The Ben Mulroney Show - A rocket tale/Toronto shooting reax/Hostile History

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

GUEST:   Councillor Mike Colle / ward 8 Eglinton-Lawrence GUEST:  David Borys / Hostile History 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

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Oikos Pro. Feed your strength. Visit oikos.ca for more details. Well, it's a very sad day. It's a sad day when you're lots of reasons to be sad. But the kid in me, the kid in me who is thankful to film for giving me adventures of imagination is sad to. today because Sam Neal, known for so many great roles, but not the least of which, and for me, top of the, top of the heap is for his role in the Jurassic Park franchise, passed away at 78. He had stage three blood cancer, but apparently it was in remission.

And so a lot of people were very surprised and sad. And it was a nice thing for us as fans of his character in those Jurassic Park movies to see them get the whole band back together in a passing of the torch, if you will, in the Jurassic World franchise. But a sad day, a sad day, a great Australian actor. And also, if I may say, his role in Hunt for Red October, sometimes people sleep on that but he was he was great in that

all right I want to tell you a couple of stories about Instagram this one my brother sent me a a post from Instagram where Roger Clemens the Hall of Fame winning pitcher who cut his teeth and did so well in Boston

and then he went to the Yankees the hated Yankees so that he could win a World Series and they came to Toronto where we rolled out the red carpet for that guy, and I think he did very, I think he had a 20, 20 game winning season, but did not bring what he was supposed to, to Toronto. Anyway, lots of big, lots of stuff, this guy's had a great life, a great life. And I was very surprised to hear that. Of all the great stories in his life, he told this one. We call this the butter story. Everybody

loves it. And it's true. So I win the MVP and the Cy Young, my first. I got to, I'm a red Sox. I got to go to New York City. Go to New York. I'm pretty green. I got DiMaggio, Manel, Ted Williams. I'm looking around as a hoo-hoo. Now, Donnie Matting's there. I just, I'm the one of, you know, Donnie finished second in the MVP. Now, we're at the top table and you're getting a cold piece of chicken, uncooked piece of steak, a little bitty-baked potato and a dinner roll. And the dude comes by, straight Yankee fan. He's looking at me. And like, the look he gave me, I was like, okay, he's spit in my food. There's no way. There's no way. I mean, I need it. I'm going to work on this dinner roll and maybe this baked potato.

But he throws me a little cube of butter on the thing. And, you know, mustache, triple. His name's got to be Tony, for sure. You know, like, walks by, does it. So I get through that dinner, right? I only got one cuba butter. I needed one more, but what the hell? First year up there.

Fast forward. I win my second Cy Young back to back. Back in the penguin suit. Here we go. Now I'm feeling good. I'm on Ted. How you doing? Mick?

Hey, Rocky. Yeah. So I'm first feeling. I'm feeling it. Talking away. here comes the bullshit thing same guy same friend Tony super Mario he goes by me and

and I'm like hold on guys hey I said hold up man hold up minute he just gave me one I need another cube of butter so I'm looking for for my baked potato you know just come on so I'm talking I see him come out my guy and here he comes again I said dude stop I said I've been trying to get you for 10 minutes my stuff's getting cold up here I said all I'm trying to do is get another cube of I said you know who I am right

He goes, oh yeah, I know who you are. I go, good. I said, I'm trying to get some butter. He goes, evidently, you don't know who I am. I go, I don't. He goes, I'm in charge of the butter. And he walked up. It's a great story.

It's a great story. Except it didn't happen to Roger Clemens. I don't know who it happened to. But I know it didn't happen to him. And I said as much as I replied to everybody saying, what a great story that was, Roger. I wrote on his Instagram. I said, a great story. It was a better story when my father told it over the course of 40 years. And the role of

Roger Clemens in my dad's version of the story 40 years ago was another prime minister. Heck, when I started in media and I started doing speeches, I asked my father, may I tell your butter story? And he said, sure, have at it. So I've been telling that story for 25 years. And it goes a little something like this, I'd be in a room and I'd say, wow, as I'm in a room like this, it reminds me of a story that my father tells of, what was it, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who upon winning a majority with no Quebec representation, decided that his first role, his first job was to go to Montreal and let the people of Montreal know that while he didn't have any Quebecers in his caucus, Quebec would be represented in his government.

