:06:56.180 When you are the richest jurisdiction on the planet, guess what? Ottawa isn't going to

00:07:01.540 matter all that much. So let me see if I can make a couple of cases for you

00:07:06.200 about why it is we need to embrace cryptocurrency. Now, I've got so many different screens up here.

00:07:14.960 I want to tell you a couple of stories because I've been asking a few people, and maybe I'll

00:07:19.780 ask you to give me your advice or your comments in the commentary section as well. You're going

00:07:27.320 to have to do this while I'm searching for my email here. One of the things that I've been

00:07:34.100 asking people over the past week is, what would you do if your government inflated your currency

00:07:45.020 to a point where it was valueless? How would you actually handle that? Because we have an example

00:07:51.040 of that in Venezuela. I don't know if you know, one of the first trips that I took after I

00:07:57.080 finished high school, I was just going into university, is I did a European trip, landed

00:08:02.880 in greece went over to italy and then came back down to what was the yugoslavia at the time but

00:08:08.080 yugoslavia was in the end days of a hyperinflationary environment and i remember going down to the

00:08:14.480 beach one day where i bought a bottle of coke i used to drink coke bought a bottle of coke on the

00:08:19.360 way down and it was one price in yugoslavia and dinar and then after spending a couple of hours

00:08:24.160 on the beach i bought another coke on the way up and it was a higher price i thought well that's

00:08:28.480 weird but it isn't weird in a hyperinflationary environment that's how quickly prices can change

00:08:34.080 is that the shop owner has to be monitoring the inflationary prices on an hourly basis and making

00:08:41.840 adjustment to the prices of goods sold on an hourly basis now what would you do in that kind

00:08:48.160 of circumstance what would you have as your store of value how would you make sure that the canadian

00:08:54.480 dollars that you've got stuffed in your mattress don't end up eroding in value because i know many

00:08:59.280 of you are saying well we need cash cash is king well cash isn't king when you've got a government

00:09:04.000 that's being this irresponsible so let me tell you what happened in venezuela because i've been

00:09:08.560 following these stories closely but i imagine that that many of you have not if you're not

00:09:12.080 enthusiasts for bitcoin but listen to this uh this is a story that came out last summer it says

00:09:18.320 bitcoin becomes venezuelans last resort even when buying food so amidst the worsening crisis

00:09:27.280 and financial turmoil i wonder if i can share this with you hmm let me see if i can share this with

00:09:33.040 you so that you know what it is that i'm talking about here as i say you know we're just getting

00:09:37.840 used to using this new technology so i'm going to use this little chrome tab and if i can find it

00:09:44.160 very easily here it is i'm going to see if i can share this with you so that i can talk you through

00:09:48.960 it so then bitcoin becomes venezuela's last resort even when buying food amidst the worsening

00:09:56.080 economic crisis and financial turmoil venezuelans in search for alternative assets and stores of

00:10:02.080 value to finance their daily living so here's what's going on i mean they were experiencing

00:10:08.960 same thing that i described when i visited yugoslavia is that they're they get paid in

00:10:15.200 venezuelan currency and then they go and try to buy groceries but in between walking getting

00:10:20.400 their money and going to the grocery store it ends up losing value so they've got excessive

00:10:26.000 regulation on physical assets such as gold so the gold isn't a store of value i did talk to one

00:10:32.560 friend who said that uh he he has read that the two most valuable commodities in the case of a

00:10:39.600 a meltdown in society are ammunition and whiskey now i don't know that's what i'm saying what are

00:10:46.480 you guys gonna do i i can't imagine stocking up on ammunition or whiskey in the event i need to

00:10:52.560 go to the grocery store to buy bread so if this might ask you the question if not bitcoin then

00:10:58.160 want. So here's what happened. The death toll of starving Venezuelan children is rapidly increasing

00:11:03.020 in Venezuela to the point where military personnel resort to trafficking food into the country and

00:11:09.200 residents are struggling to acquire basic needs like medicine. They were on the brink of economic

00:11:16.660 collapse. I don't think it's gotten any better. But part of what has occurred is individuals from

00:11:21.160 student company owners have reported success in mining Bitcoin and using digital currency to

00:11:25.740 purchase items like food and medicine through online marketplaces that accept Bitcoin. Some

00:11:30.760 students were ordering food through Amazon using Bitcoin, accepting service providers. And they

00:11:37.040 give an example there. So that's what I mean, my dear friends, is that we never really think about

00:11:41.780 what's going to happen in the worst case scenario. But that is what happened in Venezuela, a nation,

00:11:48.480 incidentally, that was one of the wealthiest in the world. All of our left-wing progressive

00:11:52.460 ideologues. We're looking at that is the model of how the Canadian energy industry should run.

