Quick Dick McDick Canadian Farmer, Oil & Gas Man and YouTube star

Quick Dick McDick [00:00:00] I cannot believe what's happening out here. I thought an oil field was just a drilling rig where oil's gushing out of the top of the drilling rig and there's a Texas cowboy with a hat going, yeah, we struck oil. Like that's what I thought. Oil and gas was right. But it's, it's not, you know, as the crow flies on the Vance Crowe podcast,

Vance Crowe [00:00:23] Dixon Delo, welcome to the podcast.

Quick Dick McDick [00:00:26] How's it going man?

Vance Crowe [00:00:28] Well, I can say that, but there's probably no one outside of your small community that knows who that is. But you are actually quite a national figure in Canada, otherwise known as Quick Dick McDick

Quick Dick McDick [00:00:40] Quick Dick McDick. Yeah, what a, what a name. Hey. Yeah, I don't know where something like that would come from, but yeah, there's a, yeah, not, not a lot of people know actually the, the real, the who's, who's behind Quick Dick, I guess. Right. But yeah, like around here, around here in Tufnell, it's, yeah, actually everybody kind of knows who we are, you know what I mean?

Vance Crowe [00:00:58] So for those that don't know, you are Quick Dick McDick, which is a character on YouTube that has taken it by storm. And I guess the best way that I could describe it is it's very small, compact, one-liners, one after another that describe where you're from in Saskatchewan and kind of what's going on around you. How did this ever come about?

Quick Dick McDick [00:01:22] Yeah, yeah, man, that's, yeah, it's exactly what it is. It, it, it's strangest thing like, it, it's, it is so unintentional how everything happened. But this, this just started off as basically like on, on Snapchat and I was just trying to keep in touch with, with my brothers. I actually, I, I recently left a career in the oil and gas industry and was on a, headed on a, a large motorcycle trip. And my, my brother had convinced me that I needed to use Snapchat because I said, I'm not gonna have a phone. I'm not gonna talk to anybody. This is gonna be an amazing motorcycle trip that I go on. And he's like, well dude, you can't just kinda go across the country on your motorcycle and not be in touch with anyone. So he convinced me to, to get on Snapchat and he's like, just do a story once a day kind of thing. I was like, okay. So I, I, I don't know where the handle Quick Dick McDick came from, but I got home to Saskatchewan. I was spending a few days here in Saskatchewan and, and out cutting, cutting firewood with big mustache owl. If anybody's seen any of the quick dick videos, we were all cutting firewood. And man, I just, I, I got thinking to myself, you know, what's happening right now is pretty funny. You know, we're just kind of out in the middle of nowhere drinking a couple of, of great Western beers that you, it's kind of like a Saskatchewan beer here. And man, what was happening was hilarious to me. And so I just kind of made up, this is almost like an infomercial and this guy named Quick Dick McDick selling firewood in the middle of Saskatchewan. And that's, that's kind of where this whole thing started.

Quick Dick McDick [00:02:54] And then I, I wound up putting it on my story on Snapchat and my, my brother's like, Hey man, you gotta add a few people 'cause my friends think this is hilarious. And so it just kind of started doing the social media thing or whatever, where a few more people got at it and then it just kept going and going and going. And, yeah, before you know it Quick Dick McDick’s a, a guy I guess.

Vance Crowe [00:03:15] Well, I mean, it was fascinating. So I was headed up to Alberta a couple of months ago before, before all this coronavirus, and I was going to the cattle producers, but I wanted to know what are the other issues that were going on. And at the time there was this big protest around oil pipelines. And everywhere I looked, if I tried to watch the news, I could only get minute and a half clips at the most. And it was an intro and an outro. So it was about like 45 seconds of this is one person's perspective and another person's perspective, and now we're out. And it wasn't until I came across your videos as I was doing like actual research to get ready to go give this talk that I was like, wow, look at this, this pipeline issue. No one in the United States knows this is going on and this guy did it. And how, how long was your oil video? How did that all come about too?

Quick Dick McDick [00:04:04] Yes. The, the Coastal GasLink one that I want say was somewhere in the 10 minute mark. I don't, I, that's kind of a phase, a lot of this stuff, it's, it's in and out kinda thing. 'cause then, you know, you're doing, I do productions once a week kind of thing is how it's been going. But I think it was somewhere around the, the 10 minute mark and usually, like for quick dick to go longer than five minutes on a video, like off the start was monumental. And now a lot of this stuff is getting into the seven to 10 minute kinda kind of timeframe there. But yeah, it was just the, that was very intriguing to me for the simple reason that the, the area it was happening in is, is is the Groundbirch area, which is actually in, it's kind of in north northeastern BC and the peace country is the area it's called. And I was involved in, in oil and gas exploration up there specifically more tailored to the natural gas side than, than oil. But this is a huge, huge project that a lot of, a lot of oil companies had invested a large amount of money in, in the Groundbirch area and anticipation of, of this Coastal GasLink pipeline. A lot of the, the oil and gas exploration up in that neck of the woods was, was originally invested in heavily because the, the ultimate goal was to liquefy natural gas on the BC coast and the Kitimat area and then export to Asian markets, right? So you get a, a, a alar, like a huge amount of investments happening up in the, in, in the peace country area, right up into the Fort Nelson area and some stuff. And we worked years and years and years on some very big projects up there that were all in anticipation of this happening.

Quick Dick McDick [00:05:39] And then, you know, it's, it's kinda, it's, it's very frustrating to see what was happening because all of a sudden you see this pipeline slated, ready to be built, plans finally go through and this is actually gonna start happening. And, and putting shovels to dirt and Kitimat to, to get a liquid natural gas refinery going in, all of a sudden it just blows up that we're not running a pipeline now all of a sudden we got protestors all over the place and it goes Canada wide. And you're like, it not that it, it doesn't affect me anymore. 'cause it, it affects us all as Canadians because I mean, this is, this is a huge part of what drives our national economy, right? And then you see this stuff start happening and I was like, there, there are so many people that don't understand how much work has gone into this and how many communities are, are depending on this to happen to continue being communities. And all of a sudden it's, it's a nationwide thing where everything's just grinding to a halt. And we've got people out in Ontario and Eastern Canada protesting something that's happening in, in, in northeastern BC. It was, it was just disturbing to say the least.

Vance Crowe [00:06:46] Well, it was fascinating to watch from the US because you guys were having people stand in front of trains and block off entire transportation networks. And I was, I was describing this to US audiences. And here that's an act of war, right? Like to stop transportation. So, so for me, I was like having my mind blown, there are people that have shut down your trains in Canada and nobody in the US knows about it. And when you go to look at what's going on in Canada, it seemed like it was melt. Like the great land of peace and everybody getting along was melting down.

Quick Dick McDick [00:07:21] Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's basically how it was going. Who, who stands in front of a train and is like, Hey, you're not going.

Vance Crowe [00:07:31] Yeah, only a person a hundred percent believes that somebody else is gonna protect them.

Quick Dick McDick [00:07:36] Yeah, that's, and that's, I think that's essentially where things were at. And, and I mean, I, I guess I won't dive too deep into, in, into my beliefs on what happened, but what was happening, it was illegal and it was allowed to continue to happen, which caused, caused quite a bit of, of distress among, among Canadians with what was happening. When

Vance Crowe [00:08:01] You put that video out, did anybody, did, how, how big did it get? Because it, I mean I saw it multiple times, it was all over the place.

Quick Dick McDick [00:08:08] Yeah. So the, a lot of the political ones seemed to go pretty big for some reason, but without one, I, I think it was, it, it got over a hundred thousand views fairly quickly. And I, I, I guess by my standards that's, that's, that's a lot of views, but it's, yeah, it, it, it got traction really quick. But I think it's for the reason that when you identify like specific communities and you can be a person that, that people that are in the middle of what's happening. So let's, let's use the peace country in northern BC specifically. I, I know it very well. I mean, I spent years working in it then, and I know it very well. I know all the little communities. And one thing I was like, when I was doing the video, I was like, okay, I, I think I can try and identify with, with some people in that area that are being directly affected. I mean, all of us as Canadians were being indirectly affected by this, whether we knew it or not at the time, and it still are being affected by, but specifically those communities that were, if you have investors looking at something like this happening and they're gonna start shutting all this stuff down, investors are gonna be like, you know what? We're, we're not in, if this is how you guys are gonna handle yourselves and you can't make this happen, we're outta here. Can you imagine being a community that you're, you, the being of your community is now depending on this going through in the industry that it's gonna bring and the revenue it's gonna bring to your community. And it's just the, the RCMP are gonna stand aside, not do anything about it, and just let everything happen, let alone a a, a nation get behind it, A few, there's protests going on in, you know, in, in Toronto and a bunch of other places of, of people that had absolutely nothing to do with with what was happening with the, with the Wet’suwet’en and, and the Coastal GasLink pipeline happening.

