The Ben Mulroney Show - A Canadian singing for Team USA/PPC tweet fallout/Artemis' future?

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

GUEST:  Jasmin Laine/  @jasminlaine on youtube GUEST:  Sara Mazrouei, planetary geologist and Educational Developer at Humber Polytechnic’s Centre for Innovative Learning If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Investing is all about the future. So what do you think's going to happen? Bitcoin is sort of inevitable at this point. I think it would come down to precious metals. I hope we don't go cashless. I would say land is a safe investment. Technology companies. Solar energy. robotic pollinators might be a thing. A wrestler to face a robot, that will have to happen. So whatever you think is going to happen in the future,

you can invest in it at WealthSimple. Start now at WealthSimple.com. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Actually, it's Benedict Mulroney. That's my full name, Benedict Martin Paul Mulroney. And I say that because our first topic is about Benedict Darnold. We're talking about Tate McCray. By the way, I'm not saying that about her.

I think she's a heck of a singer, heck of a dancer, and she's from Calgary. And if you have kids in your house of a certain age, they know Tate McCray. And I don't know what happened here, but if you go to her social media, she is representing, she's a face of the American coverage of the Olympics, the NBC coverage of the Olympics. And there's a kind of a cute commercial of her talking to an owl laying out, all the great storylines that we know of thus far coming into the Olympics, which opening ceremonies are on Friday. Let's listen to a little bit of Tate McCray pumping the tires of Team USA.

Tate McCray? Oh, nobody. Nobody's girl, that is. I'm trying to get to Milan for an amazing opening ceremony and meet Team USA. Then it's the weekend with America's best skating for goals. And Lindsey Vaughn's epic comeback. And back to the state's the big game. Super Bowl 60.

Yeah, I don't even know where the problem starts here. I don't. I don't know. There's a lot to unpack, right? Like, who talked to who first? Did NBC go to Tate McCray? Did NBC not know she was Canadian? Did Tate McCray forget she was Canadian?

At any point during the negotiations, did anybody point out that she's Canadian? And look, I am not the guy who, who I use this expression yesterday, I'm going to use it again, I don't clutch my pearls. When Wayne Gretzky didn't wear the Team Canada jersey at the Four Nations Cup, I didn't, I didn't have a problem with that. And when Wayne Gretzky plays golf with Donald Trump, I don't care about that. The Olympics are different. For me, they cut different. They feel different. I was at the 2010 Olympics. I helped cover the 2010 Olympics.

Later on today, we're going to be talking about the 1988 Olympics in Calgary. They matter. They are a point of national pride. They are a point of national identity. They're a point of national history. And so I don't know who Tate McCrae's agents or managers are. They managed her into a shiz storm because I do believe that this is going to have a problem for her. I don't know that this mattered to her, but this is going to matter to some people.

And this is going to require some sort of diplomatic walk back. It makes no sense. You literally wear the flag of your nation everywhere. It's all over you. You're not there representing yourself. You're there representing your nation. And I get it. She wasn't there.

This was not the American Olympic Committee. This was NBC. But, and here's another thing. NBC says, some ideas guy there says, hey, got this great idea. You know, there's a lot of heat on a lot of artists out there. But, God, Tate McCrae, she's the one. She's the one.

And let's assume 15 people agreed. Tate McCrae is the one. Now there's a band of 15 of them. And now they're walking to up the ladder, to the 16th and final person who says, and then they sign off. Did they not bump into one person who said, but she's Canadian?

And this is America. We have a lot of stars here, like a lot of stars here. Maybe we should look at one of them before putting all of our eggs in the basket of a Canadian. Like, I don't know where the fault lies. I don't know if it's in the Ask by NBC

or the acceptance by Tate McCray's team. I don't know. But this is not the same as doing a, like an actor playing an American in a movie or an actor moving to Los Angeles. It's not the same thing. This is going to be a little, this is going to be a tempest. Whether it's in a teapot or not, we'll have to see. But I don't think for one second, Tate McCray meant to insult her Canadian fans. or the Maple Leaf.

