The Ben Mulroney Show - Autonomous Cars go haywire/Temporary Foreign Workers/Comedy gold!

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

GUEST:   DEAN ALLISON MP Niagara West GUEST:  MARK BRESLIN / Executive producer of massey hall production of “new years eve comedy extravaganza” If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tools that make it possible to go from tax question to client comms in minutes. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show. happy day before Christmas Eve. It's the day before the day before. And we're almost there.

And yesterday was the shortest, the day with the least amount of daylight, right? 21st? No, so, no, so two days ago. Yesterday, I can't remember. Today's the, we're the 22nd today? The 22nd today. It's the Eve of the Eve. It's Eve of the Eve.

So yesterday, the 21st was that day, right? The day with the least amount of daylight, obviously the more north you go. the more significant that is. Yes. And I want to give a shout out to my former co-host, Anne-Marie Medawake, because she and I would commiserate on the 21st. And she sent me a text yesterday,

and I did not reply to it. Highlighting that day, because at the same time as it being the most depressing day, it's also, it doesn't get any worse than that. It's amazing in this industry, how small this industry is. You've worked with her, I've worked with Anne-Marie Meta-Wake before.

Yeah. She was at global. I was at global at the same time. And I worked with her husband. husband, Darrell Kinnanabelt, lovely guy. Yeah, but I'll do you one better. I met her. I technically kind of worked for her, with her,

even over 25 years ago, when she hosted, do you remember 21C? No. 21C. 21C was like the hip, young kids' version of W5. Oh, I do remember that. And it was her and Dominic Patton.

Do you remember? So when they launched that show, she came, she and Dominic came on to the show I was hosting at the time that's the first time I met her. And what was the show you're hosting? Was that the MTV? It was the predecessor to MTV Canada.

So MDD Canada, when it launched it, launched it in Vancouver and it was terrible. Then Bell Media picked up the property and they brought it into my building. And they were a digital cable channel at the time. And they had all the American programming. And they did the after show, right?

They were a very, very popular show. Jesse Crockshank. and Dan Levy, and it was a global phenomenon. The Americans picked it up as well. But that was really the only thing they did there. Everything else was just airing other people. I'll tell you, what was really annoying. How times have changed?

There was MTV and Much Music where you'd think they would never die. Let me tell you. So we were doing our little show, and eventually our show and our channel folded. Much MTV takes over our channel on cable. but prior to that we watched as they invested what felt like millions of dollars in the most performative

hip office space you've ever seen like fake grass inside and everybody had their own cubicles and they had like a Vespa that just sat there because it looked cool we had none of that

none of that it's like they were emulating as best they could American television like that's what they wanted they wanted when people showed up to think this is a cool bunch of people meanwhile we had none of that

I think I had a bobblehead on my desk. No, Vespa. No. Hey, a quick shout out to James Cameron, the director, who has done it again with the third installment of Avatar. Can't wait to see that. Yeah, we're going to see it in the next couple of days. It made about $345 million worldwide, one of the biggest openings of the year, well on pace to make a billion dollars at the box office, which seems it is one of the most difficult things to do. Prior to him doing it with Titanic, it had never been done.

done before. And he is at this point, I think the only guy who hasn't directed a Star Wars or a Disney movie to break that barrier. He's done it twice before with Avatar movies. And a lot of people wondered, was the first Avatar going to be a one-off and were people going to flock back to the theater for the second one? They absolutely didn't. It looks like they're going back for Fire and Ash. So good for him. The budget for that was, oh, about 400 million him? Still less than the first one because he had to create all the technology for it. Yeah. He's a remarkable, remarkable director. Yeah, some people don't like, it's like the scoreboard. You know, anybody who doesn't like James Cameron,

check the scoreboard. And he was asked while he was promoting this movie what his favorite action movie was, and he said, diehard. I like him even more. And yes, A good Christmas movie. It is a Christmas movie. And if you don't believe me, ask the screenwriter who said it's a Christmas movie. So that's that. We want to take a minute to start our Monday with a little bit of humor. Because Monday's always so full of... Last week, our entire week was thrown off kilter by Bondi Beach. And of course, there is some discussion to be had about what's new, what's the latest, and what's next from Australia.

