The Ben Mulroney Show - A double double with a side of... coal?? Store fires staff a week before Xmas

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

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Thank you so much for joining. us, it is the 18th of December, 2025. It's a Thursday. I checked, I'm sure. Thank you so much for joining us. We, guys, I want to welcome everybody to the show. Thank you for joining us. Ben Mulroney here. Join by Amy Siegel. Hello. Mike, the Intrepid producer and Joy, thanks so much, guys. Thank you. Good morning. Listen, massive oversight on our part yesterday was national maple syrup day. What's that? Yeah. I mean, that's a national day for everything. Yeah, but the fact that that was an, that was an oversight. Like, we We got to call it, we got to call the failures where we see them.

But that's a very, it seems like a very Canadian thing. It is. And frankly, like the fact that we missed it, but Denny's got it right. Denny's a great, great place for breakfast in the States. And there's a few of them here. There's one on, there's one on college. Yeah, there's one on Clifton Hill. Of course there is.

I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's speaking about Niagara Falls yesterday. Yeah, there's one in, there's definitely one Niagara Falls. But you want a good breakfast at any time of day, you go to Denny's. So yesterday, as, as, uh, you're going to, you know, to honor National Maple Serb Day. They released what they call sticky kicks, a limited edition sneaker with real maple syrup sealed in clear.

No, not ooh, ew, not ooh, in clear side panels created with custom by, with custom sneaker artist, um, mace, I don't know. They, they were priced at $195 and they've already sold out. That's insane. Who's buying that? I would buy these. Well, obviously. They're yellow and brown and a little bit of orange.

Stop it with the ooh. You haven't seen them. I'm telling you, they're good-looking shoes. I mean, if you like a yellow shoe. With maple syrup in them. Yeah, it's like in the side panels, right? So it just looks like a fluid, right? A brown fluid.

It's a good idea. I wonder if it's actually real syrup. It's got to be real syrup. Well, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. It would be because, I mean, the sugar would break stuff down. I think, I mean, what if they're in the heat? I don't know.

I don't know. But anyway, it's a good stunt. It's a good promotional stunt. Does it help you dunk? So what happens on maple syrup? That was awful. Two demerit points. for you. Shame on you.

Sit in the corner. Think about what you've done. They're not attractive. I just looked them up. Did you miss that, that, Amy? They're not attractive. You missed it. I said, do they help you dunk?

Oh, you like that? No, no, no. He's got to sit in the corner and think about what he's done. Yeah, yeah. You sit there and you think about what you've done. Beautiful puns, baby. Yesterday, you really made my day. You did make my day with the Gary Busey stuff in the in the, in the, in the,

oh my God, Gary Bucy. Yeah, Gary Bucy yesterday was, was a gift. He was a gift. a Christmas gift, and it turns out he's got more knowledge to drop on us this morning. So give me my daily Busey. I got some information for you. If you haven't looked at the bottom of your foot for a long time, try to draw it perfectly and see what your memory brings you.

I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means, but I'm here for Gary Busey. God love the man. I'm here for Gary Bucy. Yeah, I love it. Play that again. I got to understand what the heck he's talking about. I got some information for you.

If you haven't looked at the bottom of your foot for a long time, try to draw it perfectly and see what your memory brings you. Try to draw the bottom of your foot perfectly. When was the last time you looked at the bottom of your foot? Look, even if I had a picture of the bottom of my foot, I would be able to draw it well. Who can draw the bottom of their foot? I mean, it's just a foot.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but I think Gary's going deeper than that. I don't think it's about the foot. I think it's about what the foot represents. I think it's about memory. You had two demerant points for that. I don't, you are not the one who gives the demerit points, my friend. I give demarit points.

I give so many. Hey, listen, one thing that we wanted to do is we wanted to go back to a conversation we had yesterday. This is a serious one. Because yesterday there was a big story about Canadian members of parliament who were denied entry into Israel. And there was controversy around who had sponsored their, trip. And there were stories that were floating around from journalists that we used as part of our analysis. Because according to the Israeli government, this group is labeled by that government a terrorist organization. And so we took that information and gave our

assessment based on that information. Well, a friend of mine, whom I trust, God, as much as anybody, I would have this guy raise my kids. That's how much I trust him. He's a good and honorable and just person. I trust him with anything and everything. And he called me up and said, I think he got this wrong, Ben. I think we, I think you owe it to yourself as you continue along with, you know, these sorts of discussions. But hold on wrong is, is, uh, we, we never alleged. We never said that this, this organization was. We said it is being alleged that they are. Yeah. No, no, but no, no, just in terms of tone and in terms of, in terms of, you know, willingness to engage in dialogue.

