
Guest Episode
January 26, 2026
Episode 196:
Truehope 30th Anniversary Special — Part 2
Listen or watch on your favorite platforms
As thousands of lives began to change, the resistance began.
In Part Two of the Truehope 30th Anniversary Special, founder Anthony Stephan and his son David Stephan, Vice President of Truehope Canada, take listeners into the most turbulent chapter of Truehope’s history.
This episode explores the rise of EMPower Plus, a groundbreaking multi-nutrient formula that helped thousands of people experiencing serious mental health challenges and the intense opposition that followed. As awareness grew, so did scrutiny, culminating in prolonged legal battles with Health Canada and repeated attempts to remove the product from public access, despite mounting evidence and firsthand outcomes.
Anthony and David recount years spent defending the right to nutritional choice, navigating courtrooms instead of laboratories, and enduring the personal and professional toll of standing against powerful regulatory systems.
This is a story about resilience under pressure.
About what happens when lived experience collides with institutional authority.
And why the fight to protect access mattered far beyond one company.
Part Two focuses on the conflict.
The pushback.
The legal battles.
And the cost of challenging the system.
🎙️ Recorded January 4, 2026
🎧 Part 2 of the Truehope 30th Anniversary Special Series
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This is off record unless you want to put it on the record.
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Okay. Is this something that you want for public consumption? I don't know. Maybe it should be for
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public consumption. So, when we left the courtroom after the judge heard the one-hour
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presentation from being led by Kent Brown of the crown and the one-hour
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presentation of defense led by Shawn Buckley, the constitutional lawyer. And
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we left the courtroom. I remember how upset Shawn and David Hardy were. We've
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lost this. You heard him. You saw what he You heard and saw him and you heard
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what he said that most likely he was going to rule in favor of the crown on
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this voyer. He's already I'm not going to say prejudiced himself, but he
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already has that thinking.
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Welcome back to True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada. This is part two of our three-part 30th
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anniversary special, a series reflecting on three decades of discovery, resistance, and unwavering conviction.
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In the previous episode, we explored the personal crisis and nutritional breakthrough that gave birth to true
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hope. In today's conversation, founder Anthony Stefen and his son David Stefen, who is vice president of Troop Canada,
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take us into the next chapter, the one that changed everything. As word spread
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about a revolutionary multi-nutrient formula known as Empower Plus, thousands of individuals began reporting profound
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improvements in serious mental health conditions. But with growing awareness came growing opposition. This episode
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dives into the most turbulent years in True Hope's history. the legal battles, regulatory pressure, and relentless
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efforts by Health Canada to shut the company down despite mounting evidence and firsthand accounts of lives being
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transformed. This is a story about standing firm when institutions push back, about defending choice and about
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the cost of challenging, deeply entrenched systems. It's also a story of resilience, of a family and a company
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that refused to abandon the people who are finding hope through nutritional support. In part two, Anthony and David
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recount the fight to protect access to Empower Plus, the emotional toll of
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years spent in courtrooms instead of labs, and why they believe these battles mattered far beyond their own
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organization. This is the chapter where True Hope was tested and where its mission was forged in fire. Welcome to
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the True Hope 30th anniversary special, part two. All right, welcome to part two
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of the history of True Hope, a rich 30 years of history with all sort sorts of
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twists, turns, battles. Um, and so we're on to part two. We we discussed last
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time for 90 minutes about really the discovery, the groundbreaking discovery
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that was made based on the tragedy within our own home, uh, the loss of of your wife of 23 yearsish.
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and um and my mother at that time I was only 10 years old so my mother of 10 years and we talked about what led up to
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that and it's a story that unfortunately way too many people can relate to. So, if you have not yet seen part one, go
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back and watch part one. But you're in for a treat with part two because this
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is where it really shows the conviction of your dad in relation to
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um whether or not you had your motive set right. if this was about business or
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if this was about blessing people in the way that we ourselves have been blessed
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through this this phenomenal discovery. Yeah. So, uh there's now a bottle of of the
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empower plus because we really ended off the last portion of the podcast where
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you you were talking about the necessity to now produce our own product even though that was not the intention
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before. The quad program was working well. the synergy quad program that you acquainted us all with uh with the four
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different products, a clonal mineral supplement, a calcium magnesium phosphorus supplement, a multivitamin, and grape seed extract and how that was
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producing significant results in people's lives. Complicated, expensive,
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uh but worthy of being studied. But halfway throughout the study, everyone
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started to revert. Their symptoms began to return, but it wasn't just happening in the study. it was happening at home
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and now you and David Hardy were on a journey to create your own all-in-one supplement that would ensure that people
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were getting the results that they were looking for. So, we're about 1998 at this point in time in in the history.
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What did that end up looking like to produce your own supplement? I know there was a sense of trepidation
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surrounding it, uneasiness, if you will. Oh, there really was. But we we absolutely recognize the need to have a
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guaranteed label claim so that if a person bought the bottle
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and it said it has this much B1 in it, that's how much would be there,
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right? And of course, we went in with um the US Pharmacopia USB standards
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to have that manufactured and produced productally or produced properly. There
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was a lot of hiccups at the front end with everything. Finding a manufacturer
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that was reputable that would do this for us and do it the way that we wanted
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it done. Not that we believe that we had the full knowledge, but not to allow
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people to interfere in adversely affecting the outcome of
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the product. And that was a big thing. There was a lot of resistance. Why do you have this agent in there? Why don't
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you put this one in? There was a lot of suggestions that we had to work through. And sometimes manufacturers get pretty
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I'll say ramy pretty pushy on their own person. Well, we've got a nutritionist
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here and he's studied this for 15 years and he's an expert and we're going to go
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with him. I'm sorry. It has to abide in what's there. And what we discovered,
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David, if we modified because one of the manufacturers did modify the product and
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it quit working, right? And we had problems and we went back there. No, this must be built to this
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standard. Now, now when you're saying standard, are you talking about at this point in time, this is 1998,
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unique processes, manufacturing processes, very specific processes that were foreign to
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many manufacturers at that time because they were accustomed to producing vitamin mineral supplements in this
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particular way versus the way that you were advising them. a a certain amount.
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Yes. Because we had to develop a delivery system and we realized that
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delivery is where it's at. That's what's going to
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take it into the cellular mass of the body. So when you say delivery, you're referring to bioavailability, the body's
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ability to assimilate it, pull it into the bloodstream, and actually utilize it at the cellular level,
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crossing the bloodb brain barrier, making sure that the nutrients are getting to where they need to go. Exactly. M and when we began I believe
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it was 48 capsules that people would take per day. Now that sounds ludicrous.
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That does. So somebody comes to you with bipolar and you're saying here we've got a product for you now called Empower Plus.
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It's not even called True Hope Empower Plus on the label. It's just Empower Plus with this happy person, you know, kind of doing a dance on there, right?
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Oh, yeah. And it's a large bottle. I mean, this is a tiny bottle. It's a large bottle that that is really and it has 448 capsules
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in it. Yes. and you're saying, "Hey, we've got a solution for you. Take 48 capsules per
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day." And how do you want to eat that? Breakfast or lunch with gravy or not? Because it was a full meal deal. It
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really was. It was hard for people to choke down 48
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uh double. That's the size of the large capsules. The large capsules. And to consume 48
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was quite an undertaking. And were people doing it? Yes. And they were having a profound
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effect. Why? Okay. I was going to say why were they doing it? But you just answered that. Because they're having a profound effect. Exactly.
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Okay. So you at this point in time you have no marketing budget. You don't there is no discussion surrounding
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marketing. Exactly. And is it growing? Yes. The word of mouth. The phone kept
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on ringing. We weren't advertising. We didn't have to advertise. People would
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call their sister Margaret. Margaret, I'm on this product and my depression is
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gone. You should try this. And Margaret's got bad PMS and she's got
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some anxiety and some depressive issues. Well, she she saw the same effect. And
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so it was growing on its own by virtue of the fact that it was actually radically transforming lives.
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Absolutely. But people complained, can't we do anything with the 48 capsules?
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That's huge. Okay. So, so just to kind of fasttrack this now. So, now we get to the year 2000. You've had the product for two
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years. You change the chelating agent, which for those that that are listening, that's just when you take a mineral and
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you bind it to an organic molecule of sorts. And there's all sorts of variations of chelates and not all
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chelates are the same. Some work really well, some don't work almost at all. And so, you change the chelating agent,
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which was already working well. I mean, people are getting their lives back. And by doing so, same bottle, same
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ingredients, but now people are taking 32 capsules per day by the year 2000. Yeah. The delivery system was better.
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Exactly. We learned piece by piece, line upon line, how to
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do this. That was a process of learning. And we had to be very careful that we
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didn't get caught up. Well, this is working. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. That
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kind of attitude, right? We had to look beyond that and we would set up focus
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groups and try this and yes, look at that. Look at that. They're taking less
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and getting more. Right. So by the year 2001, you're it's highlighting that even though a
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significant improvement had just been made, you went from 48 capsules per day down to 32 capsules per day for the
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therapeutic dose. Yes. But then in one year later you began to start the process of
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micronizing the minerals and just by virtue of doing that same formula, same
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ingredients, same balance, label reads the same. And yet now people are taking 18 capsules per day and getting the same
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results that they were on the 32 capsules per day or if you know 3 years previous 48 capsules per day.
