Canada is behind our peers when it comes to Community Wealth Building. We don't do much of it, because we haven't put the systems in place to do it. So when it happens, it takes a miracle of savvy, collaboration and effort. Yet when it happens, social and economic benefits spring forth! Not fixing this gap is costing us! What the cost can look like, to what the fix might be! The opportunity to do better is knocking with the Federal Government's current call for input into the pending budget.

Refenced:

https://tapestrycapital.ca/

https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/s6/community-wealth-building-scotland-bill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_development_financial_institution

https://socialcapitalpartners.ca/

https://svx.ca/

Potatoes so precious their gardener took a shotgun to their defence - is one of the stories of our food & money systems in action today in which I root this episode. I touch on many things but keep coming back to food storage infrastructure. The wrap up on what to do zeroes in on fun, community and the power to plant your own food traditions!

Referencing:

My conversation with Elder Phil McGuire in October 2022 about local food systems

Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley (Penguin Random House, 2024)

Federal Funding for Food Hubs:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-grocery-competition-carney-food-strategy-funding-food-hubs-food-terminal-9.7282701

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2026/06/11/prime-minister-carney-launches-national-food-security-strategy

Something Different This Way Comes is an independent one-woman show by Heather McLeod in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

How did we get to where Canadians need to be Millionaires in order to be okay? Or so it seems, and not without reason! Tales from the front lines put into context, with tips to manage that symptom of madness in our money systems now - plus ideas about change we could welcome to make being okay easier to get right (instead of too easy to get wrong)?

A memoir of an episode shares how I got so mad at our monetary system I moved my storytelling, fact-loving and creative soul into the world of Finance - and how this podcast continues that quest!

Referencing:

Muriel Smith: My Memoir - Local to Global. From a mining engineer's daughter, to a Manitoba Deputy Premier, to a Local, National, and International Social Justice Activist (Minuteman Press, Winnipeg MB 2026)

https://slowmoney.org/

https://agroecologymap.org/

Something Different This Way Comes is an independent one-woman show by Heather McLeod in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Kicks off this season's Theme of Food & Money with why Heather believes not only that money grows on trees, but how that is key to getting us from Food and Money systems that are so hard to get right, to systems that are hard to get wrong. A good measure of the health of an economy is the health of its food system. Right now, Canada's is far from healthy! But solutions cascade if you start at their roots: what is at the root of this mess, why we are so easily blind to it, and what does Good look like?

A new weekly season launches on Tuesday July 28 exploring two themes for people who care & live somewhere: Food & Money. Now that I have my own Advice-Only Firm I am free to tell you what I see as a Certified Financial Planner helping people get right what it should be easy to get right (only it ain't). I dream of fixing our system so my profession goes from essential to optional - starting with these reality checks, context mapping and solution-casting queries.

July 28 a new weekly season starts exploring two themes: Food & Money. What does Food have to do with being a Good Ancestor? So much!

Every Monday at 6 pm I broadcast a news show on CILU in Thunder Bay 102.7 FM. Truth be told, I record it on Sunday and send it to the staff to upload into the broadcast system. But this Monday they uploaded the wrong show - so no-one will hear this unless you choose to hear the news from here according to me!

So here it is (I'd be so glad if even one person can hear it!)

Sufficiency: not too much, not too little but just right. A conversation with author, activist and educator Lloyd Alter before his visit to Thunder Bay to be the Keynote Speaker at the third annual Northwest Climate Gathering October 17-18, 2025.

The John St. Extension Community Park and Gardens started guerrilla twenty years ago, one of the successful neighbourhood initiatives that informed Thunder Bay getting pro-active in supporting community gardening. This Spring Scott Pound is leading an initiative to add a community garden to the space, and grow food to be served at the Abbey's free meal program. Building community through gardening, creating welcoming spaces and daring to engage through kind conversations with strangers and neighbours.

This was pre-recorded to be broadcast on CILU Radio Victoria Day, Monday May 19 at 6 pm here in Thunder Bay. But I messed up, didn't get the tape in on time to be cued, and they replayed last week episode instead. I hate for no-one to ever hear this! So here you go - all news referenced is detailed in the related blog post at SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca - Enjoy!