Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Tony and Jodie Visit With Bay of Quinte MP Ryan Williams
74 Plays2 years ago
Tony and Jodie catch up with Bay of Quinte MP Ryan Williams. Prior to being elected to the House of Commons, he sat on Belleville City Council, but did not complete his term as he ran in the federal election.
Follow the show on Twitter: @AAThingPodcast
Follow the show on Instagram: @andanotherthingpodcast
Follow Jodie Jenkins on Twitter: @jodie_a_jenkins
Follow Tony Clement on Twitter: @TonyclementCPC
Find the show on the web: www.andanotherthingpodcast.ca
Check out some of our sponsors!
The Muskoka Chef - they offer catering throughout the Muskoka Lakes Region by car or by boat. Visit www.themuskokachef.com or call Julie at 416-846-3653.
Halton Government Relations -- opening the doors that will lead to your success.
This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Sponsor Acknowledgments
00:00:00
Speaker
And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. And another thing. Welcome to another episode of And Another Thing, the podcast that continues to set the bar in the world of podcasts. My name is Jody Jenkins. My name is Tony Clement.
00:00:29
Speaker
And we are excited for another wonderful episode. We've got not a banter episode. We might go back and forth a little bit, you and I, but we do have a guest today. So I'm looking forward to introducing him shortly. As always, we've got to thank the team at Municipal Solutions, John Mutton and the crew there for their weekly sponsorship.
00:00:53
Speaker
They are our presenting sponsor day in and day out. And so we appreciate that continued support. And Tony, I know you can share a little bit more about municipal solutions and what they do.
00:01:03
Speaker
I certainly can. Jody, I was with John Mutton today at lunch, so I got to see him in all of his glory. And of course, he runs Ontario's leading MZO firm. That's right, Municipal Zoning Orders. So that's all about development approvals, permit expediting, planning services with municipalities, engineering services, architectural services.
00:01:27
Speaker
Even things like minor variances or land severances, we're just getting those building permits done. Go to municipalsolutions.ca and John and the team can help you out. And then our newish sponsor or returning sponsor, I guess I should say Halton GR. You can find them at haltongr.com, your West GTA GR firm. That is government relations, of course. They specialize in sourcing land for development.
00:01:55
Speaker
acquiring the ideal land, obtaining zoning permissions and bylaw modifications. And they keep the project going through all of the process because of course this is still a quite a process. They're also very good at putting together the financing. Their slogan is, let's get this done. So Steven Sparling and the gang at Halton GR are there for you. HaltonGR.com.
00:02:19
Speaker
And I'd be remiss if I did not mention that our show is repeated on terrestrial radio every Saturday morning at 8.30 AM. That is at Hunters Bay Radio, 88.7 huntersbayradio.com. And you're still getting stopped in the streets by people up there in Muskoka? It's a little bit chilly out now. So we're not, you know, trying to do the conversations indoors. Telling you they tuned in though? Yeah, yeah. Still get that. Absolutely. Sure.
00:02:49
Speaker
And more for your show, though. You're rocking Shindig. That's coming on on this Saturday. What's the theme? Last time we talked about this, you didn't have a theme yet. No. Yeah, that's right. And I did. It's more of a personal theme. It's it's bands that I have either seen in concert or have a connection to. So, yeah, it's a little bit more of a personal journey this time around.
00:03:11
Speaker
personal journey. Are you going to cry? Do you think you'll cry during the episode? I'm going to have a little shed, a little tear here or there. You know, some of these artists are not with us. You know, uh, I'll talk about Neil Peart a little bit, uh, from Rush. Of course, he loves that guy. I do. And they're, they're building two statues for him in St. Catharines. Do you know that? I did not know that. Yeah. And it's going to be at lakeside. Two statues. Two, two statues, the early Neil Peart and the later Neil Peart, and they're going to be sort of conjoined somehow. And they're raising a million bucks for this.
00:03:41
Speaker
Wow. And are you, how much are you donating? I haven't decided yet, but I probably would donate. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, there you go. There you go. The Rockin' Shindig. And last but not least, lunipolitics.com. Wonderful aggregate news site that you can get exclusive content just by joining and becoming a member. Use the code podcast to get 50% off your annual subscription and you will not be disappointed. lunipolitics.com.
