The Ben Mulroney Show - Are we about to enter the golden era of tech now that the leaders have the ear of Donald Trump?

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -Politics is a goldmine for Comedians with Guest: Sugar Sammy, Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer -Are we about to enter the golden era of tech now that the leaders have the ear of Donald Trump? with Guest: Mohit Rajhans Mediologist and Consultant, ThinkStart.ca -Why is life expectancy on the decline? with Guest: Dr. Nadia Alam, Family Doctor and Past-President of The Ontario Medical Association  -‘Romi is home’: Canadian cousin of freed Israeli hostage with Guest: Maureen Leshem - Cousin of Romi, who is one of the earliest hostages released 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's the only city in the world where you run into a Greek guy in parquex and he'll talk to you in three languages in the world will you run into a Greek guy in Park X and he'll talk to you in three languages in the same sentence. It'd be like, look, I told Casta de Malakia to stop coming to Park X. Last time he came, he brought his girlfriend Tabarnak. One, two, three, a po' piso. I was like, what the fuck just happened?

Where the Greeks at? My applause, I hear you. Some in the front, that's rare, because usually, you know, you're in the back. But. If you are like me and you are proud of Canada's multicultural history and the fact that we were built on immigration and that we have this duality of language, then my next guest

is the perfect Canadian. He is the prototypical Canadian. I wanna welcome to the show, Sugar Sammy, one of the funniest comedians working today, a good friend and now a new friend of the Ben Mulroney Show. Sammy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me back. Yeah, well, no, I'm glad to have you. I'm glad there's so much to talk about. Now for our listeners who don't yet know you, you are from Montreal, you are perfectly bilingual. You've been doing stand-up for how long? 30 years now this year. 30 years, congratulations.

When you told your parents that you wanted to be a stand-up, what'd they say? They still don't know, they think I'm a doctor. I'm here on a medical convention. Listen, I think- That's a tough sell to any parent. It is a tough sell, but the good thing is my parents, they weren't traditional, they're like semi-traditional.

Okay. Right, so they're like, do it, but make sure you make it. Do a good job. Make sure you make enough to take care of us. Yeah. Right? So there's always that. So my parents always encouraged us as long as it was serious.

Yeah, and what came first? Stand up in English or stand up in French? In English. In English. I was always a fan of English stand-up, especially American stand-ups. I grew up, I mean, I think we're the same generation. So Eddie Murphy, Delirious, right? So we've watched that over and over and over. So for me, I think my influence always came from African-American comedians, you know,

who were sort of doing social commentary from the margins. And to me, that's always been interesting. And I think my, you know, my humor's evolved. It's like a mix of all of these influences now, African American, British comedy, you know, mainstream American and Canadian. So who are you listening to now? Who are you watching now? Well, I love, I love Bill Burr.

Bill Burr is like, I think my favorite and I think the top comic in the world right now. Obviously, Chris Rock, I've been a fan of forever. I mean, every time he puts out something, you know, a lot of the Chappelle stuff is great too. So, I mean, I think that's the kind of stuff that I really like. Roy Wood Jr., I think, is amazing, you know, now that I'm interested in doing political stuff as well. Well, that's what I was noticing. These are guys who are unafraid of the line. And there was a moment in time a few years ago where a lot of comics were expressing frustration that they couldn't get near that line. They weren't going to college campuses anymore.

There was no tolerance for offense, but that's where the fun is. Exactly. Were you having fun a few years ago or was it frustrating for you? No, I'm always having fun. I always make sure that I'm the fun is. Exactly. Were you having fun a few years ago or was it frustrating for you? No, I'm always having fun. I always make sure that I'm not cancelable. You know, and the way to do that is I produce my own tours,

produce my own shows, so we do all of that. So it's like, you know, and I even say, like I say the most outrageous things on stage, you've been to my shows. And then in Canada, I'm like, okay, well, yeah, and I know I'm gonna get canceled. But we're in Canada, what are you canceling me from? CBC gem,

City TV, Crave, I'm like, I cancel myself. Yeah, but yeah, I'm convinced, like, cause you talk about, you've got this unique position where you can talk about social issues, but also the language divide. And I'm convinced that if you had a separatist and a federalist sitting in your audience, you would want them to both be offended, but also both laugh. And do you think you've managed to do that? Because I know you have.

I think I'm pretty close. I think I'm pretty close. And look, to me, I think that's always the best type of comedy to write, and it's the most difficult, is where you're crossing the line, people know there's a sense of danger in the room. You know, you've dug a hole for yourself, and now you have to get out of it. And the audience is looking like, how's he gonna get out of this?

