Robbie Picard’s Oil Sands Strong bus tour—Calgary to Ottawa, then New Brunswick—humanizes workers and communities thriving on fossil fuel royalties, like a 55-year-old father landing his first job. His new Oil & Gas World Magazine, blending print and digital, critiques "just transition" narratives while promoting Alberta-made fashion, including Indigenous partnerships. Picard clashes with celebrities like Jane Fonda and Greta Thunberg, dismissing their activism as detached from rural realities, and contrasts his for-profit model ($25/month shirt club) with past industry failures, such as the Yellow Vest convoy. The tour avoids confrontation, focusing instead on grassroots voices and debunking misconceptions about environmentalism, like urban tree planting versus oil patch recycling. His media venture, rooted in capitalist principles, defies government and activist opposition, proving resilience where others faltered. [Automatically generated summary]
One of my favorite oil patch advocates is going on a bus tour to put a human face to the oil patch.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
The economic downturn in oil and gas and bad environmentalist policies that really do nothing to make the environment cleaner but serve to make things far more expensive to human families.
Well, they don't just hurt big, scary oil.
They hurt the people who work for big, scary oil, and they hurt the communities that rely on the economic activity provided by oil and gas development.
But for so long, all we ever heard about were the big companies.
We never ever heard about the people who rely on those well-paying jobs in their communities to provide for their families and to give themselves another life, a way out of generational poverty in some instances.
That is, until now.
My friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sands Strong is going on a bus tour across the country.
And he said he's just going to toodle around and talk to people about how oil and gas development affects them and how it has changed their lives for the better.
So joining me tonight in an interview we recorded yesterday afternoon in our offices in Calgary is my friend Robbie Picard from Oil Sand Strong.
take a listen.
So joining me now in our Calgary office is my friend Robbie Picard from OilSandStrong And Robbie, I wanted to have you on the show today to talk about your next big project.
And I think it's fun, but I think the reason the project came together is also fun because you are sort of going after a big, huge liberal misstep.
But I'll let you explain that.
So tell us what the project is first.
Okay, so I'm doing two things.
I have converted a 1977 bus that I bought and it's kind of has this weird 70s, 80s feel.
It has a bedroom and a shower and a sink and like a fridge and stuff.
It's a school bus.
Correct.
So, but I bought it and we put the logos on it.
And then it took me almost a year to change the transmission because I was going to be like super cool and drive this five speed low and high.
And then I drove it in Edmonton and I'm like, yeah, no.
So I changed the transmission and I've got this automatic transmission and I'm taking it on a tour heading to Ottawa and ultimately after Ottawa, I'd like to park it in St. John, New Brunswick so I can actually park all the way to urban oil because ultimately I'd like it if the pipeline was built so we could just have full access to tide water from each other coast right.
So the plan is to get the bus there.
But along the way, I'm launching a new project called Oil and Gas World Magazine, which is my head office will be in Fort McMurray.
We'll have a Calgary office and it's a print magazine, but it's also as much digital.
And what we do is we interview people from all walks of life, from the high CEOs of oil companies to just people who work in oil and gas or benefit from oil and gas.
We also have a fashion section, which is just an excuse that I could sell more of my shirts, but I put them in hot models and make them look all sexy and stuff.
And we are going to promote Alberta fashion.
Farming will be a big part of it as well.
And the goal is to take these voices and amplify them and also just explain that nothing is, the oil and gas industry is very, very complex and it benefits multitudes of people.
And the other thing is we just really need to start this conversation.
If we head in this just transition direction, I am researching tailings ponds on lithium-ion batteries.
And I mean, that makes the tailings ponds, the oil sand look like Daytona Beach or Lake or Miami, Florida.
Like, I mean, it's incomparable the damage that can happen if we suddenly do this major shift.
And I think the world will look more like Mad Max a lot quicker if we mine these rare earth minerals irresponsibly.
And the other reason is kind of a slow punchback, but a little while ago, Pierre Polyev wore our hoodie in Ottawa and he got called the white supremac.
We got inferred that we're a bunch of white supremacists, which is very hilarious because I'm gay, May team.
Plus that very day, I was filming a bunch of my friends in the Fort McMurray African community who were insisting on wearing my shirts and dancing.
Yesterday, our counselor, Funky Bunjoko, you know, who is just this like full of wife.
She's like the Oprah of Fort McMurray.
She wanted to be in the magazine as well.
So we did an imprompt interview with her where she was dancing into my office.
Of all the things to call me, you can call me many things, but to infer that my organization and our group is white supremacists is the most absurd, out-of-touch thing ever.