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Exactly. and they weren't having the same side effects that were presented
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from their medications because we had to set up a titration system. We found like
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if you'll recall from part one going back there for a minute, Autumn was
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extremely overmedicated on day three, right? Do you recall that? Yep. Well, we learned piece by piece,
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line upon line, that the medications
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were actually potentiated by the nutrients. Why? Because the body
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improved. The chemistry within the body improved and as they took medications,
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they had a more profound effect. And so, we saw the side effects coming out
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because now they're overmedicated. So let's put this in perspective really simply. So if somebody is producing
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adequate amounts of serotonin on their own, right? They have all of the co-enzyme factors that facilitate the
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conversion of the amino acid tryptophan into five HTTP or five hydroxy tryptophan and then into serotonin.
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They have all the ingredients necessary, which is just nutrition by the way. And now they're already producing
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serotonin. If you were to give an individual like that a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor which
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prevents the re-uptake of serotonin so it allows for more serotonin to be free. What's going to happen to that person
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who is already producing serotonin at an appropriate rate?
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Well, they're going to have the medical effect that stated that could happen the side
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effect perform that's in the monograph for the drug. They all state it. I mean,
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you can end up in a position of psychosis, serotonin syndrome, which is very, very,
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very difficult. You can and actually dangerous for the the brain. Absolutely dangerous. And there are
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many, many listed side effects on the monographs for the anti-depressant
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SSRI class. And people could actually get into that giving a psychotropic
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psychiatric medication to someone who has balanced levels of
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neurotransmitters, neuropeptides isn't going to make them into a superhum,
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right? It's going to maladjust them. They're going to be out of harmony, out of
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balance, out of homeostasis, and they're now in a state of dysfunction. Totally. Okay. So, so basically what you're
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finding then right off the bat is that and we haven't talked about the the ingredients, but you got 36 ingredients.
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36 vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants found in the Empower Plus.
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Yes. And the product is still the same today. And and they all clock together. It works like a like a a clock mechanism.
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every little cog, the co-actors from the vitamins and the different minerals that
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are together in a bioavailable set. That's essential. Yeah. So synergy, they're working
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synergistically, which is probably why I'm assuming that's one of the reasons why that's why we called it because it was a
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synergy. Okay. And it worked together. If we modified that, it quit working,
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right? And we've seen that time and time again with other individuals trying to produce me too products. They either
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don't understand the bioavailability aspect. So they get the ingredients right and but it's not working because
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they didn't understand the process behind the scenes to allow for the delivery of those nutrients. Yes. Or you have people that take it and then
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they modify it and it just doesn't seem to work. Or it can actually create disastrous
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effects by throwing the balances out or taking additional minerals outside of the scope of the 36 nutrients.
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Right. Balance. Exactly. And we learned that through trial and error and yeah
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over a course of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of individuals
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right in our database there's over a half a million people who are no longer taking
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medications. So, let's let's get let's get to the whole database thing here because you were just talking about the
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effect that medications were having where we're starting to see the normalization of of of production of
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neurotransmitters also hormones as well because hormones and neurotransmitters are in essence the same same thing.
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They're messenger molecules in the body and it requires nutrition to produce them to incite the enzyme reactions to
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facilitate either the conversion of in steroidal hormones. Cholesterol into those hormones
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or non-steroidal hormones the the uh precursor the beginning point is an amino acid as well as neurotransmitters.
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Well, when we looked at the University of Coyoto's genome work, it was fantastic.
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The keg, which keg program, ironically, started in 1996, the same year that you made this discovery. So,
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the science hadn't caught up yet with what you had discovered through an answer to your prayers.
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Well, what did they show? They showed that the amino acids, minerals and
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vitamins were pre precursors to the different junctions and the ultimate
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creation within its factory within this wonderful mechanism that God has given
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us. It has the ability to create its own neurochemistry. We
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don't eat serotonin, we make it. Right. and and citing their their
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information when they did all the brain mapping and the metabolic uh charting
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showing the metabolic factors that create things like melatonin, larotone,
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mal well I got melatonin already, dopamine, serotonin,
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there are individual precursors that produce it. For instance, if you're going to generate and you want to
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sufficient serotonin that drives your bowel,
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absolutely does. There's more serotonin in the bowel than there is in your
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brain. If you're going to produce that pyrooxal phosphate, vitamin B, and iron are
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essential. If if you're missing those or if you can't uptake those or if they're not found in your diet, if you're on a
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junk food diet that's devoid of any any mineral density and it's all calories
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and fats, you're not going to produce the proper neurochemistry, hormone set, enzymes,
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all that structure that has been designed and functioning under DNA,
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right? which is exactly what what we'd anticipate to see today, a rise in mental illness and other illnesses uh
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related to nutrient deficiencies. Because today our food, even if you're looking
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at fresh foods, when they do the analysis, you're looking at about 1/5if of the amount of mineral content in the
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foods today as what there was with your parents or my my great-grandparents,
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right? Type of thing or my grandparents. And so we see go back to 1992, the WHO summit, the
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World Summit. Yep. Okay. What did they find? That's a section of the United Nations. And they
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did good work. They showed that North American top soils were more degenerate,
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if you want to put it that way, or deficient in mineral than what China was.
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Yeah. Why China? China's been there for what 5,000 years. We don't know. And we've
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only been here a couple or 30 hundred years upon this continent with with our agricultural practices. Yeah.
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Well, China took all of their honey buckets, all of their human waste,
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put it out on the land. Mhm. And within that human waste, we're excreting a large amount of mineral from
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our body that's essential. Mhm. It's essential to the production of all
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of these wonderful chemicals that make us emote and have cognitive function.
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Yeah. I know we're digressing from the history here, but this this is I think very valuable for the audience. There's also
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in relation to what we're talking about here, uh, Anie Meyer uh, published, I believe it was 1998, British Food
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Journal, uh, published an analysis that her and her team had done, not on soil sample studies, which she was accustomed
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to doing, but they took 20 common fruits and vegetables and analyzed the levels of minerals found in them versus what
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they were in 1948ish, so 50ear span. And what they found is that many of the
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minerals were uh, devoid by over 80%. And what her and her team concluded and
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there's the science supports it is that it was due to the inception or the beginning of the use of synthetic
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herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and synthetic fertilizers as well and what it was doing to the the microbiome in
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the soil preventing what little little mineral was in there because the she determined
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with her studies that there was basically a 50% reduction in the the mineral content in the soils. Yes. But
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what she found is that it was even worse when it translated into the food because of the sprays they were using. It was
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preventing the uptake of what little mineral was in the soil into that food. So now we see the the the foundation as
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to why we're walking around in dysfunction because we don't have the vitamins and minerals and amino acids
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and all that necessary to facilitate the production of things like hormones and neurotransmitters which are there to
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tell your body what it should be doing which means communication breaks down. We know what happens in a business if
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communication breaks down. We know what happens in a family. If communication breaks down, it becomes dysfunctional. Same thing internally in the body.
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Communication breaks down, you end up in dysfunction, which is often times translates to a diagnosible disease.
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Yeah. And so what really the universities, we'll get into the university studies in a little bit here,
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but unairringly they found that as they
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did the research and applied nutrients to people, their mental aberrations
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disappeared. I once again I hate the term mental illness, but mental illness
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is equal to nutritional deficiency. And that's the bottom line here.
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Yeah. This body was designed to function in light of participating by eating and
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uptaking nutrients. They're essential to our everyday life.
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And just to further let's qualify that real quick because so 1996 your prayers have been answered. Joe gets better.
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Autumn gets better. Phone calls start to come in. uh you never had a a mindset to
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make this into a business, but it just naturally took off with people demanding it, saying, "How do we get better?" Like
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Joe got better, like Autumn got better. Well, we started getting phone calls from people in Pennsylvania.
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Well, my cousin that lives up in southern Alberta said, "I got to take this. How do I get it?"
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Well, that presented a major dilemma. Yeah. We've got to create a corporation
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and we have to be able to produce product that's guaranteed in its analysis so it doesn't fail the people
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fail the mission. And so we had all of this well this huge conundrum. How do we do this and coming
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forth out of that sprang True Hope and so 1996 is the beginnings of it.
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Yeah. Now you mentioned the Kyoto um uh
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University of Kyoto. Yeah. Yeah. So so what happens in 1996 is that you end up with this project called the
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Keg project which is what you're referring to and that's the Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes and they map it out and so I think it's
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valuable for the audience to understand uh exactly what's taking place to why
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vitamins and minerals would have this effect. So what they find let's just go down two pathways real quick please. We all understand serotonin and
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dopamine, right? Or at least to a certain degree, we we understand what they are and that obviously they have
23:43
some effect in our mood, how we feel, and whether or not we are motivated, right? Without dopamine, motivation goes
23:50
down the tube. And so, let's let's just take a look at those pathways really quickly here because there's seven
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specific nutrients in each one of those pathways that will lead to the production of serotonin and the
24:02
production of dopamine. And they actually mirror each other. So, if somebody's taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, they're only
24:07
affecting one pathway, but yet the same factors are present in the other pathway that they're not addressing, which means
24:13
you're not going to be producing dopamine if you weren't producing serotonin. So, serotonin starts off with
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tryptophan. You end up with five nutrients inciting the tryptophan hydroxilase enzyme. This can be found in
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the keg uh research, by the way. So those five nutrients necessary and they're called co-enzyme factors to
24:32
facilitate the enzyme working is iron, methyl folate, which in and of itself requires a host of nutrients as well to
24:39
produce methylolate because you don't consume it. You produce it unless you're eating meat from an animal that already
24:45
produced it itself using the nutri nutrients necessary to do so. You're making it, right? So you're supposed to make it and
24:51
at an appropriate rate. So overmethylation is a real issue and that's why we don't have methylation in the product. we facilitate methylation,
24:58
right? And that's a that's a whole other discussion and we've done videos on that in the past and and so you can find those as well that there's a reason why
25:04
we're not putting methylation into the product and very good reason. As you say, it's better to make it.