00:04:09
Speaker
All right, so we promised you a guest. We have a guest. Do you want to introduce him, Tony? Well, I can say a little bit. You know him, obviously, more personally, because he's from your neck of the woods.
Interview with Ryan Williams: Political Journey
00:04:22
Speaker
But of course, we have with us the Member of Parliament for the Bay of Quinte, Ryan Williams, Member of Parliament. He happens to be in the shadow cabinet of Pierre Polya. We can talk a little bit about that.
00:04:34
Speaker
as the Shadow Minister for Pan-Canadian Trade and Competition. Welcome to the program, Ryan. Thank you, gentlemen. I was just enjoying you two go back and forth, so this is nice to be part of the conversation. That's all the time we have, Ryan. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. It was nice to be on the show. Well, it's great to have you on the program. Obviously, yes, you are the MP in my hometown. We're currently living.
00:05:04
Speaker
How long have you been in there now? It feels like a long time, but it hasn't been that long. It's been a year, okay. You've been in there a year. Why don't you, I'm sure Tony will interject with some stuff too on campaigning and all that, but why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got
00:05:24
Speaker
to the spot where you're at right now. What went through the mind? What was your process? Because you were a sitting counselor here in Belleville. Now you're the MP.
00:05:34
Speaker
That's right. I'll start a little further back. So I came back to Belleville in Bay of Quinton when I was 24, which was only three years ago. No, it's about 16, 17 years ago now. And, you know, at the time I got really involved, I was always one to believe I came from a service oriented family to get involved in the community. My father was
00:05:56
Speaker
Mayor, just at that time, had lost the provincial election for MPP, and he lost that, I think that was 2004. 2003, actually. 2003, that's because he was running against another well-known candidate, Jody Jenkins, from the party. What party was that, Jody? From the NDP.
00:06:20
Speaker
That's a whole other episode and at the time I got involved heavily with the chambers and then rotary and with
00:06:30
Speaker
with tourism and that's where I landed and I really was captivated on the region and how we could bring everyone together. At the time I had worked on cruise ships for a year, worked on carnival cruise lines. I had went to school Western and Guelph and had my bachelor of commerce. I'd lived in Toronto downtown for a bit. So being 24 in Balboa was difficult at the time. So I really just wanted to get involved and make sure my voice was heard and to be there. And for 10 years I ran and developed Bay Aquinity Tourism.
00:06:59
Speaker
The reason that we have Bay Aquini as a riding name, I feel was the work we did in Bay Aquini. It was 10 years worth of work. We built a budget from $15,000 to about a million. And we put the region on the map and to compete with the Toronto's and the Muskoka's and some of the other parts of Ontario, which are really popular. The best way we found we could do it is combine our efforts as a whole. And that's where Bay Aquini was born. It was about one landmark in the cities and municipalities around that.
00:07:29
Speaker
What was neat about the work we did, it was working with the chambers. And of course, my full-time job was the general manager of the Best Western that we owned, and I now own myself for the last, well, for 15 years. It was really a passion of mine to develop the region. I really loved the region. You got to know the people. I got to go to the Prince Edward County, to Quinnie West.
00:07:52
Speaker
and promote what they were doing. The National Air Force Museum and Marie Canel bevel itself with a lot of the restaurants in the downtown and the hotels for the region. And we developed golf packages and fishing for walleye and just really cool things. And what we found on that, the big problem was trying to get people to live in the region. Believe it or not, back about 12 years ago, our growth rate was only 0.2% a year.
00:08:17
Speaker
So after I was kind of done with Bay Aquinni Tourism at the time or still running it, I developed a board called Bay Aquinni Living. It was the developers, some people like your sponsor on looking at how do we get more building permits and develop more spaces and more lands to developers themselves Aquinni Realtors and immigration. So we were trying to drive people to the region. So we did commercials and advertising that
00:08:43
Speaker
Um, looked at drawing people to Bitcoin need to live. And, and we feel we did a pretty good job because now as of last year, uh, we were one of the fastest growing regions at all Canada. Oh, wow. And it takes a lot of work to get there. And they, they gauge that on stats from the U-Haul, U-Haul trucks in one way destinations and where they end up in Belleville.