Yes. He's like, I think you need to be more open-minded here. But we are always open-minded. Yeah, absolutely. But he said, I think, rather than start from the position that we started from, he said, I think it's incumbent upon you to have some conversations. And so we did. And so yesterday I reached out to, or actually, my friend brokered a conversation between me

and the head of the Islamic Relief Fund. Islamic Relief Canada. Islamic Relief Canada. And his name is Tufel Hussein. And we had a very honest, productive conversation yesterday. And it was my hope that we could have a conversation on air today. However, I believe that trust is built over time. And so for the time being, after what I thought was a really productive conversation yesterday,

he felt comfortable sending us a clip, an audio clip about who his organization is, the work they do, and the circumstances around the work they do. We're going to air a short, a portion of it now, we'll air the full thing later. But I want you to hear in his own words about the work that his organization does and then we'll talk about it on the back end. Allegations claim in links to terrorism

are false, not new, and have been repeatedly and conclusively disproven. Islamic relief accounts for every dollar it spends. Independent auditors have consistently confirmed, that no funds have ever reached any prescribed organization. Over the past decade alone, Islamic relief has undergone more than 500 independent audits, none of which have found evidence of longdoing.

When similar allegations arose in 2014, Islamic Relief voluntarily suspended programs and commissioned an independent investigation into our projects, partners, finances, and staff in Gaza. That investigation found no evidence of linked to terrorism. We have also challenged the Israeli government's designation in court and continue to reject this false narrative internationally.

All right, so there's more to what he said. And like I said, we're going to talk about this again later on in the show for our national audience. But look, the fact is there is a lot of toxicity out there and there is a lot of negativity. And I want this show to be helpful. I want this show to be productive. I want this show to be a positive force.

And when my friend, who I just told you, I would die for and who would probably die for me and who I believe is the most moral person I've ever met tells me that the path forward is by getting to know this organization and the people and the work that they do, I listen to him and I trust him. And having spoken with two fail yesterday, I take him at his word and having read some documentation, I believe him. and I believe that this is a good organization. Now, do they have their own issues with the Israeli government? Seems like they're working on that on their end. Is this an organization that follows the letter in the spirit of the law in Canada? I believe it does. And so there are other questions as to that entire trip in Israel.

That is not what I'm talking about right now. What I'm talking about today is I believe that I'm more than satisfied that this organization is a positive force in Canada and does good work around the world. And I want that to be, I want that to be known. And it was alleged by various people online that this group of MPs was being ushered into the West Bank by an organization that had ties to terrorism. And again, this organization that they're talking about, it's actually not even this one. It's this one, it's something that is affiliated with this one. And that is only deemed a terror organization within Israel. Well, it is, exactly.

And the UAE. And it is my hope that I and this show can build a relationship with to fail in his organization because I want those voices to be heard in good faith on this show. We are not a spokesperson or a show that toes the line for anyone government or any one party. We are our own show. We have our own beliefs. And I've now told you my belief as it relates to this organization and the people they're in. And if they do a good work and help a lot of people,

people on the ground. It's incumbent on us as well to shine a light on that. Absolutely. So may this be the beginning of a very productive relationship with that group. And I thank them for and to fail for having had that conversation with me yesterday. And I look forward to many more and hopefully on this show at some point. All right. We're going to take a break. And we ask the question, what did you get with your double double in Grimsby? The answer is probably Cole. We'll explain that next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, thank you so much.

You know, this is a show that depends entirely on our listeners and our viewers on YouTube. And without you, I'm just one man screaming into a microphone. And I've tried to get somebody to pay me to do that. It doesn't work unless there are people listening on the other end. So thank you very much. Yesterday was an interesting day, Mike Drillet. It was really interesting. Yeah.

