March 1 Episode
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Welcome to Money Talks. My name is Mike Campbell. Wait till you hear this interview with Robert Bryce, power hungry. One of the best experts you can talk to about the whole transition to green energy, but the implications. He's just come back from the UK and there's been some devastating results from their attempts. Like how about having your power bill go up 200 to 300 percent? More with him. I've got Ozzy on deck with this. I've got Victor Adair. I've got Michael Levy.

And I've got Andrew Ruhland from Integrated Wealth Management. Andrew is going to talk about that straightforward question. What do you do as an investor when there's this degree of uncertainty out there? And we all know what that's about. But first...

Arguably the biggest goal of the progressive left in Canada or the U.S. and the U.K. is to expand the scope of government. In Canada, well, that's manifested with entering the formerly private sector areas with programs like national daycare, dental care, pharmacare, along with other programs that have resulted in a huge 43% increase in the number of federal government workers since the Trudeau Liberals took power. And that doesn't include the record number of consultants that have been hired.

Quick question. What did you get for it as a taxpayer? Certainly not better or more efficient services. But then again, the goal was to expand the scope of government, not improve efficiency. So no surprise, as the numerous Auditor General's reports have found, it hasn't improved. We're not more efficient. Lots of examples. You've got a Rive can, passport delays, massive cost overruns of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

I want to just be clear here. I'm not talking about the avalanche of scary examples of cronyism or conflict of interest. I'm talking about the government's ability to execute programs efficiently and effectively. For example,

We have a port system that's ranked near the worst in the world in terms of efficiency. Our largest port, Vancouver, ranked 356th. Montreal, 348th out of just 372 for efficiency. And governments said nothing about it. We have a health care system that's seen at least 74,677 Canadians die on wait lists for surgeries or diagnostic scans since 2019.

Come on, we rank last among 31 developed nations when it comes to the amount of time it takes to see a specialist after the referral from a general practitioner, despite massive increases in funding.

As Will Rogers said, it costs 10 times more to govern than it used to. And we are not governed one-tenth as good. And there's a lot of reasons, by the way, from the lack of meaningful results-based incentives, measurable goals, the overall lack of accountability, the non-merit-based hiring. But somehow, the inefficiency...

cronyism at times, financial overruns are not enough to discourage some people from demanding government get involved in more areas of society. By the way, I'm wondering, am I entering the world of the far right by suggesting that maybe the government should hold off expanding until they prove they can do something right in the existing programs? I don't know. Let me ask you a question. You know, we just had the word about the high-speed rail. Would you bet $1,000 of your own money

that it will be built on time and on budget? I mean, look at the track record. You'd be forgiving for thinking that all government does well is make announcements and do photo ops because it's certainly not in the follow through and delivery.

I mean, we're getting a great example right now with the much repeated promises to build 3.89 million homes through 2030. Guess what? CMHC in the last week echoing what literally every other person in the development business said, there is no chance to achieve that goal. It's not going to happen.

I mean, it's complex why governments continually fail to achieve its stated goal despite more funding and more people. I mean, I still look at the lack of accountability, lack of merit based hiring, et cetera. But the point says, should we be getting into more areas as so many Canadians demand before we can prove we can do what we're already committed to effectively in efficiency? As the old saying goes, if you do too much, you'll achieve too little.

My question is, why would you want them to do more? Hey, by the way, gosh, I've got the countdown down to just a couple of hours, depending when you're listening to this, but we're off to do the polar plunge one o'clock today. I'm not looking forward to it, but I really got to say up front, I really appreciate the way many Money Talks listeners have stepped up and said, you know, I'd like to help too. Just sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, it's gratifying. I think it's such a worthy cause.

you know, people with intellectual disabilities far too often overlooked in our society. And I'm happy that so many Money Talks listeners did not. They are there to support us. And by the way, there's still time. You can go to MoneyTalksPlunge.com, triple W, MoneyTalksPlunge.com. You can still make your donation. At any rate, I'm scared, I'm doing it, and I'm thankful. More to come. ♪

You have come to the right place. I love this. Money-back guaranteed interview. Robert Bryce, you can find him on Substack. You know him from Power Hungry, all sorts of things, but really in demand around the English-speaking world, putting perspective, putting expertise to bear on the whole energy slash climate change slash political issues there. Could we get them at a better time? I don't think so. Robert, thanks for finding time. I know you've been traveling very, very heavily recently, so we appreciate it. Yeah.

Always happy to be with you, Michael. Interesting here in Canada, and I'm going to throw that out to you right at the beginning, because we have Mark Carney as the presumptive Liberal leader. He'll be Prime Minister by this time next week. When you, of course, in our system, he'll be the head of the Liberals. They're still in power, technically, but they're still in power, so he's Prime Minister. Well, one of the things that you've just been dealing with is the impact of the net zero policy that Mark Carney is literally the

the co-founder of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero and the Bank Net Zero Alliance. This is the guy. So tell us what you were telling the people in the UK, because it looks like, you know, they got the highest power prices in the Europe, in the continent.

They do. And Britain is a mess. I mean, just truly a mess. And I see the very similar kind of policy decisions in Canada, in the UK, and in Australia. And remarkably so that these three countries...

have adopted this ruinous economic energy slash climate policy that is going to just devastate their respective economies and no understanding what is really happening around the rest of the world. And this is key. You know, Britain, in fact, it was just two weeks ago now that there was an announcement of a new discovery of natural gas near Lincolnshire, 16 trillion cubic feet, Michael,

16 trillion cubic feet onshore. All they have to do is drill and frack for it, and they won't do it. And instead, the, you know, the Labour government in the UK, once they were asked for a statement, they said, oh, well, we intend to ban hydraulic fracturing for good, and we're going to go to this clean energy economy. I mean, the amount of delusion that has happened.

in the UK, in Canada, and in Australia around energy and climate is really, really stunning. And I had a chance to see it firsthand in London. You know, one of the things that, you know, I'm big on go ahead, choose what you want, but know the consequences. And one of the consequences that people will react to, but it will be too late as they have in Germany, as they have in the UK right now, is those high power prices. I mean, people look at their power bill and it's unworkable for a huge percentage of the population now.