25:10
You're better off to make it than to take it. That's a a little truism that we have wi within True Hope.
25:18
Your body knows what to do if you give it the proper building blocks of life,
25:25
which are amino acids and vitamins and minerals,
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omega-3 or omega omega fatty acids, essential fatty acids. Exactly. So, those four, if we have those four subgroups and and
25:39
and they're in the proper proportion, oh, no, I shouldn't say that because the body will sort that out more or less.
25:46
You don't have to hit it exactly on the button, but in the proper levels,
25:52
then you're going to be able to function and produce what your body needs.
25:57
Exactly. All these things, asthma, has been proven to be a calcium magnesium
26:03
deficiency. What? How can you say that? Well, just go into respiratory arrest.
26:09
Go into the hospital having a full-blown respiratory attack caused by asthma.
26:15
What are they going to inject you with? Calcium and magnesium. They're actually
26:20
going to mainline that. And within two minutes, your bronchi have relaxed and
26:26
are opened and you're now breathing again. These things are essential to
26:32
every aspect of life. And we've actually seen asthma corrected
26:37
with Empire Plus. Not saying that that's the first go-to, but we've seen it as a as a comorbidity. We've got within
26:44
our database thousands of cases of asthma that have been corrected. Uh IBS,
26:52
irritable bowel syndrome. What's the underlying or the mainline problem there? It's a lack of serotonin
26:58
production. So we load the proper nutrients. The body sorts it out. It's
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not a drug. It's not like taking an aspirin. Mhm. And the body sorts it out and produces
27:11
serotonin. dopamine, all of these wonderful agents, and the body is able
27:17
to function. It needs to have that recipe within it. Perfect. So, let's So, we we were at two
27:24
nutrients or co-enzyme factors. We are at three nutrients because we started off with tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid for the production
27:29
of serotonin. Then you have iron, methyl, folate, and then vitamin C, D, and B3. So, now you have six nutrients
27:36
taking or getting to the point of producing 5http. And then you brought up the pyrooxine 5 phosphate which is
27:43
activated B6. Yeah. Right. Which now that's another thing as well. What activated it? Well, that's
27:49
another enzyme reaction that required nut nutrients. But you have activated B6 present. Now
27:55
you've got your seventh nutrient and now you have serotonin. That's the simple recipe. That's what the keg project
28:00
Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes identified. Now when you take a look at dopamine, it's the same thing other than
28:06
the fact that it starts off with tyroine instead of tryptophan, but requires the
28:12
same first five nutrients to enzyme to convert it to L-dopa and then it requires P5P or pyrooxine 5 phosphate to
28:18
convert it to dopamine. So, you know, this is valuable for the audience because now they get maybe a snippet of
28:25
the fact that it's just seven nutrients necessary to get from point A to point
28:32
B, which is the production of serotonin. But now serotonin also converts into melatonin, which requires a few more
28:37
nutrients as well, the hormone of sleep. Right. Exactly. I can't sleep.
28:42
Well, take a look at your levels of serotonin. It'll tell you the story. Right. Yeah. Exactly.
28:48
Yeah. Exactly. So, well, what you've identified here and and I'm glad that you brought up all those um the keg uh protocol or the
28:58
genome study identified junction points in order to get to the production. Well,
29:04
let's say serotonin and there's nutrients involved in all those junction points. What happens if
29:11
you pull one nutrient out? Boom. Stop. It fails. What happens if you can't uptake iron very well? What
29:19
happens if if the food that you're consuming is very low in iron? Well,
29:25
you're not going to produce the serotonin that you need. Y and you're going to be growling at your dog. What happens if you live in a
29:31
northern country where your shadow is longer than your height is? Because as soon as we're there, there's inadequate
29:37
levels of UVB radiation exposure from the sun to convert the it's 7D hydro cholesterol
29:44
within your skin into coliferol which is vitamin D. Vitamin D3. Exactly. So if you don't
29:51
have the vitamin D3, you also won't produce dopamine, you won't produce serotonin, you won't produce a host of
29:56
of neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. And so as so if you're living in
30:01
northern country, that's why depression is so rampant in the winter months
30:07
within the northern countries. Now you you brought this up and this is amazing because it demonstrates the
30:13
miracle. You see, I didn't know anything about nutrition.
30:19
My friend David Hardy was an animal feed specialist. He didn't
30:24
know anything about nutrition. This thing came together pl perfect perfectly. Had one item been missing or
30:34
insufficient values, we wouldn't have the success that we have in helping
30:40
people to change their lives. Right? You see, it's it's it's absolutely miraculous when you boil the whole thing
30:46
down. The simplicity of the way that God designed this thing to work and the
30:53
harmony of all these nutrients are absolutely essential to the dialogue
31:00
of that dark statement mental illness. So now it's correcting mental illness
31:05
and people are coming to you on medications and they're not necessarily calling you true hope, they're calling you their last hope, right? Because
31:11
they've exhausted everything. I've heard that. I'm I've well about a month ago, two months ago, had a fellow
31:18
call me from Southern British Columbia, Canada, and he said, "I'm done. I'm
31:24
locked up in my basement. I'm going to take my life if this I've heard a little
31:29
bit about what you're doing." The lady at the store said, "Take this. It'll help me." Well, I've got hold of you.
31:35
Thank you for your time. But but is this a scam? No, it's not a scam. In fact, I'll send you four bottles and then this
31:44
is what you do and you take it. Well, I've been locked up for the last three months. My wife has left me. My kids are
31:51
gone. I have nobody and I have nothing and I'm unemployed. I'm a welder.
31:58
I said, "Wow, man, that that doesn't sound good, but let's work on this."
32:03
Two weeks later, he was out welding again, generating funds to put food on his table. and he's working with his
32:11
family members and he's doing wonderfully well. That's the history of
32:16
true hope. True hope. Why would you call it such a wacky name? Because my friends, there
32:24
only is one true hope in this life and his name is Jesus Christ. We were
32:32
blessed by God to find this unnowledgeable
32:37
uh power engineer and a feed a feed guy that put feed together and sold feed put
32:44
this thing together and it works and it's never really been altered over the
32:50
past 30 years. You have to ask yourself the question about divine intervention
32:57
in sorry it kind of chokes me up this this discussion we have to ask ourselves
33:05
about the divine intervention that we find in each and every one of our lives.
33:11
And I'm speaking with you. It's it's amazing when you think of the help and the assistance that we've all received
33:19
as God's creation. M you know it would sound
33:24
like a very bold claim or an unbelievable story really if it
33:30
wasn't for the fact that there's now 35 medical journal publications on this which I don't want to get into that yet.
33:36
Let let's let's keep this going sequentially here. I'm going to correct you. 37 now. Oh my apologies because well yes.
33:42
No no it's okay because it's growing all the time. These universities we don't
33:48
pay them. We haven't paid them 5 cents. We gave them product and we made up a placebo so they could do double blind
33:55
randomized studies. Yeah. And they're undertaking to do this. We have no influence on the research at
34:01
all. Yeah. But it's all showing a wondrous thing. It's validating the claim that that that
34:07
you're making, which makes it even more unbelievable that this would just come about through the unlikely means that it
34:14
wasn't through academia. It wasn't in a laboratory setting. It wasn't with scientists. It wasn't with
34:19
nutritionists. It wasn't with anybody that you would guess would be part of a discovery like
34:24
this. Yeah, for sure. It was with a broken father, a humble man seeking to save his family. And the
34:32
answer came through prayer. And I don't claim to be humble. I promise you, I was humbled. You were
34:39
humbled because of the terrifying experience that I went through as a father who
34:45
loved my wife and loved my children. Exactly. Yeah. And so it's it's a beautiful thing that
34:51
the science actually validates the unbelievable discovery. Yes. and and so and and sorry 35 medical
34:59
journal publications in specific to this variation of the product and so I apologize
35:05
it it's good and we're going to continue to see more and more research 16
35:11
universities are involved right now in four different countries and at that time when we had 34 studies
35:18
there was 16 different mental I call them aberrations that they studied
35:24
different diagnoses yeah whe whether it's anxiety, OCD, ADHD, depression, psychosis. Yeah.
35:31
Autism, they even found some major answers there. Yeah, that was that was a great study out of the University of Saskatchewan
35:37
with Lewis Meladrona. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, just beautiful things. So, let's get there real quick. Okay. So, that
35:43
so sorry you know the audience we we've got a we've fragmented a bit here. So
35:49
you have to develop a support system because people are getting their brains
35:54
back in for a lack of better terms. The neurochemistry is being produced. The medication has no role being there. So
36:02
if they continue on, they now are starting to see more side effects from it and they have to withdraw off of it
36:09
before they go into a major state of over medication. Correct. Exactly. Okay. So now you're you're realizing,
36:15
hey, wait a minute. We can't just sell them a product and say, "Good luck. Let us know how it goes."
