Friday Dec 5th

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is VOCM Open Line call seven oh nine two seven,
three fifty two eleven or one triple eight five ninety
eight six two six abusing opinions of this programmer, not
necessarily those of this station. The biggest conversation in Newfoundland
and Labrador starts now here's VOCM Open Line host Paddy Daily.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, all right and good morning to you. Thank you
so much for tuning into the program. It's Friday, December
the fifth. This is open Line. I'm your host, Patty Daily,
David Williams. He's producing the command with an edition. So
if you're in the same John's metro region, the number
of dialogue in the Q and on the ERA is
seven zero nine two seven three five two one one
elsewhere A total free long distance one eight eight eight

(00:46):
five ninety VOSEM, which is eighty six twenty six. So
let's check in in a couple of local Olympians. Olympians
no less. Liam Hickey, of course, multi sport athlete, played
basketball and sledge hockey four Canada. He just recorded his
one hundredth assist playing for his country. Assistant captain of
course the team Canada. Liam is a beauty, great family

(01:07):
and congratulations to Liam and I really appreciate the McLachlan
family he's sending me along. And update, we mentioned the
fact that O'Donnell High school volleyball player Fallon McLaughlin playing
for Team Canada at the Dead Olympics. So this is
one hundred year old event and team Canada did pretty well,
actually historic finish. So Fallon and Team Canada finished seventh
in the world in Tokyo at the twenty twenty five

(01:28):
Death Olympics, the highest ranking two day for Canada's women's
volleyball team at this particular event. So now she gets
a chance to train, qualify, compete for Canada at the
twenty twenty nine Death Olympics, this time in Athens, Greece.
So congratulations to Fallon McLaughlin and Team Canada seventh in
the world. Pretty good result, all right. So today for

(01:49):
soccer fans, of course, we all know that Canada, the
United States, and Mexico will be hosting the next World
Cup of Soccer. So the FIFA World Cup pool draw
is today at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, all right,
so we'll get a chance to know who we're up
against in our pool play. But obviously the leaders of
both are all Canada, Mexico and the United States will

(02:11):
be on stage for the two hour event. We're told
that there's it's very unlikely there be any trade related
talk between Prime Minister Occurrnity and President Trump, which is unfortunate.
But you just hear some of the writoric coming around
the KUSMA trade deal. So number one, there's thoughts from
the Americans that they're just going to let it die,
let it expire, walk away. Yesterday the President was talking

(02:34):
about that exact thing, you know, calling whoever dealt with
that particular most recent negotiations as stupid. All right, Well,
he was the president who negotiated to the deal and
eventually signed off on the deal, calling one of the
best deals of all time. And now it looks like
it might indeed be going by the wayside. Potential bilateral
agreements between the States and Mexico, the States and US
Austin Mexico just enough to throw the North American economy

(02:56):
into a bit more chaos. And it's already chaotic to
say the very least. Look, as you've heard me admit
countless times, we have tons of domestic issues here in
this country, financially societally and otherwise. Of course we do,
and as much as absolutely fact. President Joe Biden looked
very unwell last going off. I don't know why it

(03:17):
seems to be unfair in many corners of Trump supporters
to point out the patently obvious. He looks clearly unwell.
And now to try to rely on our once extremely
reliable partner is no longer there. It's just a crying
shame is to find ourselves where we are and anyway
you want to talk about any of that kind of stuff,
we can do it. And of course a lot of
the trade war and the consequential tariffs all based on

(03:41):
national security and drugs. Yeah, sure, it is all right.
So food prices, you know, yesterday we talked about Canada's
food price report, and it's a bleak picture into twenty
twenty six. They talk about the potential for food price
to increase four to six percent seven percent in the
world of beef, so shrinking cattle sizes and a variety

(04:02):
of things regarding supply chain and fire and floods and
droughts and insects, which is a big contributing factor to
the price of groceries. Of course, it is so The
question being asked by many people in my email and
hopefully on the telephone today will be what can be
done about it? It's a pretty good question. So we
do know in the world of big grocery retailers, the

(04:24):
profits made on groceries, it's a pretty thin margin. So
they've got financial services and clothes and pharmaceuticals and a
variety of goods that they sell that make up a
wopping big portion of their profits. But yes, groceries, what
about it. It's remarkable to me that we've got something
established called the Competition Bureau in this country. They produce
a report in twenty twenty three and zero action has

(04:45):
been taken on it. And I pointed out some very
clear issues inside the world of the grocery retail Basically,
it's the lack of competition. Eighty percent of the market
is dominated by five companies and three giants here in
this country, sobe's Metro at Walmart and Costco, and there's
the world of grocery retailer. So they talk about a
variety of things, and government has the ability to deal

(05:07):
with these things because people say, what can government too?
Good question, not only the domination by the high concentration
of power inside the five big ones. It's very restrictive.
They've got a bunch of these covenants in leases basically
says that in a certain proximity to their store, they
are allowed to block competitors for opening nearby because of

(05:29):
real estate covenants. The impact on consumers is obvious, you know.
It's the lack of innovation, it's the lack of competition
and consequently higher food prices. So they talked about it,
and this is twenty twenty five June report, talk about
releasing guidance from retailers inside of these restrictive practices, and
they go on to say that they continue to actively investigate.
But what's changing nothing, you know. So the federal government,

(05:51):
we do know that the big corporations have and they
wield a ton of power on Parliament Hill. But for
political victory, I mean, what's the choice here? They do
what they think they need to do to keep corporate
Canada happy, which are X number of voters, or they
put forward some actual pragmatic policy to help everybody else,
which is X time one thousand voters. So yeah, fuel

(06:14):
in the conference for your political campaigns. Of course, important
politicians their number one goal in life is get elected,
and their second goal in life is to get re elected.
But all the while, all the voters who really should
in essence hold the vast majority of power, we're kind
of left on the outside looking in, wondering where's our scraps.
So the Competition Bureau puts forward a lot of real

(06:35):
pragmatic recommendations to make our grocery prices cheaper by increasing competition. Now,
does that mean that we're going to see some dramatic
drop in the price of groceries. Probably not. But as
I heard Russell speaking with someone on the show this morning,
is you know, on the outside edges of the grocery
store is where a lot of the stuff that we

(06:55):
normally buy and the best stuff and the most expensive
soft lives. Then in the center of the sword some
of the staples, notably cad goods. It's going to see
a lot more activity when you do the produce and
the meat section. Into the freezer cooler area, you know,
it's always busy, and in the middle aisles maybe not
so much, but it's going to get busier into the future.
So you asked, what can the government to the government

(07:15):
can do plenty, all right, let's keep going. The story
regarding court closures is a big deal. I don't know
so how much attention it's getting in your world unless
you have something in front of the courts. And of
course we're not talking about criminal courts. We're talking about
contravention issues and traffic finds and small claims court. But
that's important, let's just put it out there. So look,

(07:41):
the role of the official opposition is crucial and we
really rely on the opposition to do an effective job
to hold government to account. At the same time, it's
fair to point out that it's kind of difficult to
take some of the criticisms at this moment in time
aimed at the current PC government from liberal opposition, why

(08:01):
because they're in power a long time. So I get
the role. I understand the role. I understand the importance
of it. But things that have been growing for years
and years and years and years are coming home to roosts,
including the fact that we've got not enough people working
in the court system, whether it be police officers, crown prosecutors,
sheriffs officers, other support staff. And as a result, we've

(08:24):
seen this huge shift in provincial court operations. So the
Minister currently responsible. Helen Conway Altenheimer has struck a new
working group. Okay, there was already working group struck in
the past, and at the same time we talked about
judges retired or otherwise, lawyers and others in the system.
But what is not included in this working group are

(08:44):
people who actually work on the so called front lines.
Let's put some of them in, whether they be actively
serving and or recently retired, because their perspective is key,
so let's include them. So I get the criticism coming
from the current liberal operate position, but come on, these
are not new concerns. People have been raising the red

(09:05):
flag about the number of sheriff's officers and other support
staff in the court system for years. It's the exact
same conversation where we talk about access to primary care.
The conversation regarding the number of doctors working in practice
with full patient rosters is not a new development. It's
been talked about and heard four years. Same thing can

(09:26):
be said for teachers and other support staff in the
CAD twelve system. These are not overnight developments. I've been
sitting in this chair for a long time and we've
been talking about that since the day I first started
on this show. These are not new items or issues.
So yes, I welcome opposition commentary and questions, whether it
be for the MDP or the Liberals. But let's not
pretend that these things just happened, because they didn't. So

(09:52):
let's get down to the brass tax. And one thing
would also be quite helpful coming from opposition voices. And
I'm not trying to come down hard on the Liberals
here this morning, but these things have been bubbling and
percolating for a long long time. So in addition to
the criticism and questions for the current PC government, fair enough,

(10:12):
but let's just do ourselves a favor here. Alongside of
your criticisms, can you please put forward some solutions? And
that would have been the exact same case when the
PC's for the opposition, and it remains the case with
the Liberals now of the opposition and the NDP solutions
required on top of criticism. Criticizing is easy. We can
all do it no matter what we're talking about, politically, societally, financially, economically,

(10:35):
in our relationships. Criticisms come easy. They drip off the
tip of our tongue like it is nobody's business. The
hard part is coming up with posed solutions, any sort
of remedies. So I get it. We can hear opposition
voices federally, provincially, municipally, but boy oh boy, what we're
short on is some actual pragmatic solutions, like when we

(10:56):
talked about food prices, the competition pureau. Let's take some
recommendation and implement them based on years of research, hard work,
and that real, quiet, grunt work, because that's the longer politics.
Politics is all about sound bites and nonsense. Right, let's
make politics boring again, get to work, find some solutions,
and get down to business. I'm so sick and tired

(11:19):
of the sound bode politics these days. It's pathetic. Most
of it is juvenile. And this is not just a
provincial or federal or North American or the developed world.
It's everything. That's all we get. It's performative theater solutions,
solutions be damned. If I can get my whimsical, nonsensical, juvenile,

(11:42):
embarrassing sound boyd in the news, good enough for me, Yeah,
it's not good enough for the rest of us. You
want to talk about it, let's do it. There was
a bit of a Bryant Okay, public sector. We do
know that the reliance on job growth in this country
has been pretty much reliant on public sector growth. Went
to Canada, some thirty percent of people employed work for
the government private second investment flat. Okay, So the fads

(12:08):
we know in the most recent budget they were talking
about eliminating some forty thousand positions. Now they've offered early
retirement packaged information, some sixty eight thousand public servants no
action required. At this time, peak was reaching the twenty
three to twenty four fiscal year three hundred and sixty
eight thousand people working for the federal governments. Okay, right,
sizing things and making sure we have a manageable number

(12:31):
of people working for the federal government that allows for
all the services to be provided and hopefully a timely
and efficient manner. One of the problems is going to
be that some of these positions won't be backfilled and
we'll lose jobs through attrition. No one's sharing for a
job loss, but we have too many people working for
the public sector in this problems and right across the country.

(12:51):
The next growing problem will be how some of those
services are provided. And you know full well that there's
already a alliance on artificial intelligence, and that's going to
only grow into the future. We are quickly finding out
that AI is providing as much incorrect information as correct information.
So we need legislation. We need legislation to be brought

(13:12):
forward here provincially and federally as to the usage of
artificial intelligence because it's completely and wholly unreliable. It's fun
and you can produce a quirky little video very quickly
in the palm of your hand, but that doesn't mean
that it's going to be effective in helping with governance.
So where's that coming from? And look, even in the
world of GDP growth, I mean, the AI investment dollar

(13:36):
is massive, and in the most recent twelve months where
the GDP growth in the United States have it reliant
on artificial intelligence investment. It's a bubble that's just waiting
to burst on the financial scene and it is not
helpful to me and you people who are lying on services,
relying on corporations as the subservience that we have become.

(13:57):
So man, I don't know why we don't talk about it.
I don't know why we don't get more calls on AI.
Because as much as you might not care about it
at this moment in time. Most everything that you see,
in touch and feeling here in the right, today and
into the future is going to be in part or
in full generated by artificial intelligence. So we should get
that conversation out there, if you're so inclined, and let's

(14:19):
do it all right. So some questions being asked the
Defense Minister David McGinty about defense spending and he says,
no problem. So we do know. Premier Waken when meeting
with Prime Minister, put forward some defense spending concerns regarding
companies in this province to get in on the action.
As we move towards two percent of GDP in the
next three years or ish all the way to five

(14:41):
percent of GDP, which is going to be at minimum
one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year on defense,
we are positioned and poised, whether it be the tech sector,
the innovation sector, and yes even that bull arm or
other facilities where we can and we should get our
slice of the pod because we have been left behind
forever and a day on that front. So go down
the premium for making that a priority. But some of

(15:03):
those other priorities you want to get into it. The
Beta Nords, the critical minerals, the Upper Churchill, all of
these things are certainly open for discussion right here on
this program. The Auditor General another report yesterday, all right,
So this is looking at performance audits all the way
back twenty eighteen through twenty twenty two. About a quarter
of all recommendations have not been implemented. Justin the report yesterday,

(15:27):
fifteen recommendations have not been implemented. Half of them are
over five years old. All right. So these are examinations
into now core Energy, which is now of course Newfland,
LABAD or Hydro, through the Justice Department, through the Tourism Department.
In otherwise, when the government read through reports and very
quick to say, we appreciate the hard work of the

(15:48):
Auditor General in this case Denise san Rahan and her team,
and we understand the recommendations that we'll move towards implementation.
Spare US. I almost cursed spare US. The recommendations are
based on care, careful evaluation, not what a partisan bias,
but with a pragmatics lens. So if the work has
been done, and we're going to applaud the work done

(16:08):
by Denise Hanrahan and auditor generals into the past. Let's
do better on implementing recommendations. They are only intended to
not knock governments down, but to make things better. So
yet another report from Denise Hanrahan about the lack of implementation,
and as usual Denise Hanrahan knows that she's more than
welcome to join us on the program. All right, and

(16:29):
wound up here today more positive note before we get
to the break and come back to speak with you.
Bravo to the good folks at Vioseum Cares for not
only the good work they do throughout the year, but
this fundraising effort with their fifty to fifty and the
two secondary prizes of when You're lease of a CRV
thanks to Steal Honda, a staying play between the Avalon

(16:49):
Mall and the Capitol Hotel, and of course the fifty
to fifty jackpot. When I got to work yesterday it
was around seventy thousand dollars I think, and it ended
up last night at the deadline of over two hundred
forty thousand dollars. So that's the record record fundraising effort
for VOCM Cares and their annual fifty to fifty. Congratulations
to all of the folks who bought a tickets are

(17:11):
helping the community, and for the winners, bravo. The holiday
season just got a little bit merrier and brighter for
those three winners. I didn't chop down their names. I
probably should have, but go down. Everyone helps to support
Vocum Cares. We're on Twitter, We're VOSM. Open line follows sir,
email addresses. Open line at VOSM dot com. Today is indeed,
come on with it Friday. So when we take this break,

(17:31):
get in the que speak with tables. Speak to you
right after this. Don't go away. Welcome back to the show.
Let's go line number one. James, you're on the air.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Good morning, Patty. How are you, sir?

