Conversations That Matter

The Great Wealth Transfer

April 8 , 2022

Ep 394 - The Great Wealth Transfer

Guest: Nicole Garton

By Stuart McNish

 

According to Forbes magazine, “Over the next two decades, an unprecedented shift of demographics and finances will take place and will likely be felt by every American” and, by extension, every Canadian.  That’s because baby boomers are expected to transfer in excess of $30 trillion to the next generation – an exchange of wealth that has been dubbed the “great wealth transfer.”

 

Much (while not all) of that wealth is in the form of family-owned businesses – businesses that, even when endowed with huge amounts of money and support from the best lawyers available, still blow up. Look at the Rogers family as an example: a nasty family feud that arrived on the headlines on the heels of the Stronach civil war.

 

“If the rich can’t handle it,” wonders Nicole Garton, “how can the average - to medium - to small-sized family business hope to navigate the choppy waters of succession?” In her book “Harnessing Conflict: How Family Businesses Can Thrive and Survive,” Garton addresses the myriad issues that need to be attended to when passing ownership of the family business onto the next generation.

 

Stuart McNish invited Nicole Garton to join him for a Conversation that Matters that every family business must have when planning a transfer of ownership.

 

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Social Media - Good or Bad? - Dr Cody Buntain

Ep 393 - Social Media - Good or Bad?

Guest: Dr Cody Buntain

By Stuart McNish

 

Don’t you wish there was an app that lets you know which one of the people you know is an opinionated, bigoted, racist, mysoginistic, conspiracy theory idiot? Oh wait, there is! In fact, there are many and collectively, they are known as social media. “That is a big problem,” says Dr. Cody Buntain, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s College of Information.

 

Dr. Buntain points out that “TikTok is trying to address this issue by launching its ‘Ineligible For Your Feed,’ whereby the app will automatically control your feed.” The feature is part of TikTok’s policy change aimed at promoting safety, security, and well-being for users.

 

“All of those issues are part of the dark side of Social Media,” says Buntain. He also points to the American Economic Review study “The Welfare Effects of Social Media,” which states that “the rise of social media has provoked both optimism about societal benefits and concerns about harms such as addiction, depression and political polarization.” Or as John Vervaike, the author of, “Zombies in Western Culture,” posits: “Are we losing touch with reality?”

 

Stuart McNish invited Dr. Cody Buntain to join him for a Conversation that Matters about the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media and what you can do to protect yourself.

 

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Beef Industry’s Commitment to Carbon Reduction: Ruaraidh Petre

Ep 375 - Beef Industry’s Commitment to Carbon Reduction 

Guest: Ruaraidh Petre 

 

The beef industry is feeling the heat. That heat is the ongoing campaign directed at cattle as a negative force upon the environment and in particular climate. While the industry in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America is already striving to reduce the environmental impact of cows, the rest of the world is also getting on-side.

 

The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef is a worldwide organization that has set an ambitious 30% greenhouse gas reduction target through responsible and innovative agricultural practices, coupled with the use of new technology.  Ruaraidh Petre, the Executive Director of GRSB says, “Paramount in our mission is animal health and welfare. Cattle require an environment in which they can thrive.”

 

Essential elements in ensuring the industry meets its targets are grassland management and herd size. Professor Myles Allen, an IPCC climate scientist and professor at Oxford University says, “A stable herd size is one that is not adding new methane and therefore has a minimal impact and, more interestingly, if the herd size declines, the impact on climate will actually be a reduction in global temperatures.”

 

For the Global Roundtable, it says that is just one element of its comprehensive plan to address climate and environment. Petre says, “Many producers and farmers are already net positive contributors to nature and for those that need assistance in making positive changes, the GRSB offers financing, and developmental support.”

 

We invited Ruariaidh Petre to join us from Nelson, New Zealand for a Conversation That Matters about the global effort underway to ensure cattle are a sustainable nutritional and environmental part of the world food supply.

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It’s Time to Separate: Professor Barry Cooper

Ep 374 - It’s time to Separate

Guest: Professor Barry Cooper

 

Forget alienation, says University of Calgary Professor Barry Cooper – “Call a referendum on separation.” Cooper maintains it’s time for a new relationship with Ottawa, that it’s time to reset the agreement in Confederation, one that was established to ensure Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories would never have the power base needed to dictate the direction of their own territory, let alone the country.

 

Stuart McNish invited Professor Barry Cooper to join him for a Conversation That Matters about Alberta’s mistreatment by Ottawa from the moment it was created to now.

 

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Sacred and Strong: Dr Shannon McDonald

Ep 373 - Sacred and Strong

Guest: Dr Shannon McDonald

 

We want the right to choose and control our health; it is our right in British Columbia. Not so if you are a First Nations person and even less so if you are First Nations female. “Sacred and Strong”  is a recently published report from the First Nations Health Authority focused on the health and wellness of First Nations women and girls living in BC.