And the elites of Carleton that did that, I mean, they're basically gone now.
The guy didn't even run against Pierre and they took the post down.
But I'm still going to park the bus in Ottawa to remind those elites that you can't just make statements like that that are quite hurtful and harmful.
Like if I, you know, like and without knowing the situation.
So the fact that they didn't even Google me or late like or do any research on me, I found that very hilarious and out of touch, arrogant, entitled.
So I do want to go there.
I don't know if I'll have a run.
And frankly, I don't care if I have a run in with them or not.
This is different than the big convoy that everyone was talking about.
I'm going on, I'm putzing along on this bus.
We're going to go small.
I'm hoping to get some Ukrainian food along the way.
I like canned candy.
I want to sell some shirts.
You know, I like cookies and stuff.
Like, I just want to do a nice little documentary.
We'll have some teeth if we need to, but I'm not going to blockade roads or anything.
I'm just going to park.
But I am going to make a strong message in Ottawa.
You know, I think your bus tour coupled with your new magazine, I think it does the thing that has really never been done, although you really try to do it, but you're sort of a lone voice in all of this.
And that's to humanize the people who work in the oil field, but also their families.
As you say, there's going to be a strong focus also on farming.
Farming, the oil field is the perfect job for a farmer because a lot of people don't know, but there are times in the oil field where you can't go on a road.
So it's called spring breakup.
And incidentally, that coincides with planting season.
And then in the fall, when things get rainy and you can't go on the roads again, then that coincides with harvest.
So it's a really great job for a farmer to have.
So a lot of the people who are under attack by the liberals, it's the same people being attacked both ways with just intrudeau's nitrogen targets.
It's attacking farmers.
And then those same people are being attacked by the maligning of the oil patch, the carbon taxes.
So I think you're doing a very important service to everybody involved by doing your best to humanize the workers, the people who work in the offices, the people who work on the Derek floor.
I think this is something that's never really been done before in any sort of effective way.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, that is always what I've wanted to do because it's multifaceted and it's far more complex than people realize.
Also, there's a sort of like, because I'm kind of in between, like I lived in Montreal for quite a while.
So I've been in the big city and I've also worked on, I grew up on working on a farm and I've driven truck at the oil plants and then, you know, and I'm gay and I'm like, now I'm a fashion guru because I'm going to have a fashion section in a magazine.
So there's a lot of, I guess I can look at it from a broader spectrum.
But the one thing that I, the one thing, another reason that I'm doing this is I'm not going to touch COVID or I'm not, that's not my role in this.
But I was, when, when Justin Trudeau made that comment about the unvaccinated and basically label them, I actually, I'm fully vaccinated, full disclosure.
But I took a big offense to that because a lot of my friends are not vaccinated.
And these are successful business people.
These are people worth way more money than me, worth millions of dollars that run businesses.
So when he made that statement that like he was kind of labying in that group, I thought, you know, you pompous ass, you are so out of touch with the reality.
Whether you like the truck you're convoy or not, there were people there that needed to be heard.
No different than when Black Lives Matters did, went there.
And let's just be candid, the damage that was done on those protests was far more.
Smash windows, riots, that type of stuff, right?
But he still took time to hear them out and sit with them.
When you're a prime minister, you have to, you can't, I mean, being any type of politician is almost a little bit narcissistic in a sense.
You got to have that kind of like, to finish it, I guess you have to have that ability.
But he's a prime minister of those people as well.
And he never heard them.
And when he made that statement about what he thought of the unvaccinated, I want to do my part to amplify other people's voices that aren't necessarily as heard.
Because the impression that he gave is that small town people are stupid.
And that's sort of what the way I don't like that because that doesn't, there's a lot of people that are very intelligent that don't want to live in the city.
There's a lot of people that live in the city are completely brain dead and have no clue how their lights turn on or where food comes from.
And they think buying vegan stuff at a grocery store is making a difference when it's not.
They don't understand where the food comes from or where the oil comes from.
Or even when they drive an electric car, the amount of plastics and oil it takes to make that car.
I'm hoping to do that.
But on a larger scale, I'm hoping that this is a more positive trip where we connect the dots a little bit.
One of the things that I was sad about is a few years ago when we were doing our rallies, we were moving the needle when we had the pro pipeline rallies from all the way from Vancouver to when those environments, Halifax, when they accosted the stage with the big puppet.
But we were moving the needle.
And then when we, the first convoy, I think our side made a huge mistake.
We planned on having a convoy first, but the Yellow Vest announced their convoy before we announced ours, even though ours was planned.
