The Ben Mulroney Show - Are we rage baiting on crime and education? Facts, baby. We talk facts.

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Andrew Tummonds – Durham Regional Police Association James Martin/ Just Call James  (Educational Consultant Services)   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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Happy Wednesday, everybody, welcome to the show. September 3rd, Wednesday, September 3rd. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm wearing a hat. I apologize. I didn't fall asleep until very, very late last night. I had something called a migrating itch. I don't know if anyone knows what that is.

It happens every now and then. We're like, you just, you feel like this phantom itch that just keeps moving around. It's very weird. And yeah, so I didn't fall asleep to like four, 330 or something like that. And so I knew it was going to happen. I was going to fall asleep and just kept hitting the snooze. And I was late. So anyway, I'm here now.

Are you telling me that I'm going to have to start like screaming at you at random to wake you up? Hey, no, no, no, I'm wide awake. I'm wide awake. Wide awake and wide awake with some announcements to make this morning. We got to follow up to a story that we actually broke here on the Ben Mulroney show. Two weeks ago, we told you the story of a convicted ISIS terrorist Canadian who he was a sniper. Remember, at first he had dreams of being a suicide bomber and then, I guess, pivoted, you could call it, into being a sniper. Hussein Borhot

and we highlighted the fact that he was being held let me repeat it ISIS terrorist convicted ISIS terrorist and his punishment for picking up arms against Canada was he was being held

at a minimum security facility living in a townhouse with no fences a townhouse most Canadians would kill to live in a townhouse Borat just had to want to kill Canadians to live in a townhouse and it seems that shining a light on the story has led to change and we're going to give you an important update off the top of our final hour. No matter what we do on this show, if we highlight an issue, if we try to

take a critical eye to what we feel is an important issue, an important crisis facing this country, no matter how we do it, no matter how measured and level headed, we approach something. We are accused. I am accused of being a rage baiter. And yesterday was no different. When we posited that Canadian home invasions are on par and have in fact surpassed the level of violence that people are encountering in their homes in the United States, I got a flurry of Twitter exchange. Well, I didn't exchange. I didn't exchange. with them, but a flurry of issues from, well, let's see, Dr. Eleanor writes, Ben Mulruni, you nasty little rage baiter, show me the real numbers. You can't because of how America crime stats are

collected. This is false. Hope you're having a nice day, Dr. Eleanor. And here's, here's what I want to focus on. This is a gentleman by the name of Terrence Wade. Terrence Wade, you get my attention this morning, Terrence Wade. Data source, I can't find any authority. source that breaks out U.S. home invasions from burglary stats. Same for Canada. Stats can does not break out home invasions from burglaries. In the absence of authoritative data, I'm calling, and he gives an emoji, let's just say BS, on this one. I worked with his father.

He would be suitably appalled, expecting to get blocked, of course. Terrence, first of all, I haven't blocked anyone in years. I am my father's son. I am my mother's son. We have the hide of a rhino. of a friggin rhino I don't block people because I'm not afraid of conversation

I don't block people because my feelings do not get hurt I am impervious to any attack on my person the crap that we dealt with living in Ottawa the stuff I read about my family as a kid trust me this is fine however you said a few things so we did a few supportive comments

right hey Ben in the last three years my parents house has been broken into my brother-in-law's parents' house has been broken into. My sister's car has been stolen from her driveway in broad daylight. We were victims of a, we were victims of a home invasion in 2012. We still have PTSD from it. We are lucky to be alive. Criminal only got 22 months, but with time served, he was out in four. We're going to get into the numbers in a second. But can I jump in versus a second? We didn't get a few messages like that. Yeah. Yeah. We got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages of people talking about crime and how outraged they are.

So on one side, these are the communications I get. On one side, we have people like Terrence Wade, Dr. Eleanor, and a lot of other people, saying nothing to see here and suggesting anyone who takes issue with the status quo is a rage-bader, a paid spokesperson for the conservative party. We'll get into that larger conversation at a later date. We'll get into this holier than now. It's this weird Canadian thing that to not agree with the conventional orthodoxy of the Liberal Party of Canada to suggest that they may have caused the problems that we're dealing with. And by the way, I didn't even say any of that yesterday.