Quick Dick McDick [00:09:47] There was a, I don't know if you saw any of, there was one interview where they were, there's some reports going around in Toronto asking, asking the protestors that were there protesting this pipeline in Toronto. So do, do you know what's going through the pipeline? And they're like, yeah, it's oil going through the pipeline. It's natural gas going through the pipeline there partner. But people don't know.

Vance Crowe [00:10:09] They don't know the difference. That's

Quick Dick McDick [00:10:11] The crazy thing about it.

Vance Crowe [00:10:12] Yeah,

Quick Dick McDick [00:10:12] Grab our signs, there's a protest going on, let's go protest. What we're protesting, well, what are you protesting? I don't know, but let's go protest it. What, like that happens. You'd see it's, and that's not just something that happens in Canada now. You, you starting to see a lot of the stuff happen worldwide where it's just like a, like, well let's just go protest. 'cause protesting seems to be a cool thing to do.

Vance Crowe [00:10:35] Yeah. It appears to me that protesting is the result of, in one case it could be, Hey, I don't have any other way to stand up against this big giant monster. And so this is the only way I can draw attention to it. But a lot of other people are drawn to it because they don't have forward progress in their life. They aren't, they aren't moving forward in their job. They don't have like, necessarily their family things that they're moving forward. So to them, demanding that somebody else makes change is the closest thing to progress. And when you get a whole lot of people that are thinking that way, you start having people say, well, the biggest thing that I can do for the world is demand that other people do things and gets, it gets your society outta whack in a hurry.

Quick Dick McDick [00:11:17] Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And it's maybe like, it, it's, it's, it's maybe a tactic that some people use for, for self-satisfaction kind of thing or whatever, make them feel like, you know, okay, well I'm, I'm making a change. I can't, I can't make a change in my life, so I'm making a change by doing this kind of thing. And that's, it's kind of a scary thing, right? And not that I guess I'm not the biggest fan of protesters. I've, I've never, I mean, I've been on planet Earth for 37 years that I haven't found a, a situation so far where I need to go protest. But I have had situations in which I need to go talk to people and talk reason and, and have a, a motive behind what I'm, what I'm bringing to their attention kind of thing. And you can usually like make pretty good progress with that. If, if, if you have facts behind what you're doing and you're willing to have a conversation with somebody and you're willing to have open mind and hear their side of the story as well. That's, that's kind of how you resolve problems in the world. Except nobody seems to wanna do that anymore. Everyone's got my opinion, I'm going with it and nobody else talking to me about it. And a lot of people will see a quick dick video, you know, and I get, I get to, I get lots of backlash sometimes with people be like, yes, straw strawman, much strawman much kind of thing. 'cause Quick Dick's basically just spouting his opinion out to the world kind of thing. Hopefully in a little bit of a funny way. And people will be like, well, it's real easy to debate nobody on the other end of your video kinda of thing. Well, the video's not really a debate, it's just a lot of the times you'll, you'll hear Quick Dick's at the start of it.

Quick Dick McDick [00:12:48] It's, it's his toony it's his opinion, you know, and everybody's got an opinion. And I think the purpose of it is just to try and, in a funny way, maybe kind of bring some of the topics that some of the people protesting, some of the stuff or, or believe against. Just, just some of those little issues that maybe they don't realize what's happening with it. Right. And try and paint a little bit of maybe some humor on top of that and people get a little more receptive to it sometimes, right? So

Vance Crowe [00:13:13] Yeah, and I think there's something to, you know, from an outsider, like, I don't know who to believe. I have no idea. So the one that goes down the easiest, the one that, that like gives, orients me to the problem and then shows me a path that I can say like, okay, I understand at least where this side is coming from. That's why I think I, the Quick Dick McDick is really interesting because if you watch that and look at you as the person doing this, you actually are willing to look very, very silly. I mean, you, you look to the point of being like a complete, like caricature of a regular person and I think that's what makes the, the medicine go down so much smoother.

Quick Dick McDick [00:13:56] Yeah, yeah. Thanks Vance. And that's, I I, I can really, well look, I, I literally crawled outta bed and jumped onto this this morning before I head out here in the morning. I really kinda, I'm not a guy that really cares much how I look obviously, or, or, or kind of what people think of me. I'm more, I'm more interested in do you get the, the proper message out. With a lot of my oil and gas stuff and agricultural stuff, I feel like it's, you're maybe speaking for a underrepresented part of the industry, be it agricultural or, or oil and gas because there just, there seems to be a lot of, a lot of people that jump onto social media platforms nowadays and are very, very quick to, to belittle industries that maybe they don't realize are, are, are a huge part of the backbone of, of what they enjoy for everyday life kind of thing. This has really been a kind of a, a, a passion and a goal of, of what I'm kind of trying to do with quick dick is just, if, if there's a, you know, a a few tiny few people out there that can look at it and be like, I, I guess I didn't really realize that what's going on, that's what's going on. Which is why it's important for me to always try and have a, a, a realistic backdrop with what I have happening. A lot of the stuff, when I'm doing it, it, it's, I'm doing what I'm talking about kind of thing. And it's, it's, it's all on the fly and it all happens real time. Well as real time as you can get it. And then sometimes there's a few things where, okay, I'll need to, you know, I, I can't get into a potash mine to show people what a potash mine looks like.

Quick Dick McDick [00:15:27] So I'll just hit a green screen at two in the morning when I'm at home here not doing anything and just have it as a backdrop kind of thing. But it, it's, it's really important and I think yeah, if, if people can kinda see they're like, maybe this guy might have, it stands to reason maybe what he's doing and you can see he's talking about beef and there's beef in the background and what's going on. So maybe we could listen to 'em a little bit because the terrifying thing, especially nowadays, you can, you can get online and you can, you can find information that will support your argument no matter what, but you gotta be careful where that information's coming from. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:16:01] Yeah. I mean, it strikes me that one of the things that makes what you do so different than somebody sitting down and doing a blog, for example, is for people that don't know you are doing these like in and out, like you are camera on saying something camera off, camera on, you're saying something, but you're in a totally different location and it could be nighttime or then early morning or freezing cold or in a barn. So when I look at that, I think it's, it's a little like when you see a painting where you can see all the brush strokes that you're like, holy, good god, this must have taken a long time. And that knowledge that there was clear care and turn and time and concern put into it, it's, it's a lot more than somebody that cranked out a 800 word New York Times article because, I don't know, maybe they sat down and did it in one shot, yours took hours.

Quick Dick McDick [00:16:52] Yeah, it's, yeah, it, thanks Vance. It it does, it, it, it takes, it used to be really quick 'cause you just do this a minute at a time and it just be like fast, fast, fast and it was done. But when you start getting an audience and, and I guess you, you wanna get a point across, I mean, you, you wanna try and, and put some thought into it kind of thing. The the biggest reason I, I, I think I, I started doing it that way just 'cause that's how Snapchat worked and now I don't do it in Snapchat anymore because they've, they've gotten rather big. But the, the reason I I, I continue to do it like that is 'cause I'm the kind of guy, I, I might be a secret between you and me right now. I, I might be the worst U YouTuber apparently. That's what I am as a YouTuber, which I, I think that's the, I think that word kind of makes me uncomfortable to say,

Vance Crowe [00:17:39] Well, you're on it right now, so.

Quick Dick McDick [00:17:41] Right. I I I'm the worst one in the world because the only time I usually ever open up up YouTube is when I don't know how to fix what I'm trying to fix. And I'll open up and be like, okay, how do I do this? Because I get a lot of people be like, check out my channel, check out my channel, check out my channel. And I, I just, I don't because I just never have time to do it. You know, this is like, this is, we're I'm having coffee this morning with you. This is, this is my time that I have spared in the day. Right.

Vance Crowe [00:18:11] Because you're working that much, you're, you're working so much. I mean, like, this was difficult for us to schedule. I'm glad we're doing it now. I'm excited about it. It's,

Quick Dick McDick [00:18:19] This is taking a while. Hey. It's crazy.