And instead of just stopping our convoy and saying, you know what, like this is not the time, a couple of us, you know, we went on mainstreaming and not me, but some of the people, right?
And they slammed the yellow vest and they thought, well, our convoy is better and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And the sad part of that, like, forget all that other side stuff, but the other, the sad part of that was all the good work we were doing with our pro pipeline rallies across the country just went away.
Yeah, you alienated people.
100%.
And so that's where I'm hoping to start over, right?
And I don't want this to be a massive thing.
I just want to take my bus, travel, interview people, you know, do a few rallies and stuff like that.
But I'm more interested in this sort of from a, I guess, a journalist perspective where we kind of tell stories.
And I did a little of this when I went to Oyan and I interviewed the mayor and I did a little series there or when I met with Chief Crystal Smith from the Sail of Tooth First Nation in BC.
And I really want to amplify those stories.
And then I want to take this reach and make sure that people in Ontario and Quebec understand that it's broader and there's humans behind this type of thing.
And all of a sudden strong, I mean, you know, last month our reach was significant.
We have over 37 million on our social media.
So we have a massive presence, even though we're, you know, not always in the fight as much, but that'll change a little bit.
But I do hope that we can tell more stories of the country.
You know, I think that's actually quite amazing for you to have a reach that broad, as big as the entire country.
And you do it largely unfunded.
Yes.
You know, you're up against the deep, deep pockets of the foreign-funded environmental movement.
And all you're doing is just sort of setting the record straight on the things that you know to be true about the province and industry that you love.
And you are taking on these foreign-funded organizations.
They're akin to multinational corporations at this point.
And you're beating them just by being grassroots and telling the truth.
I think it's amazing.
Well, and that's sort of why I want to take it up a little bit of a level because like one of my favorite accomplishments was when Jane Fonda came to Fort McMurray and I got to stand up to her.
And there has not been a celebrity visit since Jane Fonda other than Greta, but Greta doesn't count as a celebrity.
But other than that, and even Greta, I mean, like, she had massive security with her.
And they were terrified that I was going to like pop up, which was kind of, you know, they kind of, her visit with Fort McMurray was not even a blip, right?
So the plan is, but had, you know, had a little bit more tools, like now I've got a team assembled, we might have been able to take Jane Fonda on the next level.
And the part where I do regret, Jane Fonda was in Washington.
They wouldn't, they were planning on coming to Fort McMurray, but they were too scared.
So they actually had their tech rally in Washington to stop the tech mine in Fort McMurray.
And Martin Sheen was there, Susan Sarandon and Jane Fonda.
Now, if I had the ability and the time just to go, I would have taken them on right in Washington and I would have had like, I would have been on them.
That is one of the things that I do want to hope that I'm able to do is when the need is there to defend the industry and defend our jobs and our way of life.
I'm hoping that this will provide a little bit of a more of a tool for us to do that.
You know, and just going back to the industry itself and who is in the industry, I think that's one of the things that gets forgotten in all of this.
If I had to select an industry in the whole country that I would call an Indigenous industry, I would say it's the oil patch.
I think by demographics, Indigenous people are overrepresented in the oil patch.
And I think that has a lot to do with where the jobs are, where the mines are, where the projects are, that it's often close to Indigenous land, Indigenous reserves, but also through the partnerships, allowing Indigenous people to start companies.
Indigenous Oil Patch Advocacy00:07:46
Like you see the Miccasio, they're worth millions.
But you never hear from, as we were saying before we started the interview, you never hear from Fort Mackay.
You just hear from the Indigenous activists in Vancouver.
Well, see, part of that, and that's part of the problem when I think when Jane Fonda came to town, I mean, at the time, Chief Jim Boucher from Fort McKay refused to meet with her because he was like, I'm not doing this with you.
And second of all, I mean, like, I mean, the Infor McMurray, like, it's basically industry.
And I mean, all my clients from a marketing company and all that are all Indigenous businesses.
You know, I'm an Indigenous business.
We all, it's very interconnected.
And it's taken a kind of interesting story.
So Doug Losky, who's in the first issue of Oil and Gas World magazine, you know, he's a very, very, very successful Indigenous businessman.
And one of the things that was kind of interesting, they were telling me a story that he, when he had Clearwater Welding years ago, he hired a guy who was struggling a little bit and gave him a second chance.
And well, 20 some odd years later, he got a thank you for that because now that guy's working at Syncrude and it's turned his life around.
And like this, I think that the two things that I want to cover on this is one, the massive successful stories when you have the indigenous billionaires or multi-millionaires that have just taken it to the next level.
But also when I was in BC, one story really hit me that I was talking to this guy because I just finished filming Chief Crystal Smith.
