The Ben Mulroney Show - A TDSB principal gets to keep his job. And the TDSB had nothing to do with it.

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

- Tasha Kheiriddin - Adam Zivo / Montreal pride 180 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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for being here on this Wednesday, August 6th. I have to check my phone because I never know the date. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's hump day. We made it to the middle of the week.

I mean, technically, it's the second day of the week because it was a long weekend. I always love that. I love a long weekend and just as much I love the short week that follows. It's the perfect gift that keeps giving. Although years ago,

I thought I came up with a great idea that we should have, you know how some people say we need a four-day work week? I don't know that we need a four-day work week, but what about an eight-day week with a three-day weekend? So five work days, three days,

off. Just a thought. Hey, every now and then, the people when faced with a decision by an institution will rise up and protest and they will get the result that they want. And we spoke about this story early, early on because I felt a connection to it. I'm talking specifically about the the Rosdale Heights School for the Arts principal who was turfed a year before he was going to retire. Now, just for context, education cannot be an all size fits, one size fits all for everybody. But in the public system, you kind of have to shoehorn people into places they might not belong. So when I heard that within the TDSB, there was an art school that was thriving

And that was thanks to my friend Tasha Carradon who invited me to a fundraiser at her kid's school. I was curious and excited to learn more. I met the parents. I met the teachers. I heard stories of how the school came to be. And the way the school came to be was that the principal willed it into existence about 33 years ago. And he has been the principal there since then. Now, typically in the TDSB, they rotate principals out, I think, once every, I want to say six.

years, but I could be wrong. He's been there for over 30 years. But a few years ago, they got rid of the, how they allow kids to come into the school. It's not a test. It's not an exam. It's not an audition. But there is a component where you have to demonstrate that you want to study the arts. You want that to be part of your education. They got rid of that completely in favor of a lottery. And a lot of parents weren't happy. A lot of students weren't happy. And the principal I think very diplomatically made his opinion known. The TDSB didn't like that, so they turfed him. The parents and the kids rose up, and now, given the fact that the TDSB has no power anymore,

thanks to the Ontario government, the supervisor in charge has reinstituted this principle. Let's listen to Tasha Gerardin, one of the parents who was spearheading this initiative to bring the principal home. Yeah, it took the Ford government. It took a supervisor to do this. So, yes, we give them credit for listening to parents and also for making the TDSB respect its own policies. Because that's the real thing here is that the TDSB was supposed to listen to parents.

They were supposed to consult with the advisory council. They did not. So at the end of the day, that should have been done by them. He's just making them do their job. She's absolutely right. This is an example of an institution that is so comfortable with its own institutionality, that's what word, that they care more about process than they care about results. This was a principal that was loved by his students.

This was a principal who had, as I said, wield this school into existence. He had never been rotated out, probably because he brought something to the job that other principals couldn't bring because it's a very specific school. And there was an attachment to, he was the school, and he was going to retire at the end of this year, academic year in June, and rather than let him retire with honor

and distinction from the school that meant so much to him, they decided that they were going to drop the hammer and live by their regulations. Because their excuse was that, oh, we rotate people through all the time. And so now that this person's been brought back, yeah, I have to ask yourself, like, how did this happen, who's to blame, who started it, who was the one who decided that this was going to be something that they were going to make their mission?

Here's Tasha Caritan again. There was no reason given. We suspect the reason is because the TDSB leadership didn't like what he had to say on a number of fronts, including the school lottery. This is essentially an instituted lottery for specialty schools like Rosedale that took the power away from the school. to admit kids and put it in a central lottery with no, you know, there's no merit, there's no interviews, there's no mechanisms, kids just tick a box and say, I want to go to an art school. The result has been that for our school in particular, we have lost every year 25 students because the centrally assigned system means kids go to the school, apply to a school,

who aren't even interested in being in an art school, and then they bow out before they even show up. We've no way of filling those spots because the central lottery doesn't even, keep a wait list after a certain period of time. Well, I think Atasha, as the journalist that she is, will probably keep digging until everyone gets all the answers they want. But for now, this is a victory for the principal, for the school, for the parents, for the community.