And the best way is the biggest laugh possible, right? So you say something dangerous, and then you're like, okay, where's the punch line? Is he gonna get out of this, or is it just gonna be tense for a minute and that's always to me the most interesting type of comedy these are the type of comedians we've celebrated right we always mention the Richard Pryors and the George Carlins but we say oh we love that those guys broke barriers and they were our

favorites and you know because they crossed the line but then people want to prevent the new guys from becoming that way. Which, if you want to celebrate those comedians, make sure that the next generation is able to have that same leeway. Anthony Jesnolik said something interesting recently. He said, Comedy is supposed to be dangerous. We are supposed to be flirting with that line, and we shouldn't be complaining that people want to cancel us, because never before have there been more opportunity for stand-up comics, never before has there been more money out there for us to do what we do.

Of course, it should come with a price. Yes, of course, and not just that. Being canceled right now is cool. Yeah. Like cancel me, then I'll do the cancellation tour. You know, it's great. People wanna see that guy who got canceled. It's like, okay, well, let's see what they're gonna say.

You know, so I think there's definitely, it is the got canceled. It's like, okay, well, let's see what they're gonna say. So I think there's definitely, it is the golden era of comedy and there's so much to watch and there's so much to take in from. And it doesn't just have to be that type of comedy. I enjoy all kinds of comedy as well. But my-

Observational. Observational. But my favorite to write, obviously, are those jokes where you're getting yourself out of those holes. But I give the audience a break and go into different things as well. Well, yeah, but where do you test out your material? Because the art in what you do is making it sound

like you're making it up on the fly. But you have to rehearse that stuff and you've got to test it out. And there's a joke that you've got to test in front of an audience. And if it doesn't land, you got to either fix it or figure out what's wrong with it or cut it all together. Where do you test that stuff out? Well, I'm lucky.

My brother actually produces a lot of shows around Montreal. And so I always jump on last minute at these shows, unannounced, with my papers and surprise the audience and try out new material. So I'll be up there an hour a day sometimes, four or five times a week, testing out new concepts and new things. And not to use the parlance of our times,

but do you view those times, do you view those places as safe spaces where you can test out material that may not land, that may just, you know, you're gonna make things awkward, you're gonna be, the punchline won't land, and so it's just gonna feel tense? Yeah, that's so much fun. And it is, I find that's the fun part, is I remember at one point you know just having a bunch of and and

sometimes you'll you'll run into you know type the audience that's not there for you yeah you know who didn't pay to see you they just wanted to see a show and you're able to test this material on you know people want your target audience and that's interesting too. Well this work with This type of audience. I remember having a row of like Gen Z You could tell woke very left-wing a group of like, you know 12 kids were there and I was like this could go wrong very quickly It's so funny how 20 years ago 30 years ago when I started you'd be You'd be afraid of the older people in the audience.

They're like, oh, they're conservative, they won't go for this. Now the older people are the cool people. Yeah, they're the ones that, yeah. Gen Zs are the least cool generation right now in the history of humanity, where you're like, I might offend these kids, you know? But you know what I find interesting is,

I think we're getting back to a place where, even though we all come from different places, the immigrant experience doesn't matter where you're from. Whether it's Iranian background, Indian, Serbian, in my opinion, our grandmothers have so much in common. Yeah. Right? And that common out... I can laugh at stories from Indian comics,

like I said, people from Persian backgrounds. And there's, I think, a willingness to appreciate that connection today, where for a long time, it was about, oh, we all have our own lived experience, and we can only experience what we've lived. And that's nonsense. Yeah, no, I agree, I agree.

And look, I think that even even it got enhanced when I started going out with a Polish girl. We've been together 12 years. But now I have the experience of the in-laws and that family and my experience and my family's experience and you can sort of mishmash all this together and turn it into something fun. Yeah. And what is it? You're dating the white girl so you can comment on the white people. Yeah, exactly. But somebody tells me you were doing that beforehand. I was doing that beforehand anyways.

I mean, I even talk about it. I go, you know, like I say, you know, I've been with a white girl for 12 years, you know, and you know who gets mad at that is Indian girls. I go, but you know, but I like I work hard. I deserve a white girl. Like, why be miserable, you know? That's the thing, it's like, stand-up comics allow us to laugh at stuff that in any other scenario, we would have to pretend wasn't funny.