And he came up to me and he said, listen, I just want to tell you my story.
And I wish I didn't have any battery, but it was just such a touching story.
He said, you know, I'm 55 years old and I just got my first real job and I'm going to save enough money to put my kids through school or help them.
And he wanted to work for 10 years at the Coastal Gath Link.
Boom.
Simple, like not, you know, like he's going to, you know, just make enough money that he can retire.
And, you know, and I think that that's the story.
And then, you know, that douchebag, Mark Ruffalo, I was watching.
It's kind of hard because I kind of like the concept of She-Hulk attorney of law, which is kind of fucked.
It's ridiculous.
It's ridiculous, but I kind of watched it.
I was just like, and I do struggle when I don't like a celebrity, but sometimes I'm like, you can't, you can't.
We would have nothing to watch.
So it's sort of like, whatever.
But I mean, for him to speak about Coastal Gathlink, I mean, he like, it's just like, it's unbelievable, those actors that they live this high life.
And even if they drive an electric car and they become vegans and eat chickpeas and tofu or whatever, they're still benefiting from oil and gas.
But the worst part is that he's actually hurting Indigenous jobs because when these celebrities come and they like, we're here to save you, like they actually don't know the damage they're done.
That is the biggest thing I'm proud of with Jane Fonda.
And bluntly, I mean, like, industry should cut me a massive check because the amount of money that that saved them.
Think of that millions of dollars in PR by standing up to Jane Fonda when even Rachel Notley, the premier at the time, when she spoke out against the visit, when the Fort McMurray First Nation outside of just by Anzac there wrote a statement against her visit.
And all of a sudden, Indigenous people said no.
She didn't speak on behalf of them.
But that's what I'm proud of because Jane Fonda is not going to solve Indigenous poverty.
She's not going to improve economic reconciliation or the damage done by residential schools by showing up here.
She's a multi-millionaire who dated a billionaire or was married to a billionaire.
She is part of the Mile High Club.
And that's an exclusive club.
And you can't be part of that club unless you use fossil fuels.
Right.
Right.
And you have to have a private jet.
Because maybe if you, you know, you tipped the WestJet person five bucks or something.
But I mean, but that's how absurd Jane Fonda is.
I'm actually being serious, which is kind of funny because I'm talking, but she's on Allen talking about how she's a part of the Mile High Club, right?
And joked about it and all that.
But just basically, Kay, you were living a life where it's immense privilege.
You get to fly in a private jet with Ted Turner.
And then you're coming to Fort McMurray and you're like talking about the wildfire and how you watched from LA and we were so upset, but it's all because of climate change.
And if you come back like seven years, six, seven years later now, all the trees are coming back.
It's part of the cycle of the forest and you understand what really went down.
I think she should be ashamed of herself because I'm not even going to falter for her activism, but she came to McMurray with a purpose.
And I'm happy that we stood up to her and I'm happy, like, that's one thing that I'm very proud of because the damage, the damage that Neil Young did was, we still, when he called our community Hiroshima, now we can go on Facebook and post pretty pictures of like the beautiful clear skies and the, you know, the northern lights and all that stuff.
But to combat what Neil Young did outside of our region, that's hard because he damaged us, right?
Same with Leo.
Not so much Leo as much as Neil Young.
But if I would have been able to square off with Neil Young and tell him off and point out his hypocrisy, you know, and even if it's vegetable driven Lincoln, you know what I mean?
I could have gone into a race with My Link.
But my point is that I would have called him out on it.
But unfortunately, I wasn't doing it at that time.
I think that is the PR of being there to fight back.
So I think that's something that I'm going to do a little bit more of.
But right now, it's been, you know, they don't really come to Fort McMurray as much.
And the Indigenous, I mean, every single Indigenous organization, group of between the Metis from the First Nations, et cetera, they all have deals with industry now.
So and they're solid multi-million dollar deals, which is how it should be because the oil doesn't just belong to, it belongs to everybody.
And everyone needs to benefit from the oil.
It doesn't just belong to industry.
It belongs to the Indigenous people.
It belongs to the Albertans.
And that's the one thing that I think that we need to, I think everyone needs to understand that when the oil does well, we all do well.
You know, I mean, the oil companies here have had record profits, $3 billion or whatever, and it's amazing.
But then when you look at what Study America just made.
Yeah.
They overtook Apple, I think, for a time on being the most, I think it was most profitable company.
And it was, you know, it was like depending on the day where they were overtaking Apple.
And that should be us.
100%.
And that's where I think we really need to figure out why it's not us.