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Great today?

Speaker 3 (17:42):
You not too bad? Not too bad.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
I basically heard your little bit of your preamal there
this morning.

Speaker 5 (17:48):
I just caught the very last bit of it talking
about how they they're not opening the house until after
I guess they started the new year.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
And I mentioned today from just give you an example. Now,
I'm just down.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
Here now park in front of the chest Penny Center
of Hope, down front the Salvation Army, and I'd love
to see if Tony wakem now Our, Andrew Furior or
any of.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
Them would like to stand up in this line up
with these people that are out here now shivering hot
just to get a hamper. I think it is absolutely
freaking ridiculous that the state of this place got to
depend on a couple of idiots that don't know how
to freaking get their stuff managed to get everything back
on track so that we're not all suffering because another thing.
Now they're talking about the Royal food again there next year.

(18:34):
It's unbelievable, right, It's it's so out of control, it's
like they cannot It's almost like they don't know where
to go to from here. It's like they don't have
any direction. Or is that it's just a bigger plan
in place for the next step of what they're going
to freaking you know, bomb us with.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, you know, some conversations I think are at national
stage conversation and some things are absolutely prevent scales. In
the world of groceries, it is really a federal conversation here.
I don't know what provincial governments can really do. I mean,
I suppose there are some options available which I talk
about every now and then is you know, not only

(19:13):
expanding agricultural opportunities to grow more food closer to where
people live, whether that be traditional forms of farming or
hydroponics or whatever it is, but geography also plays a
role in it. I did mention the Competition Bureau of
Work back in twenty twenty three twenty twenty five recommendations
made that could increase competition consequently could help control prices,
but no actions taken, and some of those are required

(19:34):
via federal legislation. You know. The provincial lever that I
think we can pull is in the agricultural sector, which
is tricky business. We just had a terrible summer. It
was nice if you were a golfer, terrible if you
were a farmer. You know, the drought conditions and the
prolonged heat. You know, we didn't even get a second
round to pay from any farmers. So, you know, the
whole thought in general terms of what are politicians actually

(19:56):
actively doing to make my life easier and more affordable?
Is the next one question?

Speaker 5 (20:02):
Yeah, and basically, like I mean, I'm just going to
keep on going around circles or anything't talking about.

Speaker 4 (20:08):
It, but it just seems to me like it's such
a freaking saying, Like to watch all these freaking people
going in there now, like I mean, decent cars, decent
you know people, they're they're not you know, they're not
bums or nothing, and they're just going into this place.
It tears their head on me, Like they see these
freaking four people going in there with their children and
and all this freaking little stuff and here they just

(20:28):
you know, just floating around there. Let's play a great
foggy day for for Tony wake come up in Nadawa,
Like who cares, buddy, Like, let's get this frigging thing
back on the rails. GE's like it's unreal. It's unreal,
and like, uh, the story we're going off my head
like this. But I mean, I'm just one of every
new Filanda right here now that would love to see

(20:51):
everything just go right back to reset and try to
get everything back on tracks. Like I know this, Like
I don't even know where to go with it from there,
because it's almost like it's you're trying to get the
truth out of them, You're trying to get more information.
It's almost like they're dragging their heels or everything.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
And I just don't know.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Cost living pressures have increased. There's a couple of areas
where they've come back to worth a little bit, like
cell phone packages, what have you. Insurance premiums are up,
mortgait trates have come down. SOMA based on interest right relief.
But you know, it's hard to know how we put
the toothpaste back in the tube here because the number
of people that are new to relying on food banks

(21:33):
is extraordinary. More than a couple of million Canadians have
a full of alliance on food banks. And you know,
they're talking about people who are coming in the door
who actually work for a living forty hours a week.
You know they're working, but now they're the working poor.
And how that gets reversed is anybody's guests. And I
wish I had more solutions, you know, insofar as people
on fixed incomes, I think it's just patently clear that

(21:56):
things like qualification for the guaranteed incomes uplement it needs
to be raised. It's as simple as that qualification for
the senior's benefit needs to be raised because twenty nine
thousand dollars in twenty eighteen is not the same personal
power as twenty nine thousand dollars in twenty twenty five.
So there's a few things like that I think we
can see addressed. But it's slow move and kind of stuff.
And look, let's be real, there's tons of money in

(22:19):
Saint John's if we're just talking about the capital city,
because I know that's where you're calling from. There's tons
of money around here. But the problem is is that
the number of people in the bottom bracket seems to
be growing. The middle class is kind of eroded. We've
got a bunch of people doing really, really, really well
and a much smaller portion of people doing terribly. But
what we do to support those people. Social assistance hasn't

(22:41):
changed in years, the employment stabilization program hasn't grown. We're
doing a pits poor job and keeping people housed. We're
doing a terrible job to get people educated in the
big scheme of things. So we start up with some
of the basics and you can probably you know some
of the problem there, James, and I'll get your thoughts
on this is things that have long term, tended goals,
they don't get a lot of headlines. Things that have

(23:03):
short term goals and photo opportunities, A big checks being
presented that gets the headline like even if you just
started the KA twelve system and if we did great
in pre k, then in ten years, whoever was the
person who really put forward the effort to make sure
we did the best we could in primary school, we'd
see the results in ten years. But they're gone by then,

(23:24):
so they don't get to share the glory, which is
not what it's supposed to be about. If you're just
in it for the glory, then shag you right, we
need some long term, easy to measure vision here. Let's
get it right in education, which takes care of a
lot of it. And I'm kind of jumping around here
this morning because I'm wound up tight, but I'll give
you the floor for final thoughts.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Yeah, no, my Boddy, I'm just like I said, it's
just it's unbelievable that in the state of everything that's
going on.

Speaker 6 (23:49):
Now, Oh, we're going to bump the food up again
next year, Like boys like you don't realize, like they
just got to see this for ourselves unless they're just
completely obligate it.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, right now, some of the forecacid increases in the
grocery store, you know, in short term relief in so
far as government policy goes, I'm not so sure we
can avoid it at this moment in time. But let's
look at the level of competition out there. If there's
five companies controlled eighty percent of the retail marketing groceries,
what do you think is going to happen. I mean,
I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure I understand supply

(24:24):
demand of competition.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
YEP is on real, Buddy, James.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
I appreciate your call this morning. Thanks for doing it.

Speaker 5 (24:33):
Yes, thanks lot, Patty, I have a good weekend, buddy,
and Mary christ was happy here to you and Dave
as well.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
YouTube Power appreciated the same to you and your family.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Thank you, buddy.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Okay, welcome bye bye. Yeah. I mean, and I like
I've said many times in the past, people don't like
it when I say it, but I mean it is reality.
For a lot of these big grocery retailers. The margins
on groceries are pretty thin, and they always happen. That
doesn't mean they're not making huge profits, because they are,
and for some of these companies, record profits, but they've

(25:04):
diversified their business, which kind of makes it a little
bit misleading. When we look at their profits. The Mountain
money they make on financial services and clothing and pharmacy
is huge. The margin op groceries not so much. But
the whole supply chain has been compromised. I suppose to
use the word in gentle terms, but anyway, let's see here.

(25:26):
How are we doing on the Twitter box for vosim
oplan you know what they do? Email addresses open on
avosm dot com to day's great data to get on
the show. Just like Coller and the quter wants to
talk about Valentine Lake mining, don't away. Welcome back to
the show. Let's go lane number two caller around the air.

Speaker 7 (25:43):
Yes, good morning, Patty morning, first time caller.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I'm nervous.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
You take your time. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 (25:50):
Thanks Valentine. Like stuff's going on in there now, Like
there's an union in there. The security is in the union.
There's hotel restaurants in the union, and they just recently
got rid of the union for security. And the next
on the chopping rock is East Coast cater that's the

(26:13):
words going around. They're bringing in another company from Montreal.
The company is Garatta and East Coast Catering. They're apparently
he's going around. They're bringing in someone from Ontario. Garretta
is from Montreal and Ontario's the other ones. So we
got places here in New Poland that can annual catering,

(26:34):
and we got people with can annual security. So twelve
people lost their jobs, could be up to fourteen Garretts.
That's what they were going to ask. They lost their
jobs in them because they their contract was up and
they went with someone else. Now I know they're allowed

(26:56):
to do that, but it was wrong to me.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Are you still there? Okay, yeah, okay.

Speaker 8 (27:08):
They they're bringing in this new crew and some of
them don't even have experience at security in.

Speaker 7 (27:16):
That but that's fine. I mean you do a four
hour course, which some of them up there's got a
lot more experience than four hours. Of course, you do
the fact that they're bringing in another mainland company when
we got our own to take care of it all.
I mean, that's twelve people there, eighty o people probably

(27:38):
give or take a few in the.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
East Coast catering part.

Speaker 7 (27:42):
So how they found out that they were bringing in
new crew was someone come in and said, what they
aren't another security company and Buzz said, I don't know,
they've seen it on indeeds. So two days is in
the next day they phoned their company and they didn't

(28:03):
know nothing about it, and the next day they got
to lay off come to them, every one of them.
I don't think it's fair. Ow they're getting rid of
one company and putting another company in there just because
of the union. When they're at the gold now processing
the gold between three to five million comes it over

(28:25):
that road every not every day, but every so many days.
They're nowhere into the pit yet the pits that's going
to do the gold. So I think they're.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Screwgeous as you ask me.

Speaker 7 (28:41):
I mean, lay people off this time of the year
to bring just because they don't want the union in
there don't make sense. And I challenged the news Land
government and our Premier Chris TIB's been told about it.
He'd been told about it. I don't know the rest

(29:03):
of them that's in theast coast catering that's spout towards
Saint John's and stuff like that. I don't know where
the ministers are, but this stuff got to change. They
can't be allowed to do this stuff. This is all right, boy,
I get rid of some and bring in other people just.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Because you're going to get rid of the union.

Speaker 7 (29:24):
It's not going to get rented the union because this
only made it worse for the union for all the
rest of them because to hine chances that are ten
when something comes along with their face, something is going
to be signed. Which is only the two unions in
there right now. There may be gizmore might be in
there for a little bit, a few crew.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
And here it.

Speaker 7 (29:46):
Is these guys. You'll go all go union and these
people come out and you got no jobs and the
other crowded goal union.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
So yeah, I don't know where to go.

Speaker 7 (29:57):
From it, but I challenge the Newfland government to step
in dere now and resolve that issue right now because
they get plaid off to fifteenth that's their last date
of her.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's a tricky one, isn't it. So the current Minister
of Energy and Minds is Lloyd Parrot, the PC member
for Tearnova. You know at this stage when you've got
the agreements in place between the government and I think
it's now owned by Equinox gold right used to be Marathon,
then it was Popula Caliber. Now I think it's owned
by Equinox.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Is that waits correct?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Okay, So with the agreements already sign a place to
prove their lease and operations. I wonder what the authority
is that the government would have to stop something in
his tracks now, Because in the world of industry like mining,
like the oiler gas business, like the work on the
Churchill River inside benefits agreements that the government will approve
up in conjunction with your license and various other approvals

(30:50):
and environmental assessments, there can't be some protections for jobs
put in into the contracts, and you know, contracts that
will be impossible to break because it'll be directly linked
to your license to produce. And Marathon should be an
excellent business. I mean, but are they sitting on at
least three million proven and probable ounces of gold gold
going on the bus? Well, yeah, I think they're released

(31:12):
the same thing they do in the oil business. Right
they say we're sitting on a half a billion barrels
of oil, and turns out to be three or four
times at same thing I able to assume in the
mining business. But let's just use three million ounces of
gold and they do the o crushing grind out at
Marathon is gold is selling about forty two hundred bucks
an ounce, So there's a pretty good business to be had.

Speaker 8 (31:32):
Yeah, but they're not even allowed to be hard anywhere
in the mine itself. Okay, right now, because they're labeled now.

Speaker 7 (31:42):
As whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Pray that the union. You'll push for the union wherever
you go, you know what I mean?

Speaker 7 (31:51):
Yep, Which that's still ron. I mean they got the
right to go in there. I mean we could look
at it another way. Chris Tibson is in there working.
You come right to the high school and went in there.
He's working in the lab. Now, that's fine. I got
nothing against none of that because he went through this
certain program to God that allows people to go.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
And get that.

Speaker 9 (32:12):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Yep, they can do the same thing with these guards.
If they don't have.

Speaker 7 (32:16):
No experience in something, they should hire him to go
back into the field. They've been with them for three
to four years in there, which is is totally ron.
Like I don't care what anyone says to me, it
is totally ron. And to do it this time in
the year is unreal. And you've got another feller in there.

(32:38):
I've got to keep going because you've got a big
shot in there going around with a yellow hat eye.
Now if you're a big shot, you wear a.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
White hat generally white as construction projects.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
Yeah, he's going around and if he don't like what
you says or anything like that, you're fard. That's been
proven in there this.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Past month, not gone actually, which.

Speaker 7 (33:02):
No one knows, probably who he is. And then you know,
you got to watch what you say. If you don't
like the place in there or don't like what's going
on in there, then you know what I mean. But
they shouldn't be allowed to do that either. It's enough
to the topic now all together.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
But I challenged the New Fland government.

