Can you give me a sense of what it was like then?

Yeah, I mean, Elora is the kind of place that visitors have been going to for a very long time.

It was originally a market town in the middle of Wellington County.

It was built by Scottish settlers who built it around the Grand River.

So there's this beautiful gorge that runs right through the village.

And all around it, there were these stone mills and this almost European architecture that built up around it.

Much of that has been preserved today.

OK, so can you give me a sense of how this changes the appearance of Elora?

Tell me something about them.

Yeah.

In, in February there were arrests, uh, in, in Greece and France, um, uh, of people accused of spying for China, uh, including a colonel in the Greek Air Force.

Um, we know that in March, uh, there were reports that China was using fake LinkedIn profiles to get information from people who were working for NATO and the European Union.

You know, and for years there's been an allegation that civil servants and academics and, and other influential people around the world, uh, have been secretly working for, uh, Chinese intelligence services.

This is an old allegation against China.

But, uh, the belief is that a great deal of information, very important sensitive information intelligence has been, has been gathered by China this way, using this network of people who have day jobs that appear, appear to be credible on the surface, who, who are actually secretly gathering information for the Chinese state.

Hypothetically, um, what would China gain from spying on NATO?

It feels that way anyway, doesn't it?

Yeah, it really does.

And these are among the things that FIFA requires in these contracts, that cities really roll out the red carpet on everything from security to expediting border controls so that people can get in and out with these teams.

They want VIP treatment, right? And they want cities to flip the bill and You know, something like $1.1 billion is the cost of this tournament in Canada from all three levels of government.

So, yeah, motorcades and this kind of massive police deployment comes at a cost.

So I do think we need to look at this stuff.

Does anything leap off the page to you from going through this voluminous document?

Well, I mean, some of the stuff that might be surprising is that FIFA expects that the host cities, including local police, protect their commercial trademarks.

So we know that hosting big global events like the World Cup is expensive, but how much are we talking about here? Like, what's the grand total for Vancouver and Toronto to host these games?

Well, the latest estimate is $1.1 billion, and that may grow even further than that, but that's according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

So for Toronto, it's, it's about $425 million, and in the case of Vancouver, it's closer to, to 660.

It could be even s- over $700 million when it's all said and done, so that's more than $1.1 billion, uh, as a country from all three levels of government for this tournament.

You know, th- these are staggering numbers when you take a step back and, and consider this is for 13 soccer games, and that number has grown significantly since bidding began about eight years ago.

Is there a sense that FIFA is recognizing that it may be asking too much of cities? Like, what have we been seeing here?

Yeah, I think we're starting to see cities pushing back more.

I think really what's driving the bus on some of these changes is that FIFA's also trying to s- get cities to bid on the 2031 Women's World Cup, and there are some cities who are saying, "No, thank you," cities that were in the running for the men's World Cup who've said, "We've actually had a look at the fine print, and we see what you're asking for, and, and economically, this is not a good deal for us," so saying, "We're, we're backing out of, of the women's tournament." And I think FIFA's realizing we have to, to soften some of our demands if we want to, to keep cities interested in this and convince them that this is in their interest.

Of course, there are tariffs imposed on cane lobster right now, but tell us about global demand for cane lobster in general with China and beyond China.

Yeah, I mean, the arrival of China as a market for live lobster has been the single biggest change in the fishery in the last 20 years.

You know, 25 years ago, there were lots of people in mainland China who had never seen a Canadian or North American lobster, let alone eaten one.

And that's completely changed now.

Now it is a status symbol for wealthy folks in China.

If you're having a wedding and you're having a buffet, you want lobster on the table.

And that arrival of China as a market has upended all the old rules about lobster and exporting.

Based on what you've learned, is there a fair resolution out there that would work both for the indigenous and commercial fishermen?