“Hotel Pacifico Rim” with Canada’s Ambassador to Japan Ian McKay + Anita Zaenker | Hotel Pacifico

“Hotel Pacifico Rim” with Canada’s Ambassador to Japan Ian McKay + Anita Zaenker | Hotel Pacifico

Hello to you Jeff. Morning Mike. How sunny day here in How’s your summer going? Uh over the past week you getting out and enjoying the enjoying the beautiful weather. Actually I went to the folk festival and um and I had a great time. Shocker number. Shocker alert. Jeff Maggs goes to the folk festival. It was really great. did not have that on my bingo card. No, a lot of people my age there, but it was a great show. Were there were there any BC conservatives at the Folk Festival that you noticed? Not Not that I noticed, but I think that the the folk festival had at least two near-death experiences, and I think they really uh took some hard lessons from that. So, it was a a much leaner show, uh fewer stages, but very good quality groups, including acts, more local acts, and uh not a beer garden. you could take beer anywhere. So, really letting their hair down on that front. Uh, but it was it was a lovely, beautiful day. And the the snowbirds flew overhead. Our our Canadian uh Oh, yeah. Canadian Air Force Aerobatic Team did many low passes right over us, I guess, on their way to uh the fireworks or something. Yeah, there the fireworks night. Yeah. Well, I have actually been to the Fulkfest myself. It’s a it’s a very well attended uh important event in the community. I will say that for it. Um, well, in a few moments, uh, I’m going to introduce our guest who’s waiting in the ambassadorial suite here at the Hotel Pacificico. But later on in the strategy suite, Jeff and I will be joined by labor vet, campaign vet, political staffer vet, and public affairs consultant all-in-one Anita’s anchor. And we’re going to discuss sporting news political shuffle board that is in Victoria. GoFundMe changed quickly to weed on rare diseases. Premier Eie hangs out with the premers. He might want to talk to the one premier who’s fattened heritage fund lately. We’ve we’ve heard we’ll look at the coming boom in defense procurement and whether BC will get a piece of the action. And finally, BCGU’s taking strike vote. Are we heading into a long hot autumn? So, lots to talk about in strategy suite. But first, we’re pleased and honored to welcome Canada’s ambassador to Japan and special envoy for the Indo-Pacific, Ian Mai. Ian is a Pentictton native who’s uh joining us from Pentictton today who after studying at UBC and Queens found his way to New York and Tokyo working in international financial markets. He turned to public service in the 2000 serving as senior policy adviser during the Gretchen and Martin governments and later serving as national director for the Liberal Party of Canada. He returned to BC to serve as CEO of the Vancouver Economic Commission from 2013 to 2018 and then was summoned again to Ottawa to help negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal with Japan. He served as CEO of Investing Canada before being appointed ambassador of Canada to Japan in April 2021. In addition to those responsibilities, he was named as Canada’s special envoy for the Indo-Pacific in April 2023. I always feel so humbled when I introduce our guests because they have so many qualifications. Welcome to Hotel Pacificico Ian. Hey Mike, it’s uh great to see you. It’s great to be here. Well, thanks for doing this. And you grew up in Pentictton. You’re in Pentictton today. I heard a rumor that you were actually a pretty good basketball player back in your day. There were a number of McKay’s from the region, including some of my own family who were pretty good. Um I benefited from their legacy. So people thought I was good. I was a I was the sixth man in our local Penny Lakers team. All right. Um but I really enjoyed playing ball. We had some pretty good teams. Now, did I already screw it up? Did I Are you a McKay, not a Mai? No, I’m a McKay for sure. You’re a McKay. Okay. Okay. There was some dispute over sheep over fence in Scotland long ago. Divided the Mai and the McKay’s. I don’t quite understand it. We’ll dispense with the Mis. Go with the Mccayes here. Yeah. Um, well, I’m interested like early in your career, you found your way to to Tokyo. Uh, what drew you there originally back in was it the ‘9s? Um, it was before then. In fact, I’m I’m almost frightened to recollect, Mike, that 45 years ago this month, uh, the city of Pent um, which has a sister city in northern Japan, sent me, uh, as an exchange student for a sister city exchange program. I was in grade 11 and over the course of the summer I traveled to a little town called Iicada in Hokkaido in Japan and it sort of started my uh quest with regard to Japan. I really enjoyed it and yeah that started 45 years ago. I went back a year later to do a full year uh of Japanese studies on a Rotary Club scholarship program. uh and then I had engaged with Japan for many years after including my financial markets career. Well, those Rotary exchanges have left quite a mark actually on a lot of people across I’m a big fan, big advocate and I evangelize about uh Sister City Rotary Club exchange student programs all the time. What what’s uh what is it about Japan that excites you and and uh gets your wheels turning? So, it’s interesting. I I I try to recall what it was when I was 16 that made me want to go back and go back and go back. Um you know I’m curious about their frankly about their curiosity. I remember going there as a student and how many questions they had for me about Canada that I had no idea what the answer was about our economic sort of makeup, our cultural makeup, our relations with the US. So the first thing that struck me was how curious they were about our country and as a kid how little I knew about it. So it sort of changed my focus to learn a lot more about uh Canada. Uh but the other thing is just the uh the civil social order that they have. You know it’s a very homogeneous population. Um 124 million people uh in a country that’s about the third the size of British Columbia. Mhm. And how everything seems to work without without a whole lot of chaos. There’s kind of a social contract that people have with each other to get along. Um, in some, you know, in some trying circumstances of congestion and whatnot, but it’s also the food, uh, frankly, the language, the culture. Um, it is just a fascinating place. And Tokyo, where I live now, is uh is a function of all those things. It’s a big dynamic, safe, clean city um that has probably the best food in the world, fashion, architecture, but then all sorts of history as well. Um so I’m a big fan. I always have been a big fan and I’m just um frankly not just pleased and delighted but honored to serve in the role that I do uh in a place that I know well and that I really have a lot of uh fondness for. It’s interesting because uh you mentioned the sister city thing and Vancouver’s a sister city with Yokohama. I was on city council and became aware of that and it made perfect sense because Yokohama was the end of the trade route that was established by the CPR and the CPR ships, the emperor ships and everything else. But our relationship in BC has been strained by some of the disasters of of war and racism and and yet it the relationship persists and continues to get stronger. It’s a it’s a a subtext really of BC history in so many ways. It sure is. Um I mean from a trade perspective, BC does about 25 or 30% of Canada’s exports to Japan. That goes back a long long way. Um but Japanese uh fishermen started to migrate to western Canada, British Columbia, Steveston, Richmond. Um in the 19th century and some of them stayed and built communities. We know about the strong uh Japanese community in Steve. We know about Japan Town that existed in Powell Street back in the early part of the 20th century. And we know of the uh devastating effects of the Canadian government’s policy in 1941 to move those people out of the coast, even those who were born and bred in in Vancouver. There’s a terrific film that came out uh I think in 2015 called The Asahi, and it was a Japanese produced film that debuted at the Vancouver Film Fest. Mhm. But it was about the baseball team, right? Yeah. of Japanese Canadians in uh Japan Town down by Powell Street who weren’t allowed to play against the, you know, the white kids teams until everybody realized that they were really really good. And when they were invited to play, of course, they beat the uh the uh the uh the white kids team pretty handily. So great film and great legacy there for that history. I think arguably the Pearl Street community never recovered from those expulsions. In many ways, one of the great public servants in Canadian history came out of that time, Tom Shyama. Mhm. went on to serve with great distinction. Um, well, you know, one of the things that occurs to me sometimes when we think about Japan, it’s such an important trading relationship for BC and Canada. And sometimes, you know, I think we don’t think about it enough. And I wonder whether it’s because we just don’t have a very large Japan Japanese diaspora population in BC and Canada compared to the