Wonderful interview. I love Tara's calmness and reflective questions. I think Darrell Bricker is very accurate in his understanding of what is happening and how those of us who are not in the "Laurentian Elite" feel. Canada is more vulnerable than it has ever been. There is no allegiance to our country. Even the singer at the World Series changed the words to Oh Canada. Made me cringe. We need defence and we need to decentralize the government. And maybe reduce the bureaucracy? It's very difficult to get anything done. For example the housing issue. We need to keep talking to each other.
The conversation tweaked my interested on a few themes. I love the idea Darrell brought up of decentralizing federal ministries--that sounds like it has potential. And I was relieved to hear that in Canada we are more unhappy about the amount of immigration, than about the immigrants (our neighbours) themselves. In my community, the biggest divide I see is between those who own their home outright (or are well on track to do so) + have some sort of guaranteed pension to care for them as they age. . . and those who do not have those things. Often that falls along generational lines, but not always. Obviously it affects young people starting out to a greater extent, and now they have to worry about AI too. Whenever I strike up a conversation with a young worker in a local retail or hospitality job, the topic of 'my 2nd job' inevitably comes up.
Russia is currently out-manufacturing all of NATO in military drones by a factor of 4-1. China has achieved military parity with the US in all the areas that matter and has technology (hypersonic missiles) that render US carrier groups basically defenceless. And their military development is accelerating. So it would be a tall order for even the US to defend Canada’s arctic 10 years from now. Meanwhile Canada can’t even assure clean drinking water and functioning sewage systems for all of its bases in Canada as per the recent Auditor-General report. Maybe they will be able to achieve this monumental milestone after the new water treatment plants go through 5 years of Gender Impact Assessments. So I don’t think Canada can realistically ramp up their military to defend the arctic on a reasonable time frame.
The military should be a reflection of the people, and defence should be rooted in the land being defended. We need to bring back local capacity which means having local food production, local industry, and most importantly local skilled labor. We should not be dependent on another country to sell us what we need to defend ourselves but produce it ourselves.
This means decentralization. This means buying our refigerator from a Canadian manufacturer. This means buying Canadian Apples, not New Zealand Apples. This means sewing our own clothing, not purchasing cheap underwear from Bangladesh. This also means reforming our Banking Industry so that they are lending to small & medium business, not just Real Estate.
Great interview, and I have a lot to consider. I will likely buy his book. Thank you Tara
My off the top thought's.
Yes the Federal Government needs to decentralize and get the civil servants out of Ottawa. I would take it one step further and say that the Federal Government needs to limit itself to what it can actually do. Resources are a Provincial Reposponsiblity and the Federal Government should not have a department of Resources. It is the job of the Federal Government to assist Newfoundland to talk to Alberta about resources not to manage resources.
We need to rethink National Defence. Why do we have defence, who & what are we defending ourselves from? Does national Defence look the same in Alberta, as in the Artic? Why do we need the capacity to send troups to Haiti? Perhaps defence should be more of a militia model where the people in the Artic form the basis of the defence of the artic. (Inuit hunters should be in the militia) That our military should have the capacity to respond to floods in Southern BC and be located in southern BC.
As to immigration. We need to be focused on developing our economy, which means developing local industry & capacity. The government's focus on bringing in Tempory Foreign Workers & Students is not helpful as it keeps our own youth out of the workforce. In a similar way, bringing in Egyptian Engineers who's credentials are not recongnized is useless to everyone especially the Egyptian Engineer. Not bringing in construction workers from India would improve the opportunity for young men to learn trades and start thier career with the added benefit of meaning the young men would not have to compete for the housing.
Only eight percent of our land mass is arable. This must be considered by people who endorse urban sprawl. Maybe our population shouldn’t increase. There are important considerations besides economics.
I have now read the first few chapters of Darrell's book Breaking Point.
An observation I would make is that conflict between the major cities in Canada & the rest of Canada is inevitable. Inevitable because fundamentally the large cities interests are fundamentally in conflict.
Large Cities have no natural resources and benefit from having free or low cost access to resources while the hinterland need to get the best prices for thier resources. Expecting the Cities to pay top dollar for the resources of the hinterland is simply not going to happen voluntarily.
My solution, make the cities of Toronto, Montreal, & Vancouver provinces. As provinces they would have to make thier money by Trade & Services not from resource royalties & transfer payments. As provinces, they would have to work to ensure that the hinterlands benefited from the Trade & Services Provided, or the Hinterlands would go elsewhere. For instance, if the Province of Vancouver does not want to facilitate Alberta's Oil getting to market, that's fine the Province of British Columbia would be happy to see it go through Kitamat or Prince Rupert.