00:09:03
Speaker
and the Bayquinn region were one of the top ones. It came with some negative aspects. One was that housing prices went up way too much. The average house price in the county, for instance, is $1.2 million last year, which was pretty high. When we ran Bayquinn living at the time, the average house price for a house in the county was only $350,000 for waterfront property. It was unbelievable.
00:09:23
Speaker
Wow. So that solved a couple of problems at the time. And we combined then the Bay Quinney Tourist Council, the Bay Quinney Living Council. It was the first board that I know. I think it's the only board in Canada that combined living attraction with tourism, which is really cool. And I founded another group after that because what we found was it was great to get retirees to the region. It was hard to keep and retain and to track youth.
00:09:48
Speaker
So I developed an economic development board called Quinnovation, and we were all about non-traditional economic development, looking for non-manufacturing, so more tech and entrepreneurship. And it was a really cool, that was my favorite two, well, it was about four years. We brought a board together just made of entrepreneurs. We made a rule that not existed in the other two boards, was not to bring municipality into the fold. It was only giving entrepreneurs, four entrepreneurs run by entrepreneurs.
00:10:18
Speaker
I could talk on an hour on just this subject. We had formed partnerships with Kelowna and Accelerate Okanagan and a program they had called RevUp, which was helping growth stage companies grow, so companies that need to grow from small to medium enterprises. We were involved. We hosted Canada's first rural innovation summit in 2018.
00:10:37
Speaker
So all that was great. And I decided at the time after that was kind of going that my time was now to try to try this politics thing. And that's when I decided to run for municipal council. And I remember the conversation with my father and saying I wanted to do it.
00:10:54
Speaker
He was not too impressed with it. First conversation, second conversation, he was really into it. He was a great mentor and he loved being in politics. He loved serving people. He was incredible what he did. So it was a good decision, ran that, ran for municipal council one.
00:11:13
Speaker
Won the polls for award one. So it's it's really it's really incredible to think that that was only four years ago The new council the council that I was on at the time just just just said their last meeting tonight Yeah, that was literally four years ago. It seems like such a long time ago So much has happened since then, of course getting the nomination leaving council running winning the
00:11:40
Speaker
And that was, I mean, three elections really in about three years, right? The municipal election and the nomination, which is an election in itself. And then the election, which was a lot of fun. It was hard. It wasn't what we all wanted at the end result, but it was at the end of the day, it was a great election. And here we are a year later after a good year in parliament.
First Year in Parliament: COVID-19 Challenges
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah. And it's so bizarre, Tony, I'll let you hop in here a second, but it is bizarre, Ryan, when you think about
00:12:08
Speaker
You know, like, uh, so when I was on council in two 10, both Neil, Neil Ellis was the mayor. We both ran against each other and he won obviously federally and became the MP. And now then you ran against Neil, defeated him and you're the MP. And now Neil's the mayor of the city of Belville again. It's just funny how everything is like musical chairs. Yeah, it's, it's hilarious actually.
00:12:33
Speaker
Someone was talking about that today, how in the US, the Americans will say, well, what did you do before this? Or what did your father do? And they say, well, what do you mean? We were politicians, or my father was a politician. There seems to be some more of the legacy in the US. I think what's interesting here in Canada is I've got to say that my favorite part of the whole job are the people, right? Especially people in caucus.
00:12:59
Speaker
everyone has an interesting story everyone has a different background everyone has a different reason.
00:13:04
Speaker
for being here. I found the same in municipal council. I really enjoyed my time with a few of the counselors. You know, you spend so much time together, right? You could just use no choice, but to get to know them pretty well. And I also like that in this level. I think some of the best people I've, I've, I've never met are here. And I'm sure Tony, you remember that too, from being here and all the different connections you make a hundred percent, a hundred percent. But of course you really started
00:13:32
Speaker
in parliament in a very weird time where COVID, we were just getting over that. And so you had these hybrid parliaments going on or sessions going on. So does it still feel a bit weird to be there in person?