Well done. And congratulations, by the way, to the supervisor who cut through the BS and made the rational right decision. Hey, I don't know if any of you have travel plans over the course of August. but if you are planning to travel on Air Canada after August 16th, you may be in trouble. I've got a flight on the 24th or the 22nd, 22nd and the 24th, and more than 100,000 flight attendants will be in a legal strike position as of August 16th. They could walk off the job as long as the union has given Air Canada a 72 hours notice

of work stoppage. This is, yeah, there's a contract dispute between Air Canada. Canada and the flight attendants and they voted, it was almost unanimous. I think it was 99.3% or 99.7%. It was a huge amount. The flight attendants are very clear as to what they want and they are very clear as to who they are, who they see is the problem here. And the union has a huge bargaining chip given the fact that they've got so much of their membership behind them. But Be very careful. If you are on an Air Canada flight between after August 16th,

you could be, as my dad used to say, S-O-L. So this is just the second, this is the second strike talk of a major institution in Canada in just a few days. We know that Canada post workers are on strike. And what is going to happen? We do not know. We don't know if the government is going to legislate them back to work. we have no idea but that that that the the chasm between both sides is way too big to think that this is going to be settled at the negotiating table I personally think this is not going to be settled until we're not operating within the confines of what we know as Canada Post anymore

they are losing $10 million a day and meanwhile the union workers want a 13% raise that math don't work That math don't math, so we will follow that as well. Hey, banned then unbanned. Montreal Pride sparks outrage and then walks it back. Why were Jewish LGBTQ activists told to stay home? That is coming up next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for being here.

Pride has a problem. And pride writ large, whether it's Toronto, whether it's Vancouver, whether it's Montreal, it's either financial, it's either. moral. It's either a problem with vision or communication. It might be a problem with warring factions within the organization. There is an almost an existential threat to this coalition that in so many cities is a moment in time that is celebrated by so very many. But the worst, in my opinion thus far has been what happened in Montreal when a group of Jews, gay Jews, were banned from the parade, just banned, outright banned.

And you saw a wave of people quitting from the board and it reached a fever pitch in terms of press. And now today there seems to be some sort of resolution. So to walk us through what happened and what's next, we're joined by Adam Zivo, journalist with the National Post. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me on the show. It's very important you should talk about.

It is. It is because whether you are a member of the community or an ally or just somebody who knows that an event like pride brings in a lot of money for your city, these events are a staple and we need them to be healthy. And so talk to me about what happened in Montreal. Sure. So there was a longstanding controversy about how Montreal pride should react to the Israel. Palestinian conflict. So this has been bubbling for quite some time. And Montreal Pride initially

took a neutral stance. And it's partially because the institution kind of imploded in 2022. Back in that year, they had to cancel their parade at the last minute because they didn't recruit enough volunteers to do security. So that really shook the confidence of their sponsors and partners. So, you know, October 7 happens. Other Pride festivals decide to take a stance. Montreal Pride says, you know what? We're going to be neutral. we're going to focus on our core mandates, which is delivering this festival, we're not going to get distracted by geopolitical issues halfway around the world. Well, that pisses off some of the more radical elements of the LGBTQ community. So last year in 2024, there was a crusade that was led

by this one Arabic, queer Arabic organization called Haleem, and they wanted any quote-unquote Zionist group to be kicked out of pride. Montreal Pride didn't listen to them, said, going to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate, but then HLEB really lobbied hard, and it seems like they made some headway, and that they were able to push for Ga Ava and Sija to be banned last week. But then that led to a huge maelstrom of public condemnation. So Montreal Pride quickly reversed this ban. Well, I got to say, I mean, I did not know that they took that position of institutional neutrality. I know that some universities in Canada have adopted it since October 7th as a way to just navigate these really tricky waters.