Yeah, you'd have human resources calling you in. Yeah, no, exactly. Right away, yeah. No, I love your stuff, and we're gonna talk about so much more after the break, we're gonna talk about what you're working on now, we're gonna talk about is this the best time to be a stand up comic? So don't go anywhere. We're in conversation with sugar Sammy.

Our conversation continues after the break on the Ben Mulroney show. This is the Ben Mulroney show. What's your name? Idris. Look at this. Beautiful. Oh, Trump supporter. Who said immigrant was you miss? Sir, are you an immigrant? Yes, but you have your papers.

Yes. Go f*** yourself. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Sir, you are a gentleman and documented. That's Sugar Sammy, one of the great comedians working today. And I got to say between you and Russell Pierce, the crowd work that the two of you do is like next level. Thank you.

Have you ever done a show entirely of crowd work? It's happened accidentally. It's happened where I headlined a comedy club, this was years ago, and I remember just starting with the first person in the crowd, it was like 200 people, and then just made my way through the crowd, and an hour later, I was just doing crowd work and came back and finished it with the guy I started with

and wrapped it up and it was done. That was it. That was it. It was the most fun ever. Yeah, of course, I mean, that's a skill unto itself, right? To be able to just throw away the material and just go with the crowd. Yeah, well, you're writing on the fly.

So it's that exercise where you're creating, you know, you're figuring out, you're actually honing your writing skills on the fly, you know, and that's fun. And so you're on tour now. On tour now across Canada, starting in Winnipeg this weekend. Congratulations.

What a place to start, minus 35. And then, yeah, 17 cities across the country. It's gonna be fantastic. And what can people expect? Look, if you're looking to get away from the grind of not saying what you want at work in front of human resources and having fun, this is amazing. It's unadulterated stand-up comedy. It's gonna be a lot of fun,

and we're gonna let loose, and nothing is off limits. Leave the kids at home. Leave the kids at home. Yeah, and if people want tickets? SugarSami.com. Awesome, I love it. You do it all in house. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Is this the best time for comedy? Because I'm thinking the Trudeau government is long in the tooth. People have real opinions, real emotions attached to their feelings. Yeah. You've got Trump coming in and he's just a material machine. Yeah. You've got there's so many issues on the table that are creating comedy. It would seem in real time. Yeah. It just writes itself. Yeah. A lot of times you just got to turn on the news and just go, OK, now just take notes.

Yeah. No, it's fantastic. It's fun. And you know, what's fun is having everybody in the room together. So what's fun about my audience is not only is it multicultural, multi-generational, but it's multi-political. So you have people from everywhere. And this is why I like starting in Winnipeg,

because Winnipeg feels like these places in the world, there are a few of them, there's an area in Montreal called Verdun that's like that, where you have three political parties that are neck and neck. So you have that in the audience. And to me, that's the best sample audience to test everything.

Of course, yeah. And see where everybody gets mad and people get mad and laugh in different places. But all around, they love 90% of it. So I always say, what do you prefer? 90% of an amazing show or 100% of an okay show. That's a great tax to pay, 10%? If someone said you're paying 10% income tax in Canada,

you'd be loving it. I would say, what country am I in? Exactly. This ain't Canada. Exactly. I've got to think though, doing a show in Montreal, a bilingual show, must scratch all of your itches because you get to deal with the separatists,

you get the federalists, you get the bureaucrats, you get all the languages and all the cultural communities all at once. In both languages. Yeah, you do it in both languages. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a fun place to perform. And I took the bilingual show across Canada.

So we did one night in most major cities last year and to me it's one of my favorite things to do because it's you know it's where I grew up as well and where you grew up so it's fun to have that sort of that opportunity to perform at home and to deal with those issues and they never change they just keep evolving. Well one issue in particular is evolving into a sort of a concerning trend. And there's, you know, a lot of people believe the immigration system in Canada not working as well as it has in the past.

And that has led to an anti South Asian sentiment in this country. And you know, you're of that background. Have you felt that personally? I didn't I didn't feel it until I saw it under my Facebook ads. Sometimes I'll go and scan the comments, and they're like, more Indians! What are you guys doing, stealing all our jobs? And I've seen people get mad at the fact

that there's a statement, a lot of people say, Indians are stealing all these jobs, Tim Hortons, that's all you see, is Indians. I'm like, that's the job you're complaining about? That's the job? Not the doctor thing, not lawyers, not Ian Huneman saying, you're all you see is Indians. I'm like, that's the job you're complaining about? That's the job? Not the doctor thing, not lawyers, not like Ian Huneman saying, you're mad at the Tim Hortons job?

