[applause]
JONNY: How you doing?
Can I run this by you? I got a pitch for CBC.
I'm pitching them a new sitcom, okay?
Okay, the setting:
a quiet, little farming town in southwestern Manitoba,
where, over recent decades, the population has dwindled.
More families with kids would come
if there was more stuff for the kids to do.
Then the town receives a strange letter from Vancouver.
An eccentric millionaire who grew up in the town,
but mysteriously nobody can remember...
[laughter]
JONNY: ...has passed away and left a trust fund
to the children of the town
equalling 55,000 dollars a year, every year forever.
[applause] JONNY: What do you think?
Maybe it would be better as a musical.
[laughter]
JONNY: I am, of course, not talking about a fun,
frolicky piece of fiction.
I'm taking about what actually happened,
what is happening here in Minto, Manitoba.
It is the reality of the situation.
Maybe that's what we can do, a reality show.
[laughter]
JONNY: In fact, while all of you are here tonight,
our crew is putting GoPros in your homes.
JONNY: I had a chat with a member
of Minto's philanthropy committee
who have the interesting predicament
of deciding exactly where all this money will be spent.
So I went over to the church of Minto, your curling rink,
and had a chat with Tom Sprott.
[applause]
TOM: Well, as a farmer,
I've been giving money away all my life now.
Now I feel good about it,
and it's somebody else's money,
so that's even better!
JONNY: Does anybody remember?
I haven't met anybody here who remembers the guy.
TOM: No.
I was looking in the history book,
and it was in 1941
that there's a picture of the hockey team,
and there's Lloyd Campbell.
And that was a few years before he left.
JONNY: Nobody seems to know him,
which is funny because usually you're dealing
with an inheritance this size,
people come out of the woodwork.
People show up-- "Oh, I'm the second-cousin, twice-removed."
Here's a few things we do know about Lloyd Campbell.
He grew up here and he went out West.
He was a businessman.
Some of the things he was involved in:
luxury yachts, McDonalds franchises,
and Vancouver real estate.
So it's no Murdoch Mystery that he did alright for himself.
[laughter]
TOM: Local guy does well, and then here's some money.
Yeah, it's-- I don't know, it's just a very unique thing,
and it's hard for everybody to kind of wrap their heads around.
JONNY: They're trying to figure out where the money should go.
What's best for the kids?
What's best for the community?
What the intention of Lloyd Campbell originally was,
how to spend this money.
TOM: Well, it's, like, specified in his will,
it's for the youth of Minto.
That's where we're just trying to follow his wishes.
JONNY: In the will, it talks about
sports and teams' equipment,
but it also has the word recreational.
TOM: It's not just sport;
it's anything that the kids want to do.
And there are guidelines, so we kind of have to follow them.
JONNY: You've gotta prove that it's recreational,
which is interesting because I thought
what I have that's recreational
I try to prove is medicinal.
[laughter]
TOM: It would have been so much nicer in many ways
if he would have been able to answer these questions.
Like, what do you really want done with this?
JONNY: What do you want us to do?
TOM: Yeah, it would have been so much nicer,
but unfortunately that's not gonna happen.
JONNY: Anyway, I'm glad I'm not responsible
for making these decisions.
But I do have a suggestion there.
Nothing against your Zamboni...
[laughter]
JONNY: ...which is like a big water tank and a mop
attached to a turn-of-the-century
children's toboggan.
[laughter]
JONNY: But it's also an example of true rural ingenuity.
It works. It works pretty well.
Tom said he used to drive--
I guess you don't
you pull it like a human oxen.
He said he used to do it, then he passed the reins
over to his son Sean.
Literally the reins, the rope.
[applause]