E54: Focus on Canada with Jon Love

Foreign.

This podcast is brought to you by Gensler Wealth. The information discussed today is meant to be general in nature and not tailored to your specific investing circumstances. This means that you should talk to your regular Gensler wealth advisor or your own advisor before acting on any information we discuss today. Nothing in this podcast is intended to be a solicitation and past performance does not guarantee future returns. We are recording this on May 1st after a roller coaster month of April. So before we get started, let's all take a moment to as Depeche Mode sang, enjoy the silence.

Today on the Unlimited podcast we speak with John Love, Executive Chair and founder of Kingset Capital.

We hear his journey through the real estate industry, his key principles for success, and his advice.

PM Carney Today, let's go. Well, welcome everyone to the Unlimited podcast. Regular listeners may have noticed a slightly longer break between episodes. You also may have noticed that April was a wild roller coaster of a month with Trump tariffs, global stock market declines and almost recoveries. A Canadian election we're going to have lots to cover today, but that meant that we really had to focus first and foremost on what we do day to day, which is take care of our clients and their portfolios. But speaking of those topics, our guest today has covered all of these topics and more with his great and prolific LinkedIn posts, newspaper articles and the like. So I'm very, very pleased to have the opportunity to speak with John Love, Executive Chair and Founder of Kingsad Capital. So John, welcome and again, thank you so much for being here, Brian.

It's good to join you.

So let me do the quick formal intro and then what we always like to do is hear sort of the story. So John Love, as I said, is the Executive Chair and founder of Kingsit Capital, which is Canada's leading private equity real estate investment business now with a staff of 170 professionals and three offices and assets under management of around $18 billion. After graduating with an HBA from the Ivy Business School where I went as well, John joined Scotia McLeod in Edmonton as a retail stockbroker and then joined Oxford Properties in 1980, eventually becoming president in 1987 and CEO in 1992. In 1995, John took Oxford public and 16 years later in 2001, Oxford was privatized by OMERS in a $4 billion transaction. In 2002, six months after going dark, which we're going to discuss later, John founded Kingstead Capital. So, as I said, John has a HBA degree from the Ivy Business School. He's also an emeritus advisory board member there. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Western University. John is a member of the Business Council of Canada, the chief executives organization at YPO. And in 2023, John received the Ivy Business Leader of the Year Award, the NAIOP Rex Icon Lifetime Achievement award, and in 2024 the Fraser Institute Founders Award. And in 2018, John was awarded the Order of Canada. So a little bit of a longer bio than I normally go through, but I think well, well worth the description. And again, thanks for joining and with all of what I've just described, I'm sure you'll have some great insight for, for our listeners. That being said, I've given the sort of formal intro and I apologize for you having to listen to that and maybe for our listeners, but can you give us just a little sense for people who don't know you and I'm personally just getting to know you as well. Can you give us the evolution of you from school through till where we are today and some of the stops along the way? Anything you think would be important for us to know?

Well, Brian, thank you for that fulsome introduction. Yeah, only, only one correction to make from being from being CEO to the exit was nine years, not 16. But the I think my path was one of decisions along the way, circumstances along the way, choices. When I graduated university or as I was in my fourth year I said there's only two things I didn't want to do which is to be a stockbroker or work for Oxford is my father and started as a stockbroker and of course he founded Oxford Properties. Yeah as it turns out, you know that wasn't to be my path And I loved the brokerage business. It was effectively my MBA teaching me communication skills, relationships and all sorts of lessons along the way. And then joining Oxford in in 1980 was as a leasing coordinator in Toronto was a, a wonderful learning ground of the real estate business. You know, led to some of the best of times the late 80s, some of the worst of times in the early 90s, each of which had their lessons and I've been blessed along the road with having great teams of people to learn from, to work with and to advance the puck.

Amazing. Okay, well I want to dive into some of these stops along the way and you just touched on it. So maybe we can bring it up now which is actually you've used this phrase maybe in another podcast you called it that Those maybe the 90s area the darkest real estate recession of the early 90s when things were extraordinarily difficult. What was it like navigating through that period? Because we really haven't seen that in that sort of darkest days in decades. What was that like as you were, you know, running Oxford or close to running Oxford at that time?