That's when you know it's a little bit white trashy. Because like, what's your job now? Like, belly lint remover? Just removing belly lint going, ah, if it wasn't for all these Indians, I'd be serving coffee at Tim Hortons. Well, it must be, but the French could say that about you for coming in and stealing the job of a host

on their version of America's Got Talent. Yeah, in France. You've been doing that for years. What's it called over there? La France a l'Incroyable Talon. That's a mouthful. Yeah, yeah. La France a l'Incroyable.

The French know how to take something and make it three times longer. Yeah, but so if you watch it, like if you watch it with the volume off, it looks like that format. But it's, what they appreciate as talent might not be a little, might be different from what we appreciate.

Is that right? Is that a fair assessment? Right, and I think as a North American, they appreciate that point of view, you know, of a North American coming in and sort of ripping up. So what are some of the peculiarities of that French show and the talent that they want to showcase? Is it more mimes than anything?

No, no, no. They have a little bit of everything. And I'm very straightforward. And I think that's one of those things that I think has picked up on television there is people love the fact that it's unfiltered. And it was one of those things, I think, with the producers that we worked on,

make sure that we were able to not have the same sort of restrictions we'd see on maybe Canadian television, where we could just go as far as we want. And I improvise and say the first thing that comes to my mind, and they keep it. They don't edit it, they don't cut it out. And I think it's fantastic.

And I think with that, we should see more and more of that on television. I think we've got to let loose a little bit more because TV's dying because people are finding alternate sources. You know, I found with the advent of Netflix where everyone around the world was able to consume the same stuff, there was this confluence of appreciation of different things where all of a sudden it was, you know, British dramas were more accessible to North American audiences. Squid Game. Yeah, Squid Game.

Exactly. But even the format of British TV became something that was adopted over here. All of a sudden we're doing eight episodes of TV, you know, and that sort of thing. Have you noticed the influence of other cultures on French talent? Yeah, I mean that because it's opened up now, right? The internet is, that's one of those great things. The internet has opened up the world to different points of view

and different ways of doing things. So yeah, these formats everywhere else become interesting. Yeah, well it's also like you were saying before, I mean, your appreciation of sort of what is funny around the world is more accessible to you now. You're able to watch comics from different parts of the world. Yeah, it used to be.

I remember the first time I went to England, I started touring England, and my cousin turned me on to The Office, the British version of The Office. And I didn't know anything about that. But today, in real time, people can figure that out very quickly. And so we'd watch the DVDs. I watched them on a laptop. My friend would get some sort of digital file sent to him, and we watched them on a laptop. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was something unlike anything else I'd ever seen. Me too, and then extra. So I became a huge fan of Ricky Gervais because of that. And so when he appeared on the Golden Globes in 2011 for the first time, I knew exactly what was coming. And I was like, I cannot wait to see this. He's uncancellable. I love Ricky Gervais.

He's one of my favorites. The harder people push at him, the more he pushes back and he's insightful and he understands how to construct a joke as well. I watched him on Comedians in Cars with Jerry Seinfeld and he's one of those guys who makes it look easy but it's only because he worked so hard. Yeah, genius at TV writing and also at standup. Yeah, so he's great.

You got the standup stuff, you've got the TV show, you've got the tour, what else are you working on? So far, I mean, that's it, the tours, you know, the tours and the bilingual show, it keeps me busy most of the time, the TV show in France and then, you know, a couple other projects, you know, that aren't officially it. I watched a show you did once, it was a French show on Crave, I think, was it? It was on television back in Quebec, It started at Cigala in 2013. So it was a series, three seasons. Yeah, so if people can find it, I think they're on YouTube right now, but it was on Crave for a while. So yeah, I did my, I had a sitcom.

Well, listen, Sammy, thank you so much for showing up. I want to remind our listeners that you're on tour and they can get all the information at sugarsammy.com. Not that C-A stuff. .com. .com. Hey, I really, thank you so much for coming in. And I'm gonna let you know when I'm in Montreal cause I'd love to come see you.

Yes, please. Yeah, we gotta go for dinner. Of course. Yes, hey, thank you so much. And honestly, if you haven't discovered Sugar Sammy, he is one of our national treasures. And like I said, he is the embodiment of everything that is great in this country. And he knows how to make us laugh. And so thank you very much, my friend. Thank you.