And he was in the room, the Oval Room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, with all the business leaders of Quebec. And he would let them know that he was there for them. And a man was going around. He's giving everyone a roll and a pat of butter. And they get to Prime Minister, Devenbaker, he gives him a roll and a pat of butter. He says, excuse me, sir, may I have a second pat of butter? To which the waiter said, I'm sorry, but it's one pat of butter each. He said, but I'd like a second pat of butter. Come on, you can give me a second pat. I'm sorry, sir, but the rule is one pat of butter per person.

He says, do you know who I am? My name's John Defenbaker, and I am the prime minister at Canada, and I want another pat of butter. He said, well, that's very interesting. Do you know who I am? He said, no, I don't. I'm the guy with the butter. And the rumor erupts, and I always use that as an opportunity to say, so let's celebrate the people with the butter. Without whom we would not be here tonight, the wait staff and the kitchen staff, thank you so much.

And everyone gets a round of applause. Okay, the point is, my dad's been telling them for 40 years. I don't think my dad wrote that story. the story's real. The key is the pacing and the details that you add to it. It's that anybody can tell that story. And Roger told that story. But it didn't happen to Roger.

The story predates anything. And it's fine. It's fine. But when I posted that, it stayed on his Instagram for about five minutes because he deleted it. He deleted my comment. That to me tells me he knows it's not a real story either. But, guy, you have so many stories. You got so many stories.

You don't have to make it up. And had he said, had someone said, is it true? If he said, well, it's true enough, everyone would have been fine. But you started the story by saying it's true. Roger Clemens, you're a great baseball player, but you're full of it. Now, that's that first story. Second story. And this is an update from a previous story.

Last week, I told this story after Taylor Swift's wedding. It reminded me of a story of a party that I went to outside of London. and I was it was the most magical party I've ever been to in my life and I told the story that Prince Charles at the time was in an Aston Martin that pulled up

and out of the Aston Martin was the most beautiful woman in the world probably one of them still today Elle McPherson got out of the passenger side and then later on in that party after a night of merriment, I went up to her and I asked her to dance and I

said that I tagged the story by saying I gave her the least memorable dance of her life, but it was a memory that I carried with me forever. Well, wouldn't you know, somehow, through the magic of the algorithm, this story found its way to Elle McPherson

and she replied on the Ben Mulrooney show, Instagram, that made me smile. Dot, dot. And then she gave it a heart. Yeah. You know, Ben, you suck. Well, you know, I just, that sucks. Well, you know, like I said, if social media can be used for good and it can be used for ill. That's not fair.

The world is not fair. How's it not fair? In one weekend through Instagram, I exacted retribution and justice for the story that my dad told 40 years ago. It gets a Cy Young winner. And then, no, and he threw you, he'd high inside and deleted you. He deleted it. Well, yeah, but you know what? That's the funny thing is I'm here to say, he couldn't stand the truth.

You can keep telling your lies, Roger, and I'll keep telling the truth, and we'll see which one survives. If you'd have been in studio, he'd have thrown you, he'd hit you with the ball. But what, I just didn't get it. I didn't get it. Like, man, you've got so many stories. I bet you could write three autobiographies. You don't have to say that's true. Just say it's true enough, and everyone will go wink, wink, wink, and they know what it is.

Come on, buddy. Like I said, it wasn't even my dad's story. He just told it better. As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody told a story as good as my dad. Although, I promise you, I'll be telling this Elle McPherson story forever. All right. When we come back, we are going to be talking with Mike Cole, the city council responsible for the area of town

where the salsa on St. Clair shooting took place in the aftermath of the press conference by Chief Demkew, what we know now. This weekend, our officers responded to three shooting incidences. We are actively investigating all three incidences in an integrated manner while remaining mindful of any potential connections between them. We are leaving no stone unturned as we work to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. That was the Toronto Police Service Chief of Police Myron Demkew talking about a weekend that was riddled with gun violence and riddled with gun bullets.

