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hello and welcome to the special episode of True Hope cast the official podcast of true hope Canada get ready to embark

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on a journey of Wonder and amazement as we delve into the incredible history of true hope Canada our story is about

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resilience and perseverance in the face of great challenges and we're excited to share it with you join us as we explore

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the highs and lows and the tragedies and triumphs that have shaped our company into what it is today this is the first

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episode in a series of eight where Mr David Stefan who is VP of true hope Canada and I will come together to take

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you on a step-by-step journey through our company's fascinating past so sit

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back relax and welcome to the true Hope Family files part one tragedy strikes enjoy the show okay good morning David

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thank you so much for being with us today how are you what is going well well everything's going well uh and

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I'm doing I'm doing really good thank you Simon wonderful well I'm so excited to get into this series with you being

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part one to kick things off and as you know we've been working in the background on this project for quite

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some time and I think it's really finally time to share this quite amazing true hope story in a much more detailed

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step-by-step format and I've been working with Europe Canada for for seven years and I'm still learning the the

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many incredible details of this story The the court battles the censorship and the fact that this product and power

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plus has supported hundreds of thousands of people all across the world well for many different um

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disorders and um I think many people are going to be very familiar with who you are and what it is that you do do within

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true hope Canada and within Canada but for those people who are unfamiliar with you do you mind giving us a little bit

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of an introduction about who you are yeah for sure yeah I I've been with uh working for my father's company here for

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20 years now actually uh this upcoming month 21 years um since I was a young

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guy um and absolutely love love what we do here with with true hope I've I started off at the bottom of of the

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totem pole um I had to work my way up the ranks uh to the point where I found

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myself going back into sales because before I worked with my father I was actually into sales and did very well

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there and so I got into marketing and sales and we spearheaded a project to

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take our model of selling our products direct to Consumer and actually decided to put them into retailers put them into

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naturopathic doctor's offices all that type of stuff so we we came with kind of a a rebranded version of of our product

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line and began to to do that put it into these uh retailers into health food stores and as part of that naturally um

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found myself traveling across western Canada mainly sometimes into Eastern Canada but mainly through western Canada

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doing a lot of presentations spending a lot of time at the health shows uh doing public presentations there putting on

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public educational seminars with health food stores and it's just been a really great journey because

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in all of it even though we've done really well with selling products the most rewarding part out of all of this

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is the fact that we've changed lives and that's what we've seen all along um and that's what really fuels I I think I can

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speak on behalf of our entire team across Canada that that's what really propels us forward is when we hear those stories coming back about saving lives

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saving marriages saving relationships um as we change people's perspective on life as as we help them um Elevate to a

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a greater degree where they feel good when they wake up in the morning they want they're motivated to pursue their

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dreams rather than um being caught in the pit of despair with depression and anxiety and so that's really kind of you

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know in a nutshell over the past 20 years 21 years um work my way up the

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ranks doing video work doing it work um doing you know the most simple tasks

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that true hope to eventually working my way up uh to the point that I oversee the Canadian retail Division and have

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been doing so now for the past uh 12 years years amazing yeah it really is quite

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something to work within an organization that is truly helping people every single day my my role here at Trope

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Canada is kind of everything marketing and I have this beautiful um immediate

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connection with our consumers whether they're talking to us through social media or um just by email or through our

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website I see every single day evidence this product is getting into the lives of people and it's changing their lives

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literally within days when they've been going through like tragic Decades of their lives and it really is just like

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this energizing fueling environment to be a part of because if you're actually doing something that's actually making a

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significant difference in the world and to individual people it's it's it's honestly super addicting and it's just

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it's a really really positive environment to be in so um we've had yourself and we've had your dad on the

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show before giving us accounts of the true hope story we've jumped into the past there before and those episodes are

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around 4 5 minutes to an hour each and it doesn't really do justice to the to the um the vastness of the detail that's

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within the true hope story so that's why I'm super excited to start this series with you in part one today and yeah it's

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GNA be such a trick to go through it and I think we're g to we're also going to share some images and share some some videos throughout that very important to

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the story to give a lot of context and if you do have the ability I know a lot of people are just going to be listening

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to this but if you've got the ability to watch this on Spotify or on rumble or on YouTube or in Vimeo you can actually

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watch some of those um videos along with us and you can um see those images as

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well but if you're just listening as well you're going to get a lot out of this so that's there's not going to be that much of a problem so we're going to

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kick this thing off you know this The Story begins in the early 70s with your parents so why don't you take us back

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there and we'll uh we'll go through this timeline for sure for sure and you know

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it's it's hard to pinpoint actually when when the story truly began um because it's an intriguing

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story just so everybody knows and and there's multiple documentaries we say multiple but a handful of documentaries

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that been produced over the years on this particular story and all of them kind of capturing it from one angle or

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another angle but it's all been Cole's notes never really going and and

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capturing the whole essence of the story if you will and that's why we're doing this eight part series here um because

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and even at that it's going to be Cole's notes we're going to just touch on the high highlights but there is so much uh

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to the story and it's really a story that's born out of tragedy um and that really begins it's a

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multigenerational thing and it goes back well beyond the 70s um in time as to

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when the story kind of began but when we actually begin to look at when it kind of comes to a climax when things really

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start to take place um it was about 1971 um my father actually I think it

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was August 1971 my father and my mother uh got married and at this point I mean

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my mother's 17 years old um my father's 18 years old uh they're just two two

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kids uh um but uh you know they were about to begin a phenomenal

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journey and you know um that Journey would be riddled with with all sorts of

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beautiful um things emerging uh including nine children but uh also um

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there would be a lot of tragedy involved and it goes back like I said multigen multigeneration back to you know 50s 40s

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30s um and so just to give a bit of background my my mother uh came from an Italian family and so you know my

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mother's my whole mother's side is is Italian and um within the the Italian

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portion of her family there was a lot of mental illness and I'm not sure necessarily why I don't know I mean

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there's there's different aspects that we've discovered diet is a big factor in relation to the causation of mental

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illness I recall growing up uh we ate way too much pasta way too many grains

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that were improperly processed if you will um you know and and and a lot of

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those grains can act as an anti-nutrient if you don't um deal with them appropriately if if you if you don't do

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what our ancestors used to do with them with the sprouting and the fermentation and all that type of stuff right and so

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I don't know if that how much of a role that plays into the mental health aspect but um needless to say um that whole

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side of my family is riddled with mental health conditions going back multi-generations you can actually break

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it right down so you know I know second cousins third cousins that um that all

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are plagued with the same issues that my family was plagued with and so it was only about um six seven years

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into uh the marriage um after my mother and father got married married that tragedy would

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strike the first element of tragedy and that would be when my grandfather who I

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never had the opportunity to meet went and took his life and so you see in the picture here you see my grandfather you

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see my grandmother my grandfather Gordon my grandmother Elanor and you see their

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their five girls at that point in time now their family got bigger at that you know later on um they ended up having um

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two sons as well but you see the emergence of this

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beautiful family middle middle class family you know no issues like that but

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riddled just plagued with mental health conditions and back then you know back in the 70s where did you turn I mean

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there was such a stigma surrounding mental health conditions and so my grandfather ended up taking his

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life and this had a tremendous um negative impact on a

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family that was already predisposed to mental health conditions and so when I take a look at my aunts um you know take

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a look at the upbringing I had with my mother and you know you see the mental health conditions that emerged out of

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all of this and Trauma oftentimes can be a catalyst to Bringing on a mental

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health condition as well and so if they weren't already struggling prior which

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we do know that uh at least a number of them were uh my mother included um but

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it for those who perhaps weren't struggling so much before with mental health conditions the passing of my

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grandfather The Taking of his life would have definitely helped push things over the edge for a number of them and

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so what happened is about five years after that is when my mother really

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started to struggle with what would be um diagnosed as bipolar disorder one

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with Rapid Cycling and she struggled off and on um for for 10 years and so during this

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time though you know she's got a lot of stresses she's got a lot of beautiful children um her and my father really

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started to establish uh some Roots as they continued to to grow their

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family and um what would eventually happen is after

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10 years of struggling uh with these these mental health conditions with the bipolar um

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she would begin to seek for help and and there's a little bit of background to all of this um David I'm just gonna just

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want to ask a question in regards to um obviously the the the

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ancestral struggle with mental health and it just makes me think of at some point obviously the family moved over

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from Europe to Canada and would have brought over with them their

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um their dietary culture they would have brought over the the obviously the food that they would have consumed well the

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family would have consumed for hundreds and hundreds of years from over in Italy and Europe and kind of bought that over

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to over here but we're talking about very different soil we're talking about very different agricultural practices

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you know I've I moved over kind of recently in the last the last 10 years ago I moved from from Europe to here and

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my diet has had to change because the soil is very different it's very nutrient depleted it's not amazing over

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there but but it's very very different in the way that let's just say we spoke about pasta for example you know

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whenever I go back to Europe and I consume pasta it doesn't seem to bother me it's absolutely fine and I think that