So I do hope that when she gets pushed back and she should rightly get pushed back, I really hope people treat her with a little more respect than Wayne Gretzky got. Trader, I'm never going to, I'm never going to support Wayne Gretzky again. I've met Wayne Gretzky. I've spent time with Wayne Gretzky.

He is a kind, generous man who doesn't need to give anybody the time of day, and he does. And what he has done, what he did for hockey, what he did for Canada, what he did for this nation on a world stage, the fact that he represented us so very well. He, hockey was nothing in the United States,

relatively nothing, before him in Los Angeles. Nothing. Nothing. The NHL owes him everything. And he's also not a very political person. He just doesn't think that way. That's not how his brain works. Those aren't his priorities.

Just like some people, poop poop, poop, uh, entertainment. The amount of people who told me, who gives a crap about what you did for 20 years, Ben, that doesn't matter. Okay, well, you don't, but other people do. Some people don't care about hockey, other people do. Some people don't care about the Olympics, other people do. And so, Wayne Gretzky did not deserve what happened to him, not one bit.

He deserves nothing but praise and nothing but our pride and our respect. And he can be friends with whoever he wants, whoever he wants. So I'm just hoping that we don't have a repeat of that because that knee-jerk reaction Canadian pride is one thing. Anti-Americanism is a different, is different. Those are not two sides of the same coin. One is, one builds and the other destroys. And so let's hope, give this girl a little grace.

I don't know how old she is. I think she's probably early 20s. Like, come on, man. She's just figuring it out. But her team is not made of 20-year-olds. Somebody on that. Huh? She's 22.

She's 22. So, eh, you know. She's born on July 1st on Canada Day. Oh, God, lover. Look at that. You know what? I'll tell you what. Here's my prediction now.

She'll be front and center doing something at Stampede. Front and center. I think she's somebody on our team for damage control is going to say, go home, make your presence felt. Do some sort of meet up with your fans. Do a concert. Outdoor concert free. Something. Be there on your birth.

day on Canada Day, make it known that you know you're Canadian. Take control of this narrative. That's what I think is going to happen. Meanwhile, at the opening ceremonies, we've learned Andrea Boccelli is set to perform. And so is Mariah Carey. And she is set to sing entirely in Italian. I will watch that. I will absolutely watch that.

I only interviewed Mariah Carey. No, I interviewed her twice. once when she was a guest performer on a guest mentor on Canadian Idol. And the second time was, and she showed up with Nick Cannon, who was her husband at the time. And he was carrying her purse. And the second time was for a new album that she was doing in New York, she was promoting New York City. She was three hours late for the interview. And you know what?

Didn't bug me one bit. Didn't bug me one bit because that's part of her. lore and she's she's lounging drinking champagne the whole time it was i wouldn't accept that from anybody else i wouldn't accept from any other artist to be three hours late but with maria carey not only is expected but you're kind of hope you'll be able to tell that story you kind of hope that that's how the story is going to go and true to for oh third time i interviewer a third time when she performed at in front of the christmas windows at at at at the um uh hudson's bay and she got paid a million bucks on Young Street in Toronto.

There we go. Three times I met her. All right. We've got, oh, who else is going to be? Michael Bublay, Cilinzion. Oh, these are just... Oh, that's not the problem. All right, I'm just reading.

But yeah, this is, I'm very much looking forward to that. Opening ceremonies are always a lot of fun. I did think there were elements in Paris that were beautiful and other parts that were just... I mean, it's a performance, but there's a difference between performance and being performative. and there was a little bit of both in Paris. Some of the Paris stuff was controversial. Yeah, but the fact that they took the whole city or big parts of the city

and made the ceremonies were all over the city, that was cool. That was cool, cool, cool. And I hope that that's done again another time. All right, when we come back, we are continuing the ongoing saga between the People's Party of Canada and a number of independent content creators who were at the Calgary Conservative Convention. The People's Party accused them as something that they say they didn't do.