It is. And, you know, here's what just my late brother, John Bryce, said, just grills my cheese. You know, it just that just infuriates me is that you have the nominally the left, right? The the the progressives. I mean, you call them liberals. I mean, in Australia, they get them all backwards. But so the progressives, the people who in theory would be in favor of the working class and the working poor, right?

And instead, all these climate policies, every one of them, every one of these decarbonization and climate policies screws the poor and the working class. Working class folks don't buy Teslas. They don't buy electric vehicles. They're buying, you know, pickup trucks. The tradesmen are driving, you know, carpenters, bricklayers. And let me give you just one example. You know, when I was in London, we were there for 10 days.

We went around and walked around a lot. I'm a reporter, so I'm always talking to people. I would ask shopkeepers and people in retail about their power bills. The cabbie gave me an earful and said that his power bills have tripled in the last four years.

The bartender, though, at the pub around the corner from the hotel, a woman who was in her 20s, I said, tell me about what's going on with your energy bill. And she said, well, I live with my parents and we don't shower at home anymore. And I said, what are you talking about? And she said, it costs us too much to heat the water at our house or our flat. And so we go to the gym.

Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine their energy bills have doubled on average? That was what I heard over and over. Power bills and energy bills for average working class British people have doubled in the last four years, and they're being crushed by it. And yet Keir Starmer and the Labour Party, they're full speed ahead on this net zero nonsense.

And I guess my thing is, I wonder how many people who voted for the Labour Party understood that this is the relationship. This is what, in fact, they voted for. I mean, because I'm seeing that in Canada. And again, it's a democracy. You have a right to vote who you want, but you should know what the implications are. Because the other side we're looking at all the time, and as I say, I know you were just there, is companies don't sit around for that. Energy is a huge component of

of the cost of doing business. And I'm watching, you know, companies from the UK move. And I suspect Canada's, you know, Trump is giving reason if he goes through with the tariffs this coming week. But, you know, companies will avoid those tariffs by moving. But when you start adding things on, like the energy costs becoming uncompetitive, I mean, the implications obviously ripple through the entire society.

Well, and again, who does this hurt? It hurts the poor and the middle class. And, you know, what are my politics? I consider myself, look, I'm not a Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I'm disgusted. I'm totally disgusted. I don't want to be part of any party that would have me.

But I think the key divide now in the United States and Canada around the world, it's not the left versus the right. It's the rich versus the poor. And these decarbonization policies are, all of them are regressive. All of them are regressive. And I mentioned the issue with the bartender, but the cabbies, the retail workers, who pays the heaviest price? It's those folks. And that's the part where it is unfortunate. And I'll just say this about Trump, that

potentially estranging the Canadians. I don't get it. Look, I think Trump is a lunatic, but there are parts of the things he's doing that I could kiss him for, especially on the solar and wind issues, right? Because of the land use issues. I think some of that is just fantastic and his desire to provide more cheap, abundant, reliable energy. But it's unfortunate, and I think you're right, that Trump's threats of tariffs against Canada has hurt Poliev and helped Carney. And

And you need to get rid of the Trudeau-ism and the Trudeau crowd because you

that this again is uh i think it's fracturing canada you know making a strange in alberta uh from the rest of the country even further but it's just a it's just terrible policy and fortunately i think i mean look at the election of the new the new coalition government in germany they're they're seeing the lights what friedrich mertz just said we think we're going to stop dismantling our nuclear reactors you can see a restart of nuclear power in germany that's a big turnaround yeah well at

And again, the challenge is huge because Trump elicits an emotional response. Yeah. That's not the way you should be making policy. I don't believe that's the way you should be voting either. I mean, do we not have, you're allowed to have whatever core issues you care about or priority issues, but, and it is an emotional response primarily in Canada at this rate now. Sure. You know, I love the one that in your, your area where they'd go, we're going to show them, we're going to stop all our oil and gas exports. Like, yeah.

Have you ever done a calculation what that would cost Canada?

Sure. Well, and Canada is interesting in many ways. In Alberta, just an example, Danielle Smith, it was last February, a year ago now, that the provincial government there instituted new regulations on wind and solar. The most restrictive wind and solar ordinances I've seen anywhere around the world, and I've been tracking it for a long time, 35-kilometer setback for wind projects and solar projects from the Rocky Mountain Parks.

And also the preservation of ag land. So, you know, there are a number of aspects to this, Michael. It's partly, yes, it's the issue of cost and reliability on energy and power. But the other, of course, is land use. And I've been maintaining the renewable rejection database now since 2015. I've recently launched the global renewable rejection database recently.

so that I can capture other countries where these local communities, provincial governments are saying, we don't want this stuff. So, you know, these wind and solar projects, we don't want our ag land taken up by these alternative energy projects. So there are multiple facets and downsides to all of this alt energy insanity. And one of them, of course, is the impacts it has on rural residents all over the world. I love, by the way, you are the original database for this.

this, where you look at different communities right down to the community level. What did they vote for? They voted against adding on solar. They may have, it may be something else too, but even that solar database I found absolutely fascinating because it, all I want is an honest conversation. And the conversation is you are not going to be able to run the grid on solar and wind if they are rejecting those every time you put a project up and it's,

There's been a huge backlash, though, that you've been chronicling on your database there. I just congratulate you for that. I think it's incredibly important information when you start drilling down to let's talk practicality here.

Well, thank you. You know, I work hard at it. And I quote W. Edwards Deming, the industrial analyst who said, in God we trust all others bring data. Well, here's the data, right? And not my numbers, the numbers. These are the realities of what's happening. So speaking of the UK, just since January 1st,

There have been six solar projects in the UK that have been rejected. There were four in January alone. So all around the United Kingdom, people are saying, we don't want these solar projects in particular. But they're also fighting back against what they call the pylons, transmission towers, high-voltage transmission towers.