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, you know, the first, the first, and I think I'm thinking back, it was November. So well, clear that it's we're getting close to the one year mark. And when the speech from the throne came, we were all in Parliament. And I was chosen to be one of the first to ask a question. I remember saying in my question, I hope we continue to sit in this place. And of course, about two weeks later, we weren't, it was hybrid and only
00:14:17
Speaker
Um, one third of the liberals were ever there after that. And, and we, we tried to be there, but everything was, was topsy turvy. You know, we had the, uh, the convoy and the, and the truckers protests. We had COVID restrictions. Um, yeah, it was, it was, it was hard. The class of 2019 will always say, of course they had it way harder. They were only in for a short time than COVID hit. And.
00:14:43
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, they were gone. And hybrid parliament meant for a lot of them that they weren't even in the house at all. So a lot of times when we were doing things for the first time, some of the class of 2019 were doing them for the first time as well. And then the on and on again, off again, lockdown, masks, the motions. We have another one that we're debating again tomorrow, which is I think it's a motion 22. They're all very similar where they're trying to
00:15:12
Speaker
have parliament go into midnight sittings. Have you done midnight sittings yet? Yes, a few now and we had that up to the end of June.
00:15:26
Speaker
So there were quite a few nights where you'd have hosted and you're there. But it wasn't, it's still with this hybrid. It's nothing like you guys had, Tony. I think from what I've heard you had, you couldn't go and be a way for a vote. We can go on our phones and vote. There's some parts of that where it works for some circumstances, but I couldn't imagine
00:15:51
Speaker
Never ever having to have, you always had to be in the house for every single day. Always had to be in the house and sometimes we had situations where either in government, the opposition was forcing it, or when we were in opposition, we would force hundreds of votes one after the other. And so the voting would occur overnight and into the next day and into the next night.
00:16:16
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, I'll tell ya, it sounds horrible, but there was a sense of camaraderie that was built up on both sides, on the government side, on the opposition side, doesn't matter. You're, you're in it together with your team, uh, to advance something. You're, you're making a point somehow. Uh, and, um, I, I remember those with a certain degree of fondness when we were going over all night voting on, on issues.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the team building portion, right? Yeah.
00:16:52
Speaker
There is, to your point, I think there's so much camaraderie. I remember Pierre Polio saying after one of our caucus meetings on a Wednesday, he said he felt it very tribal that we sit in caucus and you have your four or five hour meeting, and then you walk in a question period and you're all united. Oh yeah. Eco Adam Hart. That's fun. There's so many different aspects of this job.
Caucus Dynamics and Open Dialogue
00:17:17
Speaker
And I love, you know, 98% of it and every day, and part of it is the competitiveness, but you know, it's, it's also the team building. It's, it's the, uh, coming up with ideas and how do you walk those ideas through, uh, you know, the different committees to get them to caucus and then state your case. You know, my, one of my favorite parts of this whole job, and maybe it's, I, I, there was a book my grandmother gave me called whipped. It was written by.
00:17:44
Speaker
I'm going to say it had a few MPs who had left, I think mostly liberal. And I remember when I read parts of that and my mother, my grandmother gave it to me, it was the whole premise was you don't have a say, especially in the back bench.
00:17:58
Speaker
that the backbench won't have a say and your voice will be lost, and there were exit interviews with a lot of MPs who stated, I didn't have my say, I didn't like the experience. I gotta tell you, I've never had that in our caucus. Our caucus, you have a say, you can always have your voice heard multiple different ways.
00:18:19
Speaker
In caucus, you know, you put your phones away and you're in the room, but green cards are yes, red, or no, and you will have your say. I think the line that Pierre uses all the time is, and maybe Harper used it, that you may not always have your way, but you'll always have your say. Right.
00:18:36
Speaker
Beautiful parts of the camaraderie building and the team building is people, you know, cause we were politicians, we like, we're paid to speak, but we, we like to be heard. And we also want to make sure we're speaking on behalf of all the people that we represent. So you have green and red cards. Oh, green and red cards. Green means go red means red means no. I don't think we've ever had, I, when I was in Cox, we never had those.