I was trying to say this is a problem and here is the proof and we need to get out of it. But just suggesting that, just to deign suggest that there is a party that put us in this position, that makes me somehow lesser than. So we're going to get into that in a minute. So that was right. That's one side of it. The other side are the very real Canadians who reach out to us and tell us that they have experienced something that we never saw on this scale in previous generations, ever. I don't need stats to back that up. I have

actual people, actual Canadians, getting in touch with me. So with all due respect, if we're, if we're comparing Canadians to Canadians on the issue of crime, I'm going to listen to the victims of crime, more than I'm going to listen to a keyboard warrior who claims that because Americans and Canadians collect data differently. We can't compare the numbers. Here's what we can compare. Citizens in their homes where they should feel safe and people trying to get into that home.

Those two things, those are analogous whether you're on this side of the border or that. And, okay, yeah, let's get into this. Okay, so yesterday we talked about the tragic home invasion where a man was killed in front of his daughter after she'd been held at gunpoint. What wasn't widely reported is, so that was at 12.53 a.m. on Sunday.

At 220 a.m., another home invasion happened less than a kilometer away. There's video of the ring doorbell of, I think, three people masked, of course, hoodies. One of them had a gun, and they tried to destroy the ring doorbell. They got into the house, and it seems like the reason they left is because everybody was shouting and they had a dog. And we don't know.

This guy had a gun. Let's not forget the guy in the other one at 1253 had a gun. Could they be the same person? Maybe. Which situation is worse? That there were two gangs of people running around the same neighborhood going from house to house? Or that there were two completely different gangs doing the exact same thing within minutes and meters of each other. I don't know which one's worse, but this is not a choice that we would have to make just a few years ago.

Let's listen to some of the audio, and we'll have the video for YouTube, and I warn you, this can be triggering. Yeah. I pray that that doesn't happen to anybody else. Sadly, it's going to happen again. And we got that from our friend, not on Joe's watch, his Instagram. Overall, four home invasions in four days, two in Markham, two in Vaughn. But sure, the data suggests that the numbers are going down. Okay, so the sources that I quoted yesterday, stats can and the FBI. You can do your own homework and look it up yourself.

You probably won't or you'll probably look at them and say nothing to see here. Okay, breaking and entering rate in 2024, approximately 293 incidents per 100,000. That's what we quoted yesterday, marking true, an 11% drop from the previous year and a 32% decrease compared to a decade before. In the U.S., around 2.5 million burglaries occur yearly with approximately 1.65 million classified as home invasions. As of 2022, the burglary rate in the United States stands in approximately. approximately 270 per 100,000.

In the U.S., a substantial portion of burglaries are classified as home invasions, and the risk of encountering violence during these incidents is also higher. A different way to break it down? Household victimization. Burglary, home invasion, theft, vandalism, okay? Let's just look at it that way. More recent stats can numbers show about 5.9% of households reported a burglary in the past five years.

That is higher than the United States. much higher. But to be fair, because they compare things differently or they study things differently. The Canadians report property crime more. And the survey covers a longer period of time. But let's be clear, the very fact, the very fact that we are having a conversation comparing Canadian violent crime to American. This never happened before. We used to wear it as a badge of honored that this country was the peaceful neighbor to the north. Things are not okay. And so, yeah, you call me Rage Bader all you want.

I've got the statistics to back it up. And I'll say one last thing to my friend, Terrence Wade, who claimed he worked with my father. I asked around, man. I know that you worked for a little while at the Ministry of Justice. uh, in 1993. My dad was in office until June of 1993. So I'm sure you have a picture of him, uh, where he took a picture with you and he signed it. I'm sure you cherish it. And thank you for your service to this country. But saying that you work with my father is sort of like an Amazon driver saying he worked with Jeff Bezos. Okay. And I'm a Mulrooney. I never speak for

my father. So who the F are you to speak for my father? He would be appalled indeed. He would be appalled that this country has fallen so precipitously into such a dangerous place. He would be appalled that so many good Canadians do not feel safe in their own homes. That's what he would be appalled at. Do not speak for my father.

I do not speak for my father. And I will not block you because unlike a lot of people, I enjoy debate. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but this conversation will continue. I hope you watch Terrence. I hope you enjoyed it. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, we're going to return to the conversation or a stay on the conversation of crime and home invasions and what to do about it.