 

The purpose of the report is to “reclaim First Nations teachings and protocols around birth, pregnancy and mothering, empowering women as life givers is restored.” The report contains data from a wide range of sources; it encourages and embraces a holistic health approach highlighting the many ways that First Nations women and girls can and are thriving.

 

The report also lays bare systemic barriers that have created health inequities, along with steps to move beyond a hostile history in Canada. While acknowledging the pain and suffering of treatment within the health care system in Canada, the report also shows the way forward. “Sacred and Strong” is about First Nations women and girls as the hearts of their communities and Nations. 

 

The FNHA says these “women and girls are the current and future matriarchs of our communities; they are the life givers, the grandmothers, mothers, aunties, sisters and daughters who are vitally important caretakers of First Nations culture – they keep it alive and communities strong. They are, and have always been, both sacred and strong.”

 

We invited Dr Shannon McDonald the acting Chief Health Officer of the First Nations Health Authority to join Stu for a Conversation That Matters about developing supportive systems that are the roots of wellness that ensure healthy bodies, minds and spirits of First Nations women and girls.

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A Survival Guide in Rogue Times: Jonathan Brill

Ep 372 - A Survival Guide in Rogue Times

Guest: Jonathan Brill

 

When COVID-19 hit, the world went into shock. Virtually no one was prepared for the dramatic shift in every aspect of their lives that was cascading down on us. Well, not everyone. In 2015 at a TED Talk, Bill Gates warned a “Spanish flu”-like pandemic was coming. He observed the response to West Africa’s 2014 ebola outbreak and the poor response from the rest of the world. Gates rightly predicted a future pandemic was going to hit us.

 

It was as if the world was hit by a “Rogue Wave,” says global futurist Jonathan Brill, the author of a book by that name, in which he points out rogue waves are far more likely to happen than previously understood – that in fact, they are not rogue waves. Rogue quantum harmonic oscillations or modulation instabilities are present in a wide range of media and environments. The key, according to Brill, is to spot the harmonic changes on the horizon that foreshadow their arrival.

 

Spotting the telltale signs is, however, only step 1 in the development of appropriate responses that ensure you can successfully navigate the choppy waters ahead. Brill encourages readers to adopt a “Sherlock Holmes” approach to observing, assessing or deducing and then eliminating the impossible, which means that whatever remains, no matter how mad it seems, it must be the truth.

 

The challenge with this approach is that it is antithetical to the processes most of us individually and as companies employ – those processes were built for less volatile times. Brill says those processes “presume that you can deliver compound growth year after year, if you reduce risk, improve efficiencies, and keep your products up to date.”

 

We invited Jonathan Brill, a Global Futurist and the author of “Rogue Waves,” to join us for a Conversation That Matters about how you can future-proof yourself and your business to survive and profit from radical change.

 

 

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Saving Private Bookstores - Marc Côté

Saving Private Bookstores

Guest: Marc Côté

 

 

“Bookstores are important, because they sell the cultural objects that feed and shape our souls – books and the stories they contain make us more human. They improve our ability to empathize, and empathy is the glue that holds societies together,” says Marc Côté, the publisher of Cormorant Books.

 

Ask yourself this: when was the last time you bought a book in a bookstore in Canada written by a Canadian? Not from Amazon, but in a bookstore with a person to talk to who knows about books. The number of bankrupt bookstores suggests not many of us have purchased a book in a book store in Canada, let alone a book written by a Canadian.

 

The “More Canada” report proves it: “Canadian book-sells lost 50 percent of their market share from 1995 to 2015.” Côté says, “With shrinking market presence comes shrinking book sales and revenues — money that makes possible the discovery and nurturing of literary talents known throughout our country and abroad.”

 

If you are reading this and feeling badly that you didn’t go into the local bookstore before it closed, you’re not alone. Did you know your local library also orders online from the United States, even when buying Canadian books?

Côté says, “Answering the disappearing Canadian bookstore conundrum won’t be easy. It’s going to take more than just consumers – governments also have to get involved and provide a menu of incentives, tax breaks and subsidies.” 

 

We invited Marc Côté of Cormorant Books to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the important role bookstores play in neighbourhoods and our lives.

 

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Was Popeye Wrong? - Andrea Betaglio

Ep 370 - Was Popeye Wrong?

Guest: Andrea Bertaglio

 

“I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eats me spinach” is one of Popeye the Sailor Man’s favourite quotes. Wrong, says Italian environmental journalist Andrea Bertaglio. He says Popeye helped create the perception that all you need are veggies to live a healthy life.

