14 - In the Army Now

0:00

Hi everyone.

This is Jason and welcome to another episode of Intimate Discourse.

Today we're going to be talking about the state of Canada's military, the place for Canada's military in the world today, and we're best to position ourselves.

0:17

We'll be speaking about problems with recruitment and how to address those challenges going forward.

We'll be talking about wokism in the Canadian military.

And how that is currently instantiating and we've got a guest here who will help us sort through some of these issues and we're really happy that you can join us today in this exploration.

0:43

This episode was recorded on March 19th of 2023 in Toronto, Canada.

Thanks and enjoyed the show.

1:24

Hi everyone, welcome to the show.

My name is Jason and I'm here with Dimitri.

Hello everyone.

And a special guest we have today for you.

Would you like to introduce yourself, Sir?

Hello, I'm Richard.

I work with the Canadian Forces and recruiting in Western Canada and thank you for having me on the show.

1:43

We're happy to have you.

Very nice.

So we're going to spend some of the time here today talking about the state of the Canadian military.

And for you American listeners, yes, we do have one always keeping an eye out on South we it's very much modeled and correct me if I'm wrong, on the British military in a lot of aspects.

2:05

Yes, that's right.

And but yeah, you know.

I'm curious, I, I, I used to follow this a lot more than I did, but I'm curious where we are standing today in Canada.

I only hear sort of the negative side of things in terms of how we keep sort of reducing our our forces and this and that and but I I'm, you know I I really don't have anything.

2:28

I really don't know more than what I hear on the news and what I, you know sort of glean from that.

But you're sort of obviously an insider here and it would be great to get a better sort of inside perspective on that.

Well, you're right, We do have.

Issues with equipment and it's as always, it's been procurement that's been the problem.

2:46

So there's been a desire to obtain more newer equipment, especially aircraft and it's taking forever.

Now the ships are coming along, we are finally getting new ships and they suit Canada's needs.

They're not exactly straight up war fighting ships or their ships that you can use for anything whether it's.

3:09

Humanitarian missions or supporting combat roles, that kind of thing.

So they're really coming along with that nicely now.

We still have a lot of catching up to do and unfortunately it's slow going, it's we seem to really fall down when it comes to that.

3:29

Now the good news is.

Apparently there's not really much of A threat out there because the, you know, the one enemy we are afraid of showing that they can't fight.

And so if they can't take on a country that they can drive to, they certainly are coming for us anytime soon.

3:46

Well, they could always, you know, come over the north.

They're not coming over the North.

No, there's not gonna be a ton of submarines attacking the North.

No, no, no.

A couple of questions here.

Just on hardware, you mentioned the, the.

The fighters or that you're mentioning military jet fighters, Yeah, the jet fighters, are we still C F18?

4:05

Is that still the kind of?

It is.

It is for now, yes.

Didn't they have a big order to get some and recently and it kind of got kibosh a little.

It looks like it's going to finally happen.

I believe it's a F35 we're getting.

4:22

I have to check that.

Let's see.

It's a single engine jet and we'll be getting that.

And it's it's it's a much more current the CF Eighteens we we got in the 80s as like when Atari was big right?

4:38

Right.

Yeah, they've been hearing them for a while.

Well, but I yeah, what is the progression of, you know, jet aircraft?

I, you know, I still hear the what was it the F15 or they the Flying Eagle or whatever that was called like the what was the one Maverick flew in top that.

Was an F-14.

4:54

Was an F-14?

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah, those are cool.

But I think they still, you know, you still see that they still kind of have them, don't they?

Like, they don't really.

They're not like cars.

You need them to train people sometimes, right?

Like there's always A use for a jet.

So if you're doing a war game, you're going to have your op for your opposing force.

5:13

You want to maybe have dogfights with practice.

I don't know if they're still on aircraft carriers or not.

I haven't kept up with my.

Reki will say with with the on the American side with what they've got, but yes they still use some of those older aircraft F fifteens I think might even still be in use.

5:37

I believe they have used them for electronic.

They have electronic sensors using for electronics and electronic warfare.

Sometimes I have to check my facts again it's I didn't come prepared for that so.

Now, Richard, Richard, I have a question.

So this the technological.

5:54

Advances in these equipment, does it require more out of the pilots or less than 20 years ago?

I don't know.

I'm hoping less.

So are they?

Are they having a hard time filling these positions?

No, a lot of people want to be a pilot.

That's one of the one of the as somebody works in a recruiting.

6:13

That is one thing we see or there's more than enough people that want to be pilot.

Some of them to the credit are coming in with a lot of skills if it angled their entire life.

Towards becoming a pilot, some of them were in air cadets.

They got actual air hours, flight hours, flight time.

6:30

They've done training, so we have no problem filling the pilot position.

Okay, where's our deficiencies?

Our deficiencies?

Engineering, engineering and medical.

Trusting, engineering and medical.

6:46

And here's the thing.

Anyone.

Who has engineering and medical?

When they come to the Canadian Forces, they have to have a background in that already.

So you have to have an engineering degree, okay just to apply for.

If you want to be let's say a communication electronics engineering, the you have to have a degree.

7:07

So these people with degrees can work anywhere they want because this is a real skill that companies can use.

So they don't need to join the military.

A lot of people come the military coming because nobody else wants them.

Or they've we're paying more than they can make elsewhere.

7:23

Engineers, they can get jobs, medical people can get jobs.

There's a huge demand for them.

So that's what we're not getting.

Is this something that is experienced?

Sounds like a problem that would be experienced by other armed forces, like do the Americans have the same problem?

7:40

That's attracting high quality.

Most definitely.

But I think Americans a little bit more have a more favorable viewpoint of their own military than Canada does.

Can't we've?

We don't seem to be cool anymore.

I.

See the the Americans also have a huge population.

So now what we are getting now is we are allowing permanent residents to apply.

8:01

And a lot of permanent residents do have advanced degrees and are horribly underemployed.

For whatever reason.

So it's not uncommon to see someone with an engineer and they're working at some menial job.

Now is that engineering degree worth its weight or is it equivalent to a Canadian engineering degree And we use a service to check that to balance it and we see that they, they assure us it is.

8:28

So we have to trust that and we have no other, no other choice.

Well, that's the metric that's used is whether the.

Person who has the degree is claiming that it is the equivalent or is the service.

We have a service.

There's a service that does that.

8:44

It's called Wes.

And they compare, they compare, they verify that the person has a degree and they where they compare it.

They say they see where you got your degree from and they tell us what the Canadian equivalency is.

So a lot of times some people might have a degree.

9:01

And it comes back this is equivalent of a high school diploma.

So it's a cycle.

Okay.

Sorry.

You're not going to be an officer.

Yeah.

Yeah right.

And with the engineering's some of these are legitimate engineering degree and we're, you know okay this person's could be an engineer with us and you see what they do for a living and it's just like okay now I get while that's why they're joining the military.

9:25

So I guess pulling it back a little like.

What it would you know, this is sort of a bird's eye view.

What, in terms of Canada's current military readiness, would you identify that as the sort of #1 problem?

9:43

Is the problem obtaining specialists and or recruiting specialists?

No, I don't think so.

I think equipments are #1 problem we.

Are hampered by our ability to do things because of a lack of equipment.

10:01

They wanted us to go into Haiti and we just all of us were sitting around talking about them like with what what will we take right.

We just don't have the, we don't we don't have anything.

What do you mean to quit?

Like, maybe give some tanks?

Bullets.

Oh, really?

10:17

Right.

So we don't really need specialists to do this kind of thing.

What we need is gear.

Why is there a deficiency in that just budget?

I believe it's a procurement and budget.

And did we have more in the past?

10:33

We seem to.

When we were in Afghanistan, we did.

And even then we didn't have as much as the Americans.

For instance, if a Canadian Forces member lost his night goggles.

He wasn't going to have night gollicles.

Whereas Americans, they lose their night gollicles, they go to their quartermaster or whatever they call it, and they get new ones, right.

10:51

So there's a huge difference.

But we we need equipment.

Like a lot of people said, if we ever went to war, we'd probably want to have ammo the first day.

So wow.

And when we gave tanks and and gear to the Ukrainians were scrounging.

11:07

And is this a federal, so this would be a federal level?

Federal level.

Federal level and.

So like historically when you're in there, do you hear different things like if we had XYZ party in power, historically these issues didn't exist?

Like is it where are we at here?

11:23

How much can we I?

Joined when Harper.

I joined when Harper was in power.

And it was the same okay, right?

With Trudeau, we at least we have.

We at least we have ships coming now.

Now those might have been, might have been Harper that started that ball rolling.

I'm not sure.

11:39

To be honest.

I don't.

I don't know if Trudeau should get all the credit for that.

But it's there and we're happy and the it's it needs to be better.

11:56

And then again, maybe it doesn't.

Maybe there's nothing happening that we need to be involved with.

And maybe by keeping our military ineffective, it keeps us out of trouble.

So they say, hey, can you go here?

And we, we'd love to, but we can't.

We just, you know, we don't get the stuff, you know?

12:12

And that goes to the argument of, you know, Trump was always going on about how every all these NATO countries need to raise their GD or their military spending to what, 2% of GDP or whatever was supposed to be which.

You know, if you're signed on as a signatory to a, you know, a treaty, a good partner, that makes sense like to me, I mean, if we're doing that, then we would have the ability to at least.

12:35

More realistic numbers and follow through with them.

Yeah, Where is for example, like where are forces mostly deployed?

Like I know we have like 12 frigates for attack submarines.

I look this stuff up, you know, just in preparation for this.

It's like literally single digit.

Numbers.

Well, yeah.

For attacks it's like do we have any aircraft carriers or?

12:52

No, we we can't have an aircraft carrier.

Aircraft carriers require such a huge crew.

If we had one, all the other ships would probably be alongside.

Just a crew.

Right like so and and the Navy suffering from people more than any other branch in the Canadian Forces.

13:10

We are having a tremendous time getting people to join the Navy and it's it's this they coming up with a new program that's going to get fast track people in and we're a little worried about the background checks with that hopefully they don't make the.

You know, make the background checks too easy.

13:27

And would that be because at?

The same time?

You know it works for the Foreign Legion, so maybe it won't be that bad, right?

They just say, hey, you want joints.

Sir, What did you say your name was?

Write it down, OK?

You're that guy.

Yeah, mercenaries.

You know, so I don't know it's.

We'll give you citizenship if you're willing to take a bullet.