And that's not an easy task.
Yeah.
Well, and, you know, I don't know if you've, have you seen the movie Frack Nation?
No, I haven't.
Okay, so I would recommend that you watch that.
It was made by Phelan McAlier.
And he, it was much like sort of what you want to do.
And it was this journalistic journey through Pennsylvania and the difference that fracking had made to the farmers there who were, you know, on the verge of losing their land, losing their farms until the fracking companies came along and said, we're going to frack.
We'll directional drill tiny, tiny footprint, but the royalties you make are going to save your farm.
And it changed people's lives.
And it was the counterbalance to Gasland.
You remember that awful movie, Gasland?
It was the real story of those communities.
And I hope that you, well, and I know that you're going to do some of that, telling the stories of how oil and gas opportunity has changed people's lives and maybe even saved their lives, like that man that you met who is 50, getting his first real job, while some white colonialist named Jane Fonda said he shouldn't have one.
Oil and Gas Opportunity00:11:31
Well, and that's the problem, right?
And it's like when I, you know, when I took on, I did a video one time with Melina Luban Mossimo, and I just got a kick out of her because, you know, she was in New York at a fashion show and then she's with, you know, Jane Fonda.
And she's like, like, some of these environmentalists, they become sort of, I don't know, the mean girls, so to speak, where they're really pretty and they're like, they're doing their photography and stuff and they're posing and we're warriors and that make sure their hair is perfect while they're doing it.
I found that so absurd because they're not really helping and they're not understanding what it means.
Like, you know, Greta Thunberg, I'm fat.
She's kind of disappeared a little bit now.
She turned 18.
That's why she's not a child soldier in the war anymore.
But what I found quite interesting, everyone was going after white middle-aged men that were attacking her and they were being vicious of these men.
And I thought, well, okay, why is it that a white middle-aged man would go after Greta?
And I realized exactly what it is because those white middle-aged men have daughters and those daughters, they want to put them through school.
They care about them.
And the absurdity of Greta and her rich, privileged parents.
I remember they posed some pictures of her house and they had like these like $10,000 massage chairs.
It was just absurd, the wealth that she came from.
And when she lectured the world, I mean, and the world bought it for quite for, I think it's kind of, she's played her course a little bit.
But the bottom line is, is that there is such a disconnect.
I mean, her generation is the most privileged generation in the world of like skip the dishes and, you know, Ubers.
And I mean, try to fix a phone now if you break it.
There's no point.
You know what I mean?
Like it's such a tossaway society.
I'm trying to fix my dishwasher and I can't fix it.
I'm going to have to buy a new one.
Like it's insane how we don't.
But the generation before me, your fridge would last for 100 years.
Your cars would last.
One of the things too about this bus and the Lincoln that I'm going to tell a story of like, the bus is a 19.
It's my age.
It's my age.
I'm going to be honest with my age.
We're close to the same age.
It's fine.
So it's a 45-year-old bus, but it still runs.
And with a little bit of repairs, it runs really good.
Same with my 77 Lincoln.
My 77 Lincoln runs better than my brand new truck.
So this throwaway society, like, is it more, is an electric car that might last 10 years, maybe, and then if the battery goes, you're, you're in real, you're in bad trouble.
Is that really more of an environmentally friendly car than a bus that lasts 45 years that's built well?
I think that we need to, like, I'm going to tell that aside because I think a lot of these old cars, they still run.
They, like, they fire up.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's an interesting take.
I would argue that they're probably more environmentally friendly for the long game.
And I think that that's something too that we maybe need to look at.
Like, why are we tossing everything away and not, I'm all for improvement.
I'm not even anti-solar or anti-wind, but I'm anti this notion that like it's somehow going to make a difference compared to just cheap, affordable energy, that if we burn it properly and we take care of it properly and we improve constantly to burn less or hybrid cars, I don't know, this direction of just decimating the fossil fuel.
And you know, the other part is, I don't think it's going to happen.
I don't see the fossil fuel industry going anywhere.
But so instead of just like, I mean, this intense trauma of bashing it, maybe we just work together to make a better world.
You know, it's interesting that people who decry the consumerism of plastic straws will throw out everything that came before them to have the newest, greenest thing.
Well, yeah, or it's just, and I find those plastic stars hilarious, right?
So like you're, everything else that you're getting is all plastic.
And the straw is unwrapped.
Yeah, and wrapped.
Yeah, it's paper.
Like, or yeah, like one of my, one of my friends was like, she's like, we're friends, but she disagrees with me.
And with my isn't that interesting that you can be friends with people you disagree with.
Isn't that odd?