36:21
You you're now beholden to supply them the information necessary to
36:28
provide them the guidance necessary to help them come off of these medications. And there's nobody doing that at that
36:35
point in time. The the doctors aren't doing it. They're learning how to put their clients or their patients onto medications, but nobody is is helping
36:43
people in droves to come off medications. And now you've got thousands of people knocking on your
36:49
door saying, "We're on medications. They're not working. You're our last hope. What can you offer us?" What
36:55
happens? Well, hence comes forth the database because and and we have a very secure database.
37:02
It was secured by a company that did one of the major banks in Canada here to protect the data to keep it safe,
37:10
confidential information. But we we have a number of counselors. Some of them
37:16
suffered with mental conditions before and they they feel indebted and they
37:21
wanted to work and help people to go through what they've been through and get out of it in that sense. So there
37:28
was a database created very protected database and we would
37:33
monitor their symptoms. We would watch for certain data to come forward and
37:39
it's pretty well all the same. You could lay thousands of charts on top of one
37:44
another and you see the lines. The patterns are there. The patterns are there. And so we
37:50
developed a strategy on how to safely assist them to work with their doctor or
37:58
not. We took a lot of people whose doctors wouldn't assist and develop that
38:04
strategy on how to safely get off the medications. We always say to people,
38:10
you don't just crash and throw your medications and stop them abruptly. We
38:16
work on a tit titration process depending upon which medication it is.
38:22
If it's an addictive one like the benzoazipines, things like uh Valium, Dazipam,
38:30
laurazzipam, clinazipam, we have a separate system to assist people in
38:35
working through that because they may have some withdrawal symptoms, but we minimize that because we go out so far
38:43
with them and we don't charge them for this. There's no cost for someone to come to
38:49
us. They buy the product from us. It's not that highly priced, of course. U we
38:55
have to keep the keep the thing going. I we have to hire these counselors. But the amazing thing about it is they get
39:02
the service that they need. Do they need to call in every day? Well, if you do, you do. If you feel like you need to
39:08
call in every week, that's fine. But we assist people in walking through this
39:13
thing. And like I say, it's it's I'm gonna say it's well over half a million
39:20
people who've assisted in removing their medications. And we're going to talk in
39:25
a minute about how we won the right to do that in the Canadian courts. We'll
39:31
bring that up in a minute. But what's really intriguing about this whole process is that it's very, very simple,
39:40
extremely simple. And we're all able to overcome this thing in our life and take
39:46
control over your own health. That's the key. You have to take ownership over
39:52
your health. It doesn't belong to the doctor. It doesn't belong to the counselors. It It's yours and we can
40:01
help you walk through this in a very specific protected way. So what you're really
40:08
discussing there is the fact that you're empowering people which I assume there's a bit of a word play here with the name
40:14
empower plus. Not only does it stand for essential mineral power plus but also
40:20
the name itself as a whole is empower plus because the goal is to empower people to
40:26
ultimately take control of their own health, their own well-being, their own matters in life that they are in control
40:33
that they get to choose what they want to do in life without being debilitated by the the effects of mental illness.
40:40
Correct. Absolutely correct. Well, there have been some enemies and and that's okay.
40:46
Well, let's get to that in a second here. Okay, let's actually get right there. So, the first study is shut down because the
40:54
synergy quad program, four different products that were being used. One of them is a variable, but the
41:00
results initially were really good. Oh, they were. So, now the Empower Plus is is created at this point in time. It's a big
41:06
bottle, 48 capsules per day. Y but you end up approaching Dr. Bonnie Kaplan
41:13
who had already had some workings with you even though initially she didn't want to. She was highly skeptical which
41:20
was a beautiful part of the story but the evidence highlighted that there was something to be looked at and she looked
41:26
at it and said okay let's do something here right and and the story is much more comprehensive than that.
41:31
It is it actually began with Dr. Brian Cole, he's a very wellestablished
41:37
neuroscientist at the University of Lethbridge um center for Canadian Center for
41:44
Behavioral Neuroscience. There you go. Now, they built that for him and part of the reason was is that he discovered
41:49
brain cell regeneration could happen ironically using 22 vitamins and minerals.
41:54
Empower Plus. Well, then then the follow-up study with Empower Plus, which showed a full recovery of of brain
41:59
matter, but also a beyond full recovery of cognition after they had basically
42:04
done a labbotomy. They removed a portion of the frontal loes of the brains or they punched holes in pride.
42:10
Exactly. And and David, my partner at that time, and I went to Brian Cobb. I
42:15
actually started with Brian Cobb years before when I lost my wife to a suicide, and I was so confused. How did this
42:23
happen? And a friend that I was working with at the hospital said you go see Dr.
42:29
Brian Cobb. I took some courses from him University of Lethbridge. So I did and
42:35
uh he had a defined set of thinking on bipolar. He had written the book
42:40
fundamentals of human neurosychology. It's used at the base level in universities all over the world. Him
42:47
it's like a bible and I think they've done like seven eight editions or something now. Yeah. Him and Dr. Ian Wishaw. And so I spent
42:55
some time and he gave me a copy of the book. He said, "You read this and then you come back and see me and I did." And
43:02
it wasn't that many years afterwards that I and David Hardy approached him to
43:09
talk to him and he thought we were crazy. You You can't resolve these
43:15
things. I wrote the book on it. And Brian's a good humble man. He listened to us and he thought, "Well, prove it."
43:24
And I said, "Well, what would happen if we gathered a number of um ADHD children
43:33
with their moms? We'll work with their moms because they're the caregiver. Dads are there, but moms are great, right?
43:39
And so we'll approach them and we'll get 16 lined up and we can give them the
43:48
nutrients. Well, now I'll give you this form. He had a baseline and uh it showed
43:54
symptoms every week and uh we gave them the forms. Uh we did not collect the
44:01
forms. He was very careful. He said you're not going to touch it. So chain of command he's protecting it. Yeah, he's protecting the data. He said,
44:09
"You do not receive those forms. They're sent directly to me. Here's my address. In fact, we'll print out all these
44:16
envelopes. They put them in. They send them to me. And I want to know their
44:21
names, the name of the child, how old, and their phone number, and I'm going to contact them." So, he phoned us up. He
44:28
said, "Tony, um, I've set up appointments for next
44:33
week with these 16 moms. I want to interview them, but I would like you to
44:38
be there, but you can't chime in. Bring David, but you stay out of the conversation. You can listen.
44:45
And he came out of there shocked. He said, "What? Look at the data.
44:51
Look at these moms who are saying their kids aren't aberant. They're they're now
44:57
very judicious in their thinking. They're able to apply themselves." He even phoned a number of the school
45:04
teachers to talk to the school teachers. He got the whole scoop. And then he said to us, "I'm sorry, I can't help you."
45:10
So now, now at this point in time, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan had already rejected you. Is that correct? She had rejected us as snake oil
45:17
salesman. I said, "We're not even selling anything, Dr. Kaplan." But but Brian called her because he said, "I
45:25
specialize in doing rat research. research on rats,
45:30
not humans. And I'm not qualified that. But Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, extremely well
45:36
published, University of Calgary, fantastic lady. I'm going to phone her.
45:41
And she uh decided that she would talk to us.
45:46
And we took our my daughter Autumn with us with her medical records and she went
45:51
through this. And she said, "I don't believe it. I don't believe it because
45:57
there's so many nutrients out there. Why are we not seeing people being healed,
46:02
you know, from this thing? Where's the genesis of this thing? How how could it be? And so she decided to uh we provided
46:11
her some product and we just said play you you give it to people and and she
46:16
got nothing but good reports. And then she took the risk and I say risk I mean
46:23
risk of actually getting involved in this thing not for monetary uh processes
46:31
at all. She was very scrupulous. You're never giving me anything other than some
46:36
free product. That's customary. As in she wouldn't even let you buy her a cup of coffee. No, I couldn't even buy her a cup of
46:42
coffee or a lunch. No, I'm paying my own. and she's a wonderful lady and she
46:47
has great ethical standards. Well, she started to do the work.
46:53
So, now we're into the year 2000 and she studies the product in October of 2000.
46:59
The results are so incredible that she publishes the preliminary results and
47:04
Lloyd Robinson, right? Or Robertson. Robinson. Robertson. Robertson. Lloyd Robertson, the head
47:11
anchor CTV national news. Yeah. and and it debuts in October of
47:16
2000. Yeah. Now, now at this point in time, you were
47:22
operating with a mindset that we need to get this into the hands of doctors. Oh, absolutely. This needs to be
47:28
flooded. This is a major breakthrough. How how can you how can you heal people
47:34
that are on the incurable list, right? So now
47:39
you're in essence, the vision is get this into the hands of doctors. Get it so it's prescribed. Get it so it's
47:45
readily available and access. It's accessible, available, financially affordable because socialized medicine
47:52
that is become part of the formulary across all of the different provinces that when somebody goes to their doctor
47:57
and they say, "I'm depressed." Well, before we get you onto a medication that has all sorts of side effects, why don't
48:03
we try this first? It's just nutrition that you need on a daily basis anyways, try it out. The results are fantastic.
48:08
First resort, right? Exactly. And then if that doesn't work, then we'll examine. Right. But for the vast majority of people, it's working.
48:14
So that's what you're moving forward with is that mindset. Exactly. Now, this goes onto national news. How
48:21
are you feeling at that point in time when you see it all of a sudden it's on national news and you're talking on
48:28
there and David Hardy is is on there talking about the pigs and the genesis
48:33
of it, the story and and you know, it's now getting out there mainstream. How are you feeling in that
48:40
moment on that evening of October 2000? I want to let you know that I was absolutely elated. Wow. What a godsend.