13:45

But the but the but the new Navy program is going to see people.

Signing up.

And the plan is to have them in uniform within a month.

Wow.

So considering it takes six months now often or more, that's a that's a big.

14:00

Jump and when they first get into a uniform, so obviously we're not in a war, So what are they doing on a daily basis?

That's a really good question.

I don't know.

So then maybe it's not so bad if they're like, well, I got a uniform but I don't have to do much.

Anyways, it's.

Going to be a.

Try it and if you like it stay kind of thing.

14:17

So they're going to give you general duties you're going to work with different departments see what trade feels good and you'll you'll after a year you're you can either say so it's not for me and leave or hey this is this is this is great I'd like to be a naval communicator or sonar operator or.

14:38

Something, and would you say like the bulk of the military recruits has always been white men, right?

It has, yeah.

Yeah.

So the level of interest in the military career has been much less for other groups.

A lot of it is cultural.

A lot of them don't see the military as something that is a career.

14:56

It's something they're forced into if they, you know.

True.

And when you come from as an immigrant, a lot of these countries have mandatory conscription.

So like, well, I did my two years or one year somewhere, why would I make a career out of this?

Right.

So it's you have that, so there's a.

Some, some of them, for instance, there was a group of Chinese soldiers that were Chinese Canadians who were appealing.

15:21

They go to Chinese community and explain what the Canadian Armed Forces does and and that it is a legitimate career.

Because, you know, to the Hong Kong Chinese people, that's just like you don't go into the military unless you're you're a loser and you have nothing.

No other choice well.

15:36

It's like the back in the day, like the trades.

You know you have dyslexia.

Go do this trade.

You know you drop out a great 10 and off you go.

Exactly.

And a lot of them don't even realize you There's so much to do now.

A lot of the new Canadians don't want to be soldiers.

They want to be administrators.

Yeah, right then.

15:53

We were not getting a lot of people that actually want to be combat arms.

And that that's a that's a bit of a problem too, right?

Everybody wants to be an officer, Everybody wants to be sit at a desk.

Yeah.

So tons of pilots, tons of people wanting to be intelligence officers, and you know, very few people want to command command tanks.

16:16

Is there I know under the American armed forces cyber as a individual, one of the individual like divisions?

Is Canada doesn't have that right?

It's Navy, Air Force, we've got well, we've got the cyber and we have the cyber command, the border what is it called the?

16:35

CSC Communications.

Yeah, something.

Yeah, it's.

CSC I believe it's called.

Yeah, communication security is establishment or something like that, yeah.

So there's that but the military also have a cyber operator group.

These people actually are they do cyber defense but they also do offensive cyber, right, right.

16:55

And that's that's a growing, we're growing that, it's, it's fairly new, we're growing it and we're getting a lot of people because a lot of people want the experience.

So there is so there is an interest in that.

But you got to be good.

17:12

Do you do you think that maybe the way things are going in terms of people not wanting to command tank divisions is because, you know, war is sort of evolving that way, like now you have more cyber wars like this, this, you know, the the Russia, Ukraine thing is almost like an anomaly, like you just don't see, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't see that kind of like actual war happen much anymore like in in Europe or in.

17:37

Oh no.

When that fights, they fight, right?

Like if you go anywhere where there's a hot spot, Yeah, you need that.

You need boots on the ground, you need artillery, machine guns and tanks, right?

If you're fighting an enemy that doesn't have computers, what's hacking going to do for?

That's a good point.

17:52

Yeah, right.

I get a.

Sock into the Afghan, it's.

Amazing.

Like low tech can go far away, yeah.

The drones, I think it's going to be a big thing that gets bigger and bigger unmanned.

But we still need the combat arms now.

Well, the problem is, is a lot of people think of the military is something to do for now and they want a skill that they can use when they come out, right.

18:15

So driving a tank.

So I'm gonna do you very well.

It's like ran well.

Remember the first blood at the end was like I used to drive a tank.

Who a billion dollars worth of equipment in Afghanistan?

No, I can't even write a but drive a bus.

For that that the ending part, we cries.

It's really sad.

It's a, you know, and it's it's you know he was a Vietnam vet.

18:33

But that was the point was I had all these skills.

Yeah, that was commanding people.

Right now I can't even be part of regular society.

And these are the movies that again, I hate to be more so typical.

When you're an immigrant abroad and you want the picture of America, you're gonna get your information in where you can, including movies.

18:50

So what?

How is this something?

How is this something that is for instance like?

How can this despair?

How can this be addressed, this, this kind of lack of interest in Canadian military?

Is it a patriotic thing?

19:05

Is it a?

Like where is the describe the?

What they need to do, I think, is stop making it look fun on their advertisements and make it look like hard work.

It worked for the Afghanistan ads with the black and white.

19:20

Fight fear, fight chaos, fight with the Canadian Forces.

Every scene look miserable, every scene look hard.

It, you know, the weather was bad in every scene and we had no sort of applicants, but we also had a kind of a war we believed in, which also helped.

19:38

And that's a huge issue when there's a when there's a threat, we tend to get more recruits and there's no threat, people start saying, well, why do we need military for anyway, right?

That question has come up.

19:54

The NDP has raised that question right, right.

And we have trouble getting people.

The the other thing is you want people wanting a challenge.

Those are the best people going back to our earlier They're the ones that stay, right?

20:12

Yeah.

Don't, don't don't advertise it as skills for the future or anything like that because it's not.

There's so many things you think you're going to get qualified, qualified qualifications that you could take.

Like if you're a naval warfare officer, for instance, you're on a ship.

Many none of the things you learn other than maybe the sea time are going to be accepted by the civilian world.

20:33

It's just not.

You're going to have to do it all again.

Same with our vehicle text.

I don't even think they can be.

You know you get mechanical skills, but I don't.

You'll have to go to school and get your certificate still, because it's not going to be a certificate.

So what, you argue then?

It's just better we should just keep a really like?

20:50

Per capita, really small but really specialized armed forces.

Be known at something, be good at, like you know, if you want espionage or tech or something, and just really focus on one thing cuz it sounds like we're a Jack of all trades, master of none.

Have something that you can scale fast when you need to have the ability to build it fast.

21:10

When we were two started, we went from having a small Navy to the 4th largest one in the world very quickly.

It'd be nice to be able to do something like that.

Why have we lost that capacity?

Well.

We don't do manufacturing here on that level anymore, right?

So, so hard to justify.

21:26

I mean there's thirty what is it, 35 million in Canada or something people.

And then we have this massive border to defend.

True, but the to be able to scale up nearly a 75 to 100 years ago so quickly and not have that ability today.

Like you wonder sometimes you look at the pyramids and go how could we fall back?

21:44

Technological or societal or economic progress is really.

Not consistent like you.

You have to stay at it all the time or you can regress.

So this sounds like we've regressed greatly in our in that particular.

Capacity shooting ourselves in the foot too, because when you have something like Afghanistan and people see this and they they see that we went there, died, come back with PTSD and all sorts of, you know, damage in her heads.

22:11

And when I say us, I mean the military, I didn't go.

But.

And then we just walk away from it and it reverts right back to where it was like nothing happened.

And we think okay, what's the point?

Memory.

22:27

You know, why?

Why would I want to do that?

And why would anyone want to do that?

Yeah, you can't blame them, right.

We clearly wasted everybody's time and lives.

Yeah, I guess ultimately and ultimately.

So, you know, when the political climate changes or people, we just, you don't get bored and go home.

22:46

I think, well, what am I fighting for?

What am I doing?

Gran Torino, you guys see it was a Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood movie.

And he has like the nice, I think it's a Korean family next door to him.

And he's still kind of like lost his, like, you know, I, you know, defended my country against you people and all that sort of stuff, right.

23:02

Or at least our values.

And then, you know, to the poor man's, you know, dismay like couple decades later, the people that he was told were the enemy are moving in next door.

Yeah, like that gets in your head because you're totally Gramp up, Be ready to die.

These people are your enemy.

23:18

Oh, and by the way, in the couple decades, their their ancestors will be your neighbors.

Well, that's a hard thing.

And that's the IT wasn't the immigration today and just the globalized world we live in.

But even in this case, it's like literally when you think of Afghanistan, I mean, it wasn't really that long ago.

And then you have like, you know, it's really the same situation, like the Taliban are in charge there now, just as they were before.

23:38

And it's like.

You can.

Except we're taking them seriously now because we couldn't.

Meet them.

And.

And now that's almost like they're legitimized.

Yeah, yeah, fortunately.

Again, low tech wins and they have.

They have their country and the light.

They don't look at, they don't.

23:55

They don't look at things when they go to war, they look at it.

How many generations is this gonna take?

Exactly.

We look at it.

How many years is this gonna take?

And an insurgency war takes a long time.

Like it takes decades.

And we're talking in the older the culture, the more.

24:13

A fan of their own history.

They are meaning like the more like OK, we've been here for like 3000 years as a culture so this will be a 50 year period.

OK, let me ask you this, cuz I've wondered about this too, because I always thought there was something to this idea that, OK, we went into Afghanistan and I'll say we Canadian and America and the West or whatever.

24:32

Yeah, and so like.

You know, was the war justified in the 1st place?

But more than that, should we have left?

Because how long?

Like, what do you think?

Like were we right to pull out of there or it should it have been done better or more smoothly or?

I don't know.

It's beyond my pay grade to to answer that.

24:49

I I think some people say some of the combat arms people who would have a better head for this than I would, they say we should have defeated the Taliban, then built up the country.

Right.

Instead of trying to do everything at once.

25:05

But it's a Taliban an idea as much as it is a insurgency kind of army.

It is.

And there's also it also more.

It also something that kind of grows and expands because they they, you know, they can go to someone and say, do you want to make some money?

Yeah, here's an AK and you know, a magazine fire, fire fired at a truck driving by a Full Auto and here's some money and this is somebody that doesn't, you know, they just.

25:30

They're broke.

They need money.

They don't care either way and they do it.

So it's it was a mess.

And I think, I think the only way you either do that is you smash the hell out of them to begin with, or you just plan on staying a very long time and literally wait for the generation to change.

25:51

All sort of change, yeah, for sure.

Get, get, get them the Internet.

That would be, that would be.

And you can't Just like, it's a little ego or like, I don't know, hubris.

Like we're gonna go in and build bridges and they're gonna love us.

No, no, not really.

Not yet.

And what do you.