So, but anyway, so she's like, you know, Robbie, you're rumouring, she doesn't like the magazine.
She doesn't like oil sands or anything like that.
Well, she's a good friend.
So like you just kind of just, whatever I argue.
There's other things to talk about.
Exactly.
So we talk about fish or, you know, or my decorating or whatever.
I'm thinking actually starting a fashion magazine or no, a home decor magazine.
So anyway, I can see that actually.
On a side note.
But anyway, which I found kind of funny, though, is like, so the doorbell rings and Amazon drops off dish detergent for her.
And I'm like, I thought you were like so pro environment.
Well, what do you mean?
And I'm like, someone had to drive this to you.
You have extra packaging.
Like, like, she could have made it just part of her general grocery run.
The store.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, you know, and then skip the dishes and then Uber.
And then there's, or then, well, there's this other one.
What's that one?
They bring you the ingredients to your house now.
Hello fresh.
HelloFresh, right?
So it's like all of that transportation, like all that.
Packaging, individual packaging.
Exactly.
So it's like, you know, this next generation isn't so green.
You know what I mean?
And then the funny part is when you go to the grocery store now, they have paper bags again.
I know.
And I find that hello.
I hate them, by the way.
How do you hang on to them?
You can't hang on to them.
You can only carry them.
I know.
It's very old school.
And it feels cool when they're coming them in.
Like you're getting fresh food, like kind of like grandma would used to do kind of thing.
But here's the.
There are five to seven people in my house at any given time.
I cannot carry in the paper groceries like that.
But a few years ago, many years ago, they got rid.
Why did they get rid of paper bags?
To save the trees, don't you know?
And now they're back to paper bags.
So I think the real solution is not getting rid of disposable plastics.
It's not getting out what to do with them after the fact.
It's better recycling.
It's not sending them to.
I'm pro incineration, actually.
Burn them.
Well, I've heard good things about that.
And you can burn them.
You can use them for energy.
Also, too, don't send them to the Philippines.
And let's stop faking or recycling when we're not.
Like, there's so many stories of like, oh, my cousin, like, she separates everything perfectly.
And she's this little over the top, right?
And anyway, and then she found out that it just gets like, like, what are you doing?
So maybe like you turn garbage into a commodity where you actually really, like, you do something with the garbage for energy or find, like, find ways to actually recycle it.
I mean, I think there's a, and here's the thing too, be honest about how it's getting in the ocean.
You look at the Dominican Republic, pretty clean, but Haiti right next to it, rivers and rivers of garbage going in the ocean.
Call them out on it.
How is us not having it?
I don't believe, I'm not saying that our plastic in Canada doesn't go in the ocean because I'm sure a little bit of it does, but not.
It falls off a ship on the way to the Philippines.
Yeah.
So like, I think that that's what we need to do.
And also we need to be more honest.
I do, I'm a big believer in planting trees.
I did a little experiment in my backyard where I have a big tree and the temperature is way cooler under the tree in the hottest summer.
I think that that's something we could revisit.
Like these cities, I think they need way more trees than they have.
I also think they need to water the trees.
You see these new developments that are like the tree needs help.
If you look at trees beside, this is where farmers are smarter.
Like when I had the farm, we wanted to save moisture.
So we built a row of carraganas and then we made a trench in them deep.
So once a year, we could take the hose and give them a fiery chance to grow with more water because the water, the trees that grew by the ponds would always be taller than the trees in the field.
So it's like, but that's what the city people don't understand because they don't have that, you know, it's just, it's just weird.
And it's like, cause I'm actually really good with plants and I don't know a lot about plants, but I used to see my sunroom.
It's looking amazing.
But then I saw this app and you took a picture of the plant and it would tell you if it needed water.
And I'm thinking like, like, oh my God, like, I can't just touch the pot and it's like dry.
I know.
And I know if it needs water.
Is it yellow?
Is it wilting?
Yeah, you can kind of tell, right?
So I think that that kind of sixth sense is sort of missing now in the world of technology.
But yeah, so I'm hoping that this magazine strikes a conversation.
It'll be edgy when it needs to, but the intent is to be far more like, let's go see, let's stop at this small, obscure town and talk to a lady.
I'm hoping to get a lot of like, maybe, I don't think I'm going to like get antiques and stuff because I've got too many, but I'm hoping to just have a little adventure and tell the story of people along the way.
I don't, you know, and, but I'm excited about it.
And the bus is pretty cool.
I'm excited about it.
Are you, are you selling ads? in the magazine?
Yes, so I'm going to, we're going to be selling ads in the magazine.
But it's more by appointment.
