Utility Policy Gap

Small businesses in Medicine Hat are facing rising electricity bills — but is the system fair?

In this conversation, Brian sits down with local business owner Michael Reid to break down how electricity classification and demand charges are impacting small businesses across the city. Despite having small-business-level energy consumption, Michael explains how being classified as a medium commercial customer has resulted in significantly higher power costs.

The discussion explores:

How demand charges work

Why current electricity classifications may be unfair

The real-world impact on small businesses

What changes could create a more equitable system

City Councillor Stuart Young also joins the conversation, emphasizing the importance of community engagement, transparency, and understanding the complexities of municipal electricity pricing. All guests share a commitment to fostering meaningful change for Medicine Hat’s business community.

Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Small Business Challenges
00:53
Electricity Classification and Its Impact
06:54
Demand Charges and Their Consequences
12:44
Proposed Solutions for Small Businesses
17:50
City Council's Perspective on Demand Charges
20:24
Understanding Demand Charges and Their Rationale
29:55
Finding Common Ground for Solutions

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again. And I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please, like, share, subscribe, and tell your friends about bring Back the Porch. Many of us that are small businesses. So take my business. Yoga Revolution or the Station or Collective or it doesn't matter. A lot of us at downtown. And then this expands out through Medicine Hat. We're all small businesses, but many of us have been classified by the city as medium commercial businesses. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. The last time that Michael Reid was here, he was a candidate for Medicine Hat City council. He filled the studio with energy. And today we're going to talk about energy. Welcome again. Michael. Yeah. Thank you for having me, Brian. You made a presentation to Medicine Hat City Council on the 15th of December. They gave you five minutes. We're going to give you more time than that because this is a complex issue that affects not just your business, but a lot of small businesses right across the city. Medicine hat and potential businesses that are looking to come to Medicine Hat. So I'll let you explain exactly what your issue was on the 15th of December. So yeah, so on the 15th of December, it came up that, city council was going to be reviewing, bylaw four eight. I had to read off my notes. 4864 which just looks at the, part of that is looking at the classification, rates for whether it's small business medium, commercial large, etc. and we felt that was an opportunity to come and express what our concerns are, because many of us that are small businesses. So take my business, Yoga Revolution or the Station or Collective or it doesn't matter. A lot of us at downtown. And then this expands out through Medicine Hat. We're all small businesses, but many of us have been classified by the city as medium commercial businesses. For purposes of electricity, for. Purposes of electricity. So charging us at those rates as a medium commercial business. Yet when you look at us and you look at our actual, consumption, electricity consumption, most of us are actually small commercial. So in the difference is it's quite a bit of a difference rate. Like we pay quite a bit more on our bill just because of that classification rate. And then looking at it saying, really, are we a medium commercial. Is that fair. So that's that's why we thought this is an opportunity to bring that, bring this to City Council, even though it had been brought up at previous city council. We wanted to make sure we came forth and not just as a sole business. It prior to just been brought forth as a sole business. And in this case, it was like, no, this is a this is a bigger than this. This is downtown voice. This is the this is a number of us. So let's go and represent the number of us, not just individuals. When you spoke to council, you gave an example of your utility bills for, I think, August, September and October and how they had fluctuated because of something as simple as your, Hvac kicking in. Yeah, yeah. So I gave two sets of numbers. One was our general usage, saw kilowatt hours and. You can. Control and that is just to for the most part, like what we do is we want to we want to come in and do business each day. And we I mean, we're not I think of my parents when they used to say, when the lights turn off the lights when you leave the room. Right. Exactly. And so we're not doing that. We're not just we we want to keep our consumption low and we want to be, you know, moderate with as much as we can, but we also want to provide a service for our clients. So when they come in, everything is up and running. It's set up. It's right. And and just from day to day use. Our kilowatt hour usage classifies us as small business. It really does. We're we're averaging 20 500 kilowatt hours a month, which would in most places would say that, that small business. And I'm just using my numbers, but we've looked at everybody else's and it's all very comparable. Where we run into problems is that it's the demand charge. So the CVS, which is just that little spike. So it's, it's it's like how much power is drawn through in a moment. And so within a quick