Canada's Institutional Breakdown: Power Grid Failures, Drug Vending Machines & Family Defense

Shaun Newman [00:00:00] Then they have these like kiosks. They're, they're not everywhere. They're in Vancouver. They're a vending machine for Oxycontin. And, and like, you know, like this is an insane idea. And they found out that, you know, high school kids, they're starting to use it recreational. Why? 'cause they know it's safe. This is just the dumbest thing ever. This like, this should not be happening. I'm Tim Dicken, a grain and cattle risk management advisor from Worthington, Minnesota. And you are listening to the Vans Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:30] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here today. We welcome Shaun Newman. Back to the podcast. Longtime listeners of the podcast know that when Sean and I met, he was a podcast host that was doing hockey shows and during the COVID lockdowns and changes in his life, he has gone on to become perhaps one of the most important and influential podcasters in all of Western Canada. And is certainly making waves throughout the entire system all the way through to the government. We're gonna have a fantastic conversation with him. I love chatting with him. Sean and I have become very good friends over the years. But first I've got a couple of things I wanna share with you. Just some things I'm sure you'd wanna be aware of. And I have a little personal story I want to tell something that happened the other night that I think is worth bringing up. So first we, you may remember that my creative director here at Legacy Interviews, before he did this, he wrote a full length motion picture called What Rhymes With Reason. It was played in all theaters around the country. It was an amazing show. And it is now out on all the streaming platforms. It's gotten picked up by Apple, Hulu, Amazon. And so if you're looking for a family friendly movie, it's really appropriate for teenagers kind of to give you an insight into what they're going through as far as stress and pressure and anxiety. I went, you know, 'cause I like Sean and I know he is a good writer, but I really didn't expect to really like the movie and I did. So I know Annie and I are planning on watching that this weekend.

Vance Crowe [00:02:02] So that's what rhymes with. Reason, another thing coming up, if you are one of my Canadian listeners or maybe Northern US, you might be surprised to know that I'm headed to Canada next week. So on February 14th and 15th I will be at the ION Conference that is in Lloydminster, which is right on the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta. I've been invited to give a talk called The Art of Picking Up Nails. This is really about how to get people to have deeper, better conversations. And one of the things I love about this talk that's coming up is there is so much cultural heritage in that part of Canada, and that is not that long ago that people were living without electricity and water and they had children that grew up in a modern age and so much of what they went through to make that world that survivable and even something that their families could thrive in. It's all being lost to history. People don't even know where their families came from or how they got there. And so I'm excited to be giving this talk because I know that Canadians in that part of the country really care about their history. And then finally, I told you, I would mention a personal story. A few months ago I had a chance to interview my wife's grandfather, so my children's great-grandfather to do a legacy interview. And it took him quite a few months from saying, yeah, I'll do it. To actually getting in here and recording the interview. We did it. It was a wonderful conversation. And then I went to the work of getting it edited and sent to him. But these interviews are entirely confidential.

Vance Crowe [00:03:34] So even though it's my children's great-grandfather, when I walked into my bedroom the other night after we'd put our kids to bed and we're really tired, I see my wife looking at her phone and she's teared up and she said, did you know this story about my grandfather? And I said, yeah, I did, but I couldn't tell you about it 'cause it's his story to share. And what he had done was he had written all of his grandchildren about some stories that he'd never told them before. And the fact that he had done a legacy interview had really prompted him to want to tell more stories, to be able to share things with his family. And my wife got to hear things about her grandmother that she never knew, and she was sitting there with tears of joy saying how much she appreciated now having the opportunity to know her family history so she could pass it on to her daughters. So I share this to say, I know that it's sometimes a little bit hard to get people to come in and do a legacy interview. It's a little bit hard to get them to agree to it, but this is gonna change the course of my wife's life and our children's lives because they know these stories. And if you are interested in having me sit down with one of your loved ones, to have them not only tell stories so they can be recorded, but oftentimes so it opens them up so they wanna share other stories because they know now how important that is. Go to Legacy Interviews dot com to find out more. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my good friend Shaun Newman. Shaun Newman, welcome to the podcast,

Shaun Newman [00:05:03] Sir. You know, I'm just gonna say this real fast. Okay. I've got to sit and do my own version of Legacy Interviews. And what you're talking about is, is like, I dunno, I-I-I-I-I stress, I I, I can't find the word to be honest, but like super cool and super meaningful and people who do it, they all come in that, that I've dealt with Vance. I'm sure you have your own stories and they all, ah, I don't really like, like talking about myself. Ah, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty shy or grandpa's pretty shy or on and on and on. But these people have these stories that are like beyond belief sometimes. I just did, a guy interviewed a guy who lost a brother by being struck by Lightning. And it was just literally in the, the, the grouping with them when it happens, they're all sitting in a barn back in like the, you know, know the fifties and this happens. You're like, what? And you know, and then this interview takes its own life of its own. All I mean to say is what you're talking about and how you're, you know, trying to encourage people to do it is like, you know, at some point you're gonna, every, every last one of us is gonna lose to lose a loved one. And we're all gonna think, man, I wish I would've just done it sooner. You know, because you want them to have sound mind, you want 'em to be able to come in and actually be able to tell the stories. You don't wanna wait so long that they can't actually get their thoughts out. Like, one of the things I've been thinking about with you, and I'm sorry I'm taking over the interview it seems, is I'm like, I wonder if, I wonder if a guy should be doing it like once every like five or 10 years where you do like a series, right?

Shaun Newman [00:06:45] Because how cool would that be for my kids? I don't know. I mean, obviously with me and the podcast and how many episodes I do a week, they're gonna, if they want, they're gonna have plenty of content to go try and listen to. But to where they get to my actual thoughts and my deep ones like, okay, this is what I actually think right now and this is what I've been going through and this is what I'm struggling with. I think it would be a ton of fun too. Yeah, sorry. I mean, I just think the plug for the Legacy Interviews, people need to know how

Vance Crowe [00:07:10] Important's, I'm grateful for you saying that, you know, one of the commitments that when I first started this, I had a business partner at Ben, he's a great guy. And we made the commitment that we were not gonna do this as like a fear-based thing. Like, oh, you gotta interview your parents because they may not always be around. But I always find myself when people are like, oh, I wish we could've interviewed my uncle before he passed away. The only thing I can say is like, you're right and it's too bad that you didn't, you weren't able to do that. So now look around and ask yourself, who will I be regretful for in the future? And not as like a, 'cause everybody's going away, but really truly it's about the wisdom. It's people come in like you said, and they think like, ah, my stories, they're not that good. They're not that important. But every time when I ask people that key question, you know, what was the lesson that you learned outta that experience? They drop bombs on you. They, they Dr they say things that you're like, oh my gosh, that is so important. And a grandchild have gotten them. So thanks man. I I, it's not often I get to talk like this with somebody that I know. I mean, you did it, you were, you were the early days I was calling you when we was first getting started, but we're not here to talk about Legacy Interviews. What we're here to talk about is what the fuck not is going on in Canada. So, you know, there was some,

Shaun Newman [00:08:24] Canada's been a bizarre place Vance for, for certainly four years, maybe, maybe longer, maybe I wasn't paying attention before. But it, it's been a bizarre place for some time. And I mean, if you follow Jordan Peterson, which I know you've had, you know, if you go back to the first time I had on right, you, you've had your own cross paths with him, you know, that we're going back to 2016 and, and you go on and on. And so this is, we, we've been in bizarro land for, for a while. And I think more and more of us are just starting to finally go like, okay, I, yeah, this is getting a little bit insane.