That's what.

What do they even care about a bridge right now?

26:07

You know, they have other concerns.

It's an amazing story where they installed a water pump, right?

The women in a village would go and they would walk, you know, an hour to a well.

And an hour or so back and it would take a big portion of the day.

26:24

So you know the West in all their wisdom decided to put a well right in the middle of the village.

Well, they destroyed it and it found out the women destroyed it because they their walk to the well to get their water was the best part of their day.

26:40

They're free of all the men and everything like that.

And we we're thinking we're.

Helping and you need to know the cultural nuances, right?

For sure.

That's just our like, of course you need water.

Who doesn't need water?

Well, like like, really get into the.

That shows our ignorance in terms of, like, the cultural.

26:56

Exactly, yeah, exactly.

And but you know, we had enough time to figure that out.

Well, how many years that we was America there for.

A long time.

Decade plus.

We know they had 30, are 30 militaries in Afghanistan.

Like everyone says, what's Canada doing there?

27:11

Well, everybody's there.

What's Mongolia doing there?

Mongolia was Mongolia, Romania was there.

They had Mongolia.

They had soldiers from Tonga.

There coalition of the willing, but it was.

Everybody was there so.

That was quite something, though, watching the airplanes take off and people falling off the airplanes.

27:31

So dramatic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

And they were literally working with the Taliban cooperating and okay, let's just do this.

It's hard.

It's hard to defeat a culture.

You literally have to be so slow.

27:48

And cuz the other thing about putting a well in is even if it does satisfy a need, at a certain point the average person is going to be like, yeah, but they're just trying to bribe us to like them and so how do you help without coming off as a bribe?

You know, you'd literally have to have their own people involved in the decision making process.

28:05

You know one thing that would work, though?

If you can make a country prosperous, you can make it peaceful, right?

Right.

There's the underlying.

Conditions to fight when you have money.

Underlying condition with all of these places is poverty, right?

28:22

When you have nothing to lose, you're willing to pick up a gun.

And that's why, I guess we've been lucky over here.

There's been no revolution because we got too much to lose.

We're too comfortable.

Yeah, but then we, you know, not to divert again and we won't go.

But like the whole like Freedom Convoy, those people were on their last straw.

28:39

People don't recognize that, you know, you're about to lose your job.

Like those were desperate people who wrote their Mp's, did everything they could and basically said fuck it, I can't do anything more.

And that's what we get.

Result.

Yeah, they were people that were hurting, right?

So when the people in Afghanistan join these sort of like Taliban groups, they're actually joining it from a position of power, powerlessness and pain.

29:02

Yeah, yeah, I believe that.

There's the religion part of it too, obviously.

But I do believe there's people joining a lot of this and, you know, certainly with the communists.

Revolutions we've seen that was out of that as some of these people that countries had communist revolutions.

29:18

The people weren't really communists, they just that was the best chance of sorting things out in a in a more favorable way.

What kind of a role do you think that Canada or the USI guess, you know, speaking like from Canadians like the reason we probably don't spend an inordinate amount of money on our military is just because we're relatively safe geographically.

29:40

We've got the states right there like.

You know, protected by a few oceans is how much of it like, you know, we went to Afghanistan, World War One, World War Two.

Like, you know, we were, we were there a lot of the time sort of fighting bravely.

But do we in this sort of in the world we live in now, do you think it's.

29:59

Would sort of pay for us to be more isolationist?

Like should we just sort of conserve our military for our defense?

Or should is it worth it to go and spend money on other foreign wars?

That would be more cost effective.

The taxpayers are probably like that.

It would be easier to staff.

30:16

There's a lot of benefits to doing that and a lot of countries too.

You don't, you know, you don't see, you know Sweden sending their Navy, you know right over around the world or anything like that.

But but then you're going to have to accept that you're not you're not a big player anymore.

So there's there's that, but you there, there are advantages to that kind of mindset just protect your borders and.

30:42

Hey, that that might be the way forward, right.

Right.

And you know, but you, you got to remember there's also Canadian interests that are worldwide as well.

And also, you know, you might want to be able to help your allies.

So having a blue water fleet that can sail to New Zealand and help if there's an earthquake there could be a good thing.

31:04

If we're able to help when we get there, which is also sometimes questionable, we use.

Our humanitarian responses are using so can be effective.

The reward in this is really keeping our Commonwealth connections alive.

Yeah, does that, yeah.

Really.

Yeah.

31:20

Cuz did they do favors?

Do you know if there's favors back and forth?

Well, if you send your ships.

Yeah, the coalition of the willing.

Wasn't that what they called the originally in Afghanistan cuz nobody actually wanted?

Or maybe we'll give your big the big, the big, the big company that you know Jen puts all the money into the pension, a nice a nice contract or something.

31:38

Right, so there's.

Always.

There's I wonder what the net behind it.

I wonder what the net just like the royal family like like how much they cost the taxpayers and how much do they actually bring into.

Right.

Yeah wonder what the net economic.

Results are of having a Canadian military like this.

Well, when I just hear like when Richard is talking about like the sort of paucity of resources and we're, you know, we're scrounging to send equipment to Ukraine and meanwhile we have this, you know, massive, you know, sort of shortage of personnel and everything to defend.

32:11

Sort of the homeland or whatever.

It's like there's a seems to be a priority mismatch.

You know, like as you're, you know at the end of the day, it's the same way and the same way that a company is beholden to its stockholders.

It's like, you know, a country is beholden to its taxpayers, right?

Is it because if your main enemy, the main country that you consider a threat, is in a state of war, and you have the ability to supply your gear to a country that's fighting it in a way you're indirectly fighting, it might be one of the better ways to actually do it.

32:43

Maybe, yeah.

You think about it, right?

Because because we're, let's face it, that's who we're worried about.

We're worried about Russia.

Name names we're worried about aren't.

We worried about China more than we're worried about Russia.

About Iran.

We're worried about China.

We're worried about North Korea, North Korea, because the guy might just be stupid enough to actually literally do something.

33:02

China, I think, is probably the smartest set of all them and the least likely to actually do open war.

I don't think they see open war as good for business and.

Making their country prosperous is their that is their primary goal.

33:18

That is, their priority is, as it should, keeping people prosperous in China.

So if war isn't going to do that, they're not going to go to war.

Yeah, right.

I've had that debate before of a client who's a of that background Chinese and he's like, you know, prosper, prosper.

Money is everything.

33:33

I was like, I don't maybe I'm just a weird, I'm like, no, I was like culture is everything.

You got a good culture.

You'll make money.

But I don't know if they he really, it was like I was speaking a completely different language.

Well, prospering is also like, you know, prospering.

You know you have the money, then you can build the culture.

33:51

True.

Well, or or you lose your culture in the process of, you know, I just find it very interesting.

His focus was on the dollars and cents, right?

And I was like, screw the CPP in OAS if it means like the country's going to be in better hands.

I can live without it.

I'll suffer the next cuz that's not what going to war is.

34:08

You're going to suffer to make the next generation survive, right?

If I simply took a prosperous aspect and said, well, as long as I'm OK right now, screw the future.

That would be really short term thinking.

But they are about, they are about looking after the elderly there, that the older people in Chinese, the older people are the priority, right?

34:28

It's the kids job to look after the parents.

Yeah, I know they have a.

Great.

So they have, they have a mindset.

Plus, when have you ever seen China take over another country?

That's not how they do.

Things best.

Well, Tibet, you know, they really Taiwan soon.

Well, that's and that's where it's gonna get interesting.

34:45

Yeah.

And China is already an amalgamation of many countries at some point in time.

And then you have Japan ramping up their military like they've never done before since World War Two.

And I remember China does not like Japan.

There's a.

To say there's a bit of bad blood would be an understatement, right?

35:02

That is a country that I could see China getting mad enough to go after.

Yeah, that would be you don't want that.

That would be bad because there would be emotion.

And the Koreans, I think, would be a little bit of, like, ambivalent about who they're going to sign with, you know, because.

The while Korea is would be on America's side, South Korea be on America's side.

35:22

Full stop, right?

North Korea.

I think North Korea is as dangerous as they are.

I think they would be completely incompetent and ineffective.

I think South Korea is the only people that really got to worry about North Korea.

And if America ever got worried or scared, God help them all because I honestly think they could.

35:41

They could little America if America really wanted to.

They could smash Russia, China, and North Korea all at once instantly.

I don't even think it'd be if I think it would be.

Everyone thinks that they have it.

These countries have a chance.

Russia's proven they can't fight.

They can't even take a country on their border, right?

35:59

America took Iraq in what for?

They took Baghdad in four days.

And Iraq having the largest Millet, 4th largest military in the world at the time and.

And not really their natural tree, right the. 4th largest military knows.

36:15

How to fight?

They know all their gear works.

They know how to fight back.

It'd be China be like.

Somebody learning to fight virtually by watching YouTube videos, getting into a boxing match with Mike Tyson in his prime, right.

Like, that's what it's Do you think America's military still in its prime?

36:33

America.

America's.

No, it's not in its prime.

But they're still awesome, right?

Right.

And their heads and heads and shoulders better than anyone.

Else.

Anyone else?

Anyone else.

They got more.

They're better.

They know how it works.

And.

36:50

You know, they just, they have the numbers, they have the passion, you know they.

And they have the geographic locally, they have the best geography possible.

But they can take the fight to your door.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't matter if you're on the other side.

They will show up and they'll take your country.

So why Japan had to all but eliminate their Western fleet, you know, when they did Pearl Harbor?

37:10

Because it's like that's that's their they, you know, as soon as that military machine grinds up and starts like churning out like, you know, tanks and jets and everything like that, it's like game over.

It's just a matter of time.

I'm really interested to see where the Japanese military are going with with all the modifications, because you know, it's going to be high tech.

37:29

Right.

And I I wanna, I'm hoping.

There's a little bit of a stereotype there.

Richard, I'm hoping that.

I'm hoping.

Coming out Samurai styles.

I'm hoping the younger generation gets switched on.

You know, like they, you know, the younger people in all countries seem to be a lot weaker and less they have less spirit, we'll say and that's Canada, that's US, that's everywhere.

37:51

And I'd like it'd be interesting to see if if Japan can kind of.

You know, get things going a bit.

I know United States, for instance, they have shortages in special forces because people just aren't fit enough.

Oh, really?

38:06

So they still maintain the same standards?

Like all this, special forces are sort staff.