But before we get there, we want to have a little bit of fun. On the weekend, there's this tradition on Saturday Night Live where the two hosts of the weekend update, one black, one white. write jokes for each other to read cold. And it's all designed to embarrass that person or have them say things they would otherwise never say or even be allowed to say. And this year, Michael Chea did, he pulled a fast one and he said they weren't doing it,

but then he ended up writing jokes anyway. So it was all about Colin Jost being embarrassed. And for those of you who don't know, he's married to Scarlett Johansson. So he's a very successful television guy as part of an ensemble at 1130 on a Saturday. In other words, he's a very big fish in a tiny pond, and she's a global superstar. Now, the wrong with that, that's just the dynamic at play. So with that in mind, him being the whitest man north of me and also knowing where he is relative to his white.

those are the two key important things you need to know when, oh, and he didn't write this joke. Those are the three things you need to know. And with that, let's listen. New research shows that millions of women leave the workforce due to menopause, which means there's only a couple years left on my gravy train. My girl already be like, Colin, I'm warm. Colin, I'm sweating.

Bitch, you having a hot sweat. And there's a There's a final part to that joke Which we cannot We've chosen not to air I don't know that we can't do it We've chosen not to air And uh

You can air at 1130 at night I mean listen You could argue we could do it We can do anything we want We just We might be a fine involved But anyway Very very funny stuff

So We should start doing that Yeah so you know that Waymo is coming to Toronto at some point Apparently it's inevitable They're already in talks about regular And Waymo is? Waymo is the driverless taxi service that has been pretty much working in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco.

Phoenix, Los Angeles. Yeah, there's a few places where you can just fire up an app and a car shows up and it takes you to where you got to go and there's no driver. And they're getting people used to it every now and then those. Waymo pops up on our radar for all the wrong reasons because no one's going to do a story about a car getting to its. destination. They did do a test for these things in Toronto recently, and they had a real problem with the construction. Yeah, no doubt. I have no doubt. In San Francisco, there was a power outage, and this happened. The power outage reportedly disrupted Waymo service. Numerous people seeing cars and shared videos like this of the vehicles just stalled at intersections right

in the middle, apparently confused because the traffic lights were out. Yeah, so I guess when the lights go out, they don't know what to do so. They just stopped. They just stopped in the middle of the road and it caused it caused panic. Look, a lot of people... I thought it would have been the GPS, but no, apparently it was the traffic lights. It couldn't see it. It was like, oh, do we go through or not?

Right, exactly. I mean, and that's a problem because a human being would know at least pull over to the side of the road. So that's a problem. And you know what? Like, not to make this overly serious, but a lot of people, when people talk about Chinese cars on the streets of North America, this is one of the things that they're concerned with because there have been so many studies that show that at a few choke points,

at a few intersections, if you just block traffic, that's it. Your city grinds to a halt. All it would take is to get those cars in the right place and turn them off. And you make sure it's four or five of them in that one place so it's not as easy as just towing it away.

Four or five of those, nothing gets through anywhere. At the right time of day, that's all you have to do. Yeah, the future is here. Obviously, they're using it. But I don't think it's certainly not perfected. Oh, gosh, no.

We heard stories about Waymo's driving into an active crime scene. That was great. It was great video that. There was like cops with guns drawn and it drove right between them and the people there having a gunfight. And the other one that I saw that, again, I can't tell whether it was real or not, but a woman was in a Waymo in San Francisco and she called customer service because apparently they were doing a promotion within the Waymo and she was.

one, a free trip. And she said, I don't want to take the trip. And they said, why not? It's like, well, it's to Disneyland, which is hundreds of miles away, and it's driving me there right now. And the next, when she gets off the phone, the next video or image is of her at Disneyland enjoying herself. Anyway, lots more to get to on the show.