We've got a lot of tech stories to talk about today, most notably because if you looked at the stage at the inauguration, it was the most powerful people in tech, all lining up behind Donald Trump. What a difference eight years makes. The people who position themselves as the vanguard in defense of democracy against Donald Trump are standing shoulder to shoulder with the 47th President of the United States. To talk about what all this means we're joined by Mohit Rajan's mediologist and consultant with thinkstart.ca. Mohit, what did you make of that picture of the meta

and the Googles and the TikToks and the Xs of the world all lining up to support Donald Trump? If you hadn't told me that we all witnessed it live, I would have said it was AI. I definitely did not feel like we were going to witness that in the moment that we witnessed that, especially because of the potential repercussions and the conversations that end up happening individually.

Each company has been held to account for several different things by the U S government to see them united on that stage. It was very, very interesting. Do you think that this is, I mean, look, it feels to me that there's a, there's not a chicken or an egg sort of situation. He's the leader, they're following the leader and they're following the leader's lead in that he essentially said, if you want your lives to be easy over the next four years,

you gotta come into the Trump tent. It feels to me like that's what happened. Yeah, very much so. So just for the audience, Elon Musk was there, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Sundar, who runs Alphabet, Sam Altman, OpenAI, TikTok was represented, Uber was represented. So what Ben's referring to is really the powerhouse of American Silicon Valley. And so now we're in this new era of digital politics, really where these people

have to cozy up because look, Trump has already peeled back the executive order on AI safety, for example. And that was originally put as safeguards so that these big tech companies couldn't go and start developing AI without any guardrails. It turns out that Trump's not a fan of guardrails. And so now all of these big tech companies are going to renegotiate how the future of their companies are going to exist in Silicon Valley. Now, before we look at our next story, I wanna look back at a story we talked about last week where there was a video on social media

that appeared to show AI being used at a Tim Hortons drive-through. And we talked about the rise of AI in the service industry. Tim Hortons reached out to us and said that that was a fake video. It never happened. And I just want to take a moment that if Tim Hortons is still listening, we are open to a national sponsorship

of the Ben Mulroney Show. Big, big fan of your breakfast sandwiches right here. And your chili. I think your chili is delicious. First, what I do is I like to dip the bread in the chili and it thickens up the chili and then I eat the chili. Anyway, just putting that out there for Tim Hortons. If you're listeners of the show, then we'd love to have you on board. I do think that one of the things that I really did appreciate was the fact that they reached to at least say to us that, hey, we appreciate the fact that you're

mentioning us, but also, we would never not test that technology properly and put it into the market like that. So they're basically protecting their brand at the same time. So get on that. And if they really want to protect their brand, they should join us as a national sponsor of the Ben Mulroney show. Okay, I've said that enough. Now we're gonna move on. TikTok, what it was and what it is and what it could potentially become is a constant

debate. You know, it started as a fun app for teens, became potentially a national security threat. But now Kevin O'Leary, who could potentially be on the ownership of, could be potentially owning that company, has these ideas of it becoming a television network. Let's listen. Kevin, let's say you buy TikTok. You now have this revamped American version, but you'd be going head to head with some big companies

with smart engineers and some of the deepest pockets out there, I mean, Meta and Alphabet, Snap, and those are just the big players. What would be your competitive advantages in that space? 170 million users that's my competitive advantage, but it gets better when we solve this problem For parents and for companies and for the government which will not use this product when we solve it We'll immediately increase our base But it gets better Frank and I are to fly over to India and meet with

Modi and say, Listen, why don't we light up those 210 million users you turned off in 2020? Same with Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Canada. Why not create the world's largest television network that's based on freedom of speech and democracy? Who doesn't want to do that? Now, TikTok TV might sound a little odd and you know, a television, the world's biggest television network sounds almost like he's using antiquated language.

But there is a method to his madness. There's a way to make that make sense. I agree. I believe that one of the things that television has proven is that it can create a loyal audience and community and speak to it if it's done properly. And I guess what Kevin is basically saying is somebody who's lived through every generation of television that it's probably one of the only mediums that has survived this long and has proven to actually reach the entire world in some form. So I think he's right in the idea that creating a groundswell of 170 million users in the US and making sure it's not just thrown away is important. The way he's talking about it, it sounds like some sound bite version of how he thinks it might work. But the truth is, even television is extremely