You'll remember that last week on this show, we had opposition leader Pierre Poliev joining us where he said that upon the parliament sitting on September 15th, he and the conservatives were going to put forth a proposal for legislation on Castle law, allowing people to defend. their homes with as much force is required to feel safe. And that was pushed back against by the Minister of Justice, Sean Fraser, who said, this isn't the Wild West, this is Canada, and we need real solutions, not slogans. And the Durham Regional Police Association came out with a tweet at Association DRP, this isn't the Wild West, it's Canada. Not so sure, Minister. When bullets are flying in open spaces at all and at all different directions, having the potential to strike completely innocent individuals or an eight-year-old is struck by a stray bullet from a shootout while asleep in their bed or a youth murdered in an open and full public

food court washroom, it actually does resemble the Wild West. You say Canadians need real solutions to make us safer, not slogans that inspire fear and chaos. The fact is, your government has been in place for a decade and offered no concrete solutions or actions to fix a problem they're ever increasing. This goes on and on. And so again, to all of of my good friends who watch this and accused me of rage baiting, let's talk to somebody on the front lines. Let's talk to somebody who witnesses this every day. Let's talk to somebody who has to come face to face with victims of this ever-increasing level of criminality in Canada. Please welcome to the show Andrew Tumman's Durham Regional Police Association. Andrew, thank you so much

for being here. And thank you for your service. Thank you for having me. All right. So let's just level set for a second, in your experience and in the experience of the members of your association. Is their job harder today? Is it more dangerous? Is it busier? Is it busier? It's always been busy. There's always been crime. Is it more dangerous? Yes. It's more dangerous. There's a higher level of guns on the street. And not the guns that the gun registry is hoping to get the hunting rifles. it's illegal handguns that are coming from the states up here and being used in crime.

Right. Yes. And because of that, your members, the police in that who wake up every day and put on the uniform to defend the people of the region, I mean, they have to put themselves

between the innocent, the innocent tax, tax, a law-abiding citizen, rather, and the guy with the gun. And there's more and more of those guns and therefore

their jobs become more dangerous. I remember on, during the election campaign, one of the things that Pierre Poliyev used to say, and I don't want to make this political. It's just something that he said. He said, good news is Canada doesn't have a crime problem. We have a criminal problem.

And most of the crimes are being done by the same few people. Would, is that your assessment? Yeah, I would agree. Like, our members are responding to more and more crimes where innocent people are being hurt, sometimes in their own homes, or in their own cars, like we saw in our region, just over this weekend where two people stared down the barrel of several firearms while demands

were made to take their cars. Those are not crimes where somebody has said, okay, I can't make ends meet. I have to do something. These are hardened criminals with illegal firearms that are doing things for the criminal organizations, not for one-offs. No, no, exactly. And in those one-offs, a lot of it, I have to assume, is like you said, said. There's an emotional component. They are compelled to do something out of the ordinary.

Whereas with criminal organizations, the crime is the ordinary part. Like, that's the business they're in. And they bring these foot soldiers in and increasingly they are younger and younger. But they do a calculation. They realize that there is a certain level of loss that they are willing to accept. They have a certain number of people that they're willing to lose off the street to the criminal justice system. But we are making it increasingly profitable for them because as soon as they get arrested, they come right back out and they're right back to work. They don't lose personnel. And as you said, this isn't about making it political. I'm not here to say the conservatives are better than the liberals or liberals are better than conservatives. We're here

talking about what is crime. And it's been spoken of by the head of the PAO, Mark Baxter. You've heard it from Andrew Woley from Peel. You've heard it from Clayton Campbell. in Toronto, and now me in Durham. This is a problem that everybody just is washing over and going, okay, bail reform. We've been talking about bail reform for years now with no

advancement in it. And we're not looking, no association, no police service wants everyone to be in jail. But they want the criminals, the hardened criminals, the criminals that are willing to use violence on innocent people to pay

a price. And we're seeing it. It's being reported time after time that officers have arrested somebody who's on 10, 15 bail or parole releases and he's reoffending. Yeah. And it's like the way I look at it is, is that, you know, when these people are let out, when these hardened criminals with a rap sheet as long as my arm after 15 or 16 of those, as you said, and they're out on bail again, the criminal justice system is playing Russian roulette with the safety of Canadians. They are essentially throwing a loaded firearm back out onto the street and somebody could pick it up and do some damage with it. And it's irresponsible. Now, you had a story you told

my producer about how you were personally involved in a robbery where the suspect jumped over the counter with a hammer to break open the till in a store. Tell me about how quickly that guy got out of jail. So before becoming the president, of the Durham Association, I was in the major crime robbery unit. We were called to an incident in Durham where someone had just robbed a drugstore. They had, he'd taken it over what we would call a takeover style robbery, where he jumped the counter, smashed the till with a hammer, was threatening the employees. We caught him a very short time after having fled the scene. We arrested him. We brought him back to our station. And because of the time of day, it was early, enough for us to be able to get him before a judge that day. Yeah. So we completed the bail portion of our reports so that he could get up before a judge as the law demands of us.