Would you say the American military complex you know is is less, for lack of a better word, or sorry, put it this way, more merit oriented than we are still?

I can't tell.

38:22

I don't know I.

But they have the patriotism still.

They still have a lot of people that want to serve.

They have that that passion.

They have people that, you know, their family serve.

They're going to serve, yeah, you know, despite despite maybe having other skills.

It's like there's no not going in the military for some people.

38:41

They really, honestly believe in it.

Yeah, the rhetoric today, like just from a from a citizen's point of view and having stepping away, stepped away from the country for 10 years and you come back and you kind of can feel a shift, like this isn't the same place I left.

And it was just 10 years.

Like why would anyone the what I feel like people would say today.

38:59

I can almost hear it coming off like a Trudeau, like leaders Lips is like why would anyone want to defend such a rotten, racist country like Canada?

Well, we're not that racist.

I know, but that's how they that they.

I totally agree.

Obviously the marching feet of immigrants will tell you that, but that's how they sell it, you know, And so all of a sudden, if you're willing to die for a flag because that flag meant something.

39:23

But now you're told that flag, what it actually means is colonialism and the corporation of Canada.

And like you said, why to go to Afghanistan and lose your let's say I was limb or something and then find out five years later that was all a waste.

We are definitely, it's really demoralized, right?

39:39

Yes.

And there are going to be people that that see it that way and they're not going to join us, but we still get people that want to join because they do believe in Canada and.

They're they're out there.

And we also have even even new Canadians and permanent residences we have you know there's sometimes there's that optimism and I like it when I see that we had our.

40:05

And As for wokism, sometimes it works because our we have the Canadian Forces aptitude test which is a test to determine your suitability for the Canadian Forces and it's it's it's challenging.

Nobody ever gets perfect.

40:21

If you get perfect, you're kind of considered a genius.

We had one person get perfect.

I've seen one person get perfect and it was a woman.

Nadia Komenich.

And she had a we were.

I was looking at her education background, PhD in physics, Okay, PhD.

40:41

All right.

And I'm like this is this this person's going to, you know they're going to send her to space.

They're going to put her on posters.

You know it's going to be you know she's going in as pilot and tremendous skills.

And then I notice on the application sex M she was trans.

41:02

She was trans and she hit the well that explains a PhD in physics.

I'm being is optimistic here but but you know you look at a graduating physics class and it's mostly men.

Right.

You don't see many women and it's.

41:18

But you would say it was good they hired such a person, right?

Or that someone felt comfortable.

Yeah, to do it, I have no cuz the merit is there.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that was and she was coming in on all skill that this was not political.

Yeah, right.

41:34

And I I think we're going to be seeing more of her.

And all the more and all the more respect, cuz the mountain that person had to climb.

But harder than the average person.

Yeah, so you got like determination.

Like they can see everything through to the end.

Yeah, but you're right.

Like it's not whether there are trans or not, it's whether they actually have merits or not.

41:52

I wish this stuff would become as as boring as hair color.

Yeah, like really like we don't have enough blondes in the army.

Like just be absurd, right?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I see what you're saying.

Like, well, it's.

Go on the merit of the person, not how it looks officially.

Well, so, but, but I'm just trying to think so.

42:08

It's funny that they put AM on their application if they're so are you saying they were born a man and they're like transition to a woman and now they're saying, oh, I'm actually man?

I'm wondering if the application because apparently she had applied some time ago and I'm thinking maybe it switched it during the process.

42:27

That's something you didn't?

Yeah, that's a it's just a loophole upside.

Down, man.

Don't worry.

About it, Yeah, it's interesting.

She was, she was.

We were all very impressed and everybody wanted to meet her because it's just you don't see that.

You don't see those.

Yeah, I I it swells my heart with pride and joy.

42:45

You know, like it's like who is this kick ass person?

Yeah, you know.

It's like on Jeopardy, Amy Schneider, who is she's like a trans woman.

But everybody was like, and it was like a champion for like, I don't know, 38 weeks or something crazy.

And it was like, finally we have a female, female Jeopardy champion.

43:02

It's like, well, it's actually.

But the point is, this person didn't take themselves as a victim, and that's what I absolutely admire at all.

Exactly.

You're listening, went in.

So if they can do it, everyone can do it.

So why do why do we have to drop?

Are we dropping standards then for like?

43:19

Yeah, we have.

We have the Guinea pig.

It can be done.

We.

Did drop the standards and and for for a while.

Now the new fiscal year is having new standards right and some of them are up again and I think it's because they they had a deluge of like bad apples coming in with very bad scores but for a while.

43:41

If you were a woman and or a visible minority, you can come and blow your nose on the Canadian Forces aptitude test and we would try to find you a job, whereas if you were a white male you had to hit the standard.

Selecting anybody for race, whether in a positive or negative way, wouldn't that be racism?

43:59

It is.

But we, unlike other government departments, we are very white.

And we are very male and I think there's a, you know, to reflect can a Canadian society, we need to maybe try to fix that, but I don't think it's something that can be forced unfortunately.

44:17

I agree with you completely.

But do you know, I believe I heard this before about China.

They have, obviously, they try to say that they're all Chinese, but there's many different types of, I don't know, like how many languages do they have there more than right.

So that indicates the diversity of Asians that live in China that are considered by the government Chinese.

44:35

But they actually would have quadrants of neighborhoods mandated to be in the racial breakdown of the society at large.

So you wouldn't get like A1 suburb that's known as Little Italy or another suburb as Little Portugal.

Be like, well, if 10% of Canada's Italians and 18% black and 15% Chinese, we want every single sector of the new suburbs being built to be reflective of that percentage.

45:01

So society everywhere you went reflected in the micro version, the macro diversity of the country.

So when I hear that.

But China could do that.

I don't think we could ever, but I don't.

But they're kind of trying to do that.

45:18

It's the same idea, like what we needed to reflect society at large.

It's pretty much the same thing, and I don't disagree with it in theory.

It's what you said.

It's like the forcing it on the.

Camera forcing it, Yeah.

And and trying to fake it.

You're faking it because here's the other thing.

45:34

So you have all these people that are visible minorities and and women joining and with substandard scores that that's probably going to be the easiest tests they ever do.

Are they going to get through the training system or are we going to lower those tests as well?

Right.

So my I have two theories.

45:51

One, they might they might just lower everything.

Put them in uniform and give them a job where they can't do any damage or they might just let them in.

Say, hey, look at all these, you know, wonderful diverse people.

46:07

We recruited, we recruited X amount of, you know, visible minorities.

Aren't we great?

Pat ourselves on the back?

But, you know, by the way, none of them passed.

But we'll leave that part out, right?

Yeah, right.

Well, it's, you know, you're lowering the, you know, I think Canadians have a expectation that their military, well really that any government department is going to be of a certain level.

46:29

And you know, I don't even think people would consider that, consider that it would be worthy to to lower that level just so that we can meet some racial quota or or gender quota or whatever.

And I'd be interested to know if these people would want that.

46:47

Right.

Would you want to get a job knowing that's why how you got?

It I'd slap them silly.

Probably not.

I don't think they would.

Well, some people, I mean would want a job, you know, regardless, right.

Like, I mean I can see you might want to take advantage of it if you have the, if you have the ability.

I guess if it's that between that and not working.

47:03

Yeah, yeah, right.

You have to be pretty low to accept that as your as your mechanism of allowing you to move up though.

Yeah, like if your life is gonna have meaning.

Of course people need a little help here and there.

But to like I heard this about the Ivy League schools in the states.

47:21

They want to have the breakdown racially of their graduates, of their admissions and graduates, exactly a society.

So they've actually broken it down this percentage of this, this percentage of that male, female on and on.

And when they don't get those applications that meet the SAT scores, they start accepting, they start accepting people into the program.

47:43

Of the missing quadrants of the racial breakdown they're looking for who haven't even written the Sats.

Wow.

So now they're graduating, they're getting hired by Google and stuff, and Google's like, this diploma doesn't actually mean much, but they're from the right school.

47:58

So we'll give them a pseudo IQ test.

We'll call it something else, but it's really an IQ test, and if they can pass it, then we'll just train them ourselves here.

They've lowered their own brand that way.

Yeah, exactly.

And if you wanted a single mechanism to destroy a culture?

Could be getting rid of merit.

Yeah.

48:14

And so this is the problem I have with wokism.

It's not that it has a bad idea.

Like, it's inherently just just bad.

There's some good in it.

It's that it's infected nearly every branch of society.

And so if evangelical Christianity, you could say there's some good to it or bad, I really don't care.

48:32

But I wouldn't want it to be installed as a de facto ethos in every single branch of society.

So why does this one?

New philosophy.

Let's call it ethos.

Get to be the de facto you're all either all in or all out, because at a certain point you're going to tap out and go, you know what, I just can't go any further.

48:48

This and Jason's going to say the same thing, and your wife might say something else and your mother might say something else.

It doesn't really matter.

When the problem is as soon as you decide you're no longer in, you're completely all out.

That's really fascist.

Yes, it is.

Right.

So then it's forcing you to stay in.

49:05

So then if I accept that job based on color, I'm being part of that.

Cloud of like a singular thought that it says it's diverse, but the second you try to diverge from that, it's not actually it's diverse in everything that matters.

It not matters.

It's not diverse in thought.

49:21

And it's having an opposite effect.

I mean, you get basically you're getting a mental backlash all the way through with it and everybody I work with.

Nobody likes it, right?

49:38

Nobody, nobody believes in this.

And if we voted nationally on this, whether you'd ask about bathrooms or whatever the topic du jour is, nobody would actually agree to.

It we vote nationally on it, though, and people still vote Trudeau in.

I mean, I there was a big part of like his platform, you know, especially the same.

49:55

If you didn't, you want to say OK the first time around, you didn't want to do it with the second and third time around.

It's like.

So you think that's affirmation of focus?

Yeah, I think, yeah, of course it validates it.

I mean, and I think maybe it's not maybe if you.

Took that one issue and asked everybody individually.

You'd get a lower amount, but overall it didn't matter to enough people to not vote him in again.

50:14

Well, to Richard's point, we're a pretty prosperous country and I think people simply overlook those things as long as their pockets are lying.

Yeah, maybe.

I think that's where we're at.

Here's the other issue is there's a lot of people that make a living sniffing out problems like racism and stuff like that now and if they don't find it.

50:31

Well, you know we don't need you now.

So it's it's it's very witch hunty.