So let me just do the setup. So the late 80s had been very, very ambitious times. People were doing all sorts of things. Credit was ample and free, and, you know, the market dramatically overbuilt the demands of customers. So as you go into 90 and 91, anything, particularly in 91, anything you tried to do, you couldn't do. The market was adjusting and falling so quickly that every business plan was obsolete after it was printed. As we get into 92, you started to see the major competitors in the space of time struggle and fail. And it was really punctuated in April 2, 1992, when Olympia, New York, then deemed to be the beacon for us all, declared insolvency. And that set a whole cascade of events that went along for me. Becoming CEO in June of 1992 at the age of 38, I was blessed with three things. One is, I had no money. Secondly, I was young and naive. And thirdly, I had a team that we were able to collectively say, we got a choice. We could fight or quit. And we elected to take on the challenge. And the challenge was daunting. At the time, Oxford was, you know, a relatively small player. Around us, the leaders were all imploding. The Trizax, the Bram Elise Campo, Lumpy, New York, et cetera. And it was chilling to find yourself leading a group of, at that point, at Oxford, 160 people into. Into that kind of battle. At the same time, it posed a super interesting challenge, which is, could you navigate the chicane and come out the other side? And. And that's what drove us every day. And at the end of the day, I'll tell you a quick story. 1992, July 4th, was the first time Oxford couldn't make an interest payment. So this is a chilling moment. I had to go to the life insurance company. I met with the chief investment officer. I went in. Now they owned a bunch of real estate. And I said, I thought to myself, if we could manage that real estate. So here was my proposal is I said, we don't have enough money to make the interest payment, and I apologize. But if you would be so kind as to give us the assignment to manage your office real estate, we could take half those fees, and that would close a lot of the gap on the interest we couldn't pay. That was my proposal. And I didn't know whether he was going to take a baseball bat or throw me out the window. But as I left, he said, thank you. And I stopped and I said, thanks. He said, john, we have three kinds of borrowers. First kind, borrow money, pay us back, we like them the most. The second kind, borrow money and either obscure the fact or hurt our collateral or whatever, and we go out of our way to hurt them. So the third kind, I'm hoping there's a third. The third kind of are people that have a problem, tell us what it is, have some ideas that we can maybe work with and we'll work with them and we'll work with you. And with that, it sent the entire strategy, how Oxford navigated through the chicane. So it was all about relationships, transparency, vulnerability, energy, you know, hard work and building the trust and relationship of creditors who, who most of whom we could to keep current at the time, but who believed that we were a better option than taking over the collateral.

Yeah, amazing. I like some of those characteristics and I suspect we'll be hearing a few more of those throughout the course of this discussion. So hopefully our listeners are have their ears wide open. So obviously a very, very challenging time. But you've also said this was one of your favorite times in your business career. Now, most don't say in the depths of bad and challenging, really challenging things. This is awesome. So why was this the best or one of your favorite times in your career?

No downside, all upside. Everybody just assumed we would fail.

Right.

And I thought that there was the opportunity to exceed those extremely low expectations. We worked together, we built the energy, it was collaborative. It wasn't just me to tackle what seemed to be insurmountable issues. But we had a secret weapon which was we had a firm view of our values. Transparency, openness, integrity, trust. And it's those things that the creditors, they all were prepared to work with us and to help us. And at the end of the day, our big break, we identified that Oxford's biggest strength was managing properties. Well, if we could manage properties for that first customer, could we build a management business? Which we did. And that management business then powered the cash flow to allow us to get through the chicane. And it was, it's all about trust, integrity, relationships.

Okay, I like these words. They, they, they resonate well. So you get through that. And again, I wish we could go through every year of your career here, but we're not going to do that. And you probably don't want to talk about you for the whole thing here. You ended up selling Oxford to OMERS in 2001. Obviously, I mentioned some details, big transactions, probably a huge decision. You mentioned already earlier, your father had started Oxford. You had run it for a decade, you know, or so you corrected me. You're obviously right. Ten years, give or take. How did, how did you get to that decision that it was the time to sell this business? How did you know it was the right thing to do?