And here joining us is the counselor for Ward 8, Eglinton Lawrence, where the salsa on St. Clair took place. Counselor Mike Cole. Counselor, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, yeah, good to be here in these bad circumstances, that's for sure. Well, listen, I've been following you. You and I've spent a great deal of time together.

what I saw at the press conference on the night of the shooting was a Mike Cole exasperated fed up. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, they wouldn't let me speak. So I had to push myself into the press conference and tell them what I really felt about that disaster that night. So I think I was speaking on behalf of all my friends and neighbors and everybody who was, you know, part of organizing the salsa. everybody was just devastated and I just I couldn't you know talk about the usual you know talk talk and I had to speak from my gut on that night well I was earlier today I was speaking with Dr. Heather Hannah Hannah from the Hillcrest Village BIA board who was pretty she

pretty resigned to the fact that you know chances are it's a very good chance at this salsa on St. Clair that days are probably numbered the the idea that people she said as a matter of fact, the public safety issue, people just not feeling safe in a situation like that, is such that a lot of, if not all of the street festivals in the city could be in danger. Is that too much of an overstatement? Well, Dr. Hannah, by the way, is my vet, has been my vet for about 20 years. And I was talking to her. And, you know, she, like all the volunteers on St. Clair did amazing work,

prepare for this stuff and to see these gun jerks destroy it, as much as I empathize that maybe we got to stop it, but then on the other hand, should we really give in to these gun thugs and let them win. I'm of the mind as, yeah, we should look at the true threats here, but why not fight back and deal with the core problem here? And you got these punks who fear no consequence from carrying a gun, fear no consequence about shooting up in the middle of a street filled with seniors, poor vendors trying to make a living.

They didn't give a damn. Well, but this is, Mike, this is the issue. Like, as you said that, you know, we can't let them win. It took me to a completely different place. And the scale is different. But I promise you, I think the parallel holds. when New York was attacked on 9-11 and those buildings went down,

what gave, I believe, the confidence to the city to rebuild and not fear that they would face another one of these was you had a government in Washington and you had people of all political stripes saying, we're not going to let this happen again. We are going to change the rules. And yes, some of it was draconian

and it's been tempered since then, but they have been vigilant. since then to make sure that another 9-11 attack would never happen again. Meanwhile, on a smaller scale in the city of Toronto, sure, we could do the salsa on St. Clair again, but we don't have a leadership that's saying we are going to do everything necessary to make sure that those guns are gone. We still have people saying, hey, it's not that bad. Gun violence, yeah, sure, it's up, but gun fatalities is down.

And this is not who we are. And Toronto is still a safe city. If you cannot admit there's a problem, then you cannot fix it. Well, that's why people don't like when I say, I don't think Toronto's a safe city. I think we've got basically a serious core problem, and that is with the guns coming in across the border, we've got these criminals that all get out on bail. I mean, they've been shooting up synagogues in my ward for the last three years. And they have no fear of consequence.

And that's why I think the New York analogy is a good one. know, do we, you know, move the festival, do we go indoors? Do we do, do it? That's all basically going to cost a whack of money to get more. So we're going to be paying all kinds of taxpayers' dollars to get more security, more cops, all these different changes we're going to make. And these guys just think they've achieved something, because that's where they get their jollies,

because they don't give one damn about people enjoying themselves or celebrating Latino culture. They don't care about that. They care about basically it's like a stage for them. Yeah. And they've done this for years. Yeah, but Mike might think about that. I mean, back in the day and generally speaking, most people thought Toronto was safe because

if there was gun violence, it was under the cover of night. And it was criminals shooting criminals, you know, in back alleys and in the shadows. We're living in a time now where every part of the city, you know, at risk areas and thriving street festivals in the middle of the night or, or, or, uh, or while the sun is still up at 815 on a Saturday, with 13,000 witnesses capable of identifying them. They are brazen because in my estimation, the penalties, if you get caught,

chances are you might be able to beat it. And if you don't beat it, you'll be able to get on on bail and disappear. Like the risk profile is so low that they are willing to do these things. Yeah, and Ben, in fact, you know, someone that shot up my friend Esther's old Avenue restaurant on Avenue Road, that guy was caught on camera after shooting up the restaurant. And we found out that he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in 2019. Yeah, yeah.

And I can't find out how he got away with those three charges. And what he was doing out after being charged with three counts of first-degree murder, a few years earlier. is shooting up a restaurant on Avenue Road. And Mike, the guy who was caught for the shooting down in the Portland's by Rebel Nightclub, he was convicted of a violent home invasion in Montreal in May of this year. And he is expected to be sentenced in October of this year. So in between those two things, he decided to sandwich in another alleged gun violent thing. Like, why was he free?

Yeah, that's why, you know, Ben, this is why I think we all have to focus on getting something done. Maybe this out of this disaster is an opportunity to get the feds, the province, the city, to basically do something. And this is an opportunity to do something. And don't tell me they can't convene the legislature in Ontario for a couple of days or in the Queen in Ottawa. if they really want to do something, they've got to come together with some practical basic law. If you commit a crime with a gun, you fire a gun, it's automatic years.