Chinese and South Asian and uh Korean now. Uh and some others like there’s not a lot of immigration coming in from Japan. Um you don’t see them showing up in political nomination meetings in great numbers or you know targeted by political parties as a group. Do you think that’s part of it? Does that does that kind of put a different angle on our relationship? Yeah, I think the diaspora um that we hadund and something years ago had it grown and evolved to what it might have been could have made a huge difference in the fabric of Vancouver, British Columbia, and even the trade relationship. Having said that, you know, our trade relationship is is solid and reliable and growing. It’s about $40 billion two ways. um it’s more or less even um sometimes and often the the uh the numbers are determined by currency fluctuations but we’re exporting obviously minerals, lumber, agriculture and increasingly energy uh to Japan. So there is some scope for increase there. Um Japan’s appetite for our food, agra food, seafood products is enormous. um their appetite for our energy um and our minerals is increasingly um uh strong and and robust. And so it’s a matter of all the discussion that’s going on now about trade corridor infrastructure and rails and ports and whatnot. Um providing a little more bandwidth to get more products out there. Having said that, we’re at about 2% of our exports go to Japan. Um so marginal increase will happen. It’s not going to be a gamecher. Um but we have 2% for 2% for Canada. Yeah. But much higher for BC though. For British Columbia it’s higher. Absolutely. About 10 or 11 or something. Yeah. I think it’s 10 and a half%. Yeah. Yeah. And you you referenced that uh energy exports. I mean we’ve just seen the first uh shipment uh first few shipments of LG going from LG Canada. What’s what’s the appetite for LG in Japan? Like is what’s their energy situation there in terms of energy dependency? I know there’s probably geopolitical issues visa and other things that we hard for us to compre comprehend here. So the LG Canada project which was launched in 2018 um Japan is a 15% shareholder through Mitsubishi. um if they knew then what they know now about Russia and the Middle East and even even the US they would have taken probably 50% of that project uh but they’re happy with the 15% and they will take more offtake from some of the other partners I think um they’re very hungry thirsty for our energy and LG Canada as you know is the cleanest lowest emission LG on the planet it’s the biggest uh LG project on the planet so they are very very um happy that we deliver that project uh on time even though it was through a COVID period. Um they’re super excited about the propane that we export from Alberta to Japan. Um they’re super excited about the TXer. Yeah, TMX expansion. Yeah. Japan is just very very happy that Canada is delivering what Japan asked it to in terms of uh energy export and infrastructure and I think their appetite for us as a very reliable partner is going to increase. So we have cedar and wood fiber and whatnot coming online. So they’ll probably do some offtake from those as well. But can you sketch for our viewers and listeners how Japan uses it? Because this was a revelation to me when I had the opportunity to travel there with John Han. I mean, propane and these fuels are used in right in homes as I understood it that they this is they don’t have a a gas pipe right to their house or or necessarily enough hydro to do it. So many many thousands or millions of people are cooking with propane every day. Yep. And we only started exporting propane like five years ago. And now we’re the number one supplier about 25 28% of the market share there. And it’s used in residential homes and it’s used in industrial transportation uh vehicles. Um, and what both our LG and our propane is doing is it’s allowing Japan to wean off some other unreliable partners or partners from whom the trade routes are complicated whether it’s the Gulf Coast which is problematic um the Middle East which is problematic and of course Russia they previously got a lot of oil and gas from Russia and we’re hoping to replace uh that entire volume uh from Canada and so the eight days from Prince Roert to um port San Yokohama and Tokyo is is an unbelievable competitive advantage. Yeah. And I think the other thing that was a wakeup call to me was that they were at least at that point, I don’t know if it’s still the case, but uh deciding it seemed to go to hydrogen as a clean fuel for transportation when we were going to electricity. They have the tremendous capacity to produce automobiles which everybody knows about but we’re thinking that they would actually use LG to produce hydrogen to clean the emissions up from the transportation sector. Yeah. And the next phase of their interest in you know Canada visa the energy is uh hydrogen and ammonia projects primarily out of Alberta but it would have to be railed uh again out to um the west coast. Um that’s those are big um complicated expensive projects that carry with it some risk when you’re transporting hydrogen ammonia. But the government of Japan has put in I think $3 billion in the window to help their proponents offset the cost uh of building these hydrogen infrastructure projects in Canada. So, there’s a couple of joint ventures that are going on that will require some help from Ottawa and some of the transportation companies, but uh we’re hopeful that will materialize sooner than later. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say Ian, you’ve worked at both ends of this conversation. You’re in Japan and Asia now, but you were here with the Vancouver Economic Development Commission. And another sort of uh eye openener for me was that the opportunities were vast in Japan. And the difficulties that you see in the relationships geopolitically with China and some of these other trading partners weren’t there. Big big democracy, very well established economy, familiar partners, all that kind of stuff. And yet a a difficulty on the BC end at least in terms of developing economic relationships overseas. Is there now that you’ve seen it both ways, is there more we could do at this end to strengthen our ability to sell into those markets and get investment from them and things that we want to work on? I mean, the investment is coming fast and furious from Japan into the mining sector, into the EV battery supply chain sector. of course they just want like they consider us a very reliable um predictable partner which is not what you’d think if you read the business media in central Canada. Um but they do they trust us they rely they understand our system. Um but yeah, they would like more um robust TransCanada transportation infrastructure and port infrastructure and I think we’re doing a lot of that. Um but their appetite to invest in uh EVs, batteries, mining, uh other energy sectors is is uh unprecedented. You thing is Japan’s vulnerable in terms of food security. They’re vulnerable because they only produce about 35% of the calories they consume, which is why they’re very keen on our food, aggra food exports, plus canola and whatnot. Energy, they’re vulnerable because they’re more reliant on energy imports than any other G20 country, I think. Um, and security-wise, they’re vulnerable because they’re in a hot zone. You know, they’re right across the the way from North Korea, who’s launched a 100 missiles at Japan since I’ve been there. Purposely missing, of course, but keeping everybody on guard. And, you know, China’s uh um demonstrations of strength through the um Taiwan Strait and whatnot is very concerning uh to Japan. And I think another bestkept secret in Canada is that in Yeah. in Canada is that we’re doing more from a defense security cooperation perspective with Japan than we’ve ever done. And we’re doing probably more than any country that’s not called the United States. So that’s a market increase in our presence uh through our Navy, frigots, air force, special forces operations, uh cyber cooperation. We’re um we’re a very reliable and welcome partner in helping uh Japan with their security concerns in the region. Yes, the last few weeks we’ve been talking about removing barriers to interprovincial trade and how this can support stronger competition amongst telecom companies which is good for consumers and a win for affordability. But as I mentioned, big telecom companies including Coocho and Bell are fighting to reduce competition and threatening to withdraw investment. They’re lobbying the federal cabinet to overturn a decision by the CRTC that forces carriers to share access to their high-speed internet networks. Oh, and sharing is happening here in the West. They just don’t want to do it in Ontario and Quebec. Bell doesn’t want to share its fiber network out east so much that they are threatening to redirect capital away from Canada if wholesale access is mandated. And while they charge competitors a CRTC mandated rate of $73 per month per subscriber for wholesale access in Canada, effectively pricing out the competition, in the US they’re investing $5 billion in a company that actively promotes competitive wholesale rates. And while