00:11:59.300 Look how badly things can turn out, how quickly things can turn out badly. Now, let me just turn

00:12:04.920 to another example. If you've been watching what's been going on in Ukraine, as we all have,

00:12:09.820 there's been two really interesting developments. Number one has been that the Ukrainian government

00:12:17.220 did a worldwide appeal for donations in cryptocurrency. Because guess what? I mean,

00:12:24.120 they needed to buy a hard amount of goods and services, medical supplies, military equipment

00:12:30.100 from the international community. And you can't do that in Ukrainian dollars, because who wants to

00:12:35.960 hold Ukrainian dollars in a time when they're in the middle of war? So the official government

00:12:40.920 position, if you can believe it, remarkably, was that they wanted to ask the world to donate to

00:12:47.740 them in cryptocurrency. And lo and behold, guess what? It's actually occurred. So they ended up

00:12:53.040 getting, the last one that I saw, they ended up getting something like $54 million in currency

00:13:00.760 that had been donated through cryptos. So you get that kind of indication from your government.

00:13:07.580 Guess what? You decide to do the same thing. Listen to this story. So here you are a young

00:13:12.760 person in Ukraine. They're about to come down with mandatory conscription for anyone 18 to I think

00:13:20.200 age 60. And so this young guy goes to stand in the lineup to get money out of the ATM. And guess

00:13:27.100 what's happened? They've already put the limitation on how much Ukrainian dollars you could withdraw.

00:13:32.120 It's the equivalent of $33. In addition, lineups are around the block. So listen to his story.

00:13:37.080 So he, on the morning Russia went to war, Fadi woke up at 9 a.m. to a deluge of telegram messages from a friend, asking him what was happening on the ground in the western city of Lviv.

00:13:49.540 After a quick scan of the news, he realized his country was under siege.

00:13:53.020 He decided to get out, and Fadi's 20 years old and asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect his privacy because there's conscription for Ukrainian nationals aged 18 to 60.

00:14:03.020 Escaping duty on the front line meant having to clear the border before officials had the

00:14:08.120 chance to lock it down.

00:14:09.180 To do that, he needed two things fast.

00:14:11.280 He needed a negative COVID test and money.

00:14:13.240 I couldn't withdraw cash at all because the lineups to the ATM were too long, and I couldn't

00:14:18.500 wait that much time, Faddy told CNN.

00:14:20.640 So he turned to Bitcoin instead.

00:14:22.560 Oh, sorry, CNBC.

00:14:23.600 He tells CNBC that he made a peer-to-peer exchange with a friend trading $600 worth

00:14:29.680 his bitcoin savings for the zloty which is polis national security or currency and then he went

00:14:36.480 to use it to pay for a bus at the border a bed in the hostel for him and his girlfriend and some

00:14:42.400 food the speed needs of the crypto transaction proved instrumental within two hours of safety 0.97

00:14:48.000 safe passage into poland ukraine closed its borders to all men of fighting age so that is

00:14:56.000 just two use cases from current the current environment we find ourselves in about how

00:15:02.480 having a decentralized currency able to be accessed on your phone because you've downloaded it into

00:15:09.600 and you're essentially carrying your wallet full of cryptocurrency on your phone that's part of

00:15:16.480 the way it works or in his case a usb stick but it allowed for him to get around the government

00:15:22.320 regulations and get around the government limitations and if you've talked to anybody

00:15:26.320 who's lived in a country where the government ends up bringing down the uh the restrictions

00:15:33.520 on who can enter and who can exit their country the these are the kinds of measures that they

00:15:38.320 control the very first thing they control is the currency because because think about it if your

00:15:43.920 currency is going to be devalued um how would you if you were to make it to the u.s border and all

00:15:50.960 you had was canadian dollars at the border how far are those going to go in the united states i mean

00:15:57.120 i have never tried to pay in canadian dollars in the us oh look at my dogs photo bombing us

00:16:03.440 it happens this is the hazard of working from home so um if you if you try to even go to the

00:16:10.000 united states to pay in canadian dollars you're not going to be able to do it and then if you