00:18:59
Speaker
Oh, so you probably just had hands. We just had hands. Yeah. There you go. It's different already. Evolution. Yeah. But I think, you know, that's, and I, and I wish sometimes in municipal politics, we would have had some of those sessions, right? Put your phones in a lockbox. You're in a room. It's not recorded. It's not, but the problem with, you know, municipal councils, you had those
00:19:19
Speaker
closed meeting rules, you had to record them. You couldn't have that. And I think that's what's a little different from that culture to this one. Obviously, it's a lot bigger. The other thing, too, I've really found is that the difference between municipal and federal is you're a bigger part of a team with a party. You never stand alone. Or in a municipal government, you can stand alone if there's a certain issue and you don't have the support. There's very much
00:19:48
Speaker
different aspects where you're on your own. And I like the federal side that you really have a big supportive network and a team behind you, especially where you're in that house and you're, and you're together at an issue. And that's pretty neat. And, and, uh, do you think that that's better to have the team approach or do you? Yeah, I mean, I, I'm a big fan of our party. I think parties for a lot of different reasons.
00:20:11
Speaker
uh, I think when you're in a group and you know, let me tell you one thing, there's not one day I'm in this caucus and think I'm in the wrong room every single day. You know, you know, you're in the right team, you know, you're with your people. Um, you know, you're, you're certainly able to argue and you don't agree with everything. I don't ever think.
00:20:32
Speaker
We're split sometimes on a lot of different issues. But when you leave, you're united. And certainly when you stand up and you're talking about your points that you've all agreed on, you're all part of that team. And that's pretty spectacular. I'm not sure how the UK parliament, when they have so many more MPs, I mean, almost double ours, right? We're not quite 550 some. But how they do the same thing, it seems to be the right number now. But it works for us right now.
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny in the UK, obviously there seems to be a lot more factionalism within individual party caucuses and there's a less expectation or maybe they've just got it into this situation where, you know, the dissent happens.
00:21:20
Speaker
And that's how you have four prime ministers in five years or whatever. And it just gets spins out of control like that. So, you know, there I guess the argument is you can you can vote your constituency more more easily. But I'm not sure they're voting their constituency. I think they're they're trying to save their hides and look at look at issues that way rather than from a principled point of view. So I'm not sure.
00:21:49
Speaker
That's a good advertisement for their type of Westminster democracy compared to ours.
Interprovincial Trade and Consumer Costs
00:21:56
Speaker
But while we've got you, we should probably ask Pan-Canadian trade and competition. What's that all about? So this was Pierre Poliev's creation based on some study work that happened in the industry committee and two things. Number one,
00:22:11
Speaker
We're terrible at training with ourselves. We have so many rules and stipulations that stop us from trading across provincial borders. So part of my job on the one hand on the first side of it is to meet with the different provinces and let's figure out how to drop a lot of the provincial trade barriers that exist. The biggest ones are that if you're trained as a nurse, teacher, skilled trade in one province, getting that accreditation in another province is almost impossible.
00:22:39
Speaker
it takes a long time it's cumbersome there's rules that that don't allow those professions to easily move across borders the second part of that is is is our goods so wine from bc you can't get it in alberta you can't get it in ontario
00:22:57
Speaker
There's a lot of different things that we have rules on that don't allow us to trade goods across our own borders. The price of that or the cost of it per year is about $80 billion, so it's pretty significant. So I'm starting next week in Alberta. There is a bill actually up for debate now that's going to limit almost all of the labor barriers
00:23:19
Speaker
in Alberta. So I'm going to meet with that government and the new officials there and to figure out what they're doing and try to see how we can replicate across the country and look at how we can increase that trade. The second part of my job is competition. And this one's pretty exciting to me. It's really how do we create more competition in Canada to get lower costs for consumers?