48:47
This is absolutely amazing. It's getting the world by the tail. Here we go.
48:53
Wondrous. So now you're you're you're thinking that hey, this is going to this vision of getting into the hands of
48:59
doctors, it going mainstream families all across Canada being blessed. And obviously if it's happening in Canada,
49:05
it's going to happen in the UK. It's going to happen in New Zealand and Australia. all the Commonwealth nations. It's going to happen in the US and it's
49:11
going to spread like wildfire where it becomes a part an in integrated part of Western medicine.
49:18
Exactly. What happens the next day after that news aired? Well, it was interesting. The morning
49:24
after I was in my little office in the house that we lived in and my phone
49:30
rang. Hello. Is this Anthony Stefen? Yes, it is.
49:38
This is so and so from Health Canada. Who gave you the authority to speak on
49:44
national news? What? I I didn't think I needed to have
49:51
authority. Well, you do. And you're going to take this down and you're going
49:56
to make this whole thing go away. Do you understand? Well, I can't. My children
50:03
need this for their life. We're not talking about this. You're going to make this thing go away. Do you understand?
50:11
Click. All right. So, now contravention of section 3132 of the Food Drugs Act.
50:17
Yes. Okay. They're telling you that that in order to help somebody with bipolar disorder, you need a drug identification
50:22
number for a multivitamin. Yes. And we got three cease and desist
50:28
orders from Health Canada. Now, they're telling you shut it down. You need a D number. Are they going to give you the DIN number?
50:34
No, not at Did you attempt to get the number? We worked. We worked fast and furiously
50:39
to do the best that we could to accommodate them and to align ourselves
50:45
with the legislation. No question. Okay. So now at this point in time, excitement is mounting around the
50:52
research, right? Yep. There's a double blind placebo control trial that's about to take place that
50:57
the Alberta government has funded $544,000 towards. Yes. What happens to that study? It got
51:04
snuffed by who? Health Canada. So they came in and told you that you're in contravention of section 3132 of the
51:11
Food and Drugs Act. You need a drug identification number. Yes. For a multivitamin because it's working
51:17
with people with bipolar disorder and that you can't have the research. That's right. In fact, it was it was
51:24
actually pointed more at Dr. Bonnie J. Kaplan at the University of Calgary
51:29
because they came in and shut the trial down and destroyed there was a lot of funding like you're talking about the
51:36
544,000 that came from the Alberta government, Alberta Science and research authority, a legitimate
51:44
department, a legitimate grant. You're talking about that and you're talking about the other funds that were
51:50
gathered not by ourselves because we didn't put money into it. That was not
51:55
acceptable. So that's a conflict of interest. Well, and did you have money to put into it if you if you wanted to?
52:00
We we were living hoofto- mouth at that point. At that point in time, yeah, because at that point in time, it's still pretty
52:06
small. Yeah. It's growing, but it's still small. And then once it gets to a point that
52:11
you would have been able to afford to fund it, what were you funding for the next couple years from 2000, 2001, 2,
52:18
three, four, and up to 2005? What were you funding at that point in
52:23
time where most people would have been generating a marketing budget? What were you spending the excess funds on?
52:30
Well, we had a wellness operation where people would come to us and we realized
52:35
very quickly that sadly when people struggle with these mental conditions
52:41
are yes, they become dysfunctional. it's not their fault, but they're also
52:46
financially dysfunctioned and that they need help because they can't afford to buy the product. So, we started taking
52:54
out of general revenue and we set up this fund to assist those people so they
52:59
could get the product to help themselves with or family members. you know, I I
53:05
didn't even take that part into consideration, the philanthropic arm of True Hope, and that that that was where
53:10
a lot of the excess funds would be diverted, which is fantastic. So, thank you for
53:16
for getting So, I'm actually going to build up to where somebody else will will or everyone else will pick up, but
53:22
let let's actually keep it going sequentially. So, uh just for the audience, you you'll find out where the
53:28
rest of the money had to go during that those particular crucial years. Uh, but
53:34
we'll get there in in a few minutes here as we we build up to it. Um, okay. So,
53:40
Health Canada and yourself and David Hardy now have a relationship. You're receiving cease and desist orders. At
53:47
one point in time, do they ever give you a plan of action or recommendations saying what you should be doing if you
53:52
want to continue doing this? Sure, they did. David and I wanted to work this thing through very quickly and we traveled out to their head Western
54:00
regional office in Burnham BBC and attempted to visit with them and they
54:06
basically said get out of dodge as in you're not going to market this in Canada. You go down to the US and you
54:14
can operate out of there but you're not operating here and you're not putting that we're going to disallow this
54:19
product. Absolutely. And that's an option that you were actually considering at one point in time. At
54:24
this point in time, I think I'm in my grade 11th or or beginning of grade 12th year, and we're talking about moving to
54:31
Alpine, Utah. Yeah, that's right. And and it looked like it was going to happen. Exactly.
54:37
But something happened. You You decided not to. Yes.
54:42
Why? Because we had to stay and make a stand here. It was essential for the people.
54:49
They had to have the right under the Constitution of Canada under the section
54:55
that provides for life, liberty, and security of the person. And so we
55:02
decided to make a stand on this thing. Amazing. Okay. So now cease and desist
55:09
orders are coming during this time. Let's let's inject this in here even though it's going to it'll it'll
55:15
sideline the flow just just briefly, but go ahead. Would anything particular happen in September of 2002 that was
55:23
groundbreaking for the Ford movement of of True Hope in relation to the discovery?
55:30
Oh, well, we had a momentous occasion with the publication of a documentary
55:36
and who who produced that documentary? Discover Health. Discovery Health Channel. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, any I don't know how
55:43
many people are familiar with Discovery Health Channel today, but anybody that's that's my age or older knows that that
55:49
was the channel to watch if you wanted to know about stuff that was science
55:54
related. It was the go-to. No question. All right. So, they produce a fulllength
56:00
documentary called Impossible Cures, and it's published in September of 2002. How
56:05
far and broad did that go? Oh, it went around the world. I I thought, correct me if I'm wrong, but I
56:11
believe it was published put out there in 67 different languages. That's what I
56:18
I believe. Okay. I I don't I don't recall it being that many languages. I remember it was over 50 countries that they pushed it
56:24
into, which is amazing. Yeah. And it was translated I can't remember how many languages. May maybe it was, but I thought it was a lesser number. At
56:31
one point in time, I would have been able to ring it off, but So, it went far and wide. Wide.
56:36
Oh, yeah. that had a profound impact upon the number of people that were
56:42
taking the product worldwide and so that's how we get to the point where well we ended up opening up into 104
56:48
different countries outside of Canada Canada and the US proper right and largely as a result of that
56:55
documentary absolutely yeah absolutely blessing right so now we
57:00
have this tugofwar taking place you've got health Canada saying go away you're getting cease and desist orders But yet
57:07
you've got news publications and it wasn't just CTV national news that in the following year other news corpse
57:14
hundreds like global and a channel and and then it just continued to build and there was you know magazine publications
57:20
there was hundreds and hundreds of of newspaper articles Shirley Johnson I'm just throwing that
57:27
out living in a small town would go into their their publishing office you know
57:33
like this little herald and say, "Look, I I want to give you a story. My life
57:40
has been altered." And there was So all these publications were popping up all over America and Canada.
57:48
Yeah. And so now this tugof-war is really getting heated because it's not just a one-sided battle where Health Canada is
57:53
saying, "Go away. We're going to shut down the studies." And we do. We did shut down the studies. We're going to try to basically, you know, cut you off
58:00
at every point. But now you have media publications coming out and highlighting
58:06
the credibility of this and people are becoming aware of it. So now we get to
58:11
2003. So September 2002, documentary comes out and it's just starting to build
58:17
momentum. Early 2003 rolls around. What happens? The big raid.
58:22
The big raid. The gunsdrawn raid with the RCMP. I believe there was eight officers there
58:30
on that and nine Health Canada agents coming in about 8:00 in the morning and
58:36
laying siege to our True Hope Support Center located in Raymond, Alberta.
58:42
And at that point in time, they had already cut off the product at the border. Yes, absolutely.
58:48
Putting 3,000 Canadians. There was an embargo. You couldn't uh you couldn't get it. And people were put
58:54
in a terrifying situation. People whose lives have been altered and changed for
59:00
the good all of a sudden now we're begging to have the product
59:05
and they're begging for their lives. Oh, they are crying on the phone. Oh, yeah. So, the support center goes from
59:12
supporting people coming off medications to now supporting them in a time of crisis.
59:17
Absolutely. More of a counseling service than anything at that point in time. Some people started to actually haul the
59:23
product across the border. If you want to put the word illegally, smuggling rings,
59:28
smuggling uh the Mohawk natives, the kind of started hauling product into eastern
59:36
Canada. We didn't incite this. It happened. People were doing this to save
59:42
their loved ones. They didn't have a choice. It was like somebody cut off the
59:49
food supply to your house and your children are starving. It had the same effect. Absolutely.
59:55
Everything within your power. Yeah. Terrifying. Require it. And people were doing that.
1:00:00
Health Canada set up a crisis line. They created a crisis.
