The Ben Mulroney Show - Are kids being radicalized by online content?

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -RCMP asks for help handling troubling number of kids radicalizing online with Guest: Dr. Oren Amitay, Psychologist -More Men Are Addicted to the ‘Crack Cocaine’ of the Stock Market with Guest: Gunjan Banerji, Lead Writer for The Wall Street Journal and Contributor for CNBC -Jimmy Carter, a one-term president who became a globe-trotting elder statesman, dies at 100 Guest: Steve Paikin, Author and Broadcaster, host of TVO’s ‘The Agenda’, Corus Radio Contributor  -Criminologist says Canada should better track foreign student departures with Guest: Dr. Kelly Sundberg, Criminologist and Associate Professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary -In Praise of Ultra-Processed Foods with Guest: Sylvain Charlebois, Canadian Researcher and Professor specializing in the Food Industry If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy

Hey, it's Ben Mulrooney. We had a packed show today, including our kids being radicalized by online content, looking back at President Jimmy Carter's legacy, and more men are addicted to the crack cocaine of the stock market. Sometimes you read the title of an article, and it intrigues you. And so you click on it, and you read it, and it doesn't necessarily line up. The content doesn't line up with the title of the article. And when I read that the RCMP asks for help handling troubling number of kids radicalizing online, I had to read this thing because I've got young kids. They're online. I don't want them radicalized. And but I ended reading this thing with more questions than answers. And so let's bring somebody in who can help drill down into this article. Dr.

Orin Amate psychologist, uh, doctor, welcome to the show. Happy new year. Thank you, Ben. Happy new year to you too.

So can you doctor, can you, um, explain to our, our, our listeners what this article is all about and the study it purports to educate us on? Well, yeah, that's right. There's two things. There's the article and it's a report that it cites. And so let's start with the report. The report is not much of a report. That's, I gotta get it right, Canada, US, UK, Australia, and one more country where they're trying to combat what they're describing as increased radicalization among the youth and mostly through like online activities.

And they believe it's increased since COVID because, of course, far more people spent more time isolated from others and, you know, finding others online rather than in real life. And, you know, it's a melting pot, basically, or it's a hotbed for extremism, they're saying. And they gave a few examples and case studies from the different countries. I think the other one was New Zealand, the fifth country. So anyway, so it's basically, on the one hand, talking about that type of radicalization. And they talk about, like, people who we know for a fact, a few years ago, there were people, especially in the UK, joining ISIL or ISIS organizations. So this does happen.

So that's on the one hand. And then the article, building on that, they're also citing a few people who are getting in trouble for these, you know, let's say extremist views and threats or plans to carry out some horrible activities. So that's the premise. But in reality, when you dig deeper, when you look at the organizations that do this kind of work or the individuals, you see that a lot of times it's really about trying to shut down, let's say, discussions or beliefs around anything that's left, sorry, that's right of, let's say, discussions or beliefs around anything that's left. Sorry, that's right of, let's say, Mao, Stalin or Trudeau.

Yeah, yeah. The the the nomenclature has been co-opted. And the notion of radicalization and radical thinking and radical thought and extremism is ascribed with a almost like a very broad brush to anybody just slightly right of center. Well, and I would say even decide in right of center, I think it's right of left, quite frankly. And so, yes. And again, if you I've done some deep, deep dives previously in the people who did these these studies and, you know, they're trying to say,

basically, if you open up, let's say, The Daily Wire or Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson, you know, you're just going to fall into a rabbit hole. They're going to take you further and further into the most extreme, dangerous, ideologically driven, you know, systems out there. And that's what that's really what it's boiling down to. And it almost always ignores the real radicalization that is happening, not just online, but in our schools. I've had so many teachers and educators and trustees privately send me information showing what not only that, like, this is what the teachers are learning in teachers college. And then what they're, when they have to do their PA days, what they're learning there, that they really are radicalizing young children from the youngest of ages.

And they are not right wing beliefs. These are very decidedly left. Oh, I think anybody who's seen what happened on our college campuses last year and early this year would you'd have to be blind not to agree with you, doctor? This is the the the the ideological tilting of of the student bodies across this country towards a particular ideology and worldview. This binary worldview that everything is divided between victims and victimizers and colonizers and the colonized is is is has shocked me to my core. But it's nothing if not it's it's nothing if not brainwashing. And we don't talk about that as radicalization, although I try. Well, and I do appreciate that you do. You're one of the few people in the media today who is doing that. And I think it's really important.