competitive right now. And you and I both know that just because an American owns TikTok, it doesn't necessarily mean we're still going to be talking about it two years from now. Yeah, but I've got to wonder whether the vision that he has is almost having different types of media available. Right now it's just you scroll up and you watch these short form videos and you doom scroll for hours. But some people may want their creators on TikTok to offer them longer form videos with higher production values, things that you see from creators on platforms like YouTube, like Mr. Beast will put millions of dollars

into a single video that could go on for 18 to 12 to 18 minutes. And there may be a play to turn it into something like that, where you can have you can you can have a tailored feed that offers different types of videos, not just the things that we're used to seeing. It's very interesting. What we're really talking about is this maturation happening of social media, right? You said it very right at the beginning, not the the funny dance video app. It's an app that has been talked about in world politics that last week. So we're going to see that time and time again,

people wanting a reason to connect in a way to connect in different forms, and no longer are we in a place where content is just king, people want quality as well. So let's find the way that people can get it delivered to them. Lastly, and we only have a couple of minutes for this, but Chrissy Teigen has a suggestion that highlights the impact of constant social media access and thinks that government or some sort of ethics committee should shut off social media between 6pm and 6am. And I don't think that that's feasible, but I think the conversation around it is interesting. So was she expecting what time zone are we? That's exactly why it's not feasible. You're cutting the community off by time zone. There have been countless number of

conversations between parent bloggers and social media advocates and people who want to see things managed online with this idea that you know doing a mandate of this sort will help everybody in life and unfortunately these rectangles, these rectangles of sadness some people call it, these things that are things that people can put down just as easily as they could pick up. The reason the Chrissy Teigen thing I think has resurfaced as a story is because her own experiences right now, where she's not able to necessarily justify how she's able to be on

social media the way she is versus parenting and what she should be focused on. It's a conversation that will continue to come up. But to be honest with you, several generations lived without social media online. So we should be able to figure out. But to be honest with you, several generations that social media online, so we should be able to figure out a way to do it as well. Yeah, and I think you listen, you can take you can empower yourself through those, you know, those technologies that allow you to as a parent block your kids access at certain

times. If, if you want to block your kids from 6am to 6pm, you can do that I use an app called custodial and it's it's fantastic. And I can monitor everything my kids do and they know I can see it and they behave appropriately with it. So it's available to people if they're willing to pay a little bit for it but I think my kids' security is worth a few shekels a month. Mohit Rajans, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Have a great one. Here's a question for you. Have we peaked in terms of life expectancy? There are some experts who suspect that

younger generations could lead shorter lives. So to drill down, because I could talk about this for hours, but I don't know what I'm talking about. Let's bring on someone who has a depth of knowledge on these issues. Dr. Nadia Allam. She is a family doctor and past president of the Ontario Medical Association. Dr. Welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben. Okay, so how so is this a real

concern? Or is this clickbait? No, it's a real concern. And anecdotally, so I'm not a researcher, I read the research I've read. But more than that, I've heard from my colleagues, I've seen it as I'm raising my own kids. Kids are not as active now as they used to be. One, they're not offered as many activities at school because the schools are overwhelmed. But outside of school, you don't see kids playing hockey

on the streets as much anymore. You don't see kids playing basketball, pick up basketball at the courts in the neighborhood anymore. So, and you don't see kids during the free swim at the community swimming neighbourhood anymore. So, and you don't see kids during the free swim at the community swimming pool anymore. Well, because life back in the day, when I was growing up, life inside the house was not as exciting as life outside of the house.

Exactly. My parents would say, all right, be home by dinner. And I would go run out, play baseball, play whatever, explore with my friends, and then be home by dinner. And that's not done anymore. baseball, play whatever, explore with my friends, and then be home by dinner. Sure. And that's not done anymore. The fact that not only are adults becoming more sedentary, right? The article talked about how adults spend half their day sitting on their butts.

Kids are doing this too now. Yeah, 37% of adults. Really worrisome. Yeah. 37% of adults fail to meet the minimum physical requirement guidelines. That's up from 31% just 15 years ago. And yeah, they're saying the same things happen to children. And everybody, sorry, go ahead.

Well, I was going to say, you and I have talked about it with that, you know, we've managed to extend our lives, but it hasn't come with a parallel extension of the quality of that life. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And everybody talks about exercise, right? If you put in your half hour of exercise a day,

a lot of people think they're home free. That's not actually true. What helps more or perhaps at least equally as much is moving around all day long. And that can include going for it, like marching in place, that includes standing up while you're working, using a standup desk, for example.