Speaker 7 (33:21):
I read some of the I don't know about Andrew
Parterson's vote. I don't know if it's the contract and
such or what it is, but in there it's it's
room that could be changed if any problem should come up.
It could two of them would have to go back
and forth with each other. It's right there in it.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Okay. So the benefits agreement is probably three ish years
old at this moment of time, even though first goldpor
was just this year if I remember correctly, not that
long ago. So we'll put this on the radar with
Minister Parrot and see if we can't get some of
his time, because we're a Judah speak with Lloyd part
here in the near future for a variety of reasons.
I mean, his portfolio is one of the big revenue

(34:04):
generators in government period. So you know, we had called
yesterday talking about the beaver Brook mind, the endemy mind
that is now closed, but they're sitting on a pretty
valuable product as well. So well, Pepper the minister with
a variety of different mining related questions, and we'll put
this one at the top of the list. How's that.

Speaker 7 (34:22):
Yeah, that sounds good to me. But I mean, like
I said, it's sad because it's drawn close to their
hand of their term right the fifteen December. I would
like for them to get on the boll with this
right away. So that's why I'm challenging all the ministers
right across or the MHA's right across Newfland to get
involved with this right now and our premiere. So you

(34:46):
phone the MHA's right now. You only got one day
and they're full, they're filled up with all these mediums.
You got no time to speak to no one. That's
the problem.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
We'll see if they can make time to speak with us,
because we at least can say out loud on the
show if they refuse to speak with us, we can
make that known too, which also speaks volumes. So let
me dig into it, a caller. I am going to
go find the benefits agreement because I'm pretty sure that
was like twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two when that
was signed, and I don't recall all of the ins
and outs of it, but I'll have a look for it.

(35:19):
We'll a vite Minister Parrot on the program because there's
lots to discuss inside his portfolio, and of course including
Valentine Lake. Anything else you'd like to say while we.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
Have you, Nope, that's it.

Speaker 7 (35:28):
Appreciate your time, So I have a good Merry Christmas.
Now to you, I'm you new Yeah YouTube, Hell take care, okay, thanks, match.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
You welcome, bye bye. And East Coast Catering that was
originally Patrick O'Callahan owned that company, right, who just recently passed.
Is it still locally owned? I don't know. Is it
part of the companys group? Yeah? There you go. Boy
oh boy. How often does that pop up, you know,

(35:55):
whether it be in healthcare or otherwise. And East Coast
catering is a massive operation, and I'm not so sure
when it possibly changed hands. But anyway, let's see here,
let's get a break right on time. When we come
back to cost of food, Dave wants to talk about oil,
someone else wants to pick up on what the callers
laying down regarding Valentine Lake, and then whatever you want
to talk about, don't go away, welcome back to the show.

Speaker 9 (36:18):
Hold on, all.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Right, let's keep going on top of the board. Line
number one, morning, Chris, you're on the air, Hi, Chris, Dave,
we got to pop up there on line number one.
Good morning, Chris. Howlow that line number one. You're on
the air.

Speaker 7 (36:35):
Here, I know.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Let's go line number three, Jason, you're on the air.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yes, Patty, did I hear it right?

Speaker 10 (36:42):
Yesterday?

Speaker 3 (36:43):
I mean to see whatever it is be OCM news
that they went from twenty twenty to twenty twenty five,
and you said that the price of food and a
eighteen percent.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, a scheduled or forecast to go up between four
and six percent next year seven percent. If we're talking
about beef.

Speaker 11 (36:59):
Why would they say next year? What diy to say
next month?

Speaker 12 (37:03):
Well?

Speaker 2 (37:04):
I guess over the course of a year. Yeah, because
it wouldn't be on January first as an automatic four
to six percent increase over the course of twenty twenty six.
They look at it, it's the Canadian Food Price Report,
So they're not saying January one, everything's up six percent.
They're saying over the course of the year, up to
six percent seven percent of beef sold to be incremental increases,
just like this year.

Speaker 11 (37:23):
Okay, so at twenty twenty, why couldn't they go back
to twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
And do six years? Because if you look at the can.

Speaker 13 (37:30):
Of wieners nineteen twenty nineteen, it was ninety nine cents.
Now you go to Walmart, there's two seventy five.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
You can I saw it for sixty eight the other day.
I was shocked.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah, So where to get in eighteen percent?

Speaker 11 (37:46):
Isn't it like one hundred and fifty percent markup?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Well, when they look at grocery stores, it would be
all products in and then on an average, so a
median increase as opposed to breaking down from Vienna sausages
all the way through you know, primary bore, any other
grocery product. So that's an average number for inside the
grocery store.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
For food, so that would be on all the food.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Yeah, and once again it'd be an average of all
grocery store items.

Speaker 11 (38:11):
Okay, yeah, because I remember buying two chickens cost ten dollars,
and a couple of years ago it was ten dollars
for a chicken, and right now is over twenty two
dollars for a chicken, So that's a twenty two percent market.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Meat proteins are way way up. I mean, I I
can't remember the last time I had a steak when
I barb a few seeds has kind of gone, so
I don't generally eat much in the way of a
steak over the course of the winter. But I did
have a peek last weekend when I was in doing
some grocery shopping on a Saturday, and steak, And I'll
just use round numbers. A steak that would have been
seventeen bucks not too long ago is now thirty nine dollars.

(38:45):
That's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
You can't afford it. Oh, so people can't afford it?
What are they doing with a dirty trolling or new
because the price doesn't go down.

Speaker 13 (38:52):
When I was in the Dominion there the other day
and I was looking at some steaks thirty five to
forty dollars a steak, and it looked like they were
already cooked.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah, and some of it. Of course, we see those
Mexican and Australian meats on the shelves too. But you know,
it's a good point to make, is that what happens
if it's so expensive that very few people are buying.
Is part of the issue here with the price of
beef is that cattle sizes have shrunk, so there's fewer
cattle producing these meat products. Consequently, that supply issue was

(39:22):
helping is also part of the rising prices. So I
don't know if they throw it away, but how often
you go through the meat aisle and see a two
dollars off or Enjoy Tonight, or one of those stickers
where they know it's right up against its end of
life quality and they're just trying to get rid of this.

Speaker 11 (39:36):
Yeah, yes, well I've seen them taking it back in
and repacking it.

Speaker 13 (39:40):
And putting the back of it again, and then you'll
put die into the hammerger meat, make it look very
fresh and red, and then you crack it in the
center and it looks like it's coked.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, there's some quality concerns out there, that's for sure.
And remember it's not that long ago that there were
some retailers taking the task because they were including the
weight of the packaging in the the product. So and
that's unfair. I shouldn't be paying X amount for your
styrofoam packaging and your plastic costs. That's not part of
the sticker. It can indeed be baked into overall prices

(40:11):
I pay, But don't tell me that the weight is this,
but it also includes all the packaging, because that's never
how it once was, and it's actually against the law.
There's rules regarding packaging in this country, and there's actually
some packing issues at the federal level, which does indeed
contribute to costs. So there's a lot to consider inside
a grocery store.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Well, what I got is that.

Speaker 13 (40:32):
When they went in and then if they got caught
doing that, they were going to be fined over fifteen
thousand or something right.

Speaker 11 (40:40):
So down they're going to pay that fine. They'll pay
it off right away. But who do you think is
going to pay for it in the long run. You're
just going to raise the prices and have the people
pay for it. This is why the last couple of
companies never got there was no fines put out. Yeah,
if they did give them a fine, we're still going
to pay for it.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
I think it's fair to say that a lot of
corporate penalties get indeed at some point passed along to
their clients or consumers. You know, it's the same thing
when we talked about you know this by local you know,
procured domestically kind of stuff, and grocery retailers in several
instances were caught with mislabeling things, trying to take advantage
of the quote unquote patriotism that has seen a bit

(41:20):
of a rebirth here in the country. So yeah, it's again,
if corporate Canada is allowed to get away with stuff,
they will and then they just will continue to do so.
The Canadian Food Inspectrum Agency caught the mislabeling bad deeds
in several grocery stores. They have the ability to put
forward finance and they did not. So what do you
think happened the grocery retailer is probably what do I care?

(41:42):
I'll label it however I see fit.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
That's right. Yeah, and they're going to keep doing it anyway.

Speaker 11 (41:47):
And they're going to stop.

Speaker 9 (41:48):
Is it all just agreed?

Speaker 12 (41:49):
Right?

Speaker 11 (41:50):
They just want your your hands in your pocket.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
They love a little reach around. Yeah, op, I shouldn't
said that.

Speaker 11 (41:56):
Oh yeah, Okay, you have a merry Christmas and have
a good weekend.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Thanks Jason, Same to you YouTube. Okay, boyd bye, let's
see we got Chris on one now. Chris, you're on
the air.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Sorry, We've got Patty Vond just busy as you on
the phone today.

Speaker 7 (42:13):
I get it reached around.

Speaker 12 (42:16):
Jeez, that was a good one, Patty. I heard you
talk this morning about the cost of food, and you
know it cringes us to hear how much the grocery
retailers are making and these quarterly profits. Imagine what we're
paying extra compared to the rest of Canada and what
the federal government is cost and off, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Like you know with Marie in Atlantic, I guess when.

Speaker 12 (42:38):
You look at the capacity issues that they have there
and the weather issues and so on and so forth,
like you imagine what's carried on to consumer and loopleland.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Absolutely, I've seen some of the numbers revealed. You talk
about a two hundred kilometer stretch on mainland Canada, versus
the same two hundred calumebter stretching we're talking about coming
from just pick place, Montreal and mare in Atlantic into
the west coast of the island. I think the numbers
that I saw you put forward was two kilometer stretch
on the mainland versus here, it's about four times more exactly.

Speaker 12 (43:09):
And now that though the last last month, you know,
we last forty one truck days with start, Like I
had stuff that we picked up, say for one major grocer,
and it was on the dock over there five days
with a truck and trailer. So you imagine the fresh
produce that they have to throw out or have to sell,
you know, to be sure if they lose money and

(43:32):
the quality they're produce or or whatever it is, you know,
it's going to be passed down the consumer.

Speaker 9 (43:36):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
So it's you know, I mean, what we're.

Speaker 12 (43:39):
Losing in newfouldand I'd say is a lot more than
what Canada the rest of.

Speaker 9 (43:42):
Canada is losing.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Absolutely. And just so for context, Chris is in the
trucking business. This Chris Howard was the key to equipment,
so he's got hands on experience here with the trucking issue.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 12 (43:53):
So, like I said, I just heard you're talking about
the cost of food this morning. Just a little you
know food for that, Like you know, the federal government
is doing us any favors we're going to come from
right in Atlantic.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
We need some.

Speaker 12 (44:02):
More capacity, of course, and maybe we need a vessel
that can operate in you know a little bit different
weather patterns that we're having in the last two or
three years, you know what I mean. Like it's you know,
this week alone, I think we lost another three or
four days. So if you look at food that come
out of you know, California, you look at your grapes
and stuff, it goes into Montreal, it goes on another trailer,
comes to the ferry. So it went from California to

(44:26):
Montreal in probably three days, but it's taken nine days
to get the Newfoundland.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
You know.

Speaker 12 (44:32):
It's you know, it's it's the knowledge from California that
Montreal will be double. But you know, the quality of
the food that we're getting at the end of the
day is definitely deteriorated. But and I'm not picking up
for the retailer, but as the retailer looks at it,
so now he's got a grape that's an inferior just
an inferior grape or an inferior beef or whatever it
may be. So he's got to sell it at a loss.

(44:53):
You know, I'm sure as I sell it as a loss,
but you know what I'm saying. So they're losing money
as well every day, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
So what can the solution there?

Speaker 12 (45:01):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
You know, prioritizing perishables that around the dock in North Sydney,
or what do you think can be done here? Because
you're not gonna be able to please everybody when it
comes to booking and priorities at Marine Atlantic, but things
that impact us all, like perishable goods sitting on the
dock when maybe they could be given priority for getting
on the vessel. I don't know, what do you think?

Speaker 12 (45:22):
Well, right now they have the oddest priority system in
the world. If I want to go in now and
book you know, for the next three months, I can
and just say I'm booking it for diapers. It doesn't matter.
So if I book up that theory, I can book
two sailings, so they sell nine sailings acrossing and you know,
if you've got the money to book it and you

(45:42):
got the foresight to book it. That's fine and dandy.
So when the boat was that is down for three days,
so you look at nine and there's two or three
crossings a day. So what happens is when the boat
do fondly come back, the first thing that moves is
whoever paid the double money to get on the ferry
so you could actually move it could actually move seventy

(46:05):
five or eighty trucks if you're down for two days,
they could actually move seventy five eighty trucks. That could
have lumber on it, it could have anything on it. It
might never have a percival on it. So like the
way they're doing stuff, Yester Marina Alanik is capturing a
big parle of money here, but it's not helping the
people in Newfouland or the you know, the consumer, or
the retailer for that matter. Yes, some retailers allow us

(46:27):
to pay double, but I still you can only buy too,
which you know, I can't pay double to drive from
truro to mountain to get ahead of another fellow, you
know what I mean. So really that should always be
first come, first served, or they should look at it
and say, hey, the groceries go and let the groceries
go on, or let the live seafood go off the island.
But no one should ever have to pay double. It

(46:47):
should never. I can't pay double to pass you from
Fronto to Montreal or whatever. It doesn't make sense. But
there's definitely something that can be done there with regards
from Marina Lank to save the consumers of Newfoundland money.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Very quickly before I let you go, because I think
you're absolutely right on that front. Is would truckers if
there was ever such a thing as the fixed link
between Labrador and the island new Plant, would that be
an attractive option for people in the trucking business Given
the additional distance to travel and fuel costs and harsh conditions,
would the truckers use it?

Speaker 12 (47:20):
The conditions are not as harsh as they used to be.
The problem is, Patty. I mean, we've done it on
a scattered time here when the water's been down, and
I have taken chances. The problem is you got that vast,
you know.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
Terrain with no services.

