Let’s Talk About Baby Billionaires & Politicians Gone Wild

Lea: Hello, and welcome to Now On Narcity. It's Pride Month and Indigenous History Month in Canada.

Lea: I'm Lea.

Brit: I'm Brit.

Cormac: I'm Cormac.

Tyeler: And I'm Tyeler. And welcome back to the digital dive bar.

Cormac: We're doing Shot & Chaser a little differently this week, we're gonna spread them out a little bit over the episode rather than doing all at the top. Brit, why don't you kick us off with the first one.

Brit: Denis Coderre wants to ban drinking in parks after 8 p.m. if he's elected the mayor of Montreal. Coderre is at risk of losing key Montreal demographics including every single person in Montreal.

Lea: Literally.

Tyeler: Canadians can now get up to 5k from the feds by making their houses more energy-efficient. Or you can be like the rest of us climate warriors who won't ever be able to afford their own house to begin with.

Cormac: Yeah! That's a good way of doing it.

Lea: True champions of the environment.

Brit: Just out here.

Cormac: A member of parliament has apologized after getting caught peeing on camera during a virtual meeting. Now, this is literally one month after getting naked on a separate virtual House of Commons meeting.

Tyeler: Oh my gosh.

Lea: I literally cannot with this guy.

Brit: What!?

Cormac: Quebec MP William Amos, for the second time in a month, has gotten in trouble for untoward Zoom antics. I knew about the pee one, but I didn't know about the first one.

Brit: Oh, yes. He's now notorious. I would maybe say

Lea: I would too.

Cormac: He got he was changing from work clothes into — or sorry — changing into work clothes from jogging clothes, and exposed...

Lea: Like, first of all, I just want to say one thing, which is that: do you guys get fully naked and stand around while you're changing? Because I don't, I personally don't. Is that like a guy thing? Because he was caught fully, fully naked with something strategically, his hand or he was like on his phone, it was like strategically blocking his like groin. And like, I just...

Tyeler: I just don't change while I'm on zoom calls.

Brit: Not even if the cameras off. I'm too aware. I need it completely closed before changing.

Lea: And do you guys pee during Zoom calls?

Tyeler: Surely not.

Cormac: This is a Reuters report, quoting sources that say that the second time around this most recent story, which happened a week or so ago. Amos was peeing into a cup or coffee cup at his desk and didn't realize didn't either didn't realize or didn't know the camera was going on. Again, that's a report from Reuters. Lea, you reached out to William, didn't you reach out to the MP?

Lea: I reached out to him.

Cormac: Did he get to get back to you?

Lea: He did not get back to me. I didn't I didn't think he would honestly but I figured it's worth a shot.

Cormac: We should say too: he admitted to peeing in his statement. He said I'm sorry for urinating on camera. The specific report that we couldn't confirm that he didn't confirm is that it was in a coffee cup.

Lea: Right.

Brit: Or any cup of any nature.

Cormac: Or any cup of any nature.

Lea: And so in that statement, where he apologized, he mentioned that he would take some time away from being an MP, an elected official, to seek assistance.

Cormac: That was the quote.

Lea: And so I emailed him. And my question was quite simple. I was like, What do you need assistance with?

Brit: Yeah, are we talking like a Zoom tutorial, like they do at my grandmother's senior's home? Like, go in and show them how to use their iPads? There's so many like, is this just like wild class clown energy?

Lea: I think so honestly.

Brit: Just a goofy guy.

Lea: The fun guy at parties.

Cormac: Look it Will, there he goes again.

Lea: Good old Will.

Tyeler: Ok, so there's something that I really am itching to talk about on this week's episode. And I could honestly spend hours and hours reading and researching and that's cryptocurrency.

Cormac: I'm gonna have to learn what cryptocurrency is, aren't. I have spent so long, actively not knowing this. Okay. All right, Tye. Go on then.

Tyeler: Oh, yeah, you're gonna learn today. And the reason I'm so keen to talk about this this week is because we published a Narcity article this week that made me absolutely green with envy. So it turns out that the creator of one of the world's most popular cryptocurrencies is a 27-year-old that grew up right here in Toronto.