We're going to reach out to people and see if they want to help out on a longer term scale.
We're going to be selling tons of shirts.
I haven't decided if I'm going to do like a fun, like a GoFundMe type thing here yet or not.
I might, but we'll see how it plays out.
But so far, it's like, like, and this magazine is printed, but it's also very digital.
And the stories are done digitally.
So they're compelling.
And there's a lot of, I film them and then we edit them shareable.
Yeah.
And we edit them.
And I've done a few little testers.
Like I said.
You came to my house.
Yes, I did.
And we.
And you left with pickling.
I did left with pickling.
Well, that's what I like.
I like canned food.
So that's sort of the idea.
It's a kind of like, and then when you click on the magazine, you get the digital portion, but it's also a print that we're looking for distribution.
I think we might sell it.
It'll be free online, but I think the paper copy we will sell.
And yeah, we'd like to, I mean, the more money we make and can do it.
Like I have, you know, I've got seven full-time staff now.
My media company is carrying this right now.
I'd like it to carry itself.
And not a not-for-profit.
I have no intention to be a not-for-profit.
I'm a capitalist and this is going to, but I mean, I've definitely invested in this for years.
And I think it's the next phase.
Now, on the other side of your capitalist ventures with Oil Sandstrong, how do people support the work that you do there?
Because you are up against, like I said, the deep pockets of the environmentalist movement.
And we see your shirts everywhere.
So how do people get those?
So go online to oilsandstrong.com and buy some shirts.
We're also going to do the shirt of the month club.
So for 25 bucks a month, you get two t-shirts and that change every month.
And also too, we're going to have like kind of like a like, we're going to have our newsletter, which is that's free, our monthly newsletter, and then the magazine.
Oh, wonderful.
I'm going to have to join the t-shirt of the month club for sure.
You know me in t-shirts.
Robbie, thanks so much.
And thank you so much for working so hard to tell the stories of families just like mine.
You know, I can advocate for my own family, but there are a lot of people who just feel so forgotten in the equation.
And the government is doing things to them, not with them.
And they don't have anybody out there sticking out for them.
So I'm glad to hear that you're giving a voice to those people.
Thank you.
And it's always a pleasure being on your show.
So thank you for having me.
I think this is the first one we've done like this.
Testing Natural Immunity Levels00:09:34
No, we've done.
I think we've done one otherwise, but you're in Calgary.
So you came by the office.
Yes, I did.
Awesome.
Thanks, Robbie.
This is a portion of the show where we welcome your viewer feedback.
We actually want to hear from you.
We want to know what you think about the work that we're doing here at Rebel News because really we can't do any of it without you.
So one of the best ways to send viewer feedback to me on the show is send me an email, Sheila at RebelNews.com.
That's my email.
Send me a letter.
Put gun show letters in the subject line so that I can find it.
But sometimes I go looking on the Rumble comments to see what you're saying.
And so if you have something to say about the work that we're doing, send it to me in an email or leave a comment on Rumble and perhaps I will find it.
Now, today's comment comes to me from my email and it's about a story that I did over the course of six months.
My friend and I. One of us was unvaccinated, but recovered from COVID, diagnosed COVID case.
And the other one of us was double vaccinated, but not doing the booster thing.
And so we tested every single month because we were trying to prove with scientific evidence just how unscientific the vaccine passports were because even though we were close friends, known each other most of our lives, we could not go for a beer together.
We couldn't go to watch my kids play sports if the sports were happening indoors.
And so we thought, let's test to show that we are both immune to COVID.
And so we tested our antibodies every single month at a company called iCorp.
And part of it was to see whose immunity levels dropped off because we could test for just the levels of antibodies in our blood too.
So we could test to see whose immunity was lasting longer, the vaccinated or the unvaccinated but naturally immune person.
And we tested and we tested and we tested.
And our immunity levels were never changing, which meant our unvaccinated person was completely discriminated against.
But we knew that something else was going on because we knew that the unvaccinated person should have been due for a booster, but their immunity levels never started to drop off the way you would expect them.
Well, as it turns out, the company that we were using, I-Corp Blood Services, towards the end of our experiment, introduced a new test, which actually ended the experiment because the new test was called a T cell test.
And what it does is test not just for immunity levels, but T cells show natural immunity.
You see, we started to suspect that our vaccinated person's vaccines had failed somewhere along the way and they had contracted COVID and didn't even really realize it.
And so we tested for T cells.
And as it turns out, yes, indeed, the vaccines had failed and that person had contracted COVID, didn't really even realize it to the extent beyond just a cold.
And that was sort of the end of the experiment.