Bell is lobbying federal cabinet to overturn the CRTC’s decision, I think the government knows how to follow the money. And the money shows that Bell’s resistance to sharing fiber networks isn’t about economic viability. It’s about minimizing competition, plain and simple, and Canadians deserve better. We heard last week from Kim Hackstead, uh, president CEO of Council Forest Industries, about the dire strait of, um, the forest sector, especially on the coast here, but also in the interior. Um, what’s the outlook for, um, Japan as a market for BC BC wood going forward? So, first of all, Japan loves BC wood products. They love Kofi, Canada wood, they love all the companies because Canada’s worked, British Columbia has worked very very hard over 50 years more to develop really strong relationships with the buyers. Every year, uh, BC sends a significant delegation with Kofi and Canada Wood and all the CEOs. Um, so again, Japan considers this a very reliable partner for high quality products. The challenge there is that the domestic market in Japan is not growing. You know, they’re losing on a population base of 124 million people, they’re losing about 800,000 people a year um through demographics and through the Yeah. and through the absence of a meaningful sort of immigration framework. And so rural Japan um there are a lot of towns that are sadly sort of dying and being uninhabited. And so the cyclical nature of lumber exports to Japan uh has more challenging downturns than it has upturns in recent years. Interesting. Um well tell us about your job. I mean this that’s a pretty cool job being ambassador to a G7 country. Um what is what does the job entail? What’s on your priority list uh when you go to work in the morning? Yeah, so it’s a very dynamic uh relationship. I’m I guess I’m in charge of managing the relationship with the political uh commercial defense, peopleto-people exchange, a consular relationship. Um no day is the same. I think when I first got there, my primary objective was to build really strong relationships with the political actors in Japan, with the senior officials in government, uh, and with corporate Japan, with the CEO class, with the trading companies, the car companies, and you know, I’ll say, um, with some humility that it’s easier to do that when you speak Japanese, right? and there aren’t many of my peers from around the world who are representing their countries in Japan who do. So I’ve I’ve kind of got a competitive advantage. Um and you know we have really strong relationships at the political level, corporate level, education level with universities. Um so no day is different. there there have been very few irritants um and there have been a lot of good files to work on uh particularly on the commercial side to attract investment and increase trade. So uh it’s a it’s a dynamic job. I’m busy all the time and I’ve you know I’ve taken a week to come back to Pentictton to get away for a little bit but I’ll be back on Friday and right back at her. One of the things that I think British Columbombians miss is where Japan Japan and Japanese interests are in the economy. And just the other day, Surerac announced that’s a big fish farming operation, very very big globally, ultimately owned by Mitsubishi, as I recall, has now acquired the interest of a Norwegian company, which has been frustrated by federal policy on this area, or that’s what they’re saying. Um, Mitsubishi is also used to be in the coal business. I don’t know if they still are, but they’re certainly in the LG business. Are there other areas where we see huge corporations like that playing a role in our economy? Um, there’s a little more interest in agriculture. They’re looking at the intersection of AI and agriculture to increase yields from Canadian agriculture producers. They’re very interested in that. But again, the battery supply chain has been the one where they’ve been most active recently. Does this go back to Ballard Power and our work on fuel cells and stuff or that’s a different technology. That’s that’s hydrogen not Yeah, that’s hydrogen and they you know Toyota specifically had a very strong hydrogen play domestically. Um, so it wasn’t so much a Ballard connection, but the new EV battery supply chain from, you know, from from the mines to the construction of the batteries to the OEM manufacturing to the recycling of the batteries is space that they’re very very keen on. Honda announced a year ago 40 uh, sorry, a $15 billion EV battery supply chain plant in Ontario. Now, it’s being paused a little bit because the appetite for EVs in the United States has uh declined somewhat because of political considerations, but they’re there for the long haul. They know that this will change, so they’ll be ready to to kickstart it again soon. Um, Asahas is another massive company in Japan that’s doing a two billion dollar separator plant, which is part of the battery. Um, so yeah, minerals, LNG, EVs, batteries, all that sort of stuff, clean energy, they’re they’ve got a keen focus on on Canada. Well, as Canada turns its attention to other markets, some of which we already are in, like this one, and then you’re an envoy now to Asia more widely, um, is there more we need to do in terms of trade agreements, or is it just a matter of encouraging people on both sides of the line to to get going and make investments? I mean, are we finished with the era of uh, you know, trans-Pacific trade agreements and that kind of thing, or are they going to be a feature as we try to diversify our trade partners? Yeah. No, it’s a terrific and timely question, Jeff, because I’m I’m watching the the uh narrative in Canada at the political level and at the media level and the business leadership level about diversify. One, one, two, three, diversify. And I get it. But Canada through successive government since the 80s has been building the most formidable free trade framework in the world. Right? We’ve got 15 or 16 free trade deals with over 50 countries um 1.6 billion consumers that every Canadian company has market access to. So I I would really love the narrative to stop sort of yelling at the government to do more to diversify and start whispering quietly to corporate Canada and even some ofmemes to take advantage of these deals because we are positioned uh better than any other country literally to um uh to because we have market access to over 50 countries. Well, I think that’s one of the things that that certainly concerns me as I see events unfold here. You it’s to take the softwood lumber example. We we talked about this briefly last week. You know, corporate interests in the forest sector naturally diversified by hedging and investing in the United States uh when they were confronted with these tariffs that are so unreasonable and are probably going to continue in some fashion. So, it’s a it’s a decision that needs to be made at the corporate level and they’re making those decisions to sort of get out of the way of difficulties the United States. it would be good if they went to places, you know, in Asia where we could foster or develop existing relationships more strongly. Uh but that debate doesn’t really happen. I think you’ve you’re one of those uh special envoys whose uh whose activities may be very important but really underestimated here in the domestic market. Yeah. Um so a couple of points. The Indopacific role that I play is it’s become quite important and it’s a it’s a it’s a another full-time job. um the Indoac the end what’s what’s the definition of the Indopacific region? What’s included in that? It it started with um the late former prime minister of Japan uh prime minister Abbe conceptualize a free and open Indo-Pacific. He wanted to broaden the scope and scale of what we used to call the Asia-Pacific right out to the Indian Ocean to bring another major dynamic economic and political force India. m into the region to sort of dilute the dominance of of China quite frankly. So the Indopacific region as we define it is actually 40 countries but 18 of those are Pacific islands. So the little tiny islands like Papa Guina and Solomon and Cook Islands and Tonga and Tuvalu and all those. Um, but the Indopacific region is our second largest export market at about uh $75 billion or 10 or 11% of Canada’s exports. So way below the US, but it’s an important market for us. The positive news is that um since Canada launched the Indepacific strategy in November of 22, we’ve had uh nine significant trade missions uh led by the federal government to you know Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia, uh Philippines, uh Indonesia, Australia. And the really terrific thing about those missions are that we had in some cases 300 Canadian companies going and to your earlier point at Diaspora Visav Japan a lot of these smaller companies whether they’re in clean energy or a or even technology their leadership is often from the Indopacific region and so they feel very comfortable traveling and going and exploring opportunities in that part of the world. Uh so I’m very very positive that those trade missions will build short, medium and long-term results. Uh and that there is a certain subsection of