Brit: What?

Lea: Can't relate.

Cormac: Whoa. Is it me?

Tyeler: It is not Cormac.

Cormac: Ugh, one of these days it will be me.

Brit: Not 27 and did not grow up in Toronto.

Cormac: Hey, you never know, you never know, you got to throw your hat into the ring.

Brit: Might be you.

Cormac: I'm an optimist.

Tyeler: Okay, so let's lay the foundation a little bit before we dive in, in 2020 and 2021, we've seen cryptocurrency obviously just explode around the world. And Bitcoin seemed to be kind of the first one to really go majorly viral. And that was back in like 2018. And admittedly, like, I was very confused and baffled by this entire concept, as I'm sure many people were.

Brit: Well, I mean, we should mention that it's been around for over a decade now. Like it's existed and was popping off in these very niche communities. But it didn't come into the public eye and public discourse, until more recently, for sure. So if you do understand the market, or you happen to just have struck gold, and bought early or bought and forgot about it and looked at your wallet later, you never know but some people actually make serious scratch on cryptocurrency.

Tyeler: Oh, yeah. And nowadays, it seems like everyone in their uncle is investing in crypto. And there seems to be three main players right now. So Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin.

Cormac: Those are just like three like Canadian dollars, US dollars, pesos, whatever.

Brit: They're different. They're different currencies. Yeah.

Tyeler: Exactly.

Cormac: Okay.

Lea: Yeah.

Brit: He's got it.

Tyeler: However, there's more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies in circulation. And that second name that you heard me say, Etherium, is the second-biggest cryptocurrency in the world right now. And turns out, it was co-created by a man who grew up in Toronto. Oh, so enter Vitalik Buterin, a 27-year-old programmer who is now a crypto billionaire. Yeah. So the wildest part is that he developed Etherium when he was only 19.

Cormac: What!

Lea: Genus.

Tyeler: So, yeah, so his dad introduced him to Bitcoin when he was 17 years old, he became seriously passionate about creating digital assets that were accessible by anyone, quote, no matter what your background or location.

Cormac: Just as long as you have a supercomputer to do it for you.

Lea: Exactly.

Brit: Yeah, and a big fat brain.

Tyeler: So he actually attended the University of Waterloo, which is interesting. And he dropped out because he received $100,000 grant to pursue his project.

Brit: Was it from Elon Musk?

Cormc: It was from Peter it was from Peter Thiel. Another, another well-known, like tech millionaire, one of the early execs of Facebook, Peter Thiel.

Brit: Okay, so a bit of a mover and a shaker, if you will.

Tyeler: Yeah. And at the time, this is kind of funny, at the time, he told CTV, that dropping out of school was quote, actually scary. And that he was worried that he would fall behind and not knowing certain things. And like that seems to have paid off. No pun intended. Like he's now the youngest crypto billionaire in the world.

Cormac: And he makes other people feel bad for not knowing these things.

Brit: This literal baby genius is like "ah but I'm not gonna take psych 101 like everyone else on earth.

Cormac: This is maybe, this is my first moment of like, like, I'm feeling so out of touch, like not like people making billions off something that I just have no concept of, and I cannot conceptualize. It's such a weird experience for me.

Brit: I personally have this classic, maybe it's a millennial thing, but the "how do my friends afford their lives?" complex. And this pisses me the heck off. Because I want to do that. And I think I have all the necessary skills and knowledge.

Lea: I think my brain could handle it.

Brit; There's no way.

Lea: I just went into the wrong field, I think.

Cormac: Do we know, like is there, has he said how much he's worth?

Tyeler: Yeah, so he's reached over a billion on Etherium specifically, but he invests in a ton of stuff. And so one of the sources that I read said that his net worth is $21 billion.

Tyeler: No frickin kidding.

Lea: What's Elon Musk's net worth? What's Jeff Bezos' net worth?

Cormac: More than mine? If I had to hazard a guess.