And because people would previously say, OK, these are, again, just a bunch of, let's say, very far-right people with these extremist views, and they're claiming these conspiracies and so on. But no, when you talk to more and more people, and I have spoken to so many people, these are people who are decidedly centrist. Some of them were, I mean, a lot of them are very liberal-minded. And they said the ones, and COVID actually helped expose this, because then parents were able to see online what was being taught in the classrooms or taught or inculcated take your pick and so it really opened up a lot of people's eyes and so it's not just as far you know this tiny fringe segment society as much as Trudeau would like to claim that it is more and more people are realizing yes just what you described

it is very concerning and as you said you know know, oppressor, oppress, et cetera. But it's also then success. Successful people are demonized. Oh, yeah. I used to I used to joke about it when people asked me what the difference between Canadians and Americans was 20 years ago. I'd say, well, the Americans like to tell the story of the guy who rises from nothing and builds builds himself into a huge success. Canadians like to talk about all the guys that that guy stepped on to get where he wanted to go. And I meant it as a joke, but we've literally institutionalized that that type of of methodology. Exactly. And that is far more prevalent, that has far more of an impact on far more people, young people than the types of radicalization that is discussed in this article and in that report, which let's not pretend that it's not important. It is very important, but it affects a much smaller proportion of people. And look, words matter, right? And I've noticed, and this doesn't have to become a political

conversation, but I've noticed, you know, Pierre Poliev takes issue oftentimes, doesn't seed any ground to journalists who will use expressions like safe supply. He says, you know, it's not a safe supply. It's a dangerous supply of drugs. And by saying that you're normalizing something that isn't real. And the same goes for, you know, how the truckers, I did not agree with the truckers, but the truckers were Nazis. But these kids who've taken over and sometimes violently taken over university campuses, they're called social justice warriors. That's a beautiful euphemism. It's a beautiful euphemism.

And so the dialogue that we have is tilted in favor of one side over the other as well. It is. And we are what we speak. And so, as you say, the language is so important and it's insidious because, you know, terrible things become normalized, normal things become demonized, and, you know, and adults are susceptible to this kind of mind shift. What about kids? Kids hear this and they just take it as fact. And once again, the people who we entrust their care to, the teachers, they are truly inundating them with these messages every day not all not all teachers of course i know many very wonderful teachers and they are the ones who are

complaining about their colleagues whether it's other teachers principals school boards who are just you know ruining education with this kind of brainwashing so these kind of articles again they on the one hand that we should uh recognize that there is some extremism going on there is you know there are people at risk of being, you know, right. I don't think either of us are suggesting that those aren't real problems that need to be addressed. But but it is being focused on, you know, a small sliver of of sort of right leaning kids that are, quote unquote, being radicalized. Meanwhile, the radicalization of our kids in schools as well well as as well as online is is is happening far more on the other side. Doctor, I want to thank you so much for joining us.

I am not a gambling man. Never have been. I don't get that itch. I don't get that thrill. When I go to when I used to go to Las Vegas, I went for the shows. I went for the parties. I went for the pool parties that like that, that sort of thing. And now I look forward to one day going back to enjoy the sports. I want to go for a full sports weekend. But I never got that charge that people get from gambling. And now it's

easier than ever to gamble. You can do it anywhere from your phone. We've legalized almost every version of it with using a thumb, clicking a couple of things, and next thing you know, you've placed a bet. But the Wall Street Journal just recently

sort of opened my eyes to, what is the definition of gambling? Because it's not just sports gambling, and it's not just blackjack. It's the stock market. The stock, more and more men are addicted to what's called the. It's the stock market. The stock, more and more men are addicted to what's called the crack cocaine of the stock market. Gamblers Anonymous meetings are filling up

with these guys who are going so far into debt, sometimes going to loan sharks to get their fix to then gamble some more. And that's what it is. It's gambling. So we're joined now by Gunjan Banerjee, the lead writer for the Wall Street Journal and contributor to CNBC.