Canadian entrepreneurs, business people who understand the opportunity and have no hesitation going and building relationships in such a you know a varied part of the world. Uh they have some familiarity with it. One thing that confused me a recent sort of defense development u was that the agreement between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom on nuclear submarines u and we were left out. So were we were we angry about that? Were we hurt? Were we feeling kind of uh you know like wall flowers and I’ll just my own view is I’m not sure we want or could get into nuclear submarines anyway. But how do we compare to Australia in that conversation? both you know many parallels between Australia and Canada except they’re located in the Indoacific. So how does that play out? We often compare and sort of have competitive narratives between us and Australia about how we’re doing on the AUS front. You’re absolutely correct. It was never going to be Canada’s intention to build nuclear sub. So that was a non-starter for us. We have since become uh uh track 2.0 O dialogue partners with AUIs, but frankly the the mainframe agreement is sort of going sideways uh in recent uh weeks and months. So not much to not much to lament about there. I think our major advantage compared to the United States for example in the region is the CPTP. you know, it’s a legally binding market access trade framework uh that Australia is in as well. Um but it’s not a a talkfest, it’s a get business done fest. And we’ve since added free trade with Indonesia and hopefully soon with the ASEAN blog. So um was not a um a missed opportunity for us. CPTP is a huge advantage. Um you know and we’ll continue to work as an Azen dialogue partner which is an important um uh important uh architecture for us to be a part of. You mentioned the importance of trade missions uh to the Indoacific um and Premier EIE was recently uh over with a delegation I’m sure darkening your door in Tokyo I’m sure. Um my question is how important are trade missions? You know when it comes down to I know you know all the premers do them, all the prime minister and the ministers do them. But what what is the most important thing to accomplish on those trade missions when they go because sometimes I just feel like it vaporizes once they’re back back home. It’s a terrific question. I I might sound biased, but I have a few have a huge um positive um view on trade missions. A historical perspective, we all remember Mr. Cretchen in the 90s who would do trade missions to China and India and even Japan, Team Canada, but he would bring all the premers. Mhm. And you know, I love Mr. scratching dearly, but frankly, if you were a company on those trade missions, you were always having to navigate your way around the political protocol spotlight with those huge political delegations. We’ve done them in the past few years with uh the trade minister, Minister Ang uh who has since uh left the political scene. But the point is there wasn’t a lot of um uh navigating for the companies to do. They were the spotlight. They were the spotlight of the uh tour. Premier Eie has been over twice. He’s had terrific delegations with him, including indigenous leadership. Um, and I think that is super important that the companies, the investors, the partners in Japan are having direct dialogue with the indigenous leadership who come on these missions. They’re not hearing the view of First Nations people through any political filter. they’re hearing it directly from them. I think that’s been a huge step forward in clearing up misunderstandings and gaining clarity. Does it make a difference on the First Nations piece whether it’s a rights holder versus someone who’s representing a broader group like uh the FN or something like that? Well, they’re they’re all important. So, they all provide more clarity and more transparency to our Japanese investors, uh trading partners, government officials. Um and they do a terrific job of putting ca putting forward their case. Um and yeah, Premier EB’s had two great missions. Um obviously meets with Mitsubishi regularly because of the significance of the LNG Canada project. Um but they’re important because they tell our partners in Japan that we consider them to be highly valued and important uh partners. But equally if not more importantly the companies that come are given some sense of comfort that it’s you know it’s doable they have access to u customers to investors to partners um who are quite keen to work with them so I think the experience that the companies have when they go is substantive and is significant and they they all come back with a political delegation or not. So, I’m a big fan. Should we arguably be doing more of it or are we doing it at the right cadence right now in terms of I I would leave the followup to the um the companies who who come, but for a premier to come, I mean, once a year, once or every two years is good. Keep in mind that I’ve had uh Premier Houston from Nova Scotia, Premier Fury when he was premier Newfoundland, uh Premier Smith was just over in April for a terrific trip. Um ministers from Saskatchewan, uh Ontario, uh premers from the north. Um it’s been it’s been terrific. The cadence has been good. We must be a busy guy entertaining. It’s it’s a bit non-stop, but it’s it’s it’s substantive. Like their their schedules when they come is are are punishing schedules. Um but there’s no wasted minutes and there’s no wasted meetings and I think they see the value in them as well. Sounds good. Um well, Ambassador, I know you’re a busy guy. Uh we appreciate you dropping by Hotel Pacificico to share this kind of global perspective uh that sometimes we’re parochial British Columbia. You know, we can’t see over the Rocky Mountains or across the Pacific enough sometimes, but it was great for you to broaden our horizons today. No, I really appreciate the opportunity, Mike and Jeeoff, and it’s great to see you guys and call anytime. I’m heading back uh tomorrow, so um I’ll be right back in the thick of it. uh you know don’t underestimate BC’s um opportunities and impact. We are of course the biggest trading partner with Japan in the region within Canada. Um so we just got to keep on keep on keeping on. All right. Thanks very much. Be good folks. Thank you. Take care. Pop quiz from our sponsor this week listeners. What is a deep energy retrofit? Well, it’s more than just a renovation. A deep energy retrofit is a comprehensive upgrade to an existing building that significantly improves its energy performance. We’re talking better insulation, tighter air sealing, and high efficiency mechanical systems, all working together to cut energy use and emissions. Why does it matter? Because buildings are responsible for over 10% of BC’s greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this spring, Fortis BC hit a big milestone, the completion of deep energy retrofit upgrades at Manor House, a 50-unit affordable rental building in North Vancouver. Originally built in 1972, this project is part of a $50 million pilot program to find the best ways to cut energy use in older homes and multif family buildings across BC, key to meeting BC’s climate goals. The target, a 50% or greater reduction in whole building energy use. That means lower energy bills for building owners and keeping rent low for tenants. For buildings like Manor House, it also means helping keep rents affordable and ensuring residents live in a safe, healthy home that’s built to last another 50 years or more. Hey, Fortis BC, how do I go about getting a deep energy retrofitted Hotel Pacificico? I mean, there’s a lot of hot air. Anyways, Fortis BC energy for a better BC and a better podcast. Well, welcome to the hotel, Anita Zanker, veteran of the Union Movement of BC. I’m going to put all your titles out again. Uh, campaign advisor, former chief of staff to Mayor Candy Stewart, now enjoying life as a public affairs consultant. Did I get everything? That’s a couple of things missing, but it’s been a great life. Lovely to be here in the hotel in the summertime. Thanks for having me on. What’s this I hear about you also being a Rotary exchange student? Yeah. Yeah. I was so happy to hear the ambassador talk about his experience and I also was a uh lucky to be a Rotary exchange student. I was a Vancouver high school kid uh in the late 80s and graduated in ‘ 91 and was lucky to go on a Rotary exchange to Goththingberg, Sweden to the west coast of Sweden. So lived with a host family there and uh it was a great life experience. Um changed my life. I kind of I loved Sweden so much. I still love Sweden very much. uh and kind of uh learned a lot about how a different society functions, noticed some key differences between what I had experienced in British Columbia, including things like school lunch programs that blew my mind, uh women in high positions in the workforce, uh uh that my host mother was a city manager of a small municipality, uh child care, all those things. So, I came back to British Columbia kind of with a uh with a desire to import um and commit myself a little bit to some of these things that I experienced in Sweden. And I’ve maintained my