Brit: Definitely slightly.

Lea: More than all of ours combined.

Cormac: Yeah, I read this Narcity article when it came out, talking about Buterin and the seven surprising facts about him. I obviously did not know about it before I read that Narcity article, but I also remember that's the second Narcity article on Bitcoin I've seen recently because Brit, you wrote one about something that's, like, a lot more accessible than just becoming a Bitcoin billionaire.

Brit: Cryptocurrency may seem like a far cry from something that would exist in most of our real lives, our everyday transactions. But what we forget is that banking is becoming increasingly digital and that a lot of the ways we transact are digital, we like email money for heaven's sakes, that is bonkers. We have tap on our smartphone, we don't even need cards. Cards, like, it's not even paper money that's going away cards are going away. And we don't think twice. But for some reason, I think crypto just seems a little, a little niche a little confusing. It's new. It's a lot. But recently, a real-life use case has come across our desks at Narcity and there's this company in Vancouver, a startup called liv.rent, and their rental platform has just enabled rent payments in Bitcoin.

Tyeler: Oooh.

Lea: Wow.

Brit: And so they have rental listings across Canada. And they're allowing anyone who's on the platform to pay rent in Bitcoin. And what that means is that that person would just pay right out of their crypto wallet where they keep their Bitcoins, and into their landlord's account, and the landlord pulls it out in Canadian dollars. So it's a seamless transaction.

Cormac: It basically is, is like as simple as a crypto e-transfer, basically.

Lea: Yeah.

Brit: Yeah, it's identical. There's no it's, it's literally just an e-transfer. And if the landlord and the tenant are both using the platform, the platform is the thing that does the conversion, then you can transfer it right away out of the Bitcoin wallet, and the landlord can take it out, like no problem. And so if you're sitting on Bitcoin assets, and you don't know if you want to, like sell and take it out as Canadian dollar, you don't even have to worry about that. You could just use it as tangible currency. And the strange thing is, is like this isn't a weird like, future town that's using cryptocurrency like this place that rents all across Canada, and it's like any of us could do it, any of us could rent from them through them and be paying our rent.

Cormac: It's in keeping with where Canada's going. I edited a story just the other day talking about a study out of the UK predicts that or doesn't predict a study out of the U.K. that says Canada will likely be the first country to go completely cashless. It says that we already meet several factors, like, you know, ATMs per 100,000 adults, percentage of the population with a debit or credit card, contactless payment limits. All of these things combined to say that Canada is on its way to becoming completely cashless. And with all our other notes and coins going the way the penny did.

Tyeler: A thing of the past.

Brit: Tip of the iceberg, don't even miss it. But one thing that's worth mentioning is that going cashless doesn't mean diving into digital currency, it would still mean plastic and cards and things like that. And so that's something we're already super comfortable with. And I don't know about you guys, but when we talked about deleting the penny, I was like, oh no. And I thought that was kooky. But there's been zero ramifications that have impacted my life even a little bit.

Lea: We literally don't need it.

Cormac: Yeah, I think the penny was a good example of, of easy to get rid of, I think going completely cashless, there's more problems not you know, even Bitcoin, like, you know, it's very, I think it's very lovely of this guy, Buterin, to say that, like he wants it to be this his currency to be accessible, but completely cashless society is very difficult for a lot of people. Not everyone can afford computers, you know, tap phones. A lot of people depend on cash, day-to-day. So I think—

Lea: Especially like immigrant workers who are not able to work in Canada, they get paid under the table in cash.

Brit: A lot of people don't qualify for a credit card.

Lea: Yeah, that could impact so many people's lives. But I actually read this article that said that Bitcoin mining in China could soon generate as much or even more carbon emissions as some European countries so I wonder if Canada went completely cashless, I wonder how Canada would contribute to carbon emissions if it did go cashless.

Tyeler: That's actually a really interesting point, Lea, and I think most people would assume that because cryptocurrency is so digital and technological that it wouldn't have a big impact on the environment, you know?