We never know where stories are going to come from and we never know how information is going to come to us. But yesterday, tell us about this story that we're talking about next because this is a fairly unique one in terms of how the story bubbled up and made it to our radar. We started getting some text messages and some calls from people saying, what's the deal with Tim Horton's drive-thru in Grimsby? all the employees are crying they're they're despondent they're so then we start asking and because some of the people we weren't there and they said yeah they've all been laid off they've

been told a week before christmas like seven days before christmas that they're being laid off yeah so we started doing a little more digging we did a lot more digging yeah and but but we had to be we called the store but the employees of the store all all in tears but they said no we're not allowed to talk. They're not allowed to talk. Now, define not allowed to talk. It's one thing if your boss says don't talk. It's another thing if... If you sign an NDA.

That blew my mind. I couldn't believe this because the employees of Tim Hortons, when they get hired, have to sign an NDA. So they're not allowed to... Hold on. Just let's spend a second on that. Your job is to serve coffee and donuts and pastries and farmers' wraps. And you cannot post anything on social media. And because of that,

highly sensitive work, you are forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It ceases. Like, those two things don't jive for me. It doesn't. It doesn't. Something very weird that someone who works at a coffee shop has to sign an NDA. And I started asking questions about that. I spoke to a couple of people and they said, yes, managers are often told to go up to employees and say, you have to take that down off your social media.

You have to take that down. It doesn't matter what it is. Yeah. So you can work at Tim's. You can't talk about. It's like Fight Club. somewhat yeah I was surprised

but this is a very serious this is a very serious story because I mean we're learning that yeah just a week before Christmas almost every single person in this one store was was fired

so there were 20 employees 15 have been told they're being let go five three students and two adults who were hired less than a year ago will be kept on for the new employer now the new employer takes over So that's what we've learned.

So there's a person, or through his company, own this Tim Hortons. And he has sold to somebody else. Somebody else is buying this Tim Hortons from this guy. And the other guy, the new owner, already owns the other three Tim Hortons in town, plus other ones in other cities. So it looks like the current owner is handling the layoffs so that the incoming owner can start with a clean slate. And it's, it's sound, I mean, it's dirty, but it's legal? It's legal. Practice is legal. Apparently it's common in business. Does it smack of being unfair and cold and callous so many, just a few days before Christmas? Absolutely.

But we're not suggesting there's anything illegal here. This is just what happened. In this regard, absolutely. And we're all still, we are still investigating this and still looking into it. But the employees that we're talking about, we're talking about women in their 50s. There's one apparently who's 67 years old. They've worked there for 15, 20 years. They don't drive, they don't have cars, and they rely on this job to pay for their rent and everything. They don't know if they're going to get other jobs. Yeah, no, well, look, you found something from the Hamilton neighborhood watch page on Facebook, right? Can I read this highlighted portion here?

Please, yeah. Okay, so this is, hi, everyone, I'm inviting you to boycott all Tim Hortons in Grimsby, and it goes on and on. The new owner fired everyone with the exception of five part-time people. Well, go down to the parts in yellow here. Which I get if it was needed, but what's wrong with all of us? we were doing great and just get told we're being fired so they can bring in people so that they can pay them less slash the government can give their own incentives for hiring abroad. I just don't understand. We're all struggling here. The job market is horrible. I know

people spending over a year trying to find a job. I'm worried about how I'm going to pay my rent all because of some greedy business owner. And then it ends. Again, our last day with the original staff at the double drive location on Livingston is January 30th. So please come see us beforehand. It'll hopefully put a smile on our faces. Oh, and if any, knows of anyone hiring, there's 15 of us looking. How heartbreaking is that? I know. It's awful.

So let's just make it, but we have to make something clear here. Those are the words from the Hamilton page. That's not us saying this. So they've said that, you know, the government can give the owner incentives, et cetera, et cetera. And they're bringing in the, the owner, the new owner has a couple of those stores. And we know from another bunch of different people that about 80% of his employees there are newcomers. Yeah, newcomers. Now, is he using any Canadian program for this?

We don't know. we don't have that confirmed. So that's a question we need answered. But I mean, is this normal for a company to come in, somebody to come in, and the old owner has to clean house? Yeah. That happens. The questions that we think we need to have answered here are, are the fired workers being replaced with newcomers through the temporary foreign workers program? We don't know.

It's a question. The next one is, are the fired workers being replaced with staff from the new owner's other stores? Is he essentially going to be rotating his staff through these stores? And is that something of a loophole that he's found? We don't know. We're looking into that. Yeah. And is the new owner benefiting from some sort of wage or newcomer subsidy programs?