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a lot of people who would have moved over in the um let's say in the the 20s 30s 40s and 50 from from Europe they

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would have maybe not been conscious of it but their diets they would have eaten the same they would have gotten hold of

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the same foods and cooked the same meals but it would have been very very

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different nutrients within within those Foods within their body so there has to

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be a conversation around the fact that you know if we're seeing this rise of um mental illness with within the family

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then you know are we talking about you know just a sudden emergence of of chronic nutrient

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deficiency because of that because of that wild shift so I just wanted to I just wanted to bring that in because

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I've had the experience of moving over here and I've got the experience now of you know if even if I'm just in in a

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stressful State my body is going to be using nutrients and vitamins um minerals specifically High rapid pace and I have

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to supplement to stay fresh and in the game so just thinking about it back then when they didn't really have the

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research and the science that we have now it really would have been a struggle for a lot of those people and and it

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just makes me think that there has to be a connection with the the food that they would have bought over and consumed but

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the ability to to actually make that that same nutrient dense food would have been really different absolutely and and

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we can correlate using the scientific lature we can we can unequivocally correlate the fact that um agriculture

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practices are directly correlated with the rise in mental health conditions as

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well as the rise in all um chronic disease that is plaguing Western Society

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right now and that actually when I would do public presentations that was one of the things that I would lay out as the basis of the presentation so people

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understood the power of nutrition and the fact that um when we take a look at uh soil samples and we take a look at

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the fact that we're working with less than 50% of the mineral content in the soils today is what we were you know 150

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years ago that that's a huge issue but then when we take a look at the effects of what I'll call the chemical Revolution um right we go through the

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Industrial Revolution but we've gone through a chemical revolution in relation to Medicine in relation to agriculture uh we just find chemical

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chemicals everywhere unnatural synthetic foreign agents that are that are bombarding nature that are bombarding

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our bodies and it's having a significantly negative impact but when we take a look at that we can also

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[Music]

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and and and living by that that cultural diet uh which was still prevalent in my

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home uh you know three generations after they had moved from from Italy um you I

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mean we were still eating an Italian diet uh very high in grains very high in

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pastas and um and so now by the time that we get into the 80s and the 90s

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that's when we by that point in time we' already seen a massive shift in relation to

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nutrient depletion in fact actually we'd already seen a major shift in nutrient depletion uh it was identified um in

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19 37 actually uh in the US that there was already major chronic disease rising

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up because of the nutrient depletion from the soils yeah 1937 they already identified that and they had a senate

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hearing over that in 1937 so we'd already seen a major depletion in Mineral content but by the time that the 80s and 90s rolled around we had already

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seen that chemical Revolution really getting a foothold and things were different so yes good point um to bring

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that forward it's important to understand the impact that agriculture has had on um destroying really uh the

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quality of the foods that we consume on a daily basis absolutely so um back to

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the timeline here so like 1978 um your your dad's your grandfather

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commits suicide passes and then then that obviously is a very very tragic

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thing for the family to deal with and if there's this underlying mental health condition going on anyway with within

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your your mother this is when we see um H begin to like really

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struggle yeah so by the time that 1983 rolled around it it became a matter that

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it was diagnosable right that it was clearly it was a clinical situation if

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you will that I mean we all have our good days we all have our bad days we all go through our slumps in life that that just natur happens right for all

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sorts of reasons but when it becomes chronic and so severe that it's now

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incredibly debilitating that's when it ends up with you know a diagnosis if you

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will um you know such as bipolar disorder one with Rapid Cycling so now

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we see where my mother is going through this situation of ups and downs and maniz and you know that is accompanied

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by inappropriate behaviors you know for somebody to go on a man K and you know you go in spending spree you you're up

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till 3:00 4: in the morning vacuuming the house cleaning whatever because you're so manic you know that that's

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that's inappropriate it's not healthy and it's it's highly dysfunctional especially in a in a major family

18:45

situation but then to go on the opposite end when you know with a rapid cycle all

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of a sudden my mother's into a depression and she's not getting out of bed in the morning and now you know like

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if if you show a picture of our family you're going to see the responsibility there that you know beautiful family

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sorry I'm biased but you know beautiful family um you know middle class you know

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my my father did very well um was running a prominent uh actually the second largest um Property Management

19:20

business in all of Alberta multiple contracts uh in three different cities uh had a lot of the government contracts

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had his own little private plane that he would fly um back and forth because you know the distance between some of the

19:32

Cities was over 10 hours and so you know doing quite well but when you have a mother who is in a major depression and

19:39

she's not getting out of bed in the morning then you've got you know the older siblings are having to step in and

19:46

and take responsibility and start playing the role of parent to help get the younger ones ready for school in the

19:53

morning and all that type of stuff so we see that kind of dynamic starting to play out where it's having such a

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negative impact on my mother um that she is you know incapable of at times

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incapable of playing the role of of mother of of really living to her full

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potential and so my mother went through 10 years of this and then by the time

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that 1993 rolls around

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um my mother really needed a change at this point and

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she wanted to move back to where she was born back to where her cousins were uh

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back to her roots and so my father say okay you know he sells he

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sells the business he he basically drops everything for her and okay I guess

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we're starting on a New Journey and we moved to smalltown Southern Alberta Cardston Alberta about 3500 people

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and my father is trying to make a go at uh at um you know making sure Financial

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uh all the financials are needs are being met within our family and he's having a struggle with it and literally

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like with with how quick everything took place my father basically liquidating everything you know selling off the

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business um he had a business partner as well and they they both ended up actually selling at the same time and

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both moved and so it's kind of an interesting summer um that year summer of 1993 and I'm not sure how everything

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went down but my father didn't leave with a whole ton of capital if you will

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from selling this business and I'm not sure all the details there and I don't

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think finances were were managed incredibly well and so I think the house that we had there I think they kind of

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walked away from it because they they bought in at a bad time in the 80s interest rates were high and so I think

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by the time that they went to leave it wasn't worth any more than what they had

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paid down on the mortgage um and you know or what was left owing on the mortgage so I think

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they kind of walked away from it and so they didn't get anything out of that so we literally went from what I'd call

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riches uh because we did quite well to rags almost overnight and it as you can

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imagine that would be an incredibly sit stressful situation especially when there's still seven children at that

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point in time living under the roof yeah right because there's nine children total between my my mother and father

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and my mother just being this incredibly loving person uh it wasn't enough her so she actually she was working in the

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foster care system at one point in time helping out troubled uh teens back uh right before I was born and um she ended

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up convincing my father to adopt uh this this troubled teen um and so which made

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for a total of 10 of us and by the time that that picture was taken um my oldest

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sister my adopted sister had already moved out of the home so that's why she wasn't in there and uh she was going

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through her own struggles that eventually she would overcome as well but um and so she wasn't present for

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that photo but there was a total of 10 kids and so there was a lot going on in the home but now we're going through a

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financial hardship and my mother's really struggling with this and then Revenue Canada steps in and comes at my

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father and says you know some of the the trips that he made down to Mexico down to Central Mexico wasn't even like

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Coastal Mexico where you go on vacation but down to Central Mexico uh he was doing some business ventures down there

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as a side project um I believe it had to do with water treatment plants uh because he's an engineer by by by trade

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and so uh they came back at them and said no these aren't business expenses

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and tried to to say that they were all vacation expenses and that type of stuff and so I can't remember all the details

23:54

specifically there but they came back and and all of a sudden they started garnishing um our family and left us

23:59

with $800 a month now I know $800 a month back in 1993 is a lot more than

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$800 a month is today but still back then you can't raise a family of seven

24:11

children living under your roof on $800 a month and so you know I remember the

24:17

day that you know they sold the big van because we had a couple Vans and so they had to sell the big van the big family

24:22

van that we used to travel in and all of a sudden now we're starting to get you know some nice clothes our back again

24:29

and whatnot and so it was a really really really trying time and so with my mother going through all this the stress

24:35

was was pretty pretty high and so you know which would

24:40

obviously bring out the mental health condition even more and so she went to the doctor in January of

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1994 and received a prescription for proac now back in 1994 Prozac you know

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it's one of the newer newer drugs it's one of the newer ssris that had just come out this class of SSRI drugs

25:01

anti-depressants selective serotonin reuptake Inhibitors had come out in the late 80s they were supposed to be like

25:06

the Blockbuster medication and and everybody's raving about it right and you got doctors even saying they they

25:12

should be putting Prozac in the water right as if it's like this this drug but

25:17

there was a a really interesting element to it all there was a really dark

25:23

element to it all that there was evidence that showed

25:29

based on the studies that were taking place on these SSRI medications that in general the SSRI medications were

25:36

increasing the risk of suicide by two times so you were two times more likely

25:42

to commit suicide by taking an SSRI medication versus taking a placebo

25:47

during the trials and this evidence was being suppressed and Prozac in particular was

25:54

one of the worst because in certain situations depending on the individual that was taking it but in certain