Speaker 12 (47:36):
The guy can get a flat tar and Labrador in
Saint John's just say, for example, a flat tarm would
cost me seven or eight hundred bucks in Labrador could
cost you three thousand. So you know you're rolling the
dice when you do it, you know what I mean.
And like you said, there's still a bit of dirt
road and stuff there and you're you're adding a little
bit more wear and tear to your trucks. But there's
times that we've done it to get ahead of the

(47:57):
you know, get ahead of the eight ball.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Chris, appreciate your time running. Thanks for doing to see
you around. See you brother, have a good dame you
Tooell by byes Chris Salo to key the equipment very
quickly on half of the folks out of the Gander's
Lions Club. The annual Santa Claus Parade, hosted by the
Lions Club and the Town of Gander, takes place tomorrow
at six pm. The Rotary Club a Gander will be
doing their annual Christmas food drive, so they'll be support

(48:19):
supporting two flood banks in Gander. So the Rotary Club
going to walk around during the parade except nonperishable food items,
monetary donation, cash or a check. If you write them
a check, you can make it out to the Gander
Rotary or to the Gander An Area Food Bank or
to the Salvation Army Food Bank. So big thanks to
all hands involves of the Santa Claus Parade tomorrow in Gander.
Bring along a donation of a non perishable or a

(48:41):
few shekels. Let's get a break in, don't go away,
welcome back, Let's go len number four Dave, you're on
the air.

Speaker 9 (48:51):
Good morning, Patty.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
How are you not too bad? I suppose you coming
around vis.

Speaker 9 (48:56):
It's a nice day here today. We're getting some stormy weather,
which I like, and getting some snow and maybe some
of that will stay, which would be great.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Miserable morning. When I was driving to work here in
town this morning, I know there's some schools clothes in
Central Clarenville and otherwise. So yeah, it seems to be
brightening up here in town, which is a welcome psyche.

Speaker 9 (49:17):
Yeah, we got a bit of what you call actual
winter weather, and I think that's normal. So anybody doesn't
like it, you don't like the normal weather, This is
what we should be seeing at this time of the year. Anyway.
My reason for colin this morning is a very simple one.

(49:37):
I don't get why our premier Tony Wickham has to
go to Ottawa and almost beg Ottawa to take the
position finally that well maybe we should start using Canada first.
And when it comes to our energy supplies, our energy needs,

(50:00):
we've been discussing electricity to a great degree and I've
really been researching that and the possibilities for it. Topic
for another day, but let's talk about what is going
on right now and what we're watching, I guess is
another we're granting another reach round what's going on. It's

(50:21):
been going on for a long long time, and as
time has stopped, Quebec and Eastern Canada get about thirty
seven percent of dere crude oil needs from Western Canada.
And of course we know Quebec's stance on pipelines, and
now Carnie making the claim that, oh well, if we

(50:42):
go with the pipeline system across or, we're going to
have to go with a huge carbon capture project, which
we all know who that benefits and who that's the best.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
For, and is not you, and it's not me who's
the best for.

Speaker 9 (50:57):
I think it's best for companies that are directly involved
with mister Kenny he's been involved with in the past,
or arms land from where such as Brookville.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Brookfield's not involved in Pathways Alliance, and that's good for
the oil companies. I mean, that's green washing oil. That's
basically what it is. Carbon sequestration. You know, every time
they talk about it, it never works as effectively as
they say, and it costs way more than they ever
project into the future. So that Pathways Alliance, that was
the Alberta government looking for support for that. I mean
they got federal injection to cash, that's exactly what they wanted.

(51:30):
And the increase in the carbon industrial price that was
negotiated in so Danielle Smith signed off on that.

Speaker 9 (51:37):
Yeah, and I don't know, probably to their benefit or
whatever the purpose may be for that. We see the
results of it. But right now, I mean, let's let's
look at the fact that what we see happening Quebec East.
I mean, sixty three percent of the imports that we
get here to use in Quebec East come from places

(51:58):
like Nigeria Arabia, and apparently it's because of basically contractual situations.
Not that this couldn't be changed. We got projects like
Beta Nord and others that could be supplementing or probably
taking the full complement of what's going to be required
to offset that. But I mean the ones that are

(52:21):
basically most benefiting from that situation are the people that
are involved directly with these huge contracts of import and
handling of it. I think, for one part of it,
we need a better refinery in Newfoundland. We need to
start refining our own oil, and maybe our high Bernie
oisle should be refined here in a new capacity as well.

(52:45):
I don't know how much of that is contractual or
how much you could actually get away from, but if
you are taking your crew source from as far away
as we are, you know it got to come down
to a higher price for the consumer on the end
of it. I mean, the end price of that stuff
with all handling and transportation is huge.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Okay, let's dig into that a little bit because it's interesting.
Number One, people always try to tell me that the
federal government imports oil. The federal government does not import oil.
The federal government doesn't buy oil for refineries to refine
into end products. So let's get that out of the way.
And interestingly, if you ask Irving why they import so
much Saudi Arabian oil, it's cheaper. It's cheaper to transport

(53:24):
that oil by tanker from the Middle East than it
is to move it through a pipeline in KNDA. That's amazing.

Speaker 9 (53:30):
Yeah, and there's reason that death shouldn't happen too. Maybe
we should use other methods, like even for moving that
oil or whatever the case may be. Some there's got
to be the ability to use a source of raw material.
I mean, look at the amount of gas the LNG
that we aren't doing anything. We watch all these contracts

(53:52):
take place worldwide, but we're not doing that well. It's
a marketable product, and I don't think that we're anywhere
close to net zero world with zero emissions and effective
electrical vehicles and all that. Maybe that will come in
the future, but it ain't here now. The rest of
the world is benefiting from being actively involved in these

(54:14):
huge industries. I mean they're huge employers. I mean, they're
great royalties for the country. I think it's time that
we told people like the irvings and those elks, I mean,
those moneies that they're making aren't coming back to your
pockets nor mind. And we're paying the bulk of a
very cushy contractuable situation for somebody when like as you mentioned,

(54:35):
the federal government does not buy oil. The federal government
does not refine oil, and that is one hundred percent
the truth. But I think what they've gotta do, the
federal government and provincial government got to take the stance
to say, look, we're going to start utilizing Canadian resources,
so be it if it means that we got to
build new refineries. A lot of employment in that too,

(54:58):
so you you know, see the downside.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Who's we though, Who's who? Arey suggestions should build refineries? Governments?

Speaker 9 (55:06):
No, not at all. I don't think government belongs in
anything any way, shape or form involved with business.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
Absolutely not, certainly not in oil refineries. So I mean
even though for all intents and purposes, the provincial government
was pretty intimately involved in god By giants. For there's
a variety of things there. I know we're not talking
about that refinery in particular, but when the old business
is pretty tricky stuff. So when you have the CNLPB

(55:31):
land sales, so a company let's just pick on ex
on mobile BP whoever, they purchase it, and then that's
e commandment for exploration dollars and then they start producing.
After the negotiating agreement with the provincial government down the
CNLPB framework agreements, then they produce it. At that point
it's their oil. I mean, as much as we'd like
to think it's ours. Once there's a production license granted,

(55:53):
production benefits negotiated. At that point, it's up to them
what they do with the oil. So if out at
Hibernia or out at hen or wherever the companies that
are producing, they choose were to sended. So unless there
was something like as part of the contractual arrangement, same
thing with like nickel coming from Labrador we process at
Long Harbor. Is unless you bake that into the contract,

(56:13):
it's always going to be up to the company where
they send it. There's only like sixteen oil refineries in Canada,
that's it, and there's only I think four provinces that
have an oil refinery. So I mean, unless the government
starts getting in the business of dictating to these companies
about building refineries, then that's kind of I think we
only refined somewhere in the neighborood a couple of million

(56:33):
barrels a day in this country, if I'm not mistaken, yep.

Speaker 9 (56:37):
And those are the things that absolutely you just identified.
I guess you said it crooks, the word of problem
actually lies. How do we deal with that? Well, I
guess there's ways of dealing with it. I know for
a fact that in other countries, oil producing countries, it's
pretty well led by major conglomerate companies and the government

(56:59):
has very little input into it. But those countries don't
do very well.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, if you
look at Iraq or Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, I
mean the government controls the business. They are the business.
I mean, Saudi Ramco is a government company and one
of the big soil producers on the face of the earth.
Venezuela pretty much controlled by the government, which is why
we hear so much talk about the Americans of Venezuela.

(57:24):
It's not about drugs, it's about oil. I mean, come on,
people asleep at Togoda or what so. I mean, I
get where you're coming from. But for instance, the Irvings
will tell you and know on certain terms they import
Saudi oil because of the light sweet crude number one
and number two. It's cheaper to send it by tanker
from the Middle East than it is to pump it
through a pipeline in this country, and then you talk
about using our own supply. I mean the whole Alberta

(57:47):
bit about a pipeline that's not destined for refining here
in this country. That's that's it for a tanker off
the BC coast head Asia. So we're not even I
mean even the Alberta government two is the biggest proponent
of oil in this country. They don't even talk about
refining it. They just talk about pumping it out of
the ground, pumping it through a pipeline, getting it out
of the country.

Speaker 9 (58:06):
Yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Sending it to the United States. We send them like
four million barrels a day.

Speaker 9 (58:12):
Yeah, then we import the rest of it from the
United States to refine ourselves. Absolutely nuts. I mean they
get the benefit of what we exported. Apparently, this is
what I've been told them, what I've read. There's not
much better oil on the planet in terms of clean oil,

(58:32):
if there's such a word or such a term. I
think ours is basically as good as good as any
and it's right here. So if you get around the
logistics of what have been put up as stumbling blocks
or in some cases you know, they're put there in
complete stop measures so that things can't happen. Well, maybe

(58:54):
some of these things have got to be removed, and
maybe the Canadian government's got to put some more pressure
on somebody in a different way that are in the
process or in the capacity of being able to produce
oil to do it here. I mean that happens in
many other industries. I mean, you know, you get some
benefit for creating employment and creating a tax base for

(59:17):
what you're doing in a country. Maybe that should apply
to oil too.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, I mean at site, at the production level, the
missions are quite low when compared to other oil sources like,
for instance, the Oil Science and Alberta what have you,
which is a different product altogether. And I mean LNG there.
So the big LNG Phase one Kidimat is a huge
operation and LNG two which just got put into the

(59:41):
Major Project's office, which is a bit of a retread
because that's been approved for quite a long time. They
simply haven't acted on it. And until there's some sort
of royalty regime when this problems for gas, no one's
going to try to commit to doing anything with the
gas if they don't know what the business model looks like.
And you can't know what the business model looks like
until there's some sort of royalty regime. So we're way
behind here.

Speaker 9 (01:00:00):
Well, one of the things we could look at doing,
because I know it was looked at I don't know
how long ago, but a piece back taking LNG and
using these floaters to do LNG to electricity, and you
know it's done elsewhere in the world. You take the source,
you tap it to the device, it produces electricity. And

(01:00:26):
maybe we look at ways to produce items trinkets here
in the province. Hey, even down the road. Maybe it
might be something that we consider to control the cost
of living for New Philanders because some price to heat
light in your house is not exactly getting any cheaper eater.
But you never hear tell of any of these power

(01:00:47):
projects that would help to downgrade that probably knock some
of the price of your electrical bill out of your household.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Yeah, I mean, if we built all those second in
tertary processing in the oil or gas sector, it'll probably
make things more expensive here because there's only five hundred
and forty thousand of us. We can only consume so
much compared to what's being produced. You know, if we
talk about trillions and the cubic feed of natural gas,
whether we talk about millions of barrels of oil offshore
or billions of barrels of oil offshore. I mean, if

(01:01:18):
you build the process in here, you probably make life
more expensive. You might create some jobs.

Speaker 9 (01:01:23):
I don't know. I guess you're right. I guess there's
an argument to be made for that. But at the
same time, it's kind of hard to fathom that we
import all of this oil. We allow it to happen.
Companies profit from different contractuble situations, and they'll take the
cheapest product, but it doesn't seem to ever return to

(01:01:46):
the average Canadian, average Newfoundlander. Our prices just keep going up.
The price of food, it keeps going up. Just got
to be I mean, right now, we're at breaking point
for a lot of people. I mean, as we I
heard you discussed with a collar earlier, like the price
of a chicken. I mean, pre pre COVID that chicken

(01:02:09):
was eight, ten dollars, twelve dollars maybe, yeah, it's twenty
two now, and that is just something. I mean, the
rest of us watching everybody else getting rich or what,
or has have we consumed ourselves with the due processes
and the protections and everything that go to the end price,
the unit price at the end, it's been benefiting, no doubt,

(01:02:33):
everything from you know, like the electricity to whatever's required.
I mean, should be something a natural resource that should
benefit us, but you never ever.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Hear of it, Dave. I got to get cold. I
appreciate your time.

Speaker 9 (01:02:46):
Thanks buddy, all the best, take care.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
You too, it by bye, all right, just get that
break and when we come back to Valentine, like don't
go aheas, welcome back to the show. It's called Nane
number five collars around the air. Are you doing not
too bad? I suppose as you.

Speaker 14 (01:03:01):
Just kind of a previous scholar called in the downtime
like probt me here your ring and just had about
kind of my experience. I guess I don't know what's
like it's been after being sold a few times now,
so I do know the marathon started up, they had
an agreement that they were supposed to have hired hiring

(01:03:26):
priorities from the five surrounding communities. And I don't know
that it's being followed now that it's been sold a
bunch of times, and in like case, in particular with
some positions posted. And I knew that I was more
than qualified for and I never even got an interview.
And according to a few friends that are obviously on site,

(01:03:48):
there was one of the four positions was filled by
someone in this region and the three were people that
were from other places in the problems. So I just
found the chime in with my own experience there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Yeah, I appreciate it's an interesting question you ask about,
you know, from Marathon to Caliber to Equinox, whether or
not the same benefits agreements in place. Because when that
caller did give us a ring, I went and found
the benefits agreement for the Valentine Gold project and it said,
you know, just to paraphrase, no less than eighty five
percent of the project workforce will be pro vincial residence

(01:04:23):
and that's through construction and operations. So said the Marathon
benefits agreement that they signed back in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 9 (01:04:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (01:04:31):
I ended up calling Chris Tibbs's office there and just
you know, stay of anonymous because there's other positions that
I'm qualified for and then I'll be aplent on here
in the future. And nobody even got back to me
because I had the same concerns. I was like, I
didn't like you could at least give me an interview
and pull the wool over my eyes, and you know,
I could foresee, Okay, there's someone else qualified, but they

(01:04:52):
not even give the jobs to anybody that's you know,
in the region that's qualified that I know I'm qualified for.
But anyway, I just want to put ten other there.