Cormac: Yeah. This is definitely something that I thought about, like, even not understanding crypto, this is something I think about a lot, It is still computers, computers use energy. There was a BBC article from February of this year, citing a study out of Cambridge University and there's been like a bunch of these studies that have been doing the rounds of late but this particular one says that Bitcoin uses more electricity annually, than all of Argentina.

Lea: Wow.

Cormac: Which is a lot of energy for, again, a single cryptocurrency. Tye, you mentioned that there are about 5000 of them out there.

Brit: So it's also creating a bit of a question among really small-scale miners. Because if say I wanted to get a mining computer and set it up to run code day in day out, the energy cost would perhaps outweigh the earnings of the crypto that I would mine. So it's kind of this careful dance that people have to do whether they're going to invest in like a crypto mining farm, literally just like a giant place with so many computers mining all day long, and that's like their business investment virtually and their overhead costs in order to get crypto back, or because on the small scale, it's not worth it anymore like the energy costs more than the crypto itself. And this is getting increasingly, the case as there's less and less crypto and the mining output is more.

Cormac: It is worth you know, obviously e-banking, regardless of cryptocurrency, takes up a hell of a lot of energy anyway, you know, banks, transfers, electronic transfers, you know, these things. It's not like cryptocurrencies invented this. There is a carbon emission cost to all of our electronic banking cryptocurrency or not.

Lea: To all of our electronic use, I think.

Cormac: To all of our electronic use at all, absolutely. But I think the popularity of Bitcoin has definitely kind of brought up this question of is this negatively contributing to our planet? And I mean, a lot of people would say yes.

Lea: And I wonder if, I would be really excited to see some baby genius and come up with, come up with a green way of mining cryptocurrency. I think that would be such like a, it would just be such a glimpse into our future like, how can we efficiently be cashless, but also take care of our planet?

Brit: Fine, I'll do it. I'll do it. Greencoin coming, 2022.

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Cormac: Alright, shot and chaser round two. Let's do it.

Lea: We discovered a list of the most common names for millennials and one of our co-hosts made the cut. We'll give you a hit, Britanny's face is literally on the cover of the article.

Tyeler: Shocker.

Brit: That's not even a lie. It's a photo of me.

Lea: Real shocker.

Cormac: Netflix Canada subscriptions will officially cost more on July 1st because of a new tax law. Bad news for anybody dumb enough to be paying for their own subscription.

Lea: Me.

Brit: Not I!

Tyeler: Oh my gosh, I was so mad when I got that email.

Lea: I know.

Cormac: I genuinely, this is not a joke. I reported on this this morning and I had to get my mom to forward me the email that she got so I could confirm it for the story.

Lea: Yeah, I was gonna say my mom is paying mine. I didn't realize.

Brit: I'm on my mom's too.

Cormac: Thank you, mom.

Lea: Thanks, mom.

Tyeler: As we know, Ontario let hundreds of healthcare workers watch the Habs and Leafs game seven in person.

Cormac: Wow, that's very nice.

Tyeler: Unfortunately, even with 550 medical professionals on-site, no one could help the Leafs from choking.

Lea: Oh, the pain must be painful.

Tyeler: Yes. Right. So for anyone who is new to Now On Narcity, Lea and I, a few weeks ago made a bet that if the Habs beat the Leafs in the series, I would do a little jingle or speech on how the Habs are the best team and if the Leafs won the series Lea, who is obviously a diehard Habs fan would have to do a speech or a jingle about how the Leafs are the best team.

Brit: I don't recall it being speech or jingle I thought it was just straight jingle

Tyeler: I won't hurt your ears too badly with a jingle but I will say congrats to the Habs. I'm sweating.

Brit: It's probably your sweater blanket.

Tyeler: congrats to the Habs on their victory over the Leafs. I am not a sore loser and so congratulations Carey Price deserves a raise. I'm saying that on record. Fantastic job. I commend the Habs on their remarkable turnaround of the series. They were down by a few games there.

Cormac: I think it was three to one.