Vance Crowe [00:08:57] Yeah, I mean, I think Canada was a really high trust society for so long. 'cause you were so small, you know, it was like, it's not that you could know everybody, but in your communities, in your province, you knew a lot of people. And so you, you kinda looked around and said, a, a man's word is his bond, because I'm gonna see that man tomorrow and a month from now and a year from now. And so much has changed with how much control I think Ottawa has over you guys. That it, it snuck up. The people that were living particularly out in western Canada, were sitting there still believing, feeling like they're living in a high trust society when the reality was they have a centralized government that is doing things and taking advantage of that high trust.

Shaun Newman [00:09:38] Yeah, I don't know. Complacency is probably the word. You know, like I, we live in one of the greatest countries on the planet bar none. I, I don't care what anyone else says, I live now in, in Alberta, but I mean, Saskatchewan isn't far behind it. Heck, they might be side by side in that they're, they're, you know, they're bread baskets of the world when it comes to, to to farming. They got all the land you could ever possibly want, plus all the minerals underneath. So you're this energy superpower with food and land and everything, everything you possibly want. And so I think for most people, you know, if I think back to it, you're like, ah, ah, you know, it's just complacency. We're, we're living too high, too long. We didn't think anything would come. We got big brother, you know, to the south. We got the United States walking around and if nobody's gonna come in and raid us, and, and it's been a very nefarious way. It's just been slowly over time, things have started to erode to the point now where you're looking around, you know, and, and you know, we just had it, you know, in the beginning of January where it was the emergency alert go out about possible brownouts in Alberta. And you're like, that's hitting pretty close to home. And if that doesn't pull your head out of the sand and go like, well, things are gonna get rough here if the adults in the room don't start to take over the ship again. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:11:00] Let's, let's break this down because I think a lot of Americans would be stunned. You know, Alberta has, I think 10 x the energy reserves that Texas does. And during the coldest part of the year, I think it was minus whatever,

Shaun Newman [00:11:12] Minus minus 40 with a minus 50 windchill. This is, and so for your Americans, minus 42, they both converge, right? So at Fahrenheit minus 42 is the same thing as minus 42 Celsius. It was cold, it was a cold night and you know, minus 50, so everybody's got their, you know, their, their heat pumping and whatever, you know, and I was sitting on the couch watching the oiler game. The Oilers at the time were trying to, well now they're, were, were waiting to for Tuesday night when they, they get a chance at tying the NHL record for most consecutive wins in the NHL. And so I was just sitting there and all of a sudden your phone starts beeping. It's like, turn off, like everything,

Vance Crowe [00:11:49] You know, your phone says turn off everything. You're like,

Shaun Newman [00:11:52] Yeah, it's an emergency alert. We have an emergency alert. Go across all the phones. Kind of like if somebody's kidnapped or if you have like, you know, something in your area, you can get an emergency alert that goes out specifically to that area to let them know. So all of Alberta got an emergency alert saying cut your power immediately. And so they, they were, you know, the politicians are all like, oh, we're just so proud of the, the, the people because they, they react responded right away. It's like, well, pardon the French, but no shit. They responded right away. It's minus 50 outside. The power goes down. Like that's like the worst case scenario of living up here. The absolute worst case scenario on the worst possible day.

Vance Crowe [00:12:30] So, and, and you ended up having two guys on. I was actually shocked because I, I watched this happen on Twitter and you know, I, I kind of made some, some jokes about it, but knowing it was pretty serious. But then a couple days later you bring some real energy guys on to be like, what the hell happened here?

Shaun Newman [00:12:49] I don't know how I worked myself into this situation. As you alluded to when we first started, right? Started this bloody thing with sports community and now I'm talking to politicians and when the energy go is about to go down, you know, I just go like, well who the heck can I talk about? So I start talking to all the people I know in Alberta politics and they're like, you should just have this minister on, you know, okay fine. And he comes on and just tells us, and you know, I, I don't think he said anything too shocking other than their plan was, is if it got bad enough to knock the power out for 30 minutes in different parts of the province, 30 minutes here, then kick it back on and 30 minutes over there so they could weather the storm, so to speak. And you know, I think a hope of a, a hope a lot of us, that was the alert you needed to, to be like, this is serious and we need to like really push on the government of like, we can't, we can't because we removed coal, right? We shut down some coal power plants and then they had, you know, a natural gas one, not, you know, down and another one down and everything was down and, you know, and, and we're building more wind and solar, which makes, I'm not against all these renewable energies. Just when you go, you're in a place that for a huge chunk of the year has no sunlight, A huge chunk of the year is so cold that the windmills can't even go anyways. It's like, well common sense just says we probably shouldn't bank on that being what's gonna be our base load power. And I think a ton of people know this. I just don't think a ton of people know how bad the, the scenario is getting.

Shaun Newman [00:14:21] And so for them to hear it and then get the alert and then to have people, more people talking about it, I think it's good for the province. I look at the situation as like, honestly good vans, because people need to understand that it could get worse and it probably will with the push towards EVs and everything.

Vance Crowe [00:14:38] Well, what I heard was two ministers that were dealing in, in energy and they were rational people, right? They were sitting there being like, this is exact, like we took down coal, we don't have that. That's a really easy way for us to bring more electricity on online. But that's all been taken away. And they're very clear about the fact that solar and wind can't handle these things, but they're beholden to some higher power, right? They're, they're beholden to this larger system that's totally demonizing carbon and making it so the tools that they should have. You have the engineers, you have the fuel, you have the capacity, and they're taking 'em off the table. And, and I, you know, frankly I thought that was one of those kind of writing on the wall moments where you guys are fortunate right now that you still have ministers that are capable. I think what you're gonna end up getting is the people like that, that are that competent that see just how ridiculous the situation is. They're gonna quit or they're gonna get moved on. And then you're gonna have somebody in there that's still, you know, blowing sunshines and rainbows at you while the energy actually is down. That that was a, so

Shaun Newman [00:15:44] That's Germany. The, the, the, you can, you can, you can see into the future if you go look at Germany and actually Shane Gatson is the guy who comes on and he's the one talking the, he's one of the two that come on. But he's the, he's the guy who rode in the, the Coutts convoy he rode down there. He, you know, he different things. He or not the Coutts convo, he rode around in Edmonton, sorry, apologies. He rode around in different things. And back then for a political person to do that, that was very taboo, right? And, and so he's one of the outspoken, and I'll put that in quotes. So like he's, he's been over to Germany, he's seen how like they're, they're on, they're going nowhere. Like they have no common sense left. They have no expertise left. The one thing about Alberta, I hope, you know, with Daniel, Daniel Smith at the helm, is that there will be more and more Shane Gatson that get into it. At least that's my hope. There's a lot of people that are active right now and for a huge chunk of time my entire life I didn't see any of that. And, and, and that's probably a lie. There's probably Albertans listening to that right now going on. There's always been people active. But right now I see a huge chunk of the population that normally wasn't into politics getting real

Vance Crowe [00:16:55] Involved. Well, that's good to hear. You know, I I probably know more about Canadian politics than I do about any other subject because I listen to your podcast, you know, it's funny, I always talk about in some of my talks like the five people that you spend the most time with, that's who you, the average you are. That's not my quote. That's, that's well known. And I easily, you are in the top five people that I spend the most time with. 'cause I listen so much to your podcast. But in a lot of ways, the reason I do it is because I'm like, this is just a microcosm of what is actually happening in the United States. Not what's going to happen, but what is happening. We are just a larger, you know, system that hasn't had all of these, you know, crazy ideas, totally filter all the way through the system. But we will have every single one of the problems that you're having. So I, I watch it with a morbid curiosity. 'cause I think that, you know, brownouts are gonna happen here in places that they absolutely shouldn't.