Cell Phone Plan Costs and Competition
00:23:43
Speaker
The motto that I'm living on is if there is no competition, there's no progress. And our
00:23:49
Speaker
bid to ensure that Canadians get back control of their lives, which means their pocketbooks, their savings, their paychecks in their country. That's also ensuring that they pay less for things than they are now. The biggest one is cell phones right now. So when it comes to wireless and cell phones, Canada is number one in the world for costliest cell phone plans. That's right. Of 128
00:24:14
Speaker
Telecommunication companies out of 48 countries, the number one, number two, and number three priciest companies are Rogers, Telus, and Bell. People call them Robulous. So part of the solution and the only solution in my mind is more competition.
00:24:33
Speaker
And so I've been studying, obviously, we looked at the Roger Shaw deal, we're looking at what's happening, of which we don't feel any of that is going to help create more competition. And therefore, none of it will help Canadians pay less for cell phone bills. So I've been looking at models across the world. Australia is one I think is really, really good because of their prices. I think, you know, we compare what a Canadian would pay for 25 gigabytes a month
00:25:00
Speaker
We're paying about four times what Australia is paying. So we'll pay up to 80. They're paying only $20. You look at the UK, you look at Europe, they're all paying almost half of what we're paying. So there's some really good models that we'd have to implement. Obviously, that's policy building and I'm really happy for this. The other aspects of competition will be bank charges. I'll be looking at credit card fees. It's really a fascinating file because it allows me to
00:25:30
Speaker
to get into some of the platforms we want to present in the next election? Well, I certainly wish a success, a better success than I had as industry minister were through a spectrum auction. I assisted newcomers, new companies to blossom and to provide competition at suppressed prices. And then those companies were bought out by the incumbents and then everything returned to
00:25:56
Speaker
the previous rapacious situation. So hopefully you can come up with a better plan than ultimately happened in my case. Well, it's tough, right? Because it's going to have to, and I'm sure you saw the same, it's going to have to be changes in rulings in the CRTC and how they look at competition as a whole. And I think this government's tried and failed to also make changes, whether that be wholesale rates,
00:26:23
Speaker
that evidently backfired. The Prime Minister sat in the House of Commons in April and stated, we promised Canadians we'd lower cell phone prices by 25% and Mr. Speaker, we did exactly that. Well, he never did. What actually happened was cell phone plans that were two gigabytes a month, which you can imagine you'd use in about four days,
00:26:44
Speaker
They went down in price. The plants that were higher all went up. So yes, it's kind of like saying that there was a VCR on sale or a Blackberry Pearl. You know, when technology gets, every year we double the data we use and the technology has to double in speed.
00:27:05
Speaker
You know, that's just the reality. And obviously, you know, there's been some things that the big companies have done. They've put a lot of money into networks, right? So we do have 5G and quite a large portion of the country. And we certainly have some good networks, but there's still a lot of Canadians who can't get internet, don't have cell coverage. You know, when you think of cell phones, an interesting stat, and I just don't know if you remember this, Tony, when you were a minister,
00:27:34
Speaker
35 million Canadians have cell phones and now only 9 million Canadians have cable.
00:27:41
Speaker
So that's really changed, right? It used to be when we looked at cable or anything, there used to be a lot more proportion. I think it was only about 22 years ago because we were looking at when the privacy laws were changed. This is a Bill 27 that we're going through industry committee right now soon. And back then only one third of Canadians had a cell phone. It was a way, it was a really low number.
00:28:08
Speaker
So a lot of things have changed in 20 years with technology. Obviously, you want to get ready for the next 20, but having three companies have 90 plus percent of the market just won't work. And it is tough, like you said, the country that I look at that has the same problem when it comes to industry, but it's really, really worked well for them in South Korea, even though their cell phone prices are well, but they are dominated by Samsung, LG, Hyundai, you know,
00:28:35
Speaker
They also have a tough time bringing new competitors in, but we'll keep working on it and see what we can find. Jody, we've got just a couple of minutes left. Any thoughts? No, I'm just sitting and listening to you two go back and forth and some wonderful information there. I'll wrap up with, let's see, Tony, you might be able to jump in on this. Let's see how well he knows his caucus mates. We can ask him a couple questions and then see if he knows who it is.