connection to Swedish uh Sweden and Swedish over the years. Uh love to go back there as often as I can. There you go. I was briefly in Sweden and I was struck by how incredibly tidy everything was. That was uh unbelievable. Yeah, you know, countries change. It was great to hear the ambassador talk about Japan as and you know as an orderly society and I think that’s uh one thing we’re experiencing in British Columbia, you know, can can we get to a different sense of orderliness? What does that take? How much of that is rooted in your culture? How much of that is led uh through governments? All those all those questions, but lots to learn from what the ambassador was talking about. I really enjoyed that. All right. Well, um let’s get into it. Well, in your in your CV, I noticed um I was kind of looking at your bio that you worked directly with George Haymon and Daryl Walker at BCGU. Uh what did you learn from from those labor veterans or with and their storied pasts? Yeah. Uh great question. Um uh I learned a lot. Um I uh George Haymon hired me uh into the BCGU. That’s where I got my first uh big union job and I I served him as executive assistant and worked for President Daryl Walker uh as well. Um what did I learn from them? Well, the BCGU uh is a a great and large union that really reflects British Columbia and uh so I learned a passion for British Columbia. I learned a passion for public services in British Columbia from both of them in different ways. Um there they were different leaders. Uh I remember you had uh Don Wright on the podcast a while back and he talked about the styles of premers. You have a a CEO style of premier and a chair of the board style of premier. I think George Haymon was more of a CEO president of the union and Daryl Walker was more of a chair of the board president of the union. Um but uh they both knew that public services mattered to British Columbia and so they focused their union work around uh uh you know um strengthening public services and so I I learned the passion uh from them and some of the skill. George Haymon in particular he always knew how to find a deal. He always knew where the deal was uh and worked towards it. Um he was always thinking several steps ahead. So I I learned that strategic sense as well. Well, we probably should move that topic up the list here. We’re uh the BCGU strike vote. Um is it heading to a confrontation? Is it going to be a long hot autumn? Uh what do you think, Jeff? Um I I I think it’s a very unique round of bargaining for a bunch of reasons. One is that the last agreement, which um I was I was still working in Victoria then, was arguably rich. It had a lot of increases for the GU members. It was a 4-year deal which expired on March 31st. this time. Uh I think uniquely the one thing the two parties have agreed on uh is that it’ll be a two-year agreement which has huge political ramifications. A two-year agreement is short. Uh and the context has changed that these province’s finances have really deteriorated and it’s not really clear what either side is tilting for in my opinion. I’d be interested in in Anita’s comments on this. But I’ll just say this, like usually the employer will table a proposal, which they have the the government has in this case after offending the union quite badly by having a long conversation with all of the union members online, which was a a new a new departure. They got over that hump and the the deal is about 1.5% in each year with some wrinkles for lower paid employees. So about three 3% over two years, which is not particularly big, but it’s the first offer and and the union has countered with an offer that has not been made public and it hasn’t leaked out, which is also odd that I was reading in the paper that it’s apparently about twice as twice as high as the government offer. But the union is saying that it wants to modernize the contract. It wants to protect against affordability u and it wants to reduce the number of managers, which they consider a wasteful number. Uh those are all, you know, standard fair in some respects, but also they’re they’re not priorized. It’s not clear where a deal would emerge or precisely what they mean. Uh and on the employer side, it’s not quite clear either. Usually the mandate is stated as we’re prepared to do force. For for example, we’re not going to fire anybody. We’re not going to uh demand any concessions, but we will be laying people off if we can’t afford them, and we’re going to keep you to the to the rate of inflation or something like that. But that’s not I haven’t really heard that clarity from the government side either. So a strike vote uh with in my view uh a a rather big gap and and a a vague sense of where this might go is dangerous territory for the government and there was a strike last time. It was just for the liquor distribution branch, but it was real and um there would members will support the union. I’m 100% sure of that with quite a large strike vote. So anyway, Anita, what what would you say in the face of all these realities? Yeah. Um this you know again I Jeeoff I agree with so much of what you’ve said not just right now but in your previous uh uh pods you know um a strike vote is a step on the road uh to an agreement and it’s a show of u uh strength and solidarity that a union bargaining committee will need so that it can u go with confidence uh you know uh back to the table uh and have a have a line that they that they know that is drawn. Um but it’s going to be very challenging to find a monetary agreement. I think in this round of bargaining the key I would say is uh being able to address some of those non-monetary issues that um that have uh you know uh been around for several rounds and this would be the round to clean them up um and to be able to show that some success was made. Both parties want to come out of this saying you know we achieved a a collective agreement that serves uh the members who work in the public sector that protects the services that they deliver and let’s also not forget that uh this is just one of the uh public sector bargaining tables there are others and so interplay very important point the BCGU table and the other sectoral tables is also has to be very carefully managed on the labor side I think um I think we are heading to a long hot autumn because I think the government’s fiscal situation is probably getting worse. Uh while they haven’t funded the carbon tax elimination, so that’s on top of the deficit that was already there in um uh forecasted in February. And uh Jock Finles and Ken Peacock, who are both now used to be at BC Business Council, now at ICBA, put out a statement earlier this week that they think the deficit might be as high as 16 to 18 billion. And um the proof will be in the pudding in the quarterly report in September. So I wonder if if the BCGU uh deal is not done by the quarterly report, if it is a bad fiscal outlook, like worse than people are expecting, it’s going to put pressure on government to really hold the line on uh spending. So um we’ll see. We’ll see. But I I think the the hourglass is working against the union quite frankly um in getting what they want given the government’s fiscal situation. Well, you look closer at some of the statements and I watched uh the union president is Paul Finch who’s uh now he was the secretary treasurer and he’s now risen to president. This is his first full round as president, but he focused a lot on contract modernization by which I took him to say he wanted to clean up. I think this is Anita’s term, but the job evaluation process, which is a huge mediation arbitration machine that’s within the collective agreement that fixes anomalies in the pay system. So if certain group of workers say, you know, we’re not fairly treated compared to this other group, a big process unfolds, their jobs are evaluated, a decision is made, and that all leads to an increase. it never leads to a decrease for anybody. Um that process is ponderous and uh the union’s looking to roll that in. There may be an opportunity for the government to simplify that, provide some uh financial relief in certain quarters and and provide a monetary solution that’s not really in the final wage increase. But I’m not sure. I think it’s complicated and difficult for the government. And in my own experience, even though the strike only involved the liquor distribution branch, was that you really can’t think about very much else. There’s a it’s a big big story in the media. Yeah. Like it doesn’t if even if it’s just liquor distribution branch and that’s not casting shade on liquor distribution workers. It has an impact. It’s in the news. There’s a lot of discussion and you’re getting ready for FIFA, you know, $658 million or anyway. I could go on for a long time. I’ll stop there. Okay. Well, let’s yeah, let’s let’s move on uh to uh sports and the political shuffle board um that happened last week with the cabinet shuffle, which uh you know caught me by surprise a bit. Um we didn’t have it on our radar when we recorded the pod last week, that’s for sure. And uh that’s why I’m still exhausted, Jeff, from our emergency podcast on the Yeah, thank you for your