So while 1992 was, was the absolute bottom, 1994, September was the first time, as I saw in our business, that leasing exceeded budget buying, not rents, which said the market was turning. So we had to get capital, we had no capitals. So we worked together and finally found a wonderful pair of Hong Kong businessmen who prepared to capitalize Oxford in 1995. And so 1995, we had a $50 million balance sheet. We had tens of thousands in the bank. Off we went in the. Our first transaction was Dubai Marathon, which is a billion dollar acquisition. We did 6 billion of acquisitions in six years. But by 2001, you could see that the market, this was the NASDAQ meltdown, tech meltdown in there was anxiety that the market was where it was competition act limits in Canada. So a decision had to be made. We either had to expand our investment asset classes or expand our geography. And I wasn't the right CEO for either strategy. So the decision was to sell the business. And so that was completed with Omers. It went firm on September 10, 2001, 12 hours before it would have been killed anyway. So with that done that, that was the rationale to sell Oxford. And at the end of the day, Omers has done a remarkable job in building that franchise. And I give all the people that followed me at Oxford full credit for really building a global powerhouse. And it's exciting to see how well they all have done with the business. After that. I went dark for six months. And going dark was important because I didn't want to have my ghost influence things that were going on at Oxford. And, you know, we both needed the separation. So my wife And I, our 25th wedding anniversary, our kids were in university, we disappeared for six months. It was magic. Came back in April of 19 or. Sorry about 2002 and beyond the journey.

And going dark was also, what, no electronics, no emails? Or is that just a proverbial. We sort of stepped away for a bit.

Well, I left Oxford. No forwarding email or, or a phone number. I had to go get a Rogers email. And the only people that had either my Email or cell phone were family and we kept in touch with them. But we traveled many places in the world and had had a remarkable six months. And so extracting yourself from the community and the day to day world was actually pretty intimidating because I thought, you know, if I come back, what if no one remembers me? So I remembered before I left, I'd written down on a piece of bull's cap which for those that don't know it's paper, the, the names of sort of core people that I would like to call in their phone numbers when I came back. When I came back, I started my meeting cycle and people were kind enough to see me and we could easily switch the channel away from Oxford because I've been away for six months. I just wish them well and talk about what's next.

Right. Amazing. And what's next, I guess was Kingset and starting from scratch. Whereas I guess your previous roles, Oxford, there was a business there. So what was it like? How did, how did Kingset idea come about and what was it like starting it from going dark to coming to the light, I guess or whatever with you know, jumping in and being an entrepreneur.

So first of all, you start with nothing. I have a pilot in a parking pass.

Yeah.

Operated out of two coffee shops, one on either side of King Street. Now the reason you need two coffee shops is when you have back to back meetings, you have to switch coffee shop. So I would tip the waitress on both sides to never recognize because I didn't want say, I didn't want them to say, would you like another copy? Because I didn't want to looked like I was loitering in coffee shops.

Right.

And I spent my time trying to see what an opportunity might be because I didn't know. And it's more about listening than talking. And so as I listened, it became apparent that the large institutional pension funds had an allocation for opportunity class investment in real estate in Canada. But there was no execution vehicle. So I thought, is it possible I could create that vehicle? And that was the genesis of Kingset. And people were kind enough to support that, largely saying these relationships I already had. And they said, well, you know, John's maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but at least we know what drawer he goes in, so we'll give him some support.

Right. Okay. Amazing. I like the coffee shop story. So, and now we're almost, I guess we're 20 years past that maybe for our listeners. I mean we did talk to your, your now CEO Rob Coomer a year and A bit ago, but what does Kingset look like today? What do you do, you being Kingset and, and maybe thinking back now, or looking back 20 years after founding, 22, three years after founding, did it look like today what you thought it might when you started it in those coffee shops way back then?

Creating a business is always terrifying. There's a terror wheel, right? You say can I raise a fund? And then you do, then can I execute? Thus you know, can I buy the assets? Then you do, then, then the next terrorist, can I execute those strategies? Then you do. And on that goes. So we started the growth strategy, which is an opportunity fund. And that strategy exists today, continues to exist today and. But as time went on, you could see other strategies that investors want. Remember, every business is created only to provide solutions to somebody for something. So in 2008 we started the Income fund, although we didn't invest any money till after the gfc. Later on we had Urban Infill Fund, a residential fund with a mortgage business in a variety of other things. So as, as you move forward to today, we, you know, invest and participate in every piece of the capital stack and in every geography in the country and every asset type and just in Canada. So we have continued to create investment solutions for investors that have different risk return interests and it's about focusing on the investor and how that works. So today it's quite a diversified business and by having all of the participation across the asset classes and the capital stack, there is a significant synergistic effect of that because you've got large, deep resources on all sorts of files.