Speaker 9 (01:05:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
You know, benefits agreements are only worth the paper the
printed on it if they're right here too. So I
think even though you look at some megaproject look, Muskrat,
I think we came somewhere around eighty five close to
ninety percent compliance with the benefits agreement. So I don't
know how it's working currently out at Valentine Lake, and
I wonder whether or not the agreement carried over from
owner to owner. I think it probably does. But if

(01:05:25):
they can, if we can get update frim Minister part
about you know, if it's no less than eighty five
percent have to be people from this province who are
qualified obviously through construction and operations, whether or not that's
being followed today, it'd be interesting. No, especially we're talking
about changing our security companies, changing out caterers. Kind of
leads me to believe that we're probably not in that target.

Speaker 14 (01:05:45):
Well, with the most crat falls you had, unions evolved,
so the unions were the ones that followed suit with
the hiring protocols here there, I don't think there's any
checks and balances. Whoever's in the HR has just got the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
Free reigning I guess to do whatever. I guess.

Speaker 14 (01:06:00):
I don't know if any checks them out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
So is it in place here?

Speaker 2 (01:06:03):
We hope? So, I mean, you can't just sign contracts
and just cross your fingers hope for the best. That's
not how anything works in this world. Anyone, whether be
individuals or corporations or governments, even they can get away
with something because they know no one's looking. Of course,
what do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 9 (01:06:18):
Yeah, so I.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Appreciate the time. Yep, thanks for calling all the best?
Ye all right there? But yeah, I mean, the benefits
agreement works if it's continuously monitored, the oversight is in place,
enforcement is real. Very quick traffic note, there's a wooden
pallette on ken Mount Road, near the lights of Brown
Drive on the Paradise Saint John's border, so look out

(01:06:42):
for the palette. Let's get a break.

Speaker 7 (01:06:43):
In here.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Still another half of the program left to go at
the topic up to you don't away, Welcome back to
the show. Let's go to line number one to take
it more to Wesley Wark, who's a senior fellow at
the Center for International Governance Innovation and joins us on
the line. Good morning, Wesley, you're on the air.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
Oh, good morning, Patty.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
Great, great to have you on the program. Thanks for
making time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
So we all know the issue regarding China and the
protection of sensitive information. I mean, a couple of years
ago the government thought enough of it to ban the
use of TikTok from government phones. But here we are
knowing that eighty percent of the RCMP's drone fleet are
Chinese drones. What do we know about the highest sensitive information.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Well, it's a very strange story that the CBC uncovered,
for sure, the percentage of drones manufactured by Chinese companies
that the RCNP is using for a variety of public
security activities, including you know, watches on the border, which
is a high profile these days, you know, But not
eighty eight, between eighty and ninety percent of these drones

(01:07:47):
are Chinese manufacturer, and the RCNP has come around to
the view that this is not a good idea and
there could be security risk. But I think the real
question is, you know, how did we arrive at this point?
You know, in recent times, this is a program that's
only existed for the last few years, when when you know,
concerns about Chinese technology has been very much on people's mind.

(01:08:11):
How do we arrive at this situation where you know,
vr cnp IS is flooded with drones manufactured by by
China rather than from any of our allies or indeed
from Canadian manufacturers.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
I don't understand why we're not bigger into the business
ourselves here in this country and domestic procurements and all
the focus on domestic procurement, especially in defense. So do
we happen to have any understanding about some of the
sense of information that would have been captured by these
draws that may have been compromised?

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Well, you know, I think, to be honest, my sense
is the fear is more theoretical than real. The concern
is that you know, these these are small drones. You know,
some of your listeners will be familiar with them, maybe
even operate them these little you know what they call
quad copter drones. They have very short, short range. They
can carry cameras, of course, which is is their value

(01:09:00):
for the RCNP and being able to monitor something, you know,
at short range from the from the sky. And of
course they're a value because they can transmit data from
from these drones kind of instantaneously down to some kind
of ground ground controller. The concern is, well, could that
data images, uh you know, geield location stuff. Could that

(01:09:22):
data find its way into the hands of the Chinese authorities.
I think that's, to be honest, pretty unlikely. But it
doesn't excuse the RCMP from just going out and buying
Chinese drones willy nilly when there were so many other opportunities.
As you say, Babby, not least Canada has a pretty
vibrant ecosystem of drone manufacture and China has to be

(01:09:47):
sure capture the market and commercial drones, which is what
the RCMP did. They just rushed out and bought them
off the shelf. I don't think they gave any thought
to the alternatives, and that's why they've landed in the
situation where they are. They're going to have to spend
a lot of money getting rid of all these Chinese
drones from their fleet.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Yeah, tens of millions of dollars is my understanding. So
it all really feels to me like this was simply
about cost. I mean, we know the drones to replace
you know, fixed win aircraft or helicopters to do some
of this work monitoring on the border otherwise. So it
really just feels like this was cost saving stuff without
any real forethought or foresight, you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Know, Patty, I would like to think that it was
something as pragmatic as that, but I think very little
thought went into it at all. I don't think that
calculated cost. I think they were in a rush, you know,
understandable crafts. You know, they knew they needed this technology.
It could be a great assistance to them in terms
of public security duties of all kinds. So they needed

(01:10:43):
the technology. They looked around, where could we get our
hands on the technology quickly?

Speaker 15 (01:10:48):
Essentially, we'll go online and buy it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
We'll go to our local hobby store and buy it.
You know, maybe an RCNP constable. We'll shut out a
little money reimbursed for to get a drone to be
used by a detachment. That's how the system worked. Looking
on it, it's crazy that that's how we acquire drones.
And you know, the RCMP could have learned, for example,
from much more slow moving military who's taking a very

(01:11:11):
kind of deliberate approach to the acquisition of drones. They
could have used military channels to acquire staff. They could
have developed their own purchase program within Canada and to say,
we have a ton of a good small, medium sized
enterprises in Canada that are building drones for public security work.
But that's not what the RCMP did. I thought it
was just thoughtless, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Yeah, lazier and confidence. I'll leave it to the listener
to assign an adjective. You know, So apparently we use
French drones and Belgian drones and American drones. But as
you say, we have a drone industry here in the country,
which leads us down the whole pathway of domestic procurement.
So let's talk defense spending, which drones do play an
active role. The military of the future is going to
look different than the military of the past. We're not

(01:11:54):
building for trench warfare these days, So how should we
be thinking about the military of the future. Specifically when
we talk about domestic procurement, because we're going to be
talking with the pathway to five percent of GDP is
going to be a bare minimum of one hundred and
fifty billion dollars per year. So how do would you
like governments to think about and talk about it?

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Yeah, I think the important thing Pat, I mean, I'm
not going to suggest it's not a complex thing to
do to get defense procurement right after decades of getting
it wrong frankly and getting it right in a hurry.
But you know, I think the thing that we really
have to focus on. I think this is understood honestly
in the Department of National Defense, is that whenever we
can go to a Canadian manufacturer for a particular capability

(01:12:34):
that Canada can be good at or is currently good
at manufacturing, whether the complete bit of gear or components
of it, we buy Canadian. I think that's so important
and that will boost the industry itself. And when it
comes to drones, you know, there are a lot of
short and medium range drones that could easily be constructed
by Canadian firms, and some of which are being constructed

(01:12:56):
and are actually being bought by you know, Canadian federal
government agencies for various pieces of work. It's there, and
you think it's important for your listeners to understand. You know,
drones really have an outer skin which is really easy
to manufacture, some of the taxic styrofoam, you know, the fuselage,
the wings and so on. What's what's the complex bit

(01:13:16):
is the internal pieces, the software, the guidance systems, the
sensor systems. We're really good at that kind of stuff.
That's what we really should be focusing on. Let's let's
get the majority of good equipment, you know, out the
door from Canadian firms into the hands of you know,
the Department of Defense, the Canadian enforces, the security agencies
whoever needs them, and go to external manufacturers for some

(01:13:40):
of the more exotic kind of long range drones that
that we probably shouldn't be trying to kind of duplicate
by manufacturer in Canada. You may have to go and
we are going to the Americans to buy the so
called reaper drones for Arctic surveillance. That's fine, but the
vast majority of the drones we're going to need would
be easy to manufacture and we have the capability to

(01:14:01):
put the sort of sensitive gear inside them, and that's
really what we should be doing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Yeah, and I mean it just pops in my head.
We're talking about drones even when combating wildfires, which is
part of actual defense. I know they were test driving
some of these firefly drones out in Western Canada over
the course of the summer. So we'll see where that lands.
You know, there's some things we're not going to build
in this country, like we are going to build ships
for the military, but we're not going to build left
thirty fives. We're not going to build grippins. We're not

(01:14:26):
going to build submarines necessarily. So how do we ensure
that our partners, our allies, our friendlies get these contracts.
I know the South Koreans are really quite aggressive in
the world of submarine procurement and the pitch they've made
to the government. The Germans are also in on it,
what they are Type twelve CED. How do we think
about the big price tags because recently we've just shifted spending,

(01:14:47):
given it a different assignment, like Coastguard is now a
defense Aviation services at Transport Canada now defense just in
a way to you know, pretend we're getting the two
percent of GDP so how do we ensure that we
deal directly with our allies, especially when we're going to
talk about cost competitiveness.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
Yeah, I mean, I think the key thing is really
to reinforce a practice that's been long on the books,
but we haven't always followed, and we certainly didn't follow
with the F thirty five purchase for example, and that
is to ensure that there's a maximum amount of economic
benefit directly to Canada from any equipment that we have
to purchase from a foreign manufacturer. You know, that quite

(01:15:26):
apart from all the stuff that we should be purchasing
directly from Canadian manufacturers.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
We've talked about that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
So when we get to some of these really expensive,
very complex systems that maybe we don't have a lot
of experience ourselves, you know, in constructing, need to go
to a foreign manufacturer, whether it's submarines or long range
artillery or certain kinds of ground air defense systems, fighter jets.
When that happens, we need to look for the maximum

(01:15:54):
economic benefit in Canada to build up our own defense
industrial base and in the future to be able to
manage actor some of this ourselves. And you know, for example,
the fighter jet controversy is a very interesting one because
it pits an American manufacturer which isn't giving us much
in the way of benefits economically with the competitor from
SAB the grippin that you mentioned where SAB has said

(01:16:17):
you can build the planes in Canada and we would
look forward to that. So that's you know, and the
trouble that we have is that our defense establishment leans very,
very heavily in the direction of buying American and staying
close to the Americans. It's a legacy way of thinking
which I think many people would say doesn't fit the
realities of the current world and the way in which

(01:16:39):
the United States is posturing itself in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Well, even the American bassador Pede Hextra, who's the pathetic
failure as a diplomat, you know, he's pretty much threatened
traders for larned on following through with that F thirty
five contracts, and he keeps using eighty eight. But that's
not the number. It's sixteen. We've got a price on sixteen.
The other remainder we haven't even set a price, so
we don't know them anything on that. And this might
be a better question for the military. But there's also

(01:17:04):
thoughts out there about mixed fleet. You know, to have
sab Grippins built in this country, which looks like huge
economic benefit as well as complementing the military with the
F thirty five and the Grippin. Have you done much
work out looking at that mixed fleet, whether it be
training and facilities and maintenance and all the goose with it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
I have written about this, Patty, and you know, just briefly,
to summarize the argument, I would say a mixed fleet,
it probably makes the most sense for Canada, Okay, Department
of Defense people hate the idea. I would say, buy
some number of F thirty fives, don't operate them in
Canada for Norad purposes. We don't need a stealth fighter
jet for that role, and it's not very good in

(01:17:41):
the Arctic and it doesn't have very long range. Send
them to Europe. CO base them with one of our
European allies. It could be the Norwegians, for example, which
people who have indicated they'd welcome a Canadian contingent working
alongside them. We could share bases, we could share maintenance, training,
all the rest. It would really reduce the cost of
that program and make it huge contribution to NATO. Meanwhile,

(01:18:02):
by the SAB, which will be a much better plane
for our continental air defense, air surveillance and security patrol purposes,
and can work with the Americans with that plane. So
I think, you know, sobs for Canada F thirty five
for a European native mission, that's the thing that makes
sense to me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
Yeah, and the Grippin seems to be more reliable in
so far as operable hours when compared to the F
thirty five from what I've read. I'm no expert in
navi onix, obviously, I.

Speaker 15 (01:18:28):
Think that's absolutely the case.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
From all that we know about the F thirty five,
it's a very very complex piece of equipment. They're having
trouble building latest iteration of it. It's way behind schedule,
way over budget. The British have had trouble operating some
of their F thirty five, so that they have, and
I think it's undoubtedly the case no matter how good
that fighter jet is, that it will be that will
that if Canada possesses it, it'll be flying many few hours.

(01:18:53):
Then its equivalent, sobject would be. The SAB is a tested,
proven platform that's been around in various various for a
very long time. The thing I really like about the
SAB is that it has long range and it is
built to work in northern and Arctic conditions. It's a
Swedish plane after all. The thing that your listeners may
not understand about a stealth fighter is as remarkable as

(01:19:14):
stealth fighters are, they cannot carry extra fuel tanks on
their wings, so they're limited to the radius of action
from internal fuel tanks, which is very different from the SOB,
So they can't fly across the Arctic, for example.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
And I mean Arctic sovereignty is going to be the
key defense issue for this country into the decades into
the future, so it all makes sense to me an
interesting partnership with Australia for Arctic surveillance. What have you
any final thoughts or anything that I've been missing, which
is probably a lot this morning, No, listen.

Speaker 3 (01:19:43):
I think Canada is going through in a kind of
revolutionary change and its approach to what we need from
a military and the kind of military power that Canada
should be. And I think that the Canadians are going
to have to wrestle with this and decide the extent
which they really want a new big military feel they
can afford it. The government has a big job in
their hands to explain why Canada needs this. It's one

(01:20:06):
thing to say, well, there's a NATO target of five percent.
It's that we're going to reach. It's another thing for
the Canadian government to come out and say this is
why we're doing it for Canada. And I think that's
a big piece of the work that needs to be
done between whatever government is in place in the Canadian
public over the next ten years.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
And the Canadian military is an outlier in that every
other department or wing of government finds out a way
to spend every single center of the budget, but the
military not so much, leaving the money on the table.
It's a remarkable case study.