Shaun Newman [00:17:51] A I'm really humbled to be in the top five. I'm also like Canada must be in a bad spot for that to be, you know, it every day. I was just saying to you, so we had you seven hockey tournament this weekend and for your, your American listeners, that's you under seven kids. So five and six year olds, it's like if the entire world went and watched at the rink, we would have no World Wars. We'd probably have no fighting. Like it is just the healthiest place to be. So I didn't have my phone on pretty much all weekend. Like I didn't, I didn't pay attention. Twitter didn't pay attention to nothing. And I rolled up this morning and I'm like, ah, I should probably flick it open and I flicked it open and I was like, ah, I should've just left it off. Right? Like that is just, it reminds me of where Canada's at, you know, and the, and the latest, you know, so I'm prepping tonight we have the, the live stream and so, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:18:45] Hmm.

Shaun Newman [00:18:46] Vance is probably gonna ask where Canada's at. I'm like, actually see what twos is throwing at me. And, and you know, of course British Columbia is the, is the new thing there. The safe supply. They have safe supply kiosks, if you would, or vending machines. And sure there's steps to get through it, but now they're finding that oh, 16, 17, 18 year olds have found a way to get, to get the drugs

Vance Crowe [00:19:10] From Wait, wait, wait, what is safe supply?

Shaun Newman [00:19:13] Sa safe Supply is this idea, you know, and all these drug users out on the street, right? And there's dangerous stuff being put in the fentanyl, fentanyl's dangerous, I might add, but, but they're, they're splicing it with a whole bunch of different things. People are dying, what was the stat? Seven people died per day in British Columbia last year from drug overdose. And so they have this idea that safe supply they can use and it won't kill them. It's, it's a safe supply and you start to rehabilitate people through that way through drug use instead of just like cold Turkey where, I dunno, I wish I was the leading expert on drugs and everything else, but they're giving out safe supply. So the article says two things. One, they only have safe supply right now for about 4,000 people and there's about 115,000 people that need it. And you're like, well that's about as terrifying as it gets. So not only are we gonna have safe supply, but we're gonna have mass safe supply in British Columbia. Two is they found out that, that people are hijacking the system that they've put in place. So taxpayers are funding, and I, I point to me, British Colombians should be the ones who are upset about this. Taxpayers are funding this idea of giving out free drugs to drugs users. So Vance, you could walk up and get drugs like, like it's been proven. There's been different people that have documented going and getting like hardcore drugs. And so you go, okay, well that's, well that's rough.

Shaun Newman [00:20:44] And then they have these like kiosks, they're, they're not everywhere. They're in Vancouver. They're a vending machine for Oxycontin. And, and like, you know, like this is an insane idea. And they found out that, you know, high school kids, they're starting to use it recreational. Why? 'cause they know it's safe and it's not like this huge dangerous drug. And I'm like, oh, this is just, this is just the dumbest thing ever. This like, this should not be happening. And yet here it is in Canada. That's, that's this morning I read that article and I'm like, you know, like the Tuesday mashup should be fun tonight.

Vance Crowe [00:21:19] Yeah. It's worth mentioning that Tuesday mashup is with you and, and twos and every Monday or every, yeah, every Monday night you guys sit down, you record a podcast and put it out on Tuesday morning. It's rapid fire. It's about what's going on. I love it 'cause it's like hanging out with my two buddies. But to, to keep going with this kiosk thing or the drugs. I, you know, I had a guy on the podcast, he's been a regular, his name's Yosha Bach, and we were talking about all the things going on in San Francisco with the homeless populations and, and he talks about it being, you know, this misplaced empathy or misplaced sympathy where, where what you do is, instead of actually having hard conversations with people and helping them face the hard realities of life, you say, oh, I I'm actually going to keep capitulating, I'm gonna keep giving you things, I'm going to keep enabling in the sense that to tell someone no is bad or to tell someone that they're on the wrong path is bad. And you know, I think if you would've talked with us when we were growing up, it would've been absolutely insane. Some of the ideas that are going on and they're, but now they're being implemented and it doesn't take us very long to see just where this goes. You know, you've got the, what do you call 'em, Trudeau vs. Right? Where all these homeless encampments that are so large, and I mean those start to look like slums as bad or worse than what I saw in Kenya. When I, when I look at those slums, and it's not just in Canada, I mean this is going on in the US as well,

Shaun Newman [00:22:45] The homeless thing. Like I, I wish I had the answers. I, you know, like I'm just, I'm sitting here reading about this and going, what on earth are we gonna do? You know, like Lloyd Minster, where you're coming to, we have our own homeless problem. It's, it's minus it's minus 40. I, it was minus 28 there three weeks ago. I was up, we have a a a 5:00 AM men's group and so it's four 50 in the morning. It's minus like 28 with the wind windchill that's close to minus 40. And there's a homeless guy walking down the street and he looks about two steps from death like that. That's, that's what I'd say. So I pulled over, picked him up, drove him to the hospital, that's where he wanted to go. Had a lovely chat with him, to be honest. And you just go, like, if I was homeless, the last place I wanna be is Lloydminster. I love my community, but like, this is not the place to be homeless. Like, and yet it's every, every community right now in Canada, you talk to people, they're seeing it. You look at the United States, you're seeing it. It's just, it's everywhere right now. And then the, the, the drug thing is just, it just seems to be getting even more outta control when you talk to emergency, the, you know, the, the first aiders, the first aiders, the ambulance workers, the, the police officers, firemen, et cetera, they all carry Narcan. And they all talk about how like, that's like one of their biggest call outs at this point in time is, is bringing people back from death. We have a problem. We have, we have a serious problem and politicians are trying to do different things.

Shaun Newman [00:24:21] Like I stare at BC and I just go, you're insane. I just, I, I don't care. Like what rationale of giving out free drugs to people is, you're insane at this point. 'cause like, you know, seven people a day die. They're like, okay, so what are we gonna do about that? We're gonna, we're gonna go about safe supply so that they don't die from it. All right. Alright, well we'll see. Have you, have you talked to a drug user and what they chase? Like it isn't, it isn't safe supply and just being high and having this, like they chase a high that you can't find unless you're dead and then you get brought back. Like it's wild to talk to.

Vance Crowe [00:24:58] I mean, I, I firmly believe that none of this will get solved until we solve the money problem. And the money problem is governments actually, they, like, they are taxing people and they are using tax dollars, but they're able to run such enormous deficits and they can, they don't have to have a balanced budget. So they are able to take whatever money they want and, and put it towards whatever projects make people feel good. I mean, and or, or allow them to be able to send it to other grifters. Like certainly there's people in this safe supply that are making money off of it. I know in the US you know, so many of these homeless programs, you know, a lot of people are making big salaries, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while they have frontline workers that are not making that, you know, one of our shared friends, a guy named Jake, now he's not making bank off of working for homeless people, but there are other people in that system that are setting up the, the shelters or getting grants or whatever. They're making all kinds of money. And I think the only way to stop that is to make it so it is impossible for the government to spend money that they don't have. And right now, the, at least in the United States, their ability to print money makes it so there are no, there's no control over them at all. They can spend on whatever they want.