Gunjan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So I had not considered it, but the more I thought about it, the more parallels I see between, you know, someone's ability to open up a sports betting app on their phone and doing the same thing with the Robinhood

app. That's right. And what's happened the past year since the pandemic is that Wall Street has introduced riskier and riskier ways to play the stock market. You can now bet on where stocks will go within hours or days from now through the options market. And of course, many people have turned to the cryptocurrency market. So what's happened is that the financial markets now offer the same type of thrill that casinos do, that sports bets do, where you can put up a small amount of money and have the chance for really, really explosive returns within minutes or hours. And that's really drawn a lot of newbie investors into apps like Robinhood, into apps like Webull. And many of them told me that they are struggling to stop trading.

Yeah, and because back in the day, if you wanted to invest in the stock market, you called your broker and they'd put you on hold and you'd have to get the money to them and they'd have to make sure it was in the account. There was a lot of hoops to jump through. And if you want to place a bet, you know, typically gambling,

you'd go to a casino. So in my case, I'd have to fly somewhere or drive down to Niagara Falls. All of those friction points are gone. And you can be doing it 24 seven from the comfort of your own home, wherever your phone is, that's where your access is to the

stock market. And that ease of use, I have to assume is bringing more and more people in. Exactly. And, you know, people have a casino in their pocket, following them around at all times and addiction counselors, treatment centers around the country that I, that I spoke with said that when, when new gamblers enter their doors and they're struggling with compulsive gambling in the financial markets, they will sit down with them. They will delete all of their brokerage apps. They will delete all of their sports apps, their financial news apps even, because all of this stuff is on their phone 24-7. And it's easier than ordering takeout or, you know, ordering toiletries on Amazon. And that

certainly makes it tougher for people to throw in the towel. Why are men gravitating towards this more than women? It's very interesting. I mean, I've been sitting in on Gambler's Anonymous meetings throughout this year, kind of sitting in the back of church basements and observing. And the other day I was in a church basement, there were 50 men and just one woman. So I did see women pop out from time to time. But I think it seems like gambling is a pastime that simply more men have taken up the past few years than women. And that was reinforced by doctors and counselors that I spoke with throughout my reporting for this piece. Is it men writ large or are there certain types of men that are doing this? Are they single? Are they younger? Are they of one particular cultural community?

I found that this really affected a broad range of people, wealthy, poor, men of all different races, men from around the country. For my reporting on this, I spoke with individual investors in Canada. I spoke with individual investors across the U.S. So it's really shocking. I mean, people with hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, as well as men with, you know, a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars in their bank accounts, found that once they stopped, once they started trading on some of these brokerage apps, they really found it tough to stop. Yeah. Is there, I mean, you must have heard some horror stories sitting there in the Gamblers

Anonymous meetings. Yes. And, you know, I heard, I heard tales of incredible financial distress, men who turned to loan sharks to borrow in order to put their money into the market, men who had lost six figures and people on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. But I have to tell you, it was the emotional and the human impact that was the most harrowing. How so? have to tell you, it was the emotional and the human impact that was the most harrowing. I spoke to several men who said that, you know, gambling in the financial markets tore apart their

relationship. A few of the men that I interviewed said that they were either on the verge of divorce or had already gotten divorces because of their gambling and financial markets. Because what happens is a lot of times people who get swept up into gambling of any type, they start keeping secrets from their loved ones. And they started keeping their financial losses from their loved ones. And as you can imagine, that had severe impacts on their relationships. One man I quoted in this article said that he wasn't able to stop until his wife gave him an ultimatum. You need to stop trading or I'm leaving you. I talk to me about the interface, the apps themselves, because I don't have any of those

on my phone, but I have to assume that there's something attractive that they're designed to keep people's attention. I know that app design, the user interface, so much time is put into those so that the time on app is maximized. Exactly. So I've been writing about financial markets for the Wall Street Journal for around eight years now. And I've covered this kind of esoteric and very risky corner of the market called the options market. And it was long reserved for professionals. But what we've seen since the pandemic is a lot of rookie traders have kind of piled in because they're willing to take more risk and they're hoping for bigger returns. So this year, I convinced my editors to let me get in the game and create a Robinhood account and trade these very risky options for one week. I put $500 into an account and I've written about

this market, have not professionally traded. And as a reporter, because of some of the rules that the journal has, I'm actually not permitted to trade options. So I was a relatively new user of these products. I myself was really taken aback by how easy it was to make an account, how quickly money hit the account, and just how enticing it all was. I found myself just immediately swept in by the interface, by the ease of trading these very, very risky trades. And on the surface, often it seems like, oh, I can put $50 into this trade.