00:16:14.320 try to go to a u.s bank to try to convert it i don't even know if they would allow you to do

00:16:18.320 that either so this is one of the limitations that you have when you rely on just a national currency

00:16:23.840 this is it's also the reason why i've always i got interested in bitcoin in the first place

00:16:28.880 because i i've traveled a bit as you know over the years i've been to israel i've been to europe

00:16:33.440 i've been to um america i've been to panama and i've been to to mexico and a few other places

00:16:39.920 and i always felt like why shouldn't i just be able to have some kind of global currency that

00:16:44.800 i can hold so that when i arrive at a place i can just pull it out of the bank and the local currency

00:16:49.840 that was sort of the vision that i had for why i wanted to own bitcoin in the first place is to be

00:16:54.640 able to make it seamless when you're going from border to border so this is the world that we

00:16:58.800 now find ourselves in i don't think it's um uh it's one of those things where i i i wish i know

00:17:04.720 most of us just wish for stability and we wish that we can turn the clock back but the things

00:17:10.400 are are advancing very quickly and i don't want you to be in a position where you're saying what

00:17:14.400 the world's going on out there why didn't any tell anyone tell me what was going on so this is what's

00:17:19.040 going on there's a couple more things that i want to share with you because the government

00:17:23.440 to its great credit has uh has announced that they are going to be passing in the financial

00:17:31.040 uh it's a new financial act that is going to allow for it's called the financial innovation act and

00:17:38.560 it's going to the reason i'm mentioning this to you b is because when it was first announced it

00:17:43.280 probably went a little bit under your radar screen and you might not know the full implications of

00:17:49.520 of what it is going to do to transform the market in alberta but i'm going to tell you it is going

00:17:56.000 to be extraordinary if you want to have a look at it yourself just so that you know that it's

00:18:00.560 coming through it got introduced on march the 30th the great fanfare it is a uh it's a bill

00:18:07.360 that's being led by finance minister travis taves it's called the financial innovation act and

00:18:12.400 essentially what it's going to end up doing this is a lot of gobbledygook in here so i probably

00:18:17.120 can't go through and tell you all about it but essentially what it's going to do is allow for

00:18:21.840 these new types of financial instruments to have a bit of a pilot project they're calling

00:18:27.760 it a sandbox that they're going to be able to come here and innovate and try new mechanisms

00:18:34.240 for using this emerging financial technology in a safe environment in alberta with the endorsement

00:18:40.960 of the of the regulators there's the thing that was so remarkable at the canadian blockchain

00:18:45.360 consortium conference that i was at this week is there already are a few companies that have

00:18:50.720 managed to navigate through the federal regulatory process and are now publicly traded on the on the

00:18:57.040 on the tsx i went through and and uh and bought an uh an exchange traded fund in bitcoin just to

00:19:04.160 see if it would work so it allows for you to safely hold if you're interested remember

00:19:09.200 anytime you're buying currencies they go up and down like american currency goes up and down

00:19:13.520 canadian currency goes up and down bitcoin is no different but it allows for you to enter into the

00:19:18.720 market through a regulated environment for those of you who want to hold it um in a way that might

00:19:24.400 feel a little bit more familiar but the other part of it as well is that it's one of these in uh

00:19:30.480 hedges against the obvious inflation that we're now seeing right now i mean if you look at what

00:19:34.960 we're looking at six seven percent interest rates uh or uh inflation rates if that's annualized over

00:19:41.280 the course of a year 10 12 perhaps maybe it's even higher than that how long is that going to

00:19:46.640 continue and we know what happens is the bank of canada then will come through with interest rates

00:19:51.680 hike rate hikes because that's what occurs when inflation gets out of control is that they try

00:19:56.720 to make it harder for you to borrow money so that we have less dollars chasing after the goods that

00:20:02.000 aren't there so inflation is going to be a problem what are you going to do about it

00:20:06.080 i mean i know that people are risk averse i know that people are worried about what a digital

00:20:10.560 currency might mean but there are two different types this is i guess the battle that i was

00:20:15.040 trying to articulate for you this week there is going to be i think as my texture pointed out

00:20:22.560 there will be some new currency that emerges that is probably based on a basket of currencies

00:20:30.240 of all of those who want to be in that particular market so i suspect europe will be a part of it

00:20:35.440 maybe the swiss franc which is separate maybe the uk uh pound will be part of it the us dollar the