25:59

situations given their condition it could increase the risk of suicide by anywhere from 8 to 12

26:06

times and this evidence was being suppressed and so even though these doctors are being told that they're

26:12

these Miracle drugs at this point in time and you know just naively just

26:18

promoting them there was a dark element where it was causing a lot of loss of

26:25

life unnecessary loss of life and my mother went and got on Prozac January

26:33

1994 by the time that January 30th 1994 rolled

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around it was a Sunday we all went to church except for

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her and my 15-year-old brother at the time and my dad was away on business

26:53

trying to make a go at this point in time because we'd only been moved away from um at this point in time we it'

26:58

only been about seven or eight months into the move and so he's still trying to get established to to better our financial

27:06

situation so he's down 10 hours south in the states um working in MLM type

27:12

business and my mother stays home from church my brother stays home from church

27:17

but then my brother came for the last portion of church so now she's left alone for the period of about an hour

27:24

and a half when all of us got home from church she wasn't

27:30

there I'm 10 years old at the time I'm I'm asking questions saying

27:36

where's Mom where's mom everybody's concerned where's mom and there there seems to be this heightened concern that starts to to Rise phone calls are made

27:42

to my father down down south um you know by the time that 10 10:30 11:00 at night

27:49

rolls around we're still one where's mom and there seems to be this real

27:57

um I don't know what You' call it I mean I'm 10 years old and I'm trying to process my thoughts and emotions at the

28:02

time but there's just this heaviness to it that there's something there's there's a really heavy concern that

28:08

sense right something's not right yeah exactly you can pick it up and I go to

28:15

bed and I wake up at about 4 in the morning

28:20

hearing um the noise and now I'm up in a LOFT at this point in time I mean we

28:25

live in a hundredy old house at the point in time there's the main floor there's the the top floor and then

28:31

there's a loft up top and and as a 10-year-old I I thought it was just the most exciting thing I got to to live in this Loft that you get to climb this

28:37

ladder to get up there right and so I can hear from the main floor the sound

28:43

of crying at 4 in the morning and you just wake up with this

28:49

heaviness because you You' gone to bed wondering where's Mom where's mom and

28:55

you go downstairs and you realize that there's a lot of people in the house and

29:00

they're not your family members and you're wondering what's going on and so by the time that January 30th

29:09

of of 1994 rolled around my mother had taken her life only two to three weeks

29:15

onto the prescription of Prozac um sadly becoming a statistic and leaving behind nine children 10 uh with

29:24

my adopted sister um nine of us though all having that predisposition to mental health

29:30

conditions to to mental illness and your your mother she she struggled obviously

29:36

it built up after the passing of her father so she was struggling for 10 plus years and then getting on Prozac within

29:45

the month like it's a that's a phenomenal turnaround I mean there has

29:50

to be a connection there I mean I'm sure if you look back at the the data and the the side effects that you know she let's

29:58

just say she was was dealing with it for 10 plus years and then she was able to get on this medication that was probably

30:05

only like five or six years old um when she was when when she actually got

30:11

diagnosed and prescribed the Prozac but you know within the month you know

30:16

that's absolutely unbelievable the very thing that you that she thought was going to help her

30:22

CU clearly she was taking it because she felt she needed help clearly she went to the doctor because she felt she needed

30:28

help MH the very thing that was supposed to help her um statistically and evidentially based on

30:35

what would come out 10 years after this this event 10 years after the the death of my mother the the evidence would

30:41

emerge that the the drug manufacturers knew it all along that these SSRI

30:47

medications were increasing the risk of suicide um and so now it comes out and

30:53

so yeah there's definitely the correlation but there's also the evidence to support it

30:58

that she became a a statistic at that point in time that she became one of the needless losses of life not not that

31:05

there's ever really a needed loss of life if you will but that unnecessary completely unnecessary no reason for it

31:12

if the evidence would have came out if people would have been able to weigh the risk you know it's one of those things

31:17

that if there was a warning that said look this medication can't help you but

31:23

it can also cause suicidal ideations if you take it be aware if you start to feel suicidal get off of it yeah as soon

31:31

as somebody's aware of that the the cognizance increases and they're able to put blame where blame needs to go

31:38

they're able to to take a look at this and say wait a minute I wasn't feeling well before but now I'm taking this I'm

31:44

I've been considering the very purpose of life and that it's just not like I I I don't feel like I should be here and

31:50

but I was told that this medication might cause that okay maybe I should stop that rather than think you know

31:58

I'm even on medications and there's clearly no purpose for life without that knowledge it puts people in in a in In

32:06

Harm's Way significantly and so had that had they been

32:13

forthcoming the amount of loss of life would have been lessened so much those

32:19

could have gotten help and I'm not an advocate for pharmaceutical medications especially when it comes to psychiatric medications I'm not an advocate for them

32:25

at all but I have heard because I've been working in this for 21 years and

32:30

I've worked with a lot of people there are some people that in the moment it's

32:36

helped them but it's not a long-term solution but in the moment it's helped them and

32:42

so perhaps those that that could have received the help would receive the help but those that it would have been

32:47

devastating to and absolutely just destroyed life destroyed families just

32:52

caused so much needless trauma and suffering could have been prevented had

32:57

the pharmaceutic uh companies been forthcoming and said look these can cause suicide

33:03

beware right yeah I mean we've seen example after example for 50 60 70 years

33:11

of of Blockbuster life-changing drugs that come out and we hear all the

33:16

amazing positives behind it you know they've got Big Marketing campaigns behind it as well they get the doctors

33:22

on board and know we all remember those those Old School advertisements for the for these medications and even like

33:29

cigarettes at at one point and it's quite remarkable that I think

33:36

that if you're a little bit skeptical of pharmaceuticals and the way that they they're dished out you have to be you

33:41

have to just look back through history and there's example of for example of of the pharmaceutical companies and the

33:46

research that they do not being open and honest with all of the information and I

33:52

think if you if you're aware the fact that even peer review data they're only able to peer review the information

33:58

they're given by pharmaceutical companies they don't get given 100% of the data to look through to make those

34:05

peer-reviewed claims so it's yeah it's just remarkable that you know that we're

34:10

talking about 1993 here you know it's 20124 and we still see you know with with very recent

34:17

Gene therapies that we've seen thrown out over the last few years you know we we're seeing more and more data and

34:23

information coming out that these things may have been a lot more dangerous than

34:28

we were told that they were perfectly safe and effective and we hear that time and time again through Pharmaceuticals

34:34

and it just makes me think what do they think the word safe means and what do they think the word effective means for

34:39

any of these medications and yeah you know I've been working with in the Natural Health industry for for well over 10 years myself and I don't think

34:48

there's an example of a pharmaceutical that will support anyone for anything chronic and it won't it just just

34:54

doesn't work like that it just the human body does not work like that Pharmaceuticals are just very very harsh

35:00

manipulated chemicals and then at the end of the day pharmaceutical companies

35:06

are inexistence to make money not to make people healthy I mean we would have

35:13

phenomenal healthy populations all around the world if that were the case yep and that's a hard pill for a lot of

35:19

people to swallow because also I think that the governments obviously are supposed to be these Gatekeepers within these industries and the people but we

35:26

obviously see this from revolving door we see what money and power can do to individuals and yeah if you're not on

35:35

this skeptical journey in 2024 I don't know if you're ever really

35:40

gonna get there so it's um yeah it's just mind-blowing that you know we're having this conversation about something

35:46

that happened in 1993 and yet we still see similar patterns happening now yeah

35:53

oh absolutely the game doesn't change it's garbage tobacco science is what's being applied to the the the whole of of

36:00

the pharmaceutical industry we're seeing that we're seeing that there's proper science is being suppressed which is

36:05

another element of the story that we'll get to for those that will continue to watch these these episodes um that the

36:12

true science the real science um is being suppressed and trying to be

36:18

prevented from coming out um studies are being shut down and so there there's a

36:23

real element here to try to to Coral people into a certain thought process at the end of the day when you take a look

36:28

at the evidence you're right if if the Pharmaceuticals were performing we would

36:34

have a really healthy population if the if they were performing the way that people have been taught that they're

36:39

they're to perform but yet when we actually take a look at the evidence chronic disease is higher than it's been

36:45

you know go just looking at the last 100 years 150 years as a snapshot the

36:50

chronic disease is like going up at an alarming rate and we're talking about

36:56

all forms of chronic dis disease and so often times in my presentations if if I'm going into more of a deep dive I'll

37:02

cover off I don't cover just mental health aspects I'll cover off things like osteoporosis uh thyroid issues

37:08

endocrine system issues um talk about cancers you see that they're all rising

37:14

ctively at about the same rate at about the starting at about the same time in history it's not because all of a sudden

37:20

they start diagnosing it's because there was a change in relation to our diet and there

37:26

was also the application of these medications which often times will mask symptoms but create other symptoms and

37:33

other forms of disease that that individual would have otherwise had yeah and we're um we're no longer just seeing

