How do you plan when you’re longing for change? In Something Different This Way Comes, Certified Financial Planner and Locavore Heather McLeod explores two systems she wants to help fix: our food systems from fields to bellies, and our financial systems from birth to death. They are the earth and sky of what we need to change. We are Ancestors - and we can do better. Rooted in first-hand experience, nourished with nerdy fact-finding, Something Different This Way Comes shines a light towards values-led food and financial systems.
It's a hot mess. You need a professional just to steer through it. And it's enemy #1: big, bad taxes. When they should be our shared resource, rooted in our values and reliably reflecting our care for one another. How do we get from here to there? More easily than you might think! I dig into the what and why of our current income tax and retirement financing systems, not just the intention but the impact of what we've got now- and emerge ready to throw out RRSPs, TFSAs and so many other tax-based motivational systems, and make room for simpler, more direct solutions.
Namely' Universal Basic Income. If we all got enough every month to cover our essential needs, how would that change retirement in Canada? It would save it! And it would save us. It would save us 10% of what we currently spend on taxes (the cost of poverty-measures we now spend tax dollars is 13% of our tax spending, the cost of basic or guaranteed basic income making those measures unnecessary is only 3% of our current tax spending!)
Referencing:
The case for Universal Basic Income in Canada: https://www.ubiworks.ca/guaranteed-livable-basic-income
History of Income Tax in Canada: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/income-tax
History of Pension plans in Canada: https://nupge.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024-10-29-Module-2-final.pdf
History of our CPP: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/780721510639698502/pdf/121375-The-Evolution-of-the-Canadian-Pension-Model-All-Pages-Final-Low-Res-9-10-2018.pdf
History of RRSP https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/75-001-x/1990004/article/121-eng.pdf?st=_LtpmXP5
When TFSAs were launched: https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2010/05/harper-government-highlights-tax-free-savings-account-success-canadians.html
20 Oct 2026
5.13 Do with not for: social capital trumps material wealth when care is needed
If the best you can do, isn't good enough - if the best laid plans and all the services and programs Canada's healthcare system boasts don't add up to what you know you'd need - what do you do?
I reflect on the challenges to providing care, and preparing to possibly need care, right now, here - in the wake of my weeks in frank and vulnerable conversations with Caregivers to people with Dementia.
That's who I was honoured to meet and listen to, all so glad of my Mom's memoir of caring for my Step-Dad, and of the spaces she is creating to share her experience as she travels across Canada right now.
The good news is, the actions you can take that will serve you best should you need care as a person with Dementia, are good things to do even if that is not a part of your future.
The bad news is - they don't come easy!
Referencing:
Dementia Widow: A Memoir About Love, Death, and Survival by Fay Martin (Iguana Books, 2026)
The Green Care Farm Mom that gave Mom her three rules of great Dementia care (and for a great life):
Do with not for
Joy & Purpose every day
Live until you die
The five stages of Alzheimer's disease according to the Alzheimer's Society
Increasing footage per person in Canadian homes: https://www.darrinqualman.com/house-size/
Importance of Social Connection, and current Canadian stats on them: https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2023/02/22/exploring-change-in-social-connection/
13 Oct 2026
5.12 Sowing the Seeds of Change
I came back from a two week road trip west across the roads less travelled in our prairie provinces with my Mom and gathered up a stack of notebooks, manuscripts and books to share with you in this episode. It's a bit of a wild ride!
I talk buffalo, the cost of profit-poor ranching, the encroachment of foreign & industrial ownership of farmland, railway from history to current needs, and a true tale documenting the Canadian way of letting the rich skip out on their profit-losses and leave us tax-payers with the bill.
All brought together by a moment of despair darkening the face of a man I'd just met, that called up from my heart the light of hope for change within our lifetimes. The now is showing it's fragility - the next is knocking.
This episode runs long, but it's a rich one!
referencing:
Betty Carpick June 2022: Being Ancestors on season one, episode 9 of Something Different This Way Comes
Old Man on His Back Ranch, Plains Bison and native prairie c/o Nature Conservancy of Canada
National Farmer's Union report on Farm ownership, Farmer demographics & why both are concerning
Young Agrarians of Canada
Old Man On His Back: Portrait of a Prairie Landscape by Sharon Butala & Courtney Milne (Harper Collins 2002)
Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography by Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly 1999)
Shoes Were For Sunday: the unforgettable tale of making do with nothing on Glasgow's streets by Molly Weir (Penguin Books, 1970)
Hunting a Paradigm, An Economist's Quest: The autobiography of a would-be reformer by Alex N. McLeod (1997)
Singing Back the Buffalo, directed by Tasha Hubbard, broadcast on the Nature of Things March 2025
How-Tos: organize meaty community-building conversation spaces:
World Cafe
Learning For Sustainability resource library
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 15 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
29
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
0
Contact Something Different This Way Comes
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