Shaun Newman [00:26:15] Yeah, I, I would love to see, but I don't know how to do it. You know, the longer I stare at government, I realized the more control they have over anything, the worse it gets. And in Canada in particular, government controls a lot. You know, like healthcare, we spent our province's, number one thing they spend on is healthcare, socialized healthcare. And it is complete and utter shit right now, if you go to Manitoba, it, it's every week Tuesday, and I'll talk about it again. I think this is the third straight week of somebody dying or having this crazy story of going to the waiting room in an emergency at a hospital. And we've had people die there. And then the latest one has been a, a podcast guest, I'm gonna have to have her on to talk about this. She literally gets the materials from the doctors and sews the guy up herself because they're sitting there for seven hours and nobody's coming to do what needs to be done to make him be able to walk out the door. He's got a big giant cut and broke a bones and everything and she's like doing all the work. I'm like this Canada. And we spend all the money there. This is a government ran thing. We spend 26, was it 21? And then they opted in the middle of COVID, I think it was $26 billion on our healthcare. And it's, it's atrocious. It just, it's not

Vance Crowe [00:27:33] Well in the US the, the way the government is involved here is that they just have so many provisions on doctors, so many forms. And then the insurance companies are totally wildly out of control. I'm sure it's because they're trying to control expenses. I'll give you an example. My 1-year-old had RSV last year, just, just a few months ago really. And we were in the hospital. This child is like gasping for air. This is like, her O2 levels are so far down. First of all, it took us about eight hours to even get admitted to the hospital. Then after we spent the night where I'm holding the little tiny mask that puts oxygen over her face as I'm like holding it up to her so she can keep breathing so she doesn't wake up and start scream crying. Then a few months later when we get the, the bill, the insurance company says, denied you didn't, you know, it, the, this was not medically necessary and I'm sure we're gonna get it all squared away. We're gonna jump through a bunch of hoops, we're gonna have doctors call. You have to take all these notes. But I mean, I want so badly to find whoever that claims adjuster is that hit a button. Although it's probably just ai. I wanna show them the video that I took of my daughter gasping for air and have them tell me like, no, not medically necessary.

Shaun Newman [00:28:45] Yeah, no, it doesn't check a box.

Vance Crowe [00:28:47] So you have actually had some good things happen, or surprising things happen in Canada, which is that the Canadian Emergencies Act that was used to get all of the truckers out of Ottawa during the, the trucker convoy was viewed, was ruled unconstitutional. So yeah,

Shaun Newman [00:29:06] What

Vance Crowe [00:29:06] Does that even mean? Who was it that that reviewed it and what does it mean that it was unconstitutional?

Shaun Newman [00:29:11] Judge Mosley, 21 year judge, liberal appointed, you know, that'd be like, you know, the Democrats appointing the judge. And then that said, judge ruling in favor of the Republicans, that that's the way I look at this. So like this, I dunno, I read the headline Vance and I was like, it has to be a joke. So then you read the story and you're like, holy crap, that's, that's, that's what we thought was gonna happen a year ago, right? And it didn't. And so you kind of went, we're screwed. And then, you know, in the last six, eight months we've had the Ingram case here in Alberta. And what the Ingram case did is it showed just basically in the middle of COVID, they didn't go the right the, they didn't follow the letter of the law, which meant anyone who got fined in Alberta charged for breaking COVID this COVID that pretty much overnight all of it went away. It was a huge case. That was Leighton Gray and his firm that had put that in. Now the, the, the people who were saying, you know, yeah, but we didn't win on, they didn't say they violated our constitutional rights. They're correct. But what it did for a lot of people is it showed, oh, there's the chink in the armor and now all these, these charges start dropping overnight, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They just all, all disappear from a federal standpoint. You know, they, they were saying that, they were saying that, you know, oh this is, we did nothing wrong here.

Shaun Newman [00:30:47] The ea was, was invoked. It was, it was right. There was nothing wrong on and on and on. And this judge comes out and says it's unconstitutional on, on a whole bunch of things which make common sense. Just like, oh my god. So what does it mean? Well, I am going to assume, and I've been hearing already, that there's gonna be a ton of people file a lawsuit against government. You imagine you got your, your bank account frozen, that's deemed done constitutional now. Oh you better be suing for some money 'cause they will, right? And, and on and on it goes. There's people who put in jail, there's people you know, and so all these people are gonna have, well the judge just said it was unconstitutional. So there's gonna be a, a huge backlash now, which is, which is great. So as

Vance Crowe [00:31:32] You hear that stuff, you know, unconstitutional, the Ingram case, are you feeling safer? Are you feeling like, hey, we've turned a coroner?

Shaun Newman [00:31:41] No, because we just sent a guy to jail for 10 months for running over a pylon. So that's James salary and you still got the Kouts four who are now 722 days as of today. And now like I think more people are paying attention, but like the systems, whether it's the United States or it's Canada, we have a big problem. They have been corrupted some, you know, some call it the woke mob, some others, this, that ideologies everything else doesn't matter. Or maybe it does matter. I just look at it and you go like, all the institutions that control our lives have been really corrupted. And that really sucks 'cause we, you know, you get the big win unconstitutional. This is great. James Sari gets 10 months in jail for hitting a pylon. Now can you say, well he was, he was in, you know, he was trying to scare the cop. Okay. He hit a py on leaving a protest, got 10 months, you got a life ruined for it. And we got other people that are, you know, pedophiles. Pedophiles seem to be a huge thing up north right now with, you know, you'll have somebody get in release the same day like here in Lloyd Vance, we had a guy who everybody seems to know was doing well, the, probably the most despicable things ever. And in the same day he was at the pool, exposed himself, gets called, hauled in, gets released, gets sit, found the same day, he gets hauled in after exposing himself out front of a daycare.

Shaun Newman [00:33:21] And then he got caught now in, where was it folks? Bahamas, Barbados, somewhere over there and doing it at a hotel and like then transpose a guy hitting a pylon, getting 10 months in jail. I'm like, something doesn't make sense here. So when you say, are, am I feeling safer? Well, no, it's nice to have some wins. It, it shows me that maybe there's a path outta here that doesn't lead in bloodshed or jail or you know, just utter in complete insanity. But I mean, we got our work cut out for us. We put ourselves in a deep freaking hole.

Vance Crowe [00:34:04] You know, I thought I knew a lot about the kind of Russian revolution and some of the stuff that went on with the communist, you know, the red guard and how those things took over. But I recently started reading Michael Malice book. He wrote a book called The White Pill. And it's just like all these other ones that you read about this history and it's so chilling, particularly in today's day and age where you're like, I can actually see that. I can see a path where we would get to this point. And in the white pill, what they're talking about is how did they, how did Lenin and and his thugs of people take over? Well, they went and said, Hey everybody, things are finally gonna be equal. And all these people that have been above you, they're not gonna be above you. They're not gonna be below you. Everyone's going to be equal. And you had these fervent young people who had been living hard lives. I don't think they weren't peasants, right? They were just middle class people that struggled to imagine how they were gonna continue to be at their parents' level or above. And so somebody came in and whipped them up and said, well the reason that you don't have hope is because you know, these bourgeoisie people that have good families and are passing things on. It's unfair. So what we should do is imagine a world which families don't really exist. The state hires the best experts and those experts raise your kids for you. And mom can go back to work and if she ever wants to see her kids, she can, but you know, the state knows how to rear those kids the best and on and on and on. And these people believed in it so deeply that they went and killed other people, that they went and reported on other people to the tune of millions of people having this happen.