Up next, the temporary foreign workers program is under attack. Is it a bad program or is it just run poorly? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of this day, December 22nd, Monday of 2025 with us. Thank you very much. Last week was a week that was defined by a number of big stories. And one of them closest to home was one that we were very proud to break. And one of the ones that I believe we had a hand in.

providing a best case outcome for, at least thus far. I'm talking of the Tim Horton's firing and rehiring in Grimsby, Ontario. And a part of that story, although unconfirmed, but still bubbling below the surface, is the allegation that those who were fired, all 15 of them, were to be replaced with temporary foreign workers. Again, unconfirmed, but we don't make this stuff, we don't exist in a vacuum. We exist in a world where we collide with the idea of the temporary foreign workers program time and time again. And many have said and seen as they've gone into fast food joints across this country that the people behind the desk that are serving us, that are slinging the coffee or the burgers,

appear to be new Canadians far more than ever before. So we wanted to talk with Dean Allison, he's the MP for Niagara West. Grimsby is in his riding. But there's also this whole other aspect. What is the temporary foreign workers program? What value does it play?

Is it a program whose time has passed or has it been misused and abused and therefore we've got to get back to what we were using it for in the first place. Dean, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me on the show. Yeah, so talk to me about when you heard about this Grimsby debacle at Tim Hortons. Yeah, so, I mean, you guys originally called me to come on the show. That was the first thing,

and then calls started coming into my office. And so it all transpired from there. You guys actually broke the story. You know, one of the things, I tweeted out at Tim Hortons and said, hey, what's going on? Are you guys going to fire these people? What is? And they, they tweeted back at me and said, you know, basically, we were. wrong, et cetera, et cetera. But I mean, that statement was more, seemed like more like, you know, a science fiction novel. You know, they made it sound like

that the selling franchisee he wanted to apologize. Listen, Larry Thornley, who's a franchisee in Grimsby, has been around for 20, 30 years. It's got a phenomenal reputation. The only thing he did was let his staff know that he was actually going to be selling his restaurant is the obligation

of the new franchisee to take on that staff. And so when they send out a press release or a statement saying, you So he's apologized and quite, you know, they're going to keep the, they realize that they did a bad thing. He never, ever intended not to have these young people and, you know, a lot of them, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 years service, not to have their employment. So one has to ask the question, if he has been a great franchisee, he gives to the charities to hospitals and to Grisbee Monello and find, why are they throwing him under the bus and making it sound like, well, this was a mixed up and a misunderstanding. He clearly let his staff know he was going to sell the restaurants, and they said they don't want the staff.

So there goes back to your question. So what's happening if they're not keeping on a staff? Nine out of, you know, nine out of ten times a franchisee sells a restaurant, the people are going to keep their staff. There's always extenuating circumstances, but not when you go well-trained staff that serve the community for, you know, faithfully for a number of years. And look, you know, we're going to keep our eye on the story

so that if the new franchisee is not, has, other plans, we'll make sure everybody knows about it. And, you know, if we're going to keep him to his word and see if we can keep the eye on the prize. But back, you know, back to the temporary foreign workers. You know, we heard over the, over the course of last week that in Quebec, some owners and operators of some A&W restaurants said that they need temporary foreign workers because they can't find a single Quebecer to do that work.

And it occurred to me this morning, Dean, I'd love to know what you have to say. is if you can't make the economics of your business work and you have to rely on temporary foreign workers and we're going to get to whether or not they should even be doing this work, then you don't have a business. Like it just doesn't, if you can't make the economics of it work, then time to shut down A&W in Quebec,

and end of story. Like I don't know what else to tell you. This, from what I understand, the temporary foreign workers in your riding, for example, are valued and valuable at doing certain types of work. Farming, for example. Absolutely.

And we have the seasonal agricultural program. That is something that remains intact and is very important in making sure that farm products get to market and get planted and get harvested. And so when the consumers talk about ending the temporary foreign working program, what we're saying is there's been so much abuse.

It's been riffed with all kinds of stuff. I mean, you look at, And I know Global and CTV, and you guys have probably even talked about it, with some of the actual scams going on with, you know, quote-unquote, immigration consultants. They're charging people to come from other countries anywhere from $30,000, $40,000, $60,000. That to me sounds like we're going to sell you a dream that may or may not happen, more than likely not, because they don't have the ability to determine whether they're going to get permanent residency and then citizenship.