Wonderful interview. I love Tara's calmness and reflective questions. I think Darrell Bricker is very accurate in his understanding of what is happening and how those of us who are not in the "Laurentian Elite" feel. Canada is more vulnerable than it has ever been. There is no allegiance to our country. Even the singer at the World Series changed the words to Oh Canada. Made me cringe. We need defence and we need to decentralize the government. And maybe reduce the bureaucracy? It's very difficult to get anything done. For example the housing issue. We need to keep talking to each other.
The conversation tweaked my interested on a few themes. I love the idea Darrell brought up of decentralizing federal ministries--that sounds like it has potential. And I was relieved to hear that in Canada we are more unhappy about the amount of immigration, than about the immigrants (our neighbours) themselves. In my community, the biggest divide I see is between those who own their home outright (or are well on track to do so) + have some sort of guaranteed pension to care for them as they age. . . and those who do not have those things. Often that falls along generational lines, but not always. Obviously it affects young people starting out to a greater extent, and now they have to worry about AI too. Whenever I strike up a conversation with a young worker in a local retail or hospitality job, the topic of 'my 2nd job' inevitably comes up.
Russia is currently out-manufacturing all of NATO in military drones by a factor of 4-1. China has achieved military parity with the US in all the areas that matter and has technology (hypersonic missiles) that render US carrier groups basically defenceless. And their military development is accelerating. So it would be a tall order for even the US to defend Canada’s arctic 10 years from now. Meanwhile Canada can’t even assure clean drinking water and functioning sewage systems for all of its bases in Canada as per the recent Auditor-General report. Maybe they will be able to achieve this monumental milestone after the new water treatment plants go through 5 years of Gender Impact Assessments. So I don’t think Canada can realistically ramp up their military to defend the arctic on a reasonable time frame.
Agreed.
The military should be a reflection of the people, and defence should be rooted in the land being defended. We need to bring back local capacity which means having local food production, local industry, and most importantly local skilled labor. We should not be dependent on another country to sell us what we need to defend ourselves but produce it ourselves.
This means decentralization. This means buying our refigerator from a Canadian manufacturer. This means buying Canadian Apples, not New Zealand Apples. This means sewing our own clothing, not purchasing cheap underwear from Bangladesh. This also means reforming our Banking Industry so that they are lending to small & medium business, not just Real Estate.
Great interview Tara! Book sounds very interesting.
I purchased the audiobook as soon as I finished the interview. Such precision.
Great interview, and I have a lot to consider. I will likely buy his book. Thank you Tara
My off the top thought's.
Yes the Federal Government needs to decentralize and get the civil servants out of Ottawa. I would take it one step further and say that the Federal Government needs to limit itself to what it can actually do. Resources are a Provincial Reposponsiblity and the Federal Government should not have a department of Resources. It is the job of the Federal Government to assist Newfoundland to talk to Alberta about resources not to manage resources.
We need to rethink National Defence. Why do we have defence, who & what are we defending ourselves from? Does national Defence look the same in Alberta, as in the Artic? Why do we need the capacity to send troups to Haiti? Perhaps defence should be more of a militia model where the people in the Artic form the basis of the defence of the artic. (Inuit hunters should be in the militia) That our military should have the capacity to respond to floods in Southern BC and be located in southern BC.
As to immigration. We need to be focused on developing our economy, which means developing local industry & capacity. The government's focus on bringing in Tempory Foreign Workers & Students is not helpful as it keeps our own youth out of the workforce. In a similar way, bringing in Egyptian Engineers who's credentials are not recongnized is useless to everyone especially the Egyptian Engineer. Not bringing in construction workers from India would improve the opportunity for young men to learn trades and start thier career with the added benefit of meaning the young men would not have to compete for the housing.
Only eight percent of our land mass is arable. This must be considered by people who endorse urban sprawl. Maybe our population shouldn’t increase. There are important considerations besides economics.
I have now read the first few chapters of Darrell's book Breaking Point.
An observation I would make is that conflict between the major cities in Canada & the rest of Canada is inevitable. Inevitable because fundamentally the large cities interests are fundamentally in conflict.
Large Cities have no natural resources and benefit from having free or low cost access to resources while the hinterland need to get the best prices for thier resources. Expecting the Cities to pay top dollar for the resources of the hinterland is simply not going to happen voluntarily.
My solution, make the cities of Toronto, Montreal, & Vancouver provinces. As provinces they would have to make thier money by Trade & Services not from resource royalties & transfer payments. As provinces, they would have to work to ensure that the hinterlands benefited from the Trade & Services Provided, or the Hinterlands would go elsewhere. For instance, if the Province of Vancouver does not want to facilitate Alberta's Oil getting to market, that's fine the Province of British Columbia would be happy to see it go through Kitamat or Prince Rupert.