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Red Deer Man to Lecture Max Planck PhDs in Germany

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Todayville is pleased to announce that our own Agriculture TV producer, Nick Saik, has been invited to speak to many of Europe’s leading PhDs at the famous Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam-Golm Germany.

As a featured speaker at the Plants and People Conference 2019 in September, Nick has been invited to discuss effective science and agricultural communication –something he has proven very successful at despite him doing so during an era of divisiveness. And to think that it all started with an argument with his father.

Nick was a hippy filmmaker working in Vancouver on fairly shallow, big budget Hollywood fare when his former farmboy father suggested that he come home to tell the story of modern agriculture. There was only one problem. Nick didn’t believe in the approaches of modern agriculture.

Sharing a healthy respect for science, that lead the TEDTalk agricultural expert that advises everyone from Bill Gates to African Presidents to challenge his son: prove me wrong.

That challenge led to a lot of learning and several highly involved trips around the world. Nick met with the scientists and farmers who were directly engaged in the innovations necessary to feed the world’s growing population. The father’s strategy was wise.

“I had no business even having an opinion about something I knew so little about back then,” says the younger Saik when referring to his previous self. “Today my main advantage is my ignorant humility. It’s a healthy place to work from.”

A handcam provided for Nick Saik’s early start in the field of communications.

That is what the young Albertan has to offer Europe’s leading scientists: He can not only show lay people how to do meaningful research, even more importantly he can actually model the behaviour of someone who will change their mind if the evidence is good.

Today’s brain science is quite clear: that is not a natural inclination for human beings. We are impacted by confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance and are very often little more than creatures of habit.

“The best way to change someone’s mind is to let them change it themselves,” says Saik. In a world where most seek only to reinforce their existing opinions, Nick’s willingness to be naive and open is at the heart of why he has become so popular as a science and agriculture educator and public speaker.

His unique position as neither a scientist, nor farmer, nor activist allows him to genuinely represent the average person’s perspective because, like him, most people are none of those things.

“There’s an awareness in science that it accidentally became a closed shop. It wasn’t very friendly when it came to dumb questions. But I ask a lot of dumb questions myself, so instead of dismissing people’s concerns I actually share them, so I look into them and then share what I learn. And it turns out people like that.”

Nick is good at modelling respect, and at helping people understand each other. His Facebook page may have the most respectful and informative comment section on that entire platform.

In a world of binary, either-or thinking, Nick uses everything from LEGO to musical styles to help explain and/or analogize the essence behind what could otherwise be complex ideas. He’s even funny, having had single videos that, in their various forms and on their various channels, have been seen over 50 million times.

Supported by a large cast of farmers and scientists that are perpetually adding to his knowledge, Nick continues to learn every week. That was ultimately why he came to call his company KNOW IDEAS MEDIA. (Even the logo shows two distinct circles of thought being tied together by communication. He’s as earnest as they come.)  Click the Know Ideas Media banner below to see Nick’s stories on Todayville Agriculture.

The company’s principles of optimism, reason, science, respect and maybe most importantly, compassion may be just what agriculture needs. In a world divided by many people shouting many points of opposition, voices of clarity, unity and cooperation are like a breath of fresh air. It that context it makes sense that a voice of reason in Red Deer was heard as far away as the most hallowed halls of Europe.

Respectful and informative exchange. If it seems too simple, we only need to remember that it was that very approach that lead Nick Saik all the way from the shallows of Hollywood fare to the meaningful depths of discussing food security at one of the leading educational institutions on Earth.

If he keeps this up, Nick’s ignorant humility might just lead him to follow in his father’s footsteps. He too may one day be advising billionaires and world leaders, and that’s pretty impressive for a guy who’s claim to fame is that he is ‘just one of us.’

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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

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Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.

The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.

“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.

She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”

North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.

Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.

These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.

A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.

This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.

“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”

Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.

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The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.

As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.

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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

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From Conservative Party Communications

Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.

 

“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?

“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”

 

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