The class divide could be coming to a ski hill near you

December 12, 2025·28 min·2 clips

Blue Mountain's $2,000 VIP ski pass lets wealthy skiers jump the lift line, angering longtime locals like Vel Vardy.

A ski hill becomes the pressure point. Vel is not giving up skiing, but Blue Mountain is off his list after he asks whether locals still count next to people paying $2,000 to skip the line. If those fees are what the company wants, he says, fair enough. He just will not go there. The hosts keep the mood loose, including a friendly invite to make turns out west at Castle, which lets the frustration breathe without turning it into a rant. Then the show moves to butter. Daniel Nerman returns to a story about Canadians treating French butter like a luxury import, with Yusuf Treya in Calgary as the guide. Bridgeland Market sells local produce and meat, but around Christmas baking season it brings in five-kilo buckets of French butter for $350. The tariff is steep: 298.5 percent on foreign butter, tied to Canada's dairy industry. Yusuf still sells out. His explanation is pure grocery-counter logic: fat wins more friends than salad. The butter itself matters too. Canadian grocery-store butter is described as 80 percent milk, while French butter runs higher, between 82 and 86 percent. Bakers notice. The segment turns a holiday splurge into a tidy lesson on tariffs, taste, and paying more to get around a system, whether that means a shorter ski line or better pastry. The ending lightens up with listener advent calendar ideas, from fishing lures to handwritten gratitude, before the sign-off from Calgary.

As heard by us

A ski-hill pricing story becomes a clear look at luxury access, local loyalty, and everyday affordability.

Cost of Living treats ski-hill pricing as a consumer access story, with Blue Mountain standing in for a bigger question: what happens when leisure businesses start sorting customers by how much impatience they can afford.

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Why you'd press play

A ski-hill gripe that slides into French butter, tariffs, and supply management.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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