While we got that done, we then start to do the actual, okay, let's do the evidence and do the other paperwork that's required of an arrest as such. I received a text message from a sergeant on the road who took a picture saying, is this not the guy that you've just arrested for robbery? And it was. He was out on the street walking down the sidewalk before I'd been able to finish my paperwork. Yeah, this is, you know, sadly it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me at all.

Now, what do you say to those who would push back and say, well, hold on, you know, they don't just didn't, a lot of them aren't just let go. They've got ankle monitors on. What do you say to that? well it's funny you ask that because another area that I was in was our offender management unit and we are the unit that controlled looking after those people the ankle bracelet is a great idea but the problem is the person that has done the offense that is now wearing that bracelet committed a crime he has already shown society he's not willing to play by those rules yeah so if he's wearing an ankle bracelet that's great until he doesn't want to wear an ankle bracelet and he cuts it off now we know he's committed an offense but it's of no value to us because we don't know where he is yeah these are for okay if you wanted to do it for a lesser offense where you're going this is a one-off we really want to release you but we do need to know what's going on you can understand that but if you have committed a crime where you've used

illegal firearms you've threatened the lives of innocent members of the public why do we believe that an ankle bracelet is now going to be where you go, okay, well, I don't want to commit that crime. I wouldn't cut a bracelet. I wouldn't go so far as to cut my jewelry off. No, no, no. I've only shown my propensity to... It's just almost silly to think that that's real.

I agree. And especially, you know, like, if you do get caught for cutting off that ankle monitor, are you really going to see the inside of a jail cell? We've already demonstrated that we don't want to put you there. So what's going to happen? We're going to give you two ankle monitors next time. Lastly, I want to get a sense from you, Andrew, of how you see crime evolving in Durham region. I mean, it's an area with an exploding population and the police have a really tough job.

So how do you see the lay of the land? I would just say this. We can't afford to normalize violence in our communities. We can't accept that families should live in fear of walking down the street or letting their children play the park. The public deserve safe streets and our members deserve to come home safely at the end of their ships. But we can't do that unless all parties, the services, the feds, the politicians, everybody has to be working towards a common goal. And the common goal should be the safety of the police officers and the members of the public. Most of my members who work in Durham

live in Durham. They've got kids in schools in Durham. They've got kids in sports in Durham's. Their families also live in Durham. It's not that we are the police and then we shut it off. We are the police and we're members of this community. We care deeply for

the area that we live in. We don't want to see anybody get hurt. But we feel like we're not being listened to anymore because the rhetoric is that the liberals have to fight the conservatives and things need to be said in order to get clickbaits.

You need to stop with the clickbaits and actually work together the chiefs, the association, and make the streets safer again. Andrew Tumman's from Durham Regional Police Association. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your insights.

And thank you to your entire membership for doing what they can to keep a big chunk of the GTA safe. Thank you for having me on, Ben. All right. We'll talk to you soon. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber,

maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help. That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their. therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding

someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time, but if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews. views, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's betterhelp.com slash Mulruni. This podcast is brought you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.

With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos in Puerto Vallarta or sending euros to a loved one in Paris. You know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. Tees and Cs apply.

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, we're going to pivot from crime to education. But depending on how passionate you are about education, you may see the how are the outcomes that we're getting from our public school system as a crime. And so to talk about this, we're joined by James Martin. He's in the educational consultant services business, just called James. Welcome to the show. James, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks very much, Ben. Appreciate it. And prior to that, obviously, you were in, for 40 years, an Ontario education teacher, department head, vice principal, secondary principal, adult, and continuing education principal. So you know education? Yeah, I also did half a year. as seconded as the Ministry of Education rep at the London Regional Office.

Yes. So of all the people I could be speaking to, I'm glad I'm speaking to you about this. Look, I think everybody who puts their kids into the public school system wants the kid that comes out at the other end to be the best version of themselves. And it's not just about what they're learning there. It's how it's being taught and the environment in which it's being taught. And what's your assessment of the status quo? Okay. I would agree with you that learning is dependent on environment. So take the example that we had, as I said in my last year, we had a part of a ministry project to try to raise scores in applied math in grade 9.