So where do we go next? Jasmine Lane joins us next on the Ben Mulroney show. Paying for tax tools, our team doesn't even use. Is now really the right time to make the change? Why are we paying for tax tools our team doesn't even use? Is our tax research tool actually doing this? Why are we paying for tax tools our team doesn't even use? Why does my team keep turning to search engines?

With Blue Jay, you can help your firm stay ahead by giving your team a tax research tool they'll actually want to use. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJay, AI for tax experts. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada,

reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. And there's something to be said for one's reputation, right? In a lot of jobs, you're only as good as the reputation that precedes you. If you are known to be responsible, if you're known to be fair, if you're known to be kind,

all of those things can serve you well before you even walk in the door. And if somebody comes for your reputation, they're coming for everything. and in the world of independent content creators, that's all they got. They've got their name and they've got their body of work. And you put it all together and it builds trust. It builds connection. It builds community.

And so when somebody comes for an independent content creator and says, oh, gee, I don't know. They target kids. If you're somebody who has spent a great deal of time, energy, and capital, to build trust with your community and somebody says that, you may take great umbrage to it. And that's exactly what happened a couple of days ago. After the conservative party convention,

a number of independent content creators who were there as observers, eight of them had a picture taken. It looks like a great picture. I mean, honestly, it looks like a cast picture from a reboot of 90210. And it says, and this conservative convention has been legendary. Then Maxim Bernier's People's Party of Canada grabbed that picture, reposted it, and said, thanks for making it easy to identify who targets our kids. Well, we had Sondren, from Life with Sondren, I was one of the targeted people in the picture on the show to say that if we don't get an apology and if that tweet doesn't get taken down, we're thinking about suing.

So then the next day, we had Maxim Bernier on the show and he said some craziness. I'm sorry, I tried to get him to walk a logical path. I couldn't get him there. He claimed that was put up because these guys have been lying that he lives down in Florida. And if I'm only going to apologize, if they apologize, I tried to get him to walk back the stuff that he needs to walk back. And he was having none of it. So that's where we are.

However, we did say something yesterday during the conversation, which was that the most vener. Ineimis invective online is almost universally directed at women. That's, I think we can all agree on that. And there were, there's one, two, three women in this picture. And so as bad as it is for Sondren, I had to imagine that it would be worse for one of these three women. And we are very fortunate to be joined by one of these women, Jasmine Lane, who I saw,

I've met for the first time in the lobby of our hotel. And she gave the closing statements at the Conservative Party convention. Welcome from Winnipeg. Thanks so much for joining us on the show. Thank you very much for having me. Okay. So that was a very long-winded intro, and I do apologize, but I need to level set for the audience

who may have missed the past couple of days. Talk to me about your journey through this story after this picture was taken and posted. I mean, to be frank, it was mostly just confusing. I didn't quite understand it. I wasn't there as a delegate. So I had no role whatsoever in any of the votes. Not to mention what it was that they were voting on is not how it was described at all.

So I feel like there's a lot of misinterpretation, misinformation, dare I say, about the policy in question. But it was very shocking. I think, you know, I have this rule where when it comes to private citizens, you don't go after private citizens. You can go after parties. You can go after perhaps some of the news pundits, but never, ever private citizens.

And what a, what a yucky thing to say about a bunch of people you've never met. And I heard Max on your show yesterday as well. And I was shocked. I'm like, I've never even talked about you. If you have a gripe with somebody else in the photo. Yes. So, yeah, let's be clear.

Like he, his argument was that, well, his people's party has a very absolutist view on gender affirming surgery and the like, right? And he didn't like the more nuanced position that the conservative party took during this policy convention. You have nothing to do with that. But he claimed he put that up there because he wanted to move the ball forward on that conversation, but also he wanted you guys to apologize for lying that he lives in Florida

full time. You're saying you've never said word one about that. Never. If you found something, I would be surprised because I'm like, I don't talk about him ever. I don't think I've ever done a story about him or anything to that effect. Have I had private conversations about the PPC? Of course I have. But I've never said anything publicly.