37:40

these chronic serious conditions within let's just say the elderly population or the adult population we're seeing it

37:46

creep into kids and babies and toddlers now and if that's not a super alarming

37:52

fact that maybe our Health Care system has perhaps got things a little bit wrong and little bit wrong um then I

37:59

don't know what's going to really open up your eyes to that but yeah the fact that we're able to work with natural health and we you know we're talking

38:05

about the Empire plus is this broads Spectrum micronutrient that's just very available food that regardless of your

38:12

digestive capability can get into your brain can get into your body get into your cells and do what it needs to do

38:20

it's yeah it's quite remarkable but so your so your your mother your mother

38:25

passes 10 kids you know your father's your father's then widowed to 10 to 10

38:31

kids and I think we're in like 94 95 now where you know your your dad is you know

38:39

seeing mental health concerns within the children as well yeah before we jump too

38:45

far forward I I want to touch on just one point real quick because we're going to probably revisit this my mother when

38:52

she takes her life January 30th of of of 94 um

38:57

the official date is January 31st uh because that's when they found

39:03

her um they find a suicide note and written into it is basically take take

39:11

the insurance money and pay Revenue Canada instructions to my father to do

39:17

so and this is going to become a relevant Topic in in in a in a few moments but so that that's how that ends

39:23

off and my father is just left devastated I mean this is wife of 22 years over 22 years he'd been married to

39:30

her at this point in time um would have went through hell in high water uh to to

39:35

be with her clearly did I mean left his really great uh position that he had up

39:41

north moved down South for New Beginnings um he was

39:47

willing to do anything for her from what I could see growing up right and so now

39:53

there's seven of us living under the roof my father shuts down his business ventures down

40:00

south because he needs to stay home with the family he takes on a job at the local hospital as the the engineer there

40:08

to to oversee all of the the functions there in small hospital so didn't require a whole lot of he he was way

40:14

over qualified as an engineer a boiler room engineer he was way over qualified so it only took a couple hours a day or

40:20

something like that so then he also became the maintenance man just so that he could be at home with the kids so

40:25

here he is you know I I remember remember going with him from time to time when when I wasn't in school right

40:31

uh Saturdays or whatever and going and doing maintenance with them taking out garbages like that's what he had put

40:37

himself down to just so that he could be at home with the kids because there's seven kids living living at home ranging

40:44

from the age of six up to 18 years old at this point in time and fortunately

40:50

there's you know my my 18-year-old sister there who's now kind of filling

40:56

in and stepping in playing the role of of mother um for the rest of us young

41:02

kids and so this is a situation we find ourselves in but it begins to get really

41:08

bad it was already really bad before my mother took her life by that point in time my older sister Autumn was on

41:15

medications she was married at the time uh still is actually I I I should just make that very clear but um uh she had

41:23

gotten married and had some serious mental health conditions herself and ended up on a handful a cocktail of

41:30

medications and this is before my mother even took her life but now like I said I can speak from experience trauma

41:36

oftentimes can serve as a catalyst to Bringing on these mental health conditions if they're already there

41:42

underlying and so things only got worse within my within my home uh with my father's household after um my mother

41:50

had taken her life and so there's seven of us living under the roof that are all predisposed to mental health conditions

41:57

myself included but there were some that were so severe that it made the rest of us look like Angels even though we were

42:03

all struggling and so my older brother Joseph uh three years older than me uh

42:09

began to go through some serious struggles himself at this point in time's he's going through puberty a lot of hormonal changes this is often times

42:16

because there's an increased demand for nutrition as somebody's going through puberty through all these de

42:22

developmental stages the growth itself that growth doesn't take place without nutrition uh all the hormone changes

42:28

that requires a heightened level of nutrition that's why generally teenagers will eat you out of house and home

42:33

because they have this massive increase uh for nutrition this demand for

42:40

nutrition beyond what an adult would so um they start to eat like crazy because

42:45

they're trying to feed the system to allow for these proper changes these developmental changes to take place

42:50

appropriately so now he's going through that and he's struggling really bad and

42:56

things get dark dark he is like he's in trouble with um the RCMP he's on weapons

43:02

charges he's in trouble with uh you know the school uh constantly getting my

43:10

father's getting phone calls from the principal's office uh in relation to you know he's in a fight and this is

43:15

happening and it's just it's just a constant battle with him and my father

43:21

gets him on medications he's diagnosed with bipolar disorder he's given lithium

43:26

which ironically really isn't a pharmaceutical it's a it's a mineral but they they administer it one in the wrong form and

43:33

two in toxic doses but very effective ironically using a mineral and so he's

43:40

on lithium but he doesn't like the way that it makes him feel

43:46

right and so he's he has troubles with compliance and my father's trying to work with him this is throughout

43:52

1994 and then into 1995 and things are just getting worse

43:57

and worse and now my sister at this point in time is in and out of the psych

44:03

on a regular basis her her husband fortunately faithful man um rather than

44:08

divorcing her um stays by her side and supports her through all this but when she's not in the pychard she's on

44:14

24-hour supervision because at this point in time she's obsessing about ways to kill herself and her three-year-old

44:19

son that's on a cocktail medications at best she was left sedated or in a zombie like uh

44:25

State and so my father at this point in time is just watching his family go down

44:30

the same path that their grandfather had gone down who took his life 15 years

44:37

before our mother had and seeing that his children were going down that exact

44:43

same path that their mother and grandfather went down he began to exhaust in desperation trying to prevent

44:50

this cycle from repeating he exhausted everything available to him within the medical

44:57

system he went and met with the head psychiatrist of the fs Hospital in Calgary Alberta um she finally got so

45:03

annoyed with him that she was just very straight and blunt with them and said Mr Stefan you need to face the reality here this is not going to get any better

45:09

these are recurrent disorders she pulled up the DSM 4 at that time red out of out of it on bipolar disorder that's a

45:15

recurrent disorder she says Mr Stefan that means that they don't go away these disorders do not go away and often in

45:21

time they get worse so you need to face the reality that this is as good as going to get and that down the road you

45:26

may have to plan more funerals it's absolutely what he needed to hear because at that point in time that no

45:32

longer was he trying to um exhaust the medical system any further he' gotten

45:38

his answer that's as good as going to get using Pharmaceuticals and he left that that

45:45

particular meeting in in this incredible um depression just feeling despair there's

45:51

no hope there's no hope why because he had never considered really anything outside of what the pharmaceutical

45:56

indust industry had to offer but at that point in time there was no known answers outside of the pharmaceutical industry

46:02

and within the pharmaceutical industry there was no known answers they were just Band-Aid solutions that hey let's

46:08

let's give you this medication it's going to alter the way that you feel it's going to change your personality and it's going to suppress your emotions

46:13

and you're not going to be the same person you're going to feel a little bit zombie like but at least you're not going to be incredibly depressed or

46:21

psychotic right but your quality of life is going to be lousy but you know just

46:27

carry on for the next 50 years like that you might end up living in your parents basement till they die and then we'll see where that goes from that right like

46:32

it's just there's no hope there is no hope but it's like okay Band-Aid solution and we make a a lot of money

46:38

off of you because it's going to cost you about 300 well not you not in Canada not with socialized medicine but it's

46:44

going to cost a system about $300 per month for your dosage of medication for the rest of your life by the way yeah so

46:50

very lucrative um but very uh disabling um to the the the person who

46:58

ends up using them so my father at this point in time starts to consider is

47:03

there any other Solutions out there he starts to talk to people in the community uh small town community almost

47:09

everybody knows everybody and he's talking to them about hey like do you know anything about mental illness you

47:15

ever had any experience with it like he's just desperate he's looking for answers nobody had an answer for him but

47:20

there was people that had recommendations and so all of a sudden we've got things like copious amounts of flax oil finding their way into our free

47:27

right I'm not sure where he got it from but like we're talking lots of this stuff um and now Joe's taking all this

47:33

flax oil which omega-3 fatty acid is known to help alleviate the symptoms of

47:40

certain mental health conditions the only problem is is that often times it

47:46

has to be in the pre-converted to DHA or EPA that you'll find within like fish

47:51

oil so flax oil won't do it unless you have adequate levels of magnesium zinc vitamin B3 be six because if you don't

47:57

have those you don't convert that uh that ala into the DHA and the uh the EPA

48:03

that you need for cognition as well as cardiovascular health so uh the flax oil probably didn't do him a whole lot of

48:09

good we we' discover why that was down the road because he wasn't able to utilize it appropriately because he

48:15

didn't have the companion nutrients available due to deficiencies the very deficiencies that we discover were

48:21

causing the mental health conditions in the first place so he's going flx oil he's doing

48:28

magnetic therapy which great he's doing drinking stuff like tahan non juice there's all sorts of stuff coming into

48:33

the house my father's willing to try anything and he's using Joe as a guinea pig and it's not working and so Joe is