You know, you get 20 years for committing a crime, carrying a gun, shooting a gun. But Mike, Mike, we know. And then no bail. Mike, listen, with all, I'll do respect. That's great, except, you know, with, I know that the, this liberal government likes to say it's a different liberal government, but it's not.

And these are the same guys every single time there's a show. shooting every time the Polytechnique Memorial comes up. They try to ban all the legal guns in the country. But 90% of the guns that are killing people in Toronto are coming across the border. So they haven't had their eyes on the prize ever. Now, before I let you go, I do want to just give you a piece of information. I think this is a little context just to let you know the state of play. One of our producers here at the radio station, Martha, she was at Afro Fest last year when chaos shut it down.

and she was at salsa fest this weekend. She now says she will never go to a festival again. And the point that really hammers this home, she came to Canada after fleeing war in South Sudan. Like this, this is too much for somebody who left a, there's too much violence for her. But, you know, the thing about the same weekend in Gerard East, we had maybe 50,000 people at the Gerard East,

South Asian Festival. Nothing happened there. But that's the thing about 9-11. You have to make sure it never, it's never happened since. And all it takes is one. They just have to do it once. And that fear goes everywhere. Mike Cole, a counselor for Ward 8, Eggleton, Lawrence.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Well, ancient Greece is having a bit of a moment. A little controversial moment right now because Christopher Nolan is about to launch us back in time with his multicultural version. of The Odyssey. And that's, you know, I've heard people say it's a phenomenal movie. And I'm talking like world changing.

And I've heard others say they just can't take the race swapping of Helen of Troy, for example. I don't know. I haven't seen it. I will see it. I'll see. I would watch Christopher Nolan read the phone book. But if anything, it's bringing up sort of the oral history and the military history of that time and place. This week on hostile history with David Boris.

talking about the birth of democracy in Athens. David, welcome back to the show. Always a pleasure to be here, Ben. What did democracy mean back then? And how was it born? Well, it's really interesting. Democracy really emerges from crises. It's very fascinating because you have to imagine

that most of the Greek world were city-states run by aristocratic families, kings, war leaders, chiefs. And then all of a sudden, out of Athens, in a time of crisis, a near civil war, these aristocratic leaders begin to say maybe we need to bring more people into the fold to make political decisions in order for us to avoid this sort of aristocratic civil war in fighting for power. And so what was happening back in the day?

You'd have these aristocrats that controlled city-states and they would go to war with each other and they would send the people to do their bidding. That's right. And so somebody- Yeah, exactly. And what's interesting in the Athenian case, This wasn't for other city-states, but as Athens engaged in constant warfare, I mean, you know, maybe we're all very famous with Athens versus Sparta during the Peloponnesian wars.

But more importantly to this story is the fact that the Greek world was at war with the Persian Empire, the mightiest empire of the day. And these Athenian soldiers that were called hoplites would go out and fight these wars. And slowly but surely these hoplites started saying, hey, wait a second, if I'm sharing the danger on the battlefield, Why is it just the general that gets a political voice back in the city? I want a share myself. But Ben, things get even more interesting when Athens gets a Navy. Right. Yes.

And that allows that allows for the conquering of land. How does that affect democracy? Well, it's really fascinating because one of the things the Athenians discover is having a large Navy helps you conquer lands. That's absolutely true. And they very much do. but you know who are the best rowers of those ships? Citizens invested in the political future of Athens. And so instead of having slaves or even mercenaries,

what ends up happening is the Athenian democratic polity expands massively as Athens has this massive navy. And the rowers all eventually get votes as well. Oh, that's interesting. The idea of having skin in the game. Absolutely. I mean, you're not going to run away from a battle if you know your actual political future is at stake.

Right. Well, yeah, because also if, yeah, that makes sense, right? If you are fighting for the survival of your city state and by extension all of its values, and those values have given you an inherent nobility and an inherent sort of participation in the system, you will fight for that and you'll fight for it better than anybody else. So did that lead?

to the rise of Athens as a dominant player in the area? Yeah, it's actually really fascinating. The Athenian Navy absolutely makes Athens, in many ways a sort of city-state empire. They set up colonies. They start taking tribute from other city-states as well. So the Navy helps them dominate the Greek world, at least them and Sparta, sort of competing for ultimate dominance.

