Michelle Samson:
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Welcome to Making it in Ontario, your window into what's next in
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Ontario's manufacturing sector from the
data driven researchers at the Trillium
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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.
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I'm Michelle Samson.
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Brendan Sweeney: And I'm Brendan Sweeney.
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Michelle Samson: Alright, Brendan,
we are going to talk today about
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a recent data bulletin that the
Trillium Network for Advanced
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Manufacturing produced about canola.
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah.
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About the economic contributions
of canola to Canada's economy.
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Michelle Samson: This would seem
like an odd choice for the Trillium
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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.
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Brendan Sweeney: It was an odd choice.
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It was really to chime in on a
narrative that's going around.
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It was advanced by a number of folks,
mostly in the prairies, including
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Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.
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And that narrative goes something like
this: The canola industry apparently
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contributes more to Canada's economy
than the automotive, steel, and aluminum
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and aluminum industries combined.
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And these comments are in the context
of ongoing trade disputes with China.
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Canada puts tariffs on Chinese EVs.
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China puts counter tariffs
on Canadian canola.
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And now we've got a dispute on our hands.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah.
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So I mean, data is Trillium's thing.
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It is your thing.
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So what did you make of those numbers?
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Brendan Sweeney: Scott Moe is dead wrong.
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The report that came up with those numbers
is flawed, really flawed, the idea that
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that canola, which is not unimportant,
but the idea that canola contributes more
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to Canada's economy than auto, steel,
and aluminum combined is laughable.
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Laughable.
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I mean, the idea, and we proved this
out in this data bulletin, the idea
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that canola contributes more than
automotive alone is itself laughable.
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So auto, steel, and aluminum?
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No.
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That dog won't hunt.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah.
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So how did this get on your radar?
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Brendan Sweeney: So after a couple
weeks at the cottage, I kind of
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popped my head back up to speak with
a journalist, Lorraine Sommerfeld,
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who wrote something for driving.ca,
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and that's out.
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And that was the genesis of this, so I
credit Lorraine for that because she kind
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of told me some of the numbers in our
discussion, you know, something like,
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okay, $13 billion worth of canola exports.
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$43 billion worth of GDP.
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What?
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That didn't make sense.
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If it was the other way around, maybe
it would've just been high, but it
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would've, but to turn an export based
industry, canola, that exports, you
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know, $12 or $13 billion worth of goods
every year into $43 or $44, whatever
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they said, billion dollars worth of GDP?
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That's just not right.
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So, we started digging into the data and
yeah, the canola numbers were a bit off.
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Michelle Samson: It sounds like
they were more than just a bit off.
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, they were way off.
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Way off.
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Like the most off I've ever
seen for these kind of numbers.
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Michelle Samson: How does
one get to be so off?
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Brendan Sweeney: Well, you use
a really wacky methodology.
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: Instead
of just going to the data.
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Instead of just saying, okay, you
know, StatsCan, tell me how many
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people this industry employs.
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StatsCan, tell me how much GDP
it contributes to the economy.
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Or even going to some of the
companies on the processing side and
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seeing how many people they employ.
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'Cause they report that out
to the government every year.
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We did that too.
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So you use a wacky, untested methodology
rather than just using the actual numbers.
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And then that just leads to errors
compounding on top of errors, compounding
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on top of errors, compounding on top
of errors, and so on and so forth.
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And you get a really, really
high number, like $44 billion.
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Michelle Samson: So if we wanna
take a generous take on this,
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Brendan Sweeney: Mm-hmm.
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Michelle Samson: You know, like
maybe dig a little bit more into,
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like, how they might have ended
up choosing this methodology and
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ending up with these numbers.
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Brendan Sweeney: So, one, I mean,
I have to kind of step back and
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say maybe they're not as familiar
with the StatsCan data as we are.
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: Maybe they're not as
familiar with, I mean, the report was
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written by a UK-based consulting company,
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: GlobalData Plc, and
maybe they're not familiar with Canada
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to the degree that we are, and StatsCan,
and systems of where you can find data.
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Where companies have to report
things to the federal government,
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and then in those reports you can
find out certain things about them,
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like how many people they employ.
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So maybe they just don't
have access to that.
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Maybe they did have access to that, and
those numbers seemed a little light to
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them for what they were being paid to do.
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: And so they wanted
to come up with better, quote
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unquote, better numbers, right?
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They wanted to really show the
higher end, the theoretical
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top end of these contributions.
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And, I guess it, like, it's so, you
know, when you do these things, is
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there a little expectation that you
exaggerate or that you, again, that you
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might use the real high end of things?
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Yeah.
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Do you exaggerate on your CV?
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Sure, a little bit.
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It's expected, you're expected to do that.
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But do you include a career on
there that you've been working at
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for 20 years that didn't exist?
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No.
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No, you don't do that.
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I don't know much about dating
profiles, but I imagine you have to
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use a photo of you that's of you when
you're younger, because photos of
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you when you're older don't exist.
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Michelle Samson: Can't argue on that.
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Brendan Sweeney: Do you use a photo
of you that's like two years younger?
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Maybe.
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Do you use a photo of you
that's 22 years younger?
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Probably not, right?
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So anyway, these numbers
is just a huge overreach.
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Threw up all these red flags.
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And when we dug in, we just started with,
okay, let's find the direct contribution.