snapshot. So they're looking at seconds, you know maybe you know what I mean. Compared to the whole month. So if my if I turn on, you know, some of my equipment in my case it's, it's heating panels, whether it's the station, it's they're firing up all their equipment, whatever it is, in that brief moment, there's that spike of draw of power. And so with my numbers, the numbers that I was using most of the time, we were under 25, the what the cap is for the by the. But we just had to go over once. So in one moment in a 12 month period, we just have to go over once and we are automatically classified as a medium commercial. And that medium commercial suddenly then puts on reclassify as us. And now not only are we being charged for the kilowatt hours, we're also being charged for demand use, which is, in the current bylaws,$6.70 per kilowatt, kilovolt, and kilovolts. Yeah. So, so and then on top of that, a service charge of $3.25. So all of a sudden now you're adding that on. And don't get me wrong, I mean, if that's the way it was and they said no, that's what the charges for a small business, I guess it is. I mean, it's unfortunate, but they're saying, no, this is a you're a medium commercial. And so we're saying this this doesn't this doesn't align, you know, and not only that, I mean I did used I don't like to talk about others I love medicine had I do I know threw it out there that thing that's for sure. But I did look at that bridge just to see. And there, there kVA tipping point is 150 and so CVS so small business one. Yeah. So small businesses are they don't ever have to worry about it. I mean, I don't have to sit there and say, oh, is my air conditioner going to come on in the same time as, you know, my, my heating panels in there? That might sound like an oxymoron because it's like, why would you have air conditioning and your heating panels on at the same time? But in the summertime, the studio room is hot, the retailer is cold, but whatever it is or or a restaurant saying, oh, we have to do one appliance at a time. Yeah, we have to wait 15 minutes and then we'll turn on the next appliance and then the next. Up in a minute. Yeah, yeah. Or 60 minutes because we gotta, we gotta, we have, you know, four piece equipment. We got to turn them on one piece at a time, giving 15 minutes in between. Right. It doesn't really it's not it's not business friendly. It's not user friendly. Right. So yeah. Yeah. Now you get put in jail for that one violation. Yeah. There is a grace period though. Now I think it says here, according to the city's website, you'll be notified if your account has exceeded the established threshold in your current rate class. For the next two monthly billing cycles, your account will be observed. Yeah, with no change to your rate class. But if you go over that and. Yeah, yeah. And we didn't even I don't even know if we got that because we got this as soon as we opened. Like we when we opened in, it would have been 20, 24. July 28th. We were already open, but we weren't in business yet, so we had or we were being charged as a small, small business. And then as soon as we started using our business, started turning the panels on, we had one month of. Yeah, it was still small. And then the next month, we got a letter from the city saying you have been reclassified as medium commercial and that is locked in for 12 months. Yeah. And and so it was like, oh, okay. How do we fix that? And then the responses were, oh, well, manage it yourself. Make sure your Hvac doesn't come on at the same time. And I'm like, we that's that's I don't know. Yeah. Yeah yeah. Dollars and cents is what people understand. And in your presentation you compare your business to what you might have paid in less for June, I believe one month in particular, you had a $203 extra charge. Yeah. Whereas the last for an $89. That's correct. Over the course of a year that adds up. It does add up. Absolutely. I can and and again so and when we're looking at this from the downtown voice perspective too, as this isn't just about the electrical, right. It is I mean, that's what we're talking about. In the. Forest. But really and truthfully, what is happening is, is that in order to balance budgets, I mean, and I get we've got a finite amount of money that the revenue that the city can bring in and make and whatever else, and they have to work with what they have. But what ends up happening is that some of this is falling on small business to take the brunt of where we're lacking. Is what's happening. And, and so and it's kind of disguised like if I hadn't thought about it, if I were to just say okay this is, this is how the. Cost of doing business is. Just the cost of doing business. And then when we all started talking, it's like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, why is this just the cost of doing business? And there's other cities in Alberta that it isn't just the cost of doing business, and especially coming out of this last campaign where it was all this, we need to change things. If nothing changes, nothing changes, and we need to be open for business and so when I if I'm looking at this from a perspective as a business person saying, does this really say that I'm open for business or is this another roadblock, something that's going to deter me from maybe starting my business here, or maybe saying, I can't do this anymore because it's just this is just one example, right? And we can get into other things that are where businesses are kind of getting nickel and dimed to