Yeah.

And so sometimes they'll take a very.

Religion.

They take a very small thing and blow it up.

Huge, yeah.

Right.

Oh, the new words you every day.

You turn on like you can't say what's the new one now you say you gypped me.

50:49

Come on, we all grew up saying that as a kid.

And that's what be bad, because you're referring to Gypsies who are Roma, you know, like.

Say, oh, there's white supremacists and the Canadian Forces, OK, there were a couple of, you know, numpties that were part of.

Sons of Odin or something like that.

You know, and these were, these were Rangers out in the middle of nowhere.

51:07

And I mean Rangers work with a lot of First Nation people.

So obviously they maybe they weren't, were they were.

Culturally.

Sensitive.

Maybe they weren't as sensitive as sensitive.

Or maybe they maybe they weren't as racist as we we like to think they were.

51:23

You know if you work around you know other other cultures all the time or culture that's not yours and.

Anyway, and so they say, oh, they're afraid of white supremacists, right, White supremacists in the military.

They're investigating it.

They're, you know, looking into it.

51:39

There's all these, you know, research, there's a researcher coming in on to look into into it and I'm thinking, okay there.

So there was like what two guys in the in in the Sons of Odin out of all that they that they found.

51:54

And then there was that reservist that was part of the base.

And I think he probably scared people more than any of the other guys did.

But I mean, that's not a big problem when you think of it percentage wise.

And they tried to extrapolate that over all white men there.

Yeah, like, they really, they're really worried about it and.

52:12

That's like you're calling every Indian and Pakistani person a Taliban.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

Like, why would that wouldn't be acceptable?

So they're not, they're not coming right out and saying it, but they're definitely, they've got microscopes on us and everything and.

You know, it'd be interesting to see what they say, but on the backside you're getting a lot of people that are.

52:33

They're not caring as much, they're tired of walking on egg shells and they're not playing the game anymore.

You mentioned some standards were gonna be shifting.

These are I assume like test standards or something like that.

52:49

When is that like what precipitated that?

Like you know what I mean, Why are they doing that?

A lot of it's based on demand for the trade.

So if there's a trade that everybody's applying for let's say intelligence officer, they put the demand, they will put the demand that the the level they'll set it higher.

53:09

I see right now something like an engineer, they need engineers all the last four is you have an engineer degree.

If you don't do well on the on the Canadian Forces aptitude test, we will.

Take a look at you anyway, right, and we'll see.

53:26

If you don't have a lot of competition, you might get in.

All right, is there.

Does the race or the like gender of the applicant figure at all into the hiring process?

For a lot of these, I suspect it does.

53:45

When you have when all things are equal, I think it will.

I honestly think you will have a better, a better shot if you're a visible minority or a woman in something.

In some cases, for instance, at a recruiting center, you know, one of one of the people got hired was a white male.

54:05

And I was really surprised.

I mean, they hired a white male and they said, well, nobody else applied, right?

They didn't want a white male.

Right, right.

But that was the only person that applied.

So they got a, you know, the new, the new, the new recruit recruiting officer was a white male.

54:23

So white male intelligence officers are probably less likely to like they're probably, you know, since you have a surplus and people applying for that job that the pool of nonwhites are much higher and therefore.

Right.

54:39

But they do look at, they do look at everything.

Apparently so.

Who makes these decisions?

Like who are the ones?

Based on there's a the Canadian Forces recruiting group will determine who the how to evaluate an applicant, right?

54:58

So there'll be scores.

So the Canadian Forces have to test as part of it, right?

There's a personality test that's part of it and then your education will be factored in.

Right.

So certain levels of degrees are certain levels and certain degrees are more desirable than others.

55:15

So that's that's all taken into account.

Also your leadership, your leadership experience, right.

And also what we got with it, especially the intelligence world is we have a lot of people applying with social science degrees and these people are older.

55:34

And they can't make it anywhere that well with their sisters.

They're, you know useless social science degree and they want to be an intelligence officer.

They probably think it's glamorous.

It's not.

And they they end up applying and you know, so we get a lot of, we get a lot of, you know, old people out of shape people going into that branch.

55:54

It's it's kind of become the dumping ground to be honest because it's one of the only branches where they will take any degree and.

They will.

They will give you a you can have a degree in underwater basket weaving and have a have a shot at it.

56:10

But isn't that the one they'd be more selective of because there's they have more people applying to do it or is that or that is that all the?

Majority you can't honestly hope so you know we're going to find out, right?

Because we just started doing this and you know they're not through the system yet.

So we'll see how these people do the other the other trade that a lot of people could do with any degree is.

56:33

Like the Combat Arms trades and Naval Warfare officer, which is work on a ship.

Nobody wants to do that.

They don't want to do the hard stuff.

They want the nice desk job inside with the air conditioning.

I'm surprised because I would think, like, you know, when I was a kid, it was like it was kind of you would want to be there.

56:49

I mean, when you said fire pilots like one of the top ones, but like, I would think you'd want to be a soldier or something.

Like I wouldn't want to get it, Like if I wanted a desk job, I just get a desk job is.

Any office.

Is the promotion path quicker in combat?

Yeah.

See, that's how that's how they get.

You it is you if you're if you're if you're hardly.

57:05

If you're combat arms or a naval warfare officer.

You're a hard leader and these are the people that will go up the ranks faster and but this is somebody that wants to stay in the military.

Now if you're looking just to build your skills so you have something to take the civilian world you know different different.

57:23

You're not going to want to lead an artillery team or an artillery battery the.

You want cyber operator so you have the computer skills or something like that or the telecom, the telecommunication related people, that sort of thing.

57:39

To me one of the best ones would be cook.

You can get your red seal right and a lot of our cooks get pilfered by.

You know oil.

Steven Seagal come work at our oil rig for 50 bucks an hour.

And Oh yeah, the military but.

The the Wasn't that Steven Seagal?

Oh yeah, yeah.

57:56

Like you never seen before.

Yeah.

I doubt that happen a seal becoming a cook?

No.

No.

Could you, could you just diverting back do you think in a sense I just had his thought what you were talking could wokeism be the ultimate PR mechanism for the army so that when we go across and do atrocities we have this amazing?

58:17

Congruency between the media and the government messaging and the military that then we don't get backlash like the Americans had with the Vietnam War.

Like imagine that cuz in the Vietnam.

War, I think you would definitely give more free, give more empathy, right?

If you have different cultures and things like that and it gives you legitimacy.

58:35

And the language.

You may need to speak the language.

Well, because it becomes like it's for the idea as opposed to like.

You know, like the colonialist white man went to Afghanistan and smashed up.

We can't really say that when it's like women and trans and everybody other color.

So it allows them to achieve the mission.

And by mission, I mean having the populace buy into the mission a lot easier because you're selling it to them as a more benign.

58:58

It's not because we don't hate them, it's their there's it's just politics, man, that kind of thing.

That's a good point.

It's a weapon because you know, in 1960s the media was far more independent in America.

And they went across when the soldiers came back, they're all like, well, you're a baby killer.

So to avoid that from happening, you simply merge.

59:16

You embed the media with the military more.

So it's instead of like the media is watching the military.

You're eating food together, You're on the plane together.

You've got a lot less likely to talk bad about them.

You're going to see it from their perspective more.

So you start that ball rolling down to the point where now you have.

59:32

The United colors of everybody there, too, which is a nice idea, but I think they're almost weaponizing the people's color to get the mission done.

That's a good point.

I think you might be on to something.

Right, and that's why they're willing to go with substandards, cuz in the end it doesn't really matter cuz they need the country to buy into it.

Right.

59:47

Well, that is what kills wars, right?

It's the political will.

Yeah.

You have to believe in Rome if you're gonna keep fighting for Rome.

I think you're giving too much credit to our government thinking that far.

Ahead I don't want.

Man, if I could think it, someone else must have.

Thought I actually think I actually think you might.

Be on this.

You tell me that way too often.

1:00:04

I think you might be on to something with that.

I think that you are correct actually.

I would say that that is something that.

It's camouflage.

It's camouflage of a sort.

And it gives us legitimacy, right?

1:00:20

Moral legitimacy?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you need that, that's kind because you know if we don't have that the there would be so much pressure to pull out.

Especially in this sort of like, oh, we're such a bad country.

We've done colonialism.

Look, we're over there in the Middle East now.

How do you combat that kind of rhetoric?

1:00:38

You go this route.

Right.

How much?

How much of A push into?

Like is there a noticeable shift in the military toward?

Like cyber operations and kind of scaling back on.

I almost want to say like interventionists, like, you know, going into, well, Afghanistan being a good example.

1:00:58

I don't want to call it adventurism because I, you know, I do think that Afghanistan, you know, when that happened, it made sense to go in there, but.

The cyber upper world is, is, is.

It's very secret.

It's shielded from my eyes.

I don't get a view into it and and.

I can't answer that question about the cyber opera, cuz I honestly don't know.

1:01:17

I also do know that we are a lot more places than people realize.

Really.

Yes.

And a lot of it is one United Nations work okay so, so peacekeeping.

We're all over Africa.

1:01:35

You never hear about it, but we're there.

We're in Democratic Republic of Conoco, We're in Uganda.

I think there's, you know, once a bunch of countries in that area.

We work with.

We work with the Nigerians occasionally I think of.

Is it humanitarian relief?

Or training.

Training sometimes, but a lot of.

1:01:52

Nigerian Princess.

No, like, like we you know even the the naval reserve sailed, sailed one of the warships to Nigeria and worked with the Nigerians doing it counter piracy.

Practice right the part.

And I lived in Cyprus.

I lived there for like a year.

1:02:09

And it was we.

The place I was working was literally 75 meters from the Green Line, which separated the Turkish part from the Greek part.

And it was Canadian, Canadian peacekeepers that were there.

Oh, that'd be a sweet post.

Yeah, it truly was.

But, you know, yeah, I did feel at the time proud.

1:02:27

Not like, oh, like this is some sort of like, colonial whatever.

It's like, no, they're there.

They're not.

Helping kind of states, you know Canada's kind of like the Switzerland of North America.

You know it felt, I actually felt really proud to see them and we I try to always strike up a conversation with them we.

1:02:43

We we've had peacekeepers in Mali and a lot of people are saying well in order for have peacekeepers, both sides need to have peace, right?

ISIS doesn't want peace.

So why are we sending peacekeepers and the.

The Malian government end up saying, you know, we'd really like to work with Wagner from Russia.