Again, we don't know, but we very much want to know. And now if you look at the page and the comments made, people are like, yes, you know, they get $25,000 per. No, no, that's not true. That's not true. It's not true. That's a false allegation that is not true. this, you don't hire temporary foreign workers and you get $25,000 to get to pocket. That doesn't happen. No, the temporary foreign worker program works basically to, people use it to pay less

to employees. Yeah. It's a way to lower cost, which actually doesn't help. It doesn't help the economy because it does allow businesses to say, you know what, I think I'm going to go with somebody else. You are taking people who have, these are people who have been in this community for years, in some cases decades. A lot of them don't have cars because they live so close and they walk. They know everybody by name. Right? They've been, this job

has been their life. It has been their identity. And you are going to fire them a week before Christmas and look, and again, we don't know what the next steps are, but could they be replaced by cheaper labor from abroad? Now

there are wage subsidy programs. Talking about that 25K, that's not real. That's just one of those things on the internet. There are wage subsidy programs, provincially, federally for newcomers within their first few years in Canada for refugees and they're typically about 50 to 70

percent of wages for about three to six months. So it can work out to five, seven thousand dollars and that is a savings, that is money. But it still feels to me you are trying to game, if that's the case here. You're gaming the system, but a lot of people are. At the expense of people's

livelihood. And I spoke with the MP down there yesterday Dean Allison and he said the problem with that program is that it's been under the liberal government to the Trudeau government it got you don't want to I don't want to complain about them at all anymore

but the fact is that the program it evolved and it was it ended up being used people found some ways to to use it to game the system and so now what's happening is you have a bunch of farms that need that basically this is designed for that's what it was

four. And they would have you know, Jamaican employees that come in every year for the last 20 years and now they're not able to get as many because there's limits and there's caps and it's the system has been abused and perverted and taken advantage of

in ways it was not intended. Yes. And if that is what's happening here, then I'm glad that we are shining a light. I do, before we go to break, I do want to read just a little bit of a letter that was handed to these employees. Yes, which we got a hold of.

Now, by the way, we did not, again, they're not allowed to speak. Yeah, we didn't speak. So we got this letter and we're not putting it out on any social media. No. Do the third last paragraph. Yeah, it says, I want to sincerely thank you for your hard work, dedication, and the role you've played in serving our guests

and supporting this restaurant. Every shift, every early morning, every busy rush, it is all mattered and has been appreciated more than can adequately express. yeah while this chapter is coming to a close for me this is the current owner yeah i generally wish you nothing but success and happiness in the future i hope the experience you've gained here serves you well in whatever comes next and whatever comes next well let's tell you about that after the break because what they've been offered yeah what they've been offered to stick around

through the holidays through the holiday until january 29th until the new guy takes over there are questions yeah around that so we'll talk about that next we'll talk about that next We also want to hear from you. Have you been through the Grimsby Drive-Thru? Do you know anybody? What are your thoughts on this sad, sad story from a Canadian institution? Tim Hortons, don't go anywhere. We're talking about...

We're talking about Tim Hortons and the possibility that in Grimsby, 15 people lost their jobs right before Christmas, told that's it. We don't need you anymore. And the rumor is that they will be replaced by temporary foreign workers. Again, that is not confirmed, but we want to hear from you. Perhaps you have experience at these Grimsby, Tim Hortons. Maybe something like this has happened near you. We are trying to get more information.

We've reached out to Tim Hortons for comment. We have not heard back. and you know one thing that we wanted to talk about is what these workers got they were told that if they worked these six weeks that is their severance but if they stay until i believe january third or something like that they get a bonus of three hundred dollars which to me feels like cold comfort uh for losing your job right before uh christmas and we have earlier today leor sanfiru an employment lawyer was on with gregg brady and here here were his thoughts as an employment lawyer about this very subject.

And here's what I've been telling these employees. You're owed severance. Some of these employees that have been calling me, there could be owed as much as 10, 12, even 18 months of severance. And they don't understand that. They think that, well, I can just be led to go without any compensation. So their job now is to make sure they get that severance from their employer. And by the way, once their employer realizes, holy cow,

I'm going to have to pay someone 18 months severance not to work. Yeah, there you go. If that's the case, there's a big difference between your severance is your salary for the next six weeks plus 300 bucks versus 18 months. That's a big delta. There's a big swing between those two data points. So if you are somebody who has been affected by this, please heed that call. Talk to a lawyer and recognize that your rights are in jeopardy. Who we're going to start with?