Maybe it will, you know, multiply by five or multiply by 10. If I put $100 into Tesla trades, maybe that will turn into a few thousand dollars. And my phone was hit with alerts throughout the week, reminding me of how my positions were doing. And how did you do? Well, it always made it seem like a big jackpot was just one trade away. And I lost money for most of the week. And then on the final day, I lost money for most of the week. And then on the final day, I placed dozens of trades throughout the week. The final day, I made a big Facebook trade,

and I turned a few hundred dollars into a few thousand dollars. Oh, then you got to double down. And so it was so funny because that was the first time I realized how intoxicating it can be to have that type of win. And luckily, the Wall Street Journal said, hey, it's time to shut down your account. And I donated the proceeds to a charity of my choice. But, you know, I can see how once you have that type of win, you want to keep trading. And I think that's what's happened with a lot of people the past few years. Maybe they had a big win trading the meme stocks, or maybe they had a big win when markets seemed to only go in one direction, up.

And that makes them want to trade more and more and more. And often what I've found is that that first win is tougher to recreate. Gunjan Banerjee, lead writer for The Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much. An eye-opening expose. Thank you. Doug Ford gets it done for developers. We interrupt this ad to ask, does get it done mean strip $3 billion out of school funding? Because yep, Doug Ford sure got that done. Now, can we have an undo button, please? Help us get back to investing in schools.

Visit nomore.ca. That's K-N-O-W-M-O-R-E dot C-A. This message has been approved by Kidsplain. A message from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. We've all been thinking of President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at the age of 100, and who he was and what he meant to people. And it's a really interesting question because for some, his legacy post-politics was more important, at least in their view, than what he accomplished in office over the course of his single term as president. Arthur Milnes, who is an incredible human being, helped my dad write his memoirs.

They worked together closely for five years. Also had a very long relationship and friendship with Jimmy Carter. He was speaking earlier today about how Jimmy Carter himself saw that paradigm of his time in office versus a time out of office. He hated when people said he was a great ex-president because he felt that diminished his very real accomplishments that took place in the White House. And I think history is starting to agree with him because let's just look as just one example, or let's just look at his accomplishments in foreign policy, one term. Well, most importantly, it would be the Camp David Accords. And as we look out at Gaza and Israel today. Let's consider that it's been 45 years since President Carter put his presidency on the line so Israel and Egypt could achieve the Camp David Accords, and they still stand. Yeah, those are facts being dropped by Arthur Milnes. And we're joined now by someone who

knows Arthur Milnes very well and had a chance to get to know Jimmy Carternes. And we're joined now by someone who knows Arthur Milnes very well and had a chance to get to know Jimmy Carter as well. We're joined by Steve Paikin, author and broadcaster and host of TVO's The Agenda. He's also a chorus radio contributor. Steve, great to talk to you and welcome to the show. Ben, thanks for the invitation. Very happy to talk about this truly great, I know Arthur doesn't like my saying this,

a truly great ex-president and a much better president than history probably over the last few decades has given him credit for. Yeah, well, one thing I didn't know until this morning when I was listening to another radio station was that he mandated seatbelts and airbags, saving 10,000 lives a year. Added to the list. Let's take a look at the Middle East. Arthur Mills pointed out that the Camp David Accords have been around for 45 years and they have stuck. And that means that every few years when the Middle East blows up again,

significantly, the biggest, most important Arab country in the world, Egypt and Israel, have not gone to war. The peace has held. The peace has held, despite the fact that Sadat, who signed on the dotted line at the Camp David Accords, was assassinated, despite the rise of militant Islam and groups within Egypt. Despite all of that, the peace has held. Quite true. And think about how many thousands of people are still alive today as a result of that peace treaty holding. Quite true. And think about how many thousands of people are still alive today as a result of that peace treaty holding. It's impressive.

