Mastering Risk

Send us Fan Mail This week has been the most consequential since 1993.  Globalization has been dying since 1998, but this is the final nail in the coffin.  The peace dividend has expired, security is now being provided by the world re-arming.  What we thought was the orientation of human civilization has now been altered.  This week we discuss the mental health and reality of these changes, the ef...

Send us Fan Mail War is hell, this is for the listeners in areas of the world who far the imminent threat of open conflict, who live under the risk of conflict and for those wondering what would be the considerations for war.  We begin with a reminder that this of all times. is about you accepting responsibility for your outcomes.  Your state will be orientated around saving the nation and the cri...

Send us Fan Mail This week we chat about personal fitness, it's free and simple.   No gym memberships, expensive equipment or anything else required.  Just your discipline.  We discuss the best prescription ever offered: take 30 days, walk 30 minutes outside, eat food - that's anything with a single ingredient when your hungry.  Drink just water.  After 30 days, you will be rested, revit...

Send us Fan Mail Food, we love BBQ, smokers, pizza and all that wonderful garden bounty.  Venison on the grill and fresh berries in the hand.  Food is one of the most chatted about preparedness topics on the Internet and in Podcast land.  So why now?  A conversation about your risk exposure to the industrialized food supply chain, your risk tolerance and some interesting mitigation measures.  How...

Send us Fan Mail My contribution to the ongoing issue in my city of Ottawa.  This is not a go truckers or smash truckers podcast episode.  The truckers are used as a context to understand why our discourse is so much in need of assistance.  We approach these situations as "we need to win", out narrative is just and right.  We lost the ability, fuelled by identity politics and the corpora...

Send us Fan Mail What is the threat that keeps you up at night?  What are you afraid of, or do you look forward to an apocolypse to reset the world?  We dive into the idea that we all are preparing for something, a threat that we believe is the most likely to affect us, or we are hoping for a significant event to punish some element or portion of society.  We discuss the individual nature of prepa...

Send us Fan Mail This week we tackle the never ending debate on how much time should I be preparing to be on my own for?  Society will recommend 72 hours, but most in the community know that for significant disasters, that is woefully inadequate.  So how long?  This episode  tackles the rationale behind that decision and walks a pathway for you to follow to answer that question for yourself, consi...

Send us Fan Mail One of the animalistic requirements for survival and thriving is security.  That includes the positive control of your thoughts and emotions as well as your physical environment.  This episode talks about severance, situational awareness and all the steps you can take to become a more hard target.  This is not about walls, turrets and active shooting zones, but things that are ach...

Send us Fan Mail It's controversial.  No getting around it.  To what extent should the government's control over my ability to make a decision be limited?  Vaccine Mandates? Vaccine enforcement?  This is an important discussion that includes the pandemic but is more general, to what extent should the government have the authority to enact regulations that limit my freedoms?  Libertarian,...

Send us Fan Mail This episode we are back to the individual emergency preparedness theme, examining your dependancy on the grid - not just power, but food supply chains and health care.  How do you navigate life when the power is cut for a couple of days in the dead of winter?  Is it society's responsibility to keep you family warm and fed, or yours?  How will you maintain you household syste...

Send us Fan Mail The final, other than open debates, episode in the series takes the identified issues in emergency management, with the actors within the space and carves out a roadmap for the field in Canada.  One that does not require additional governance, or new ministries, but leveraging what we have already established and offers a pathway towards greater disaster risk reduction.  Specific...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are faced with a stark choice - there are friends, colleagues and neighbours who have made the legal, at least for now, choice to not accept a vaccination or who have opposing views on government control of our lives.  This is not about the right or wrong or vaccinations or mandates.  This is about maintaining the fabric of our society, which is the relationships that inc...

Send us Fan Mail The first episode in this series defined the problem, the second offered some institutional perspective and potential solutions.  This week's contribution is the discussion of the actors within the space or phenomenon of emergency management.  It is important to consider that there are more than the emergency managers involved in these discussions, but that they are the execu...

Send us Fan Mail It has been quite a year, with the pandemic, the great resignation and the supply chain crisis.  Throughout this year, we as individuals have made choices - are we a victim, do things happen to us, is it the government's responsibility to pay my rent when I cannot.  Or, we choose self reliance, where we prepare for all that could happen and we make sound choices based upon ou...

Send us Fan Mail Preparedness over the holidays shouldn't be your primary focus.  Enjoy, consume, eat and all those things that everyone tells you is not good for you - but what if?  Think about the simple animalistic considerations - shelter, food, water.  If you're staying in your country, no real worries as long as you are prepared to walk home from wherever you are.  If you are trave...

Send us Fan Mail After much response and discourse, Part 2 to this series discusses what are the main issues within Canadian emergency management and potential solutions that are achievable within the current framework.  Only in rare cases is additional funding required, for the majority it is to come to agreement on what the actual issues are and then look for internal and available solutions.  A...

Send us Fan Mail Fantastic guest this week to talk about her journey into preparedness, a real world example of the ups and downs of becoming more self reliant.  Lynn is the talent behind Bucketlisthomestead, a Youtube Channel and on other social media.  She provides a unique and wholesome view into the balance of life with a family, health and living through a pandemic on a small acreage, carving...

Send us Fan Mail With the current context of floods in BC, fires across the west, drought in the fields and potential hurricanes in the east, Canadians are being fed the notion that there is a lack of something in the emergency management field - in other words, we could be doing far better to help our citizens, mitigate hazards and overall preparedness and response.  The default for some academic...

Send us Fan Mail Every scholar, amateur and in-betweens have published lists of the coming year's threats and what is likely to happen.  Crystal balls abound.  This episode touches on the threats from a micro perspective, what is uncertainty and how will political and economic woes of the coming year affect your family life.  We explore inflation, elections, restoring and supply chains to und...

Send us Fan Mail Canada like other nations has a multi-leave governance system for emergency management, with many players and voices.  There are good framework agreements between the federal, provincial and territorial governments on access to assistance as well as clearly defined responsibilities for funding arrangements for disaster relief.  Within provinces, the organizational framework differ...

Send us Fan Mail This week is about the very important and uncomfortable topic of going poo in an emergency. Wherever you are and whatever is happening, humans will continue to eject waste into the environment and you need a plan on how to do that.  What is you plan when you no longer have access to a toilet?  How do you flush your toilet when there is no water in the house?  Do you have soap to c...

Send us Fan Mail Headed to the backcountry?  Thinking of snowmobiling this winter, or hiking to your favourite destination for a night out?  AdventureSmart BC provides life saving information to those who enjoy the outdoors, in order to ensure that everyone makes it home safe and has an incredible adventure.  In this conversation we discuss SAR, the mission of AdventureSmart BC, the preparedness m...

Send us Fan Mail Current real time events in BC and across the world require some reflection on our own individual emergency preparedness levels.  Have you completed the plan?  Remember, the first and most important question is to remind yourself that you are responsible for your own outcomes and the government is not coming to rescue you.  The first stage of disaster planning is to ensure you are...

Send us Fan Mail People struggle, around us in society are the obviously vulnerable: those we often refer to as poor, the socio-economically challenged or those with obvious physical limitations and mobility issues.  Under that are those in society that struggle with mental illness, those we on the surface look like  they are doing OK, but are exhausted just trying to keep that image up.  With suc...

Send us Fan Mail Knowledge is power, in Ontario every municipality is required to have an emergency plan, outlining what they will do in the event of a disaster and what they recommend for you to do.  It is a good place to start in your preparedness journey, but more importantly it is a great place to understand the players in the city, what their intentions are and what their priorities will be w...