That includes going to the coffee shop, walking there instead of driving there. Little things like that actually add up. Not just in terms of burning calories, but improving your health overall. And that just does not happen anymore. Well, unfortunately, for me, the cold dictates whether how like how active and how mobile I can be. It's too darn cold for me to

do all the things I love doing outdoors. But when the weather turns and gets nicer, then I walk everywhere all day long. I'll take my calls. I'll do my meetings just by walking down the street. Oh, that's amazing. People should follow that long. I'll take my calls, I'll do my meetings just by walking down the street. Oh, that's amazing. People should follow that example. I will point out, it's just as cold as it used to be when we were kids and we- You don't like the cold, doctor. I hate the cold. I'm not built for the cold. I'm not built for this stuff. I'm getting too old for this stuff. Okay, now let's talk about a story that really resonated with me that more than a third of Canadians are turning to online information due to a lack of doctor access. That's

according to a poll and it's part of it's unsurprising but it's the second part that surprises me. I think 37% of respondents say they use medical advice that they found online because they couldn't access a medical professional for help. But then 23% of them said that they following that health advice resulted in a bad reaction. So I go online to guess, look around and hunt and peck to see what might be ailing me. But I don't take that additional step

of then taking that diagnosis and prescribing myself a cure. The challenge is that we are now in an era taking that diagnosis and prescribing myself a cure. The challenge is that we are now in an era where people not only have a hard time getting in to see their doctor, they don't have a family doctor, and they've got a wealth of information from the internet. There is information overload. And there are online programs that will help you quote-unquote diagnose illness. These programs in research have shown to work

fine, just fine, for young healthy people but for people who are complex, they fail completely. And I wonder if that 23% who suffered bad outcomes, right, where they got sicker, where they had complications, where the diagnosis was entirely wrong. If those were the more complex people, they tried this in the UK. It didn't work very well. It was called Babylon. And now I think we're actually trying it in Canada, which I also think is a bad idea. Wait, what is Babylon?

Babylon is one of those online programs that uses artificial intelligence to help you through a series of questions and the expectation and hope is that it will help you diagnose illness. Yeah, but without the without the accountability of a human behind it as a guardrail, then it's honestly it's buyer beware, right? If there's a if there is a human component who's accountable for the results, for the diagnosis and the ensuing treatment, that person will work their butt off

to make sure they get it right, because they don't want the accountability that comes from getting it wrong. Yeah, yeah. There's no accountability with a machine. No, there is not. And every day that I go into work to see my patients, I think of myself as their safety net. If we can't

figure it out on the first go, if we can't figure it out on the second go, if the specialist can't figure it out, I am there to catch them. Yeah, that is my job. And it's incredible. I love it. My jaw dropped. So when the CMA announced that we are not only short, we're not only going to be short about 50,000 doctors, but we're only going to be able to fill about 30,000 of those spots. That's the least 20,000 doctors. That is millions of patients, millions of Canadians. And this is like, I'm not surprised that they're turning to the internet. I Canadians. And this is like I'm not surprised that they're turning to the internet. I wish the government and there are some provincial governments that have really focused on family

medicine and have actually increased their number of family medicine graduates who are like me are providing comprehensive care. We need this in our most populous province, Ontario. Yeah, and we need that to happen. We need Ford to commit, we need the entire, like actually it's not even about partisan parties and stuff, this is about all political parties saying, we are committed to the healthcare needs of our citizens. And so we are gonna go all in to improve family medicine,

just like the other provinces have. And hopefully people won't have to turn to the internet to Dr. Google to run the risk of misdiagnosis. It can be heartbreaking. I want to take our last little bit of time and we don't have too, too much time left on talking about Ozempic and how, yes, it can help curb your appetite and you can lose weight, but it could boost other health risks. your appetite and you can lose weight, but it could boost other health risks. It's in the sense that it actually lowers the risks of other illnesses. The interesting thing about obesity that I think a lot of people don't understand, everyone always thinks the cure to

obesity, walk more, eat less. That has been the mantra for decades. What we now know is that being obese, being unhealthily overweight, leads to a series of a cascade of changes in your body that makes you crave all the bad things for you. Your body does this to you. Your fat cells do this to you. And in some ways it mimics almost a sort of addiction. And when people start losing fat, when people start losing weight, and I'm not a big fan of the number on the scale, what I am a big fan of is making sure they're losing unhealthy body fat. So if they lose that unhealthy body fat, all those signals triggering those cravings start to go away.