That's correct. So let's, you know, it's so interesting as we talk about him, this push-pull about, do we honor him as a president or because he was such a moral and upstanding man and did something that no other president did, have a selfless post-presidential

career. Maybe we should focus on that. But but there is so much to look at over his four years. Why don't you run down the list for me of what I don't know what people think about him. And then but if they think a little harder, they'll think something different. Well, let me start with this. It's understandable that people would focus on his post-presidential years. He spent more years after his presidency doing things than any other president in the history of the United States. That's true. That's true. There's just a lot of road there.

Yeah. I mean, your dad will have appreciated this as well. When you become prime minister or president at a very young age, and then you're done with what will ultimately be the most important job of your life at still a relatively young age. I mean, I think your dad was barely, was he barely 50? Or maybe he was just in his early 50s. Early 50s. Yeah, Jimmy Carter was 57 when he left the White House, which meant he had 53 years in his post-presidency to get more stuff done, whereas only four years in the White House to get stuff done. And in those four years, look, he put a lot of things on the public's agenda, some of which they didn't want to hear about. For example, they have to stop burning oil.

I mean, he was the first truly environmental president, a guy who said, you know what, if I have to turn the temperature down in the Oval Office and put a sweater on in order to burn less oil, it's good for the environment. It's good for nature. We're going to do that. A lot of people ridiculed him at the time in doing so, but he did it. He was not, you know, the Democratic Party today has its issues with being too far to the left. Jimmy Carter was not that guy. Remember, he famously fought with Ted Kennedy over health care issues. He wanted Kennedy's assistance getting his health care program, which would not have been full-blown Medicare like we have in Canada, but would have been a step towards it. He wanted Kennedy's help with that. Kennedy knew he was going to challenge Carter for the Democratic

presidential nomination in 1980, and so he wouldn't give him the victory. And as much as Jimmy Carter was a selfless guy, oh, did that tick him off. He and I had a really good conversation over dinner once where he admitted that Kennedy refused to help him on that because he knew he was going to challenge him. So, I mean, the first major steps in health care would have been Jimmy Carter's, the first major steps in the environment. Not a dove. I know he put human rights at the center of his foreign policy. But let's remember, this is the guy who started the B-1B super bomber program to get built a military jet that he thought the United States needed, boycotting the Olympics in Moscow in 1980 because he was so upset with the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. I mean, the list goes on.

He started his career, Ben, as a congressman in Georgia and got elected in the most conservative district in Georgia. Now, you don't do that running to the left of the Democratic Party. He understood well that racism was killing the South, and as a result, he snuggled up to the conservatives when it came to economics, but not when it came to racism, much to his tribute. Now, Steve, one of, I guess, the symbols that is perhaps unfairly ascribed to him, people viewed him, you know,

through a weakness was associated with him, especially as it related to the hostage situation in Iran. And I know that the story is that on his final day in office, he stayed in the Oval Office in that sweater until the very last moment in the hopes of getting a call that the hostages were coming home. The call didn't come until noon the next day, which meant the person who got to announce it was Ronald Reagan. So I guess the question is,

did perception become reality? Like the hard legwork was done under Jimmy Carter, but the new incoming president, Ronald Reagan, sort of got the glory. He took the victory lap. Yeah, for sure. But you know what? When a president dies or when you do a, when you have this opportunity, as you're doing today, to consider his legacy, we can correct the record somewhat. And you're right. Carter was the guy who put in the legwork to see that those hostages got freed. And let's also consider this, Ben. I mean, we well remember, at least those of us of a certain age well remember,

Jimmy Carter sending eight military helicopters over to Tehran for the purposes of launching an invasion, not something that you would think of as a dovish move. Six of those eight helicopters broke down on the way. I mean, think about the bad luck this guy had. If that mission had been successful, if even only two helicopters instead of six broke down, and the mission had been a success, would he have earned a second term? Would he have won a second term? There is this terrible tendency to say that somebody had a failed presidency if they don't get reelected. George H.W. Bush, the father, had the same problem, a one-term president, and therefore the sense that his term was a failure.

I don't agree. The fact that you don't get reelected may have a lot more to do with the dynamics of a particular election campaign than it does whether you had a successful presidency. And in my view, Carter's presidency was a lot more successful than history has heretofore painted it. You know, we only have about a minute left, actually less than that, but I'd love for you to just give me a couple of personal thoughts, because I know that you spent time down in Georgia with him. So things that you learned about him that you didn't know. I'll tell you a very fast story.