I think I'm one of the only people in that photo that he hasn't blocked from social media, likely because I've never said anything about him privately. or publicly, like, there's been nothing. So that was really, really shocking to hear that. And also, it just, it felt really silly, honestly. It felt really, really silly. Jasmine, what was the reaction? You know, when I saw that, I was like, look, they're not saying that these people

are targeting kids, but they're opening the door for people to think it. They're giving permission to people to think it. And once people, when people think things on social media, especially on Twitter, which is a cesspool, that that can have. have really negative knock on effects for women on that platform. Talk to me about what would the effect it had on you and on your followers and on, like, what sorts of messages did you get? Well, I mean, I do want to also say how conveniently timed that they would post that

the same day that there's all of these new Epstein documents coming out. They're not stupid for one. So I totally reject any premise at all of, oh, well, you know, people just took it in a direction. We didn't mean you have a communications team for a reason. And if people are not getting fired over such a gross misrepresentation of what you were intending, not to mention even just the fact that, as I said, none of us, outside of one person who was there as a delegate who's very much against everything that Maxim is

against, it's just so silly to put people into that same umbrella. But no, it's horrible. It's absolutely horrible. I have four young nephews myself. I love children. I hope to have many in my days. and it's just such a, it's so, it's such a filthy thing to do. It's such filthy politics to do something like that.

That's completely baseless. And exactly as you said as well, to, you're not directly accusing any one individual. And it sounds like he has issues with some of the other individual. Why on earth are you posting a group photo with people who you've never even met? Some of whom are actually very new into doing content creation with a conservative leaning. It's filthy. I tried to explain to him yesterday.

I said, look, because he said, well, I never. said anything like that. I was like, that's not the test you have to worry about if this ever goes to court. The test is, would a reasonable, would a person reasonably be able to assume that that's what you meant? Not what you said. No one's going to, I get it. And I don't know who's

advising him on this. I don't understand. I don't understand. Again, this is politics, right? Let's assume for a second. Let's live in a fantasy world where every single person in here said that he lives in Florida. Who cares? Yeah. Like you're in politics, man. It's a blood sport. Yeah. The stuff that people, you know what people said about my mom. The Toronto Star said about my mom that she decided to make cystic fibrosis the charity that she wanted to endorse and follow and be a national ambassador for. Because unlike, say, burn victims, the kids looked cute.

Look, that was like very early on, and it only got worse from there. But, you know, did my mom complain? Did she sue the Toronto Star? No, it's just, it's a blood sport. So I don't know why. It's a thin skin that he has. He also is very thin in the finances. I mean, I don't know.

I'm sure you've seen the financial report of the People's Party of Canada. They're not exactly swimming in cash. I think they've got, I think they had a post-185. $4,000 deficit last year, they don't have any money. And if you guys come for them, you could be responsible for the end of the People's Party of Canada. Yeah. That could be.

And there's a big group of us. Yeah. That could be the legacy of your group of eight. And so you got to, we got to come up with a name for you here because somebody's going to tell the story of it one day. And we need a, we need a catchy name for this. I was going to say cabal, but that's. That's the wrong tongue.

You know, if there's one good thing that came from this, it is the fact that there goes all of the traditional mainstream media slurs that I get about how I'm such a far-right radical. The PPC is calling me out clearly I'm not. Hey, Jasmine, listen, can you stick around for a few more minutes? I want to talk to you after the break, because I want to talk about what you do moving forward. With MX Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining

means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. When McDonald's partnered with Frank's Redhot, they said they could put that shit on everything. So that's exactly what McDonald's did. They put it on your McChrispy. They put it in your hot honey macnucket's dip.