This is another hot button issue. It's a hot button issue in Australia. I think I'm planning to go on a speaking tour in Australia in June because of the backlash across rural Australia against solar, wind, high voltage transmission. All of these technologies, they require vast amounts of land. And I'm a lifelong birdwatcher, Mike. I, you know, I...

I want to be outside. I love being outside. I love the birds. I love bats. And there's just this anti-environmentalism that is being pushed by these climate NGOs because they see the climate issue as the only issue. And I just, again, it just makes me spitting mad because, yeah, climate change is a concern. It's not our only concern.

What you've described in the UK, though, sort of leads in one of my questions is, are you seeing a change in attitude? Well, clearly not in the part of the government. You know, I would have thought there's something like back to Germany.

you know, cancelling their nuclear power plants with no backup plan whatsoever, not understanding that if you went to wind and solar, you needed backup. You know, the list is a long one of what the mistakes they've made. So maybe there's a shift in sentiment in Germany, but I'm not hearing that from what you say in the UK. And I'm wondering about Canada. I mean, we'll have a vote soon. And essentially it's the same vote we've had the last three times when it comes to, you know, what's your priority? Is it, you know, climate change?

But with a proviso here, keep in mind, we're 1.5% of total global emissions. Sure. So we should be talking about it within that context in Canada. But I'm just wondering what your sense is. Has there been enough blowback? Is there enough people saying, well, look, can we get practical and this isn't? Well, let me just return to the UK for just a second. So we had a very instructive – we were staying in Trafalgar Square and we took a taxi to the British Museum on Sunday –

And you want to know what's happening in a place. Ask the cabbie. Right. You know, what's it what what do they think? Right. And what he said about British politics today says we have a uniparty. The labor and the Tories are essentially the same. And that's a it's a key insight, because remember, when Liz Truss, who is a Tory, became prime minister and she was only in office for, what, six or seven weeks.

She immediately said, we're going to repeal the ban on hydraulic fracturing. Remember, Britain is one of, I think, seven or eight countries in Europe that have a ban on hydraulic fracturing. And that push, by the way, was in part funded by Vladimir Putin and the Russians, right, to institute these fracking bans across Europe for obvious reasons, right? They wanted to make Europe dependent on Russian gas. They were very effective. And now we've got Ukraine and a whole mess that comes with it.

But he said it's a uniparty. And that was right. So Labor was anti-fracking. Truss comes in as a Tory and says, no, we're going to repeal the ban. She's thrown out. Rishi Sunak is a different Tory. He gets in, oh, so we're going to reinstate the fracking ban. And now you've got Keir Starmer who is saying, oh, yeah, we're going to make the ban on fracking permanent.

You know, they have massive shale resources onshore in Britain. They could be tapping those now. They could be drilling and fracking. And instead, they're not. And what's happening? Their gas production is declining. They're more and more dependent on imports and their prices are skyrocketing. It's a as Paul Marshall said at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference last week, he said, this is national economic suicide. And I think that's exactly right.

Back to the net zero. Yeah. You know, one of the things we have not seen discussed thoroughly is what cost would that be? Doesn't it all sound great? And at some point, you got to get practical. So how much is it? And I know, and I was going to call him Prime Minister Carney, not yet. But Mark Carney's, you know, backgrounder, his own stuff.

an outrageous amount of money is going to be spent. I don't think people appreciate it. They sort of say, oh, net zero sounds great. Well, what do you want in taxes? What do you want in debt? What do you want? And I just don't see a practical discussion over the cost of trying to achieve that.

There is no practical discussion of any of it or the jobs that it would affect. And Starmer keeps talking about, oh, clean energy jobs. Come on. There's all this alt energy crap. It destroys jobs. But look at what happened in the UK. Last September, the steelworks in Port Talbot in Wales, the last blast furnace in Britain was shuttered by Tata Steel.

So here's the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, and now they can't make virgin steel? I mean, this is bonkers. This is total, this is, as the Brits would say, barking mad, looning around the bend. And then what happened in January? The Ineos, the chemical company in Britain, closed their last synthetic ethanol plant in that region.

And why? Because of high energy prices. The auto sector is next. I mean, they are, in fact, committing suicide. Canada, in economic terms, and I think in cultural terms as well, Canada doesn't have to do this. It's very clear. You have massive natural resources. You have a relatively small population, not speaking down to Canada, but it's roughly a tenth of what we have here in the U.S., a massive, massive land base, right?

You should be exploiting your natural resources to get your economy back up and going. And instead, your economy is languishing. I'm not pointing out anything you don't know, but it's been terrible under these progressive policies. And you're lagging. And I don't know what it's going to take to make Canadians to wake up to understand how destructive these policies have been.

You know, it's interesting. I saw a comment this past week that I thought was right on, is that the trouble is a certain percentage, as you just alluded to a couple minutes ago, isn't being impacted by bad policy. And I'll use an extreme. There's no policy that government could put in would impact Bill Gates' life, pardon the cliche. But the point is there.

And yet we're watching from the ground up. We used to say, oh, that bottom 20% is in trouble. Oh, that bottom 40. In Canada, I'm looking at numerous polls. I'd put it at about 55% and growing.

Because we also have a declining Canadian dollar that's impacting even higher up. So, yeah, I don't think they wake up until the decision makers are impacted. Keep in mind, it doesn't matter even COVID. They didn't miss a pay raise. I mean, literal. They didn't miss a pay raise. Their pensions aren't in jeopardy. They have expense accounts that aren't audited, I might add. They have drivers. You know, the list is on. So I don't know if you get there until that class is impacted more severely.

Well, I hope you're wrong because they are insulated from a lot of this foolishness. And I'll make one other quick point, and I've written about this as well. You know, these oligarchs, and we'll call them what they are, many of them, they're oligarchs. They live on, you know, they have yachts. Jeff Bezos' yacht has a yacht.