Vance Crowe [00:35:44] And you look around at the world and you see, this is how much has happened in the last few years. And you can see how rough it is for people looking at a world where they don't think they have hope for the future. They're not gonna be able to buy a home. Their college degree is worthless. You can imagine how these people could get whipped up into a frenzy to try and bring equality to the world and it is super, super dangerous.

Shaun Newman [00:36:06] And then just remember that there's a lot of money behind it, right? There's a lot of big money that's pushing on all these different agendas in Canada specifically. You know, whether we're talking, I dunno whether we're the one that comes to mind is, is the, is the the trans thing right now. You know, like Daniel Smith just came out and basically said, we're gonna protect parental rights. It wasn't anything too wild. It was basically saying, you know, if if a kid's gonna change their pronoun in school, the parents need to know about it and we're not gonna allow anyone to do anything until they're 18 as far as their body goes. People, you know, I don't know, I supposedly people lost their mind. It seemed pretty common sense to me. And yet, you know, if you trace the money in that, like there is big, big money pushing on that, pushing on having men compete in women's sports, pushing on. And you're like, why? And, you know, that takes you into, you know, you're talking the white pill. It just takes you into these realms of like, these are things that have happened in the past, not with this particular issue, but they've found ways to deconstruct very, I dunno, very well put together nations by turning their people against each other on such silly things. They're just silly.

Vance Crowe [00:37:34] Yeah. And, and really attacking the very foundational things that, that make society function right now. You know, like the, one of the things I talk about, I, there was a guy on here, the podcast named Sam Obria that brought it up with me is like, look, everything that is around humans, not just all of the technology, not just the fact that we drive around in cars and buildings, that was all constructed by humans, but so too were all of the organizations, the social technologies that we created to be able to figure out how do we, you know, operate in this world without completely only, you know, being with your clan and killing anybody that's outside of it. So, so you have different, you know, rotary clubs and you have different parent teacher organizations and government organizations and U seven hockey. And over time we figured out that by using these social technologies, we get along and we're able to make things work. But when somebody wants to attack those social technologies, they don't do it at the edges, they do it at the core. So they're, they're at the core core. Like you talk about not telling a parent, you know, some major change that's gone on with their child. Like, fuck you like it, it's my moral responsibility to be in charge of that child. And, and anybody that wants to say that the state or some teacher or or anybody else has some right to know things about my child that I don't know, like, fuck you, you're, you're, you are, you are now in the realm of like moral core, but it seems like they are very willing to do it.

Vance Crowe [00:39:06] And, and

Shaun Newman [00:39:07] Oh, but we're gonna, but, but, but Vance, we're gonna protect your child. 'cause your child is in this very difficult stage where they can't tell you who they really are because you won't accept them. So we need to protect them. God, I wanna punch that person square in the face.

Vance Crowe [00:39:22] I mean, and, and the people that are doing it, you think like, how could you possibly think this is helping? And, and like, I, I tell you what my wife is, is really good at me not letting me get so worked up that I see every angle, you know, like she she'll she'll make me say, hey, step, take a step back. You know, I know parents that are dealing with their children going through, you know, the, the trans questioning and, and how should they handle this? And, you know, should the, you know, you don't want them to reject their children. You wanna make sure that they get to still be around them. So I am not saying that, that this is not a difficult issue. I'm just saying that anybody in the state, including teachers, that that wants to interfere between that conversation between parents and children, like you're an enemy at that point.

Shaun Newman [00:40:08] This is, this is why I'm so big on men's groups on the book club. This is, this is the way it's playing out is like this really compassionate, like toxic compassion, right? Like, it's just like we we're gonna help these kids by, by protecting them from their parents. Well that's probably the wrong angle, but in fairness on the parent side, maybe you should be in more involved in your kids' life. You know, maybe you, maybe you need, you know, like divorce is at an all time high. Like maybe you should, maybe you should figure out your, your personal lives. When you talk about attacking the core of, of society, the family unit is about as core as it gets. And in a society that's like, well, you know, look at some of the life changing things that both you and I really put high up. One, getting married, married was a very smart choice for me. Two, having kids and in today's world, specifically Canada, you can get divorced tomorrow. I'm like, boom man. And and oh yeah, you're probably better off. I say, screw that. Like, you know, if you're at the point where you are getting divorced, take a look and start figuring out what you did wrong and, and try and fix it. Because if you have kids, you are hurting them down the road. Now are there exceptions? Probably. But overall I'm like, we're making it way too easy. And then the the abortion thing, you know, once again, I know that's a real hot topic for a lot of people.

Shaun Newman [00:41:46] Are there gonna be exceptions? Probably. But like are society is making some of the fundamental things that make us up and make me who I want to be and see how families can turn around what we're in. They wanna take it all away. You don't need kids, you don't need, you can get divorced, it's not a big deal. These aren't big deals. They're big deals folks. And I'm big on men being men. Like that doesn't mean you go around roughing everybody up. It just means sometimes you have to say no. Sometimes you have to stand firm, sometimes you gotta go. That makes zero sense. I don't care how much science you try and throw at me, how many statistics you throw at me. It ain't happening on my watch. And too often right now in our societies, we act like the big things aren't big. Oh, just go get divorced. So what, what's a big deal? It's a big deal. And you don't wanna have kids. That's a big deal. The family unit is a big deal and they keep trying to get in into it. So when you talk about teachers stepping into that role, which is the parent role, it's like, well as parents we're allowing it to happen too. We can't just put it all on teachers and politicians because as bad as it at times it can be in Canada, part of it is it's just the parents not not owning up to the job. And the job is a big one. It's a tough one. It stresses the crap outta all of us. There are days where you don't sleep, there's days where you hold the, the little mass to your, your child's health head face, sorry, when they have RSV.

Shaun Newman [00:43:17] And that is about as paralyzing a feeling I assume because I've had my children be six where they, they can hardly breathe and there's nothing more soul crush crushing than that. This is not for the faint of heart, but you gotta put on your big boy pants and, and, and step into the role. Yeah. And stop letting government and society tell you what that is. 'cause they are batshit crazy The

Vance Crowe [00:43:39] Other day. I, so the, the soul crushing ones like the, the the one where you're holding the little oxygen mask that's hard for the parent and there, but there's something like, you know, heroic, a mission that you can achieve there that you're like trying to get through. The, the soul crushing one is when you've got work bearing down on you and you have a hundred things to do at home. Your wife has been contributing as much as she can, but she's frazzled at the end. You didn't sleep much and your 3-year-old daughter kicks the 1-year-old daughter and now they're screaming and you gotta handle it. And like, that's the chaos that unless you have a men's group or a core group of people that you can talk with, you believe the lie that life was supposed to be easy and you start to believe the, the like self pity thing of like, gosh, it, it shouldn't be this hard. These kids should behave better. My wife should be able to do things in some other way. Like you believe all this stuff that I, I think of as the retirement myth. You know how, how every time some, you see a commercial for the, for financial planning, it's like old people running off a dock and jumping into the water and being like, you're free from worry and care. And, and that's the part that's hard about being a parent. But at the same time, if you don't do that, your and, and it's okay if you don't have children that that's fine. It's just that the tie to the future with people that have children is different than the tie to the future with people that don't have children.