Just a quick comment you mentioned and you made it clear that they're just in Canada and we're going to talk a little bit later about what's going on in the country and the world and all this. But you know, we work with lots of families and we, you know, talk to a lot of folks and a theme is, you know, maybe we want to do things outside of Canada, maybe we want to move away from Canada, maybe we want to diversify our business to the U.S. or otherwise, because Canada is 10 times smaller or one tenth the size. What led to the decision? Clearly it was a clear decision to focus only on Canada as opposed to expanding into other geographies.

Relationships are the currency of the real estate business and the moment you cross a border, you start all over again. In Canada, our strength and trade is deep relationships on, on all points the compass of operating the business. US you'd start again. The US is the most competitive financial market in the world. And you'll find if you arrive in Chicago or New York or Cleveland, there's 10 smart guys on every street corner with a similar thesis that you're battling it on. Canada, on the other hand, is far less competitive. And you know, we have built a competitive franchise here. And while many people think you can't be successful unless you're in the U.S. it's a totally different business in the U.S. and we would have to start effectively a totally different business. So we're, we're quite happy to focus on what we do best, which is Canadian real estate across the capital stack providing solutions to investors. And this country has got lots of scope for lots of activity and lots of intellectual and financial challenge and opportunities.

Yeah. Hopefully the government will make it easy for, for some of that to happen.

Yeah. And I should add that our investors who, who say to me, you know, we'd like to, are you going to go to the U.S. we'd like U.S. exposure. I say, you know, what if to do U.S. exposure, here's the top 10 guys in the U.S. you should go pick one of those that resonates for you because they'll do a better job in the US than we will do for you. And in Canada, we'll do a better job for you than.

Right.

That would be my pitch.

Okay. One other thing you mentioned in the, in the sort of story of Kingshead here, you know, you said you used the word terrifying a few times. You know, you raise the fund, then you got to go deploy it. All that sort of stuff you had said in a previous interview. You wake up every day afraid and it gets worse as the day goes on. I love that quote. I sort of feel the same. Can you, what did you mean when you said that and how does that affect, I guess how you operate on a day to day basis?

So I think some element of fear. And fear is, you know, not to get distracted, but I mean the moment you become complacent or entitled. Yeah. You get run over. So I, you know, I'm a big believer in, in the fear metric, particularly in a capital intensive business. And you always have to be thinking about what risks do I have to be protecting, you know, our assets, our investors or whatever against. And a focus on risk management is really the secret sauce in making most strategies work because if you get the risk right, the returns come. Sometimes people underestimate or misprice in our view, certain risks of certain things. And that's what differentiates investment strategies. I'll give you an example. So in 2007, I was sitting the dock reading how Bear Stearns had locked up some of their funds. And as I was reading the newspaper article, I also had my iPad open because I had to Google search all of the 3 and 4 letter AN acronyms, which I never heard of.

Right.

After an hour of that, I said this is, this is too complicated for anyone to understand. And there's stuff going on that is heightened risk that's being mispriced. So at the time we had 700 million of capital in, in our growth strategy, 200 million in our income strategy available to call. And from September 07 to September 09, we didn't make one investment. Two years and two years in an entrepreneurial smaller business is a lifetime.

Yeah.

And it was because we, we couldn't properly price the risk. But as you go into 09 and you start to see, as you get into the spring and then early summer of 09, you start to see the clouds separate. You can price risk. And so from September 09 to April 11, we invested $4 billion because you could see, you could price. We, you could price risk. And we had capital available to call because we didn't call that capital or invest those months money at inappropriate times in 2008.

Right. All right. So we're going to talk about because you're now, you know, post being the CEO, your executive chair before we get to that transition. And I know you've got, you know, decades more you're going to contribute to the world and in business and whatnot, but 40 some odd years in the real estate business, plus what were some of the biggest lessons you may have learned at any stage throughout that you would want to impart? Broad question. I know, sorry to throw that at you.