The first time I met him, we're sitting around a dining room table in the Plains Historic Inn. I think there's eight of us in the room. I'm sitting right beside him. He says, we'll say grace. I bow my head. He reaches out. He says, we'll hold hands. I'm holding the president, the ex-president of the United States' hands as he says, grace over the meal. And I was so moved that by the end of it, I was ready to convert to evangelical Christianity. That was a moment, Ben. That was a moment. Hey, Steve, thank you so much for sharing your insights and also your personal recollections on this wonderful man and underappreciated president. Thank you so much. Appreciate you asking.

Thanks a lot. If you listen to me enough, you're going to hear me repeat certain things over and over and over again because I think they're what I believe i believe and until they change i'm going to keep repeating them now i'm going to repeat this again on on things that we should be very serious upon in this country we are a very unserious country we take on we take serious things very unseriously and our border security is one of those things our immigration policy is one of those things. Our immigration policy is one of those things. And when you put them all together, you have our next segment. There's a Canadian criminologist who once worked on inland immigration enforcement for CBSA, who says that Canada needs to better track foreign nationals who arrive in our country on student visas. And we're joined by that Canadian criminologist, Dr. Kelly Sundberg.

Dr. Sundberg is a criminologist and associate professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Doctor, thank you so much for joining us. Dan, thanks for having me. So lay out the problem for me as you see it. Oh, my God. Well, we only have a few minutes. I'll try to be as quick as I can. You know, back in 2016, John McCallum, when he was Minister of Immigration, promised as part of his, when he had that portfolio some nine years ago, he promised he was going to be

introducing biometric screening for non-citizens for temporary visa holders. That's never come to fruition. So what happens is we have millions of people, non-citizens, who cross our border every year. And we have no, it's an honor-based system. So we're just hoping that they're being truthful with us. We don't collect their photograph. We don't collect their fingerprints.

We don't have an outbound control. So in essence, and what we're seeing with the fiasco, with the student visas. Yeah. I mean. What is the number? Like 1.4 million people are scheduled to leave our country by 2025. And we have no idea where they are or how they're going to leave.

And I believe our immigration minister said, well, we trust that most of them are just going to do the right thing and leave. No, they have no idea. I don't know if Mark Miller has a Ouija board at his desk. But I I really I really don't know. But, you know, we see know. But we see this gaming. In 2023, we had roughly 12,000 foreign students make refugee claims. This year, we've seen 14,000 students. These are people who told a visa officer, I want to go study in Canada. I have enough money in my bank account to pay my tuition, pay my rent, live while I'm studying, and I promise to go home. I'm only coming to Canada, I swear, visa officer, I promise to go get an education and use that education to better my life back home. Well, what's happened is our government has really,

for the last nine years, ten years, we've created a system that is all about getting as many people here as possible and promising people, come here on a temporary visa, but hey, we're going to have pathways to citizenship. One, it's really unfair to, I mean, it's unfair to the individuals coming. We're giving them a false hope, and it's quite disingenuous. What I really find, and I have quite a few friends who are first-generation Canadians or immigrants

who nationalize as citizens citizens and they find this just furiating oh yeah they had to wait years yeah the ones who came in it's it's it's a story as old as time the people who followed the rules are the ones who are are the most angry um doctor i gotta ask when can you point to a moment where this this awry? And what's the quickest, most effective way to solution it? You know, we had, in 2010, we had the border agreement between your dad and Bill Clinton, who came up with a border strategy for our two countries. It was going well. 9-11 happened.

We saw a series of minority governments. And then when we saw it, it really came about. The problems really started around 2009, 2010, 2011, when we've seen this radical shift in the focus of our immigration program. We've never taken border security seriously. I first started it in 1992 as a customs officer. And we didn't take border security seriously back then. I was involved with policy development and helping create the CBSA after 9-11. We've never taken border security seriously.

And now what can we do? Well, you know, one thing we can do is there are provisions to say to every non-citizen in this country, you're going to report to an immigration office or to a government office and you're going to provide us with your fingerprints and your photograph and identity but do we have a listen i i get that but i i always assume that the problems are myriad and it's not so so yes report to report to a customs office do we have the manpower to to do that no no so there you go no no you know we we don't we we know we don't we don't have enough i mean this this notion of sending uh a half-trained inexperienced rcmp

cadets yeah the border which was suggested a few weeks ago i mean this is that's just that just exemplifies how unserious our government is. And so what's the solution? I mean, it's so the solution is we got to hire more people. We got to take this seriously. We need to have a plan. Like, was it? But didn't didn't our government propose a plan already?