Speaker 3 (01:20:36):
Well that's true. I mean it's not unique to the military,
but they have a special problem with it.

Speaker 10 (01:20:40):
And partly that's caution.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
You know, they build these very complex systems, they create
these very complex requirements for military equipment. They find themselves
over budget over time. They always want to My sense
is the military always wants the perfect piece of military gear.
What we need in the future, sure is the piece
of military gear that works and that is replaceable. Down

(01:21:05):
the road and is less expensive than the perfect stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Really appreciate your time. It's nice to meet you, Wesley.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
Thanks for doing this you too, Thanks very much, Patty.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
All the best. Bye bye, Wesy Wroksenior fellow out the
Center for International Governance Innovation. Good guy there. Let's get
a break and don't go away. Welcome back to the program.
Let's go to line number two. Say get more to
the mayor of Mary's Harbor. That's Alton Rumboldt, Mayor Rumbolt
around the air. Good morning, Patty, Good morning to you.
Welcome to the show. Yes, I don't know what happened there, Dave.

(01:21:39):
You want to see if we can't reconnect the call
dropped with Mayor Rumboldt up in Mary's Harbor. I think
there's some conversation coming with me. I'm not entirely sure,
but I think it's about access to some of the
programs that have been put forward, you know, oil to
electric incentives and move on and the heat pumps and
those types of things. I'm not entirely sure how it
works on Labrador, but there are different circumstances on the
big land versus on the island, and I think it's

(01:22:01):
basically about the connection with the interconnected grid. That is
the technical issue that maybe keeps some labrador ins out
of it. But we'll find out when we rejoin Mayor
Rumbolt onto Marry. You're back on the air.

Speaker 10 (01:22:13):
Yeah, sorry with that, Paddy got cut off there, no problem, Yeah,
College COLMN this morning Patty concerned the rebate and eat
pumps for Labrador.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
Okay, we're we're I mean.

Speaker 10 (01:22:23):
A big part of Labrador is on diesel generator power
and as you know, that's very costly team to operate.
I guess, no doubt in the communities and the people
know they pay dearly for the power. No, there there
are people on the all it seem like there's a
rebate for power. I think it's people with the transmission line,

(01:22:45):
but on diesel that you're not eligible. And it's a
bit hard to understand why. I guess because the costs
of power air and we can't even use liquid eat
or anything in our communities because if you've got to
burn liquid eat diesel power like that be fortunate.

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
You just can't do it right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:03):
So are people in Labrador eligible for the program. But
the caveat is they have to be connected to the
interconnected electricity grid, not diesel. Right, it's as simple as that.

Speaker 10 (01:23:14):
Yeah, that's pretty much as simple what it is because
the funds that subsidize that power is federal funds and
as administrated to the province. So I mean our government,
I guess got to say and where it goes and
who gets it. But the sad part of it, the

(01:23:34):
people that live on this part of the coast is
not eligible for it. And we got a lot of
seniors in our communities now into the hazing population, and
it's not good for these people who got to get
good at snow or whatever and try to keep your
uses warm. And there's a programmed beer you can get
to get a heat pump and make waste much easier

(01:23:56):
for these people, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Yeah, I don't know. I know much about it or
what you know about the program that was launched back
I guess a couple of years ago now or maybe
just last year, the Isolated Community Energy Efficiency Program. Do
you know anything about that or how that works, so
whether it apply to your community.

Speaker 10 (01:24:14):
No, I don't know anything on that, Petty, I got
no information on that. The only thing we do know
now is is rebait on these eat pumps and I
was talking to my hma about it stuff like that,
and I think they were pushing the issue in the
past but never got it to happen. And I don't
know why we call our problem. We call our people
one prop it's Newfland Labrador. It seemed like when programs

(01:24:36):
certain things were left out of it for whatever reason.
I don't know if they want to put a program
and treat everybody to like so we will have the
same opportunity to apply to anyone else. It seemed like
as always a struggle and just paired the coast to
get eligible for programs and stuff like that. I mean,
we love to use liquid eating and laborator. Yes, we

(01:24:58):
got Walbush, we gotta let City, we got goosebab we
got cheap of power. We get a little bit of
a break and how power, but we still pay there.
We paced almost twenty cents a kill a lot, you know,
once it was over certain amounts and I can get expensive,
but I guess the biggest thing is excerns me a bit.

(01:25:18):
A lot of this is our seniors, and we got
a lot of them right now. I mean, I would
love for these people to have excess to that program
and look at the less omissions you'll be putting it
in here. I mean, it's a win all around. But
the problem is why we're not part of it. That's
the struggling part that I got a job to understand,
and why we're not a part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
You know, I get it. I mean I still kind
of understand. When the diesel fire generator burnt down to
Charlotte Town we replaced with diesel fire generator. I mean,
here we are talking about hydro all the time. I'm
going to if you send me an email, I'm going
to send you a link to something that I did
read about not too long ago about isolated communities whether
or not there might be something there of it for

(01:26:00):
the residents and Mary's Harbor. Because it's not the standard
oil to electric incentive program that everyone talks about with
heat pumps and the rebates whatnot. This is a very
specific one and I'm pretty sure made references specifically the
Southern Labrador. So I'm going to try to find it.
But if you send me an email, I'll try to
reply with the information that I.

Speaker 10 (01:26:17):
Find, well, that would be great. We take any information
we can get and then I don't know why that
we never heard about the same that maybe there, you know,
but anyway, I like to see. I mean, we've got
a new compment there now. I just hope that little Heavens,
here's this conversation for she as the minister analyst as help,
but she's for laborator also, and I hope that she'll

(01:26:40):
sit down and take these concerns to her government, because
it's not just a bit to say these coach laborator,
but all the people that's on diesel generator power in
North Coast now and it is federal funding and we
may have to get them to look for more. But
let's everybody be treated the same, you know. That's the thing.
The thing to go what I got with and I'll

(01:27:01):
give everybody an opportunity to apply for right.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
And I'm going to try to confirm. I believe the
program I'm talking about was part and parcel of the
Canada Greener Homes program, which has indeed dried up. So
I don't know if this has been splintered out to
exist into the future. But Canada Greener Homes was a
huge pot of money, but it got completely exhausted last
year and they shut it down. I don't know if
that impacted this program where I know they did some

(01:27:25):
upgrades and retrofits for a couple of commercial buildings in Maine.
There were people in Rigoletta failed of it. So you
send me a note, I'll send along the information and
I'll try to confirm that it continues to exist today.

Speaker 10 (01:27:38):
Yes, okay, that'd be great. And I think that was
a bit of a different program. I'm not sure would
the individual insolders and stuff like that, But anyway, we'll see,
we'll check into it, and I appreciate it, thank you
very much, and I will send you.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Thank you Mary Round, appreciate your time, Thank you, Bye
bye bye. Yeah, I'll try to find that affirm that's
still alive and kicking. And it wasn't just commercial buildings
as far as I can tell, or as far as
I can recall. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it applied to
homes too. Let's see here, let's get a break in
for the news. Let me come back. Plenty show left
for you, don't go away.

Speaker 1 (01:28:12):
You were listening to a rebroadcast VOCM open line. Have
your say by calling seven oh nine at two seven
three fifty two eleven or one triple eight five ninety eight,
six two six and listen live weekday mornings at nine am.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
Welcome back, Let's go to lone number three. Good morning
at a top earlier on the air.

Speaker 16 (01:28:34):
Good morning, Patty, thanks for taking my call today. I
just wanted to let everybody know that the fifteenth and
you will wholly heard Mary Alumni Choir Christmas Concert and
Singalong is happening this Sunday, December seventh, at four pm
at Saint Teresa's Church on Monday Pond Road.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
It sounds good, so in so far as a sing
along goes, so you're going to be passing out song
sheets and the like. How's it going to work?

Speaker 16 (01:29:03):
Well, there's going to be a little bit of everything.
We're going to have performances of course by our choir.
We also have a couple of guest performers. We have
close quarters a cappella quartet, Bellanova Choir and Saint Teresa's
Folk Choir. So we'll all be singing some songs individually,

(01:29:25):
as well as having the audience participate in some songs
that everybody would know and recognize.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Lovely, how many people are members of the Holy Hearted
Love My Choir?

Speaker 16 (01:29:37):
Oh? We have about us. I guess somewhere between eighty
and ninety members right now. And you know, Patty, this
concert has been going on now for fifteen years, and
we really want to thank all the supporters over the
years who have come and supported the show because all
proceeds go to the Saint Teresa Saint Vincent de Paul

(01:29:59):
Christmas for fund and this year, so that we can
reach so many more people who would like to hear
the show and be involved with this fundraiser, we're having
it live streamed and anybody can access the link through
either our Facebook page, Instagram, or our website at Heartnoes

(01:30:22):
dot net.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
That sounds terrific to me. Do more recent graduates as
alumni continued to join the.

Speaker 16 (01:30:28):
Choir, well, any alumni from Holy Heart High School is
eligible to join the choir, So we have members who
are back to the very beginnings of the school, let's say,
and other members. I think our most recent members might

(01:30:49):
be around the late nineties or maybe the two thousand
year graduates. So you know, it's gradually getting later and
later into the membership years.

Speaker 2 (01:31:02):
Give us the details one more time out of the
where the wends.

Speaker 16 (01:31:06):
Okay, so it's this Sunday, December seventh, four pm at
Saint Teresa's Church on Monday Pond Road, under the direction
of Barbara Keith. And of course we still have our accompanist,
Mary je Maloney, and you can catch us by live streaming.

(01:31:26):
The link can be found on our Facebook page, Instagram
or the Holy Heart website www. Dot heartnoes dot net
and admission is by donation for the Saint Vincent de
Paul Christmas Hamper Fund, and anybody who's watching us through

(01:31:49):
the live link online can certainly e transferred donation. All
the information to do that is there on our website
and on our Facebook page.

Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
A terrific Anna. Every time I hear Mary Jane Maloney
makes me think about the same two things. Number one,
she's my cousin, and number two, she was my boy's
music teacher at Vanya when they went there, and my
oldest Nicholas, he came home in the first day of
school and of course you said, who are your teachers
and whatnot? I said, how about your music teacher? And
he looks at me with this curious look. He says,

(01:32:21):
I think her name is Madame Baloney. I love that story.

Speaker 16 (01:32:27):
It's funny how the kid's story. Stick to you for
so stick with you in your.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
Mind for so long, no question, because he's that's like
twenty almost twenty five years ago when that story initially
was told. And Merry Christmas to you and yours and
hopefully the concert is a big success.

Speaker 16 (01:32:42):
Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you as well, Patty.

Speaker 2 (01:32:45):
Thank you, Anna all the best, Thank you, Bye bye bye.
I love that story, Madame Baloney. Let's call it line
number one. Rob, you're on the air. Good morning, Yeah, okay,
how about you.

Speaker 10 (01:33:02):
Merry Christmas to you and all? Yes man, And so
now I was just going over this the fifty to fifty,
so you know, like you guys do a fabulous job
at getting this fifty to fifty on the go. Every year,
it just gets getting bigger and bigger, and it's just
extraordinary and beautiful to hear, you know. But I just

(01:33:26):
I got a couple of quick questions. Okay, So is
it available across Canada.

Speaker 2 (01:33:31):
The OCEM fifty fifty. Yeah, I'll do some cares. No,
I think it's just this province because it's provincial jurisdiction
for lottery licenses.

Speaker 10 (01:33:40):
Okay, So, like because I find it, you know. I'm
a Jays fan too, yep, and the only Canadian team,
and they say they're all Canadian. But the only time
you can get on there fifty to fifty is if
you're in Ontario or Nova Scotia.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
Yep, you're right.

Speaker 10 (01:34:01):
So how is that an all Canadian team?

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
Well, it's this. It's a very similar answer to the
vocum cares one, because all the lottery licenses are provincial
jurisdictions in this in this country. So the Alcohol and
Gaming Commission in of Ontario of course approves of the
fifty to fifty from the Blue Jays Foundation, and Nova
Scotia is the only province that has successfully negotiated a
joint license with them. So Nova Scotia's gaming board they

(01:34:30):
went to the Jays and negotiated a straight up to
deal with them, which I think every province can do.
Whether or not they attempted it or whether or not
they came up short, I don't know. But Nova Scotia
purposefully went to the Blue Jays Foundation and organized a
joint license on this on this front and got approved
by the Nova Scotia Gaming Commission.

Speaker 10 (01:34:48):
Good on them, you know, But like like I said,
it's just like there's only one Canadian team that we
can watch and here and roof and nobody else can
get in on this fifty to fifty Like you know
what was the last one? Over two million dollars. It's

(01:35:09):
just unbelievable that that that nobody else in Canada with
the only Canadian team can get in on it. Yeah,
it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
If you wait to get a call from like Buck
Martinez or Dan Schulman or Joe Carter, I think made
the last call for the winner. But you know what,
that's not the Jay's fault. That's the other province is like,
if we want our government to negotiate with the Blue
Jays Foundation and get provential improvement approval, then we might
be able to get a piece of the action. Because
the Jays themselves, they can't just simply say okay, everyone

(01:35:41):
in the country is allowed to buy a fifty to
fifty ticket because it's not up to them, it's up
to the provinces. So maybe, just maybe if people in
this province think it's a good idea, because I don't
know what kind of monumental effort would take for a
negotiation on that front, and then for the province to
approve that license. But yeah, it's not even up to
the Jays's up to the provinces.

Speaker 10 (01:35:59):
Yeah, you know, and that's the whole thing, like you know,
like I'm not a gambling person or anything like that.
Like does all this, like you've said before, with this
beat ENDGM and OJ and all this stuff, but it's
still all just Ontario. Yeah, so why are we even
getting advertisement Like, get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
We don't need to have here Yeah BET three six
y five or whatever it is. There is just nonstopping
or trying to watch the game being bombarded with things.
And I mean I think some of the online applications
they are private run businesses that don't require some of
these approvals, like for a fifty to fifty, Like if
I'm selling any sort of fifty fifties even less, what's

(01:36:38):
a good example. Look at Monor Hockey Association. You have
to get a license if I want to get a
raftlun to go and the grand prize is a trip
to Montreal watch a hockey game. I need license for it.
And so they'd all be provincial matters. But it's a
fair question, Rob, and that's exactly why it is. The
way it is is Province of Nova Scotia went forward
of their own court, negotiated the rights with the Blue
Jays Foundation and they got provincial approval in Nova Scotia, and.