You know, I can give you a few stories, but I'll start with one my father taught. I started cloud young. We're in Edmonton's retail stock broker. I'm a month in, I'm having dinner, the Sunday dinner with the family. And my father said to me, he says, so how's it going? And I said, well, you know, a little bit slow. I mean, I've been at the training program to teach you what stocks and bonds are and so on, but they don't teach you what to do when you're with a customer. And so, you know, my father says, so what are you doing? Well, and ask them about their portfolio or investment interests and so on. And he said, john, why don't you have an idea? Well, that was actually pretty straightforward advice. I doubled that up and had two ideas. And by the end of that year, I was the top salesman in that office. And it taught me the issue of being relevant. Second, second lesson was when I left the business, I remember I finally had the nerve to ask my biggest account why he dealt with me, because for sure, I wasn't, you know, I mean, I was 26 when I left. I wasn't a great stock picker or investment guru or whatever. And he said to me, john, you care about my money more than I do, so just think about that. And that taught me, that reaffirmed again, an important lesson. Um, and, you know, one of the things I've been blessed with along the way, people said, said to me, do you have. Did you have a mentor? And I said, I was blessed with dozens of mentors. But having those dozens of mentors means you listen to people when they say something and you learn from those experiences and you pack them away in whatever style you have. I'll give you one last story, then we'll move on.

Yeah, no, I love the stories. Please.

When I started leasing office space, my manager said, well, we want $9 a foot, so ask 850. Sorry, NAS. 950. So, and these were all 500 square foot entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants, in a very small little Bay street building. So I went to the first guy And I said, 950. And he said, how about 850? I said, split the difference $9. He said, sure. Next guy. I said, you know, it's 950. He said about. He said, how about $8? Thinking on my feet, I said, how about split the difference at 9? And he said, okay. By now I think I'm an expert. But I go see the third guy, biggest tenant in the building, 2,000 square feet, said, what's the rent? I said, 950. And he says, okay. All of a sudden I got a problem because I can't take advantage of the person who trusted me.

Right.

I said, oh, and actually there's some things that come with that. So I figured out 50 cents of improvements in the free rent and so that he got the same $9 deal. And ever after that, when somebody said, what's the rent? I said, $9. And they said, well, how about $8? And I said, let me tell you my story. So it's. It's dealing with transparency and integrity that builds that brand. And at the end of the day, the only thing any of us owns truly are. Yeah. Is our own reputation and our own brand. So I could go on forever with those Stories, but those are the kinds of things I learned along the way.

That's great. I agree with you 100%. As I said, we had your colleague, now current CEO Rob Coomer on a year or so ago. It seems like you had a pretty good plan, succession plan. This wasn't a mistake or that it just popped up out of nowhere. It sounded pretty intentional. Maybe just discuss that because, you know, it's not often these things go super smoothly and then what's the next evolution? I don't think you went dark this time. Maybe you did, I don't know. But it also seems like you have a purpose and a goal in some of the activities you're doing today, which I think is great. Can you talk about both of those? The transition out of CEO and then the transition into what your next phase is and maybe describe what that is?

To begin with, you start a business and wonder if it will work. And you know, in the fund business, you do the first fund and wonder if you can raise the second fund, et cetera, right? Then you go to a certain stage and say, is it possible that the business can sustain the full time engagement of the founder? Sakti actually a very big idea. And so in 2014, when we reached certain scales or parameters, I said that was actually my ambition and it was critical that I figure a way could I get a succession plan, because that's the only way that as an owner or founder you have optionality. You don't have a succession plan. Then you come to the end of your game and you got to sell the business, right? So the only way there's optionality. So I thought there's four principles I'd have to follow. First was I'd have to identify the young people who could succeed me. Because you can't have someone five years your junior. You have to have someone a generation apart. And so Rob and a couple others were those people. And I, they had people between at the time, between them and me, and ultimately those people between them and me either retired or moved on. So number one is identify the people. Because you have to know who you coach. And this is like an eight year plan, right? So number one, identify the people. Number two is give them decision making power. There's a tendency for a CEO or a founder to give someone decisions, but always tax something on at the end. You have to resist that. Let them make the decision. Even if it's three degrees of separation from perfect, just let it go. Let them make decisions, coach them on those decisions, build their confidence in making Decisions. Number three is sharing the economics. That's the easiest. Number four, which is typically the toughest, is migrating key business relationship. And, and that's where my guys, when they would retire, quit. You know, there's. There's always a moment there. The new guy would always want to build a relationship with me. I'd say, happy to, but you should build a relationship with Rob or Bill or whomever that that would be. And, and that was so successful that today I have to buy my own hockey ticket. So in. At the end of 23, the announcement that Rob would become CEO, someone say to me, what's the highlight of your career? One of my highlights is that after announcing Rob would succeed me as CEO, nobody called, which meant it was a perfect burn. And I think over the last year and a half, the Rob's been CEO. He's doing a super strong job. And what I do now is work, is focus on board work, some strategy, some investor stuff, and I pick certain projects here and there where I think I can perhaps add value. But he's running the business, which has allowed me to do many other things. Reality is I'm 70 and, you know, like, I wasn't one to say, I want to work till I'm 80 or 90. My coffin will never say, I wish I spent one more day in the office. It'll say, I wish I spent one more day in skill.