I mean, it's like, but Bezos is also funding a lot of these climate action groups. The same with Michael Bloomberg, the same with Mark Zuckerberg, Lorene Powell Jobs, John Doerr, the list goes on, right? They're the, not just the rich, they're the super, super rich. And so they are the ones who are funding a lot of these, in these climate NGOs. And why are they doing it? Well, you

I think there's some carbon indulgences at work here, right? But that Zuckerberg is funding climate journalists at NPR, I haven't seen NPR doing much on the CO2 emissions at Facebook, right? So it's like there's a protection scheme at work here as well. And I say that as a reporter. I've watched this. I've never had a real job. I've been a reporter my whole career.

You know, this is the game now that these massive amounts of money from these super, super elites are driving a lot of this climate agenda. And it's a point that I made in my speech in London last week. You know, I travel a lot. I do a lot of public speaking. I'm inevitably asked, what motivates these groups? Are they really anti-human? And I said, well, you have to remember, this is a business. It's a massive business, these climate groups. They raise a lot of money and they employ a lot of people and they want to keep their jobs.

I'll throw one more at you because we know I just got our first sort of quarterly report on this, but we know the billionaires are lining up behind Mark Carney. Now that what you just said. Oh, is that right? Interesting. It's like it's in the data right there, sitting there. So, I mean, the challenge is huge. We know who's impacted. That's why I, as I say, Robert, I would really invite people to go to Robert Bryce's B-R-Y-C-E, Robert Bryce at Substack.

Just original work, original reporting. The data is there always. And you can find them also at powerhungry.com.

on Twitter. Yeah. At PWR hungry. And then on Substack, Robert price dot Substack.com. And then I also have two documentaries, juice, the movie.com and juice, the series.com. It was 13 months ago. We released our, we released our five part docu series, which is available on YouTube. It's been viewed over 3 million times now. So, yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that. I'm sorry. It slipped my mind. Absolutely. I've watched it. It's terrific.

And, you know, available right there on. And I just think the more people are informed, then they can make an informed decision. You can have what priorities you want. But I really get concerned about informed decision making because I worry about it. I'll leave it at that. But Robert, thank you for all the work you do. And by the way, I know this was a busy time.

Please know how much I appreciate you finding time for us. Oh, look, always a pleasure, Mike. There's a, you know, this is my purpose and my passion. I'm incredibly lucky to do what I do. And so I'm flattered to be invited and have me back. Guaranteed. There's a guarantee I can throw it there. Thanks, Robert. All right. Thank you, my friend.

I'm going to bring Mike Levy in right now. Lots to talk about. Mike, I want to change to the Canadian situation for a second. And I know you watched the English language debate and you were telling me a couple of weeks ago you'd like to see more fleshed out of the economic policies. And I'm just wondering, what did you pick up from that debate? I had trouble getting any details about the specifics on the economics. Well, the reason you had trouble, Mike, is they didn't talk about it.

Okay. The whole situation to me watching the debates, before we get into what the new prime minister, Mr. Carney, has on the table, is interesting.

Not even one of them said a disparaging word about the previous Trudeau administration. How are you going to be different? And they would go on and tell some plan, but they wouldn't say how they were going to differ. And in fact, Chrystia Freeland jumped right back on the Trudeau bandwagon towards the end of the debate. And I'm thinking to myself, Canadians are watching this. They're watching to what this new government is going to bring to the table. And

And I can't get out of the old government and get that out of my mind. So, Mike, I thought the debate was actually it didn't respect Canadians and what they were looking for and what they were expecting.

Well, let me just back to the Chrystia Freeland because that was my jaw dropper. Because keep in mind, this is her December 16th resignation letter. In it, she said she quit cabinet in part to protest, in quotes, costly political gimmicks which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment. She's talking about the mini GST holiday. Okay, this is her in the debate.

She says, you know, talking about the GST holiday, she supported it and says, that was exactly my plan. We agreed on that.

I got to tell you, and by the way, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, what is their mid-February survey said only 5% of small business saw stronger sales compared to the same period last year. But I won't debate that. I'm just saying that was a jaw dropper for me, you know, when she just is so critical of it on a resignation. And then by the time the debate, she pretends she had no problem.

Mike, the other thing that really struck me, and in the analysis afterwards, is there's no talk of

balancing a budget. Though Mr. Carney does not mind referring back to 1995 and Paul Martin, and he remembers it, but he wasn't part of it, but he left that out. But there's no talk of cutting on spending or balancing a budget. We're going to change how we do budgeting. There's going to be operating and there's going to be investment. But

he's going to have to go out and borrow. So if they're not going to cut, they're going to have to borrow a tremendous amount of money. Well, that's a great example because Mr. Carney has said we need to spend less, but with no details.

And, you know, and I don't want to turn this into a knock the liberals fest, but I do believe back to the first thing you said, you need more respect. We need to flesh out these things, you know, and they've been highly critical without any details of suggesting that Pierre Paglia was going to slash and cut and all this. But you do have Mr. Carney saying we're going to spend less. We just don't know on what. And your point is a very important one about his suggestion to divide the budget into an operating budget.

and to sort of an investment side of the budget. Well, the trouble is who's making the definitions? Because I can tell you right now, if that's how you do it, I can balance the budget right now, today. All you have to do is call a major expenditure like old age security, call it an investment. We're investing in old people. And sorry to go on on that, Mike, but I think people should be aware. That's exactly what I thought was missing too. Give me some details. There's time to do it, but in the debate I got none.

Well, I think that will, just as a side, come up in the debate by leaders of Poliev and Carney, and it will certainly come up. The other thing that hit me, Canada must invest $2 trillion by 2050, roughly $80 billion a year, to hit net zero targets. Currently, Mike, that's between $10 and $20 billion they're spending. Now it's $80 billion a year.

How does the government fill that massive gap without raising taxes? I don't think you can call net zero an investment. Yeah, and by the way, that's directly out of Mr. Carney's sort of backgrounder. That's their party. That's their campaign talking about those numbers. And again, $2 trillion by 2050, $80 trillion a year, which is a huge jump from what they're doing, but no explanation of where we might possibly get that money.