Didn't they go down and propose their their border plan to to the incoming president at Mar-a-Lago? Oh, yes. Yes, they did. And what do we heard from that i mean the the plan's ridiculous i mean it's we need to have a real plan we need to take this seriously there needs to be concerted effort for myself as a taxpayer it would be great if there was a well constructed well thought out comprehensive plan and strategy in place, then create a budget. Don't create a budget to do, you know what I mean?

So it's nonsensical. What is really, really frustrating for me is that what's brought all this to light is the American election. The re-election of Donald Trump is the only way Canadians have discovered how neglected our border and migration programs have been for the last decade. It's taken an election in another country. So it just goes to show just how disingenuous this government has been with Canadians when it comes to our sovereignty, to our public safety and security. And at the end of the day, the government has been telling us

that, oh, we're going to take care of the stolen cars. That was 2019. They bought a couple or few x-ray machines recently. So it's just only when they get caught on not following through on their press releases, do we start to hear more and more BS, frankly. And, you know, now what is the solution? Well, frankly, a new government. Yeah. This is so, this is beyond, this is just beyond ridiculous. Hopefully it's not beyond repair,

but it's not going to be solved by a tug of war between the RCMP and CBSA. Yeah, when I hear that we're going to take police officers who are not trained in these matters, to me that's not even a stopgap measure. That's just throwing anything you can at the problem in the hopes that it looks like you're doing the work well and exactly and when we think where were those where were those officer where were those those soon-to-be police officers going to be deployed well they're going to be going to communities that already are understaffed by the RCMP yeah so we you know but we have this almost this philosophy where we don't recognize the importance of

sovereignty the value of citizenship, what it means to be a Canadian. We've allowed our Canadian way of life, not to be cliche, but we've allowed our Canadian way of life to drift into some nebulous post-national state. Hey, doctor, I got to leave it there. But thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Kelly Sundberg, criminologist at Mount Royal University in Calgary. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your passion.

And I hope you have a very happy 2025. Thanks, Ben. You too. All the best. I love my next guest. He's one of my favorite people. I learn something new from him every day. And he wrote something that flies in the face of what I thought was conventional wisdom. But he knows so much more about everything related to this next topic that I'm just going to defer to him.

The article that Sylvain Charlebois has written is called In Praise of Ultra Processed Foods. And we're joined by the food professor himself. Welcome to the show, professor. You're going to get some hate mail you know that ben right well okay listen i have i think i've done shows with nutritionists where they say ultra processed foods are the devil and we are the scourge of civilization and here you are writing in praise of UPFs. So explain yourself, sir. We've demonized food processing. I mean, the point that I was trying to make is that not all processed foods are created equal. Got to be careful here. And we need to remind ourselves why we're processing foods in the first place.

To preserve commodities, extend shelf life, make our food safer, and yes, more nutritious in some cases. Not all cases, of course, but... A lot of people think when they think ultra-processed foods, they think Cheetos. That's right. But that's not all that they are. I mean, it's a catch-all for a number of things. Talk to me about the good versions of processed foods that you're talking about. Well, yeah. So, of course, Cheese Whiz is something we may condemn, of course, because, of course, it's not necessarily cheese, but some people enjoy Cheese Whiz. But what we're talking about is basically making food more affordable using food science. And that's

really what it's all about. And if you go back in time in history with the industrial revolution, back in the 50s and 60s, women in particular were spending four to five hours a day in the kitchen. Yeah. And the food industry was trying to find solutions to actually provide some solutions to families so they spend less time in the kitchen. And of course, some people will say, well, we need to spend more time in the kitchen, which is, well, yes, but a lot of the moment, in some cases, you just can't afford to do that. And so if you look at the history, and some academics have actually argued that processing, food processing has actually brought more equality in our workforce,

allowing women to play a more meaningful role in our economy, because you don't have to spend as much time in the kitchen, because some of the products you buy is already pre-processed, if you will. Well, and listen, you make a lot of valid points. I don't think I've heard anybody else make, you know, and these are things we would know if we thought about it for a second. Many processed foods are fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. You've got processing significantly enhances food safety by reducing the risk of foodborne illnesses, extending shelf life. This ensures that perishable items can be transported over long distances and remain available in various regions, contributing to food security and reducing waste.