Right.

And just because he's become CEO, I. I didn't die. I mean, and you still have the same energy and everything else. It's just different. So I'm focused on, you know, King Set's prime focus, and I'm focused on our family office and its activities. You know, I've been curating the LinkedIn profile, my public policy advocacy, which I think is. Is important. And I'm also, you know, engaged in speaking, doing things like this and speaking to young people and. And maybe someone listens to this and says, actually, that's an insight I find interesting, and I'll take it away. So that's what I'm doing today. Okay.

Amazing. Okay, so let's talk about a little bit about what's going on in the world and some of your sort of views and thoughts. Again, we're recording this on May 1. The election was earlier this week, the day after the election, another former podcast guest, David Rosenberg, said, the Liberals win the race. You have to give Canadians credit. They exhibit this uncanny knack to resist change and voted in a fresh face. But the same party that Govern these past 10 years, over an unprecedented period of stagnant growth in the nation's private sector. Capital, stock, productivity, real income per capita, and a record long string of net foreign direct investment outflows. Somehow all of this managed to give the Liberal Party a fourth consecutive turn. So, I mean, I think suggesting this is a, maybe a strange outcome, but maybe not. You were pretty vocal and along with the large number of Canada's preeminent business leaders, even signed an open Letter for Change, which was a sort of endorsement of the Conservative government. So we're here a few days later. What's, what's your take on this outcome? How do we get here and then how do we, we being us, the people and the country, move forward from here?

So I think a democracy is founded on having different viewpoints. A competitive democracy is the most constructive and I think as part of that, business leaders and myself should advocate for policies and so on that they feel are important. So we did that and I'm happy done that. The country's decided now we all pivot and I'm fully supporting, you know, Prime Minister Carney. I wish him every well and success and I hope that everyone in the business community can rally around with what can we do to build a better, stronger Canada? I'm optimistic that PM Carney will be good on his word of let's build things faster, let's get some things going. He's talked about resources and energy and he's talked about all sorts of constructive things. He may have different tactics to get there. That doesn't matter. So I, I'm not one to look back or, and for sure I would never criticize the decision of the country. Decisions made. Okay, let's move forward. And I think Canada's got phenomenal opportunity and people like me and hopefully other business leaders will continue to advocate for public policy they believe, I believe will help build the country. And building the country means building prosperity for all Canadians and inclusion for all Canadians because that's what is what makes a great society.

Okay, so obviously it sounds like you're ready to support Prime Minister Carney. So Mark Carney emails or calls you right after this podcast and says, John, I need 30 minutes of your time. I want to get your best thoughts and guidance on what I should be doing right now as Prime Minister. What would you say to him?

So number one would be national unity. I would reach out to Daniel Smith and Scott Moe, Premier Saskatchewan, and get around the table and say, what do we, what do I need to do so we can work together constructively? 40 leading CEOs of energy companies posted an open letter to the PM two days ago about energy strategy. I would, I would meet with them and engage with them and say, okay, I've got your list here. Maybe I can do this, maybe I can't do that. How do we work together to advance the goal of Canadian prosperity? I would focus, you know, the media today and yesterday is all focused on the PM meeting with Trump, which, you know, you have to do. But Trump is a distraction to me. I know the tariffs are real and all that sort of stuff. At the end of the day, I would gather the premiers and say, let's, let's make good on the promise to have interprovincial trade barriers all gone by July 1st. I don't care what it takes, I don't care what it costs, but that's what we're going to do. And if anybody's offside, let's crush them at the knees. So number one, let's get that done. Number two is you got to bring in the fold those segments of the population who voted elsewhere and some of whom, not me, but some of whom are feeling disenfranchised today. And because we got to be united on this stuff, we need a constructive resource policy. We need to listen to the West. What are your concerns? How do we meet those issues and how do we unlock the phenomenal human, natural and financial resources of this country to create, you know, wealth for every Canadian we've fallen behind? I know all that. As far as I'm concerned, forget about the three T's, tariffs, Trump and Trudeau. That's behind us. Focus on what Canadians can do for, to build Canada and lets us take action in our own self interest.