Vance Crowe [00:18:21] Yeah.

Quick Dick McDick [00:18:22] And yeah, you

Vance Crowe [00:18:23] Really are this busy. Are you this busy all the time?

Quick Dick McDick [00:18:27] Absolutely. Yeah. It's the, this things, things don't stop here. There's actually, I, I I, I work on a, on a rather large agricultural operation right close by in the bar. Our ranch, my, my line itself is north of, of Tufnell Saskatchewan. And, and the, the ranch you see in the backdrop of a lot of the stuff's called the bar, our ranch 350 head of cattle and seeding about 2,800 acres of, of land. So it's, it, it it's, it's busy and, and yeah, like all, none of this stuff is like coordinated. Like I, I don't set up a background for anything that happens. I'll just be on the fly through the day and I'll be like, this would be a great spot. Or if I'm, you know, on top of the air cart loading fertilizer or something like that where you're just kind of standing for a few minutes, that's where you see all this stuff get shot. It's just when I've got a second, I, I've, I've got a list of what I wanna say and I take it and it happens.

Vance Crowe [00:19:21] Yeah. So you, you write it down, you know what you wanna say.

Quick Dick McDick [00:19:25] I have a general I'll, I'll put an outline kind of what I want to cover and a few points that I wanna make. And I think what makes it kind of neat is that I'll then, I'll just kind of just start filling 'em in an ad lib and, and then I'll get a few of 'em, I'll, I'll be driving the tractor or something like that, or I'll be shoveling out the barn and I'll, something will hit me and I'll be like, you know what, this would work really good if I put this in between that one kind of thing. You just keep kind of building it and building it, which I, I need to organize and do better because sometimes I'll wind up missing a few shots or you get 'em out of order kind of thing and then, and then you're like, okay, I don't know where I'm at here with this whole production Right. Kind of thing. Right. But yeah, it's, this is all, this all happens most of my editing and putting it together and if I ever gotta do green screenshots and stuff like that is done literally in the middle of the night at home here. Yeah. So you're

Vance Crowe [00:20:16] A character man. Like you're 37 years old, you're living in the middle of Saskatchewan. You had a career, an entire career in oil and gas exploration. Like

Quick Dick McDick [00:20:25] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:20:25] What, what's the path, man? Like why, why, what are you doing in Saskatchewan? Why'd you do oil?

Quick Dick McDick [00:20:32] So when I grew, I graduat high school, so I, I actually grew up on a, on a very large federal community pasture here. I'm not sure I, I think he has have similar things down in the us but in Canada here in, during the, during the depression, the federal government came up up with their Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which was a drought relief pastoring program through the federal government to, to help cattle producers. My dad was actually a, a, a manager of, of one of these pastures. And so I grew up on a, on on a federal community pasture riding horse, being a, being a little cowboy kind of thing at the, at the best childhood you could possibly imagine. I grew up being a cowboy kind of thing, right? What happens a lot out here in, in central Saskatchewan, most of Saskatchewan, even over in Manitoba in a few places, is there's typically, there's not a lot of, of, of money kicking around in agriculture. And the, the dream of most guys around here is a lot of young guys that graduate high school and then go out and work the oil field because it's, it's big bucks, right? You, you can make some good money, could make some good money in a, again,

Vance Crowe [00:21:36] Better, what does that

Quick Dick McDick [00:21:36] Mean? Good

Vance Crowe [00:21:37] Money? What does that, what do you mean you say good money? What does that mean?

Quick Dick McDick [00:21:40] Like, you know, you'd be pulling in if you went to work, say a, a drill and a job kind of thing. I mean, Canadian dollars, so I mean not quite as much as American does. You, you could get outta school and without a high school education you could run out and do somewhere in the ballpark $80,000 a year kind of thing. Some guys would do better, some guys not as good kind of thing. But it it, like that's that's pretty good cash. I mean was good cash, great cash where I come from? Right,

Vance Crowe [00:22:04] Right.

Quick Dick McDick [00:22:05] And it's a little bit different of an experience too. 'cause there, you know, especially when you're young, you kinda get that wandering gene in you a little bit and you wanna see what else is outside of the agricultural world that you live in and you know, maybe there'll be more than four girls in the next town that you're going to kind of thing. Right? Not that there's anything wrong with the girls around here. They're all fantastic, but, you know, so I, there's a lot of guys will, will run out and start doing that. I actually wound up when we went into like wintertime slower around here between, you know, by the time you're done putting up hay and, and get all your cattle in and everything and there's the, basically you just do chores until everything starts calving and then it goes crazy again. So you kinda get like this slow time and that's when your oil field work is the busiest around here is usually getting into the wintertime because there's a lot of remote access stuff that needs to be done on frozen ground here in Canada. So it, it, it kinda works out like the, everyone kind of rides the wave into it where there's not a lot going on around here. Farming's all done for the year, well let's go work the oil field kind of thing. Right. It's where you see a lot of things happening too. And then in the spring when you, when everything's starting to melt in the oil field, then a lot of guys will come back home and seed and do a few other things, you know, so it, they kinda work with each other a little bit too. But yeah, wound up going out to a town called Brooks, Alberta, kind of got into the oil and gas industry there and just kept going with it. I just got completely infatuated with it. Wound up in, in Grand Prairie for, I was in Grand Prairie, I got up there in 2003 and I was there for 16 years in Grand Prairie.

Vance Crowe [00:23:37] And then this work, are you, are you around like the actual drill that is going in the ground and

Quick Dick McDick [00:23:42] No chain? So No. So some sometimes you would be, but I was more into the, into the well services side of things. So there's, it, it, it's kind of funny, there's a, there's an idea out there. A lot of people think the oil and gas afterwards when I did the Canadian oil and gas video was kind of the point of that video was to show how many different, you know, parts and pieces make up the oil and gas sector. Not only in Canada but in the US and you know, when you get into offshore stuff, there's, it's not just a drilling rig that goes out there and punches a hole in the ground. There's a lot of services involved with what goes on. I mean the right, right from start to finish from building the lease all the way right down to when you have a a, a completed site and facilities there. Like there's a, a lot of different moving parts to the oil and gas sector. I work specifically in the well services side, so it's kind of the, the in-between of, from a drill and rig to a well going into the pipeline where you see some cementing services would deal directly with a drill and rig. And then primarily did a lot of work with hydraulic fracturing crews and things like that. And then got into actually the commercial transportation side of it, doing logistics and product delivery for hydraulic fracturing and completion crews. It was very, very interesting. It was, it the, the, the amount that you can learn in the world is endless. And that was 16 years of, of learning every day. But I think everybody learns every day and you should try and learn every day. Even even now being back in agriculture, I learn four to 10 new things every day kind of thing.

Quick Dick McDick [00:25:15] And that's, i i I love learning new stuff about different things. It's, it's one of the best feelings in the world.

Vance Crowe [00:25:22] So why'd you get out? You're learning, you're making money, you're doing something kind of fun. I mean that's the modern day cowboy it seems.

Quick Dick McDick [00:25:29] Yeah, it was, it was actually great. It was, it was a, it was a great job and it was just you, you've reached that, that point in, in your life I think where, where you're like, I, I I, I don't know if I enjoy what I'm doing as much as I used to anymore kinda thing. I think one of my bigger problems was I, I actually wound up being the operations manager of a, of a, of a transportation company, started having, you know, de dealing with employees and a few different things. And when you're, when you're, when you're dealing with a lot of these things, it's, it's, it's a 24 hour beast. 'cause you're running 24 hour operations in the oil field and there's getting to be a lot of stuff happening where I, I was like, you know what, I, I don't really know if I enjoy this as much as I used to. And there was one night specifically where, you know, it's, it's, it's three o'clock in the morning and you get a call and there's a truck in the ditch and you're like, okay, you gotta go and set everything up and get a truck outta the ditch and do all this stuff, but come back. There's a few other things going on as well at the time. But hey, you hit that point where, and, and I know there's probably a lot of people out there that have hit it where you're just like, I, I don't, I don't think I enjoy what I do anymore. You know? And that's, I think a lot of people would get themselves in a situation where whether you enjoy what you do or not, you're doing it because you've get a mortgage, you get kids, you got wife, you get all this stuff going on and you need to pay some bills. I was just fortunate enough to be in a situation where, you know, no wife, no kids and not a lot holding me.