We're going to start with Ben. Ben, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben. Good morning, Ben. Just a couple of things I'm going to unload on. First of all, this is not a Canadian institution. It has not been a Canadian institution for well over a decade. It's majority owned by 3G Capital, a Brazilian company.

So there should be no loyalty for the brands at all. In fact, I'd say McDonald's makes a better coffee and has better customer service and doesn't screw up your order. Second of all, I know it's all alleged. I know we can't go down there. but this temporary foreign workers program has been a scam for well over half a decade. Everyone in the, anyone would know, anyone who even pays attention to business knows that's being abused, especially by the fast food chains. And Tim Ordens was just in the news for constantly applying for the head corporation for applying for more temporary foreign worker program support. This is, this is used by then specifically.

Every teenager in Toronto and in the GTA was complaining. about not being able to find the job for the past couple of years. We do not need temporary foreign workers for this type of job. I agree with you. I agree. Lastly, I blame also the current owner who's selling the business for agreeing or going along with this scam. This is a dirty snake move by the current owner to their loyal employees. This is a snake move as the employer.

Well, I just hope we get more information so that if there is a good explanation for it, that comes forward. Because in the absence of that information, we are left to speculate. And the employers, both of them, the new and the old, don't come out looking good in when one has to speculate here. So I do thank you for the call, Ben. I wish you the very best. Let's start with, let's continue with Dave. Dave from Angus. Dave, welcome to show.

Hi. I just wanted to comment that I feel that maybe when you're saying that this is illegal, I don't think it's legal because to prove that you can lay people off and hire people. You have to, excuse me, to hire temporary foreign workers, you have to show that local people will not, they can't find locals. That's a good point. That's a good point. Obviously, if they're laying these people off and you've spoken to some, they're quite willing to do the job. So this is contrary and illegal to bring in temporary foreign workers.

Well, you know, I hope that there is a, I hope there is a lawyer with a big heart that is listening to us right now who, who hears what you just said and hopefully agrees with you and feels that the law agrees with you who can then take on a case like this. But I thank you, Dave, for that point. I think it's an important one. And let's have Brenda join the conversation. Brenda, thanks for calling into the show. Thank you for listening. Yes. We had a problem here a few months ago in Hamilton.

Okay. At Lloydy Jackson Square, somebody owned two of them. Two of the, he owned one for a long time and another one for a few years. His son, he wanted to retire. His son wanted to take over. Oh, no, we couldn't have that. They sold it to somebody that's foreign, and this person that's foreign has 17 other timmies,

and he only likes to get them when they have established clientele. So word got around in Loughby, Jackson Square, and Hamilton, the Stoke Tower with a lot of offices and that where it got around and a lot of the people left and went to the other company that's in the mall. And that's one way of getting at these people. It's a boycott. Yeah, that's what they were suggesting on the Facebook page.

Brenda, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your day. We got a lot of people calling in. So let's try to get them to them as quick as possible. Glenn, what do you make of all this? I just want to comment on the Tim Horton's comment there. Please.

I know fact by someone who was working in at Tim Hortons that when they cut back on the, I guess, immigrant employees, they cut back on their hours and they cut them down to 20 hours a week rather than whatever they were getting. Tim Hortons in my area continued to pay those employees cash so they would work longer hours. They were paying them cash. Cash under the table, yeah. That's interesting. Well, again, yeah, there wasn't one white kid. It wasn't one normal kid in the neighborhood working there.

They were all immigrant. And they had signs in the window hiring, hiring, hiring, hiring. They wouldn't hire anybody locally. Wouldn't hire anybody. Well, if that's true, that's a sad state of affairs. And, again, doesn't sound like that's how the system is intended to work. Thank you very much for the call. Let's move on to Dave.

Dave, thanks so much for calling into the Ben Mulrini show. Thanks for taking the call, Ben. You know what? I'm not as stupid as I think I am. Okay. Three people just took the exact, the same idea. Like boycott the place, the first person I thought of, well, phone up, phone up the employment lawyer, get him in there. And, yeah, look, if 15 people, if 15 people are owed 18 months of severance, that's a heck of a chunk of change versus, you know, telling them, telling them, oh, yeah, you know, your severance is, your severance is the work that you do over the next six weeks.