They even put it in the creamy garlic sauce on your McMuffin. The McDonald's Frank's Red Hot menu. They put that shit on everything. Breakfast available until 11 a.m. participating Canadian restaurants for a limited time. Franks Redhot is a registered trademark of the Frenchest Food Company LLC. At pizaville.ca. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney Show.

They're doing politics, and you said it, you know, conservative content creators. So they're entrants, they're doing politics, and, you know, they were at that convention, they saw that, and their role is, for me, if you're an independent citizen journalist, you must tell the truth. They're not doing that about me, and they're lying. all the time about the fact that I'm not here. And on good faith, we decided, because I told you before, the interpretation of that tweet was not the one that we wanted. We wanted to have more debate on policy, and that's why it's important for everybody to know that the Conservative Party of Canada is for the radical gender ideology,

and they believe that the kids, a boy, can be a girl. And so if they're promoting that, they are promoting very bad, ideology. So that was Maxim Bernier explaining the official Twitter account of his political party, going after independent content creators, for reasons that still mystify me. And I'm here in continuing my conversation with one of the people who was the target of a tweet suggesting that she and her colleagues were, quote, targeting children. Jasmine Lane, Jasmine, thanks so much for sticking around. It's, of course. I mean, if this is, if he gave us a preview of his case in a court, a court of law and when he's

sued for libel or defamation, I don't know how well that's going to go for him. I don't think it would go well at all. It's not substantive at all. It's a personal gripe. And now we've kind of trying to walk that back a little bit. But what you still put something out there. that is really, really bad. Yeah.

So when we talked to Saundran yesterday, he said that you're all working together. If you do decide to move forward with legal action, you're doing so as one group. So have you, after that conversation with him yesterday, where he gave us, like I said, he gave us some insights. Have you guys spoken since then or communicated at all? They have like a WhatsApp chat? Yeah. Yeah.

We've all been communicating. I've been relaying all the screenshots of the post engagements prior to it. being taken down and all of that as well to my lawyer. So, yeah, no, it's very serious. That's the thing, you know, people, people get so disillusioned online that you can just do and say whatever you want and have whatever weak excuse it is for crying to justify it. It's not justifiable. You cannot justify that. Like, you targeted a group of people you don't know who have never talked about you, who don't know you. It's so bizarre to me and it's just, it's so weak. Everything about it is really, or it's really weak.

It's really silly. Are you guys any closer to deciding whether you're going to take legal action? It depends. There's some people on the group who very much want to. I have officially sent it all off to the defamation area of the law firm that I use. So we will see what they decide. Personally, I want an apology more than anything because posts like that, they get shared on mass. And there were dozens of comments of people sharing it.

And, you know, it's very slanderous. It's very serious. and I again, kind of like you said, who is advising him? Yeah. Yeah. That is crazy to me. Well, listen, Jasmine, I know that, like, I watch your content and you put a lot of care into it each and every day.

So I have no doubt you've got a lot of work to do yourself today. I thank you for taking time out of your busy day to join us. And just, again, as a man in media, I want to tell you, I know it's harder to deal with the trolls. And I know the people's party didn't make it easier for you. So you've got my respect, you got my support, and just keep, come on back when you have a, when you've got an update on, on the elite eight versus the people's party of Canada. The elite eight, I like that.

All right. Take care. Jasmine Lane. All right. So we want to hear from you now, 416870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. I want to talk about Twitter Wars. I want to talk about, can you do and say whatever you want? You know, yesterday I talked about

correcting the record as I saw it. The rule is different for everybody. However, at some point, if you go past a certain point, then you start running a foul of the law. So I'd love to hear from you and let us know what you think. If you haven't been involved in a Twitter war, and how do you de-escalate? I've been involved in a few in my time,

and the de-escalation sometimes happens on its own. Sometimes it doesn't. At the beginning of the war in Gaza, I saw our streets being taken over in a way that I didn't feel that the city had control. And this was early on. And Warren Kinsella, who is a lawyer and who's also been on this show, wrote a piece for the Toronto Sun that said, you guys start making arrests because we need to draw a line.