Quick Dick McDick [00:27:04] And I had this yearning desire to, to get back to my roots, which is here, right? And I, I, there's one, one morning I woke up and I was like, I, I need to do that. It's, it's, it's, it's what, it's what I want to do. And I could feel it, I could feel myself being pulled in that direction and essentially I just, I really wasn't happy doing what I was doing anymore. And I was like, I, I could keep doing this or I could try and pursue happiness a little bit and, and see if I can get some results out of it. And, and I, and I did. But in order to do that, you gotta take a a, a pretty big jump to do it. You know, you, you leave what you've done for the last, I I was in oil and gas for 19 years. It's, it's kind of terrifying when you're like, Hey, I'm just gonna jump off this ledge and, and go and I'm, I'm glad I did it. Sometimes you, you need to make a change in your life. Sometimes you need to, to make what you have happening work. And there's ways to do that as well. I, I decided to take this path and, and I'm, I'm glad I did. I'm really glad I did. It got me back here and, and a lot more in touch with, with where I'm from and, and what built me. And I think it's, it's really important now. And I think that's why, I think that's why you see quick Dick being such a goofy and funny guy because that was something that I'd kind of lost in my life. I, I, I'd lost, I, I I like, not in a depressing way. I, I'd lost my happiness, I guess if you want to call it like, I'm kind of who quick Dick is joking all the time and having fun.

Quick Dick McDick [00:28:39] And, and that part had slowly, slowly been chiseled outta me. And, and I didn't like that. So I changed it.

Vance Crowe [00:28:48] When you think about what you imagined coming home would be like, and you're, you're moving away from something, what was harder about leaving that, that life than you thought was gonna be?

Quick Dick McDick [00:28:58] Money? No, here's the thing about money is you're never gonna have enough of it no matter what you're doing. And that, that, that's an unfortunate mindset that we have as human beings. There's guys that have billions of dollars that will keep scrounging and working and reinvesting to build on that fortune. I think it's human nature. A a a terrible part of human nature is whether, whether you've got $20 in your bank account or $20 million in your bank account, some part of you as a human's gonna look at that and go, that's not enough. I, I need more. Do you really? I don't think you do, you know, but to, to get past that mindset. No, I, I I spent a lot of years building a a lot of great relationships with a, with a lot of friends. And I, I think that's been the hardest part about me. You know, removing that part of my life, coming back here, a lot of the people here at home in Saskatchewan were people that I'd known as, as a younger individual and, and then coming home and reconnecting with a lot of those people was an amazing part of this, which made it a little bit easier to be able to leave, you know, people behind in the Grand Prairie area that I'd known for 20 years. You know, that's, you could build some very, very good friends in that amount of time. And that's a hard part of doing. I'm, I'm very low maintenance when it comes to where I live or what goes on or what I eat throughout the course of a day or anything. I'm, I'm prob I'm probably the lowest maintenance guy on planet Earth actually. And so, like a lot of those parts have been, you know, very, very easy to handle.

Quick Dick McDick [00:30:33] And as far as, you know, the cash flow side of things, your, your cost of living's a lot different than rural Saskatchewan versus, you know, urban and Alberta kind of thing. They're, they're very two very, very different cost factors to look at. So you're gonna come back here and maybe not, you know, generate the revenue that you were generating out west, but when you, when you come back here, you're also, it doesn't cost you what it costs to live out west either. But what you get here versus what you got out there is a trade I was willing to make and I made it. And it wasn't something, you know, for anyone out there listening, if, if I can just go off on this a little bit here. I spent, I spent a lot of years managing a company where you would have guys that you're expecting to show up for a shift and show up for work and do a few things that would just all of a sudden quit showing up. They wouldn't even give you the, you know, the, the favor of telling you that they weren't coming back to work or they found another job or something like that. You know, you're sitting at a, at a logistics desk waiting for a guy to show up and you get a phone call or maybe you don't even get a phone call, you just can't get a hold of 'em anymore and all of a sudden they're not coming back to work anymore. Absolutely not. The way I went about this, I took six, six months actually to, to train a couple of replacements and, and, and leave on the best terms humanly possible so that it wasn't going to directly affect business and the people there. That is so important to me that, that people do that because how you do things in life is it, it it kind of makes people look at, at who you are and judge your character.

Quick Dick McDick [00:32:03] And it, it's very important that you don't set people up for failure by just being like, you know what? I'm unhappy today. I'm just not coming back to work anymore. That's kind of unfair to, to everybody and you really shouldn't do that. And as far as I'm concerned, if you give somebody two weeks notice if, if it's a busy company and a small company where everybody relies on each other, two weeks isn't enough either. You, you've gotta let people give them some time to react and get an alternate plan. And, and if, if, if you discuss things, you know, if you're, if you're unhappy or you need to make a change in your life or do something, if you discuss things with people eight times outta 10, you're gonna get a a positive reaction if you can get to see your side of it. Right. Some people won't see your side of it or what you're doing and, and they're worried about personal gain or their business gain and they're not gonna listen to what you're saying anyways. But really important to, to, to take that time and give people an opportunity to, to, to react to what's coming instead of just mic dropping and going. So

Vance Crowe [00:33:00] Yeah, I think one of the saddest things that can happen to a 20-year-old man is to not have enough experiences where you get good at telling people things, you know, they don't want to hear. Right? Like that's what life is a series of is me telling people, you know, where we're coming into conflict and how we need to resolve that. And in your twenties, my sense, or at least it was for me, that's when I learned like, hey, you're gonna have to tell some somebody something that's gonna, it's gonna make their life harder. It's gonna make them, you know, think differently about you, but better to deal with it now than to deal with it a week from now or a month from now. And the people that don't learn that, they never come back from that. Right. Like, it, it's an ostracization from society because they never really got to interact with it as an adult.

Quick Dick McDick [00:33:46] Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, it's one of the most important skills that, that we learn as human beings is, is communication. And some people never, ever learn it or are very poor at it kind of thing, you know what I mean? That's, it just keeps going back to this quick dick stuff is, is a, is a big reason where there's a lot of really sensitive subjects that that quick dick will cover sometimes. And it's, I I've found that the easiest way to to, to tap into people is to tap into their, their humor side of things. Because anything that people hear, if, if you're jovial and laughing and it, it's, it's easier to take information when you're in that state of mind. I, I know, you know, lots of times where I'll get bad news or something, you get people that will, will approach you at, at the wrong angle and they'll kind of get you on the defense mode before they even get to the information that they're gonna, you know, produce to you. And before they even say what they're gonna say, you're already kind of on defense mode getting ready 'cause you're getting this feeling off of them that, Hey, what are you setting me up for here right now? Kind of thing, right? And a a lot of times people just don't get a, a good reaction out of that. I, I was actually on, on another podcast with another gentleman actually right close to, to Lloydminster, which is up bordertown between Saskatchewan and Alberta here. And I'd said it to him too, but there's, if, if, if you dig deep enough into, into all human beings on this planet, every single one of them, there are 99.99% of the people that you find have a good person hiding in them somewhere.

Quick Dick McDick [00:35:20] Some of, some of it might be deep, deep down a long ways deep down, but instead of just trying to blurt information out of this person, the the, the best thing to do is to try and try and access that good person that is inside that person and talk to that good part of that person. You see a lot of the stuff on social media right now where like, like, like Twitter, Twitter is 90% of the, 99% of the time a little bit of a dumpster fire. It's just a bunch of people just kind of fighting with each other kind of thing. But that's an easy reaction for, for people to get to and it's easy to tap into, you know, the, the defensive side of people, which usually just winds up in, in a tire spinning match that that goes nowhere. If, if you can tap into that good part of that person, you can usually gain a lot of ground with it and if not get them to see your point. You can at least see a little bit of common ground and get some resolve. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:36:15] Yeah, I mean there's very few situations where if somebody can get me to laugh that I'll be like, oh, I I really dislike that person. Right? Even if their laughter is about something that, that like is at my expense or whatever, like if they can get me laughing, I'm way, way more open to it. And I think a lot of that, so one of the things that I think people don't notice about humor is that humor is really a mechanism for, for gaining agreement along around large groups of people. Yeah. And the way that you gain agreement is not by hammering the point that people are disagreeing with harder humor allows you to look at it from some different point of view. And if you can connect two dots that people didn't see before, now that ha ha ha sound is actually them signaling like, I get it, I get he made that connection to that thing. Yeah. And now, now this laughter signals that we understand it and once you understand it, you're way more open to it.