help balanced budgets, but this is just one of them. And that's so that money does add up over time. I think you said 20 to 30% of your, bill was demand charges. Yes. So that's that's a pretty good chunk for having 1 or 2 violations in a month. Yeah, absolutely. How do you compare to some of the larger industries in Medicine Hat in terms of electrical use? I think you said in your presentation that in effect, you're being bumped up past them, they actually get a better deal than you do. Well, if you look at the bylaws and when you get into looking at the rates for large commercial, the large commercial rate is actually slightly less than the medium commercial. So when when we were looking at that, the bylaw, how it's set up, it's if the large commercial has a rate set that, I mean, I have the paper here I think is it's six, $6.70 per, kVA for medium commercial. And if I flip over to, large, it was just it was just under that. I mean, it wasn't lots, flipping through, but it's lots of stats. So in industrial was $6.23 as opposed to six. That's commercial. And large commercial,$6.26 opposed to $6 and 76. And you're just a small footprint. Yeah. And we're just and and I guess that's the thing is, think about like, you look at most of the businesses that make up the downtown voice, and we can expand. I keep hitting this thing, I apologize. And then throat medicine hat. Right. I'm just speaking on behalf of the businesses that we that get together all the time. Would anybody look at us and say you're medium commercial or would you walk into our business and say, you know, you're a small business and and I get it. It's, you know, I the only place is, is in the electrical bill, but should then we be charged at that rate. Who would be a medium class who like, an example, like a big box store? Yeah, like. The grocery store. I. Yeah. And you can look at you can look at big box stores, you can look at number of employees. Right. So like in terms of employees, it's my wife and I, it's the two of us. We we contract out instructors that come in and come and go, but that means they're there when we're not there. So at any given time, we at most maybe have three, you know, quote unquote staff people, in our business at any given time. And there's lots of times during the day it's just sitting idle, like, if we're not open for retail or we're not running classes, it's just sitting idle. Whereas you've got businesses where you've got over 100 employees all working on computers, whatever it is. Right? Like I'm just kind of giving that as an example or as you said, a grocery store or big box store, those kind of things. Right? So yeah, you. Gave the city a three point plan during your presentation as to what the Downtown Collective would like to see. Happen. Yeah. So we we in and part of what we want to do is we, we want to work with people like, this isn't about a, I mean, if it comes across as complaining, I don't want it to. It's about we want to find solutions and and we know there's nothing, nothing, nothing worse than someone coming to you and saying, I don't like this. And then say, okay, so what? Would you change it? Well, I don't know the problem. Or part of the solution. Yeah, exactly. So, and not saying that these are necessarily the solutions, but it was like these are possible things to work with. So we looked at an administrative review of commercial classifications to start with. And, and particularly where short term demand spikes push low consumption businesses into that inappropriate rate. So maybe that looks at reclassifying, maybe put in a new tier. You know, but again, like these are just options. Possibilities or give you more get out of jail free card. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Like like extend the extended period. Right. Instead of it just being that one snapshot like I was given the analogy and I, I don't know if I liked it, but I did. It was kind of like that. You're getting charged a speeding ticket for just that one second. You went over the speed limit and then but you're you're charged like for the rest of the year at that rate. Like it's like it's like your insurance rates went up because you had demerit points for that one. That one little slip up, which it's like, oh geez. You know. Yeah. And it wasn't like it was intentional. It was like, no, it's something kicked in at the same time. So so the other one is consider consideration of alternative small business rate structures. Like I just mentioned, I have a true small commercial tier or a qualifying key, kilowatt hour only option because really, if you look at it, we use, the average was 20 500 kilowatt hours a month. That small business that really tells you the kilowatt hour usage really tells you what size of business you are. The kVA doesn't. It's just that draw. Yeah. I mean, and if it's if and the purpose of it is to say or we anticipate that if you went up to this, that you could go up to it again. So we're going to charge you at that rate because we know you could go up to that. But yeah, the reality is unless we're going up to that consistently, then no, we're not right. I know in that Energy Committee meeting, they said that, well, they the infrastructure has to be in place to meet that demand. That's why they do what they do. Right? Yeah. And that's again, we understand the purpose of it. And we're not saying that, you know. Yeah. You have to you have to find ways to, to, to accommodate that. And we get that, we understand it. But right now, the way the system is lined up, it's it doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem reasonable. And I think that's the thing is that bylaws should reflect real life situations. And in this case, I don't think the bylaw reflects a real life situation. You know what I mean? Like you really, when you look at those bylaws, you can say, okay, yeah, I can see how this how this applies. And as an, as a business owner, I can say I get why I have to pay that because, yeah, I fell into that. And that's reasonable. And that makes sense. The issue I think right now is that it doesn't really line up with real life and so then we kind of look at and say, yeah, why? Why are we the ones having to take the brunt of this. So yeah. And the third pillar was engaging the community. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So and that's well, part of what we're doing, I'm, I'm a hand talker, so I'm just like, I got to just keep my hands still. Yeah. Is engaging the community because one of the things that we've we've seen with this is that there is that unawareness, and we're not trying to do it to, you know, to stir the pot and create an uproar. It's kind of like when people become active and involved. That's when solutions come forward, and that's when you start seeing. Yes. What what if we did this? What if we did this and we start getting engagement rather than kind of just the status quo? Nothing changes if nothing changes. But if we're also unaware, nothing will change. Since your presentation in December, have you heard from any members of city Council or the city about this? I haven't heard directly from them, but as part of our Downtown Voice group, we are actively reaching out to them. So we have members that step up to say, yeah, I, I will have a conversation, see if I can have a conversation with councilor so-and-so or so-and-so, and see if we can find somebody who will be willing to champion us on, on these issues. And, and that's what we're looking for is we're just looking for and as you said, when we talk about that direct engagement and business with the community is that let's have those conversations. And what we're hoping to see is that change is like, yeah, we can't change overnight. We get that we we're stuck with where we're at, but we can start making small changes and, and in a direction that starts creating that message of, yeah, we're we're business friendly and we are open for business and those kind of things. Yes. Michael Reed, thank you. And when we return, we hope to have a member of the Energy Committee to explain this from their side. Excellent. Well, thank you very much, Brian. Hey, this is Brian again, and I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about bring Back the Porch. And I'm joined now by Councilor Stuart Young. Welcome to the porch. Thank you. Brian. Appreciate being here. We didn't get the chance to visit with you during the campaign. We'll do that at another time today specifically. Or we're following up on the concerns that, Michael Reed made to City Council on the 15th of December. And, previously here on the program about how his small business, not just his but others sometimes get hit with a demand spike that causes their electrical bill to go higher than they probably had planned for. I don't know about you, but when I read all this, my head starts to spin. You and I were in a committee meeting a couple of weeks ago where they explained it to us. Yeah, I walked out of there going, do I understand it or don't I? So hopefully we can make some sense out of his concerns. And I think his main concern is that the demand charges push his bill over a limit, and he really can't control the demand because when his Hvac, AC or whatever kicks in, there's the spike. And that's where the city then pushes him into another rate. So can you help us understand? Yeah, I'd love to. And I appreciate your comments on the complexity. Right. It is complex. And, you know, medicine has unique. We we have a very complex energy business, which ultimately obviously includes our electric, business there. And, of course, where we're making the energy and then we're distributing it. And so there's just a lot. And so then when you go to, to the medicine that to try to understand it, sometimes you can just get inundated with all this information and it can be a little bit much. And I'll admit, Brian, I'm not, you know, an electrical wizard by any means. You know, I've been here now three months and, and I'm trying to get my head wrapped around these things. And it's a lot, but but I think it as I'm starting to learn more about it, I think my goal is just to help other people learn more about it. And how do we communicate some of these things better. So specifically to to Mike's concern and to small business concerns, number one, I, I just say like, I get it, I understand and I really appreciate people like Mike and his wife and the work that they're doing. You know, I, I attended their yoga for, for a long time. And what I loved about it was just how hot it was in there. And, you know, from a yoga perspective, having proper like really hot yoga was amazing. I when I was just, you know, a customer, I didn't really think about, well, how much does it cost to actually keep this place hot? Right. And, and I also know they put a lot like they put a lot into that business. And, and I know there was a ton of investment there. And so doing, you know, understanding those those charges and having regular charges that, that they can kind of they know what it's going to be month to month is important. So I just I really I want to say, I understand that, when it comes to our like, I guess the question going back to you is what specifics do we want to get into? Do we want to talk specifically about why that demand charge goes up, or, just how we determine that? I think that the I guess, how the city looks at it. Yeah. You are classified. Yeah. In a certain they put you in a certain little group. Yeah. And then you're going along merrily and all of a sudden your Hvac kicks in and boom, you got a spike. And now the city goes, oh. Now you're sort of an electrical penalty box. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry big guy. Okay. If you're a good boy. Yeah. And you don't do it again for I think say 12. Months, 12 months. That's right. Then you're going to go back. Go back. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's where Mike's concerns were. Yeah. And I think it's important for us to just understand how we determine that. And again, I recognize the challenge of that when it comes to our electrical utility. Right. And if it's okay, I think we'll just break it down a little bit because then if we break it down, then we can kind of understand where that chargers come from. What are the what are the costs essentially for for having electricity. Right. So there's there's two main costs Brian. Obviously it's the, the the electricity itself. Right. That's the, the what we call that the consumption charge. Right. So that's just your electricity. Your commodity. Your commodity. Exactly. Then it's actually getting that electricity to you. Right. And so we say we want it to be safe. We want it to be reliable and readily available. Right. So you can at any time you can you can use that. So there's a significant amount of charges that goes into that. Now as residential and small we call it small commercial. You don't have to pay for what's called a demand charge. So what demand is is essentially, the amount of power you need immediately. Okay. So the city actually does a pretty good job of of using the analogy of a car. I don't know if you saw that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's in there on. The web page. They printed it out. And I don't want to butcher it right now. You know. And I encourage people to, to go and check that out. But essentially it's, you know, you take they take two cars. Right. Let's say you're getting from here to Calgary. One car is going 50km an hour. The other car is going to 150km an hour. Okay. Well, the demand on that car going 150km an hour, even though it's the same thing. They're both getting here to Calgary. They're both cars. The demand that they're putting on that car cost significantly more. Right. There's again when we when we look at the distribution, charges of, electricity, we have the charge, you know, the system, and everything that goes behind that. And so then that puts a significant cost associated with that. So when you see demand spike, there has to be a way for the city to go, okay, well, that actually puts a significant strain and a significant cost on our utility. So someone has to pay for that. Right. And so that's why that demand goes up. Now unfortunately for for some that is measured at 25 kVA okay. And that's essentially just a a unit of power. So if you're anywhere from 0 to 24 kVA, you don't have to worry about paying a demand charge. That's just kind of the grace that you're given. And residential. We don't have to worry about that for our homes. Okay. Now when you get past 25 kVA, that's when you actually have to start paying for those kVA, right? So that's like again, when Mike talks about Hvac and things, it's not like it's happening randomly. It's happening because a significant load is being put on the system. Right. And so that ultimately just costs money. We have to we have to recoup those costs. So it's unfortunate because if you stay under 25 kVA, we don't have to pay anything. But if you go over 25 kV, you have to pay for all those kV years. So that's where you see Mike talking about, well now I got a $200 charge. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah it does. I think it's maybe the level at which the, the demand charge kick in. That might be the sticking point, because Mike was mentioning when he made his presentation to the City council that he got, I think in August to $203 demand charge surcharge. Yeah. Where if it left, it would have been $89. Yeah. And here we are in Medicine Hat. We have the lowest utilities, you know, and then all of a sudden like, wait a minute. The optics aren't right here. Yeah, I think that and I think it is the optics. And I think honestly that's something that we want to look into. We, we did have along with Councilor Cluxton in council Cox. We did have an energy committee, conversation and we said, hey, we want to look at that. We want to do a jurisdictional scan to understand that, because we do actually have the lowest utility in Alberta. We absolutely do. From a residential perspective. We've we've looked at all the numbers. I would like to understand that from a commercial perspective. But I think the difference in there, Brian, is that Lethbridge says, okay, well, it's 50 kVA. Like they've determined that for them it's going to be 50 kVA. And so therefore you don't necessarily get those charges until you get to there. We have said 25 kVA. And honestly, those decisions have I mean, that's it's been that for you know, it. Predates this council. It certainly does. Right. And probably the council's