We're going to charge you $50,000 or $60,000. And then guess what? You're now going to be enslaved to me. But the rest of your life, people sell homes, they sell land. They, you know, they borrow money to come for this Canadian dream. Why are we not cracking down on these people? Well, yeah. This is insane to me.

And you're right. And the net result, unfortunately, is sort of ill will between, you know, Canadians have been here a long time and these new arrivals because they are looked upon as somehow being part of a grift when, as you just said, they've been sold a dream. and they think they're playing by the rules in a lot of cases, not all of them. But that does nothing for social cohesion. But I want to get to the numbers, Dean. Only 3,200 new temporary foreign workers arrived in October 25.

That's the lowest monthly total since tracking began a few years ago. And like you just talked about how valuable they are in the farming space. but it feels to me like perhaps we're over-correcting here because the farmers are going to need them but we're not bringing in enough we're not going to bring in enough to do the work and it seems like because people have abused of the system in fast food

and farming is going to suffer yeah well I don't think farming will suffer and I think that you know one of the things we proposed is eliminating the temporary foreign worker program And only looking at areas where there's ultra, ultra-low, you know, employment. You know, we look at unemployment. What is it, a million and a half people in Canada, maybe 700,000 in Ontario that don't have work. And, you know, we have hundreds of thousands of people coming in to do those jobs.

Wages need to go up. There's no question about that. And I think when you artificially do that, when you bring in cheaper labor, but you don't give people an opportunity in the markets that they're in. Like, I don't understand how we've got people, 15 bodies in Grimsy, as an example, that have worked there and have been loyal for that amount of time and yet all of a sudden their services aren't required.

So that's why, you know, as you shine a light on this to find out what is actually going on, I think that that matters. I mean, people have got to be held accountable at the end of the day. And it's a combination of things. I mean, but it's also the international mobility program.

It's a little bit broader. So there are many streams. And, you know, I think what when Pierre Paulyev talks about eliminating the temporary foreign worker program, it's dealing with this kind of abuse that has gone on check. I mean, there are rules in place. It's against the law. You know, all these things are, you can't promise people citizenship as an immigration.

It's only yet nobody's ever held to account. And that's the challenge with this current liberal government. At the end of the day, they're great with press releases. They actually suck when it comes to actually delivering or managing or following through programs. And that's the challenge. And that's what you're talking about. Yeah. All this stuff going on right now, but we're not actually going to hold people to account.

Man, that would be a great charting boy, wouldn't it? And it would be that. And, you know, we've been talking about that for months that. Sadly, a common trait between the Trudeau Liberals and the Mark Carney government is exactly that. Very strong out of the gates with a big check or a big ribbon cutting. And the follow-through leads to just poor execution. And we all suffer for it. We're going to be talking about a few of those examples over the course of this show.

But I want to thank you, Dean, for joining us. Thank you for standing up for your constituents. I know you'll be keeping an eye on this new franchisee to make sure that he is sticking to his word as well. I wish you the very best at the end of 2025 and all the best in 2026. Thanks, Ben. All the best of you. Thanks very much.

All right. Up next, a difficult conversation about a missing girl who was thankfully found, safe and sound. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, we wanted to talk about a story that really bubbled up near the end of our show on Friday. We're glad on one level that there's a conclusion to it. There was a missing girl. 13 years old in the city of Toronto or in the GTA. The Toronto police put out her picture in the hopes of finding her.

and there was a, it wasn't the best communications strategy because the picture that they shared was of her in full face covering. So all you could see were her eyes. And a lot of people found humor in that. And that became the, that became the conversation as opposed to this girl who was missing. If you scroll past that picture, that what was clearly an official picture given to the police by her family, that's what happens, right? They said, do you have a recent picture?

of your daughter so that we can go find her and the family hands that over and that's the picture they use in this case they gave one with the complete her face was completely covered however I don't know whether it was the industrious work of the police or someone else but if you scrolled past that picture you saw what she actually looked like and it was a picture of I mean I've got a daughter I saw my daughter in her curled hair a little bit of makeup clearly took the picture herself clearly intended for social media, for the social media generation. And when you put those two pictures together, I don't think it's unfair or I don't think it's cavalier to make a couple of assumptions.