1:03:02

And we were like, we're out, we went home in the front.

So I think the friends even went home and that Mali's using Wagner now, so good luck with that.

Who's Wagner?

They're the Russian, the Russian mercenary group.

Oh, OK.

All right, Richard.

1:03:18

So I just wanted to ask you something about the Canadian military here.

So a little while ago there was a pretty famous high level general that.

I believe retired.

His last name was Maisonov and this was one of his quotes.

He had his retirement speech and he got him pretty hot water for it and had to roll back some of his statements.

1:03:35

Which is sad and ironic because his statements were actually about trying not to roll back things and move forward in the world.

So even he had to pull back.

It's always a shame when people, you know like it's just such a.

You know, somebody makes you know and you're about to read it.

1:03:51

So I don't know.

But but when somebody says something from the heart and then they have to kind of go back and qualify things, it's just unfortunate.

I think it's this.

Yeah.

It's like when you're, like, saying I'm gonna tell you how, like, you know, tell you how like it is.

Yeah.

But I didn't really mean to go quite like that much.

Right, right, right.

You know, like, where's the fine line?

1:04:07

So, yeah, his, his.

One of his sentences was Canada's prosperity is being sacrificed.

Prosperity is being sacrificed at the altar of climate change.

As opposed to being used to help the world transition to clean energy, throwing soup and paint at the world's art treasures is as heinous as it is useless.

1:04:27

The perpetrator should be punished, not celebrated.

Well, as an art fan, I agree.

I agree with that.

I'm not really qualified to talk about climate change as I'm not a scientist, but I think.

I think some of the stuff again is, you know, they're taking it to extremes as they always do.

1:04:48

But the I agree with them.

Throwing stuff at our art is is absolutely ridiculous.

It's the tension seeking.

It sounds like someone throwing a tent, temper tantrum and wanting attention.

It's useless.

It is useless.

And his other part, but prosperity.

He's not saying don't transition.

He's saying use the prosperity to transition to clean energy.

1:05:06

As opposed to sacrificing the prosperity at the altar, meaning it's more of an ethos and religion ideology of climate change.

Now, unfortunately, being in general means he has to toe the the line of the government more than everybody else does.

Now The thing is, he's retired, so why would he care?

His last hurrah.

1:05:23

He's pissed off.

He's gone as far as he can.

Yeah, so I know.

Why would he do?

Why would he is why.

Would you have to walk it back?

You mean?

Why would you have to walk it back if he's already retired?

Yeah, good point.

I don't know how this works.

Your reputation.

You don't want to burn, you know?

1:05:38

Yeah, Maybe your pension is.

Maybe.

Maybe, right.

Yeah, maybe.

Who knows what got behind some ways of you know?

He thought he had more power than he actually had, you know, and then realized.

They don't, right?

We answer to the government, which is why we have to always support them.

1:05:54

But you know, like whether we do, whether we.

Believe it or not.

What is a government like some So Trudeau, some guy in power for four years.

I'm supposed to be like ooh and like four years.

I'm not working at McDonald's four years.

You know, like like, you know, but what is it like?

It's it's very transitional sort of thing.

Whereas a military in this man's career, well, far or a Queen will far exceed anyone leaders A tenure as Prime Minister or president.

1:06:17

You know, like I don't know why we give them as like such a high altar as a you know, I gotta have respect.

You got an order of command.

But they're really transition.

How many, How many?

Press to when you get the pressures.

Of how many prime ministers were in Queen Elizabeth's reign?

Like some crazy number, you know.

1:06:33

A lot of people were.

A lot of the old guard in the military were frustrated over the new uniforms and the hair regulations.

Basically, you were allowed now to dye your hair pink and grow it down to your shoulders if you wish.

Yeah, sorry to cut you off on that point.

I'll read you his quote regarding that, OK.

He also said today I see the military woefully underfunded, undermanned and under appreciated.

1:06:54

A force where uniforms have become a means of personal expression rather than a symbol of collective pride and unity.

Uniforms are no longer uniform.

Well, here's the thing.

It wasn't as bad as they thought.

1:07:09

Apparently a lot of the people who were in uniform.

Joined because they believed in the the old military.

We we're not seeing a we're not seeing a lot of people with dyed hair and or long hair every now and then.

1:07:26

You know like people might keep it a little longer but it's never reached the extreme we expected because the people that do that have no, they don't want to be in the military, right.

So it never really happened.

Where I work there's one guy who's got long hair.

1:07:45

That's it and.

So the culture has remained.

Intact.

The culture has remained intact, and the one guy with longer hair is it's not that long.

It's not extreme.

1:08:01

It's not like what it used to be.

The one thing you do see are beards.

So everybody's grown beards.

And beards for a while were it was the Navy were allowed to have beards, but the Army and the Air Force weren't for a long time.

And then they allowed it.

So a lot of, lot of lot of people with beards are people with longer beards.

1:08:19

But The thing is if you deploy and you have to wear a gas mask or something, your beards, you know, your beards got to go.

So there's still there's still that and you.

Know and they can force that, right?

Yeah, and if you're and, you're going to want to.

Of course.

Right.

And the same with earrings.

OK, fine.

1:08:34

You wear your earrings.

You know working Monday to Friday if you're doing formal you take your earrings out and if you're deployed you're you're gonna take your earrings out.

But when you're deployed you're you're very busy and have other things more pressing things to worry about.

So a lot of this you know uniform, relax uniform regulations if anything it just made your.

1:08:59

Your sergeants and your Sergeant majors and your Coxons and your, you know, your chief and petty officers jobs, you know, they're the people that enforce the you know, you made their lives easier because now they don't have to crack down on people if their hair is touching their collars.

But it didn't people, the people that are coming to us weren't that kind of person to begin with.

1:09:23

So it doesn't really happen that.

Maybe 20 years from now though this will be like in one age.

Very well, I don't know.

I don't know.

We'll see.

The the some people did say they they encountered a lack of respect for ranks when this happened.

Like there were rumors of that.

1:09:40

I've not really seen it myself.

But the one thing that I'm waiting one big shoe to drop is going to be what's going to become of our relationship with the royal family.

Because I have a feeling that is set to change because I'm sorry, but you know, the new, the new guy just doesn't have the same poll, the same poll that, you know, the Queen did and but we still swear allegiance to the King of Canada when we do our enrollments.

1:10:13

And it's king.

Now they feel weird.

Saying it says it feels weird.

King Charles the third king of Canada.

And I'm sure it's weird saying it back to me.

But they all do and but I I sense that's gonna be going away soon is the.

1:10:29

Case still on our money nowadays.

Is she on cash still?

Yeah.

So now we're gonna have King Charles on our money.

It's.

Good, I guess.

Unless it changes and we'll see.

Because the attitude is not, it's it.

It almost, it almost feels like, OK, that's over with.

1:10:45

Now let's let's do something different because.

And does that feel fresh and forward thinking or like what?

What does it feel like?

I I'm good either way because, you know, it's, you know, even some of his British ancestry such as I am.

1:11:07

You know, I have to wonder, you know, does it.

Do we move on?

You know, I don't know what to.

I don't know what to say.

I'm good going with the flow on this.

And I know like Quebec, for instance is our Quebec really doesn't like it.

1:11:24

Of course, and cultures.

Quebec culture, huge part of the military.

I mean, you want to, you know, your traditional Canadian Armed Forces, you go to Quebec, right?

Like those guys are those guys are it so?

Feisty bunch, you know.

We'll see.

Yeah, I had this theory.

1:11:39

I don't know if you ever heard it.

I'm not a fan of, you know, what you're supposed to think like the Queen was like ordained by God and therefore she has authority.

And obviously these are at best outdated ideas.

But in each country is different.

And so Canada would be different from the UK on this one.

1:11:57

But in the UK's case, you know, we have 3 branches of government.

You got like judicial, legislative and executive.

I would say the Queen for the Brits represents a fourth layer of government, symbolic.

Yeah.

And that branches, that actually is the umbrella which everybody can fall under.

1:12:13

And when you have a lot of and even more so with a newer country like they are versus like the Middle East or the Mediterranean and the high amount of immigration, finding those cultural waypoints where people can go, ah, that's what our culture is, help us bind the culture together.

1:12:31

Now we don't feel that as much in Canada because we're we're not the UK and we have a different dynamic.

But we feel it a little bit because we are like a an extended family of the Commonwealth.

Commonwealth, exactly.

For instance, like I would say the the Italians wouldn't need that because that role of symbolic government would be taken by the Pope, right?

1:12:53

Doesn't matter if you're left, right, center, if you most of them still probably believe in God.

They fall underneath that branch.

They ties their culture together or they can look at their ancient Roman culture, but well, that ties us together.

But a culture needs something to tie itself together and I think that's what the Brits still find valuable in the Royal family.

1:13:08

Yeah, but Canada.

Canada is a little different and like.

Especially the Quebecers.

Point when they when the Queen died, there were there were people in uniform that they weren't the least bit upset because they were coming from countries where they really felt like they were harmed by England.

1:13:28

Fair enough.

And so it's a it's it's it was interesting hearing their perspective.

Right.

So I don't know.

We'll see.

You know, we got the whole world living in one spot, you know, where people from the whole world living in one spot, you know, you're going to definitely have different attitudes.

1:13:46

It's been interesting.

There's a guy from the UK, sorry, from Vancouver, he's I believe he's at UBC and professor and he's the one that makes the case for colonialization.

And I'm not saying he's right or wrong.

He's like, can we just talk about it a little bit and an academic setting?

1:14:02

And he'll be like, do you want to be Haiti or do you want to be Aruba?

You know, sort of thing.

Like, let's actually take a measurement of, you know, like a case scenario.

Yeah.

And try to actually see what happens.

True.

Right.

And not that it's a uniformly good or uniformly bad.

It's gonna be pockets of everything.

1:14:18

But if you can kind of come together, like to an aggregate of what this actually meant to the world, was it a?

Force overall for positive change or negative change.

At least that merits the conversation.

So those people that are complaining are going to be seeing their own little world's view but the and rightly so.

1:14:37

They might have been very much harmed by these people.

But if you step back and look at the entire global perspective of it all, what was the net effect?

There's all unification under colonialism.

I know.

So.

But there's a lot of exploitation, too.

Of course.

But which was there not on those lands prior.