And so we had two applied math classes, and we were trying to use some of the things that were being suggested by the ministry. But my teacher came to me, and she said, look, I've tried everything. I've got students in my class who have IPRCs, and I have to try to vary the equip the curriculum to meet those needs. I've got students who are quite capable, but they haven't really paid attention to mass since grade four. So they're learning at a grade four, grade five level. And I'm supposed to bring them up to speed to grade nine in half a year. And the problem is, is that that creates an unstable environment. Yeah.

Because the teacher can't really focus on the class of the class. The teacher has to break down the instruction to meet all those needs. And it is impossible. Well, I saw a tweet, and again, you never know what platform these things originate on, but I saw it on my Twitter feed where it was an Ontario public school teacher saying that, you know, one of the issues is this drive by certain educators to establish as an end goal equity, full stop. We want everybody to come out the same. And the problem with that is in order to achieve that, you've got to dismantle the floor and the ceiling.

The floor being homework, the floor being basic daily accountability in terms of quizzes and testing. So you get rid of that. But then what do you do with the high achievers who no matter what you do are going to achieve higher than anybody else? That's when you start getting rid of advanced placement classes and the higher level classes. Once you get rid of those things, you make it so everybody is in the middle with this amorphous sort of blob of, you know, we're not rank. banking you, we're just giving you a medal, and we're sending you to the next grade. Right. My biggest beef, and I've said this many times, I've even written to the Minister of Education,

Stephen Lechie, when he was a minister. And I said, my biggest beef is social promotion in elementary. And what do you mean by that? Well, that means that nobody fails. Nobody fails. I can tell you that by grade three and certainly by grade four, students in elementary, no, they don't have to do anything. I mean, they don't have to pass.

It used to be that you were promoted from one grade into the next, and then you would be promoted from grade eight into grade nine. Now you just get passed through. But your learning is at different levels because you haven't done anything. You haven't focused on your education. It hasn't meant anything to you. And again, like I had friends who had, we called it what it was, what we called it something different back in the day,

we said, you failed a grade. And it was just, you just accepted it. If you weren't able to achieve at the level required to move on to the next grade, you were held back. And so failing the grade became holding back, became now we're calling it a social promotion, right? Like it's, it's even the language we're using is designed not to offend and not to demean.

And look, I, forget all this stuff. My, my larger problem, James, is we're not building resilient kids. We're not building kids who are appreciating that there will forever be obstacles placed in their way. Some will be placed there by circumstance. Others will be placed by a job, by family.

Who knows? Sometimes it's just dumb luck. But the knowledge that you have been built up in such a way that you will be stronger than the obstacle in front of you is lacking from this entire equation. Right. The strongest motivator for any student from elementary to secondary, I would say, is to be with their peers. You've taken that away. You've said, oh, you're going to be with your peers. That's okay.

But you haven't demonstrated the learning expectations. If you have failure as an option, yeah. It's a motivator. That's right. It's a motivator. Plus, then they also learn what they don't know. And we can put all kinds of things in place. Like we've had summer school remediation. There are things that students could take advantage of to get back on track. But why would they? They're going to be in grade eight. They're going to have a, that's a great last year.

They get a graduation. And they move around to their secondary school. And then at that point, that's when failure can happen. yeah it's uh it's uh how much change we only have about a minute left james but if you had the ear of the education minister who had the power to change one thing in the education system that would make the biggest difference moving forward what's that one thing it would get rid of social promotion have students achieve uh the curriculum expectations before they could be moving on i i don't see a like that wasn't a problem for decades and now we're being told that it's an

indicator of something else and it's reinforcing structural this or systematic that and I don't know man it's just uh like I said it's to make everybody feel good everybody feels good but it's a disservice to the students yeah yeah it's a disservice to the student and ultimately it's a disservice to us because these are the our kids are going to have to be competing on the global stage with people who take education a heck of a lot more seriously uh James Martin thank you very much really appreciate your time would love to have you back again again, because these are issues that will not be going away. Okay.

Thanks very much, Ben. Thank you very much. We're renovating a hotel, expanding our resort, and breathing some life back into the lakehouse. All while raising a family. It's a mess. It's real, and it's all us. Exciting.

I can't tell if that's your exciting face. This isn't just construction. This is our life. Who needs sleep? Building Bomberler. News series Sunday, September 7th, on Home Network. Stream on Stack TV. I do.