Quick Dick McDick [00:37:09] Yeah, absolutely. And that's, especially if you like, you know, I don't do, I I don't do, you know, big crowds or, or live shows, I mean I don't think anybody does live shows right now, but that's, you get in a group o of people in a room and like, I mean I've been there before, I know you've been there for anybody. Listening's probably been there before too. But if you get in a group of people in a room and everybody's kind of laughing together, like it's, it it elates you a little bit and it it may makes you like, you know what, I don't even know that person. I think me and that person might have something in common 'cause we're both laughing at the same thing and maybe, you know, maybe we can share an opinion here a little bit kind of thing, right? I I, I've seen some, some great great live speakers where they'll, they'll, they'll get people laughing and, and use comedy and, and maybe have a a point that they're trying to cover. That's not the easiest point or topic that people wanna discuss. You bring it across in that way. It it's a, it's a way that people can make it, make it happen and make it relevant and make people accept it through laughter. Which is, I I think, I think it's everything. I think, I think it's one of the most important communication tools that there is.

Vance Crowe [00:38:18] I once saw a man in Alberta stand up and say, I think that Alberta is so far out of being able to communicate with the rest of Canada that what I think you should do is break away and become the 51st state in the union. And I busted out laughing because I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard an American say. It was Peter Zeihan say to a, to a crowd of people and they didn't laugh out of it. They, because they took it as serious and I, and he was saying it as serious. So that's like one of those blending points. Maybe jumping off of the humor, but going into Alberta, have you ever heard anybody say Alberta, you should break away from Canada and become the 51st state?

Quick Dick McDick [00:39:05] Yeah, you hear it, you hear it lots. There's, there's a lot of stuff, you know, where you hear, like, I'll hear a lot of Americans be like, you know, if if, if only we had BC and then we could get straight up to Alaska and then it's all connected and everything, right? And there's, there's, there's a huge, people want to try and make a huge movement here in Canada right now on the We exit or the Western Federation, you know, where we basically cut the country at at Manitoba. For people that don't know Canadian geography that well, I mean it's basically halfway through Canada, they want to cut it in half and the whole western part of the country, they want that to be its own country kind of thing, whatever. Right? And that's a, a lot of people are jumping onto that train because there's some, there's a very serious political division in Canada with east versus west kind of thing. And you can, you can really see it in in in poll results and election results. Our, our last election was a, was a prime example of it where if you look at an electoral map of riots, you could, you could see where Western Canada turns into Eastern Canada. It turned into our, our liberal government supporters and Western Canada did not support them whatsoever kind of thing. Right. And it, it's, the way the population works in Canada as well is pretty challenging too because our, our, our population demographics are in Quebec and Ontario, which is eastern Canada, which is where our government is, is run from. And that's, that's what decides what runs our country is, is basically those two provinces. 'cause that's where all the population is, right? When you get out into western Canada, it it, it is a very, very sparse sparsely populated part of Canada, right?

Quick Dick McDick [00:40:39] So you've, you've got a part of Canada that's, that's handling a lot of your resource management in Canada out in western Canada. And then you get an eastern part of Canada that's handling a lot of your industry part parts of Canada. So you got your bigger population that decides what government you have on the eastern part of it that's handling the industry part of it. And then the western part of it, Canada just goes with whatever government the east elects and then handles your resource side of Canada. So it's, if it goes too long where western Canada is not represented properly in eastern Canada, you get this east versus west kind of thing happening. Lots. I hear I hear of that happening in the states a little bit too, where eastern states versus western states, is Canada the same kind of mentality or thing, right?

Vance Crowe [00:41:24] Yeah. The coast versus the middle, right? They call the middle the flyover country. Yeah,

Quick Dick McDick [00:41:29] Absolutely. Yeah. And that's like we, it's, it's not quite the coast versus here kind of thing because western Canada is very, you know, sparsely populated, but I mean the US obviously like dense population down both coastlines, right? So yeah. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting how that happens, but when you say, you know, Alberta separated or turning into the 51st state or whatever, it's, you, you hear a lot of this stuff getting thrown around a lot of the time. I, I hope that, that somehow we can find a way to talk to, to each other across Canada. Maybe a big part of of what I'm trying to do is to try and, you know, there's a lot of people in, you know, in your Ontario, Quebec and out into the maritime provinces of Canada here that, that work in agriculture and a lot of different things. I'm, I'm shocked how much support I'm starting to get from, from those provinces, which is, it's, it's actually, it's a great thing to hear because you realize that not everybody's the same out there. There, there are agriculture people and rural people everywhere across Canada. So now I guess the, the big question is how do you start making your way into some of these, you know, rural areas, sorry, urban areas that are, you know, that maybe are not sharing the same mindset as the rest of everybody and how do you get those people not to agree with each other? Because everyone doesn't have to go through life agreeing with each other what's happening. But it's important that everybody go through life and see each other's sides of the argument and understand it. And I think that's a real big division that we have. And that's not just in Canada. You can see it in the states, in Europe, everywhere there's, there's two very different opinions that happen and no matter what, everyone's right on their side of the opinion kind of thing.

Quick Dick McDick [00:43:09] And if there's no dialogue in between that you, you just, you really spin your tires a lot, right?

Vance Crowe [00:43:15] Yeah. And if the, if the city world doesn't have somebody in the country making that information approachable to them, like through humor, they're not going to get it because people don't make decisions based on facts, right? You could show up with, you know, 10,000 page document with all the graphs describing why everything you're saying is exactly true. But if people don't feel like it's true, they're not going to. And if you use humor just to batter the other side, then they're, they're going to feel that battering and they're not gonna laugh at your jokes, which puts you in a weird position because your stuff is really funny. The stuff that you do that goes big is political and politics is picking a side in a way. So recently there was a Canadian gun ban and you put out a video about this. Tell me about the Canadian gun ban and then what you decided to put out into the world.

Quick Dick McDick [00:44:11] Yeah, it's, it's, it's a little bit terrifying what actually happened with that gun ban. So it was, it was, it was done through Order in Council and regulation. So essentially it was not debated in, in the house commons, which is how, you know, how our democracy is set up to work here in Canada in most places that are, that are democracies here now. Is it, it was kind of done behind the cover of, of the COVID-19 pandemic with what's happening right now, which is, it's kind of the part that scared me the most about what happened is just basically have a, a democratic government, which our, our, our current government's a minority government as well. And the way our population works, I maybe I won't get into that 'cause we could go on forever about that, but it's a minority government and they, they, they passed this basically just by stroking a pen and saying, this is it, it is about the closest thing to a dictatorship you could possibly get what just happened in a, in a free democratic country, right? Which is terrifying.

Vance Crowe [00:45:07] What is the gun ban? Because people here have no idea. I still don't even fully understand it.

Quick Dick McDick [00:45:12] Yeah. So, so essentially how it works here in Canada, and I'm, I'm by no, like, I'm by no stretch of the imagination, an expert on gun or gun law. And this, if you dig deep into it, we have some of the strictest regulations here in Canada as far as firearms are concerned, and we have for, for many years. And 95 is, is essentially when our, when our, our, our restrictions on, on firearms came in very heavily here in Canada. But what they did here is they, they banned 1500 varieties of, they, they call 'em military grade assault weapons, which was kind of used as, my opinion was used as a little bit of a scare tactic to, to push this political agenda because it's something that they, they'd said that they were gonna do in their, in their election platform. Military grade assault weapons actually don't exist in Canada. There's, there's very strict laws here on, on restricted weapons, which is a lot of the weapons that they were referring to. I'm gonna, I'm gonna use the, the word firearms because they're firearms, A lot of them were, were actually highly restricted. So how it works with the restricted weapon here, rife, I'm getting tongue tied here. How it works with a, with a restricted firearm here in Canada is you're only allowed whether, whether you have a restricted firearm, they keep using military grade, but there's specific barrel length and, and how your, how your gun is, how your gun is manufactured of what classifies it as restricted or non-restricted weapon one way or another. If you own a firearm here in Canada, you need to have a possessions and acquisitions license a pal.