And then he posted on top of it. He said, I've said it before. I've said it again. If there's Canadian citizens, they need to be arrested. And if they're not Canadian citizens, because he suspected that there were some international players that were moving the needle. He said, if they aren't international, they should be deported. And I said, I tweeted it.

And I said, I co-signed this. Well, the mob came for me. They came for me. And the only thing that was on my Twitter bio was that I worked for the CNIB, the Canadian National Institute of the Blind. and they went after C&IB, shame on you. You got a racist in your midst. You got a racist in your midst.

And they went after this poor group that all they do is raise money for help the blind. And I helped them raise money. And so the net result when I was told that our relationship had to end, I said the net result is you've now made it harder for this group to raise money because whether you like it or not, I can move the needle on that. And so I've been on the receiving end of it. I've been on the receiving end. and sometimes you fight and sometimes you submit.

Let's talk to it. Danny, welcome this show. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to point out the fact of when Trudeau was going on about calling people misogynists and racist and all the unvaccinated, you know, that's slanderous too with all this. That type of rhetoric. Well, yeah, you know what? You make a good point.

It speaks to what I've said in the past, which is that in this country, we have set up a permission structure for people to say things on the left. that we would never allow people to say on the right. I personally think that the pushback that Maxim Bernier and his party is getting is appropriate. I think what they did was inappropriate. I don't think he explained himself well yesterday, and therefore I just don't think his excuse holds water. I try to listen in good faith.

But you're right. On the left, on the left, you got people who will so routinely will besmirch people's reputations with epithets like racist, misogynist, Islamophob, transphobe. And you're absolutely right. That is part of the problem as well. When you say it generally, though, it's different than when you say it specifically towards eight people whose faces

and names are readily identifiable in a post. Yeah, go on, Danny. Last word to you. With that point, what I was going to say about the Bernier thing is it could be read as saying because they have access to a lot of young ears and they're very, you know, all over the people, they have lots of followers.

So I don't know if they're indoctrinating the young years and it could be read that way as well. Yeah, and Danny, absolutely. You're 100% right. But the... I like all those guys. I like all those guys. So I listen and follow a lot of them. The test in civil litigation isn't

a proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It's would a person reasonably be able to assume or infer from what you said that targeting our children is meant in a predatory way. And I think... If Bernie is going to get sued, if Bernie is

going to get sued, I'd like to sue Trudeau myself. Okay, thank you, Danny. You take care. Let's welcome Kevin. Kevin. Hey, Ben, how we going? Good. Yeah, so, you know, I'm on Twitter a lot. I got a fair of large following. I've been

in this battle, this heat of the exchange, not to this extent, of course. And I just find that the best way to approach it is just to let the oxygen die off. Let the flame smother itself by not giving it any attention. I'm sure they're like, you know, once you bring, you know, kids into it and whatnot, you're opening up another can of worms. That's never happened to me. But in my experience, the best way to move forward with these things is just to give it no attention, no oxygen and the flames glowed on its own. Yeah, I think generally that's a good attack.

but we're living in a world of bots. We're living in a world of of cabals of people working together and orchestrating attacks on people online. And so sometimes doing that, there's nothing you can do because those people are coming for you no matter what. It's part of a plan.

I got to let you go because I want to take this one last call. Very quickly. We got another Kevin. Kevin, really quick. What do you have to say? Yeah, Ben, you know, this is asinine to me. The reason Canada probably won't be around in about 20 years, and the reason the liberals are going to continue to win

is the right keeps fighting amongst themselves like a bunch of idiots. Have a good day. Thank you, my friend. He's kind of not wrong. I'm kind of not wrong. All right, don't go anywhere when we come back. Oh, we're talking about Artemis 2 and the return to the moon

and why we've got to wait until March before that happens. This is the Ben Mulroney show. Did you know that Staples Professional can tailor a custom program to make running your business easy With a Staples Professional account, you get one vendor, one delivery, and one invoice for all your must-haves. From tech to cleaning supplies and dedicated support from Staples experts who guide you on everything, from product selection and ordering to payment. Join today at staplesprofessional.ca and get expert solutions tailored to your business.