And it really laid bare the discrimination of the vaccine passports because we were discriminating against people in society based on medicine that didn't work for no reason whatsoever, except to pretend like we were doing something.
Anyway, all that is to say, Ollie Kay writes me and says, I haven't seen an update post on YouTube regarding the test you and your friend were doing comparing blood samples.
Just wondering if you're going to continue those or not, as they were quite helpful to folks who've had COVID but chose not to vaccinate in our respective battles.
Keep up the great work.
So I just told you why we ended the testing and the test, we ended it because, well, the vaccines obviously didn't work.
And as it turns out, both of our test subjects were naturally immune.
But it was one of the most emailed stories that I got because people were constantly reaching out to me.
How do I do this?
I'm curious.
And it was a little bit expensive, but it was kind of affordable, you know, just to prove a point.
The testing was, you know, like a couple hundred dollars every month.
And our T cell tests, I think, were about $300 a piece.
But, you know, we just wanted to use our own bodies to prove how unscientific everything is.
So I thought out of curiosity that maybe we would go back and just get our immunity levels tested again to see now how long natural immunity maintains in the blood because the doctors are saying, well, you can't trust natural immunity.
But we do have tests that show us how long we can trust it if we're willing to take it.
But unfortunately, the testing company that we used has gone into hibernation because, you know, when I started going there, it was really busy because this blood testing that they were doing, your doctor, even if he tried to order it for you, the central Alberta government lab would step in and say, no, no, no, you can't do this test.
You can't tell people how immune they are to COVID.
So they saw a real boom in business because people like me were trying to prove a point.
Some people wanted to know if they had ever even had COVID.
They wanted to know if they had the antibodies.
They wanted to know how effective the antibodies were so that they could make an informed decision before they chose to vaccinate.
Well, as it turns out, the vaccines didn't do any good either.
But going on the information at the time, this is what people were trying to do.
But then the vaccine passport ended in Alberta and business dropped off for the company.
Now they've gone into hibernation, but before they did, they did something interesting.
So I'm going to read a letter to you from the CEO of I-Corps Blood Testing.
That's the company that we use.
LaCrete did a big experiment with the town of La Crete, Alberta.
LaCrete is a mostly Mennonite community at the end of the road in northwestern Alberta.
And they, despite what the province asked them to do, they never closed their churches.
They never closed their businesses and they never imposed a vaccine passport up there.
In fact, they went one step further.
If you were a business that did impose a vaccine passport, you couldn't do business with the county up there, with Mackenzie County, which was wonderful.
They stood against discrimination and they stood together as a community and respected everybody's medical choices.
And as it turns out, once you took coercion out of the equation, the town of La Crete, only about one in three people made a choice to vaccinate because they weren't coerced.
And that town, according to I-Corps' blood testing, achieved natural immunity way sooner than the rest of the population.
So that, all that is to say, I-Corps, before they went into hibernation, they made a proposal with the Alberta government, and I'll read from the CEO's letter.
Just before we went into hibernation, I submitted a proposal to Alberta Health Services for a pilot project.
Under this pilot, we would complete screening testing on 1,000 Albertans between the ages of 50 and 75 and screen for 10 different types of cancer as well as cardiovascular disease.
The case we want to make is that money spent upfront for screening testing can identify individuals with cancer or cardiovascular disease while still in the early stages.
By doing this, our healthcare system can then intervene, which not only increases survivability odds, but also decreases the long-term cost impact on the system.
We can keep individuals out of the hospital or mitigate expensive late-term treatments.
Although I cannot share the details of the pilot, I am pleased to report that we have received positive feedback on it and are hoping for further conversations or approval soon.
The outcome of this pilot, if positive and demonstrating value, could then set the stage for an I-Corps resurgence focused on government-backed preventative screening testing.
The selection of pilot participants is yet to be determined, but I have requested that I-Corps qualify participants from this mail list.
So stay tuned for our next newsletter for an update.
I think this is wonderful.
Screening people in advance for diseases to increase their survivability, but also lessen the burden on the healthcare system.
I don't know why the government wouldn't do this.
I wish them the best of luck.
This is a huge thing to put healthcare back in the hands of the patient.
Screening For Survival00:00:39
That's wonderful.
Good for I-Corps for being innovators.
And let me tell you, I'm not sponsored by I-Corp.
They've never given me anything for free.
In fact, I paid for all of our testing through the support of our viewers at home.
But very innovative.
It's, you know, the possibility, possibility of a public-private partnership with healthcare, which means that definitely the left is going to absolutely hate this because they love big government and making sure that they are in control of your health instead of you.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week.