1:14:54

What was this, you know what was the landscape beforehand You know it's a I'm just saying it needs to be discussed in an open academic sort of way not like well how dare you supporting XYZ we're just not even going to talk about that because that's not science.

That's not academic anything.

That's just ideology.

I.

Think it's important, yeah, to have, I think traditions important.

1:15:12

I think I would imagine especially in like a the military or something that is more formal.

And there needs to be something that binds everybody together.

Like you can't have, especially a country like Canada that has so many different backgrounds coming into, like you said, like one place.

It's like you need to have a common thing you're fighting for, you know?

1:15:30

Look, you're going to see the world through some form of structure that could be cultural, it could be religious, it could be scientific, but you're not going to see the world without structure and if you are looking at the world with a much more newer and untested structure.

1:15:48

God knows what what you've opened up.

You don't know what you're gonna you know, you get to atheism, which is one thing but then you turned into Atheism Plus, which was basically, let's have all the parts.

Like we don't need to believe in God, fair enough.

But let's bring in the social positive aspects of religion into it.

1:16:04

And that's where you get the birth of wokeism.

So oh oh look what we've just created.

We've created a new religion in place of the whole that was left from the previous religion because it's our nature as humans to want to create something through which we.

Attach meaning to in this life.

1:16:19

Yeah, yeah.

Cool.

If you could improve the military outlook in Canada, what would I do?

What would you do Mr. Richard to?

Improve the military.

1:16:36

Do we need to be bigger, smaller, tighter?

More, you need to be more efficient.

More efficient.

Less bureaucracy, less people at desks.

Be very hard.

But that would be to me, there's a lot of fat you can trim.

I've seen entire offices where I swear if they said, you know, vanish, nobody would notice.

1:16:56

Like somebody described it once there was a, you know, 11 building.

They say it's it's big government building, full of military, big government building full of military people.

And I said what exactly they do and it's well, it's a self looking ice cream cone basically they exist so they can continue making themselves.

1:17:14

Exist.

I lived in Greece for 10 years, so I totally know what.

That's all about.

So there's there's a there's a lot of that and so there's a lot of fat that could be trimmed.

We could be more efficient and that that would improve.

But I also think remembering what we are.

1:17:34

You know we're we're unfortunately becoming more of a government department instead of a military and I think if we acted like a military advertise it as a military like the Americans.

Do you see that Marine Corps advertisement They got the right idea you know the one with the where you know it's check it out on YouTube and you know it's it's pretty intense and it basically shows a combat scenario but.

1:18:00

Stuff like that.

I think you're going to get the right people.

Yeah, you know, it's something about like there was this period of time where like things get watered down and it happens in many sectors, like what we need to, you know, open it up and create a wider umbrella to attract.

I can see the logic behind it, but it never really works.

1:18:18

And you ended up getting a whole lot of nothing, which in the total sum means you're weaker than stronger.

Even something is benign is like, you know, fast food trying to be healthy in the 90s.

You know, like, yeah.

Screw off.

I'm going to Wendy's.

I want a bacon eater.

You know why?

I know it's bad for me and I want a big, juicy fucking hamburger.

1:18:35

And that's why I'm there.

And don't try to sell me like, well, you can have your hamburger and have.

No, no, I'm here to have a hamburger.

You know, like, like, let's not beat around the Bush or, I don't know, we're Catholic.

We're having pizza day on Sundays for the kids to attract them.

This is church.

1:18:50

It sucks.

Come, be here.

Listen to the thing.

You know, this is what it is.

You know, you might end up with a little bit less, but at least those who go there are very.

Pure in what they're looking for.

Exactly.

You know.

Exactly.

So when it comes to the Army, like, it's a fucking army, OK?

And it's going to be good and softer.

1:19:06

Things change.

But don't kid yourself.

It's an army or a Navy or military, whatever you want to call it, and just be pure.

And then I think what you might end up with smaller, but you're going to end up smaller and more efficient and therefore more effective.

Right.

You have a basic training in Canada, of course.

OK, is that how many weeks is that?

1:19:24

And everybody has to go to it.

I.

Think something like I think they're lowering it to 8 weeks.

I think they but 12 weeks for officers and then then there's environmental training after after that often.

So if you're if you're going for combat arms, you do your basic training and then you'll do things that common army phase or they'll be also trade training but yeah there's basic training, basic training, so you know marching.

1:19:50

Your uniform How to maintain your uniform?

That they still make you fold your bed properly.

Now that'll make you a biggest nightmare.

Well, fold.

Your socks.

Fold your You have to fold your socks, your underwear, a certain way.

Everybody thinks like, the hard part of basic training is getting up in the morning going for a run.

No, it's all the little tense in the detail.

1:20:07

It makes sure your underwear is folded 5 by 5 and your socks are folded so they look like they're frowning at you when you open your drawer and everything's gonna be in its place.

And it's totally clean, no dust.

Yeah, that kind of thing.

It's and you lose all control and if you're, you know older and you're used to having things your own way, it's an adaptation.

1:20:31

But I don't think they're making it easier and easier and it I don't know if it matters that it's easier because you know that your your combat school and everything that they send you.

1:20:46

They can correct anything afterwards.

So if they're going to send you to combat and you're kind of soft when you do your work ups and everything like that or your your pre deployment training, they you know the toughen you up at that point.

So you know you learn to March, you learn to pull apart your gun and put it back together again and things like that.

1:21:03

You know I remember there was a general that it's a famous YouTube clip and he was some speech he was giving in the States and he went on to book.

Do you know why we do that kind of stuff in the in the mornings when you have to rolled full up your socks and.

Make your bed properly.

It's not because that really matters in the grand scheme of things, the way you would think it matters, but it's setting the day's tone.

1:21:25

You're getting the first task of the day out of the way early, and from there all the other tasks fall much easier.

And I'm not a military kind of guy, but I always respect it, like when I do my ice baths a showers in the morning like this.

Going to suck.

But once I'm done that, I'm like, man, it's only 705 and already got the first hard thing out of the day of the day out of the way and everything else.

1:21:46

It's like setting a pattern of behavior and everything else just you just actually accelerate upwards in terms of your results.

So it can seem like a small little task.

But getting it's like the the trip of 1000 steps is the starts with one step kind of thing. 1000 miles starts with one step.

1:22:02

You get that first step out of the way and I think there's a lot that youth could learn from that today.

Oh, for sure.

And it's momentum building in a positive.

Way and attention to detail, which is huge especially for officers Attention to detail, so noticing tiny little things so and situational awareness, right?

1:22:22

Yeah.

Everybody.

Everyone polls as a team.

And well, you're right though.

Well, it's almost like being a good detective, right?

Like you're kind of training the eye to notice things, whereas, like, I'm oblivious to things like you could, I could walk out and somebody be like, oh, So what, What were Richard and Dmitri wearing today?

1:22:41

And I have no idea.

Thanks a lot, Jay.

They both look great, but you know, yeah, so, but it's a good skill I would imagine, especially in that vocation.

Yeah, we still do the basic training.

They are making it.

Easier.

They can't yell at people like they used to.

1:22:59

They can't call you, come to your face and stuff like that.

Really, eh.

So it's damn, it's a lot there, a lot that now they do yell because sometimes you're addressing 50 people and they all you all got to, they got to hear you.

So they will yell and but you know you got to be able to still stress people out because dealing with stress is part of basic training, right.

1:23:20

Right.

So there's going to be a lot of yelling and when things kick off and you got to be able to.

Not that it bother you.

So we'll see.

Some people might be a little bit more sensitive coming through.

Being a military.

Guy, maybe that won't matter at the end of the day.

1:23:35

You know, maybe because you know what they can you Can you honestly prepare for war?

That's a question.

Right, that is one hell of a question.

War is the worst thing in the world.

And maybe all the training in the world, you know you're still going to get people that can't handle it.

Or maybe maybe they can't, you know.

1:23:52

I don't know.

You know, it's certain jobs like, sorry to like, yeah, can you, can you train to be Prime Minister?

Can you train to be mayor?

Right.

You know, like can you train to go to war?

Like not really, you know.

We can do things that have worked for us in the past and I know we'll see what the new we'll see what the new recruits are like when they're done basic you know the softer easier basic.

1:24:18

So I I don't know you know we'll.

It's, it's, it's, it's we're gonna watch and wait.

Yeah.

Cool when you think of, when you think of the wars we've been involved with though like World War One, World War Two, the even the Afghan war it's we did we seem to be prepared like when you read about you know the stuff we sort of over perform.

1:24:38

So whatever we were doing in the past seems to be seems to be working.

I think we know still how to ramp things up and that's.

You know, one of the reasons why I think the the countries in the Commonwealth did so well is that maybe you can.

You might have a lot more information on this.

1:24:55

But I have the suspicion that the British military, you know, mechanisms when it realized it can no longer be the empire sprawling the earth like it once was.

That system of meritocracy got downloaded into the civil services, so our judicial systems to work.

1:25:12

Like, I'm based on merit.

Our police forces based on merit, our schooling system or education system.

And you know, it all has to start from somewhere.

Where would it have started from?

Germinated from?

From the British military?

Have you ever heard anything like that at all?

Like any kind of lineage that we're living through?

Like we're all descendants of that sort of, well, meritocracy.

1:25:31

And when you know, when you really feel it, when you step outside of the Commonwealth, and then you're like things in this country are a little bit, like all over the place, and then you realize it's just cultural.

Like, the civil service isn't really on top of things.

The police aren't really on top of things.

The military there.

And you're like, wow, this is actually systemically built into the way they're living.

1:25:50

Why are New Zealand, Australia, Canada, America, you know, and and on and on are the ones that were part of that not operating in that level?

I'm like, I think it got downloaded the meritocracy of the British military into our civil service when where there was no longer a need for such a big military.

1:26:07

That's that's.

That's a really great observation and I've never thought of that.

So I'm not, I'm not going to try to comment on that.

But you know, I can't see anything wrong with what you said.

It's cultural.

It is.

It is very much cultural and.

And it just feels natural to do it that way.

1:26:23

Why does?

It feel we should try to keep it right because.

You know, and is it under threat when we allow, let's say, as we soften through immigration and we allow other people's once you know too much, you know, downtrodden voices, but if they become too amplified?

We got to make sure that we don't rescind on some of those long inherited and proven techniques that have allowed us to become the country they all want to immigrate to in the first place.

1:26:48

That's it.

That's it.

Just it, right?

If you're going to come to Canada, you're leaving someplace behind for a reason.

Remember that when you get here.