1:00:05
Yeah. And all they would do is pass people over to these counselors. You can't have
1:00:10
this project, this danger dangerous product anymore. Dangerous. There was no
1:00:16
evidence to say that vitamins and minerals were dangerous. No. But but the Now this is where it
1:00:22
gets this is what people need to realize. So what Health Canada was saying at that point in time was there's
1:00:29
no evidence to say it's safe. That's right. But there's no evidence to say it's
1:00:35
unsafe. And by virtue of the fact that there's 3,000 Canadians taking it, would that
1:00:41
not constitute evidence that it's safe? Nobody's had any issues with it. They weren't prepared to look at the
1:00:47
truth. That was not what it was about. It was about getting this thing to go away and realizing that the company,
1:00:56
True Hope, was was resisting. Well, they had to resist. We had to do that to protect the people that we love and
1:01:04
honor them with this product. This is a gift. It's an absolute gift. So, they did everything
1:01:11
um unscrupulously. They uh got into the they actually took the database. They
1:01:16
seized it. They phoned all the people that were on. Amazing. Don't take this product. And we
1:01:24
lost I'm going to estimate probably 300 to 350 people out of our database,
1:01:29
which is over 10% of the people that were taking it in total within Canada. Well, at that time there was probably
1:01:35
5,000 people, but we lost 300 to 350 people. They disappeared. And we're
1:01:40
aware that numerous of them did suicide. Yeah. There's no question. And that Health Canada was warned that those suicides were going to happen by
1:01:47
Ron Legendz, the the head of the Alberta chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association. Exactly. They were well apprised of what
1:01:54
they were doing and they did it in a malicious way and that evidence would actually come out in court. Yes.
1:01:59
So what happens in early 2004 after Health Canada finally relinquishes after they get enough black eyes in the media
1:02:05
and everything other than CBC? CBC was the only media that refused to report on
1:02:10
what Health Canada was doing in a negative way. Well, they're governmentowned. Exactly. Crown organization, right? And
1:02:16
so government propaganda being pushed through CBC. They're off in their own world generating their own strange
1:02:22
media. Meanwhile, all the other news corpse are highlighting what Health
1:02:27
Canada is doing in a negative light. So, Health Canada finally relinquishes in late 2003 and the product starts flowing
1:02:34
across the border again. What happens in early 2004? Well, we ended up being charged
1:02:40
criminally criminally for what we were doing, selling an illegal, dangerous drug. So, let me get this straight. You've
1:02:47
just helped restore and even save the lives of many.
1:02:53
We're okay. So, you've got over 3,000 Canadians taking it. Yeah.
1:02:58
And all of them have been impacted in a significant way. And many of them could claim that you saved their lives. Not
1:03:04
you, but that the answer to prayer that you have been moving forward with has
1:03:09
saved their lives. Exactly. And now you're charged criminally. Well, and at that time, uh, we did have
1:03:15
more people because there were US citizens involved in taking the product, but in our database, we showed over
1:03:23
15,000 medical practitioners slash psychiatrists. We're not talking
1:03:30
about homeopaths, that's fine. We're talking about absolute physicians here. But there was over 15,000 in the
1:03:37
database and Health Canada ignored all that. We had hundreds and hundreds of
1:03:43
letters from medical practitioners. They ignored that. Yep. They had an agenda. This was imposing
1:03:51
itself upon the pharmaceutical industry. It had to go and go quickly. So the
1:03:58
argument could be laid that wait a minute the science isn't there. Health Canada is working in the interest of the
1:04:04
people. But in reality when you look at it, Health Canada was suppressing the science and they were ignoring the
1:04:11
medical experts that were attesting to the fact that this was having this effect and then coming out with the claim that
1:04:19
there's no evidence to support that it's safe. But yet any studies that would have identified that it was safe, they
1:04:25
were already shutting down. Yes. Exactly. So they were trying to create a narrative.
1:04:31
That's what they did. And and so they were cutting us off at every single point in in essence cutting you off from being able to move forward
1:04:37
with this. Okay. So you're charged criminally, you and David Hardy, correct?
1:04:42
Yes. Then what happens? We get to 200 five 2006. 2006 I think is March 2006 is
1:04:50
when I think 2006 it came into the courts. Okay. And of course we plead not guilty.
1:04:58
What's ridiculous about it it's it's only a $350 fine on the books at that
1:05:04
time and we couldn't leave it alone. So how how much was it costing you
1:05:10
before you even gone to court? Oh you could have paid $350 and and said guilty 30 $350. Good. get get out from
1:05:17
underneath it or what did it cost you just to get up to the point that you were almost walking into the courtroom?
1:05:23
What had you already invested? 341,000. They drove us to the point of just
1:05:29
basically a few nights before the trial would begin. They said, "Okay, we're going to make an offer to you. We're
1:05:35
going to go away with this thing, but you're going to pay the $350 fine and just plead guilty and we'll call it
1:05:41
square." And uh sadly I had quite a debate with my partner. I said no because if you do
1:05:50
that they'll be back again the next week and they'll drive us into bankruptcy and
1:05:56
do their level best to destroy this. So you're you're you're say bankruptcy
1:06:02
and this this is to circle back to where were the funds going once it started to
1:06:07
actually grow? 341,000 just to prepare for court,
1:06:14
right? It was going to end up being a three-w weekek long court case, a long course.
1:06:19
There's no question. But um yeah, a lot of funds were lost.
1:06:24
Now, there was discussion that you had caught wind of that they were going to drop the charges. Yeah. In fact, our lawyer contacted us
1:06:31
and said, "Here's the options they presented." And um
1:06:37
I thought that's not the way to go because I'd watched what they'd done to other companies. They drove a lot of
1:06:44
American companies out of Canada. They were doing everything. They had an
1:06:49
anti-nutrient agenda. And we were just on the list, but we were one of the big ones that
1:06:55
they wanted gone because we actually showed therapeutic action. Right. And and by this point in time,
1:07:01
you'd already helped over 3,000 Canadians come off of psychiatric medications. Sure. That's big profit.
1:07:06
Those were lifetime clients. You just removed those clients from from a whole lifetime of medications. Sure. And it was growing. It was growing
1:07:12
on a daily basis. It had its own wings in a sense because there's still no marketing at this point in time.
1:07:17
No, there's just news coverage. There's just no advertising, right? And and that's not even on the
1:07:22
radar. The talk about marketing in the company is non-existent. No, it still isn't. It's still non-existent.
1:07:28
Well, it's not non-existent. We that's that's where I am but okay small ways but we we we operate differently from
1:07:34
the international division but yeah that's right okay so
1:07:42
what ended up happening when they were going to just drop the charges
1:07:48
because I have a a specific recollection. Oh yes. In fact what I did uh I said to
1:07:54
my partner we need to go to court. We need to make this thing public. They
1:08:00
need to get their evidence on the table. We need a chance to speak publicly and
1:08:06
the court is the place to do it. So I contacted I made sure that these
1:08:11
calls were all protected and recorded and I phoned three of the health No, no, just let me jump in,
1:08:17
please. So, I show up to work one lovely morning and
1:08:23
I remember you coming in and you've got a fire going on within you and you
1:08:30
called your boys, me and and a couple of my brothers into the conference room where there is a central television or
1:08:38
telephone speaker telephone. I mean, this is back in 2005 or 2006, early 2006 or or late 2005. And
1:08:48
so we've got, you know, good technology back then, good phone system right on the table, conference room table. You
1:08:54
pull us boys in there and you say, "Join me, right?" And then you commenced on.
1:08:59
Go ahead. Yeah. I contacted three of the Health Canada agents. I didn't threaten them.
1:09:05
No, it wasn't a threat, but it was uh I just said, "You better be prepared because if you lose,
1:09:11
there's going to be lawsuits against you personally." Well, okay. Well, okay. So here here's
1:09:16
my recollection as well. So remember now I mean this is what 20 years ago. This is over 20 years ago now.
1:09:21
That's over 20 years ago. Go ahead. So now they're they're they're saying they're talking about dropping the
1:09:27
charges. Here's my recollection of it and I might botch this is that you phone them and and and with a little bit of
1:09:33
cheekiness and you said, "Hey, we understand that Health Canada is going to drop the charges and this is just
1:09:39
fantastic news because now we're going to sue you for what you've done against the Canadian people." Yes.
1:09:46
Yeah. That's that's the way it rolled out. And so and so then what happens with them dropping the charges?
1:09:52
Well, instantly they phoned uh the crown um the federal crown phoned uh our
1:10:00
lawyer Sean Buckley, a constitutional lawyer, and said, "We're on. We're not dropping these charges at
1:10:06
all." So, in essence, you instigate him to hold charges. Yeah. I remember how upset my partner
1:10:13
was in doing that, but he realized afterwards, and I'm getting ahead of the story here,
1:10:20
that that was an essential ingredient in this process. It had to happen that way.
1:10:26
Otherwise, we would have been cherrypicked for years. They would have done everything that they could.
1:10:33
So, in 2006, we end up in the courts. Yes. What happens? It was about a 3-w weekek
1:10:40
long court case. There was a lot of banting back and forth. We actually put
1:10:45
forth what's called a necessity defense. It's a rarely used part of Canadian law that
1:10:54
allows you to maybe break the law if it's going to save a person's being.
1:11:02
So there's a biblical principle of life over law. Yes. Exactly. And and you see that I mean Jesus himself, Yeshua talks about
1:11:09
that principle about, you know, who here has an ox that falls into the mire that won't pull him out on the Sabbath day,
1:11:15
right? Yeah. Life over the law. Life over law, right? That you preserve life because ultimately life trumps it.