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
Good for them.

Speaker 10 (01:37:02):
Like, you know, I don't want to move to Nova
Scotia or back to Ontario or anything like that. I
want to stay here. But you know, I just the
rules are just so so screwed. It's just I don't
know why they're not on it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
I get it, and it's a it's a huge prize
all the time, no doubt about it. But if you
go to a Jay's game and you live here, if
you buy a ticket out to Jay's game, you're eligible
you can still win.

Speaker 10 (01:37:28):
Okay, that's cool. Yeah I didn't know that. So but anyways,
just again, have a merry Christmas to you and all
the staff and everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
The same shoe Rob, thanks for your time this morning.

Speaker 10 (01:37:40):
Okay, cheers, buddy, All right, bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Yeah, it's all provincial loado licenses. Right, let's get a
break in here when we come back. Lots of show
left for you, topic up to you. Don't go away,
welcome back to the show. Let us go. Line number two.
Good morning, Mike around the air.

Speaker 17 (01:37:56):
Good morning, Patty. It's not a very nice one this morning.
But run this side of this. We can't complain too much, sir,
A little, I guess spel on snow clearing. We had
our first major event a couple three days ago. We
live on I work on the main stretch going through
New West Valley and on a four hour timeframe there

(01:38:19):
hadn't been a highways cloud. It went by the business.
So I've done a little bit of investigating and reshoot
to our MHA and and you know, give credit where
his due. He came back to me rather quickly and
told me that, you know, in our area, our depot
has five flyers for a fairly big area, and there
was a request for three more. And I'm not sure
it to admit that we always had eight, or did

(01:38:41):
they want to increase the fleet or they don't have
enough drivers and they're looking for three more drivers. I'm
not exactly sure. But if if there were five on
its certainly it certainly certainly isn't enough. We're here this morning,
We've been here in tight thirty. It's now again eleven
thirty and three hour stretch and they haven't been down through.

(01:39:03):
I understand, you know, if your short machines or your
short people and they call on sick, I mean, you
can't help that stuff. But if if there isn't enough
flyers on and obviously the need is therefore it is
a big geographical area with a lot of open country
and drifting snow and difficult areas, then if the request
is in, then I think the it's the owners on

(01:39:26):
the government to make sure that we get those three
extra units.

Speaker 2 (01:39:30):
So are these new units yet to be procured or
are they existing which that you just want to see
transfer to your area.

Speaker 17 (01:39:37):
I'm again, all I got the information for mister McKennon
was that they have five and they're putting in their
requests for three more. So I'm not sure if that's
three new or they can't fill three old positions from
last year. If it's as simple as well, the request
is in, can you give us three more? The need
is there, I mean, especially when you consider, you know,

(01:39:58):
patting themselves on the back and and for twenty four
hour snow clearing and what not in certain areas. Again
area that we weren't included in. But if you can't
keep the routes that are already open, filled or stacked
staffed adequately. Then and then how do you expect to,
you know, increase the service.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Well, I think that's the key question here in these
expanded fourteen routes for what they call twenty four seven
snow clearing. Until you have the machinery and the operators,
there's still just a plan in progress.

Speaker 17 (01:40:29):
I mean, I do know one of the operators does
not back with him this year. It's a small town.
He took a job somewhere else. So is it just
the fact that they can't find three more drivers or
you know this? This is the question. And obviously five
pieces of equipment cannot adequately cover the area that this
depot covers there in Lumson. And it's getting to the point,
you know where we're into a winter store watching in
for today there's gonna be a flash freeze. There's about

(01:40:51):
a six inches of slush on the road, so that
flash freeze is going to turn all our roads into
an ice drink.

Speaker 2 (01:40:57):
Yeah, it's flicking down. I just read an email from
my own on HR department here and today saying the
parking lot is wicket slippery. I just got another email
from someone who burn Peninsul said they just bought one
off the throat going eighty komters an hour on the highway,
So it's pretty slick out there. Today's day for ice
control and it's now clearing. Obviously, Yes, and.

Speaker 17 (01:41:14):
Just get back to your premo. You spoke about the
opposition criticizing. I mean, yes, they're just new getting in
and obviously you've got to give them time to get
their fee quick. But I think what gets the ir
up of individuals is that when you are the opposition
and you're you're already spouting the fact that you have
all the answers and that you know what needs to
be done, and in the short wall they've been in there,

(01:41:35):
it's been a repeat for the MoU it's a repeat
now for the Justice review. If you had all the
answers and you knew what needed to be fixed, and
I mean it was not me saying this. I mean
I heard enough interviews during the election that you know
our government would do it this way. Our government has
the answers, and then you get in and you're turn
and spinning your heels. Then you know, I think that

(01:42:00):
what gets the R up more than the opposition criticized.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):
I got it. Yeah, and that's a fair observation or perspective.
I'm like anything else while we have you.

Speaker 17 (01:42:09):
Yeah, put on the deputy fire chief's hat for a second.
We've had a couple instances in the last week, one
regarding the local school here, Parson Academy, where they called
in and said that they were scheduling a fire alarm
and they had their fire drill at ten after eleven.
At twenty six after eleven, we got a page from

(01:42:29):
the monitoring center that does see the schools, and very
hard to pick out what.

Speaker 9 (01:42:34):
Was being said.

Speaker 17 (01:42:35):
On the other end, they stated that they e eleven
thirty one. Sorry, we got the call saying that at
eleven twenty six they received a page that there was
a fire alarm at the school. Again, they gave the address,
which was very hard to hear. I end up having
to go to the town hall next door to pinpoint
where exactly we were going to get up to the school,

(01:42:55):
and that's when we found out that, you know, no,
we called the mouninary center and told them that we
were having the drill, and twenty sixteen minutes later, the
call center decides that Okay, there's a fire at the school.
And they don't bother five minutes later to call our
to call us to dispatch. So there's definitely some issues
with the call centers, the monainary centers. And what I

(01:43:17):
said to the principle is that in the event that
you actually have a fire, do not rely on the
monitoring center. As soon as that alarm goes off, pick
up the phone yourself and call nine one one, or
call the local fire department and let them know exactly
what's going on. The other issue we had is at
the local fish plant, where the alarms were continuously going off,

(01:43:37):
they were actually purging their system and they informed their
monitoring center that they were doing testing and whatnot. And
in the span of two days, I think we were
dispatched six times for a fire a larm at that building.
So you know, again we instructed the staff the engineers
after that, you know, if this happens, call back right
away and say, you know, what's a false alarm and
stand down because you know, especially this time of year roads,

(01:44:00):
it's like you don't want your emergency vehicles responding to
things that certainly aren't necessary. And on the other straight,
if there is an excell emergency and the monitoring centers
are slow picking up on it, then, you know, we
want to know as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (01:44:14):
All that makes sense to me. I'll add to it
for smaller communities out there that do not use civic
addresses for first responders to be particularly helpful. You know,
we're just block it into the GPS, so the first
responders aren't looking for the second house, past Nanny Greens
or you know, some of those references for smaller communities.
And there's an easy kit available at the provincial government.
You can just google it up Civic Address Kit New

(01:44:36):
Final Labador Government. You'll go right to the page. It's
a really simple process. Government does mostly work for you.

Speaker 17 (01:44:41):
Yeah, we do use civic addresses, but again, sometimes it's
very hard to pick out the civic addresses being given
to you. Yeah, because of where the monitoring center is located.

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
I guess fair enough. Anything else, Mike.

Speaker 17 (01:44:52):
No, that's everything, sir. Like I said, I hope that.
And again I know the government's new, and I hope
that they do have some new ideas and some ways
of a boosting our economy because it does none of
us any good for the government of the day to
not be doing their job. I want them to succeed,
because if they don't succeed, we're going to be in
worse condition than what we already are.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
Oh look, it's in our collective pest interest. If whoever
the party is in government, if they do a good job,
that's good for all of us. You know, political fortunes
be damned. As a taxpayer, I'm more concerned with the
positive outcomes and solutions personally.

Speaker 17 (01:45:23):
One hundred percent of patty. And that's why I always
said party politics has a way of not working and
think it needs to be more municipal, where you have
people who are are fighting for their districts and not
relying on just party party loans to get them elected.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
Fair enough, appreciate the time, Mike, thanks for doing it.
Thank you, sir, Bye bye bye. All right, we're running
up against the news, so we won't squeeze in either way.
And he wants to talk a little fixed link. Marie
Gentle is the executive director at the YWCA Saint John's.
Trent's also there to talk about the proposed twenty four
seven snow clearing. Just a quick major junior hockey note,
So here comes Charlottetown. This weekend to play against the

(01:45:58):
regimen Town at the Mary Brown Center. It's the last
homestand of the calendar year, so people might be interested
to go down and check it out. Exciting weekend for
local goaltender from Holyrood, Will Morgan got call up to
play the net for Charlottetown. So that's one of those
things when you're on the road, it's the local goalies
that might get a chance to get a call up
and in this case Will Morgan from Hollywood's going to

(01:46:19):
get a chance to play in the net against the
regiment for Charlottetown. All right, let's see hear those three
callers who stay right there will be back right after
the newscast. Don't go away.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
The Tim Power Show joing the Conversation weekday afternoons at
four pm on your VOCM.

Speaker 2 (01:46:35):
Welcome back to the program. Let's go to lin number
three and sigamore to the executive director at the YWCA
Saint John's. That's Maria. Gentle Hi, Maria, you're on the air,
Maria on line number three? Are you there? May if
you want to try to figure.

Speaker 18 (01:46:51):
That out, I am here, Yes, I'm here. Thanks so
much for having me, tatty happy to do it. Today,
I'm calling in during the sixteen Days of Activism against
Gender Based Violence and tomorrow why WCA is observing December sixth,
which is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on
Violence against Women. All of that can seem very overwhelming

(01:47:13):
of course the listeners, and so I'm calling to offer
some hope and the way people can contribute to make
a difference for survivors.

Speaker 2 (01:47:21):
How can they Well, we're.

Speaker 18 (01:47:25):
Calling on community to increase the number of participants and
survivors we can serve through our NEST Fund and that's
the National Emergency Survivors Support Fund that recognizes that financial
security is really one of the leading pathways for safety
for survivors.

Speaker 2 (01:47:42):
So how does that actually work? Because you know, when
people are leaving violent situations in the home, first things first,
they need a place to go. So is that money
intended to be covered for housing, what have you? Because
it all makes sense to me. I mean, financial security
is obviously the solid pathway to protections in every area.
But with vacancy so low and home self expensive, how

(01:48:04):
does the fund work?

Speaker 18 (01:48:07):
Yes? Why all do UCA? Saint John's works with our
partners and with survivors to create a healing pathway for safety.
And this means that we listen to survivors, we believe survivors,
and we assist with urgent costs related to fleeing violence
at their pace. And this could support an establishing safe

(01:48:27):
housing including first and last month's rent, travel, ustility setup,
furniture costs, whatever it means to that person to find
that pathway to healing. And over ninety percent of recipients
through our own fund and through our national connections with
the National mess Fund, report that participation in the program

(01:48:48):
increased a survivor's sense of well being, survivor's sense of safety,
and improved their living conditions. And so the important part
to know is that this is a survivor led strategy
and that folks who know the insidious natures of gender
based violence, that survivors need options. And we're calling on

(01:49:10):
community to believe survivors to make a donation to our
Nest Fund because that can make a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
So we're trying to have the community offer an increase
in the number of survivors that can be helped. Here,
can you give us some numbers based on history, like
last year and how many are trying to expand the
program to accommodate.

Speaker 18 (01:49:29):
Yeah, so folks can go to donate to our Nest
Fund on our website and click the Nest banner www
dot YWCA, Saint John's dot com. Last year, we began
our Nest Fund awareness campaign that led to a remarkable
outpouring of support from community, individuals, unions, and that allowed

(01:49:52):
us to increase our donations and our support of survivors.
And this year we're asking to do the same. The
number of UH folks who contribute it directly increases the
number of participants we can support. This is a form
of community centric fund raising that means one hundred percent
of the donations go directly to survivors. The other part

(01:50:16):
recognizing the nature of financial abuse and financial entanglement in
gender base violence is that we have a financial empowerment
program who oversees ness as well as UH provides you know,
one to one support to help map out a healing plan,
connect folks to services, and a trauma informed approach, but

(01:50:38):
also to recognize the other many financial systems to impact
someone's journey to safety and well being. That can look
at tax filing, financial support and navigation that looks at
a holistic way of you know, pathway to healing. Like
I said, it's many, many options sometimes in very difficult

(01:51:01):
system that is very unique to individuals.

Speaker 9 (01:51:05):
Marie.

Speaker 2 (01:51:05):
I appreciate your time, good luck with the program. You're
always welcome.

Speaker 18 (01:51:08):
Thanks so much, Patty. And again for folks to make
a commitmentment to survivors to go to our website at
www dot YWCA St John's dot com and quick to
our banner. Your contribution means you believe survivors and you
can make a difference. Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
You're welcome, Maria. Take good care.

Speaker 18 (01:51:25):
Yeah, you too, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:51:26):
You're welcome. Bye bye for your gentle executive director at
the YWCA Saint John's. Let's go to line number one. Wayne.
You're on the air.

Speaker 3 (01:51:35):
Morning, Patty.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 2 (01:51:37):
Happy to do it.

Speaker 19 (01:51:38):
I was phoned in to talk about fixed links. I
think New Flan really needs a fixed link to bring
up our prosperity a lot, also to get things back
and forth here perfumed enough or other things like that.
If you look at the Confederation Bridge that was built
over the Pei, I think my numbers would be a
bit off, but I think it costs a billion dollars

(01:51:58):
to build it, and I believe it was paid for
in one year. So I chant to imagine what the
cost is for running the theory, and the amount of
government subsidies that goes into it, and the amount of
costs of the people that are using it for bringing in.

Speaker 3 (01:52:14):
Food and sports, just for travel.

Speaker 19 (01:52:16):
I'm sure the Confederation Bridge breached up the tourism in
PDI probably about fifty percent after it was probably higher.