00:29:06
Speaker
You think that's fair? Sure. I think that's fair. You can start with something easy. I'll ask a couple. So the first one is which one of your caucus mates is actually a certified or licensed, I guess, sommelier? Oh, I'm going to say. It might be more than one, but. I'm going to say Tracy Gray.
00:29:25
Speaker
That wasn't the one I was thinking of, but who do you think it is, Tony? Michelle Rimpelgarner. Yes. Yes. Maybe there is more than one, though. Is that possible? I agree. Her past life was wine, so distribution sales. But she knows her stuff in wine. I would be surprised if she wasn't small. Look at our caucus. We've got two wine experts. I think that's marvelous. That's pretty good. Next question. Again, this is a Western MP. Which MP do you think would give the most
00:29:55
Speaker
Devastating roundhouse kick. Female or male? Male. Male. Male. So it's trained in martial arts. Who? Legit martial arts guy. Western. Yep.
00:30:18
Speaker
Not Taego. Could be Dan Albus. I don't know. Yeah. That's right, Dan Albus. You got it. There you go. And then I'll ask one more. And Tony, you can think of one of you. But another Western MP, who's the biggest wrestling fan? Like WWF style. Also a male MP. I would guess Warren Steinle. But it's because he could be a wrestler himself.
00:30:46
Speaker
By the way, we have a hockey team, so I'm the captain of our conservative hockey team. We have 20 guys get it every Wednesday night. We chalk the puck at 10 p.m. and some awesome guys like Steinle and John Barlow and Frank Caputo has been in quite a bit. It's a it's a great group of guys. This guy probably plays on the hockey team, too, I'm guessing. He definitely was a hockey player back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. Wrestling. I don't know. Who is it? Blake Richards. OK, all right. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's good. That's a good one.
00:31:16
Speaker
Do you have one, Tony? No, that's great. I think that's a fun little contest we've got there. I don't know. We'll have to send him a mug or something. That's right. Who, Blake or Ryan? Ryan. Just joking. Both of them.
00:31:33
Speaker
Well, thanks, thanks, Ryan, for doing that. We certainly appreciate it. We wish you all the best. And we know that we'll see you throughout the writing as the days move on and across the country. And we're excited. I can't speak for Tony, but I'm sure he's in the same boat. We're looking forward to another election soon because it's time for Trudeau to go. And we believe in Pierre and we believe in the team. So the sooner, the sooner, the better.
00:31:57
Speaker
That's right. The last thing I'll say is having Pierre lead the caucus is just unbelievable. I'm a big fan of Pierre and big beliefs of what he can do as prime minister. And we're certainly seeing that in his first few months here as a leader. So it's been great and we look forward to the election just as much as you guys do.
00:32:21
Speaker
Wonderful conversation with Ryan. He loves doing this stuff. I think he does have his own little podcast here locally where he talks about current issues and policy stuff, so he does a good job with that. I feel bad because I can't think of... Oh, something like...
00:32:40
Speaker
in the house with Ryan Williams or something like that. Well, I've been, I've been a guest on it. Oh, that's fantastic. And, and of course, uh, you know, that last week I was on another MPs podcast, JAS, uh, JAS Helens podcast. He's the shadow finance minister.
00:32:59
Speaker
And he's got a podcast called All That Jazz. Get it? And how was it? It was awesome. Yeah. And he'll come on our program too. And he's a great guy, MP from Calgary, and he's really doing a great job as the shadow finance minister.
Engaging with Podcasts as MPs
00:33:16
Speaker
So yeah, there's a lot of these MPs now are doing podcasts. I guess you haven't really made it until you do a podcast. I think that's the case. If you don't have a podcast, you don't count.
00:33:26
Speaker
Maybe, maybe it's time for us to just separate and do our own podcasts. What do you mean, individually?
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah. Like Tony can have his own, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even do one. It's so much better. And by the way, uh, you know, uh, uh, we always talk about the Hurley Burley, but we got a Steve Paken on our podcast before they did on theirs. Oh, there you go. So just want to make that point. Well, what, you know what, there's like Ryan's career now going to the next level.