1:11:21
And so in essence, there's built into the Canadian judicial system, into Canadian law, the same principle
1:11:27
applies. And that's a defense of necessity that you had no choice but to to break the law otherwise.
1:11:35
Yeah, people would die. Exactly. People would have died. We already knew that people had died
1:11:41
because you mentioned him before. Ron Leanez, the Western Regional Director
1:11:46
for Canadian Mental Health Association, bore witness in that trial that he was
1:11:52
aware of a number of suicides and he put the blame, laid the blame directly on
1:11:59
the shoulders of Health Canada for their irresponsible actions in taking this
1:12:04
product, this life-saving product away from the people that needed it. Absolutely. And there was a lot of
1:12:12
jockeying back and forth. We came to the point where the judge had to hold what's
1:12:17
called a vier. A vier is a trial within a trial to determine whether or not we
1:12:26
could use the necessity defense. And he was clearly against it. He was he
1:12:33
demonstrated. He said, "I I don't agree with this. I'm required under the rules
1:12:39
of court to hold this voyier and to be able to make a judgment on it. So I have
1:12:45
to do this. So but I'm I'm not agreeing with it at all. As far as I'm concerned,
1:12:50
this is a statuto a statutory defense and it's going to remain that way
1:12:56
clearly. And so it was very interesting contest. He he brought Shawn Buckley
1:13:02
forth and Kent Brown who was leading on behalf of the crown and he said, "Here's the name of the game, the Vier. This
1:13:10
afternoon, you're going to present for one hour, Mr. Buckley. Uh after Mr.
1:13:16
Brown presents uh his offense or whatever you want to
1:13:21
call it, and then I'm going to return to my chambers for half an hour and I'm
1:13:27
going to come forth and I'm going to adjudicate. But chances are I'm going to go in favor of the crown on this case.
1:13:35
So you can clearly see that the judge was prepared to rule against us. And if you didn't have that defense of
1:13:41
necessity, what would have been the outcome of that court? We would have lost almost guaranteed.
1:13:46
And they would have devoured us, right? Yeah. we would have paid the $350
1:13:52
loss while the government of Canada had put in over $2 million
1:13:58
to try and shut us down. So they used two $2 million of taxpayer money. Sure. To try and to try and pull the rug
1:14:05
out on this. This was important to them to create an affront on the Canadian public. Yeah. On the mentally ill. It was a battle
1:14:11
really against the mentally ill is what it was. That's what it was. the the weakest,
1:14:16
most defenseless part of our society and the Canadian government moved
1:14:22
against them. Yeah. You think about that for a while in favor of big pharma.
1:14:27
Pharma. We've seen it. Yeah. If you had told me 20 years before
1:14:34
that this was going to happen, I wouldn't have believed it. No, because I believe that our government was clean
1:14:40
and that they were there to work on behalf of Canadians. No, they're not.
1:14:46
Over 300 people disappeared off the database. People don't talk about it
1:14:51
when they have a suicide in their family. No. Destruction. Wholesale destruction took
1:14:57
place and they created a crisis with their crisis line. They did
1:15:03
everything they can to malign us. And I don't take an affront or an offense at
1:15:09
that. What I what I'm offended over is the fact that the weakest part of our
1:15:15
society was maligned and not shielded and protected like they
1:15:20
should have been. Exactly. Which highlighted that Health Canada had no interest in the health of Canadians at
1:15:27
all. It's absolutely true. And we and we see that evident today. It hasn't ended.
1:15:32
So now during this time you have the vier surrounding the defense of necessity and it's not looking good.
1:15:41
What is it looking like between you Sean Buckley and David Hardy? Okay, I'll speak to that matter.
1:15:48
This is off record unless you want to put it on the record.
1:15:54
Okay. So you you can splice and dice and do whatever you want. Uh, is this something
1:15:59
that you want for public consumption? I don't know. Maybe it should be for public consumption. You can take it out. You can take it
1:16:05
out. You can take it out if if if you don't feel good about it. Let's hear it. Okay.
1:16:12
So, when we left the courtroom after the judge heard the one-hour presentation
1:16:17
from being led by Kent Brown of the Crown and the one-hour presentation of
1:16:23
defense led by Shawn Buckley, the constitutional lawyer, and we left the
1:16:28
courtroom, I remember how upset Shawn and David Hardy were. We've lost this.
1:16:35
You heard him. You saw what he you heard and saw him and you heard what he said
1:16:42
that most likely he was going to rule in favor of the crown on this voyer. He's
1:16:49
already I'm not going to say prejudiced himself, but he already has that
1:16:55
thinking. He has a preconceived notion as to where it should go. And he exhibited that. And you know it was interesting because
1:17:02
I couldn't believe it. We hadn't come this far to fail. We hadn't been
1:17:08
protected in every day of our life in all the trials that we went through as a
1:17:14
people, as a company, in trying to help father's most weakest children,
1:17:22
the so-called mentally ill, just to lose it at this point. So, I went down into
1:17:29
the bowels of the Calgary Courthouse. It's a large large building and there
1:17:34
wasn't a lot of activity on the south end of the courthouse and I went down there by myself
1:17:41
and I sat and I said to God,
1:17:46
"Lord, if you don't come, we're going to lose this battle. Lord,
1:17:52
it's stacked against us. Father, you have to come." And I heard a voice that said clearly to
1:17:59
me, "Well, it never was your battle. It was always
1:18:05
my battle." And I felt I felt the encompassing of the spirit and I saw it
1:18:12
in my mind. I knew that we had won in that very second, absolute second. I
1:18:20
want you to know that God is real. And I'm not giving you a preaching here, people. I want you to know that he has a
1:18:28
direction and a plan to help and to save his children. And in that very moment,
1:18:34
it was revealed to me that we were going to win. I was on a cloud nine. I was
1:18:40
filled with joy and exhilaration. I went back. It was almost hilarious. Those
1:18:47
poor guys, they were outside, David and and Sean Buckley, the lawyer, and they
1:18:52
were just beside themselves. We've lost. We've lost. I put my hands on their
1:18:58
shoulders and I said, "We won. Praise God. We have won." I went into the
1:19:06
courtroom. There was nobody in there. And I closed the door behind me and I locked it. And I knelt down. I said,
1:19:13
"God, please inspire the mind of this good judge. I believe he's a good man,
1:19:20
Lord, but help him to see the truth and the validity of all that's happened
1:19:26
here. Protect him. Protect us. Don't allow evil in here. Let your light shine
1:19:34
within here, Lord. And I got up off my knees after hosting that prayer and the
1:19:40
clerk of the court came in and she said, "Oh, you're in here." And I said, "Yeah."
1:19:46
She said, "Well, open the door if you would and invite them in because the judge is ready to adjudicate." And I
1:19:54
opened the door and I said, "Come on in." I sat beside Shawn and here's David
1:19:59
over here and he came in and he looked different. He looked different. His
1:20:06
countenance was raised. And he said, "After much thought and consideration,
1:20:14
I am going to go with true hope. I adjudicate that they have won the right
1:20:21
to use the necessity defense. Move on."
1:20:27
There you go. Do I believe that we've been blessed? Do
1:20:32
I believe that this wonderful mechanism that was put together by two dummies?
1:20:40
Yeah, I'm going to be honest. Two fools. We didn't know what we were doing. And look what it did. Look at the hundreds
1:20:47
and hundreds of thousands of people who have been healed. I heard people say to
1:20:53
me, "I'm back in my relationship. I was divorced. I remarried. I'm back in my
1:21:00
career pursuit. I'm back in my educational pursuit where I came from. I heard it time and time and time again.
1:21:08
And I don't make the claim that it belongs to me. We were gifted. It was a gift from the
1:21:15
heavens. True. And that's what happened. And then it was three months later that the
1:21:23
judgment finally came out. Praise God. We won. They lost. and they were buried
1:21:30
in the press. There was so much bad press against Health Canada. But, you
1:21:35
know, they phoned me about a month later and they said, "Just want to let you know we don't have to listen to the
1:21:41
judge." Because they also appealed, didn't they?
1:21:46
They were going to appeal. They did actually file an appeal. Yep. And I told Sean, "You're going to
1:21:55
go for abuse of process and we're going to bring families in here who lost their loved ones. Are you sure they want to do
1:22:03
this? Because there could be some possible jail time for some Health Canada agents who broke and violated the
1:22:10
Constitutional Act of 1987." Right. And and actually engage in criminal negligence resulting in death
1:22:17
up to 25 years in jail by the criminal code. Absolutely. So, so they're liable. They
1:22:22
and they've engaged in legitimate criminality and yet they're charging you
1:22:28
with criminal charges. Yes. And now they're appealing and now you're
1:22:33
you're saying, "Okay, we're pulling out the big guns." In essence, we're we're going for liability here. We're we're going to take out all the
1:22:39
stops and we'll be talking to the media and you're going to be interviewing families media where their young
1:22:46
18-year-old daughter suicided because she lost hope. I'll never forget the
1:22:52
time that I got a phone call. Hello. Hi. They pushed me through from the
1:22:57
switchboard. I said, "Yes." Okay. And what is your name? Da da da da. I won't repeat his name.
1:23:04
He said, "I'm going to talk to you. I'm a trained Canadian armed forces sniper.