Speaker 2 (01:52:25):
It certainly saw an economic boost to the island, no
doubt about it. A couple of interesting things there. I
think some of the arguments people make about the Confederation
Bridge when comparing it to the fixed link is at
the end of the bridge leaving PI. I think it's
somewhere like inside one hundred kilometers there's another two million people,
which is a vastly different set of circumstances when you
talk about access to the fixed link at Yankee Point

(01:52:48):
to points of war. So I think that's part of
the argument, where that you know, what we see commensurate
uptick in traffic volume tourists, ease with which the truckers
would get here with perishable goods because we actually had
a guy who operates the trucking company on the show
earlier this morning and asked them directly if his truckers
would use the fixed link, and it was sort of
a not really was the answer. Now, I can't speak

(01:53:10):
for truckers because I'm not one.

Speaker 10 (01:53:13):
Yeah, Well, the thing about.

Speaker 19 (01:53:15):
It is is that when you're it's you know, the vote,
so many times that they're held up, so you know,
the weather, the you know the vote itself, it's just
it's just not one hundred percent. You know, I'm going
to make it, make it, make you get there. So
if you've got perishvil items like fruit, vegetables and stuff
like that you're braying into the province, then it's the

(01:53:37):
chances that they're either going to spoil or they're going
to be not a one hundred percent good quality. The
other thing, too, is that it also open up the
doors for for more things going out of the province.
Like we were talked about the Parrathon goal. I guess
they're they're going across the ferry all the time, and
it's costing them a good.

Speaker 4 (01:53:56):
Bit to bring their gold out.

Speaker 19 (01:53:57):
I guess you know, so those things is certainly the
price will.

Speaker 4 (01:54:01):
Come down and maybe we'll open up more mining in
New Flat so we'll.

Speaker 19 (01:54:06):
Bring more more taxation for the government and lower the
taxes that are pass on to the public.

Speaker 2 (01:54:15):
Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of arguments out there, you know.
I do read the reports that have been done. I
mean the old two thousand and four report from Hatch,
and then they updated it in twenty eighteen. Then RAP
came in and did an update in twenty twenty three,
and prices continue to escalate. Like if I google up
fixed link between Newfland and Labrador, I'll go back to
a story of maybe ten fifteen years ago where they

(01:54:36):
say one point six five billion dollars you got yourself
a fixed link. The most recent number from ARAP was
now right, a price point of four point eight billion dollars,
and that's numbers from two years ago, so who knows
where it ends. So the trick is pretty clear. If
this is ever going to get done, and if we're
talking about the price tag, it's do it sooner than later,
because if you wait another X number of years, that

(01:54:57):
four billion is going to be six.

Speaker 10 (01:54:58):
Billion and everything is going up.

Speaker 19 (01:55:01):
Petty, I mean, we talked about we talked about the
price of transportation, oil, everything like that. Everything's going off
sooner we can get that done and in process it's
certainly going to bring down not going to bring down prices,
it will certainly stabilize.

Speaker 11 (01:55:14):
The more.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
Absolutely. Like I mean, if you get to Cape Breton
and you're all the way at that tip in North
Sydney and then you see that the boat is going
to be stalled based on weather or mechanical issues, I
wonder how many truckers will then backtrack to get all
the way to head up Quebec's north shore to eventually
come across the fixed link. I think there's lots of
conversation to be had here. But number one, if it's

(01:55:38):
inhanced the Candida Infrastructure Bank, then let's go to the
world of people that build tunnels and get their input.
Not just you know, pretend reviews that we've done currently
that's probably not fair, but you know, go to the
tunnel builders and see what they have to say, because
they will have an idea about what a toll might be.
Because of course, if they're going to build it, they
won't be too concerned with flow because they're only going

(01:55:59):
to get charged. They're going to charge us to build
it will probably manage it, unlike the Confederation Bridge, which
the people who built it pretty much manage it and
collect the tall money. So I wonder how it would work.

Speaker 19 (01:56:12):
Well, I think that the people who built the Confederation Bridge,
if they've made a billion dollars every year since it's
been built, you're known pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:56:21):
Yeah, that was a good investment for them.

Speaker 2 (01:56:23):
Yeah, I don't know what their profits look like, to
be honest with you haven't checked in quite a long time.

Speaker 19 (01:56:28):
Well, I don't know either, but I mean in the
first year after it was built, but they say it was.
It cost billion dollars to build it and it was
paid off in one year. So I mean that's a
very good investment for any company or anybody that wanted
to put money up, you know, and billion dollars a
lot of money. Four points so many billion. There's a
lot of money too, But if you're going to recover

(01:56:49):
it in a couple of years, it doesn't look that big.
And if you continue to make the same amount of money,
if it's coming back in the new flank.

Speaker 10 (01:56:56):
Offer to be even better.

Speaker 2 (01:56:58):
One hundred percent shape making time, Wayne, Thanks a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:57:02):
Thanks for saying the call again.

Speaker 3 (01:57:03):
Patty you have a great day.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):
The same to you. Take care. Yeah, I like to
fix the conversation or I enjoyed the conversation anyway. But
the numbers continue to grow, like even the completion of
Route one thirty eight and Quebec. They're actually talking about
several billion dollars for that to be completed. And that's
just the roadwork. That doesn't include any of the amenities
that people would want, hotels and gas stations and shops
and all the rest of it. Let's get there. A

(01:57:26):
final break of the morning on the weekend, don't go away,
Welcome back to the who the show. Let's go wrong?
Clicker line number four, Trent here on the air.

Speaker 10 (01:57:35):
Hey pay, I'm on my bluetooth here, so hopefully I
don't lose you.

Speaker 2 (01:57:38):
How am I sound in your So far, so far,
so good? Go right ahead, all right, perfect.

Speaker 10 (01:57:43):
I want to talk of two things first, the twenty
four hour snore clearing and the snow clearing in general.
And I'll get to the twenty four hour snore clearing
thing first. I don't know how.

Speaker 15 (01:57:55):
No.

Speaker 10 (01:57:55):
First of all, congratulations on the government. They want to
be said that they want to reintroduce twenty four hours
snow clearing and he did it. Good for them, pat
on the back. However, how did they go about figuring
out which routes were the most busiest or the most
popular routes. I'm going to say, to determine the twenty
four hour snow clearing.

Speaker 4 (01:58:16):
And here's my reason one.

Speaker 10 (01:58:18):
I'm asking that question and I'll give you two routes.
Number one is when I looked at the list, I
didn't see nothing going as far as Porta Bass and
Porter Bass is like the connection to our Trans Canada hallhway.
We had the ferries, and we know that in the
wintertime or even nothing in the wintertime. Yeah, so most
the story we know in the wintertime, with storms and weather,

(01:58:38):
the fairies can run delayed. So if the ferries not
gave me me in at exactly at eleven o'clock in
the morning, at eleven o'clock in the night, she might
get in at one or two o'clock in the morning.
There's no snow clearing. That's how we get our freight
across the island using the tractor trailers. So how did
they determine that Porta Bass was not a popular route
for twenty four hour snow clearing.

Speaker 2 (01:59:00):
Don't know, but don't we dispatch winter maintenance ice ConTroll
of snow clearing to accommodate ferry traffic.

Speaker 10 (01:59:07):
And this is this is going to this is my
next topic. I'm going to talk about my next route,
the beer In Peninsula Highway, my old stopping grounds. There's
no twenty four hour snow clearing on the Bier and Peninsula.
I seen him posting that the MHA from that area.
Duire posted THEE today that he had a great conversation

(01:59:27):
with Barry Petton and he's very well pleased with the
decision that Petton has made. I mean, how can he
be pleased that his area was left off of the
twenty four hour snow clearing route. And his reasoning was, oh,
I had a firm commitment from MHA Pitton that if
there's any need for emergency services, we will dispatch, we

(01:59:48):
will dispatch a snowplow. I'm sorry, Patty, but that that
doesn't cut it. I mean getting the snowplow on the
road at that hour in the morning. I mean, I
don't know if the Gooby's depot was going to be
operate at twenty four hours round the clock. So the
depot that we're going to have to depend on is
from Clarinivale, and Clariaville is half hour or forty five
minutes away before we could even get a plow out

(02:00:10):
of Claraval. So to me, that is unacceptable.

Speaker 2 (02:00:14):
Yeah, I mean even when it wasn't while we're calling
twenty four seven snow clearing now, you know, when the
argument was, well, if there's a need, we'll dispatch the
required operators. At that point, which is too late. There's
already somebody in trouble, there's already been an ambulance called,
or the police are already responding to something. So this
is a good start. Hopefully they can get it staffed
up appropriately. Hopefully the equipment is going to be available

(02:00:36):
to actually provide twenty four or seven snow clearing, because
I'm pretty sure that has not started quite yet.

Speaker 10 (02:00:43):
I saw comments online being made. People from the Bearer
Penicial were making comments saying why were we left off?
And people were saying, oh, you know, the Beaner Penicuil
is not busy enough to manage a twenty four hour
snore clearing. Well, I beg to differ. I used to
work at the gas station arying goovies from eleven in
the night to seven o'clock in the morning, and the

(02:01:03):
amount of traffic that we used to get coming into
the Irving gas station after midnight, tractor trailer wise, was insane.

Speaker 3 (02:01:13):
It was crazy.

Speaker 10 (02:01:14):
And then around three or four o'clock in the morning
we'd get more of a heavy traffic because we have
people leaving the Peninsula making their way into Saint John's
because they might have a doctor's appointment or eight or
nine o'clock in the morning, So people leave are driving
on at Peninsula at all hours in the night. And
not to not to forget, now, we also have a

(02:01:34):
fish plant in Arnold's Cove that is one of the
major employers in that area, and we had the refinery
that employs a lot of people, and a lot of
people travel up being Peninsul Highway to get to a
point A to point B. So I mean for Jeff
the Water to come on and say, oh, if we
have an emergency, we'll we'll dispatch apply APLO operator. That's sorry,
that's that's not acceptable.

Speaker 2 (02:01:56):
I got it, And that was the arguments made all
those years ago. Anything else type before sneak on one
more call?

Speaker 10 (02:02:02):
Yeah, well, store, I'll be I'll be very quick on
this next topic, store clearing in general. We had our verse,
we had our verse doubse of winter ure earlier in
the week, and some of the reports that I'm seeing
online now, like I know where a rumor goes. Don't
believe everything that you read online, but some of the
stories that I'm seeing and talking to other people saying,
but all the equipment failures and a lot of equipment

(02:02:23):
breaking down. My question is when did the Department of
Transitation decide to test all this equipment? Did they wait
until the very last minute to take all this stuff
out and give it a test to see if it
was going to work? Or did they or was it
the operational Uh did they go in and start doing
this stuff back in uh September in October? Because if

(02:02:43):
they waited till if you wait until the very last
minute and then they they figured out a lot of
our equipment is not up the poor when then someone
in the Department Heeditation heads.

Speaker 12 (02:02:51):
Needs your role.

Speaker 2 (02:02:52):
Yeah, no, MI understanding? Is uh regular winter staff back
in on machine collaboration and maineas began in October? Is
what I'm told?

Speaker 10 (02:03:01):
Well, I mean that sounds kind of that sounds kind
of a counter fishy to me. If you're deem at
all operations were deemed suitable, then after the first no
storm you're seeing reports of a lot of equipment being
pulled from the road because of mechanical breakdowns. And don't
get me wrong, I know, I know mechanical breakdown happens,
but to me it's quite ironic. After the first no
storm we see a big majority of the equipment being

(02:03:24):
show in the shot to get fixed. I mean to me,
the proper maintenance jobs wasn't done prior to the first
big snowstorm.

Speaker 2 (02:03:30):
Fair enough, I can only go by what's reported. If
we hear from people on the ground, we'll be happy
to talk about that as well. Try to appreciate your time.
Have a nice weekend.

Speaker 10 (02:03:38):
Hi, everybody, take care of you too.

Speaker 2 (02:03:40):
Bye bye, All right, final thoughts go to line what
in you're on the air?

Speaker 15 (02:03:44):
Good morning, Patty, har are you today?

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
Okay? How about you?

Speaker 5 (02:03:47):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (02:03:48):
Not too bad?

Speaker 15 (02:03:48):
Driving across the island, I wanted to talk quickly about
the fixed link connecting the Northern Peninsula to the to
the Labrador. One thing that a lot of people seem
to be forgetting is that this will open up the
Northern Peninsula to a lot of further economic growth, including
things like mining. The Great Northern Port has been stalled

(02:04:11):
for the longest kind of time was going to be
done and familiar just outside Sin Anthony, and that port
in and of itself would have provided for a lot
of economic growth for the region, which includes bringing people
home in population growth, that kind of thing. Opening up
this fixed link to the Labrador would allow a lot

(02:04:34):
of this heavy equipment, heavy mining equipment that we need
to come here, because you can't imagine what it would
be like trying to get heavy equipment through through the
Bombay Hills, for example, especially now in the wintertime. That's
just my thoughts on it. I don't know what you think.

Speaker 2 (02:04:51):
Well, if there was the anticipated increase in traffic flow,
of course had to be excellent for the region from
people in the Labrador form people in the Great Northern
p it's on the southwest coast. But if that volume
actually came to be I mean, haven't driven the Great
Northern Peninsula. The highway upgrade required in that part of
the province would be extensive, Oh, no.

Speaker 15 (02:05:12):
Doubt, yeah, I mean the highways in this region are
sketchy at best, especially in the winter time, but the
economic growth that could be presented would be immense. I
mean there's everything from gold the dimes to copper rarer minerals.
They've put in prospecting up this way for forty plus years.

(02:05:34):
They know what's in the ground, they know where it is.
It's just a matter of them opening things up.

Speaker 2 (02:05:40):
And the power to fuel it in. Simply because of
the time on the clock, we've run out of it
for this morning, but you're always welcome picked this conversation
up another day. How's that.

Speaker 15 (02:05:49):
Sounds good? You have a great day in a merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (02:05:51):
The very same to you, Wian, Thank you. There we
go all right, could show today big thanks to all hands.
We will indeed pick up this conversation again on Monday morning,
right VOCM and big Land FM's Open Line on behalf
of the producer David Williams. I'm your host, Patty Daily.
Have yourself a safe, fun happy weekend talk Monday. Bye
bye

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