I think it is a great idea. And the fact that it was tested and it failed in this instance is pretty telling. Yeah, I mean, we have to keep in mind that there are tensions within the LGBTQ community and there are more radical elements of the community that want to instrumentalized pride and the queer community in general to push for unrelated political issues that are part of the constellation of far-left causes. And so there are queer activists to think that you cannot have pride unless you're advocating for the Palestinian people in the most radical way possible. Yeah. And then there are other members, other gays and lesbians and some trans people who say that, you know what, maybe this is inappropriate and we should be focusing

on our core rights. Now, for these larger festivals, because they do receive a lot of government funding and a lot of corporate funding, those funders provide some sense of accountability and keep these festivals a bit more towards the center, keep them a bit more broad tent. But that, of course, pisses awesome of the radical activists, and they work really hard to try to get their agenda across. Well, yeah, Adam, like I remember years and years, like probably 20, 30 years ago. I remember seeing a. float in some pride parade, and it was an American pride parade, and it was a Republican gaze on a pride float during the, I think it might have been Washington. And it occurred

to me back then that it was, at that point, pride was, if it, if it wasn't, if it was political, it wasn't so political that Republican gays weren't invited. Now it seems like unless you subscribe to the worldview of oppressor and oppressed and everything that follows it, there's probably not a place for you or you're not going to feel as welcome as you could. Yeah, I mean, this has been going on for a while, though. Let's not forget that back in 2016, in Toronto Pride, for example, Black Lives Matter stopped the parade and essentially forced the parade to kick police out of pride, and that's the policy that was mimicked by many other Pride festivals throughout Canada.

many of the people who lead these organizations throughout Canada tend to be rather radical. And so this ideological pressure to conform has been around for a while. It's not a new thing, but what's different here is that this radicalism caused a group of people to be excluded on the basis of their religious or cultural identity. because essentially the, like, Haleem and these other people who opposed Zionist groups from participating, they like to ignore the fact that 91% of Canadian Jews are Zionists, right? And so if you're going to ban Zionist organizations, you're essentially banning Jewish Canadians from Montreal Pride, from marching. And people pointed that out, and I think at that point, Pride Toronto, sorry, Pride Montreal realized they made a great

grave mistake. The head of their board of directors, chair of the board of directors resigned, a member of their nomination committee that reviews their board of directors' applications resigned. Five MPs from the liberal parties signed a choice letter condemning this. So I think they realized they really crossed a line here. Adam, you know, it's so, it's so saddening to see these wars from the other side of the world being imported into something that has absolutely nothing to do with that here in Canada. And on top of it, not only does it has nothing to do with it, the idea of a pride parade in the Middle East with the exception of Israel is impossible.

And so the fact that in a pride parade, they are fighting the war that's happening on the other side of the world, it's just nonsensical to me. Well, so what I'll say is that I understand that Palestinians tend to be pretty homophobic and that you could never have a pride parade, for example, in Ramallah, let alone Gaza. At the same time, I can understand my people would still advocate for Palestinians nonetheless. I myself, for example, would support women's rights in Afghanistan, even though I know those women probably don't like gay people or Uyghurs in East Turkestan. People don't have to be morally perfect in order for them to receive some level of sympathy.

with your support. But I think the far left likes to ignore the moral grayness of Palestinians in this respect. And look, you know what? I'm pretty pro-Israeli, but I'm also sympathetic towards the Palestinians. If people want to advocate for Palestinians in Canada, that's their right. And, you know, you do you. But I don't think they should hijack unrelated events and instrumentalize them to a cause that other stakeholders who cherish that event may not support. Adam Zivo, a couple of weeks ago you wrote a pretty provocative piece, and you came on this show to talk about it, about how the LGBT community might want to separate itself from the T community and start its own organization. How do you think that idea is going to inform this crisis

that's occurring on multiple fronts in multiple pride organizations across Canada? Well, there's a broader cleavage within the LGBTQ community between more moderate and assimilationist members and the more radical members. And lesbians and gays tend to be more moderate on the whole. You know, we're not like the quote-of-que queer community with all the non-binarys and so on. That can, you know, want to dismantle capitalism or dismantle all gender norms or anything like that. And so I think that these kinds of incidents, they control. tribute to the sense of estrangements that some gays and lesbians feel towards the broader LGBTQ movement and may accelerate this movement to have a more sane LGBT movement as an alternative.