Quick Dick McDick [00:46:47] That means you have to go through a course and you have to prove that, you know, the, the, the specifics on the weapon, how to handle it, how to use it, and then you actually have to have a background check done by the Royal Canadian Mount of Police. In, in Miramichi in New Brunswick is actually where you send your paperwork to. And if they deem you fit to, to have a firearm, then they will send you a license and you have to produce that license anytime you wanna purchase a firearm or ammunition for a firearm, right? So if you don't have a pal, you can't buy a, a firearm or ammunition and you move into the restricted side of things where you start going to these military grade assault weapons, which really, it, it, it's kind of not a thing here in Canada, but it's, it, it's a, it's a semi-automatic weapon. And I think the reason that they use this is they want to try to convince people that don't know what's happening with firearms here in Canada. That we have a bunch of people running around with fully automatic weapons in Canada since 1977. You are not allowed to have a fully automatic firearm in Canada. They are prohibited, they have been since 1977. So whether you're carrying a, they they continually use refer to an AR 15 for some reason in this address, which is like basically a 2 23 chambered semi-automatic rifle that looks like something you would see in a Rambo movie kind of thing. A a a 2 23 isn't that big of a caliber of a shell right. And no matter what, if you've got an AR 15, if you've got a six millimeter Ruger, you are allowed to have five rounds in a magazine in Canada.

Quick Dick McDick [00:48:25] No matter what, it doesn't matter what your gun looks like. It doesn't matter where it came from. You think of Jesse Ventura and Predator with a Gatlin gun letting it rip in the, in the movie predator there. You can't have that stuff in Canada. It's, it's been prohibited here since 1977. You are allowed, you

Vance Crowe [00:48:42] Can't, you can't, you can't shoot more than five rounds without having to

Quick Dick McDick [00:48:46] Five rounds.

Vance Crowe [00:48:47] Oh my God.

Quick Dick McDick [00:48:49] Five rounds. Whether you're carrying an MP 40 an M, 16 AR 15, you are prohibited in Canada to have more than a five round or five rounds in your magazine. And if you, if you have a magazine that is, is capable of having more than five rounds in it, it's actually has to be machined and pinned so that you physically can't get more rounds in it. So the, the, the biggest thing about this gun band is whether you're carrying, like I said, a six millimeter Remington semi-automatic with a, with a five shot magazine in it or carrying an AR 15, you are allowed to have the exact same amount of rounds in each one of 'em. And if you have more rounds than that in it, you are committing a crime. You have a prohibited weapon. So they put this huge ban on 1500 styles of firearms here in Canada and, and they hid behind the fact that there are, these are big scary weapons that are responsible for, for mass shootings. Well, we've banned a whole bunch of different things. So whether I've got a six millimeter Remington or I've got an AR 15, I can still go into a place with only five rounds in it.

Vance Crowe [00:50:00] So what is the ban effectively mean? Do you have to give your guns over to the government? So

Quick Dick McDick [00:50:06] The, the, the specifics, were still waiting to come out on it, but effectively right now, the 1st of May, you, you cannot take them out of your locked safe that you have to have 'em stored in you. You cannot take them out anymore. That's where they have to stay. And you have a two year grace period they're calling it in which to, to turn them in. Now they're saying that they're gonna have a buyback program and they're gonna give you fair market value for your weapons when you come to turn 'em in. So now lots of guys are like, well, my guns aren't for sale, or, well, what's fair market value kind of thing. Right. And there was also an exemption that they go on this, it goes on this big, big, you know, heartfelt, referring to all those. And let me just say that we had a, a very, very tragic mass shooting in, in Nova Scotia here recently in Canada in Portapique. And there was, there was men that went on a, on a rampage and killed, killed 22 people, including, including an RCMP officer. And they were, they were kind of using a lot of these as, as the reason of why they're doing this with the gun ban. And the, the, the man that actually committed this heinous act was using weapons that were smuggled into Canada. And he did not have possessions and acquisitions license. He was actually, he was not allowed to have weapons according to the RCMP. So this, this man had acquired these weapons illegally and anything that they just did with this gun man does not focus on fixing that specific problem.

Quick Dick McDick [00:51:43] They want to bring the, the firearms that people have legally acquired and registered and been vetted by the RCMP, they want those to come back into their possession, which is really heart wrenching for a lot of legal firearm owners because it, it doesn't fix the problem. It just takes people that are obeying the law and it, it takes their firearms away from them.

Vance Crowe [00:52:08] How much was this a discussion before? I mean, before the, the rampage and we heard about what was going on with Nova Scotia, it was, you know, horrifying.

Quick Dick McDick [00:52:16] Yeah. But

Vance Crowe [00:52:17] Was this a conversation people were hoping to do before that and that this was the opportunity? Or is it that this started a national discussion?

Quick Dick McDick [00:52:25] Yeah, so that was, I mean, it was, it was in their election platform, like basically since 2015 that they were gonna tighten down gun laws, which you, you'll find a lot of, you'll, you'll find a lot of, of, of this is the same thing where you have two very different opinions of what's happening here in Canada, where if, if you live downtown Toronto, you know, in a, in a condo kind of thing, a firearm is nothing you would ever have or need or use kind of thing just because, you know, the Toronto City police, the OPP or, or right close by and you have no reason to hunt. So why would you ever need or or carry a firearm? Different scenario, you know, out here in the country is where you use a firearm quite regularly, whether it's the hunt, whether you've got a, a coyote, wolf, wolf problem badgering your herd, you know, if you're hunting, deer hunting, moose duck hunting, there, there's, there's all sorts of different things. Plus it.

Vance Crowe [00:53:21] When was the last time you needed a firearm

Quick Dick McDick [00:53:23] Needed? Yeah, I, I haven't needed a firearm for, for a long time. You know, I, I also like to, to which I'd say people would be like, yeah, so why do you have 'em? Or there there's my point quick dick, that's my point. Well, no, I hear you, but I, I don't need this cup of coffee either. I can live without it, you know, I don't need, I don't need this house, I don't need this computer, I don't need my phone. There's a lot of things we don't need, but where, where, where we are, it would take the mounts essentially. The RCMP, essentially it's, it's a 45 minute response time to rural, rural places here in Saskatchewan. 45 minutes. What can happen in 45 minutes, Vance?

Vance Crowe [00:54:05] Everything,

Quick Dick McDick [00:54:07] Everything and anything right? Loss can happen in five minutes. It's just the fact if you criminals running around in Canada are, are not gonna have registered weapons on them. They're gonna have illegally imported weapons on them that probably fire fully automatic, but you can't get them in Canada, so they're coming from somewhere else. Right. This, if I was a criminal, I'd be looking at what just happened and thinking to myself, well, we just won the lottery here guys, no, nobody's gonna have anything that they can shoot back at us, even 22. And everyone's like, you can't shoot back to people, you can't do this. I hear ya. But if it boils down to the fact that you're trying to protect your family in the, in the middle of nowhere, or yourself, for that matter, matter in the middle of nowhere, and all you've got is a BB gun and you've got a guy shooting at you with an illegal fully automatic weapon, I mean, who, who's gonna win the fight?

Vance Crowe [00:54:56] It strikes me that coronavirus really revealed that people living in dense urban environments have different needs than people living in rural open, less dense areas. Yeah. And it seems like we are forgetting that in all of the conversations. It's interesting to see that that's what's going on in Canada too.

Quick Dick McDick [00:55:15] Very good point. And that's, that's a thing, and that's where you see a lot of the stuff of, of what quick Dick is doing is just trying to be like, Hey, you know, the, the, I I did a federal carbon tax overnight oats one where it is trying to get people to understand, you know, what it takes to, to get oats onto the shelves in the grocery store. Because you hear a lot of people that, you know, agriculture is dead or we don't need oil and gas or any of the stuff. And which I understand how people would draw that conclusion based on some of the media that's out there, but if, if you actually understood, which I, I'm lucky I, I understand what it takes to get oil and gas and how much oil and gas it takes to get our food to our tables. It takes a lot of it and it takes a lot of very hardworking people in the agriculture industry to make it happen. There's so much that it takes. Even when I first went into the oil and gas industry as a, as a young guy right outta school, I was just like, I cannot believe what's happening out here. I thought an oil field was just a drilling and rig where oil's gushing out of the top of the drilling rig and there's a Texas cowboy with a hat going, yeah, we struck oil. Like that's what I thought oil and gas was. Right. But it's, it's not, you know, there's, there's just so, so many things to it, right? Same with agriculture, same with everything. It's just, if, if we commercial transportation's another big thing, especially when we referenced COVID-19, all of a sudden everybody's being like, truckers are our heroes. And you know what, there was one article I saw, I think it was in the National Post, it was like from, from Zeroes to Heroes or whatever the title of it was, truck Drivers, right?