opinions. Cat-like reflexes. Uh but uh and now we can now you can unpack it a little bit more. Yeah, now we can let our hair down, so to speak. Um but Anita, my question for you, uh to quote Bruce Coburn, if a shuffle happens in the summer, does anybody here? Uh Bruce Coburn, have you been at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival? Actually, I saw him at the Stein Valley Festival. That’s really dating myself. Oh my goodness. Yeah, this is um does it Yes. Uh whether or not people heard it, knew it, felt it, uh I think it’s a good move. I think it resets u it reccalibrates the cabinet, you know, uh when, you know, and all the things that the premier said when he announced his shuffle when he said his cabinet uh after being elected, uh the world was quite different. Uh not only have we experienced everything that we have with our relationship with the US, but we have a new federal government. And I think one of the more interesting moves in this cabinet shuffle is this um the parliamentary secretary for AI and new technologies. And that’s kind of a replication of um uh Prime Minister Carney’s appointment of Evan Solomon into that role. So that’s I think a very good uh harmonization or modernization of of uh of a function within that cabinet for Rick Glumac who bring who will bring a lot of strength to that role where I would say you know just looking at the changes that were made there’s a lot of focus on the economic growth right and the uh uh modern technologies the the ministry of postsecary and future skills still remains the ministry of post-secondary future skills albeit with a new minister uh and innovation BC is now going under the minister of finance I understand not in the jobs and economic growth ministry. So there are pieces of this kind of modernization of the economy economic growth skills and development because Brenda Bailey wanted it I guess because she background. Yeah exactly. Uh the question is how will they be coordinated uh you know how you know how will government lead some of that transition of skill development um business development to adapt to the new technologies uh in a way that’s kind of coherent and responsive and people know how they’re engaging with government as we navigate these interesting times both you know for the labor side as well as the business side of of of these questions. So, but big picture, uh, Jeff, do you think the government what do you think the government was trying to get out of the shuffle at the end of the day? That’s what it that’s what I was confused about and I remain a bit confused about what the premier was trying to solve for. I think Anita put her finger on the main point, which is to strengthen, you know, control of the economic agenda. Uh, and giving Ravi Kalan back to jobs, economic development, and growth or whatever it name is is clearly part of that. Um but that left a a gap I think a tough one for Christine Bole to fill because she’s now got the housing portfolio at a point at which um never mind the difficulty setting up the entire government side which is the priority this term to provide that new housing being built on crown land and so on that was promised but a real downturn that’s obvious now in the in the market driven sector. So, uh, I think I said on the emergency podcast, Ravi Kalan’s last act was to take $250 million and provide it to developers who are currently building so that they don’t stop because, uh, this is to help them through the development cost charges. U really troubling clouds on the horizon for housing. So a big hill for Christine Bole to climb and um you know it’s not clear what could be done uh in the face of some of the prof these are big economic pressures that are not really amendable to a provincial solution in my opinion u that they just can’t produce housing at a at a cost at a at a salailable cost at the moment and that’s got nothing to do with regulations or anything else a lot of those have been changed so big questions hanging over that my and my big question one of questions I of coming out of the shuffle is Spencer Shandra Herbert going to indigenous relations and reconciliation and I feel like it was a bit of a knock-on effect that you know Ravi here boil here and then now what do we do with these other ones but I was just reflecting on the fact that Murray Ranken was the minister there for how many years you know four years uh in in the same ministry with and brought serious chops to that role um as a lawyer who had done decades of work in that field. It was it was two, but I would agree with your just two. Okay. Yeah. Because Scott Fraser did it for the first term and Okay. I I just feel like the NDP’s been in government forever, Jeff. I can I can sense the fatigue, but Murray was there. I know Murray was there. He was there for sure. Yeah. So, you know, Spencer’s got you know it’s an important job, right? It’s not a job. Yeah. Yeah, it’s the nature of the job too is that the minister’s role really relies a bit on kind of moral persuasion and influence and uh diplomacy and building relationships and all those things. So, I’m not not to say he can’t do that. It’s just that it’s um it’s it’s nothing in his career background as a politician seems to say why he was unnatural to do that job, you know, because uh you don’t get as much exposure to those issues in Vancouver West End riding. There’s some for sure, but um yeah, we’ll see. Jury’s out. Um we’ll see where that goes. Let’s uh move along to um the slowmoving disaster of the Charlie Pollock issue and the funding of um the rare disease medication. Um that seemed like this climb down from the government was telegraphed for at least a week until they finally did capitulate on it. um how how big of a you know how much damage political damage was done here Anita? Well, you say capitulate and I would say uh it wasn’t a capitulation as it was a real acknowledgement. Uh and you know that devil’s in the interpretation of those words but I think they made the right decision in the end. Uh there was no question uh that uh you know certainly public opinion was on the side of um you know funding this drug. Um and that letter from the uh US-based medical experts uh you know changed the context at least publicly about what we knew about you know the effectiveness of this drug and um but you know I I think uh it was the right decision for them in the end. I take a little bit of issue with some of the critics who you know until that decision was made was calling uh calling the minister uh you know cruel. Uh it wasn’t so much cruelty as it was just a a being stuck between a rock and a hard place, you know, uh the um uh having to rely on the expertise that you have in the civil service and the uh and the um the bodies you have uh versus the really strong public opinion. In the end, the right decision was made and I hope that um that that decision will lead to uh good outcomes uh for you know uh for the for Charlie and her family. Um and uh a sense that this government did listen uh and changed course. I think that’s what we take from this is they’re listening and they’re changing course and hopefully that that is something that people will recognize. Well, the alternative perspective would be after some withering criticism uh particularly from Vaughn uh and um and he both also nailed um Ravi Palmer uh the other day too on this issue is that this is yet another example of the premier stepping in to fix a problem because it was really the premier who signaled the the change I think last Thursday. I don’t know Jeff um I mean that’s just I know how these things can happen sometimes. double whammy here because the I’ve thought a lot about this because it’s easy now in the in the later years to look back and say well I would have done that differently. It’s quite easy no matter how good a batter you are to strike out from time to time and I the thing that I think is unusual about this one was that normally the debate is should certain people be allowed to start exotic medication. Uh, in other words, a friend of mine is has a very unique heart condition, not that not as unique as this situation, but had to apply through a physician to be recommended for a particular therapy, which if he did not receive it would arguably shorten his life. Um, and uh, and he got it, you know, based on his current health, his other out his other health conditions and so on and so forth. So, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for for his medication. not controversial, but he’s starting the medication based on the evaluation. In this case, we were stopping the medication of a young person who so far had done quite well. And I think it pos that that may have made it more difficult. It doesn’t excuse though the government’s long long doubling down on this thing. And I do think questions need to be asked inside the public service or outside for that matter about why late arriving facts were so late arriving like everybody else extends it. And um there actually is uh change you know various views on this. It’s not uncommon for uh organizations to exist which are actually supported by uh pharmaceutical companies hoping to support the expansion