Yeah, but in order for that to happen, a lot of those loud voices that are currently in the tent are either going to have to go out of the tent or the moderate voices are going to have to open up their own tent. Yeah, I mean, it's really not easy to be a moderate gay or lesbian in the current LGBTQ scene and it's not easy to advocate for a separate LGBT movement that prioritizes the interests of homosexuals and isn't super aligned with the transgender community or at least sees it as separate but what I'll say is that in the aftermath of me writing this article and I recently also went on a podcast with Quillette which is an

Australia paper talking about the same thing I've received a large number of messages which suggests that there's been a vibe shift and you know we see this online as well where I think we're getting to the point where it's going to be less stigmatized to talk about these things. Well, something tells me that stigma or not, you will always speak your mind and we appreciate you doing it here.

Adam Zivo, all the best yet. Enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you. You too. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show and want to thank you for helping us build this show on all the platforms where we find ourselves. It turns out that to do a radio show,

you can't just be on radio anymore. Our radio show became a podcast. We're also streaming on streaming apps. And we also have a big presence on YouTube, as well as social media. And I think I've got to mention it again. If we get to 30,000 followers on Instagram at Ben Mulroney Show before Labor Day,

my boss is on the hook for as many ribs as I can eat and as much tequila as I can drink, and that goes double for my producer and my producer and my producer. So let's make that happen. Hashtag tequila and ribs. All right. I think we all, I don't know if you remember where you were, but every now and then you see something on TV that just sticks with you forever.

And there was a submersible, a company that was doing tours underwater, taking people to the depth of the Titanic. It was a company called Ocean's Gate and I think it was the inaugural trip all of a sudden when they got very very close to the Titanic we lost contact with them and the assumption was something went wrong

and on CNN that day there was a countdown clock to the moment that they were going to run out of air it was dark it hit home I don't know that it was the right thing to do do, but we all were, no pun intended, collectively holding our breath, hoping for the best. Well, it turns out that's not what happened.

And, of course, now there has been a report on what went wrong with the Titan submersible of Ocean's Gate. The primary cause of the implosion was Ocean Gates' failure to follow basic engineering, safety, testing, and maintenance protocols. So, you know, there's that. also design flaws the Titan sub carbon fiber hull had structural weaknesses that compromised safety I watched a documentary about this when they were making it and the documentary that's on Netflix is fantastic and it really paints a picture of just the

ego of the guy running at Stockton Rush yep and how the mistakes all the mistakes that they made yeah they continued using the sub despite previous hull integrity issues there There are also workplace issues, and that speaks to what you just said. Toxic environment, discurred staff from raising safety concerns. Employees face threats of firing and intimidation. And by the way, that's all laid out in the documentary. That's why when I read this, it didn't surprise me because I had seen that documentary. So they did a very, very good job with it.

But, you know... Yeah, they certainly actually, this report follows very much in line with what the documentary reported. But let's also not forget that there was a tragic loss of life. and it happened really deep. They were about 500 feet from the Titanic, 500 meters from the Titanic's bow. But it's not good news. But you always wonder, are people going to die a slow death of asphyxiation?

It turns out all of them died instantaneously. And the victims were Stockton Rush, the CEO. Hamish Harding, he was a British explorer. Paul Henri Nargellet, deep sea, French deep sea expert. And then this is the sad part for me. You've got a father and son who were on a trip. The trip of a lifetime, you would think.

But this is, I mean, it's a warning, right? Like, he wanted to be a maverick. He wanted to be an outlier. He wanted to do things differently, this Stockton Rush. And there's a reason why there are, guardrails in every industry because experience tells us that if you don't follow it, stay within the guardrails, stuff like this is going to happen. And here's hoping the lesson has been learned for anybody who's going to try to be that guy

in the future. And so that's the one story we want to talk to you about. But let's talk about the other one. Do you remember the flight in Toronto that landed upside down? It was a Delta flight. Delta Endeavor Flight rather, so a regional airline flight, flight 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto. And on February 17th of this year, the plane bounced and rolled on landing. It ended up upside down.