00:20:41.520 canadian dollar but they'll they'll have some way of creating a new type of currency at an

00:20:48.080 international level and i don't know what the mechanism for that is if it's the world bank or

00:20:52.560 something else because they have to reset the currencies there's just too much debt there's

00:20:56.800 too much inflation the system's broken so i suspect that is one pathway but how do you counter that

00:21:03.200 i don't think you counter that by sticking canadian dollars under your mattress i think i

00:21:07.920 don't know that you counter that by moving to american currency i think the americans are in

00:21:12.560 just as much trouble as we are so someone else posted saying well maybe you need to have some

00:21:17.120 chinese yuan or russian rubles i don't know if i'd recommend that either so you see all of the

00:21:22.720 the the central bank currencies are failing us so what do you do i suppose you could buy whiskey and

00:21:28.480 ammunition like my friend i suppose you could buy gold bars or or silver or silver bars as well but

00:21:36.080 i don't know how practical that is but i've just given you two examples of how people in the worst

00:21:42.000 and most desperate situations in the world in venezuela and ukraine found the ease of having

00:21:47.040 a little bit of bitcoin on hand as a bit of an emergency measure so that it could number one

00:21:52.000 help them buy food to feed their family and number two help them to escape to uh to avoid conscription

00:21:57.440 into war so you have to make your own choice about what your own level of threat is your

00:22:02.000 own level of risk but what would you do to create that level of hedge against inflation so one of

00:22:08.640 the speakers at the conference he asked the question he his name is dave bradley and

00:22:14.000 incidentally i mentioned him because he is with bitcoin well which is an advertised major

00:22:19.200 advertiser on western sanders so let me just give him a bit of a shout out for that but he asked the

00:22:23.120 room because we're in a room full of about 350 business people and he wanted to know how many of

00:22:28.720 them had bitcoin on the balance sheet how many of them are holding a little bit of bitcoin in their

00:22:35.040 accounts as a bit of a hedge and keep in mind too like this is not fringe businesses deloitte was

00:22:40.000 there mccarthy tetro was there kpmg was there these are some of the biggest organizations in

00:22:46.400 the world who have some of the biggest customers in the world and when he asked that question about

00:22:50.800 50 of the room put up their hands saying that they have a portion of their balance sheet that is held

00:22:56.720 in bitcoin or other cryptocurrency assets and he took a picture because he said next year i want

00:23:01.280 to take another picture and see what the answer is and he he guessed that it would probably be 100

00:23:06.240 of the businesses at that time so i just don't want you to i don't want you to see this i'm trying

00:23:12.640 to tell you a trend before it occurs so that you can make your own choices about whether there

00:23:18.320 there's some wisdom in being able to to do the same so i can i can give you some advice if you

00:23:24.880 want me to walk you through how you would go about doing that but i'm just trying to make the case

00:23:28.480 for you right now that we're in a a time of great flux and we're not putting the pieces back together

00:23:36.720 the way they were before and so if we're moving to something new how do you make sure that you

00:23:41.360 you protect yourself. That's my only intention here. Now, the other thing that we talked about,

00:23:46.480 which was really interesting, and the reason why I'm telling you that this is moving along is

00:23:50.080 because there have been a couple of developments that I think are pretty important for you to know

00:23:54.020 about. Number one was when I was doing business advocacy, I came across a company called Mega

00:24:01.420 Energy. And Mega had been looking for the opportunity to establish Bitcoin mining operations

00:24:10.580 in Sturgeon County. Now, here's the problem with mining operations, if you want the truth.

00:24:15.400 The problem with mining operations is that they can be very loud. So I think the folks in Sturgeon

00:24:21.340 County were not all that happy about the fact that it sounded like big plane engines every time

00:24:28.040 the Bitcoin mining operation got set up. So they pushed back against it and it got cancelled.

00:24:32.720 However, in the last two days, Sturgeon County has said, as long as you can put in

00:24:38.520 measures to reduce the amount of noise pollution, you're going to, they're going to allow mining

00:24:43.780 operations. So they've become essentially, you've got the province saying, we want to attract this

00:24:48.200 business. Now you've got a local municipality in Sturgeon County, where there's already a ton

00:24:51.880 of industrial activity saying, we want to establish mining operations. In the story,

00:24:56.700 Mega Energy said, they're now looking at establishing 10 mining operations.