Tyeler: No need to remind us.

Lea: Underdogs, baby, underdogs.

Tyeler: But they did pull it through and so congrats to the Habs. I will be interested to see how much further they make it but, congratulations nonetheless.

Lea: All the way baby, all the way.

Tyeler: And I'll keep watching in support of a Canadian team. I'll say that.

Lea: Well speaking of the amazing Habs win, Go Habs Go! Carey is my life. Go Carey. Thank you Carey. Speaking of the amazing Habs win, last weekend, Montreal's curfew was officially lifted. If you don't know, Montreal has had a nightly curfew at eight and 9:30 pm for the last six months almost.

So it has been quite a culture shift in Montreal. You know Montreal is not used to going to bed at 10 or whatever. So quite a culture shift in Montreal and people celebrated, let me tell you. And they celebrated the Habs win in front of the Bell Centre, watching a game from outside through a window in La Cage aux Sports in true Montreal fashion and people took to the streets, to party, to pop bottles, to twerk, to crowd surf, to jump, jump off city fixtures and set off fireworks and basically light up the entire city in the middle of the night.

Tyeler: Lea was literally twerking on the hood of a car. That's what went down.

Lea: I was practicing my twerking for the summer, hot girl summer. You know what's up!

Brit: Get a little practice in?

Lea: Yes. And everyone in Montreal was basically celebrating. The terrasses finally reopened. And even Montreal's mayor, Valerie Plante had to issue an apology this weekend after she was seen violating public health rules on a terrasse.

Tyeler: She was popping bottles!

Lea: She was clink clinking. She was enjoying herself this weekend. And it actually came about because a Montrealer posted a photo of her sitting at a table with five people and you're only allowed to be two people at a table.

Brit: Uh oh!

Lea: And she had to say, you know, it was my mistake. I had good intentions. And sorry, I was eating with my friend and then a chef came and it was a whole thing. And a lot of people on social media we're saying well, you know, why did she get to apologize and why do we have to get a fine?

Tyeler: Imagine if everyone in Canada, whenever they broke a COVID restriction, were just like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. The most Canadian thing ever.

Brit: Yeah. Oh my God, just tell you to issue a social media apology to our zero followers.

Lea: I apologize. I had very good intentions. I went to the party. I went to the street party, but I had good intentions. So I really apologize.

Brit: I mean, I would have a really big struggle being a politician on the night that curfews get lifted.

Lea: Totally.

Brit: You're like public eye, whatever. Let's go.

Lea: Yeah, she was enjoying herself, man. She was like a bottle of red, she was cheersing, she was walking around the restaurant elbowing the waiters, and just like greeting people in Montreal who were eating and just she seemed like she was having a great time. I don't think she even thought of it.

Cormac: I cannot wait for John Tory to be like get on a patio.

Tyeler: Just let it out!

Cormac: Let the hair down, glass of red here on the side.

Tyeler: A few buttons unbuttoned of his button-up shirt.

Brit: What do you think the first thing Justin Trudeau is going to do is going to be?

Cormac: That's a good question.

Tyeler: So unpredictable.

Brit: I want to say yoga class.

Cormac: No, he's doing zoom yoga classes. Nothing's changed for him. I'm gonna say. Well, I mean, let's see how the Habs do.

Tyeler: Ah, that's true.

Brit: He might pop off.

Cormac: He might make a game.

Brit: He doesn't strike me as much of a drinker but

Cormac: No.

Lea: Me neither.

Cormac: He's like, he definitely to me is a red wine guy. I see Justin Trudeau drinking red wine.

Tyeler: I could see Trudeau doing like a Moscow Mule. On a patio.

Lea: Really?

Brit: Maybe White Claws?

Lea: Imagine?

Cormac: He's a seltzer guy.

Lea: I could see him being like a craft beer guy.

Tyeler: Oh yeah.

Brit: That's it!

Tyeler: That's it for sure. IPA's only.

Cormac: No, nothing too hoppy. No, I don't think so.

Lea: Nothing too hoppy.