48:39

still on his lithium throughout the the entirety of this time and finally

48:44

everything kind of comes to to a head in November of 1995 now leading up to this

48:50

my dad just become so desperate by about summer you know probably June July of

48:57

1995 not too long after he'd had this initial meeting with the head psychiatrist out of the Foothills

49:03

Hospital he starts to desperately plead and pray seeking for an answer saying

49:10

you know if there truly is a God above God knows the answer and surely God wouldn't want his children to suffer like this and so he spent a lot of time

49:17

in fasting and prayer and meditation on the matter seeking for an answer and he

49:22

persistently did this for months and finally by November of

49:28

1995 everything would kind of come to a climax when he's walking down a hallway one day now at this point in time things

49:35

had elevated in relation to his financial situation into in his occupation he had um become the property

49:43

manager over 26 large buildings um actually large churches uh Mormon

49:49

churches in Southern Alberta he had become the property manager over all those and oversaw everything being taken

49:56

care of of appropriately and so he would spend a lot of his time traveling uh hundreds of kilometers a day just

50:02

driving around going throughout the whole Southern Alberta you know area Corridor type thing uh making sure that

50:07

all these buildings were being maintained appropriately providing guidance and so in November of 1995 he's

50:13

walking down a hallway one day in one of these churches talking to a colleague about replacing

50:19

carpets and my father's overcome with this impression you need to tell your

50:24

colleague here David Hardy about what's going on at home now you can imagine from a professional standpoint

50:32

how inappropriate that is right you're talking about doing all this maintenance and everything within this building and

50:38

I'm not sure the role that David Hardy played because I don't believe he was a carpet layer so he was playing some kind

50:44

of role there in relation to overseeing that building or something I don't know exactly what it was all I know is that

50:49

my father did break down and told him everything that was going on and basically ended off the conversation um

50:56

or his monologue saying and if things don't change we have no choice but to take Joe and and put him into a psych

51:03

wward because everybody's fearing for their lives yeah um he's extremely violent he's volatile homicidal suicidal

51:09

stockpiling weapons you know the weapons charges with the RCMP the constant issues in the school it's just and and

51:15

it's worse at home right and so he ends off with that and David Hardy had something really

51:21

interesting to say to him he said you know Tony I've got a large family like yours uh surprisingly he actually had a

51:27

couple more kids than than our than our than my father did and um he says but they're all well they're fine I've never

51:32

had to deal with mental illness he says my wife's fine so I can't relate to you on that level he says however I spent

51:38

over 20 years in the animal feed industry formulating feed for Hogs across western Canada and western United

51:45

States he says we saw something common in the hog pens called ear and tail

51:50

biting syndrome where these Hogs have become extremely irritable with each other they bite chunks of their ears and Tails off each other hence why ear and

51:57

tail biting syndrome but the thing is if you didn't pen them away from each other they'd actually kill each other he says

52:02

we learned in the animal feed industry that by putting the proper nutrition into their feed that you could

52:09

completely eradicate this condition and my father at that point in time he' already tried a bunch of stuff

52:15

bunch of stuff had already come in and out of the house Joe had already been a guinea pig on on so many different little experiments and it didn't work

52:21

but in that moment my father had this spiritual confirmation it was like a light bulb moment if you will this epiphany he he says that he felt it from

52:28

his head to his toes it's like spiritual resonance Fel like just this boom confirmation it's the answer and it's a

52:34

really good thing that he felt that because right after they go down you

52:39

know with I believe it's within a day they went down to Hell food store David Hardy having an understanding uh in he

52:46

has actually a background in biology he used to be a biology teacher um at school but then he went into animal feed

52:52

industry and all that type of stuff so he's really dabbled in all that type of stuff so he's got a much better understanding in relation to nutritional

52:58

sciences and so him and my father go down to a heal food store and they grab all these

53:03

different products kind of similar to what they would have been putting into the feed for the the Hogs right they

53:11

grab all these products and they put Joe on them but it didn't work now if my father hadn't had that spiritual

53:17

confirmation he probably would said oh there's one more thing one more check nutrition doesn't work magnetic therapy

53:23

doesn't work toishan non Juice's gross doesn't work um you know flax oil gross as well doesn't work you know like all

53:30

this stuff but my father knowing it was the answer

53:35

this is November 1995 finally by January of 1996 it's actually January 18th four

53:42

different products arrived from the US after they already tried a bunch of different products and these products

53:48

were were produced differently same ingredients but produced differently in such a way that the body could actually

53:53

assimilate them like pull them up assimilate them utilize them they were bioavailable and my father put them to

54:00

the test on Joe and within five days of Joe being on these four different products it was Joe says it was like a

54:06

fog lifted and he could now see what was right and wrong and so here my father you know

54:13

like has been going through all this this type of stuff you know up until that point working with Joe he had just

54:19

run short actually he' just run up on his lithium prescription and and there was a major major battle at this point

54:26

between my stepmother and my father in January of 1996 my stepmother saying he

54:32

needs to be on the lithium he needs to be on the lithium my father saying No this is going to work my mother my stepmother went and

54:39

got the prescription for the lithium and said here's it you do what

54:44

you will my father still has that full bottle of lithium to this day wow it

54:51

never had to get used within five days Joe started to see

54:57

the world differently within 30 days he would have no longer been diagnosed with bipolar disorder a month and a half

55:05

later my sister is now on the supplements not willingly but because

55:10

she has she was on 24-hour supervision she had to come stay with our family for a bit while her husband was working a night shift for a week at a factory and

55:18

my father got got her onto the supplements after she had a major panic attack while in that cocktail of five medications within 45 days she was off

55:25

of all those medic ations and doing way better than she had ever done in her

55:31

whole entire life because she had these mental health conditions going right back to her adolescence and now she's able to

55:38

function and there's a major Dynamic shift in the relationship between her and her husband and no longer does she

55:44

have to be on 24-hour supervision because she's not thinking about killing herself or her three-year-old son she's

55:49

now taking on side projects um little side businesses doing what she wants to do playing the role of Mom you know just

55:56

thriving in what she wants to do and it's just a beautiful thing do we know

56:02

sorry though do we know what the those four products were do we know were they individual ingredients were

56:09

they combination of things and why did they have to come from the US great yeah

56:14

fantastic question thank you for the the providing the means to have Clarity on that it was extremely complicated the

56:21

first one was a cidal mineral supplement having a lot of different minerals in there but put being put into a colloidal

56:27

form which allowed for it to be bioavailable we don't absorb rock form minerals and if you do you might be in a

56:33

little bit of trouble you might end up with some kidney stones uh you might end up with deposits in the body in areas

56:39

that you don't want um but we generally don't absorb rock form minerals which

56:45

unfortunately within the the Natural Health industry for many many years that's how minerals were coming they

56:50

weren't coming chelated they weren't being bound to organic molecules they were literally coming in the Raw Elemental form um which is not good and

56:58

so the colloidal mineral supplement was absolutely crucial and we'll we'll learn about that in a brief moment when the

57:04

first study took place but also there was um two other main products one of

57:12

them being a multivitamin mineral supplement coming from a company that was chelating at that time and back then

57:18

you know this back in the 90s cation was not a big practice so what was happening is they were they were taking these

57:24

minerals and they were binding them to an organic molecule that allowed for the body to recognize As Natural because that's what happens in the soil under

57:30

ideal conditions it's what is uptaken into plants under ideal conditions and then when you eat those plants that's

57:35

the form of minerals that you should be getting chelated they're bound to organic molecules so the multivit

57:42

mineral was being chelated but then also a calcium magnesium phosphorus supplement that was being put in the

57:47

proper balance that was also uh chelated and then grape seed extract which allow

57:56

allowed for it to the grape seed extract is important to help push a lot of that nutrition uh into the brain right it it

58:03

just provides a venue for or a means by which um it can be delivered to areas of

58:09

the body that otherwise wouldn't so easily be delivered which is so crucial so those four different products so

58:15

choal mineral supplement calcium magnesium phosphorus supplement that was kated multivitamin mineral supplement that was chelated as well as grape seed

58:22

extract so the the the four they called it the quad program and it worked and now it worked with my

58:29

sister it worked with my brother my sister got off those medications feeling better my brother never had to ever take

58:35

that lithium again January 1994 um neither of them had to go and

58:40

visit the psych ward um and so that was a beautiful thing Joe never fortunat

58:45

fortunately never had to go but he was going to go Autumn was in and out of the psycho on a regular basis never never

58:51

again did she have to go and so it completely changed their lives and so now word starts to spread because we

58:57

live in a small community and uh people are ask my father what what what have you done with Joey he's a different person and it

59:04

begins to just grow the business is growing organically it's not a well actually I shouldn't say that it wasn't

59:10

a business at this point in time the concept began to grow organically my

59:15

father was answering questions people were trying it for the kids with ADHD their wife with depression anxiety all this type stuff people were using it and

59:23

it began to spread like wildfire in the small community where everybody knew everybody and everybody talks and when people