00:25:00.720 RB from iMining, I told him this story, he said, I need to find out how to get in touch with those

00:25:05.140 folks in Sturgeon County, we want to set up there too. And this is really important because whether

00:25:09.700 you like cryptocurrency or not, whether you're going to hold Bitcoin or not, there is an entire

00:25:15.040 industry of individuals who are creating more and more Bitcoin through the process of mining. You

00:25:21.820 wouldn't have to go back and watch Wednesday if you want to know what that means. So they're

00:25:25.320 creating Bitcoin through the process of mining it with computers, which takes a lot of energy.

00:25:31.540 And when they've been trying to do this in different jurisdictions, they've been shut

00:25:34.720 down. So Sturgeon County shut them down initially. In Texas, they'd been really attracting a lot of

00:25:39.140 these operations, but because of some instability in the power grid, they've been forced to shut

00:25:44.480 down as early as February. So by essentially saying the all clear, by creating a zone for

00:25:51.620 these operators to come to Alberta, they're going to come flocking in. And I'll tell you why that's

00:25:56.620 going to be extremely important. The reason that's going to be extremely important is that is the key

00:26:02.640 for us taking on ottawa let me get to that in one minute the the third thing i should tell you is

00:26:08.000 unbelievably alberta health services is one of the places that is pioneering an approach of

00:26:14.800 using cryptocurrency and so the beneficiary of some of the donations that that were accumulated

00:26:23.200 while we were at this conference was something called the glen rose rehabilitation foundation

00:26:29.120 and uh laura if you want to call that video up i want people to see this story of little liam and

00:26:34.720 you'll understand why it is glenrose is so excited about this new technology number one but the fact

00:26:41.920 is they're they're they they are the first organization of its kind to set up a page

00:26:48.640 on their website to receive cryptocurrency and they're on under the umbrella of alberta health

00:26:53.680 services ever since they announced that this was happening all kinds of charities across the

00:26:57.840 country have been getting in touch with them to ask them how can we do the same and so and i did

00:27:03.600 a little bit of an experiment myself on how you would be able to contribute to um to the organization

00:27:10.080 so there there was a bitcoin atm yeah it looked just like an atm machine i stuck a hundred dollars

00:27:16.720 into the atm and i said that i wanted it to convert it into bitcoin and then there's a

00:27:22.400 little qr code and deposited it directly on my phone and then i took my phone and deposited it

00:27:28.400 directly into their account through a qr code and it didn't go through a central bank didn't

00:27:32.480 go through essential intermediary no one from the world economic forum was monitoring what i did

00:27:36.880 it really was that quick and that simple so maybe this is a way for you to just try the new type of

00:27:44.400 currency out maybe if you want to take a little bit of a maybe educate yourself by going through

00:27:50.720 the process because that's what i find i have to learn by doing but also support a good cause

00:27:55.920 in the process maybe that's a way to ease your way into understanding that this is really just

00:28:01.200 like any other currency it's become so valuable so widely used the use case is so obvious you've got

00:28:09.200 the federal provincial government federal government agreeing to it because we've got

00:28:13.680 federal regulation that allows these currencies to be traded you've got provincial buy-in because

00:28:19.120 we're passing this new legislation you've got municipal buy-in because of sturgeon county you've

00:28:23.040 got ahs buy-in because they're allowing glenrose to do this i don't know guys like i suppose you

00:28:28.320 can say that it's all going to evaporate up in smoke or you could say this is the beginning of

00:28:34.000 something that could be pretty important now let me just uh share with you liam's story at the at

00:28:38.480 the glenrose foundation because you may or may not know this but one of the things that i did when i

00:28:43.520 was in school is i got credit by working at a school called the dr gordon townsend school

00:28:49.680 and it was a school for special needs kids and one of the my little guy was thomas he had cerebral

00:28:55.200 palsy and he was very his physical disability was very minor he was able to walk on crutches

00:29:00.320 but i remember there was another little little type there named sarah and at the time they had

00:29:05.680 a communication board it was a big board that was put on in front of her in on her wheelchair 0.97

00:29:12.080 and she was a she was a little bit i think the term is spastic because she couldn't control her 0.64

00:29:16.560 motor movements very well but she would communicate by pointing at different things on the screen so

00:29:22.480 that you knew what how she was feeling and you knew what she wanted so when i saw this new

00:29:27.040 technology that they're pioneering at glenrose rehabilitation i thought my goodness people need

00:29:32.800 to see this because i know people are scared about the idea of computer and human interface but i

00:29:38.960 want you to see the opportunity that's available because technology can either be used for good or

00:29:43.760 for bad but i want you to see an example of how it could be used for good okay laura hit it

00:29:54.960 i was asked to see liam because there were some concerns with how his motor development

00:29:59.200 was progressing and they were having a lot of difficulties with tightness in his muscles that

00:30:03.920 that were interfering with what you would typically see

00:30:07.020 a child his age do.