And then I think the one I liked the most was the modern food industry has created quick, affordable meal options that are essential for individuals with limited time or resources. These are really important things. You can't deny those things. I mean, just think about how long it takes to get food on a truck from one side of our country to another. And it's made the impossible possible. Exactly. And so when you buy a processed product, you're buying also, you're buying time and convenience. And that's what it's all about. And I know that if you go on social media, people will be quick at condemning food processing, ultra-processed foods, and things like that.

But I don't know, I don't know about you, Ben, but I don't know anyone who cooks everything from scratch every single day throughout the year. Well, I bet you there's some celebrities who do, and then they post it to Instagram, and they make it look like we're not living our best life. That's right. And how dare we buy some of these products? But listen, we can't use guilt. At the end of the day, the food industry is trying to provide solutions to all of us because at the end of the day, life kicks in. We have budgets. We're limited for time.

Some of us have kids, and you have to do other things than just spending time in the kitchen. So I do think that the food industry has actually come a long way and provided us with some great solutions. But, of course, we need to recognize that not everything is perfect a lot of a lot of food out there shouldn't be you know don't indulge too much uh there are some products out there that are not necessarily desirable from a health perspective and uh what about the robert f kennedy of it all he's gonna he's come in with a mandate to blow up the FDA and rebuild it in his own image. What do you think we can expect from the Trump administration?

Because also what happens down there because of our integrated supply chains, chances are decisions that are made down there that could affect their food is inevitably going to have consequences here in Canada. Oh, absolutely. I've been listening to RFK for the last year or so. I don't know, Ben, what do you think? Like, how long do you think RFK will last in Trump's administration? Well, he's got a mandate to make America healthy again, right?

That's the catch. But haven't you heard? I mean, some farmer groups aren't necessarily impressed by what he's saying about seed oils and things that he's condemning many commodities like corn, for example. Corn is huge in the U.S., so I don't know how things are going to go, but I'm not sure this is going to end well for RFK in particular. You think that he's going to come in with his with his thoughts like you said on on corn trump's going to say don't do that he's going to say it's

my way or the highway and trump's going to say no no i own the highway and then he's going to get rid of him you think his agenda is quite radical compared to what uh mr trump wants to do with the farm bill for example and keep in mind the farm bill itself the do with the farm bill, for example. And keep in mind, the farm bill itself, the budget supporting the farm bill is larger than Canada's entire federal budget. It's massive. Wow. Wow. So what do you think we need to do in this country? Because I feel like if you don't know the rules of the road, then you're not gonna be able to drive on that road. And we clearly have a misrepresentation of what processed food is, the value that it provides, what it even is, what constitutes processed food. And so because of that, I don't know that we're necessarily making the right decisions at what we're buying at the grocery store and how we cook our food.

I would start with Canada's food guide. It was introduced. The new one was introduced five years ago and now already, and it does condemn food processing. And I do think it's a bit elitist to do that because not everyone has the luxury of time. And so I think we need to be extremely careful before we demonize processing in general and acknowledge that not everyone has limitless budgets and limitless amount of time as well.

That's really interesting. Yeah, so take the food guide down to the studs and replace it with what? Because we used to have the food pyramid. I remember that. Yeah, well, so we had the four groups. You probably remember in your days at school, you had the four food groups. Now we have proportions since 2019. I certainly would suggest to Health Canada when they revise the food guide to be a little bit more realistic when it comes to what you put on your plate, because right now, the way it's designed, it's not necessarily Canadian.

Yeah. It looks like almonds and tofu and all sorts of things that we don't even grow in Canada. Sylvain, thank you so much for being here. Really an eye-opening read. It's in the Toronto Sun in praise of ultra-processed foods. Thank you so much. I hope to talk to you again soon. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks so much for listening toprocessed foods. Thank you so much. I hope to talk to you again soon. All right.

Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you'll join us tomorrow for another loaded edition of The Ben Mulroney Show.