Vance Crowe [00:45:11] And, and like I, I'm sure that hurts people's feelings. I went through a period of time where I didn't know if we were gonna be able to have children. And I know what it is like to look into the abyss and say, what if I am all that there is like, what, what does that change about who I am and what's important? But, but once you have children, your tie to the future is different.

Shaun Newman [00:45:35] Yeah. I I know there's gonna be some hurt feelings. That's fine. I I mean that's fine. I for two A, everybody's gotta feel great. We all gotta be, you know, everybody's gotta, you know, you seven, my daughter, everybody gets a participation medal, which honestly at that age doesn't really matter. But my daughter goes, so did we win? I said, no, actually I lost, that's why we get a medal. I said, well, because the powers at be think that all of you getting a medal, we'll help your self-esteem.

Vance Crowe [00:46:04] Well keep somebody from crying. And she's like,

Shaun Newman [00:46:08] She's like, oh, okay, but we didn't win. I'm like, no, actually you lost the last game. And yeah, I, that was a good team, you know, but you, you, you get a medal for being out there and participating and that's a good thing too, you know, but it's different than you won. And so, you know, I come back to the, the, the the kid thing. There's gonna be people that, that can have kids. And so then they go, you're an asshole because you, you know, what about that person? I'm like, okay, but in general, if we don't have people having kids, folks, what happens? Well maybe extinction, right? Okay, so we need people having kids. Is there gonna be exceptions? Always. There's always an exception. But by having kids and by being active in their lives, you have to sacrifice a whole bunch of what you want to do in order to, to, to give them the life that they should have or you want them to have and teach 'em the lessons they have. I spend way too much bloody time right now. You know, when somebody goes, do you volunteer? I don't volunteer. And they're like, well, do you coach your kids? Talk to you? Yeah, I'm coaching that and are you doing this? Yeah, I'm all right. So I guess I'm, I'm doing a heck of a lot more. You have to give up, you know, going out to the bar, going out to, you know, like I, I love traveling vans. I love going all over the bloody world. I can't afford it anymore. Why? Because I'm putting my kids in sports and I'm being active on a, I want them to succeed. And I never thought I'd have that in life where I wanted something for somebody else other than me.

Shaun Newman [00:47:40] Like that much. I want them to be successful in life, which means I have to be involved. But I come back to it, you know, if you don't, if you Jordan Peterson love or hate the guy, I don't care where you stand, clean your room and you're like, well, why in the heck do I gotta clean my room? Because start taking care of yourself, then start taking care of your, your marriage and then maybe your family and see where that goes. And if you got a healthy unit, man you can with, you can endure a whole lot. And in Canada right now, it is insane. But I'm telling you, I just had one of the most beautiful weekends. Why? 'cause I got to hang out with my family. And did I annoy my wife at times? Guaranteed. Did my kids annoy me? Guaranteed. But I got to be around them and that is so healthy and I just can't, you know, I'm on my pulpit right now screaming it again. But like, to me, that's the message that needs to be out there. Family is good. Find one, start working on it. You're in one, work on it. And like, life only gets better.

Vance Crowe [00:48:37] Gosh. I mean, when you're in it, it is, it is hard. There's so many people now because we've done these Legacy Interviews and they talk about the time with their children and everybody says the same thing. Like, it goes in the blink of an eye. Oh, it happens so fast. But when you're in it and you're like, sit down, like get in your car seat, we need to leave. It seems like an eternity. But, but everyone,

Shaun Newman [00:49:01] That's why you need the teammate though. That's why, that's why you need, that's why you need the, you know, for me it's, it's Mel. Because I find when I'm having those moments, she's the one balancing out. I'll just do the buckle. It's okay

Vance Crowe [00:49:13] Sean,

Shaun Newman [00:49:13] Just relax. And usually it's the flip, you know, she's had a long day and I can just see the humor in it. Casey's, you know, he won't put his buckle on 'cause he can see it's getting mum frustrated and for some reason they really enjoy that. And you're like, case, come on. Just put, just put the buckle on. Right? Well here we go. It's not a big deal. And if you have, you know, I, my heart goes out to the single parent families. Like, I just cannot imagine not having somebody to balance me out. Somebody to just like talk about and be like, man, he was being a little dink today. Like, I don't know what that was about. Right? Because they go through stages. But we've, you've sat with all these old timers. I've sat with a whole bunch of old timers and they all say, I would go back to that stage in a heartbeat. And you either take that for the value that it is, or you think they don't know anything. But when it becomes a recurring theme that they all say they would go back to the, the chaos. It's like, enjoy it. 'cause it will go very fast. You know, it's my, my oldest now is seven, turning eight and there's times where he just doesn't need me anymore. It's really interesting. It's really fun and cool, but at the same time he just doesn't need me anymore. And so it, you know, like in the blink of an eye, he'll be going to high school and won't want to even be around me anymore. You know? And you're like,

Vance Crowe [00:50:28] Hmm,

Shaun Newman [00:50:28] That's a tough thought. And so you want it. But at the same time, the chaos is like, the chaos is a lot of fun. Chaos is like, man, there is never a dull moment in this house right now. No matter how many times I try and sell it back down, somebody's throwing something off of something they're rolling down the stairs, on and on it goes. And it's like the most healthy thing on the planet, especially when you, you, you know, you stare out this weekend. There was, there was, there was protests in Edmonton over Daniel Smith talking about parental rights. And you wake up and bcs talking about kids taking drugs from, from vending machines and you're like, the world is gone insane. What I have going on in my house, as chaotic and stressful as it is, there ain't nothing better.

Vance Crowe [00:51:12] Yeah. I mean, it's the garden you create and, and that's that, you know, I I, one of my biggest goals is no matter how much they're mad at me for, for not letting them do what they wanna do and go to bed, the thing that I'm always trying to keep is when I come home, will they run at me and try and knock dad over with a big hug? And that, that's just something like, there is no way to replicate that, right? If you paid somebody to knock you over with a big hug when you got home, it wouldn't mean anything to you. But to have these little monkeys that are getting into trouble and driving their mom crazy and they see dad and that is the most excited they will be all day and give you this big scream and wanna jump on you. That's, that's the rewards you get. And it's not, it's not something you can frame, it's not something you can show on social media or if you do, you're kind of a, I don't know, crazy person.

Shaun Newman [00:52:02] Well, one of the, you know, you said right at the start, and I know I, I chuckle folks 'cause I know Vance has this like, plan of where we're going and I just,

Vance Crowe [00:52:11] And over and over again,

Shaun Newman [00:52:14] One of the things that I've been really conscious on with the podcast, you know, no matter how successful it gets, and I, you know, I I, I appreciate the, the compliments at the start, but one of the, one of the things I try and do is like, every time I can feel it pulling at me further and further away from my family, I pull my, I pull it back towards my family. And so like, Mel's got to be Tucker Carlson now, which was, you know, like, was nothing like crazy. But I'm like, I want to have her along for the ride. I don't want to get to where she's never there. And I hope in the next couple years I'm gonna start doing more of where the family comes with, the entire family comes with to, to see and meet these different characters and everything else. I got some different plans or Mel and I have different plans here for the coming, coming years to see if we can pull off a couple things and I want them with me. I don't want to. And I think that is a rarity. I I don't see anyone playing that thought process out in the world. Are there? I'm sure there are, but overall, is it rare? Yeah, it's rare. You know, tons of people in the media sphere who are at the top are single, divorced, no kids, on and on and on and on and on. 'cause you know, I'm finding out when you're trying to cover all the different things happening in Canada or the United States, like they want you to go everywhere all the time. Oh, you gotta be down here. Oh, you gotta over here. It's like,

Vance Crowe [00:53:35] Hmm,

Shaun Newman [00:53:36] Do I, do I really? No, probably not. Like I probably not, I'm gonna go to my U seven hockey tournament and, and, and have one of the healthiest weekends known to man. And if I can continue to play that out where they get to be around me and myself around them, I think that's where I, I want to grow this thing too.