00:30:10.900 Liam's cerebral palsy affects his body functions.

00:30:13.860 He can't grasp things.

00:30:15.340 He can't feed himself, change himself, or toilet himself.

00:30:18.980 So we have to do that for him.

00:30:20.940 His eyes were just full of life

00:30:22.460 and he's wanting to communicate and express what he wanted.

00:30:26.180 He's very independent minded.

00:30:27.860 So I knew the minute that we got access

00:30:31.380 to our brain control interfacing,

00:30:33.360 that he would be someone that we wanted to talk to about that.

00:30:36.900 Basically, it's taking EEG signals from our brains,

00:30:40.720 and it is interfacing with a very special computer system

00:30:44.120 and software.

00:30:44.960 Can I run over your hand?

00:30:47.600 We can imagine a future where Liam could use BCI

00:30:51.280 to help drive his wheelchair, for example.

00:30:55.440 We might be able to use BCI to turn the lights on

00:30:58.680 and control his home, and then maybe

00:31:01.080 to get in his wheelchair or other way of getting to work

00:31:05.080 and control that to getting work

00:31:06.760 and BCI may be an important part

00:31:09.460 of whatever profession he chooses.

00:31:12.200 The more independent he becomes with technology,

00:31:15.120 who knows, he can do anything.

00:31:17.160 We want to be able to know

00:31:19.060 that we're providing the very best opportunities

00:31:22.000 and care for everybody who comes to trust their care

00:31:26.840 to a provider here at the Glen Rose.

00:31:29.600 Liam has come a long way from being in an incubator.

00:31:36.000 He can do so much more by himself because of the Glen Rose.

00:31:43.560 Holy Dinah.

00:31:45.140 Like, isn't that, that is remarkable.

00:31:46.960 And so, and so what is, I think, the thing that you have to realize is that we're, this is only the beginning when we're talking about what this new digital currency might be used for.

00:31:57.900 I have to, I'm going to be running out of time here. And so just know that the next segment I

00:32:03.500 want to do at some point in the next few weeks is called the metaverse. And to understand what

00:32:09.460 the metaverse is going to be, imagine a little tyke like Liam, able to use virtual reality to

00:32:16.420 enter into a space where he could be in an avatar body, able to communicate with his dad,

00:32:23.860 able to you know play a game of catch able to have a conversation that's the kind of thing

00:32:30.180 that they are working on with this human computer interface now of course we can all look at the you

00:32:35.620 know the matrix as the worst possible example of what that world might look like but you know i

00:32:40.640 prefer to be optimistic i prefer to turn around and look at the ways in which it's going to be

00:32:45.480 helpful to us so let me just bring this all home for you because i wanted to just walk you through

00:32:50.800 a few examples of what is happening in the tech space. The tech space is very intimidating, and

00:32:56.340 I'm not going to lie to you about that. I remember when I first wrote about my experience with a new

00:33:02.380 group called Startup TNT, I acknowledged that I'd been writing columns since 1999, and that was my

00:33:08.400 very first technology column that I wrote. I've plunged in with both feet, my friends, and it's

00:33:14.040 only been a year, and I feel very confident talking about it. So you've got to get started somewhere

00:33:17.900 because the world is changing faster than we can possibly imagine. So I wanted to give you a few

00:33:22.540 examples that I think will make it a little bit more practical to understand how this might impact

00:33:27.620 your life. Now, it may still not. You may still decide I'm not going to do it. However, there are

00:33:31.980 a lot of people who are. And if you look at this idea of creating Bitcoins, it's just another

00:33:36.180 industry. It's a heavily energy and electricity intensive industry. It requires a lot of fuel

00:33:42.560 to develop that electricity. Look what we've been doing in Canada. Look what we've been doing in

00:33:47.800 Alberta in particular. We've been taking our oil and gas, we've been fighting with Ottawa to build

00:33:54.720 pipelines so that we can export energy, so it can be put into various types of uses to create

00:34:02.580 high electricity, high energy intensive products in other parts of the world. China's been the