of the sale of their of their drug. Um you know you’d be naive to think it wasn’t the case. That doesn’t mean the arguments are wrong but they’re not disinterested. And uh so I think there were a lot of peculiarities in this one. The government’s had trouble with issues management and uh and will sometimes issue manage one way by doubling down and then be forced to retreat and that’s way worse than retreating early or maybe sometimes just hanging on. Uh you know we see that we’ve seen that in a number of files now. So I this won’t be the last case either. I mean, we’ve seen these cases before, and I think um sometimes the drug companies can be kind of egging on the families um to do the PR. I’m not saying that’s the case here. I have no idea, but I know that other situations where there’s um it gets pretty complicated behind the scenes. I can understand why there’s uh why the health public servants can have a bit of a different view of it, right? Um because they probably see more than we do, obviously. Um but they raised this in the case of Mitsy Dean though who was ultimately forced to resign over the handling of a child protection issue over which she had no direct operational responsibility and was with withheld from her for privacy reasons until the very end. You know these are really tough tough ones in politics but the public doesn’t care about that stuff. It’s true it’s the minister that pays the price for all of that. Uh, and to your, you know, to your question, Mike, you know, it seemed like the, uh, the premier stepped in and issue managed on that one. Is that such a bad thing? I mean, maybe that was the right thing to do in this to to uh, turn that off and um, and hopefully move on on that. Seems to do a lot of it, though. So, the CEO style of leader that Don Wright referred to. Yeah. Well, more more to follow. Um, okay, moving on. And the premier are in Muskoka uh joined by the prime minister who uh Jeff as you noted off air earlier uh it’s very rare in fact maybe even unprecedented for a prime minister to show up at a meeting that the premers are hosting. Um so that’s kind of interesting. Now I haven’t the meeting still going on while we’re talking here. So I’m not exactly sure um what uh what the takeaway will be for Premier Eie. Um, is there, you know, what do you think’s on his agenda to accomplish there, if anything? Because I mean, these meetings sometimes there’s no real big, you know, gotcha moment that you’re working towards. No, I mean I think he signal Yeah. He signaled uh, you know, they focus on uh, um, strengthening the internal trade, strengthening uh, British Columbia’s economy within the strong Canadian economy. Um, you know, we’ve seen his interaction with Doug Ford, uh, friendly exchanges of bottles of wine from each of their regions. You know, hopefully this is, uh, the opportunity for those premers to to really actually drill down and address some of those interprovincial issues, but I haven’t seen anything on the specifics. Jeff, I wonder if you have, uh, a sense of what uh, what he will come out of this meeting with. Well, I think it’s been hard for anybody to define precisely what these nation building projects would look like. And I don’t think that the prime minister did the premier premier any favors by enthusing a bit about an oil pipeline to to the northwest coast and lifting the tanker moratorium. Premier be was very categorical. He’s not interested in lifting the tanker moratorium. For those out there who are going, oh that’s a terrible thing to say. I mean there is definitely in my view going to be a second phase of the LG Canada pipeline which we were talking about earlier and the premier supported the Casilus Sims pipeline. Both are gas. So, it’s not like there won’t be economic activity up there. And the Northwest transmission line, which has also been proposed, is probably the best one that Premier Eie has for talking about the national economy and opening up critical minerals. If it was uh to do that though, you need to run a lot of power up there. And it’s got to come from somewhere. It’ll probably come from sight C. I’m not sure what else he’s got, but we’re hearing a lot about softwood lumber all of a sudden. Well, we’ll hear more. And I I’m There was an item this week that I’ll note that maybe he should um when he’s having a glass of wine with Premier Smith later, uh Alberta announced that they are pumping some more money into their heritage fund, which um is now up to $30 billion. uh they’ve had a significant surplus this year and they’re hoping to build the heritage fund up to 250 billion by 2050 which is a a pretty remarkable turnaround for Alberta’s economy compared to where they were 5 years ago and a lot of that’s to do with commodity prices and and just where they’re at in the oil and gas cycle. But um the one thing I thought was interesting was that the finance minister in Alberta said that you know if they can build the heritage fund to that level that can offset decreasing resource royalties in the future which um was interesting to see an acknowledgement from Alberta that you know the gravy train of oil and gas isn’t going to last forever. Um but it’s encouraging that they’ve got a fund there to protect themselves. If only if only British Columbia um we get to that point. Yeah. There once was a premier who had an LG vision who was talking about debtfree British Columbia. Anyways, here we go again. Um 16 long years. Yeah. But you know uh is it it’s not the case that we’re ever going to run out of oil and gas. Let’s be real. I mean that there’s two or 30 hundred years of gas reserves in the north. A decision to reduce gas production would have to be made for other reasons. Well, we need heavy oil. uh you know it definitely no I think that’ll be the first that’ll be the first thing we stop using in my opinion it’s so difficult to work with but the amount of uh oil sands is just staggering I mean there’s generations of reserves unfortunately in some respects yeah okay well one more thing in the strategy suite today we have a clipping of the week and I actually have an actual newspaper here um oh look at that where did you find that where did you find an actual newspaper in the file on the weekend Global Mail Report on Business. Uh there’s an article called The Arms Race. First of all, the Globe Mail, I just picked up the grocery store cuz I haven’t actually read an actual newspaper on paper in so long. I thought it’d be a nice Saturday thing to do. Nine bucks. Nine bucks for the Saturday Globe Mail. Good BC. It’s good BC pulp and paper. You’re your Please, listeners, send in your donations. The cost of an ice cream cone in most of Vancouver. I’m going to start a GoFundMe to pay for my Saturday Globe Mail. Um anyways, the article um is uh from established players to startups, Ottawa’s massive defense spending is set to transform the industry. Um, basically I won’t go into too much detail on what the article says, but it’s highlighting the fact that Canada’s uh goal of spending, defense spending is moving from 2% to as high as 5% by 2035, which means an increase from 41 billion to 150 billion. It’s a massive increase in procurement. Um, says the article all amounts to a major opportunity to re-industrialize and grow the manufacturing sector to the level it should be on the world stage. um and that Canada’s manufacturing output has dropped um from 9th to 18th over the last number of years. So there’s a lot in that article about C-SPAN and what it’s doing on the ship building front in BC. Uh the secretary of state for defense procurement is a British Columbia Liberal MP Steven Fur from Colona. My question is, is this an opportunity BC should be chasing um in terms of uh building out our manufacturing sector and getting our elbows up for procurement in Canada? What do you think? Uh Nita? Uh I would say first of all uh you we’ll have to see this investment in defense spending um uh what it comes at the expense of uh in in the broader Canadian economy. I saw that article as well and I I noted there was a a commentator who said you know other countries tend to look at defense spending as an investment. We tend to call it spending. We need to reframe it and think of it as an investment. So would there be ways in the British Columbia economy that we could think of investment in some of these new technologies in the future skills that are you know that might fit some of that. I’d say um you know this conversation is ripe. I’m I I’d be very interested if if you on the podcast could also continue this conversation, which is what is the economic, you know, uh um growth in in this area in the province? Where could we see opportunities for some manufacturing uh sectors that may be struggling of late that might find some new purpose uh in in a reframe? Um but uh it’s an opport it’s a conversation that’s uh critical to happen. Uh I’ve also been traveling a little bit this summer. I’ve spent some time in Europe and I will say that the question of defense spending is you know uh very high uh in in the European countries that I’ve um spoken to people at and you know this the sense that we’re in a very different time right now is quite