That was easy. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health. From the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life.

Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and, oh gosh, we talked about yesterday of how much I get excited about the idea of space exploration. It gets kids excited about science. Being smart is a superpower, discipline and working together as teams and problem solving. Go watch Apollo 13 and you know what I'm talking about. This is, we are living in at the dawn of a new era of space exploration and it starts in, in March with the launch of Artemis 2. However, it was supposed to happen

in the next couple of days. And so to break down what happened that led NASA to scrap this launch during this launch window and wait for the next one in March. We're joined by Sarah Missouri, planetary geologist and educational developer at Humber,

Polytechnic Center for Innovative Learning. Gosh, Humber's got some long titles there, Sarah. It sure does. Yeah. But are you excited? Are you as excited is the, Is the kid in you looking forward to this launch? The adult in me is also looking forward to this launch.

I feel like I haven't experienced this. Like the Apollo, you just watch it, you hear about it. I haven't experienced it live. So I'm so ready for another lunar mission. Look, Sarah, I'm old enough to have been in my classroom when I watched live the explosion of the Challenger shuttle. and that set that was, first of all,

it was traumatizing for everybody before we ever called anything traumatizing. But it set everything back so long. Man space missions were shelved for, I felt like a decade at least. And so the fact that the technology has advanced, the science has advanced, and the desire to go back into the stars

is up there, is back front and center, is a beautiful thing. But what happened? What happened to, to the Artemis rocket that NASA had to say on the go-no-go, it's a no-go. Yeah, so, you know, it is rocket science. They're not going to just strap in the astronauts and say, okay, you're off. They're going to do a dress rehearsal.

And this time around, they were doing what is called a wet dress rehearsal. Yeah, wet, that's right. Yeah, so they basically fill everything in with propellant, but without actually doing the launch. And they discovered a leak of liquid hydrogen in the fueling system. And like the amount that was leaking was more than they were expecting. So they said, okay, we're going to, we're going to pause the launch, push it back into March. And we're going to study the data, see what needs to be changed. But the good news is they don't actually need to take the rocket off of like where it's placed.

They're thinking they can just do the fix right there, which is a good sign. It means that it's nothing too major. And correct me if I'm wrong. but this rocket has a new, it's almost like an escape hatch for them, that if need be, they can separate from the entire thing if there's a massive problem with the rocket as they're taking off.

Yeah, there's definitely, those are all built in to this launch system as well. But the SLS, the space launch system is new. It's not the same one that was used with the Apollo system. That's why they did the Artemis 1, which was uncrued. and now they're going to, they're going to test it again with crew this time around as well. And what, so the plan, the plan is to launch in March?

And is that, is that because, is that because of where the moon is relative to where they launch from? I know that when it comes to, you know, launching for Mars, for example, there are only certain times of the year where you can launch in an effective way because the planets do a lot of the traveling for you. Is that the same thing here? Is that why we have to wait until March? Yeah, we have to take a few things into consideration, and that's one of them. So our position relative to the moon, you know, you see the different phases of the moon. So it changes like where we are, where North America is facing towards the moon.

It also, there's obviously weather goes into it as well. So there's going to be multiple launch windows. There's going to be one in March, the beginning of March, I believe. And then there will be one towards the beginning of April. So there's multiple launch windows planning for that. And so some people may not know, they're not landing on the moon this time, but this Artemis trip will take human beings farther into space, deeper into space than they've ever been before.

And they're essentially doing a tour around the moon, the dark side of the moon and back, correct? Yes. So this will be just orbiting the moon. It's going to be about a 10-day mission. They will orbit the moon to test out the communication systems and everything in there with a crew and come back. And as you know, we're having our first Canadian astronaut go to me.