Vance Crowe [00:53:54] You know, I think that one of the best things in, in Steinbeck's, east of Eden is when he talks about the difference between being a good man and being a great man. And, you know, the, the great man has to give up the possibility oftentimes of being a good man. And, and that is that if you're gonna be great, you're gonna be well known. You're gonna be, you're gonna have adulation, you're gonna have made a difference in the world. Means that often that good man, that would be a father, that would be somebody that can care for people in a really deep way that can really be present. You don't get to be both good men and great men are different people. And, and I think raising a parent, like, you know, my wife and I talk about how much time we spend cooking for our children. I, I think like that's something that is not really being addressed right now is that if you want to have your children eat healthy, it takes time and time is this most precious thing that you have. And but my wife and I have sat there and been like, well, what could we be doing with our time that would be more valuable than trying to feed our children the best food that we can in the most wholesome way that we can, as opposed to running in a bunch of different directions, getting 'em in all these piano and dance and gymnastics classes, but feeding them junk along the way. That's, that's not the right balance. At least not the right balance for us. But man, it is a hell of a sacrifice. 'cause you gotta give up, you know, days and nights and early mornings just to make food. And I think this is something that should be talked about more.

Shaun Newman [00:55:26] Well, and cooking. I, I'm, I'm not a great cook. I'm, I'm, I'm getting better. You

Vance Crowe [00:55:31] Make a mean steak,

Shaun Newman [00:55:32] But cook, cooking, cooking, cooking is, is an art. And, and you're teaching it's educational, right? All at the same time. And kids are naturally drawn to it. So you can just make bacon and eggs and they're like, oh, I wanna crack the egg. I wanna be right in the mix of it. And then they're trying, you know, and, and on and, and you're explaining things and where food comes from and every like, it becomes this conversation, this dialogue where they get to interact and get their hands right in the mix. So cooking's a i i, I would say three years ago, I've really sucked at it. But, you know, it's, it's a, a labor of love and the kids get to come along for that too, right? They get to see how things are made, what tastes good, what they like, what they don't like. I keep trying to get 'em, I have, they, they, their, their creatures a habit or something. Like they, they see something. I don't wanna try that. So that's a, that's been something I've been trying to work around Vance and I, I'd be curious with your kids, I've been trying to get Mila to understand like, you can, you can say no to everything, but you're gonna miss out on so much. And this might be the greatest tasting, doesn't matter, sauce, piece of meat, piece of pasta, whatever. And you don't even know it unless you just put it in your mouth. And if you put it in your mouth and you go, oh, that wasn't good, then you just don't eat it anymore. But what happens if it's so good? You're like, it becomes your favorite food. And I, and, and so she's like, okay, fine.

Shaun Newman [00:57:03] So then she'll try it and half the time she becomes this like, like kids are like little jackals when it comes to like good tasting meat. They just like are just hammering it down. I'm like, this is cool. And those are special moments too. And you can have that, you can have that at the hockey rink, chasing 'em around, moving 'em as hard as you can go with a rink burger just as quickly, I think as you can cooking at home. I think there, once again, what you're pointing out is being active in your kids' lives. And if you do that, man, you're gonna have all these moments where you just get to like, have such wicked cool conversations and see their little minds jump on, you know, try and like, understand it and, and get uncomfortable with some of the things that, oh, I don't wanna try that. Right? Like, I'm always impressed with my kids getting on the ice with like 50 other kids and going out there and, and like doing, I'm like, man, like how cool is that? They're becoming a little independent human beings right in front of your eyes and they're getting better and they're dealing with emotions and they're getting run over by some kid and not liking that and getting up and ah, the and the food thing. Love it all. I just, I just love hearing that you're involved in your kids' lives. I sound like I'm the guy. Like, I don't know, I don't know when I got this like champion of the family and how important it is. And I keep pulling it back to that because it just, like, I think people need to hear it. I don't, and I don't think your audience needs to hear it as much as other parts of the

Vance Crowe [00:58:27] World. Well I, for me there's just a, there's a huge benefit to hearing the challenges that other people are facing. You know, we have a, a shared friend David Aki, and I think he's just, he's about to be on your podcast here pretty soon, eh?

Shaun Newman [00:58:42] Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:58:43] And David is a guy, I, I just admire and respect him. He's a financial planner. I've had him on the podcast a few times. He's gonna be a regular on here. But one time I heard him talking about the challenges that he was having with his kids and it was something silly about getting 'em buckled in their car seats or whatever. But like, just the stress on it and that like was such a sense of relief for me that I was like, oh, other people have challenges too. Okay. So I like it, it got me over that feeling of like, you know, self pity or whatever it is that you do when you're like, ah, it's not fair. This child is keeping me from the thing that I should be able to achieve. And, and so talking about it, and that's why I like to share stuff like that on the podcast. 'cause I'm hoping guys out there that are experiencing this are women. They can say, I, I get that too. That that's, that's something I'm going through and it makes it easier to know that I'm not alone. Well,

Shaun Newman [00:59:35] We both know, like, I remember watching buddy of mine's kids when they were like, I don't know, six, seven, and they were holy terrors. They were wild then. They were feral children. It was wild to watch. And at times, my kids now are there and I'm like, crap. Right? Like, how did my kids become the feral children, right? They they, they run, we we, we go to a hockey tournament in northern Alberta and there was a swimming pool there and I could see the room was just nice and quiet. Nobody's, you know, a couple kids swimming everywhere. And I opened the door and three Newmans just scream as hard as they can go and all cannonball into the pool. And from that moment on for the next two hours, that place is rocking. And I'm like, ah, the Newmans are here. You know, like they just, they don't have an off switch and they don't have a quiet switch. And so it's like, well, do you harp on them for the rest of time that you gotta be quiet? No, there's certain spots in life where you can be as loud as you want. And I think a swimming pool is certainly one of them with a slide and everything else. But it was wild to watch all the other kids like kinda like tense up as these three little human beings just like, yeah, yeah. Into the pool. And I don't know. Well,

Vance Crowe [01:00:50] Let me ask you this. I'm, I'm, when you had two kids was going back in, you know, holding your water, holding your, your breath to jump into the cold water again for a third child, was it tough for you to say, yeah, let's, let's go a third round or be like, no, obviously we wanna do this.

Shaun Newman [01:01:05] Okay, so when we had our first, I was done when we had our second, I was really done. And then it was like eight months after we'd had our second, we started like, well maybe we could have a third. And the third was the third was emergency C-section. We had some complications. So for the first like two months I thought, oh my god. Like I didn't sleep. Mel couldn't get up off the couch 'cause she couldn't lift anything. So I was like, you know, I was a zombie walking back and forth. It was, it was a rough probably month, but it was only five months later. I could have had a fourth. Because once you're in the chaos, I'm like, whoa, what's one more? And the problem we had is Mel, Mel, Mel had had complications. So we had it so that her tubes are out. So like we can't have anymore. And you know, it's not that I'm a, I regret getting the tubes out. Mel always goes probably a blessing. 'cause we probably would've had four or five. And the truth of the matter is, I would have more in a heartbeat. I love the chaos. My bank account doesn't, but like, I don't know, I don't know. Like you just go home and you're tired and you get them in bed and you start it all over again. But like, I never have a dull day. They bring, so we have a little RAV4, like most common sense people would've bought a new vehicle van, something a little bit more space. And I'm a bit cheap frugal.