Okay, so, I mean, so those are great comments. I hear you about Trump on the one hand. On the other hand, Prime Minister Carney and Trump are already talking about their meeting. I think Trump called him quite a gentleman, which is better than calling him governor of the 51st state. So that's. It actually seems like there's some progress there. Obviously, Carney's going to have to spend time with Trump. So how, what, what's the best approach for Carney and interacting and dealing with Trump, do you think?

I think it would be two things. One is showing the constructive take steps the Canadians are taking to decouple from the US A B, it will be, you know, sorting. I mean, you have to deal with this interventional thought, but sorting out an agenda makes sense. I think Trump has using, is using the moment he, he realizes he has to Realize he's over his skis on Canada and that's that dog's just not going to hunt. So I'll give him credit by calling, you know, the PM a gentleman. Okay, that's good. So show us the money. Like, let's get rid of the tariffs, let's work on what are really core issues between us. So let's not have those issues divide us. Let's. Doesn't make any sense. So that narrative will be ongoing and I, I'm hopeful PM Carney sticks to his guns and, and, and I think he'll have the leadership ability to, to make something happen. And I just don't want to do that to the exclusion of focusing on the things that Canadians have to do because there, there is a moment we haven't seen, I haven't seen in two generations to bring the country together really around an economic agenda. We've had no economic agenda for 10 years and are paying that price. People understand it. And I would take this opportunity to say, okay, let's go and here's some important things we are going to do. So hopefully both have actually.

So speaking of a big part of the agenda here, and you've talked about this a lot and it's, I guess in some ways your area of expertise. Housing. We need housing. How do we build housing? Kearney has a plan around housing. Some folks think it's good, others not. What would be your best ideas around unleashing a housing build boom the likes of which we've never seen?

So I think the housing problem is actually the simplest problem that is in front of us. If you accept the premise that more supply is required to moderate cost, which I posted on today in LinkedIn, you know, because the evidence is there now. I mean, it was always there, but there in writing. If you then say, well, what's the barrier to supply? And the barrier to supply is taxation. The capital on new housing that they, the capital on the, the taxation on the capital on new housing is 33% of the cost. So I would say the simple solution is all levels of government waive all taxes, all fees, all levies on new house. That would unleash supply big time. Because we've got a dozen sites we can't build because the taxes are too high. It would unleash supply, but it would also reduce the cost of that supply. Now the second piece of the puzzle is people say, well, how do you replace that revenue? And just to put it in context, development charges in Toronto are 2% of the total budget, not 20% they're 2%. But to replace that revenue I would have municipalities be given the right and the prerogative to do tax increment financing, which is very common in the U.S. tax increment financing is simple. You take a piece of land and it pays $1 in taxes. Once you put a building on it, it'll pay $6 in taxes. So that incremental 5, you can use a portion of that to finance whatever infrastructure improvements you want. So you could, you could achieve the goals of municipality and achieve the goals of the suppliers of housing and unleash a big amount of new housing. Now the Carney policy that was the liberal policy that was announced included having the federal government become a developer and actually build housing, which was well received by some of his most left wing base. But we know governments struggle to build anything for all sorts of reasons. And to build a development company to have the skills, the cat, it just, that's not going to happen. So I'm optimistic that that will, that will die in the early stages. But we still don't have common recognition of the source problem. If all the taxes, fees and so on were waived on new rental buildings, we could build it and rent it for less than market rent today. That means the entire rental grid comes down. Do we want affordable housing? It's the taxes, the levies and the fees that are making it untenable. You know, if you buy a new house in suburban Toronto and it's a million dollars, the buyer has to understand that 300,000 of the million are fees. And then when they buy it, they have to pay a land transfer tax fee of another 6%. So another 60,000. So they actually write a check for a million 60 for a product that costs 700,000. If we didn't have all of that, they could buy home for 700,000. And if I was to tell you that million dollar house could be sold for 700,000 and everybody developer makes his return and everybody's happy, would that not be helpful? This is a simple problem.

Yeah, I find that for the governments it's very tough to cut taxes. We'd love them to cut taxes. I wish they'd cut more taxes and not only on housing, but corporate and personal taxes with the theory that would spur some additional spending because now hopefully you have some additional money in your pockets. But governments have historically been reluctant, our governments have been reluctant to do so.