00:33:59
Speaker
I think so. I guess what happens when you come on the show. The Pacini effect, right? It's the Pacini effect. Where is Pacini these days? He's doing his thing. I'm going to take a shot here. I'm going to take a shot in the dark here, just because I'm feeling a little frisky, and I'm going to call him right now.
00:34:16
Speaker
And I'm going to say like, look, you're on the, we're on the show. We're doing the recording the show here. When are you coming back on? So let's see. Do you think you'll answer? Do it. Come on. I think chance. I mean, it's almost 10 o'clock at night. If there was ever a time where he would answer, it would be now. Okay. Don't you think? Go for it. Yeah. No, no, I'm calling them right now. Okay. Let's see.
00:34:46
Speaker
The message is call us call us be on the program again. Anyway, we got to get him back on. Yeah, he wants to come on. He does. How do you know he talked to him? Did you see him up in at the convention? Yeah. Oh, nice. Okay. And he wants to come back on for sure. Perfect. Perfect.
00:35:02
Speaker
All right. Well, thanks again to all our supporters, including John mutton and the team at municipal solutions. You can find them online at municipal solutions.com. Of course, uh, they do tons of stuff in the world of municipalities and they are busy, busy. So make sure you check that out. Um, Tony, I'll let you, I'll give a plug for loony politics.com. Use the code podcast to get 50% off your annual subscription. And then I'm handing it over to you, Tony.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yeah, HaltonGR.com. That's our friend Steven Sparling. His GR company is in the West GTA. Let's get this done. Is there a view of life? And so you can find them at HaltonGR.com. Excellent. And don't forget to check us out on 88.7 Hunters Bay Radio. Hunters Bay Radio. 88.7 The Bay.
00:35:53
Speaker
How do you introduce your show? Give us a taste of how you introduce your Rockin' Shindig. Pretend the mic's open. Well, there's a kind of a taped intro that says, this is Tony's Rockin' Shindig on 88.7th Bay. And I go, hey, cool cats. And then I click my fingers. You do not. I do. I do. And then we get going. And this week it'll be like,
00:36:16
Speaker
This is going to be a hard show for me. I'm thinking about everyone I have a connection to. Yeah. Oh my goodness. It's just going to be so emotional. I saw Vanilla Ice in concert. That would be pretty good. There was a 90s tour back in prior to COVID, and I went and saw Vanilla Ice, Young MC, Rob Bass, one of the guys from
00:36:44
Speaker
CNC Music Factory. Okay. Who else was there? Salt and Peppa. Salt and Peppa. But I think Vanilla Ice was like the main- I got some feedback on our discussion of the disco cruise, by the way. What was the feedback? And somebody said, texted me and said, by the way, the song your co-host referenced, Get Down On It, is by Cool and the Gang.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yes. Who are also headliners. So they're going to be on the cruise as well. Yes. Oh, my gosh. That is funny. So funny. It is going to be the 90s. Speaking of 90s stuff. But do you remember the band Naughty by Nature? Of course. Yeah. OK, I just ordered a bunch of clothes. I remember I forget. I watched I get I've been watching old 90s hip hop videos lately. Oh, my goodness. OK. And I saw the hoodies, the naughty by nature hoodies. Yeah. And I was like,
00:37:34
Speaker
I was like those are unreal I love that logo and so I was like what are the chances so I went on I googled it you can get and yeah tons of make ones yeah by nature as an actual website so I went to their store and I bought I bought two shirts a beanie and a hat.
00:37:52
Speaker
And don't forget, we have our website, seagagency.com, if you want to order some. Seagagency.com. That's right. For some of our merch. Let's keep selling here. But anyway. All right, man. Oh, boy. We should finish with a joke. You having a joke? I just did one. What was your job? I didn't even hear it. What was it? About Cool and the Gang and their being on the cruise. That's so awesome.
00:38:22
Speaker
Oh, all right, Tony, we will do this again. Actually, sorry. All right, Tony. Yes. We'll do this again in seven days. All right, Jody, I look forward to it. But you won't be with us. Surprise. I'm going to be. This is our new co-host. I'm going to be fired just like Elon is doing at Twitter. All right, buddy, have a good week. You too.