And Mike, something else I'd like to say, and this is me, and it's straight political. When I'm looking at Carney and who a couple of the people that are working for him come

right out of Trudeau's office, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford. Well, they were the ones that were running the prime minister's office before. Now, I know this is not a political program, and nor do we want it to be, but it ties in to the plans they've got. I just shake my head and I'm saying, is this Trudeau version three, four, five, or six? Because it sounds the same, Mike.

Well, I think it's, you know, other than their disavowing of what's interesting, as I've said in an editorial a couple times already, it sounds like they're running against the Liberal Party at times because, you know, Chrystia Freeland and Mark Carney both said they're doing away with the carbon tax, not going to follow through in the capital gains tax.

Both want to restrict immigration levels. I mean, major pillars of what we've been experiencing. So I found that whole thing incredibly peculiar. There'll be many more chances to talk about it as we go through. Okay, so my last point today is they said they're going to put a freeze on

on hiring. They're not letting anybody go if it's over, if the civil service, federal civil service is overweight, they're not letting anybody go, but they're not going to do

Any more hiring. Okay. I'd like to take that bet and I'll give you my bank account as collateral. Yeah. The other thing, of course, it doesn't mention the number of consultants that we have a record number of consultants to such a degree. They hired a consultant to talk about how to lower the number of consultants. True story. I know. Mike, thanks very much. Have a great week. You too, Mike. Time now for the quote of the week.

Melody Risher is a NDP pundit. You see her on CBC's Power in Politics. And she talked about the reality of climate change and politics and on the hierarchy of needs for the average Canadians. And I thought she nailed it in saying in quotes,

I don't want to get smacked for saying this, but if the thing that you care about most is fighting the climate crisis, you're probably doing okay. You're probably not worried about how you're paying your mortgage. You're probably not worried about how you're going to feed your family in a few days, right? What would happen if Trump were here to come forward with those tariffs? It would make everything that's already really expensive more expensive.

What's fascinating is I think that is the issue, that we talk about a lot of things that don't get down to the nuts and bolts. I think we still fail to appreciate that over half of Canadians are having a tough time financially. Maybe the most vivid or great example of that is two million Canadians are visiting food banks. And you rarely hear about that, certainly from the government, certainly from other parties, too. I mean, that's who's having a tough time.

But in the meantime, I think she's right on. If climate change is your thing, that is absolutely fine. But you're probably not worried about how you're paying your mortgage or feeding your family.

I'm pleased to welcome back to the show, Andrew Rulon, Integrated Wealth Management. Hey, Andrew, great presentation, by the way, out at the World Outlook Conference. But talking about political uncertainty and the challenges it means for investors and advisors, etc. And I'm sort of thinking things seem to have got even more intense since that in the last three to four weeks. I mean, whether we're talking about tariffs are still on the books, you know, coming this week.

Plus, we had a shouting match, I guess, on Friday between President Zelensky and Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. And I mean, they were supposed to be there to sign some sort of deal on minerals. And the next thing I know, it's sort of blowing up there. I think that's just typical of what we're dealing with. And no wonder whether it's a business or individuals are sort of backing away at this point.

Yeah, things seem to go from chaotic to more chaotic to almost out of control, really. And civil discourse is certainly not something that Trump has ever been known for. And that's certainly coming out in full daylight.

Yeah, it seems like, you know, his nickname is Captain Chaos because it feels that way. But I would say that's because you're talking about a fundamental shift in the world order. Whether we're talking about, you know, geopolitical and the military issues that are out there, the trade issues that are out there. It's such a fundamental change since, you know, the Second World War sort of model that's been in place.

Yeah, and certainly since the fall of communism in 91, and we see that shift in global power going from kind of a two-superpower world to a unipolar world, and certainly that seems to be flitting away or drifting away or dissolving, whatever term you want to use now, just as Russia's re-emerging and China's emerging, obviously. Yeah.

Well, again, let's bring it. There's lots we could talk about there, but I want to bring it back to investors. And I'll just add, by the way, you've got a webinar coming up on Tuesday. I'll give some details on that. But dealing with these subjects, because it is predominant. You know, when I look at myself, I look at things. What am I thinking of in that? The Bank of Canada said we can't make forecasts because it's so uncertain out there.

Wow. Yeah. And I mean, forecasting is hard because it's about the future, of course, right? As I think Yogi Berra once quipped that it's really difficult to look past all of the chaos. Trump kicks up a lot of dust. And in many ways, the way I've described it to other folks is it's like he's in the middle of an office and there's like a foyer that he's standing in the middle of. There's a bunch of offices and those are each

different countries and he goes into or a different issue and he goes into each of them and he throws a Molotov cocktail and lets the people in there deal with it. And then he goes to another room and throws another Molotov cocktail and he just kind of goes around doing that. And he, he basically negotiates by, by creating chaos and,

The difficulty, of course, is that people get caught up in the chaos and certainly the media loves it, right? The media loves to hate Trump, but they love it because he's great clickbait. Yeah, absolutely. So again, let's bring it down. You'll have more time on Tuesday with this.

But okay, so I'm an investor and I'm looking at an uncertain world, even if at the interest rates. I mean, maybe it's just divergence between what they're looking at in the States and what we're looking at in Canada. That can create some confusion. So what's my starting place, my starting point as an investor on this? Well, interestingly enough, despite all the mayhem,

I mean, our job is always to, it's not to be political pundits, but it's to focus on the likely market implications so that clients can actually achieve their life goals and sleep at night. So in this webinar, we're actually going to talk about what we think the likely implications are from all of the machinations down south and overseas.

but also bring it back to people's own particular goals. And we're actually, as part of it, we're actually going to show some of our financial planning software that helps to illustrate what a decline in a portfolio would mean or what rate of return a client would actually need. And that takes the focus away from those things that we don't really have any control over. We're just kind of observers of palace intrigue and all of that sort of stuff.

So we're trying to do that to take the focus away from the orange man that sucks all the oxygen out of the room every time.

Yeah, but an important point you're making that, you know, I look at even the debate over the tariffs and there's this huge chunk of it is emotion based. And that's not a good way to make investment decisions or public policy or anything. It's got its own place, but we really have to make that distinction as you're alluding to there. You know, it's sort of fine. I'm not debating how you feel about it, but we are trying to be systematic in how we deal with it.