Thanks for the call. We got time for one more call, so let's say hi to Rick. Rick. Hey, Ben. How are you? Well, great. Thanks, Rick. Love your show.

Thank you. Honestly, I look forward to it every day. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. So I, in the area and north of here and everything, I know for a fact, multiple Tim Hortens is one in particular where he fired all the employees and then brought in new Canadians and then also built apartments to house them and get government subsidies to do that. oh so he's it's a he's double dipping

he's double dipping interesting my goodness this this is a this is a sad story and this is not how the system is intended to work and if in fact what everyone is suggesting is true then this is not a good look for Tim's and it's not a good look for anybody involved thank you all

for calling I really appreciate we have reached out to Tim's no response yet if we do hear anything of course we will let you know up next so Doug Ford wants to turn Niagara Falls into the Vegas of the north but What about marine land? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. There's been a little bit of excitement in the air as it relates to Niagara Falls.

Big, big plans by the Ford government as well as Niagara Falls itself, with a goal of doubling the number of tourists over the next, God knows how many years, from 13 to 25 million. A lot of infrastructure. promise is made by the province if this, these, if private money comes in to solve for this problem, how do you make, how do you make this city that is already a tourist destination even more attractive to even more people every month of the year? And so yesterday on this show, we sort of pie in the sky, asking what sorts of things could be built there that would attract a new type of person, a new demographic, would take you from going there for a day trip to spending a weekend or maybe even a week.

So those are the plans that we were talking about yesterday. But in the meantime, in the here and now, there is still a very big problem, a very big question mark, called Marine Land. And for the past couple of months, we've been in communication with Melissa Matlow from World Animal Protection about the black eye, the blight on Niagara Falls that has been marine land and it's abysmal treatment of the animals that have been caged and locked. and, gosh, imprisoned there for so many years. And so Melissa is joining us again to give us an update as to what exactly is the state

of affairs of marine land in the here and now. Melissa, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thanks for having me, Ben. Glad to be back. Yeah, so last time we spoke was probably a couple of months ago. Where are we today in terms of all of the orcas and all of the animals that desperately need a better life? That's a great question. Where are we?

We're asking the same thing. and we're asking where is the Ontario government because we haven't heard a peep from them about what they are doing and we're still demanding transparency. I think this is a matter of significant public interest not only to people who like our organization supporters who are passionate about the welfare of the animals

but also to the good folks of Niagara Falls who want to see this issue dealt with so they can move on with economic revitalization. But let me ask a question. let me ask a question, because I'm sure some people are asking it, is it the responsibility of the, of the Ontario government to do anything here? I mean, from what I'm, so legally it's there, it's their responsibility. Yes, because the animals are still kept in captivity on the marine land property,

it is the Ontario government's jurisdiction to ensure their best welfare. And to step in if those animals are in distress, it is the federal government's authority, if marine land applies for permits to transfer them out of the province. And so as of right now, silence from the Ontario government? That's right. Now, could they be, listen, from what I'm getting from this entire announcement on the revitalization of Niagara Falls, which would include marine land, could the plan of the government, it would be speculation because they haven't spoken on this, but could their plan be to hope that a private developer comes in? in and says, we want to take over marine land. We want to turn that into

the world's best amusement park this side of Disney World. And part of our plan is to give you a solution to the orca problem before we start with that revitalization. It could be, but let's

share whatever we can with the public because there are experts that are willing to help. There is likely immediate care that's needed for some of these animals. We want to be assured that the people on site at marine land are consulting with those experts. Our understanding is some experts are not being tapped into that can help right away. And ultimately, there is a seaside sanctuary in Nova Scotia that is the ideal location for

at least some of these whales. France, the government of France, has already stepped up and show leadership and has just announced that they want two of their orcas from an aquarium that's closing to go to the sanctuary in Nova Scotia. So France sees the opportunity here that the Ontario government does not see. Now, we all got very excited about this Nova Scotia sanctuary when you brought it up on the show a few months ago. The next day, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, we got a little pushback from that saying that it is not yet ready for prime time. That was the sort of the information that came to us the next day. What is the state of that sanctuary in Nova Scotia? Well, they received the green light

from the government of Nova Scotia to carry on. Okay. So that was what they were waiting for, which has stalled everything else until this time. So now they have an accelerated plan. And of course, questions are best posed to them. But my understanding is they are ready to accept the first whales in August, 2026.