1:23:13
I don't miss. My wife has been well out of 18 years of
1:23:19
absolute She has been well for two years because
1:23:24
of your product and she's back in the hospital. You're going to give me the
1:23:30
name of three Health Canada agents and I'm sure you've got some addresses to help me expedite this. I'm going to take
1:23:38
them out. That's how serious. That's how serious. We're talking life
1:23:44
and death here. Yep. We're not talking about taking away a card game or something simple that
1:23:50
Health Canada could ban because of safety regulations. We're talking about
1:23:56
lives here. And I said to him, you know, brother, I understand what you're going through. I get really angry at what
1:24:03
they've done because people have suicided and I'm so sorry that your wife's in there, but I can't help you.
1:24:11
You do what you have to do or what you want, but please don't involve me in it because that's not my motus operandi.
1:24:19
I love you, brother. I hope you're okay. Click. Yeah.
1:24:25
When they when that came up because they sent the double spy
1:24:32
to Ian Stewart. Double agent. Yeah. Double agent. Yeah. Trying to play the side of the good cop on our end.
1:24:38
Yeah. Playing the game. And he told her when he decided to
1:24:44
discontinue the communication, he said, "You better tell them up there because I
1:24:49
know you're reporting to them. I know exactly what you're doing because I'm reporting back to Tony as well, but you
1:24:56
better let them know that if it wasn't for Tony Stefen, you'd have three dead
1:25:01
ponies in Health Canada because that guy was serious and he was apparently really good at what he did."
1:25:09
Yep. And they owe him something. Well, the next week
1:25:16
the head of the NHP directorate quit. Yep. Because he saw what they were doing
1:25:23
was incredibly dangerous when they're messing around with the lives of Canadians. Don't mess around with people. We don't
1:25:28
have the right to trifle with the lives of the children of God. And we're all
1:25:34
children of God. Yeah. Yeah.
1:25:40
All right. So, we have now concluded the portion surrounding the court case.
1:25:48
Things continue though, like you we we think that there's a victory. Now, I guess we should probably conclude what
1:25:54
that that victory looked like. So, not only were you found not guilty, there
1:25:59
was an appeal that took place. They withdrew the appeal, right? Yep. It was a precedent setting case
1:26:05
that was protective for the whole natural health product community. Absolutely. Across Canada. So there were
1:26:12
so many blessings that came out of that court case. Well, and that true hope case has been
1:26:17
used as case law in many actions in Canada. The necessity defense that was
1:26:24
won. Yep. Absolutely. It was crucial. So this was a a momentous time in history in relation to
1:26:31
Canadian law, in relation to protective measures being put around the natural health community because it was under
1:26:39
fire significantly before that. Other companies like Purea and Strauss were being attacked. Yes, they were. Right.
1:26:45
And so this was a real blessing in disguise. It didn't look like it initially, but it proved to be a
1:26:52
tremendous blessing. And that really, you know, you got this
1:26:57
discovery that's made. We're now protected because the judge didn't just say not guilty. What else did he say?
1:27:04
Well, he said that the true hope, well, number one, it was a finding of fact that this product works,
1:27:10
right? Well, because Dr. Charles Paer, the famous psychiatrist from Mlan Hospital,
1:27:18
Harvard University, bore witness that this works, right? and that he's transferred his
1:27:25
patient pool over to Empower Plus and he no longer counsels them against suicide,
1:27:32
right? He's counseling them on what university courses they should take, right?
1:27:38
That's the psychiatrist. Y he was responsible for bringing a lithium to America for child practice.
1:27:45
He was the uh editor and chief of one of the the journal child adolescent
1:27:52
psychopharmarmacology psychop because he's also a psychopharmarmacologist as well. He's a worldrenowned psychiatrist and
1:27:57
psychopharmarmacologist. Yeah. And he bore witness in the trial and Dr. Bonnie J. Kaplan bore witness.
1:28:04
Now there's one particular statement he made during the trial that that stands out. He said that Empower Plus was more
1:28:11
effective than any medication or combination of medications that he's ever used before.
1:28:16
Exactly. And he performed a study that showed 19 out of 22 of his patients on the Empower
1:28:22
Plus had a significant effect from it beyond what they would normally see from
1:28:27
medications. Exactly. 19 out of 22. Right. And he was quizzed by by the lawyer Sean
1:28:32
Buckley on medication reduction. He said we don't reduce medications
1:28:39
normally. We add on. Right? If a if if it's a difficult case, we add on. But he
1:28:46
said I learn from True Hope how to adjudicate the use and titrate the
1:28:53
medications off. They are the experts. Now when I say that, I'm not boasting,
1:28:58
right? I'm saying that knowledge that we obtained was part of the gift that came
1:29:05
with this whole thing. Yeah. And it also came due to a lot of trial and error with
1:29:10
thousands and thousands of people that were willing to do anything it took to get off those medications. Exactly.
1:29:16
Um it was nothing but a blessing and and he adjudicated he indicated that
1:29:23
the product works that was established finding a fact and another finding of fact is that the true hope support
1:29:30
program is inextricably tied to the use of the product
1:29:36
and he referred to us as the experts in that field that he was being educated here. He is an educator co-authoring
1:29:42
textbooks psychiatric textbooks across the country. Yep. and he's referring to us as the
1:29:47
experts in relation to the support protocols that when he has a question, he would come to us. I I spoke with with
1:29:54
Charles Pauper many many times. What do you think about this Tony? What would you do? Yep.
1:29:59
And he became very good at it and he saved a lot of people. A lot of youth.
1:30:05
He had a lot of youth in his practice and their lives were blessed ultimately
1:30:10
because of this. No question. So those two findings of fact were critical. They were
1:30:17
and that result in the judge not only pronouncing a non not-uilty verdict but
1:30:24
also we were chasened. He said had you listened to Health Canada and followed
1:30:30
their counsel and shut this down, you could be in court today for criminal
1:30:37
negligence causing death because you already knew. You already had the
1:30:43
evidence of efficacy that this product did wondrous things. Yeah. And and criminal negligence
1:30:49
resulting in death isn't a $350 fine. No, it's not. It's an up to 25 year jail sentence in
1:30:54
Canada. That's right. So, so we were warned. Yeah. Don't follow the regulator.
1:31:00
So now we need So in essence, it was a mandate saying you have no choice but to disobey Health Canada if they try to get
1:31:06
you to shut down. Exactly. Yeah. And what a beautiful thing that is. Well, it went worldwide. I remember
1:31:12
in America it hit it hit the press down there. I remember one of the top
1:31:18
nutritional protective I should say lawyers in the
1:31:23
country who hosted an hour show every week. He hosted us on there and talked
1:31:30
about how this was an amazing thing that they could use this gift of this
1:31:37
judgment because it took place in another democratic nation and they could
1:31:42
utilize this to protect themselves against the regulators abuse down there. And and was that Jonathan Eort?
1:31:49
It was. Okay. Well-known uh advocate for freedom and and health in matters but lawyer.
1:31:54
Very well spoken. Yeah. Very well known. Okay. So, Jonathan E-mort, so we conclude the the portion
1:32:01
surrounding the court case, but the drama actually doesn't end there, does it?
1:32:06
No. This the the the story is so rich, the history of True Hope is so rich and
1:32:13
eventfilled that it could actually make for a full docu series easily. Yeah.
1:32:18
And and a docu series that would keep people glued in saying, "This possibly couldn't happen in real life. How could
1:32:25
a family go through this much over something this simple? But yet here we
1:32:31
are. Well, we've just passed the 90-minute mark of this second edition of
1:32:37
this podcast, which I thought we'd be done in one, maybe two, but we're going
1:32:43
to continue this on uh tomorrow. So, we'll probably show up in different clothes tomorrow. And um and you're as
1:32:51
an audience, you're going to hear some really exciting stuff because the battles did not end. In fact, in many
1:32:56
instances, they just got ramped up and it became uh not just about us, but about uh the freedom of Canadians as a
1:33:04
whole in various arenas. And so we'll we'll continue on the story
1:33:11
tomorrow and we'll probably be able to close it up in the uh the third episode. we we'll talk about the full 30 years of
1:33:17
of how we got to where we are today and also um where we're going to continue to go and and where our hearts are in that
1:33:24
matter as well. So, um, I encourage the audience to continue on to episode
1:33:30
three. And if you haven't yet, uh, viewed episode 1, you'll definitely want to do so as to see the the foundation,
1:33:38
uh, the answer to prayer that brought this tremendous miraculous discovery
1:33:44
about that's gone on to bless hundreds of thousands of lives. And we'll continue to hear from Anthony Stefan, my
1:33:50
father, um who has clearly proven to uh to be a tenacious man that uh when he
1:33:55
knows what's right, he takes a bold stand for it against all adversity. So, thank you, father, for um sharing all
1:34:01
this tonight. Thanks for bringing all this good information out so that the the the good people out there can have this
1:34:07
knowledge. It's truth and it establishes a validity
1:34:14
that there's a power above us and we can overcome everything in God.
1:34:21
Everything. Whether it be a bad relationship, whether it be a financial crisis in our lives, it doesn't matter.
1:34:30
Through God, we can overcome all things. Because I'm here to tell you, we were just a pair of dummies that were in the
1:34:38
the right place at the wrong time. Well, and and the evidence speaks for itself. And we take a look at all the
1:34:43
battles, as we'll continue to communicate tomorrow, there's no way that we would have been able to get through those battle battles
1:34:49
successfully. True. Had the hand of God not been with us to deliver us, to protect us, and to
1:34:55
ultimately bring about much good as a result of it. I can't change the tide, but he did.
1:35:02
Absolutely. All right. So, we'll see you in episode three.