Quick Dick McDick [00:56:48] And I'm like, at what point in time was a truck driver A zero? Like, just, just because COVID-19 hit, all of a sudden truckers are heroes. 'cause they're bringing stuff to your grocery stores. Here's a tip for you. They always have brought stuff to your grocery stores. You are just too entitled to wanna look at it. You know what I mean? So they, yeah, COVID-19 has really, really made people have a look at things and that's where you see like how it's affected us in, in rural Saskatchewan here is this very minimal impact to everyday life because, you know, everything just continues to happen here. The, the cattle need to be fed, crops need to be planted, everything needs to continue going. If they wanna deem it an essential service, then I like, I'm a guy that truly believes that everybody's part in society is essential because we all need each other to, to keep, to keep things turning right, right down to, you know, I wanna stop and grab a, a cup of coffee along a highway or something like that. I need somebody owning that coffee shop to, to be able to provide that cup of coffee and whatever I'm getting there, right? A lot of the stuff is, well, do we need, need it? No. But how, how do people survive? How do you make a living? How do you, how do you carve your place out in the world if, if, if all there is is agriculture and people that eat the food, what else is there kind of thing. There's a lot of environmental activists there being like, oil and gas is dead and don't bail out the oil and gas industry and blah, blah, blah. Well, I like that's kind of a mean thing to say to half a million Canadians that are outta work right now that have no way of feeding their family on an

Vance Crowe [00:58:24] Industry. Well, and it's an interesting, it's an interesting juxtaposition and kind of from where we started where we were saying, who goes to a protest, right? A person that doesn't feel progress in their own life, but our government just told, at least in the United States, millions and millions and millions of people, you aren't essential. Your work moving forward isn't important. It is actually the opposite of important. It is non-essential. And so I, I mean you have to imagine that people are going to internalize these messages in large part because if I internalize it, then I get to be safe from this disease. And by being safe, yes, I give away my, my agency, my, my desire and ability to go out and do things for myself, but I also now get to be a receiver as opposed to a builder or a creator.

Quick Dick McDick [00:59:12] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Vance, yeah, it's very, very true in this, the whole essential service kind of thing, I, I think has been a little bit of a, a little bit too much of a reality check for, for a lot of people that may take it the wrong way, but one, one very important thing I'd like to bring to the table about essential services we get even a government deeming what's essential and what's not right down to, you know, a lot of meat packing plants in southern Alberta that, that handle, I mean basically over half of the Canadian beef supply, you know, is, and people

Vance Crowe [00:59:43] Don't realize Alberta is like the Montana slash Texas, I mean, I don't know, cattle ranching, central Al Alberta

Quick Dick McDick [00:59:52] Is huge. A absolutely it is. Yes. Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, and even parts of of BC are, are, are huge in, in, in commercial grade beef for food supply, right? And yeah, it's like Alberta. I I think a lot of people, you know, in Ontario and and a few other places don't realize that what they're eating on their shelves is actually coming from, you know, a Cargill plant in High River or Brooks, right? They, they handle, they handle a lot of the beef that that we eat here as Canadians. And that actually you guys eat as Americans as well. A lot, a lot of it goes south over the border. But so, so we've got, we've got a person listen to this. We've got a person in a beef backing plant that's deemed essential service and we have a, a federal government that runs our country that has refused to resume parliament.

Vance Crowe [01:00:46] I hadn't thought of that. That's a good point.

Quick Dick McDick [01:00:48] How essential are we, you're, you're the ones that are running the country and you've deemed yourself non-essential. Well, does that mean that we really need you then?

Vance Crowe [01:01:00] Yeah, I mean, I think maybe they're not running the country. There's a guy named Eric Weinstein that talks a whole bunch and he said something that really made a lot of sense to me. He said, we basically have not been at war or had an existential crisis for the last 50 years. And because of that we started selecting our politicians for things other than we need you to govern or protect us from ourselves. In fact, what what we ended up doing was we selected an actor class of people, and you could go back to Reagan, you know, Trump. They're essentially actors fulfilling this role of I will keep the enough tension in the politics that will keep your attention and make you feel like we're moving forward. But in fact we were not prepared at all for the invasion that was COVID-19. We've been completely overrun. I don't know how you guys are in Canada, but like we are, we are now in, you know, you could call it quarantine or you could call it like protection from the enemy because our, we were just completely overrun.

Quick Dick McDick [01:02:01] Yeah, it's, it's basically the same thing here. And I think, you know, there's, Saskatchewan was actually the first province to declare a state of emergency and, and, and shut down non-essential services. But the, the thing was, is there was a lot of modeling of, of what could and, and was going to happen that happened at the time, excuse me, that didn't really, didn't really come into its full fruition of what the modeling had assumed that it would. And so now you see a, like a lot, a lot of provinces here are now gradually starting to reopen their economies in a few different things. But yeah, it's, it's very, it's, it's very interesting specifically when people look at the, oh, you know, well, like the government's doing the best that they could with the situation that was at hand. I i, I don't know if people know this out there, but there are actually a very, very large amount of tax dollars in Canada. I'm sure it would be the, the same thing in the US that there's actually policies and planning and a lot of things that, that people are paid very, very well within the government to have policies and plans and emergency response plans and pandemic plans in place and updated for when these things happen. So that when they do happen, you basically just go to the policy. It's just like health and safety manual of Canada kind of thing. These are written and there's people that are, that are paid very good money. There's even a gentleman that I, that I, I know in Alberta that actually works for the Alberta government that, that a part of his strategic emergency planning in, in Alberta and his government job is to plan for a mass mortality rate and how they would, how they would store bodies in the case of a, of a, a pandemic or a a global disaster or something like that.

Quick Dick McDick [01:03:40] And this, this is, this is five years ago that he is telling me what he does for the government and I'm like, you do what? He's like, yeah, that's my job is to plan for this stuff. So to, to all Canadians and probably Americans out there that are watching this there, there's people that are paid very good money to make sure that there is a plan in place when this stuff happens. So when this stuff does happen and everyone's trying to support what's, what's being done and be like, well, they're doing the best that they can with what they've got. No, they're supposed to have a plan for this. We've paid them to have a plan for this and this is the part where you execute said plan, you know, and it's just like when it happens, everything just gets thrown out the window. We don't close borders, we don't do a whole bunch of other things and it turns into just kind of a little bit of a free for all off the start. And now we've got ourselves all locked down in a bunch of places with a leader of a country that just comes out of this cottage for a few minutes in the morning, doesn't address to the country, gives out a couple billion dollars to a few people and then goes back into his cottage and that's all you see or hear till the next day kind of thing. It's, it's very concerning.

Vance Crowe [01:04:37] Yeah, that is really weird. You're in particular Canada, every time I see Trudeau it's like he's coming out of his house to like be like, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm, it's, it, it, it reminds me of, you know, like somebody being at like the Palace of Versailles coming out, making some decisions and then going back into their palace and I realized Versailles wasn't used in that way, but that's what it seems like, right? It seems like what are you doing in there? Are you, I mean, it's your government so you guys can do whatever you want, but it doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like the people that are building things are also the ones in charge. And I think the essential versus non-essential, the thing about the, at least in the US was if you decided you were essential, you were essential, right? 'cause nobody stopped you. It was like basically giving a card to everyone and saying, if you wanna cash it in and stay inside and not not do anything and shelter away, you can. And all the other people just got up and started working. Those are the people that should be in charge right now.