They stop smoking, they start walking more, they start enjoying life more, they start stimulating their brains by stepping out of their comfort zone, and they reduce the risk of dementia as well. It's a positive feedback loop. Exactly, exactly. It has such a profound impact

that you can't ignore it. Now that said, there are risks to the medication that people have to go in. Eyes wide open. Yeah, it can't a chronic illness. It can't. It's not a one done. It's not a magic bullet. And it has to be done. Like I said, with with the guard rails associated with medical supervision and the appreciation that at some point you have to get off that drug so that you can start living a healthy, a healthier life. Doctor, thank you so much for your time. You take care, Ben.

Last week, we were lucky enough to speak with Maureen Lesham. She's the cousin of Romy, who was an Israeli hostage, who was captured very early on October 7 and taken hostage by the barbarians of Hamas. And she lived in captivity for, I believe, close to 500 days. We spoke with Maureen last week about the prospect of bringing Romi home. And with the ceasefire in place, the good news came to her family,

that Romy would be one of those first three hostages to be released from the hell that she endured. And once again, we are lucky enough to have Maureen on the show. Maureen, welcome to the show, and please tell me, how are you feeling today? Thank you for having me. I am still incredibly emotional. And I don't think it's fully sunk in yet. You know, I'm often asked,

what does it feel like? And I two days after her release, I'm still finding it difficult to capture, you know, the overwhelming joy and the immense relief that Romy is safe and at home. You know, when her feet touched Israeli soil, when that moment that it happened, I know it was as if a million bricks were lifted off of our shoulders. Yeah, for a while you didn't know if she was alive, then you found out that she was alive, but you didn't know that she would be one of the first hostages released. When did you find out when did you get that confirmation that she would indeed be one of the first. I received that confirmation from my family on Friday, in the middle of the night. I was told at that time that none of the families were given notification whether their

loved ones that are on the list are alive or deceased. So you know, waiting to confirm that she was alive is just, oh, it was living through this unbearable certainty. Now Maureen, in a release that you put out following Romy's release, you said, we know that the Romy who is returning to us is not the same vibrant, joyful young woman who was stolen from us on October 7th. And then you go on to talk about what you need to do in order to bring her back into the light So as joyful as you are I have to assume that there there's a push-pull of emotions

frustration anger that that As to what happened to her to bring her to that dark place and also the knowledge that there are still so many people in captivity That need to be released. Absolutely, I mean, if you notice the videos online of when the hostages were released and the entire global community had their cameras on them, you know, these not only Hamas terrorists, but Gazan citizen, Gazan citizens, they exhibited such inhumane behavior, shouting in their faces. And they, you know, I was watching these videos and I couldn't help but think that they're behaving in a manner that is more reminiscent of wild animals.

And so you can't help but wonder if this is what they're doing with the cameras on them, what were they doing when the cameras were not on them? So we know that Romi is physically fragile, noticeably thin. We know that she's injured harsh conditions. We know this from previous released hostages. She's unable to use her dominant hand. She was shot in the arm on October 7th and did not receive medical care. But her spirits are high. Her spirits are good.

She is surrounded by family. Israel's medical teams are well prepared for this crucial moment. You know, they have experts that are in the field of you know medical and psychological and social work field that have the deep experience working with trauma survivors. That is giving us a lot of comfort that she's going to be getting the proper care that she needs.

I going to be a long road, It's going to be a long road. But to have that family, to have that support is essential. And I know she's going to get it from you. Lastly, knowing that there is a ceasefire in place, but only three hostages have thus far been released. Knowing that there's still such a long road ahead before they can all come home. Are you feeling optimistic about that prospect?

Absolutely. I am I know that there are 94 lives that depend on us. This there's no time to pause, there's no time for us to catch our breath. I'm going to choose to remain optimistic, I'm going to choose to believe. And we're not going to stop. We're not going to stop advocating for our brothers and sisters and quite frankly for humanity. Yeah. Yeah. Maureen, I know that the backdrop is is one of sadness. The backdrop is one of still of frustration and of worry. But you have we have to we have to take the joy where we find it and the release of Romy and the joy that your family is

experiencing needs to be highlighted and celebrated. And I wish for her on behalf of everyone at this show, I wish for her peace, and I wish for her a life of light and of joy. And thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing this snapshot with us. Thank you so much. That means so much to us.

Thank you. All right, take care. Home Network is here. I love it. That means so much to us. Thank of this. And Honest Renovation, starring Jessica Alba and Lizzie Mathis at 9. Changing these homes, we can change families. There's no place like it. Home Network. Stream on STAP TV.