Well, that'd be great. Of course, they still need a fundraise. But with the French government's interest, yeah, I, you know, there is global interest in the Seaside Sanctuary being successful. Well, there's more than that, Melissa, look, the abacus data says that there's strong public support for government in events. 65% of Ontarians want urgent action now. 74% say animal welfare should be the government's top priority. I mean, these are numbers that, you know, you've got the wind in your sales as it relates to any conversations you have with them.

Whose doors have you been knocking on in the Ontario government? We've been knocking on all of them. The Solicitor General's Office, the Ministry of Natural Resources, which would be responsible for the native wildlife kept there, and the Premier's office. And we've heard some rumblings from the Solicitor General's office, but nothing else. And so we're still, we're still twiddling her thumbs waiting. But, yeah, strong polling results and also strong across age groups and political lines. Like, this is nonpartisan. No matter who you voted for in the last election, Andarians and people across Canada support the four government taking leadership,

but also they support animal welfare being the overriding priority, over expediency and over profit. And we were really relieved to see that. Yeah. And I think everybody should want this taken care of. Nobody wants this to be a story that lingers. And I have to assume that since we last talked, there's no way anyone's going to convince me that life for these orcas has gotten better, right?

Is it like they, are any of them in danger, are any of them in dire circumstances, or any of them in danger of, you know, slipping into a place of where, you know, where death is imminent? Yeah, we just don't know. And it's belugas. So the workers are in France. Yes, I apologize. And the 30 beluga whales left in Niagara Falls. And we just don't know. Now, the government does have authority to step in if the animals are in dire distress.

They can seize them in place. They can assume proper care. And we've talked about that. So if they haven't were kind of led to believe that they're not in distress, but everything we've read out there in the media and through whistleblowers and through the pause and spectrate themselves from their past visits is that, you know, this is a place that's in a state of disrepair, that the tank is crumbling, that animals, that the Greenland has been charged in the past and under scrutiny for poor water quality and for the treatment of the bears.

So it all paints a picture of not so great, right? So this is why transparency is key. If they are okay, then tell the public. Tell the public that you have the best interests of the animals in mind, that there is a plan, that you will share more in detail. And the desired direction of the government is this, because the other strong polling result is 86% of Ontarians support never letting this happen again by introducing stronger provincial regulations.

And that is the root of this problem. They don't have any regulations. Are there any other marine land-like situations across Canada? There are roadside zoos in Ontario. Ontario is the most roadside zoos. There may be like 30 problematic facilities. They do not have whales, but they have tigers and lions and monkeys that can easily escape, harm people,

and are suffering in similarly small-bearing conditions. So you're saying we've got like Tiger King situations in Ontario? Yep. I never would have guessed, honestly. That's, I had no idea. Yeah, that's crazy. Even in private homes, I believe, not just public zoos. And the other problem is what we, we don't know enough about this situation because we don't keep data and we don't license it.

But what we do know raises alarm bells and should be a concern for the government, not only from an animal welfare perspective, but a public safety perspective, even with the illegal wildlife trade. Like some of these people who deal with tigers and cats, they have them to fortify their property because they have other things. So it is all interconnected. Well, Melissa Matlow from World Animal Protection, thank you so much for joining us, for keeping the eye on the prize. It's all about the health and safety and welfare of these belugas.

And we thank you very much for the work that you're doing. And here's hoping the Ontario government listens. And look, the polling data suggests this is a winning issue for them. So get on board. Let's get them. Let's get the Yorkas. the belugas to help they want so that the redevelopment of marine land can begin in earnest. I appreciate it.

Appreciate that, Ben. Thank you. My name is Jordan, and I'd like to invite you. Canadian Gothic, a podcast covering stories of Canadian crime, mystery, and the offbeat. The Canadian Gothic blends the spirit of late-night talk radio with the depth of a documentary film and applies that approach to both developing stories in historical cases. So if you're drawn to the dark, mysterious, and offbeat, search for and subscribe to the Canadian Gothic wherever you find podcasts. You were listening to Canadian Gothic.