And then at the same time, this Navy that allows them to conquer other places, also allows them to have democracy form within its own political confines, within its own city-state. So democracy, the idea of democracy is born in Athens. But that was, that was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago. What happened to those ideas? Because then you had the French Revolution, right? That's the, that's the, that's the modern, the modern take on democracy. Prior to that, it was, it was, it was czars and, and, and kings. and Queens. What happened to that idea between, so it's birth and its eventual resurgence in France? Well, it's a really great question because it frankly disappears. And I got to be honest with you,

for most people in that medieval period, the time of kings and queens, a democracy was a joke. It was considered like a reckless, chaotic form of rule because the mob got to make a choice. The mob had their voice. The commoners had their voice. And so you have centuries and centuries and centuries of aristocratic rule once more. And then the French Revolution absolutely blows the lid off it. And there's this return to this idea of democracy. But democracy, and remember this, Ben, and I know you know this, is democracy isn't just one version. There are many different versions of democracy. The Athenian one was immense checks and balances. They were constantly voting, constantly challenging, constantly having to go up in front of the assembly.

The French revolutionary and American form of democracy is a little bit longer term. in terms of its status in terms of the legislation passed and the people making those legislation occur. But even the French, I mean, they flirted with the idea. They created the modern version of it. And then Napoleon came back in and said, no, I'd prefer to be an emperor. And people kind of took it for a while.

Yeah, never goes into a straight line, doesn't it? And then you got 250 years ago, the Americans broke up with the Brits and established their version. And we've got to remind people, It's technically not a democracy. And I don't know that people necessarily know the nuanced to difference. Do you mean the electoral colleges specifically? Well, yeah, it's you elect you don't, you're not electing the people making the decisions.

You're electing the people who choose the people who make the decisions. It's a, actually, that's a great choice. It's a Democratic Republic. Yeah, and absolutely. And that's a massive departure from Athens because Athens was literally every Athenian male citizen voted on whatever was being. done. If they're going to war, if they're making a trade deal, you showed up in the city on the hill and you raised your hand and voted. You also voted to kick people out of the city as well. You ostracized them as it came to be known. So it's a much more direct form of democracy in Athens that we

definitely don't see today. How did they accomplish anything? I mean, with that many people, did they have political parties? Did they have lobbying? Did they have backroom deals? Yes. I mean, I think one thing we could understand is as long as there's been politics, there's been people making backroom deals and lobbying and things like that. The way Athens divided it, they divided the citizenry into 10 tribes, believe it or not. And these were just made, like a reformer basically decided we're going to have 10 tribes. And those tribes would sort of elect counselors or speakers for those tribes who would then meet and decide on issues of the day. So there was a bit of a narrowing down at the end of the day. But for major issues, every single Athenian male

citizen could show up to vote for major issues. So it was still very, very direct participation democracy. It's just, it's stunning to me that, that, I mean, you, you see what happens in, in, countries where they have, you know, they've got a ton of political parties. You end up with these coalitions. Yeah. They end up rising and falling very quickly. I think, I think specifically of, you know, a place like Israel and Italy, although Israel has been fairly consistent recently, but Italy, for example, or Greece, Greece today, for example, it can get, Germany too. Germany as well, all these coalitions. And it's amazing that they were able to rise,

even with one person, one vote, one man, one vote, I should say. You know, it's really interesting, though. One of the things that I find fascinating about the history of democracy is the reformers or the politicians leading it are always trying to tow a very fine line between not letting the mob rule, but also letting the mob have a voice. And if you look at the different democracies, you know, in Canada, the United States elsewhere,

there's always this level of buffering to prevent just the mob from getting too excited. There's always this fear that, you know, passions will rule the day and it won't actually be long-term, you know, real well-thought-out plans that are being voted on. Yeah, you have to watch out for the tyranny of the majority. These days it's... The tyranny of the majority. These days, it seems to be the tyranny of the loudest. You've got a small, laser-focused activists groups that are able to affect the chains that they want,

you know, the majority or most people be damned because they are the loudest. And social media amplifies that as well, which creates its own problems. And that was supposed, and Twitter was supposed to be the, you know, the, the agora of the modern day. That's right. Yeah, good use of that word, by the way. David Boris from hostile history. Thank you very much, my friend. Tell us how people can find the show.

Oh, they're going to find the next episode is coming out this Wednesday and you can find it everywhere. You get your podcast. Ben, I always enjoy talking to you, buddy. As do I, Davey. Take care.