And they're not leaving too often from other Commonwealth countries to come here.

No.

So we got it.

We got a tier system.

One more thing.

So have you watched the movie 300?

1:27:05

I've seen parts of it.

Yeah, the military people, like, do they ever, like, talk about that kind of movie?

You know, the 300 Spartans?

Yeah.

Versus the million Persians and you know, cuz it's kind of like one of the 1st and it I know it's done in a very comic book fashion, but one of the first like look at this organized small military going against this juggernaut.

1:27:27

And yes they did kind of lose, but in the end that loss set off the victory that came further down the road.

Do they ever?

Teach this sort of history in the military.

I never got taught that there are Strategic Studies at Royal Military College and things like that.

1:27:43

They probably talk about it there.

Like Alexander and against Darius, these are amazing tactics.

A.

Little bit of Trafalgar and Nelson at Trafalgar with the naval battles and.

You know, a lot of, a lot of criticizing of military movies saying, hey, that's not how it works, right?

1:28:01

Sure.

You know, you can imagine that, Yeah.

Well, it's also, I would imagine, just the military apparatus.

You can just say, let's talk about the battle of Asian court.

It's like, well, we don't use arrows anymore.

You know what?

I mean, like, no, but some of the, you know, like the Miss Spartans all had long hair, so I could see somebody in the army today going well.

1:28:18

If the greatest warriors of all time had long hair, can I not have my hair a little longer?

Well.

That was that, was it, right?

Like so.

If you think about it, we allowed women to have long hair.

We allowed certain people from certain Aboriginal cultures who didn't like to cut their hair, you know, them that have long hair.

1:28:35

Sikhs could have long hair, right.

So you know it for, you know, you can have long hair, you can have long hair, You can't have long hair, you can't have long.

Let's just make everybody have long, allow everybody have long hair and make it easier.

Yeah, you know, it's just I thought that was a.

1:28:53

A good idea that I think the original cutting of the hair thing was more for basic training and just for efficiency climbing lists and also to dehumanize you a little bit, separate you from society.

People see you and they know your individuality, what you are cross that individuality, make you all the same so.

1:29:12

But that's part of it, isn't it?

That makes you like a good soul.

That's the part of the unit, right?

Like so.

I don't know that to take that away and say no, let's make sure everybody has their own individual expressions.

It's like, well, that's not what it's about.

Your individuality might get me killed, yeah, Like, imagine that on the battlefield.

1:29:28

Yeah, yeah.

But you're not gonna have an army if nobody joins, right?

So they they make they.

See how quick they break the rules when they need to have.

More it's like the Catholics.

Yeah, yeah.

So you know, what?

Would you rather have people with long hair that you know, might, you know, a little half ass or people know people at all?

1:29:46

Yeah, I appreciate the pragmatic approach.

I I actually think though, we might have scared people off that might have wanted to join and wanted to join the old school military And they think, well, if it's going to be a bunch of people with long green hair, you know, I don't want to be part of that.

Yeah.

Right.

1:30:02

So not that there's really not that many.

People, well, I would imagine young Spartan kid would have been like, well, you know, the greatest people in our society are these amazing Spartan warriors.

I hope I can fit the bill and become one.

It's something to aspire to.

1:30:18

Yeah.

You know, and yeah, it's gonna be grueling.

But my God, if I achieve it, have I achieved something worth wild while?

So that's like, that's, I think really key, you know, like to have the end goal, be something like, I'm actually better for this experience.

Yeah.

You know, not.

1:30:33

And not just financially, like, like emotionally, spiritually better.

Yeah, that's a good point too.

I think that's what stronger they marine, the marine advertisements kind of hit.

That well, the American army need to come up a bit.

They're not.

Be all you can be.

1:30:50

That was not the American army.

I think they brought that back.

So let's see.

Off the wall question here, not to pull like a Lex Friedman, but in terms of any UFO, anything that you've heard of.

1:31:08

Shut that down.

Pretty.

Beautiful.

China balloon things?

China balloons some you know this talk that wasn't even from China.

I don't know a some balloon hobbyists wanted a free air show.

I think maybe one of them came from China I.

Thought it was the Oakville teachers, a breast.

Maybe that just expanded too far and went up, you know?

1:31:28

So you didn't not even you haven't heard in any of the, you know, corners?

But I mean, I wouldn't, right?

Well, I guess it would be classified, but I mean, I just figured you all in the mess hall the.

More ad boys, I think would be the ones that talked about that.

Right.

All right.

Well, you know, I guess that's, that's pretty deep.

1:31:45

Yeah.

I mean a good run.

It's interesting chat.

Like I'd love to talk more about like it's interesting getting a different perspective on like, you know, I sometimes I'll like, I enjoy reading about.

Like the military.

Military history and stuff like that.

1:32:02

But it's.

I've never been in one.

I was in the Cadets or whatever when I was a kid.

But yeah, yeah, it's also what's that?

Air Army.

Army.

Yeah.

It was for like a couple years, yeah.

Nice.

What made you do that?

I just, I don't think it was me.

1:32:17

I think it was sort of pushed into it how old my parents wanted me out of the house.

How old were you when you do something?

Like that young I would have been probably early teens.

Yeah, see, at that age, I would have.

Idolized doing something like that too.

Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed the.

I don't know, it's like joining on a hockey team or something.

1:32:33

It's kind of cool, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it was the 80s, right?

Must have.

Yeah, it was, yeah, it was probably the late. 80s here was cool then.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, I just went to Beavers.

But still it was like I enjoyed being part of something like.

1:32:49

That, yeah.

Same with when you're on playing hockey, since it's your team, you're taking shifts, you're.

Standing up defending the guy next to you like it's it's a great.

Yeah, I don't know.

I just loved it, man.

Yeah, yeah, like.

If they tried to water down hockey, like, you know, it's so inclusive, you're like, yeah, that's good, but I just want to play freaking hockey.

1:33:08

Can we just leave that stuff alone, you know?

What, aren't they kind of watering down hockey with the?

Well, a lot of people just don't like it anymore.

Like the talent is up, but I just don't feel the emotion.

It's kind of like watching Mike Tyson.

More of like a visceral animal fight.

1:33:23

Lennox Lewis.

Lennox Lewis was an amazing boxer.

Nobody's ever going to make a movie on Lennox Lewis because he's not inspirational.

You watch him, you fall asleep and he's really good.

Maybe the best of his generation, who gives a shit like you just don't care.

There's something about that raw animal instinct that has to come out right?

1:33:42

Right.

I don't care about the quality.

Like, show me you're giving everything you have.

That's what I care.

I don't care what color you are, what gender you are.

Just give it your all.

But don't water it down with politics afterwards and tell me I'm a bad person.

Or you know all this because I was born a certain way.

I'm as.

I'm as bad as a person being as born a certain way as those who were once called bad people and now we know aren't.

1:34:03

You know, like reversing it doesn't make it any better, just everyone's equal and can we just move on with it?

They're watering down hockey.

Oh yeah, Well, I don't know if I should say, what if we're going really all in on the diversity, inclusion, equity stuff.

But it's it's feels superficial, doesn't feel like it's from the heart.

1:34:21

And I'll tell you, playing house league hockey from the 70s, we had every shape and color playing hockey with us, so it was always diverse in my opinion and.

To be quite a one year, we actually had a trial game against girls that were like a year or so older than us.

1:34:37

And they kicked our asses.

And you know what?

It was an amazing, humbling experience.

And you go into the corners.

We were allowed to hit because we're over 12, and you were allowed to hit at that age.

And the women were brutal.

And you know what?

You came out of that game with respect.

Like, that girl hounded me, man.

And it was a great learning experience.

1:34:54

So why do we need to then, like, try to put all this politics into it?

Just let the kids play together and they'll figure it out.

Who?

Who's that?

There's a goalie.

The French goalie from yeah, in the 90s.

No, no, no.

Recently, just last night after the Lease game, it was like I read the sort of statement where the his team, I can't remember his team was all putting on LGBT bands bands and he refused to.

1:35:22

He said I my religion is such that I don't, so is this big controversy.

Yeah, Hard Christian.

And then why?

Can't he just be the way he wants?

To be well so that that was the thing he's.

Now the new gay guy.

Yeah, you know what I mean.

Like, he's the being ostracized for his beliefs.

He so the the team to their credit, put out a statement and said, look, we respect, you know, I will continue to do the LGBT thing because it's something we believe in.

1:35:44

We also respect our players individual choices and I was like, that's fair, that's the way it should.

Be Don't source people.

Don't coerce people.

Yeah.

You know, like it's a much better place today, the world in terms of inclusivity and diversity, as it should be for sure, years ago.

But you don't have to make it like, like I said, installed and mandatory, you know, and if someone is a little behind the curve, show some patients and just let them be.

1:36:06

They'll get to it when it's their time.

If it's their thing, yeah, but they sit there and ostracize them because they're not into something.

It's just it's as pious.

As the other people were acting pseudo pseudo fashion to those people before.

Well, he and and also he's not going out of his way to say anything negative against him.

1:36:22

He's just like, look, I just have my own thing and I don't believe, you know, that I need to do this.

And anyway, so I was kind of inspired.

By and furthermore the countries that we are very working very hard to allow them to have more exclusive inclusivity in Canadian culture, those cultures who are non Christian, we're talking more east of the Central Europe in Eastern Europe, OK.

1:36:45

They are far harsher on those types of people.

Which religion are you talking?

The religion that shall not be named but but they're far.

But there's all it's it's it's a glow.

The West is more into this sort of stuff.

They got countries where they made it illegal. 10s, Yeah, 10s.

Of, Yeah.

Made homosexuality.

1:37:01

Illegal.

So to sit there and say to this one guy, like, all of a sudden he's got to be isolated and called out is absolutely bonkers.

What's?

Posturing, You know, it's just political.

Posturing, it's.

You know, virtue signaling used to just be called hypocrisy.

Right.

Like, just just just don't be a hypocrite.

Just let the guy be who he is.

1:37:17

Yeah.

All right, well, so let's anyone have anything else to say or no?

We Rob this.

That was great.

Yeah.

No, it was.

I think we moved forward here a bit and having Richard here help us work through some of the military stuff was an insight would have taken me years and years to figure out on my own well.

1:37:36

Thank you for having me.

Yeah.

Thanks for coming in.

I hope we have you again.

And thanks everyone for listening and we will bid you adieu.

Take care, take care.