True. And, you know, it's not about personality. It's about policy.

The Trump is a great distraction when it comes to personality, of course, but we just have to sort through the sort through the the nonsense to figure out what's actually really going on. And then look at the implications. You know, what does it mean for Canada? What does it mean for Ontario's auto industry? What does it mean for the Alberta oil and gas sector or softwood lumber out in B.C. as as examples? Right.

You know, it's interesting. I chatted with Michael Levy earlier about this, but, you know, it doesn't seem and again, you can't avoid the politics. I mean, when they're that intrusive into our economy, you have to talk a little politics.

And the more I get into it, the more I sort of see the choice in Canada are two distinct choices. Everyone's got a right to make which one I'm always on about. I continue to repeat, just know your consequences. But it looks like under Mr. Carney will be prime minister this time next week. And but it looks like a lot of business as usual when I see it come through.

Yeah, that seems to be the implication so far. We'll see how long until we actually get an election. It's pretty clear that, you know,

The status quo remains the status quo because the people who benefit from the status quo want it to stay so. Well, I think that's a key point that even some sophisticated people I know in this sort of forget. There's a lot on the line for a lot of people. There's so much money both in the States and in Canada if you're on the other end of government checks. So obviously you're going to be debating it. You're going to be opposing it.

you know, changes that may remove that paycheck. But again, I'm just saying it's another layer of uncertainty that investors have to deal with.

But something that we always have to remember is that, you know, crisis is made up of danger and opportunity. Yes. And so we emphasize, you know, being nimble with portfolios so that when opportunities do arise out of these chaotic times that we have cash to be able to buy with. Right. Yeah. So, you know, as Jim Dines once said, only amateurs are always fully invested.

Right. Sometimes you want to be right near a bottom, but most of the time you want to have some cash ready on the sidelines, you know, whether it's within your portfolio or outside your portfolio to take advantage of the opportunities that are created by all of this, this chaos.

I think it's a huge challenge, by the way, for individuals. And I hope people are listening closely because I get asked these kinds of questions that you're just alluding to. And I say, well, first of all, you don't have to make all or none decisions. If you let's say you like something like you like oil and gas, you know, and you know, you've done your due diligence on that. But it doesn't mean you have to put both feet in at that moment.

You know, that I really worry about that all or none. Well, you know, I'm going to do 10,000 in oil and gas. I'm putting all 10,000 a day. I said, where did you get that level of certainty to justify that move? As opposed to, I like it. I like the prices. I like the cycle I'm in. I'll do half today kind of thing. It's just an attitude. That's all.

It is. And I think it goes back to one of those interesting things called the prison of two ideas. You know, it's not just a binary choice in most cases. There's usually a third or fourth option. Yeah. And oftentimes that option is do nothing. Or maybe we do a little bit. Take half, you know, buy half or take half off the table. Yeah.

And then you can deal with the other half afterwards. You don't have to have absolute certainty because realistically, your certainty means nothing. The market cares nothing about how certain we are.

Again, the number of times, you know, a la that, you know, just a small adjunct to that is, and it doesn't care what my opinion is. Oh, exactly. It's kind of like the weather. I like sunny days. Guess what? On rainy days, it doesn't care. I tell you, Andrew, I think that's the most difficult thing for people to overcome is they think their opinion is special. And it's not. Let the market decide.

you know, dictate what's being paid attention to at the time. You're going to have a fascinating seminar. I mean, you know, maybe live in interesting, interesting times. Got to be one of the great cliches we're getting offered up these days, but there are challenges to those interesting times. So yeah, you're going to have your plate full on Tuesday. Definitely. Well, I look forward to it. That's seven o'clock mountain time, by the way, seven o'clock mountain. If you're out in the West coast, it's six o'clock. Obviously I can do the math. I'm pretty quick.

But go to Mike's Money Talks.ca. We'll put up all the details. We'll put it on our social media. It's absolutely free, but there's always a limited number because it's the nature of the platform that dictates that. So don't wait for that. I think it's going to be a great hour with you.

Thank you. And one last reminder is that if you cannot attend live, please still register because you'll get a link to the recording. That's one of the great things of this format where we are now is you don't have to watch at the time when it's broadcast live. Yeah, but as you say, register and then you'll get a link to it. Great stuff. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Mike. Time now for the shocking stat of the week. The subtitle should be the most abysmal economic performance in our history.

As I regularly say, people have the right to choose their policy priorities, but we should be clear that those choices have consequences. Oh, come on. In Canada, for nearly 10 years, the federal Liberal government, along with the support of the NDP since 2021, has prioritized climate change. Looks like they're still going to, along with social issues like 2SLGBTQIA plus issues, other gender issues.

along with a significant expansion in the size and scope of government with the launch of programs like dental care, pharma care, daycare, that kind of stuff. That economic growth and productivity have taken a backseat as a leading contender for the liberal leadership has just stated.

In fact, the Liberal government has actively hindered growth and productivity by introducing additional regulations. Things like raising capital gains taxes, increasing carbon taxes are also on the agenda and implementing higher personal income taxes. And the consequences shouldn't be surprising. But you know what? I suspect for most they are shocking. As University of Calgary economist Trevor Toome calculates,

Canada has had six consecutive quarters of declining GDP per capita. That means the share of the economic pie per person, which is the measure most widely associated with declining standard of living. But it comes more shocking when you compare it with the U.S. performance over the same period. You know, if Canada had just simply kept pace with the U.S. growth over the past two years, our economy would be 8.5% bigger.

And that translates to about $6,200 more per income per Canadians each year. I got to repeat that because if we'd only kept pace with the U.S. growth in GDP per capita, our average incomes would be $6,200 more. I'll put another way. When you adjust for inflation in constant $215, GDP per capita in the U.S. is now $66,300. Compare that to Canada at $44,400.

This reflects the massive differences in the average standard standard living standards between much of Canada and the US. But put another way, adjusted for inflation, GDP per capita in the States was 43% higher than Canada in 2023. And Professor Toom estimates that final number for 2024 is going to be as wide as 50%.