The wing ripped off. Fire broke out. All 80 passengers and crew survived. However, 20 plus people were hospitalized for all sorts of injuries. But everyone more or less walked away from. this flight. Well, one person was on the flight and they are not taking this, they're not taking the accident lying down. A flight attendant who was deadheading, so wasn't working, was just trying to get back or get home to get someplace, is suing Delta for $75 million. And because that

number is so big, I have to assume it's in an American court because we don't do numbers that big in Canada. It was filed by Vanessa Miles. She's a flight attendant. The allegations are pretty stark that Delta assigned an inexperienced, inadequately trained pilot. The airline prioritized efficiency over safety and rushed the pilot training and cut corners on safety. I don't know. I don't know if that's true. Well, Delta certainly says it's not true. they're saying that the pilot had years of experience and the associate pilot, the second pilot was only licensed for about a year

but had all the requisites, pre-requisites, had the flight time. And, I mean, they made a mistake, it seems. Well, listen, if they made a mistake, they made a mistake, like a human error happens. That's why it's called human error. But listen, she survived. She walked away from a crash

that could have killed a whole lot of people. I'm always surprised when people go the route of litigation. It's staggering. Nobody died, considering that plane ended up upside down and it skid down the runway. Yeah. And she was covered in soaking jet fuel. Exactly. That's what I was going to say.

She could have been someone who did not walk away. She was unconscious, soaked in jet fuel, exposed to smoke. At any point, she could have lit on fire. She had pretty severe injuries, too. She had a fractured shoulder and scapula. I've had one of those. That's not fun. It is not fun, especially because the nurse at my school told me it was a pulled muscle.

Well, yeah. Maybe you should have listened to it. She also had a traumatic brain injury, post-concussion syndrome, knee back and psychological trauma. Which is obvious. A lot of that stuff is you're going to get in every lawsuit. They're going to list off some of those things. Yeah. But, I mean, absolutely, there's going to be some damages, some injuries that she suffered.

Yeah, and I feel terrible for her, but like, I don't know, do we know what the cause of that, of that accident was yet? They haven't said yet. The TSB in the States, the Transport Safety Board, has a preliminary report, but it hasn't specified a cause yet. So I don't understand how you can, I don't understand how you can have a lawsuit when we don't know what caused the, the, we don't know what caused the problem. If it's determined that the cause of the problem was an act of God, then how the pilots behaved has nothing to do with the outcome, correct? Possibly they're just trying to get that lawsuit out early. I mean, not that there's 16 other lawsuits.

I know. So I was surprised about that too. Here I was talking about not going down the root of litigation. There's 16 other lawsuits. But you get it out early and then maybe you get some sort of deal like, you know. Yeah, you're probably right. And look, I'm sure Delta has a deep pocket. they've been through this before, and I think they're just glad that they're not dealing with a wrongful

death lawsuit. But I look at this as very much like Sully. I don't know what happened yet, but I'm hoping that that's the narrative. I'm hoping that there was a problem with the plane and it's the pilots themselves who found a way to keep everybody alive. But you remember video of that plane crash, it hit hard. Yeah, but for all we know, there could have been an engine issue that had it drop. Yeah. It certainly hit hard. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, and that's why, and the landing gear, it collapsed, and then it skid down the runway, and then it flipped over. Yep. I have, I still have no idea how that happened. I don't know how you flip over. Pilot error. Yeah, well. If you hit, if you hit that hard, if you're going in too fast. Or they,

or they weren't going in too fast. We don't know yet. Yeah. They might have been going in just the right speed and something happened with the, with the plane itself, and it's the plane that dropped, not the not not not brought down by the pilots but we'll have to wait and see on that and uh i i hope this woman uh gets what she needs and is able to live the rest of her life in uh with complete satisfaction and probably with a check from delta Canada is best known for politeness, maple syrup, and hockey, but beneath the surface lies something far darker. I'm Mike Brown, and along with my co-host Matthew Stockton, we uncover the sinister

side of Canada on the award-winning true crime podcast, Dark Poutine. Each Monday, we dive into chilling criminal cases, eerie historical events, strange disappearances, and spine-tingling tales of the paranormal, all with a uniquely Canadian twist. With over 300,000, episodes to binge for free, our stories reach far beyond Canada's borders, drawing in curious minds from around the world. If you're drawn to the dark, the mysterious and the downright weird, it's time to join us. To explore the shadowy side of the true north, search for dark putine. That's P-O-U-T-I-N-E on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now.