00:34:07.560 biggest beneficiary of that. What if we flip that around? What if we brought energy intensive,

00:34:14.600 electricity intensive businesses to Alberta, rather than fighting with Ottawa about building

00:34:21.720 more pipelines, which I think we should still do. But what if we were to take matters into our own

00:34:26.440 hands, and use Sturgeon County as an example, and make that a little cluster of Bitcoin mining

00:34:32.440 operations, it's going to need a lot of power to do that. Maybe we set up our own power generation

00:34:38.280 stations to support these new energy intensive industries. And then what can you do? This is

00:34:44.200 what i've mapped out in my in my newsletter last week is that if we were to create these little

00:34:49.080 nodes all over the province and there's all kinds of industries um bitcoin mining is only one but

00:34:54.040 i'll leave it to you to think of the other kind of energy intensive industries that might benefit

00:35:00.520 from natural gas close to home to be able to develop power because we have already a bunch

00:35:07.320 of stranded assets in our natural gas development and production. We have a problem with methane

00:35:15.320 emissions. We've got a problem with flaring. One of the panelists was an oil and gas guy

00:35:21.160 who said it drives him crazy to see a flare stack. He says that's burning money. Just create a

00:35:27.320 generator and attach a small Bitcoin mining operation and turn all of that waste gas into

00:35:34.760 Bitcoin that can then be transmitted anywhere that you have access to the internet. If you

00:35:40.960 broaden that concept out, if we were to start building more specific generating stations for

00:35:47.580 natural gas in Alberta, we have the 100% ability to do that. We have the 100% ability to make our

00:35:53.740 own decisions about building natural gas pipelines within our own borders. We don't need Ottawa's

00:35:58.280 approval for that. If we can develop these little nodes of development, business parks that have

00:36:03.800 these high energy intensive businesses there and some of the brightest minds in the technology

00:36:08.520 space that attracts other bright minds in the technology space. So now all of a sudden you've

00:36:13.260 got brand new industries. If we can attract green tech, maybe we use some vertical farms. Maybe

00:36:18.320 if we're generating CO2 because we're now using natural gas at these sites, maybe we attach some

00:36:24.860 kind of green tech so that we're capturing the CO2 and turning it into carbon dioxide to flood

00:36:31.160 into a greenhouse so that we can have a vertical farm. Or maybe you turn it into carbon nanofiber

00:36:37.420 or cement or industrial minerals or plastics or ethylene. I guess what I've discovered over the

00:36:43.440 last while is we've gotten pretty negative. All we ever look at is the ways in which Ottawa stands

00:36:48.360 in the way of the things that we want to do. What if we say Ottawa is irrelevant? We can do these

00:36:53.580 things ourselves. We can attract Bitcoin mining operations here. We can develop industrial parks

00:36:59.480 anywhere we want in the province. We can build natural gas pipelines to them. We can improve

00:37:03.700 natural gas power stations. We can build out the broadband internet technology everywhere these are

00:37:09.740 so that the product can be exported. And we can adopt green technology and we can essentially

00:37:17.380 have it all. This is why Arby from iMining, when he said, if we can embrace this sector,

00:37:23.080 Alberta could be the richest jurisdiction on the planet. And guess what happens when you become

00:37:28.300 the richest jurisdiction on the planet. Well, then you have choices because everybody wants to do

00:37:32.960 business with you. Anyway, my friends, to go back to where we began with one of my friends saying,

00:37:39.660 you need to drop this cryptocurrency stuff and get serious about fighting Ottawa. I hope you see now

00:37:45.120 that the reason I'm interested in this is because it's the best way to fight Ottawa and assert our

00:37:51.340 independence. And that's what I want to do. All right, my friends, out of time for today,

00:37:55.160 way out of time today. I'm only supposed to be doing these 30 minutes, but I got so much to

00:37:59.220 talk to you about. Keep on sending me your feedback and we'll be back at this again.

00:38:04.060 Now, tomorrow, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to do a long

00:38:07.000 form interview with Gordon Tulk. He is the person who planted the seed with me all those years ago

00:38:12.400 about a major reform to our Alberta healthcare system. And it starts with health spending

00:38:16.800 accounts. So tune in so that we can talk about that. That'll be happening tomorrow morning at

00:38:21.080 9am. Look forward to it. Thanks.

Western Standard - April 23, 2022

Episode 3： The Danielle Smith Show

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