Shaun Newman [01:02:37] I I, well let's just, there's gotta be a different way. Instead of spending 10 or 20 grand or whatever on a new vehicle, couldn't we just spend, I dunno, 400 bucks and get something else? And so we spent $400 and got narrow car seats so that whoa, we can make it work. And so then, you know, two years ago we did a road trip with the three of 'em. So two years ago that means they were five, four, and two in a car and we drove 11 days. So we drove from here to Denver and over to Minneapolis and you go, everyone I remember thinking, I remember thinking we're insane. Like, this is, this is a terrible, terrible choice, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna see how it goes. And now when I look back, it was the funnest thing. We did 11 days being jammed together, screaming, crying, driving, seeing new countryside, everything. It was insane. You know what we're gonna do this summer coming up, this is the plan right now, 21 days, we're gonna go for 21 days and almost 5,000 kilometers, which I mean, what the heck does that equate to in miles? I dunno, it's a lot. And I'm more excited for that because I'm like, I know exactly what that's gonna be. That is gonna be chaos, but it is gonna be so much fun. And I get to be around my kids and my wife and, and there's just no getting away. You can get mad at me all you want, but we're,

Vance Crowe [01:03:54] We're stuck together

Shaun Newman [01:03:55] And we're gonna see some new things. We're gonna go explore the world, we're gonna show them some things. We're gonna meet new people, we're gonna see different things they'd never see and we're gonna be tight and they're gonna have to deal with it and they're gonna have to deal with their siblings. And too much of modern society is space. Everybody gets their own room, everybody gets their own this, everybody has that. It's like, do I love that? Yeah, sure. It's comfortable. Sometimes I, I like being a little uncomfortable sometimes I like jamming into a creepy old bates looking motel with three kids and they're, they're, you know, they're, they're like kids say the the most crazy things, you know, and, and you got, and then you're, you're just jammed. You're sleeping in bed with two kids. You're getting kicked in the side. You're getting, you know, it's like, that's, that's awesome. That's what memories are made from.

Vance Crowe [01:04:39] Well, we've gotten a chance to look into or behind the curtain with you, man. I really appreciate it. I had grand aspirations of talking about,

Shaun Newman [01:04:48] I laughed at you when you rattled off 15 things. I'm like, we're gonna get bogged down in something. Of course it's, we get bogged down in family and you're like, that shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me anymore.

Vance Crowe [01:04:58] No, this has been great. I, the one thing I do want to say though about your podcast is that you have a military round table and a blue collar round table. And these have been, I think, really important additions to what's out there in podcast land. It's very rare that you get to hear, you know, a bricklayer talking about what his life is like, what he sees in the world, how he's involved in his community and this latest military round table. I mean, I'm straight up nervous for those guys because they talk with so much candor, not just about the the battles they were in, but also about how, how command worked and about how it didn't work and about what, what's going on in the Canadian military. There's nothing else like that. So I just wanted to give a shout out to that.

Shaun Newman [01:05:43] Well, and if I, if I may quick Vance, when it comes to the blue collar, when it comes to the military, one of the things that I see as a big hole in Canadian society is we have this small portion of people, mainly men who went off to war and they are kind of ostracized from society, right? Like that nobody asks them their opinion. These guys literally went to war for us. Like they, they, they see and understand things going on right now and nobody talks to them. And then the next is, you know, like we get all these academics in there. There's, they're so smart and all these scientists and they're so smart, but none of them actually have to go fix the shitter, right? No. None of them actually put together the power grid and they're, these guys don't get to talk because they're out doing the work. And so by putting those onto a show, the hope is we're gonna find some people that have voices that can add to the politician coming on saying, yeah, well if we, it gets bad enough, we're just gonna do 30 minute brown brownouts and whatever. It's like, well, what is the common person? Think about that. The guy doing the work and the military's no different because they, they, those guys have a combined 78 years of military experience. One of 'em served in six tours and the other two, I think four and five. And like, they've just seen society go from, you know, they talk about, I think it's Bosnia hosting the Olympics to full out Civil war and just like massacring their fellow man.

Shaun Newman [01:07:15] And so we need to hear those stories as much as we need anything else. So the, the, the hope is that these continue month after month and we continue to evolve them so that they become very, I don't know, coherent in what they're trying to talk about and talking to the world of today.

Vance Crowe [01:07:32] Well, it's great. I think it's a tremendous service you're offering to the Canadian people, but really even to people like me, I, I, I've sat with veterans and, and heard them tell their stories, but I don't think I've ever heard people talk like they are on your podcast. So Sean, if people wanted to find out more about you or find you on the, on the web, where would they go?

Shaun Newman [01:07:51] Well, right now, please do not go to my website. It has been commandeered and we've been fighting to get it back. So don't go there. You can go on that Twitter, hijackers

Vance Crowe [01:07:59] Or Twitter who did that?

Shaun Newman [01:08:00] We don't know still, we don't know. It's, it's pretty nefarious what's, what's been going on. So it's, yeah, my website got transferred from my name to somebody else moved from where it was at to, to GoDaddy, so now you can't know who it is because it's been legally transferred even though we own the website and everything else. So you can imagine it's been a little bit interesting. So the Shaun Newman podcast.com is no longer me right now. It's a Chinese gambling site. We'll have a chuckle at that. So if you wanna find me Twitter, Instagram and, and Facebook Shaun Newman podcast, I'm all over it. If you just google Shaun Newman podcast, that's where you're gonna find, you know, the two mainstays would probably be Apple Podcasts and, and Spotify. And we release new shows every week, Monday through Friday, Tuesday mashup, as Vance has pointed out, if you want to get a taste or just dip your toe and have a couple laughs the Tuesday mashup brings you the headlines. If you don't like a little bit of swearing and colorful language, it's probably not

Vance Crowe [01:09:03] You. Yeah. It's not great for listening with your children, as I've found out before.

Shaun Newman [01:09:06] No, don't, don't do that, don't do that. And then the rest of the week, you know, it, it's, it, it varies on guests and topics, you know, today was the military round table and, and you know, there's, it, it kind of goes at the full spectrum, but lots of, you know, I get yelled at one day because, because I'm too much of a, a gospel show, I'm talking too much Christianity, and then the same day I'll get yelled at for swearing and I'm, I'm, I'm not living up to the Christian faith. I'm like, I just, I can't, I can't do this like this split personality of people, but that's, that's what it's become, you know, if you don't go hard enough on the politician asking tough questions and then the next person's like, you went too hard. You know, it's like you just can't make everyone happy. So why try? Come on over. There's five days a week where we story time with Sean, pretty much, you know, we bring on different people from all over the place.

Vance Crowe [01:09:58] Well, I love it and probably listen to too much of it. Shaun Newman, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah,

Shaun Newman [01:10:04] Thanks for having me, Vance, and looking forward to you being in Lloydminster in my stomping crowds. We'll get you in the studio

Vance Crowe [01:10:09] February 14th and 15th.