If I, if, if I was going to tax policy, I probably wouldn't cut personal income tax, but I would cut corporate income tax and I'D cut corporate regulations. So I'd make Canada. I'd try to make Canada, like Ireland, the most attractive place to start a business, to build a business to create wealth and create jobs. And once you get the benefits of doing that, that produces excess revenue that allows you then in time to cut personal tax. But in the first instance, we have to reward the execution and investment of risk capital to build and create because that's how people get hired and people pay taxes, they get hired and so on. The goal to the civil service over the last five years has obfuscated the employment trend, which has been a move from private to public sector employment. Well, no, the private sector guys pay taxes to employ the public sector. Now public sector workers also pay taxes. But it's we've got to focus more on people that are creating goods and services and ideas and businesses that employ people that create wealth.

Agree 100%. So okay, we're coming to an end here. I don't want to take up too much of your time today. You had mentioned previously with your transition you're spending a fair amount of time with your own family office. Obviously you invest outside of King said based on what's going on in the world today. What are you doing in your non without going into, you know, private details, what are you doing in your non real estate investments? What do you think makes the most sense today for folks making investments sectors, areas, whatever you think is the right thing to be doing right now.

So outside of what I'll call my overweight to Kingston, you know, I we collectively run a public markets portfolio in a private markets portfolio and they're fairly balanced. We have focused starting last summer on building cap because I perceived two things could happen. One is that Trumponomics could lead to really some adverse events that could present some interesting opportunities. A and B, I think we will see close to a generational opportunity in investing in core commercial real estate. So that would be a King center. Valuations have come down dramatically, operating conditions are improving constructively, and when those two lines meet, it's super interesting time to be allocating more capital to commercial real estate.

Okay, good. There's a prediction. Last two questions for you. A little while back might have been a few years ago on another podcast or interview, you said one of your favorite words or themes is offense or playing offense. Maybe if you can explain what you meant then. And do you have a favorite word or phrase or theme as we're sitting here? May 2025.

So offense is defined as really moving your strategy forward. Look, looking Ahead and how do you adapt to whatever set of circumstances you're presented and then, and then, you know, executing on that strategy. Today, probably my, my overview would be stay calm and carry on. People are far too anxious about the US economic aggression, all the election noise. There's elements of eptsd, which is election post traumatic disorder, which, which of course my poor friend David Rosenberg, you know, you mentioned his comments and just makes me want to give him a hug. So I, I think it's, it's better to stay calm and carry on, Stay on your strategy, be aware, get out, hug a customer, hug a stakeholder. There's opportunity everywhere.

Okay, amazing. Thank you for that. So, last question, and we ask everybody this question. Our theme here is our tagline is your wealth unlimited. Because we look after clients holistically. There's really nothing on the financial side we don't help clients with. We're not tied to any bank or other firm that limits what we can invest in, et cetera. So unlimited, unlimited is a big word for us. You know, you've had your amazing career. You've, you've done what you've done. But if you know the world is unlimited, it is unlimited. And you could do anything you want. You could have done anything you want. You can do anything you want in the world. What would that have been or what would that be?

Well, from my perspective, I continue to live my best life. First and foremost, I have a wonderful marriage to a woman, 47 years, actually be 48 next week. And I'm optimistic, I'll make that. And at the end, congratulations. At the end of the day, that and family sort of for me are my most important agenda. And I've got two wonderful kids, two good in laws, five grandkids, all that story. And I'm doing things. I don't have a bucket list because anything that might go in somebody's bucket list, I just do it, you know, So I, you know, my wife and I are, you know, really doing whatever we need to do. I, you know, I'm, I'm 70, which means I've only got 30 good ski seasons left, but I'll take advantage of that. And, and you know, life is, life is to be lived and curiosity and there's so much opportunity and forward and I hope that people look at this time as a glass half full, not half empty, because this is a time to get out, go reach somebody, go do something positive, make a difference.

The final word of wisdom and lesson right there. John, thank you so, so much for your time. Thanks for everything you're doing on LinkedIn and otherwise. I love it and I just wish you the best and I really appreciate you spending the hour or so with me and with us for our listeners.

Thank you very much Brian and to those listening, it's been a pleasure and I hope you have a great day.

Thanks.

The unlimited podcast is hosted and produced by Brian Ginsler and is edited and mixed by myself, David McMillan. This podcast is not to be taken as investment advice. If you like what you heard, don't forget to rate the podcast and follow us on social media. Imslerwealth thanks for listening and see you next time.