real. So um that conversation needs to get quite real in British Columbia as part of the Canadian discussion as well. So I’m glad you’re I’m glad you introduced this topic. What do you think Jeff you’re ready to build the be like Richard McBride and build a British Columbia Navy? Well that’s a really good point. Right. I mean, I have I have very mixed feelings about this because I don’t think that uh a successful economy is built on on arms production or uh military exports and usually uh you take a look at General Dynamics which makes those armored vehicles that our army uses and export all over the world and we wound up in difficulty because Saudi Arabia bought a huge slug of them and then we had questions about how Saudi Arabia would use them. And I think that uh I totally support the idea of increasing our ability to defend our sovereignty and to understand what’s going on in our coast and so on. But I think we should look at it how we could supplement existing manufacturing activities and help them by by expanding some of their work into the military sphere. So you see bombard building executive jets but some of those jets are now being used for uh you know for surveillance and for satellite reception or some more military uses but the production is fundamentally civilian. We have a great avionics aviation sector here in BC which builds water bombers that are used around the world. Maybe we should focus more on building out that the the the twin otter that are built by the same company and used to Canadian technology strengthen that civil sector. I say the same about ship building. I mean, why do we always focus on just building the biggest possible ships and not focus a little bit on building a lot of the smaller boats that we’re buying from everywhere else except here uh to do things around the coast with um you know, environmental protection, you name it. And it will have military application if and when the time comes. Um I think it’s a really important area but I don’t think um we should rush into it too blindly. If we can buy certain uh products of which we need five for example uh from a different country maybe by the design and manufacture here or whatever those are the sorts of things I think we should focus on. Maybe if we put some um some guns on BC fairies uh we could get some federal funding. Well that was one of my favorite parts of the whole fairies debate was the idea that there was some kind of intellectual property or technology available from BC fairies that would help China invade Taiwan. I I don’t think so. And I’m not trying to knock BC fairies, but but I don’t think there’s an international security issue there. Sorry. I just don’t believe it. Okay. Well, on that note, we’ve covered a lot of territory. Why don’t we go get a drink in the mini bar? Oh, man. Uh well, I I’ve said some negative things on this podcast about Brad West. Um and uh and I want to say a positive thing today. I thought his line about and it was critical of the government about joining a party of Tommy Douglas because you wanted to uh you know it was a a party of healthcare and Medicare going from a uh a Tommy Douglas approach to a GoFundMe approach was a devastating blow uh in that whole debate about uh about the young girl who needed the medicine. So I’m going to raise a glass to Brad West because I think he put into one small sentence what a lot of people were very worried about with that whole debate. So, here’s to you, Brad West. Can I raise a secondary glass on? Hold on. Hold on, Anita. I just have to make a calculation here. Okay, we’re now at um 47 Glen Clark references to 35 Brad West references on the show. So, Brad, you still got a bit of uh work to do, but u let let the record show that I hardly ever mention either of them. So, Oh, Brad better pick up his I was just going to pile one. I was going to add another half a half reference to Jeff’s tally there, which is that his the second part of his zinger of a quote was about the government is the elected leadership is supposed to be about humanizing the bureaucracy or something along those lines. And I also thought that that gave a lot of pause for reflection around uh what it is that governments are elected to do and how we do it. So, you know, thanks to Brad for really offering up those thoughts. Okay. what do you have to bring to bring to the Well, mine’s a bit mine’s a little lighter. Uh, you know, and uh I want to raise a a glass to everyone who’s involved in putting on summer music festivals in British Columbia and summer festivals in general. I mean, you started off uh uh chatting about the Vancouver Folk Music Festival which took place this weekend. you know, again, uh that is an institution uh in this part of the the province and uh uh has survived as Jeff said, but it’s also a really critical place for people to gather, get together, listen to music. Uh it’s it is a uh it it’s part of our uh uh a tribe, I would say, of folks who come for music and some politics. And um I uh but so many other festivals are that way. Jess Ketchum last week talked about the Anaheim Lake Stampede and how that’s the official start to summer and that’s the important step on the camp, you know, on the on the trail of conversations in communities uh where people get together. So, I just really want to uh raise a glass to everyone who puts on a summer festival. It’s a lot of work. It’s in difficult times. Uh funding is not as available uh this year as it has been in previous years, and I know there’s been a lot about that. So to every level of government that invests in a festival, my I raise extra glasses to you because I think festivals keep us uh united and together uh and having a bit of fun in the province um over the summertime, which is what we need cuz you know we slog it out throughout the rest of the year, but the festivals are where we recreate and celebrate and get together and talk. So my hats off to them. Good one. You’re here. Well, I’m going to take a shot at the longest ballot committee, which I I think there are about 90 candidates on the ballot in Drumheller where uh Pierre Polyv’s running in the bi-election. And they did this in previous bi-elections. I think they did in Polyv’s writing during the federal election maybe too. I’m not sure. But it’s um it’s an abuse. Um I think we should work to prevent it in British Columbia for uh provincial proincially. I would strongly encourage uh a private members bill in this regard which I think would could take care of the issue. Um Paulie have had some um recommendations. They put out a statement uh in the last day or so which I thought were pretty reasonable which is like you can only be official agent to one candidate you know instead of multiple candidates and there should be a higher threshold for getting on the ballot. I I think it should still be we shouldn’t be too restrictive in case there’s lastm minute candidates who come along. You don’t want to have to you don’t want to lose a good candidate if they just can’t get 100 signatures in 12 hours or whatever cuz I’ve I’ve had to do that in the past. get candy in at the last minute. But for something that’s so obviously an abuse that doesn’t serve the public good, I would argue um for candidates who don’t even show up to the writing to campaign like give me a break. So anyways, take a shot at them. Um anyways, there you go. Thank you, Ambassador Ian McKay and Anita Zanker for checking into the hotel today. Thank you, Anita. and hope you had a good time. Hope you uh hospitality to your liking. Delicious. Uh lemon water in the lobby. Thanks so much. Perfect. We’re we’re making Yeah. Cue the lemonade uh joke there. And thank you to our presenting sponsors uh presenting sponsor Telus and to Fortis BC. See you next week. BC, you can never leave.

Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/airquotesmedia/channels?sub_confirmation=1

*****

Today’s episode of #HotelPacifico was created by #AirQuotesMedia with support from our presenting sponsor TELUS, as well as FortisBC.

*****

🏨🌄 It’s ‘Hotel Pacifico Rim’ this week as Mike and Geoff welcome Canada’s Ambassador to Japan Ian McKay. Ambassador McKay discusses the importance of Canada-Japan trade, especially for BC which sends minerals, lumber, LNG, propane and other goods across the Pacific. McKay highlights the geopolitical tensions impacting Japan, Canada’s interests in the Indo-Pacific region, the challenge of Japan’s aging population, and the value of trade missions in reinforcing Canada’s and BC’s interests in the region.

In the Strategy Suite, Anita Zaenker joins Mike and Geoff as Kate is away this week. The trio chews over public sector negotiations in BC, the previous week’s cabinet shuffle, the ultimate resolution to who is funding medication for Charleigh Pollock, this week’s Council of Federation meeting, and BC’s opportunity as it relates to increased defence spending.

Join Mike McDonald, Kate Hammer, and Geoff Meggs for insights and interviews covering the latest in B.C. politics.

*****

Air Quotes Media: https://www.airquotesmedia.com/

*****

The sponsored ads contained in the podcast are the expressed views of the sponsor and not those of the publisher.