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And we found for automotive, it's
like well over 100,000 direct jobs,
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and that's in vehicle assembly
and parts manufacturing, and $18,
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$19 billion worth of GDP directly.
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Before we put multipliers onto it.
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When we did that for canola, it was
about, you know, we took the two
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main value adding sides of canola.
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Not the indirect, not the
supply chain benefits, but the
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two main value adding sides.
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So we're doing an apples
to apples kind of thing.
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The crop production I think was about $4.5
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billion dollars.
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Okay.
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That's a lot.
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And the processing, 14 plants
in Canada, including one in
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Hamilton, including one in Windsor.
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So 14 processing facilities in Canada,
about like 1,500 employees, and maybe
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$500 million contributions to to GDP.
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So combined, you're looking at like $5
billion, and, you know, 22,000 employees.
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Michelle Samson: Big difference.
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Brendan Sweeney: Well, I mean, there is
a difference between those activities
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and the total economic impact.
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But going from $5 billion to $43
billion in GDP, and going from 22,000
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employees to 200,000 employees?
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That's just not, that's not real.
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Michelle Samson: Putting my economic
development hat on, you know, it's always
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nice when you have larger numbers to
report or you can say that your economy or
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this particular sector is really strong.
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But that being used in a marketing
context, while still not right and
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not good if it's so inflated, this
gets really dangerous when it's in
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an advocacy point of view, right?
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, and I mean
it's, well, when it's disingenuous.
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I think that, you know, if I am Premier
Moe, I'm having a conversation with a
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number of people right now, including
my staff, any economist that I have on
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staff, and including the people who put
this report in front of me, who put these
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numbers in front of me, and saying like,
Guys, you're making me look dumb here.
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And at a time when we're
trying to come together as one
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country, this is not helping.
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But I mean, Scott Moe didn't help himself
by comparing the canola, I mean he kind
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of started it, right, comparing the canola
thing to automotive, steel, and aluminum.
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And, you know, I think back to some
of the conversations we had with David
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Adams of Global Automakers of Canada
where he talked about what industry
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associations do, and sometimes what
they do with Trillium, and that's,
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you know, do some of this research.
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One of the reasons is that, you know,
a lot of industry associations, they'll
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get someone like us to do the work
because they just don't have the capacity
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to do it or the expertise to do it.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah.
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Brendan Sweeney: And similarly, they
increasingly rely on us, just as
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governments rely on them for this kind
of work because a lot of governments
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don't necessarily have the resources
or the capabilities to do that.
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Or even if they do, I mean, we
know that the federal government
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has certain capabilities.
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They want to make sure
things kind of line up.
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They want to do the report, then have
an independent third party do the
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report and just make sure that they're
within within a certain tolerance range.
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Michelle Samson: Right.
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Brendan Sweeney: And I think in
this case, you know, in early
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conversations with stakeholders,
there were a lot of comments to us
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kind of like, Yeah, I looked at that.
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I don't know how they came
up with those numbers.
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So thank you for adding
a corrective to this,
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: because we didn't
think it was right, but it wasn't
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really our space to call them out on it.
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It was not.
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So anyway, this is where I think we need
to, whether it's today, whether it's
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tomorrow, whether it's down the road,
engage in conversations about, okay,
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well what does advocacy look like and
what does responsible advocacy look like?
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Michelle Samson: Hmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: Because what I think,
you know, I think why we are here is
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because of irresponsible advocacy.
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I think I'd call it lavish exaggeration
that went unchecked at every stage.
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And we have at the Trillium Network
not only been there to do that kind
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of research, that economic impact
research, but also help stakeholders,
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help governments make sense of
something somebody else wrote,
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and they'll engage us to do that.
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But this one, this particular
data bulletin, just for the
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record, nobody paid for it.
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Nobody commissioned it.
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Michelle Samson: Mmm.
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Brendan Sweeney: I mean, we just
wrote it because that's what we do.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah.
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Brendan Sweeney: And last week it started
making the rounds on a couple media
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outlets, links in the show notes, and, you
know, haven't had much of a response from
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the folks, the canola stakeholders yet.
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A couple kind of prepackaged comments
that frankly were a bit trite, and just
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repeated what they did, where what we were
saying was what they did was inaccurate.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah, so we're
recording this a few days early, but,
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you know, if there are any updates
between the time of recording and
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when this is published, we'll include
that in the show notes as well.
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Brendan Sweeney: Hmm.
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And also I'd just like to say, response
to our episode last week with Norman
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Wickboldt of PowerCo, it was just great.
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And, hey, maybe credit to us for
being the first with a full length
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podcast with PowerCo Canada so far.
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So, that's awesome.
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And a reminder that if you wanna
meet some of the folks from PowerCo,
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they're sponsoring the St.Thomas
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Octoberfest in downtown St.
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Thomas in about a week's time.
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Links in the show notes.
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Michelle Samson: See you there with, uh...
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Brendan Sweeney: Lederhosen?
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Michelle Samson: Yes.
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Lederhosen!
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Brendan Sweeney: Lederhosen.
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Which one though?
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Which lederhosen do I wear
for a September Octoberfest?
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Tough decision.
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Michelle Samson: You'll have
to just head over to St.
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Thomas to find out what
Brendan is wearing.
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