Quick Dick McDick [01:05:34] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and the big thing, and I mean I'm, I'm definitely, you know, there's, there's a lot, a lot of great people that work very hard in government organizations, but it, it's just a pretty sore spot with me. When you get people that are making decisions for, for a nation that, that have a guaranteed pension, that they're not gonna be affected financially month to month whatsoever. Whether they stay in their cottage or whether they don't show up or if they sit in front of their computer and zoom with somebody for, you know, for 15 minutes on a, on a debate, on something for the day. It, it's just that if people aren't financially affected by this, they're, they're gonna have no, no reason whatsoever to try and expedite things. Going back to some way, shape, or form of normal. It'd be very easy for somebody who was not financially affected to just be able to say, no, we're gonna stay on lockdown for another six months just to let this pass, Kate. Well I know you're gonna be okay off of tax dollars with your federal pension and paycheck and everything. I, I know you're gonna be fine. So you can sit there and say, yeah, well, you know, it's no big deal. It's really not that big of a deal, right? Actually, I kind of like working for a moment. I just, you know, I can have my pajama pants on and walk down my stairs once a day and do an address for 10 minutes, avoid all the questions that are being asked me, not give an answer directly to any of the questions that are being asked of me, and then just go back into my hole and hide there for a little while longer kind of thing. Whereas you have people that are like, okay, I can't make my rent payment this month. I I, I haven't even thought about next month and how am I supposed to buy groceries kind of thing. And you're telling me, no, we're just gonna sit tight and wait this out. It doesn't work for a lot of people.

Quick Dick McDick [01:07:06] Right. And that's where, where you're saying like, essential services, yes, what is essential and what's not essential, a lot is essential. And eventually, like I'm glad that we're starting to reopen some things here in Saskatchewan and we're gonna continue, continue down that path. They're, they're doing a very great job here, the government is of, of managing what's happening, plus the population's doing really well with social distancing and making sure that everyone's conscious of what's going on. And I mean, that's what it's gonna take is a mindset of people would be like, Hey, no, we need to get going and here's how we're gonna get going. Versus just, okay, well here's some money to keep you, you know, satiated for a little while. We're just gonna leave you there locked lockdown for a little while longer. That kind of doesn't work.

Vance Crowe [01:07:47] Yeah, I think that people that are advocating for the lockdowns more and more or or wanna stay longer or, or wanna do the, the porn of look at how much fun that group of people are having, they shouldn't be doing that. That's a threat to us. Like if you saw those Ozark things,

Quick Dick McDick [01:08:05] I've seen some of that. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:08:06] I think that you're exactly right. Like if people are made to feel the pain of what is going on, suddenly that pain tells you, okay, I gotta get away from doing that thing that I was doing sitting at home, hiding, sheltering, and I gotta do something smart. But if you keep them away from that pain, then of course they're gonna go do the Ozarks thing, right? They're like, Hey, I've been stuck here, there's been no problem. Why not? Just, why not just do this? So we are doing everyone a disservice by by not exposing them to the, to the harm that can be here. Man, I know you have probably gotta get going, you got a whole day of, of agriculture and to do. But if people wanted to learn more about Quick Dick McDick, where would they find you?

Quick Dick McDick [01:08:48] Yeah, so you could actually, yeah, YouTube's a good place to start. Just search quick, Quick Dick McDick. And it, it should pop up real, real quick for you, real quick for you there. I I didn't do that intentionally, but yeah, that's, that's where my stuff is. And there's, you know, watch, there's, if, if you're offended easily, there's, there's some stuff that's got some language and whatnot in it or whatever. So, you know, make sure to watch it before the kids watch it kind of thing. There's some kids stuff on there, which I'd encourage man, if, if, if you got 30 minutes of your kids' time that you're trying to kill, there's two on there called Little Quicks and I, they're the, I'm most proud of those because it, it just involves kids showing, you know, the neat things that they do and things about our country and stuff. So, I mean, get your kids to check those though. They were a lot of fun to make, but yeah, so that's

Vance Crowe [01:09:35] Fun. Those look like a time capsule to me. Those, I, I saw those right at the height of Coronavirus and thought, man, he has really done something because he's captured a moment in time of agriculture and the way their family works and their farm works and their town works. That was a neat thing to see.

Quick Dick McDick [01:09:51] I I, I never, thanks man and I never really realized it until I, I I just put one up here, I guess Monday, whatever day we're on, I don't know what day of the week it is here, but I just put one up on Monday called First of the Field, which is kind of, it's a, it's a goofy agricultural one about all farmers racing to get out to who's gonna be the first in the field, you know? And recently I, I, I had a a, a dog that actually she wasn't my dog, it was, it was Greg and Leanne's dog of Diagonal Farms, but one of those dogs where like, she just a, a great great dog and spent a lot of time with her, but she actually turned into kind of a CoStar and a lot of quick Dicks videos where she was Casey and like my personal security detail and everything, but she'd always be with me. We'd be running around doing a whole bunch of fun stuff and actually they wound up having to put her down here just recently. So I did a, yeah, it's about like, it, you know, this this stuff happens is she got cancer and a few things and that's, this is, this is the cycle of life, you know, it sucks but it's, it's real and it happens, right? So, and a lot of people when you, when you have these people that turn into a character on your channel kind of thing, people are asking, well, you know, say hi to Casey or Pet Casey for me and everything and I'm just like, ugh, okay, well I kind of gotta let everybody that's been watching know that Casey's maybe not around anymore. So I just kind of put together like some small fast clips of all the times that I had Casey in, in Quick Dick and I just did it as a tribute to her at the end of it kind of thing. And that's where it really hit me, where a lot of the stuff, it's, it's, it's kind of like, like you say, almost like a photo album in your life, but had I not been doing this stuff, I wouldn't have had all those little clips of, of when we were spending some funny and and quality time together and you know, Leanne actually contacted me and she's like, that was just the best thing I've ever seen was that tribute to Casey.

Quick Dick McDick [01:11:40] And she's like, I, it kind of made me feel better 'cause now I'm always gonna be able to watch a little bit of Casey even though she's not here. And I was like, you know, that's, that's neat. And like you say, it's the same thing with the, with the kids there, that they'll be grown up someday and if the internet's still around they're, they're gonna be able to look back and be like, you remember when we were on Quick Dick or when we were learning about Alberta and a few different things and yeah. So it's, it's, it's neat. But yeah, it's, it's all, everything's up on the, on the, on YouTube there, just search Quick Dick McDick. Also there's quickdickmcdick.ca is is my website. You find us a few other things there and I'm on all the other stuff there too. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that stuff or whatever, man, what a handful to manage all this social media stuff. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:12:24] I think I'm getting rid of Instagram and maybe even Facebook. I think I'm just gonna stick with Twitter and my, and the podcast because the other stuff I, I spend some time on it, but I don't know that very much comes back that's positive of it for me, so I think I'm just gonna dump it. And I think that damn magnifying glass on Instagram is nothing but like your worst impulses like shown to you over and over and over again.

Quick Dick McDick [01:12:48] It's, it's so true man. Yeah, it's, I've, I've noticed like I'm very new to Twitter, I'm new to all this social media stuff. I haven't had it for, for forever. Like, I mean I haven't updated my Facebook account in I don't know how long, but it, it's, yeah, it is just stuff I just really feel like you just kind of don't need and everyone's like, oh you gotta follow back and you gotta do this. And I'm just like, I have no desire to follow back and be playing with notifications and a whole bunch of different things, you know what I mean? It's, but it's, yeah, that's, if, if you wanna seek, if you can, you can find them there and then, you know, there's, if there's anyone local around now obviously I probably wouldn't be but around Saskatchewan and stuff will say I'll wind up being on some local radio stuff quite a bit radio station outta Saskatoon and when outta Regina we do, we do regular stuff all the time or whatever, but just hopefully we can keep people laughing and, and, and jovial and, and, and make people enjoy our, our planet earth and our small time that we get on it here a little bit more while we're here, right. So,

Vance Crowe [01:13:47] Well Dixon you are the hardest working man in agriculture. It was a pleasure to get your text message at 5:00 AM this morning that we could do this. And so thanks for coming on man.

Quick Dick McDick [01:13:58] Yeah, thanks. And definitely not the hardest working man in agriculture. Anybody out there that's watching in agriculture, you're all hard workers, so keep doing what you do and feeding the globe. 'cause we, we, we need you more than anybody could ever possibly imagine. So

Vance Crowe [01:14:11] Amen.

Quick Dick McDick [01:14:12] Thanks for having me Vance. Appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [01:14:15] Well thank you to Quick Dick McDick for getting up so early this morning to do this podcast and thank you for sticking around all the way to the end. I said it last week, I'm gonna say it again. I have some big projects going and I'm pretty excited to tell you about them. There's gonna be a way for big time podcast listeners to support the show and maybe to join a community and then even become a part of what I'm working on here. So I'm excited. I should have some more announcements for you every day. I get a step closer to it and I'm really excited. Want to thank my executive producer Ben Anderson for helping me put together this podcast and my intern Ali Ali. Have a great day guys, and we'll talk to you later.