 

“It seems the whole world has suddenly decided not to eat meat,” he says. “But have you ever wondered why?” He did and so he set out to find out the answer. Namely, Bertaglio says, “The editorial world is to blame. When it comes to diet, nutrition and health is more interested in selling papers and garnering ad revenue than in the truth.”

 

In Bertaglio’s book “In Defense of Meat,” he points out spinach is not the best source of iron. Meat is, and it’s not just iron that vegetables don’t deliver in the way meat does. Bertaglio says, “Meat provides the body with significant quantities of essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc, selenium and B vitamins in an easily digestible form.”

 

He claims, “Some vegetables may contain vitamins and minerals in greater quantities than meat but in reality, the human body is capable of assimilating a very low percentage of them. In fact, plant nutrients are ‘trapped’ in an insoluble and indigestible matrix of fibres that make them difficult to absorb and use.” 

 

Vegetables also contain “anti-nutritional factors such as phytic acid, which binds minerals, making them less available to our body. So yes, the nutrients in the vegetables are there but they are not easily usable."   

 

We invited Andrea Bertaglio to join us for a Conversation That Matters about eating a balanced diet that includes meat and vegetables.

 

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The Importance of early detection of Breast Cancer - Dr Paula Gordon

Ep 369 - The importance of early detection of Breast Cancer

Dr Paula Gordon

 

“I had suddenly gone from being the healthiest person I knew to having breast cancer,” said Christine Hazle during an interview for a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign produced for BC Cancer. 

 

She continues to say, “I hadn’t been sick a day in my life, I’m the person who never gets a cold, never gets the flu and that was my perception of myself.” Despite her clean bill of health, she went for her mammogram. Her cancer was aggressive and so was her treatment. And then the onslaught of advice was endless – she was told to “eat only meat; no, eat only veggies; no, try this, try that.” 

 

In an Atlantic Monthly article, Caitlin Flanagan says, “Laugh and the world laughs with you; get cancer and the world can’t shut its trap. Stop eating sugar; keep your weight with milkshakes. Listen to a recent story on NPR; do not read a recent story in Time magazine. Exercise – but not too vigorously; exercise – hard, like Lance Armstrong. Join a support group, make a collage, make a collage in a support group, collage the s**t out of your cancer. Be positive.” 

 

On and on, goes the advice. But that’s after you are diagnosed. According to Dr Paula Gordon, one of Canada’s leading experts in breast cancer detection and diagnosis, “More importantly, do not put off getting a mammogram. In fact, insist on it and do not miss an appointment.” Both Christine and Caitlin went for their mammograms. Both were diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and both survived. The reason they survived was timing – they were diagnosed early enough to increase the chances they would live.

 

We invited Dr Paula Gordon to join us for a Conversation That Matters about everything to do with breast cancer, from prevention to detection.

 

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Your Brain on Fruits and Veggies - Dr Bonnie Kaplan

Ep 368 - Your Brain on Fruits and Veggies

Guest: Dr Bonnie Kaplan

 

Imagine, if you will, a wonder treatment that can help you overcome anxiety, combat depression, reduce ADHD and stress. “What a blessing that would be!” says Dr. Bonnie J. Kaplan, a research psychologist and co-author of “The Better Brain.” Kaplan goes on to say, “There is a paradigm-shifting approach to treating mental disorders with food and nutrients.”

 

For Kaplan, that approach is a broad spectrum one – an approach that was contrary to the magic bullet approach to medicine. She says, “When we learned about nutrition, it was one nutrient, one disorder… That’s not the way the brain works. Your brain needs all 30 micronutrients: a mix of vitamins and minerals.”

 

At the turn of the century, her research was met with skepticism and outright rejection. In fact, she was shut down. “Health Canada shut down my research,” says Kaplan. “The Director General of Health Canada told me to stop my clinical trial and return all the patients to their psychiatrist and get them back on medication.”

 

Naturally, no one would fund her research because, as she was told, “vitamins and minerals are of trivial importance to your mental health.” Then in 2009, she led a team of 12 scientists to determine the relationships between maternal nutrients before, during, and after gestation on maternal mood, birth outcome, and infant neurodevelopment.

In 2013, Dr. Kaplan became a founding member of the International Society of Nutritional Psychiatry Research, an organization that emphasizes the importance of nutrition “above the neck.”

 

In 2019, Dr. Kaplan was awarded $250,000 by the Dr. Rogers Prize for Excellence in Complementary and Alternative Medicine – money that she has added to the more than $750,000 she has committed to fund ongoing research through two donor-advised charitable funds, one in Canada and one in the United States. 

 

We invited Dr Bonnie Kaplan, the co-author of “The Better Brain,” to join us for a Conversation That Matters about the broad spectrum approach to a healthy and better brain.

 

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