Cormac: Give him a nice Pilsner. Let him relax a little, yep.

Brit: Buys a single for sure.

Tyeler: Hey! It's Tyeler, your favourite Now On Narcity host — don't worry, I won't tell the others. We genuinely want to hear from you about how we're doing. Do you love the podcast? Do you hate the podcast? Shoot us an email at podcasts@narcitymedia.com or you can tweet or DM us on Narcity Canada's socials. We need all the validation that we can get so please send us your lovely words of encouragement if you like what you've been hearing.

Cormac: Hi, Cormac here. Just letting you know in advance that this next segment deals with violence and harm against Indigenous people. It's the last segment so feel free to tune out and click out now. There are links for support lines in the description if you'd like a bit of extra help. Thanks in advance.

Brit: It is time for our last call segment. And this week, I think we'd like to use a segment to look behind us and ahead of us. It's Indigenous History Month in Canada, but the violence against Indigenous communities in the country is way more than just historic.

Cormac: Yeah, totally. I mean, we're learning this sort of more than ever this week. About a week ago on May 27, the remains of 215 children were found at the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. It's horrific. And sadly, unsurprising for a lot of Indigenous people in this country.

Brit: This has been big news, it's going to be big news. And we're seeing a lot of demands towards the federal government, as well as a lot of, a little bit of, response and pivots and so on. And a recent announcement was made by the feds saying that Canada will be distributing a previously promised $27 million from the 2019 budget. This money will be available now for Indigenous communities to investigate more of these burial sites like the one in Kamloops. I don't know about you guys, but moving forward, I'm peeling, I'm looking forward to listening. And Residential School survivors and Indigenous community members have deeply valuable and incredibly heart-wrenching stories to share. And this is a massive invitation for us to learn and listen.

Tyeler: Agreed.

Cormac: Yeah, I mean, I would even go, I would even go so far as to say like, it's an obligation.

Brit: Totally.

Lea: I agree that it's a time for us to listen and learn and not a time for us to act like we know anything about the subject, you know. We'll never know the experiences of Indigenous people. And none of us are Indigenous. And going forward, I know that this investment is something and it's going to help in some way, however small that is, but I want to see active change, and not just flags at half-mast and thoughts and prayers, nice tweets, and nice words. And as a settler, I'm looking forward to being a source of support for Indigenous people in any way I can, whether that's through raising awareness in my reporting on Indigenous issues, or through financial donations. And I want politicians to act on the demands of Indigenous communities and complete more calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Because so far, only eight of the 94 calls to action have been completed. And it's not enough.

Cormac: No, I mean, this is from six years ago now in 2015. So it's been a while.

Brit: Only eight of the 94, you said?

Cormac: Yeah.

Lea: Only eight of 94.

Brit: Oh, my goodness.

Tyeler: Yeah, and when we hear devastating news like this, that just absolutely rocks the country and the world for that matter, we also see resources emerge and become wildly available to us and our communities. And there are so many ways that you can support right now and to learn and to be an ally to Indigenous communities, and to all of those who are affected in any way. We've added donation information into the description of this week's episode, as well as links to resources to read more about residential schools. The Indian Residential School Survivors Society Emergency Crisis Line is also available across Canada 24/7, and those who need to use its support can call 1-866-925-4419. And I hope we see more of these resources become available and accessible as time goes on.

Cormac: Yeah, absolutely.

Lea: I agree.

Brit: Totally.

Cormac: Yeah, we're at the beginning of Pride Month and Indigenous History Month. And, you know, this is a time for celebration in some aspects of that we have to celebrate. But obviously, when news like this comes out, it requires us to commit to reflecting, to growing, to you know, really participating in our allyship and to making change into forcing change in any way we can. Those things are something we're always thinking about as we record this podcast, and we're hoping you do as you listen to us as well. With that said, Thank you for spending your time with us this week. I'm Cormac

Brit: I'm Brit.

Lea: I'm Lea.

Tyeler: And I'm Tyeler, and we'll see you at the digital dive bar next week.