Now, arguably, maybe the most positive thing to come out of the Trump tariff threat is it seems like more Canadians are focused on the economy. I've got to admit, though, I have my doubts that will translate into specific practical policies for things like lowering taxes and the regulatory burden that so we can encourage capital investment and we can get more economic growth. And the other thing, if they actually go through with that.

Well, it would be graded with the familiar accusations of your pandering to business and other staples of the anti-business playbook. But we'll see. But the bottom line is this. The shocking performance of the Canadian economy has had dire effects for people in Canada, especially at the lower end of the income scale. ♪

I want to bring Ozzy Jurek in here. Why? Because I wanted to get him before he plunged into the cold water of English Bay. You know, because after that, I'm not so sure how good he's going to be on this because he's excellent every week with us, joining us, talking about the latest in real estate topics.

And here's one, Ozzy, that I've been very critical of. Well, been worried that young people don't understand that government policies contributed directly to the lack of affordability, to the higher rents. And we're seeing that play through. So, you know, what a lot of young people are left to do, if they're lucky, they have parents who help them out.

And I was just thinking about the details of that. It's not just that simple as here's a load of dough. Now put a down payment and get your house.

Well, particularly now, and like nobody ever, certainly as a parent, you don't want to plan for a divorce of your daughter or a son. But guess what? If I want to give you $500,000 as a down payment on the house, the bank says, okay, that has to be a gift in writing. Because otherwise we won't give you the first mortgage because we see that like a second loan that you might not be able to pay. And therefore it has to be an outright gift. Hello, hello, says lawyer Tony Spagnuolo.

it may very well be that you're just giving away half of that money if they get divorced. And so what happens is that we have a lot of divorces. I don't know what the percentage is, but it's over 40%, unbelievably. You and I, we want to stay married forever. Well, actually, our wives wouldn't let us do anything else. But the point is, if you do have a generous heart and you want to give that money to your children,

That's a very easy step to sit down with a lawyer beforehand. And there are ways around how that the bank is happy and you're happy and your daughter's happy. And if they get divorced, they may split everything but not the money that you gave them.

And that's obviously, as you say, with those kind of divorce numbers, that's, you know, people don't like to think of that when they're early in their marriage or about to get married, but it's a reality that they have to deal with. And I've known a couple of people who had a real problem with what you're just alluding to. This challenge is one side of the family, or let's say the groom's parents put forward, they get divorced and they lost all control of that money because they didn't have agreements. And I just think if people take anything away, start with your first suggestion and

Get some legal advice on this. You know, there are things to do, but just get some legal advice first. In all cases, we'd also teach our students, say, look, if you get money from your parents, they actually expect it back, you know. So if you're a parent and you give a loan to your son for real estate investment or whatever, get it in writing because he thinks it's a gift, right? Right.

That sounds like somebody speaking from experience, but I won't, I won't press you further on that one, Ozzy. But yeah, I mean, I just think that's excellent advice. We're seeing more of this because it's impossible. You know, one of the things that's overlooked constantly is that young people for anyone, you know, it's hard to save for a mortgage. It's not just the lack of affordability. It's that the taxes take about half your income, some form of tax, you know, and so it's hard to save up. So they need help. I,

I want to come to something else too, though, Ozzy, because it's something you've brought on ozbuzz.ca and you've brought forward to our audience is this huge challenge with pre-sales and financing a new building, et cetera, et cetera. And boy, I look at some of those Toronto numbers and it's enough to make my hair go even grayer if that was possible. But yeah, so there has been a change in the period of time. Can you elaborate for us? Well, generally a developer, you know,

uneducated people think he has 70 or 80 million dollars laying around to build a building. He doesn't. The bank will help him, particularly if he makes a good case, but he needs 60% of the units pre-sold before the bank will give him the loan.

And the government says, okay, we'll give you a year to get that 60% done. Well, it's been an anemic pre-sale year and a couple of very anemic months, and the year is almost up. And maybe the developer had sold maybe 50%. He needs just another 10%, but he couldn't get it because the government says in one year you have to do it.

This week, the government said we'll give you another six months as long as you're over 100 units. So if you develop over 100 units, you've got another six months to sell. What does it mean? I think the government realized the problem with it, but it also means that the market is still soft.

Yeah, and certainly reconfirming what we see across the board with numbers and listings, that kind of thing. And it doesn't look like there's any sign of relief, at least in the short term, thanks to the uncertainty. So yeah, that's an interesting change. In the meantime, Ozzy, I'm going to be seeing you shortly. Polar Plunge, get ready. I'm not going to cry this year. I'm promising. Well, maybe I shouldn't. I'm not going to cry, but you've done fabulous work for all of the people, the

The athletes and the families with intellectual disabilities, you know, Fragile X, Down syndrome, you know, on the autism spectrum. The list is a long one. You've done fabulous work for them. And you are way tougher than me when you dive in, by the way. People should come down to English Bay. We're going to do it at 1 o'clock in Vancouver. So, yeah, I look forward to seeing you then, Ozzy. And I'll still have a smile on my face.

Well, thank you, Mike. And it's unkind people that say I didn't dive in. They say I fell in. No, no. It was one of my swan dives. Yeah, come see us later. It'll be fun at English Bay right across from the Silvia Hotel. And if you can't come, donate something. Yeah, absolutely. Great stuff, Ozzy. See you then. Take care.

I'm going live to the trading desk now with Victor Adair. Vic, you're going to love this question. Is the party over? I mean, you know, you were saying that you were shorting stocks. By the way, is the party over for gold too? I'll get your comment on that. But how serious should we take the sort of market decline? Oh, Bitcoin owners are taking it seriously too. There's a list.