59:28

start to have their lives radically transformed including this this lady who lived uh just a blocked down from us

59:35

most people didn't even know she existed they only saw her husband because she was a gor phobic the only time that she'd come out of her house was to go to

59:41

the doctor uh to to make her doctor's appointments all of a sudden she's showing up at church all she's walking

59:46

around the neighborhood like who's this lady right like been here for how many years and nobody like right and so all

59:54

of a sudden PE you know things like like that are taking place and it's just phenomenal and so finally what happens

1:00:01

is my father looks at this with David Hardy because they're both working on this they're both really intrigued at

1:00:08

the discovery that they're making and they say hey we need to get this into the hands of doctors like this needs to

1:00:13

be researched and so they go and they pursue that that venue they try to get it researched and they start coming up

1:00:19

against roadblocks realizing it's not so easy as that but what happens is

1:00:24

eventually um Dr Bonnie Kaplan on the University of Calgary would decide you know to take it

1:00:32

on we'll try one study let's see where it goes and she starts to see the phenomenal results from it but then

1:00:38

halfway throughout the study everybody's symptoms began to relapse and they're all wondering why like and but it wasn't

1:00:44

just happening in the study it was also happening within our community within our own home well what happened is that clal mineral supplement something

1:00:51

changed in it ah the levels of nutrients levels of minerals in there the balance of it had changed depending upon the

1:00:58

batch and so that we were now into a new batch and that new batch was not nearly as efficacious as the previous batch and

1:01:05

so the study was shut down because you can't study variables and say oh here's our findings using a product that changed halfway throughout the study but

1:01:12

then we were left looking for a replacement and after a great deal of research great deal of prayer my father

1:01:18

just seeking for inspiration on the matter because like this is this is

1:01:23

complicated right the nutrition aspect of it how do we produce our own supplement after they'd already tried

1:01:30

all sorts of Replacements that didn't work how do we produce our own supplement that's actually going to work that's going to produce the results that

1:01:35

we're looking for that's going to you know correct people's uh behaviors going to turn their lives around and allow

1:01:40

them to live the way that they need to live that they want to live and So eventually what would come out out of it

1:01:46

by about 1998 was um the EMP the Empower plus would be

1:01:54

birthed if you will there's a picture of it there that's the

1:01:59

original bottle central nervous system support that's the first bottle so as

1:02:07

you can see true hope isn't even a brand at that point in time true hope has been

1:02:12

established but it's been established as a support program solely to help people

1:02:18

come off medications because we discovered you know most of the people that we're working with are medications and those medications can be extremely

1:02:25

addictive and we recognized that at first with Autumn on our cocktail of five medications she got off quite rapidly 45 days but we realized that we

1:02:34

had to to establish a support program to help people come off of their medications uh because the doctors

1:02:40

weren't being trained on how to take their patients off medications they weren't even being trained that their patients would ever come off the

1:02:45

medications it's like you're on this for the rest of your life if if it stops working we're going to swap you over to

1:02:51

this medication or this medication and that's that's how we're going to deal with you for the rest of your life not

1:02:56

take you off the medication so that comes out and as as you can see

1:03:02

that bottle is a lot bigger than the bottle right here um because it says 448

1:03:08

capsules that's a big bottle and the reason being is we were Keating it we we teamed up with the with

1:03:15

uh the same manufactur that we were getting the other two the multivitamin and the calcium magnesium phosphorus

1:03:21

supplement we teamed up with them so that they could apply their chelation technology to it so that it make it bioavailable but even with doing that

1:03:29

people had to take up to 48 capsules per day to get well now they when they were

1:03:34

doing what we call the quad program they were doing more nutrients than that even

1:03:40

uh multiple shot glasses of choal mineral throughout the day and then multiple handfuls of the calcium

1:03:45

magnesium phosphorus the grape seed extract as well as the multivitamin so it wasn't much different but 48 capsules

1:03:51

a day like that's a lot like a lot a lot but people were doing it and the reason being is because

1:03:56

the benefits the life transformation that was taking place even though they were eating basically a meal of capsules

1:04:02

throughout the day it was worth it because all of a sudden they were emerging and and seeing who they were

1:04:09

the light started to shine you know the joy started to reemerge in their life they weren't you know just stuck in this

1:04:15

pit of despair and anxiety and depression and and Mania or psychosis whatever you wanted like it's just

1:04:22

incredible life Transformations taking place and so um eventually we would get that to go

1:04:28

down but before we get there I I want to just briefly touch on at the same time I mean we're talking

1:04:37

about really the the stepan family Saga here which is completely interconnected

1:04:42

to the the true hope story if you will it is the true hope story there's another element that emerges at this

1:04:48

point in time because in about 1997 as you know the first study's taking place where you know all these

1:04:55

discoveries are St be made Revenue Canada reemerges again on the scenes and

1:05:01

all of a sudden my father receives this you know assessment on my deceased mother and

1:05:08

back taxes and my father at this point in time is not in as much of a broken State

1:05:14

and so he's saying uh you know I would have fought you the first time but I didn't have the energy to do so with all the changes in my life type of thing

1:05:20

like that's that's what's going on he's down in a better position and so he takes makes a stand my father's a

1:05:27

warrior um anybody who knows him right when when you get him up he is a warrior

1:05:32

and he knows how to battle he knows how to how to how to how to bring the battle to your doorstep and

1:05:38

so re Revenue Canada comes back at him and it would change literally the

1:05:44

history of Canada because he would end up

1:05:49

exposing everything that they had done that was illegal in relation to how he dealt with

1:05:55

or how new Canada dealt with our family in garnishing his salary to the point

1:06:00

that we were living off of eight we weren't living off $800 a month fortunately we had uh what would you

1:06:06

know Mormons you know um have have a tendency to to have

1:06:11

food storage and so back then we had this food storage rice and beans um and so you know being a

1:06:17

practicing Mormon back then as a family and all that um we were living off rice and beans that they had purchased years

1:06:25

before and that was what basically was carrying us through for foodwise right was living

1:06:30

off rice and beans and so um he exposed the thought that Revenue Canada had put

1:06:36

us illegally into a state of hardship and that they went against their own protocols in doing so and it ended up

1:06:42

going National there was National radio shows being held he was going head-to-head or toe totoe I guess

1:06:48

against you know like um the deputy Minister that was over top of Revenue Canada he was literally like it was it

1:06:56

was guns blazing battle with Revenue Canada CBC Quebec would come out um

1:07:02

French CBC and they would come out and do a mini documentary on our family at that point in time in relation to the

1:07:09

battle and what he did is he provided the venue and the opportunity for other people to start sharing their stories as

1:07:16

well and all of a sudden Revenue Canada is just getting a massive black eye as

1:07:21

all of these other families are coming out all these other people sometimes destroyed families where Revenue Canada

1:07:28

had been operating basically a mafia organization and just destroying people

1:07:35

just absolutely destroying people and how they were receiving perks to do so these agents and and it was they were

1:07:42

denying it and yet my father was able to uncover it and and expose the fact that yes these agents are receiving perks for

1:07:50

doing these egregious things to families as long as they can extract just a little bit more money a little bit Morey

1:07:55

that wasn't owed to Revenue Canada in the first place even under contract with Revenue Canada to pay taxes right so the

1:08:02

whole thing what just came out and finally Revenue Canada just told my father you know what go away we don't

1:08:08

want to hear about you anymore like my my father was going to have a lawsuit against them and they just said no go away we don't want your money we don't

1:08:14

want right they just and it went away but in the meantime Jason Kenny at this

1:08:20

point in time many people know him as as the um uh the former premier of Alberta

1:08:26

during the whole Co um ordeal if you will and uh anyways Jason Kenny at that

1:08:34

time was a young uh Federal MP and him and uh he had consulted with my father

1:08:40

and saw the whole situation and he ended up drafting up I believe it's called the the taxpayers protection act to

1:08:47

basically protect taxpayers from the egregious actions of Revenue Canada Revenue Canada then shifts you know they

1:08:54

they Rebrand and they become known as a Canadian Revenue Agency they're now known as

1:09:00

CRA um at about that same time and uh it's interesting because my sister uh

1:09:06

went and took Accounting in school and what was interesting about it is that she actually learned about our family

1:09:12

story through her accounting class that's crazy based on the fact that it

1:09:17

shifted the way that Revenue Canada or Canada Revenue Agency interfaces now

1:09:24

with people so that battle took place now the reason I want to bring that up is that it's going to pay it's going to

1:09:32

it's going to it's going to serve as a predecessor if you will to the next set

1:09:38

of battles that would come up shortly thereafter because it's like these battles just found my father when one

1:09:45

would end the next would emerge almost immediately

1:09:52

so the EMP Power Plus is produced big bottle as you showed earlier on

1:09:59

um let's see here is there a okay where are we at here okay it's

1:10:06

produced and over time we would get down to the point that we would improve the chilation technology we would begin to