That hasn't happened before. And the plan, though, is when this is a success, I'm not ever going to say if, when this is a success, then they activate the next phase, which is to land on the moon and begin some sort of construction of a base, right? Because they want to use that as a launch pad for certain aspects of the next mission to Mars? I think those are going to be some conversations around it. It's definitely going to be a landing mission. They're going to have the first woman and more astronauts landing on the surface of the moon at different location than the Apollo missions went to.

And we study the surface to see if what we think should be on the moon from all the data we've gathered already exists there. And if we have those resources like ice, for example, then that gives us a good possibility of thinking about, okay, how can we use these resources that already exist on the moon? To use that as a launch location to go to Mars. They're not going to be building a base during Artemis 3, but they will be looking at the resources and sort of gathering more information for the future. Sarah, this whole thing is just so, so exciting.

And during the initial, during the space race of the 60s, there was an uptick in interesting, in science. Do you suspect that's going to happen again? Because from what I understand, you will be able to watch this happen. You'll be able to watch the launch and the entire mission 24-7. It's going to be live-streamed in so many different ways. And it feels to me that this is an opportunity to capture the excitement of children

to focus their wild passions into sciences, into STEM. Yeah, absolutely. I really hope so. That's what I believe as well. I think, you know, the moon is something that every kid looks up to all around the world. You look up, you know, my son is three. He's like, oh, look, there's the moon. And just to be able to see humans going to the moon, land on the moon, it's going to really, you know, fire up that passion about STEM.

It might not end up being space science or space engineering, but all sorts of engineering, math, science, even art, right? Art, music. Yeah. That's a wrap that I think is really, really going to. hopefully bring up some of those feelings and in some of that interest in kids and adults as well. It's a shame, though, Sarah, that they won't be landing anywhere near where the original moon landing happened because that would put to rest once and for all the conspiracy theories that we never landed on the moon in the first place.

That's true. But Ben, do you think if we landed a second time, those, you know, it would probably be the conspiracy theories will have the same, that this was also fake. But maybe there could be a flyover. Maybe as their landing, they could fly over it and a camera could capture the remnants of that original landing. So that actually does exist. I'm going to tell you. Go to YouTube, put in lunar reconnaissance orbiter.

That orbiter has been orbiting the moon for like 10, 12 years. There's really great images of you can see the tracks of, you know, the previous lunar rovers. You can see some of the equipment that was left on that site. So you can need those images. I'm going to go look at it. That's fantastic. And lastly, because you've just informed me of so much stuff, I'm going to give you science from my perspective,

which is no science at all. But have you watched the show for all mankind? I have not. Okay, Sarah, I'm sure you're doing a lot of important work. This is also important work for you. This is a show on Apple TV that asks the question, what would have happened to the space race if the Russians had gotten to the moon first.

All right. I'm adding that. I'm adding that in the two. Sarah, do not add it. Put it at the top of the list. And like I said, maybe call in sick tomorrow.

Because if you watch the first episode, something tells me, based on this conversation, you're not going to want to stop. And there's five seasons of it with a sixth coming. No, four with a six. Yeah. There's lots of content there.

Sarah, it's going to blow your mind. I will definitely watch it. I hope my boss is not listening in in case I'm... Tell your boss to watch it too. Everyone should watch it. It should be... But listen, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us.

Please come back when we can actually discuss it right prior to the lift-off. We'd love having you back at the show. For sure. For sure. This was a lot of fun. Thanks, Ben. Thank you. Our intel chain is compromised. New on Showcase. You were hacked.

You're telling me it's real. Someone's been watching and listening through you. Simulio. We can either attempt to remove what's in your brain Or we keep back open. Melissa Barrera. We need to use you to find them and destroy them. Tell me why you chose me.

We either save the mission or save his life. The Copenhagen Test. All new Tuesdays, only on Showcase. Stream on Stack TV.