What do you think? Yeah, I think what we saw this week, like across markets, was de-risking. People that, for instance, had chased the stock market higher, maybe got in, what's the term, they were out over their skis or something, had bitten off a little more than they could chew, you know, were selling. And we have a lot of what we call systematic risk.

players in the stock market that'd be like trend following and that sort of thing and those folks are like mechanical and if the market drops down through a certain level then they have to reduce their risk so you know selling begets selling we've had the the S&P hit a all-time high in the middle of the month we're down about five percent here going at the close of the week

uh, the NASDAQ, I think it's at three and a half month lows, both the NASDAQ and the S and P are below where they were when Trump was elected back in November. There has been clearly here a, uh, a de-risking. Now we've seen volatility jump and the, the day-to-day or intraday chop in the stock market has been wicked. But, uh, yeah, uh, the,

it looks like for right now, the dream of a new golden era under Trump has been put aside. I want to come back to a couple of things. Just an interesting note that, of course, when President Trump got elected, the market had a huge rally. But as you just said, and I just want people to note it, that they've given back all of those gains, including stocks like Tesla. Well,

Well, Tesla was the stock, of course. You know, it more than doubled from where it was the day before the election to the highs it hit in December, I guess. And it's virtually back to where it was. It's not below the November levels yet.

But yeah, Mike, the sentiment has had a real swing, but it was almost like, you know, I look at a number of metrics and the thing was really overdue for a correction. Now, we're down 5%. This is not a crash, okay? This is just a correction so far.

Well, I'm going to come to another one. And forgive me, I'll just be throwing these things at you. But I mean, I've been fascinated watching Bitcoin because it can be another barometer, but it's not 5% for Bitcoin. I think it's 27% drop.

Yeah, Bitcoin had a real race to the upside beginning, well, basically on Trump's election. It soared from about 70,000 to 110,000, and now it's fallen back 25% from those all-time highs. Again, another great barometer. In fact, I think that's really what Bitcoin is. It's just a play on risk sentiment.

And folks that are actively trading Bitcoin will probably argue with me on that. But from a top-down perspective, that's how I see it. It's just a great barometer of how pumped up the animal spirits are in the market. Okay, one more for you. And that's Nvidia has been sort of the poster child, the all-star. And I found it fascinating that its performance was terrific when it was announced this week, but the stock didn't go up.

Yeah, it's just staggering how much money this company makes. I don't know, it's like a half a trillion dollars a day or something. I'm exaggerating. And on their quarterly report after the close on Wednesday, they just beat on all of the numbers and their forecast as to what they're going to do going ahead was very strong. The market opened two bucks higher on Thursday morning and promptly peeled off, fell 15 bucks higher.

Clearly, there were people that were holding this stock that were looking for an opportunity to sell it. And we've got just a pervasive risk-off sentiment out there. So even the most important company in the world, as it's built, couldn't turn the ship around. You know, one more, as I said, I'm going to throw different things at you. But as Peter Grandage clearly said at the Outlook conference, he looked for gold to have a correction at that point. And that looks like it certainly happened.

yeah the gold market rallied about 350 dollars from uh the december lows to the all-time highs we had at the beginning of this week mike that's about a 14 number but it really had in my mind a lot of the metrics again that i look at uh was telling me that gold was overvalued here from a short-term trading perspective that's what i'm looking at and yeah it fell back about 125 dollars we've created a weekly key reversal on the chart

But again, you know, when the markets are racing to the upside and people are chasing them and bidding the market up, you get into a situation where it's over overdue for a correction and you get one. And one final thing, because I know most of our audience will be interested. We've got, you know, coming up March 12th, we've got the Bank of Canada and that whole will they or won't they cut interest rates again? There has certainly been a lively debate in the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, I think the market's currently pricing about a 50-50, whether or not they do another quarter point cut. I mean, you know, they've got their hands tied, okay? They don't know what Trump's going to do like nobody else does either. But, you know, I guess if they knew Trump was going to jam the 25% of tariffs, which he says he's going to come next week, then they would be cutting 50%.

The market, the Canadian dollar is lower here. I mean, we really fell like a stone on February the 3rd when Trump made that announcement. We came roaring back. It's gone sideways to a bit lower. But, you know, all of the other currencies have been lower here this week. So it's not just Canada. I'm not sure.

that the Canadian dollar at these levels is prepared for or is pricing in 25% tariffs to actually, you know, hit them between the eyes next week. And we sure will. By this time next week, we'll know at least the latest chapter in the tariff, but we'll also have a new prime minister. Oh my goodness. Lots to talk about. Lots to follow. Victor Adair, victoradair.ca, victoradair.ca. Hey, no better week to do it than then. Vic, have a great week. Thanks, Mike.

I mean, this week, Justin Trudeau stated on X, formerly Twitter, in quotes, Russia funds its war on Ukraine with oil. And to evade Western sanction, Russia uses a shadow fleet of ships to illegally transport Russian oil to the world. In Kiev, I announced new sanctions on 109 oil tankers and vessels. We are cutting off Russia's war machine. Got it?

Well, let's go to the goofy because it is unbelievable. As Bloomberg reports, a new study by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Guess who is importing Russian oil products? And by the prime minister's own word, supporting the Russian war machine. Well, the answer is Canada. Thanks to a loophole, Canada imported 200 million U.S. of Russian oil products in 2024, despite the sanctions.

You heard that right. Russian oil would be shipped to countries like India and Turkey, refined there, and then shipped to Canada in the form of refined products with the origination of Russian oil, things like jet fuel and diesel, with Canada now importing two and a half times more from those refineries that use Russian oil than before the sanctions. I don't think the word goofy comes close to describing this level of hypocrisy.

Hey, that's all the time we have. I've got to go off to the polar plunge. That's right. Oh, I'm already dreading it. If you're listening here on Saturday, one o'clock start in the West coast in the English Bay icy waters. And it's not too late to help us out and donate. Just go to moneytalksplunge.com moneytalksplunge.com.

www.moneytalksplunge.com. And in the meantime, also go on to mikesmoneytalks.ca. Sign up for five minutes with Mike. Man, do we ever have a ton of stuff that you're not seeing elsewhere. So that's mikesmoneytalks.ca, absolutely free. Sign up for five minutes with Mike. And in the meantime, I hope you have a terrific week.