before that. And so I just want to understand okay. Why I don't think those decisions are made kind of willy nilly. They just pick it up. Yeah. They just throw you know, throw it at the dartboard and go 25. Like I imagine that the 25 is there specifically because of the requirements of the system and maybe additional equipment and things like that. But I can tell you that it absolutely can be looked at, and we never want small businesses to, you know, just to, to feel that extra pinch. But at the same time, we need people, you know, fairness, we talk about fairness. Well, we have to pay for that electricity. So where does you know? How are we going to assure that that still gets paid for? I think the, the thing that stuck with me was, during the explanation that, that demand, they have to have the infrastructure in place to meet that demand when it happens. Not all. Well, we're to turn the dial here and do you want power on demand. So that is why they have those demand charges there. Because they have to build a system to this level. And as Mike was also explaining to he understands the business side that the utility has to bring in money somehow and they've got to move it around. Yeah. Well however wherever they can. So I think both sides are right. You just got to bring them together and find something that works for everybody. And Brian, I just think that's such a I really appreciate that perspective because I think that's that's politics. That's municipal politics in a nutshell. Right? I don't think there's any you know, I'm trying to go at everything where I assume positive intent. Right. So from Mike's perspective, he's not some, you know, greedy guy trying to, you know, get everything he can. The city also, isn't this, like, big, bad, mean, you know, organization that's trying to get the little guy? Actually I think every all the actors are are have have are coming at it from positive perspective. And I think our job, my job is to help bring people together. I think when people feel heard, and then we actually, you know, do something with with that feedback. I think that's what we need. So it's like one of the things I appreciated about Mike when he said that, when he talked about, you know, here's some solutions. And one of the things he said was, can we just bring the right people to the table? And I'm like, absolutely, we can do that, right? Because that doesn't cost us anything. Let's let's come to the table. Let's understand from your perspective. But then let's also make sure we're understanding from the city's perspective. Yeah, I think there's, three points that he made. At the end of his presentation was he asked for a review of the classifications, maybe an alternate class for small business and engaging the community. And I think those things are already in play. Absolutely. Let's let's engage the community. Let's have those. I asked the same question on on the classes right now, we have eight different classes. And one of the things and even in commercial we have subclasses. We have small commercial, medium commercial and large commercial. One of the things that that I had asked is, well, can we have a subclass and small commercial, right. Because I think it's like medium commercial is anywhere from 25 kVA to a thousand kVA. I mean, obviously. That's a big. Spread, that's a big spread. And then if you're going over a thousand kVA, then you get into large commercial, right. And and again, I'm not assuming like I'm assuming there's, there's reasons for that. But is there, is there a way for us to have a little wiggle room? And again, recognizing that if we do that, there will be, you know, there's unintended consequences. And so how do we mitigate some of those? Yeah. Yeah. It's not an easy road to follow, but at least you're walking it together. That's right. And I think just even some clarity, you know, Mike had talked about small business and and when it comes to electricity, it's important to note too, that, you know, when we talk about small commercial, medium commercial, large commercial has nothing to do with your business, has nothing to do with how many employees you have, or the type of business you have, or how much money or how big it is. It is 100% has to do with your energy consumption. So, you know, you can have 100 employees to be in small commercial. You can have five employees and be in medium commercial because the energy that you're using in that medium commercial or in that right, is, is more medium. And going back to the to demand the cost to the system. And and I learned this more in, in in conversations the the consuming energy like giving it the it doesn't cost us a lot more to say. Let's say a customer wants a thousand, kilowatt hours of energy. Okay. But this other, this other customer wants 20,000kW. That's a significant difference. But it actually doesn't cost the system that much more to give a thousand than it does to give 20,000. Right. Like, even though it's so much bigger, but it cost the system a lot more to, let's say, give, you know, when it comes to demand, giving 15 kVA versus giving 30 kVA. So, so that's really that's why that that distinction is there. Like the demand on the system is ultimate what costs us okay. Well my head isn't spinning quite as fast as it did before. Still spinning a little bit. I'm sorry I'm sorry Brad. That's okay. I appreciate you stopping by to explain this. And, I'm sure we'll have other conversations as the years go by. Absolutely. Thank you. Brian, I appreciate you, thank you, thank you.