1:10:13

micronize those minerals and made it so that you didn't have to take 48 capsules a day but rather four to six capsules a day same ingredients same balance same

1:10:19

formula just that much more bioavailable and so we discovered that over time that that that's a way that that it would go

1:10:26

but I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself University of Calgary Dr Bonnie Klan decides to study it again this time

1:10:33

the Standalone product it's not a variable not using four different products that are shifting and whatever

1:10:38

based on the batch this is a solid product the quality is there it's working it's been introduced people are

1:10:44

taking it and it's it's changing lives so she begins to study it and she gets

1:10:50

so excited her and her colleagues about the results that they actually publish the preliminary results and it ends up

1:10:56

making national news and I think we have that news clip don't we I think that we

1:11:01

do yeah um yeah I'll play that right now all right on CTV News can a nutritional

1:11:09

supplement help people suffering with a troubling mental disorder ctv's AIS

1:11:14

farro has an exclusive report you won't want to miss watch CTV News tonight at

1:11:21

11: in medical news tonight there is new reason for optimism for sufferers of bipolar disorder a condition that causes

1:11:28

manic depression and a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of Canadians according to findings of a

1:11:35

small study presented today to the Canadian Psychiatric association a combination of vitamins and minerals May

1:11:42

alleviate the disorder's debilitating symptoms ctv's medical specialist Avis

1:11:47

favro reports bipolar illness ran through Tony Stefan's family his wife Debbie

1:11:54

committed suicide his son and daughter were also ill and on drugs that didn't work she had already been taking

1:12:00

medication for over four and a half years and she was going to Suicide it wasn't helping my son was on 900 Mig of

1:12:08

lithium per day and was absolutely out of control then he learned of minerals and

1:12:14

vitamins given to pigs with a nervous disorder in desperation he gave a variation of the supplements to his son

1:12:22

within 30 days he no longer experienced any of the symptoms of bipolar effective disorder both his children he says are

1:12:29

still on the supplements and are well some four years later now doctors at the University of Calgary say they have

1:12:36

intriguing early results from a group of 10 bipolar patients on the same supplements most had less depression

1:12:43

fewer manic episodes and improved mental well-being the decrease in their symptoms is of a magnitude that is is

1:12:51

very impressive any medication that ever had this effect would catch a lot of

1:12:56

people's attention and most have cut their standard drug use by 2third this is an entirely different approach to the

1:13:03

standard medical therapies that we use now but Steve Morton who was part of the Calgary study says the nutrients helped

1:13:10

put his life in order after the bipolar illness left him suicidal and in

1:13:15

hospital this has brought me to recognize a new me and um has allowed me

1:13:23

to become you know a new a new person in fact the Alberta Government is investing more than half a million dollars to fund

1:13:30

more rigorous studies of these supplements all right

1:13:37

amazing now you can imagine right my father's you know

1:13:44

um his objective in all this is let's get this into the hands of

1:13:51

doctors David Hardy that's working with them is let's get it scientifically validated right

1:13:58

and ultimately at the end of the day my father's objective is let's bless other

1:14:04

families so they don't have to go through the same suffering that my familyes had to go through right this

1:14:10

news clip comes out and there's like tremendous amount of hope that this is

1:14:17

actually going to happen because that study showed that the Empire plus is over three times more effective than

1:14:22

your standard anti-depressants like that's huge huge yeah which by the way the

1:14:28

anti-depressants at that point in time were showing to be no more effective than Placebo but Placebo is somewhat

1:14:34

effective which is kind of cool right so do yourself a favor rather than to go take a an anti-depressant take a placebo

1:14:40

literally you're splitting hairs in relation to the statistical differences

1:14:45

uh when it comes to efficacy right um but if you want something over three times more effective than

1:14:51

anti-depressant or Placebo take proper nutrition the very nutrition you need all along to produce the neurotransmitters and hormones necessary

1:14:57

to regulate your mood right that simple very logical yeah so this is getting exciting well

1:15:04

literally the next day the next day after that news clip aired in October of 2000 Health Canada comes in shuts down

1:15:12

that double blindo control trial that was referenced right at the end of the the news clip the Alberta Government was

1:15:18

funding over $544,000 into a double blind placeo control trial that would validate that

1:15:25

Empire plus did in fact do what we were claiming it was doing in at this point

1:15:31

in time thousands of people across the world and so um Health Canada comes in

1:15:38

they shut down the study and they contact my father said you're in contention of section 3132 of

1:15:44

the Food and Drugs act in order to help somebody with bipolar disorder you require a drug identification number a

1:15:50

drug identification number on on a multivitamin mineral supplement and so my father actually attempted to work

1:15:55

with them say no sorry I didn't realize I was out of compliance right had no idea nobody told me and so he tried to work with them

1:16:03

only to realize that they had an agenda and the agenda was you're not getting a drug identification number and at one

1:16:08

point in time as he's working with these Health canidate agents um in a meeting uh they stated to him you know Mr Stefan

1:16:15

if you want to continue doing what you're doing perhaps you just want to move South of the Border right like just go do it down in the states as if you

1:16:22

know this tremendous Discovery this lifechanging Discovery isn't welcome in

1:16:27

Canada that Canadians aren't deservant of having access to it no no no you you

1:16:32

just stay on these drugs for the rest of your life and enjoy the lack of quality of life and hopefully you won't be cognizant enough while you're on these

1:16:38

medications to even know you don't have a quality of life like that's really what's what's being pushed on them and so now this discoveries being made

1:16:45

that's can be way less expensive than pharmaceutical medications and not only is it going to actually correct the

1:16:51

issue but it's going to help people become contributing members of Society rather than just a Band-Aid live in your

1:16:57

basement you know of your parents type of thing whatever like so here Health Canada is actually

1:17:03

denying this phenomenal discovery that would significantly improve the health of

1:17:10

Canadians and so when my father realizes they have this agenda he says

1:17:15

okay I don't need the permission of some bureaucrat not I tell me whether or not I can help other families in the way my

1:17:22

family's been helped and so he he took a moral High ground and said no I'm I'm

1:17:28

not listening to you health Canada I'm going to continue to make sure that people have access to this because you know heav knows that how many how many

1:17:34

other families will end up going through what my family's gone through if they don't have access to a proper

1:17:41

solution and so um it wouldn't be too terribly long before Health Canada would

1:17:48

start to supply him with cease and desist orders saying stop what you're doing and he would just continue to

1:17:53

ignore those in favor of making sure people had access to these supplements and so finally um well

1:18:02

there's there's there's some developments that take place that that really would have aggravated Health Canada because you know shutting down

1:18:08

the studies trying to suppress evidence you know that that's one way to try to Dem Market to you know maybe they won't

1:18:13

be able to to to get a footing in in the marketplace maybe people won't hear of them but then something

1:18:20

happens and in September of 2002 the Discovery Health

1:18:25

Channel launches a fulllength documentary on the discovery of Empower

1:18:34

plus and our family story it ends up going big it's a full length documentary called impossible

1:18:41

cures do we have a clip of that by the way we do yeah we can definitely leave a link for the full full thing as well so

1:18:48

we can we can share a little bit of it here yeah yeah maybe a minute of it or something like

1:18:53

that

1:19:01

You Are Watching Discovery Health [Music]

1:19:07

Channel you know I was quite certain that I could kill almost anyone I could do these things without

1:19:13

even thinking twice about it a family's Legacy bipolar disorder a debilitating

1:19:19

mental illness by January of 19 1996 Tony

1:19:26

stefen was at his wit's end his wife had committed suicide after a decade long battle with bipolar disorder then his

1:19:33

daughter and son were diagnosed with the same disease 15-year-old Joe was tormented too by Suicidal Thoughts I was

1:19:42

always quite certain that I would never make it through you know to next summer or to the beginning of school again you

1:19:49

know stuff like that I was always expected so this comes out

1:19:55

and it goes big as you can imagine like really big in fact they push it into 50

1:20:00

different countries translate it into multiple languages and our business like

1:20:05

we we we can't keep up like it it is it's a beautiful thing because the

1:20:11

amount of people that are desperate that didn't know of any other solutions that were doing the same thing my father did

1:20:17

exhausting everything the medical system had available and to no avail now all of a sudden there's a an alternative

1:20:25

hope if you will or a true hope right like a not not to be cliche here or anything but like it's

1:20:31

just and so our phones are ringing off the hook well remember this is September

1:20:39

2002 Health Canada comes in early 2003 after the cease and desist orders

1:20:46

had been ignored and they shut the product down at the border we were having it

1:20:52

manufactured in the US uh utilizing some of these uh these different um

1:20:58

technological advances if you will in relation to nutritional therapy making sure that those minerals were uh in

1:21:05

organic form so that your body could actually utilize them and so we were having it manufactured down there and at

1:21:11

this point in time there's 3,000 Canadians relying on the empow plus absolutely relying on it right come off

1:21:16

their medications without the medications are not well with the medications are not well but like they're just not well and they get on

1:21:22

the supplements and all of a sudden they're like you know a lot of them going back to school again getting their post-secondary education that they always want to get or pursuing their

1:21:28

dreams starting up businesses you know or just playing the role uh to a much greater degree that than they otherwise

1:21:34

could have you know as a father or a mother right like just just stepping up and becoming a much better version of

1:21:40

themselves and so this is this is incredibly beautiful and now Health Canada stops it at the border so you got

1:21:48

3,000 Canadians screaming out saying wait a minute where is this and where's our products the that they had ordered

1:21:55

and so Health Canada I mean this is early this is like I think it's about March February March of 2003 that they

1:22:03

do this and so all of a sudden our call center is getting bombarded with calls

1:22:08

from Desperate people basically pleading for their lives Health Canada knows it's

1:22:13

going to create a crisis and in their own documentation before they even stopped it at the border even Before

1:22:19

They seized the products the shipments coming in they identified that there would be a crisis that would emerge

1:22:25

they'd be putting people potentially In Harm's Way it's in their own Internal Documentation that we got our hands on

1:22:31

down the road so what do they do they set up a 1 1800 crisis line so you phone

1:22:36

the crisis line and they're it's it's a script there's they're stating you no longer have access to this dangerous

1:22:46

supplement and you know basically go back to your doctor right and get get on um U medications um did we have a of of

1:22:55

uh I think we have a news clip that actually kind of covers that I think the bedum one is that correct no I just got

1:23:02

the red umbrellas coming up next okay well right so we it's oh okay so I'm

1:23:08

getting ahead of myself I'm jumping into the next episode let's not do that I don't want to spoil it so things start

1:23:15

to come to a climax Health Canada knows that they're putting people In Harm's Way smuggling Rings start up from

1:23:22

otherwise law-abiding citizens protests begin we go and we we set up a

1:23:28

protest in Edmonton 5 hours north of us in front of the federal minister of

1:23:34

Health's office and to to get some attention I think I'm

1:23:40

getting ahead of myself before this takes place we try to be very diplomatic and Autumn my older

1:23:48

sister decides that she's going to you know take a number of other women that

1:23:53

that she never knew before this but that are all part of this crisis together all mothers seeking you know to have these

1:23:59

supplements available either for themselves or for their sons Sons or daughters and um that they're going to

1:24:05

go to Ottawa and that they're going to get the ear of the government and say look it's a multivitamin mineral something and we need it we need it and

1:24:12

so autumn um uh arranges for this and something interesting happens where they

1:24:19

go out there they're standing on Parliament Hill waiting to get the ear of a politician and it starts to get

1:24:25

rainy and so uh something serendipitous would take place they would go to a store to pick

1:24:32

up umbrellas and all that was available was red umbrellas so all of them ended up with red umbrellas and they became

1:24:38

known as the ladies with the red umbrellas even discussed in Parliament and it would become a symbol for health

1:24:44

freedom for years to come that we would then see later on during the whole um

1:24:50

Australia New Zealand debacle that they were applying Within um their health regulations we would see

1:24:57

this symbol emerging um down the road as a symbol of Health freedom but anyway so

1:25:05

um you've got a clip on that I'm not sure when you want to show that yeah I'll share that right now because it's just a short

1:25:11

one in 2002 the supplement was involved in a highly publicized battle with

1:25:16

health Canada the government accused true hope of making false claims about the product's effectiveness the matter

1:25:22

went to the Supreme Court a battle which true hope won there you go all

1:25:29

right so we got a little ahead of ourselves there in relation to court proceedings but uh and we'll talk about

1:25:34

that later so now we go to the so this is happening the liberal government at

1:25:40

this point in time and I'm not I'm not saying Pro liberal pro pro conservative we've experienced all sorts of egregious

1:25:45

things under both um so this is not a plug one way or the other all I'm saying is the liberal government was in charge

1:25:51

at that point in time and it was bad we set up in front of the federal minister of Health's

1:25:57

office the liberal um MP and McCullen we set up a protest

1:26:04

there and literally the next week a gun drawn raid takes place on our

1:26:12

head office backed by nine Health can agents so basically you know everybody here has

1:26:18

watched movies TV shows whatever I'm sure that that demonstrate what that looks like that's what that's what you

1:26:24

see all of a sudden you've got coming through the front doors of our support center where now imagine this behind the

1:26:30

closed doors it's just a big glass front kind of on the building right lots of Windows behind those windows you've got

1:26:38

all of these women um couple men but mainly women that are running the support program

1:26:43

that are taking phone calls from over a hundred different countries we we have we we had to hire you know somebody who

1:26:49

spoke Portuguese uh Spanish that type of thing like we've got multiple people able to um communicate with with people

1:26:57

from different countries that don't speak English and all of a sudden you know nice summer morning you know first

1:27:04

week of June second week of June all of a sudden the doors come bust and open and you've got all these RCMP

1:27:11

agents just coming through guns drawn get away from your desk get away

1:27:16

from your desk get right like it's just is it's a drug bust right it's a drug bust and you these are middle-age

1:27:23

middle-aged women actually some of them are like you know 55 60 years old and you've got these RCMP coming in like a

1:27:30

bunch of thugs unknowingly thinking that they're involving themselves because they've been told one story thinking

1:27:36

that they're involving themselves in a drug bust to then it's not a drug bust

1:27:42

and so things really really began to

1:27:47

heat up at that point in time as that happened yeah absolutely yeah I believe

1:27:54

that's where we're going next with with the next episode isn't it yeah when we come into part two we're going to we're going to dive a lot more into into that

1:28:02

into that experience of the the Gundrum raid on on true hope headquarters

1:28:07

and I think that it's just really incredible that just from October 2000 when when the University of Calgary and

1:28:14

Dr Bonnie kapan was studying Empower plus and it was shown to be three times more and anti-depressants and that news

1:28:19

clip went you know Nationwide and then Health Canada the next day came in and shut all of that down there's quite

1:28:26

clearly conversations in the background in regards to this this product is a

1:28:33

competitor to something that significantly funds Health Canada's organization which is anti-depressants

1:28:39

father pharmaceutical drugs that that that that Health Canada has has to approve and I think it's more than

1:28:45

two-thirds of the funding that Health Canada receives comes from pharmaceutical Industries so having a

1:28:50

product come up like this that's getting that's getting the research and it's getting press it's it was obviously a massive uh

1:28:58

a massive competitor a massive risk to to that whole situation and the fact that they would knowingly put thousands

1:29:05

of people's lives at risk by blocking at the border just goes to show the the

1:29:14

remarkable depth that they would go to to stop this product being manufactured

1:29:20

and actually getting into the hands of Canadians who in my opinion absolutely have the right to take whatever they

1:29:26

want for for their health so yeah it's it's it's a very interesting segue into

1:29:32

part two which which will be coming out next week where we will dive a little bit further into that and then and take

1:29:37

us through the story a little bit more but do you have any words to to to

1:29:42

finish up up with David before I close this out I think you closed it quite well it was interesting to see through

1:29:47

all of this I mean even though we' already been through our own battles with Revenue Canada you know distrust of

1:29:53

the government was was you know higher than than than what most would have towards the government at this point in

1:29:59

time there's still a naivity around Health Canada and the role they're playing and you think that they're there to protect the health of Canadians and

1:30:05

throughout this just even the first you know three years of of working with them you it became quite clear that they

1:30:11

weren't there to protect the health of Canadians they were there to protect the the bottomline financial interests of the pharmaceutical industry no doubt

1:30:18

about it especially with the clear-cut solid evidence that came out and has continued to come out

1:30:24

and and that I want to I don't want to be you know spoiler because you know by the time that we get to episode 8 I mean

1:30:30

I think we're going to be talking about some serious things in relation to what health Canada is doing today that's relevant to everybody um and and their

1:30:38

health freedoms but it's it's become abundantly clear and it was clear back then that there was definitely

1:30:45

conversations in relation to financial interests of the of big uh corporate if

1:30:51

you will big far big Pharma and health can was really doing the bidding of of big farma throughout all of this at the

1:30:57

cost of of human lives Canadians lives really and we and I guess we'll touch on

1:31:03

that more next episode absolutely well said well thank you very much David for joining me today

1:31:09

to take us through part one of of of the the true Hope Family files and I'm sure that this first episode of eight is

1:31:16

really gon to take people on on a big Journey awesome thank you Simon

1:31:21

appreciate it bless thank you well that is it for part one of the special true

1:31:26

Hope cast series we'll be back with you next week for part two of the true Hope Family files where we're going to dive a

1:31:32

little bit more into that gun drawn raid by Health Canada and a whole lot more is going to be happening believe me it

1:31:39

really does get quite spicy but uh be sure to share this episode with family and friends give us a review on Spotify

1:31:45

and iTunes if you want but thank you so much for watching we'll be with you will'll be with you very very soon and that's it for this episode of True hope

1:31:51

podcast the official podcast of true hope Canada see you

1:31:58

[Music]

1:32:05

soon