And one of the assumptions that we made on this show was that this young girl was probably forced to wear the full face covering and that she wasn't very happy about it. that I don't think that's a leap okay i think that's a logical assumption to make so she was found and uh the police won't release details but like i said it appears that she was forced to cover her face and her body due to uh in the name of modesty now look the issues of modesty and honor in some Muslim families is not a religious rule it's a cultural belief system exists in certain cultures in certain families and communities often tied to you know patriarchal traditions has very little to do with the religion itself and more to do with the traditions

Islam does not permit honor violence mainstream Islamic scholars rejected outright and when a girl rebels by refusing certain dress, choosing your own friends or partner, dating, seeking independence, rejecting certain expectations, it can be interpreted as bringing shame on the family. We've heard stories

in Canada of honor killings. And even before honor killings, I mean, not to that they always, they don't always go that far obviously, but just the forcing them to wear that, I find it shocking. When I see a

Like a young child, eight, nine, ten years old wearing it. And that's what we wanted to talk about today. And we want to do so respectfully and we want to do so fairly and ask, have we lowered our barrier to access of Canada and our culture and our society? So any culture can import anything they want to Canada without having to ask them, does this fit with, to use the parlance of the Trudeau days, the core identity of Canada? Because as I've said before, and you know that this is what I believe, I reject categorically the belief that Canada has no core identity. We absolutely do. And I think I grew up in a time where I wanted the best of the world to come to Canada. But part of the bargain is you got

to find a way to make your values work here. There are certain accommodations that you have to make to being in Canada. Whereas I think what Justin Trudeau did was come over here. What we believe doesn't matter. What you believe is all that matters. So bring over whatever baggage you want. Whatever baggage you want. And we'll be fine with it because nothing matters here.

So give us a call at 416-870-6400. 4-1-6400 and let us know what you think. Yeah, 1-3-8-2-25. Let us know what you think. There are certain societies where the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. And, you know, for example, Portugal, the parliament approved a bill that would ban face covering garments like the Burka and the Nicarbon most public spaces. France, in 2010, became the Western country to enact a nationwide ban on face coverings in public spaces. Frankly, I think we should start with a nationwide ban on face coverings at protests.

which I believe is already a law, but we don't even enforce that. Belgium, similar to France, Austria, ban, Denmark, ban, Netherlands, ban, Switzerland, ban. Quebec limits face coverings in specific public service context. So, you know, we used to, progressives in Canada love looking to Europe to say, look at how enlightened they are. They're not talking about that now. When it doesn't fit their narrative, they don't talk about it. but I just think and if I were a little girl

from a certain society and my family said in the name of modesty you have to cover up when you go to public school and I would see that nobody else was doing so I would ask myself why the heck did my family move me here why did they even move me to Canada

because at least if we stayed where we came from I would look like everybody else but instead I'm asked to live in this open and free society, but I have to self-restrict all while everyone I know is behaving countered to what I'm living. And that would be torture and it may make me want to rebel and possibly run away. So again, we don't know how that other story ended, but it is what it is.

Joy, I'm sorry, can you pull up the first call? Yeah. Hi, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Give me your name. Good morning. It's George. Hey, George. I'm well. Thank you. How are you? Not too bad. Well, I mean, you have a point there. One thing we've got to remember, we're starting to look more like England,

and we're losing our freedoms because we are Commonwealth. And Canada takes their cues from the United Kingdom. Yeah. We're losing our identity as Canadians. Like it or not, if you don't feel it, you don't believe it, you see it. Slowly and surely, you see something called urban planning and development. It's called the white flight. the white people get overwhelmed they move north we're all in aurora

new market barry we're moving east we're moving west we're getting out because people feeling that their culture their white inficity does not count anymore and just uh george i just want to make a yeah and i do want to make

one point because uh yeah it has to be said you're damned if you do damned if you don't when you move into an when white people move into an economically depressed area it's called gentrification and when they leave it's called white flight but both of those have negative

connotations. There is not and you can call in and tell me I'm wrong but that's a fact people move into an economically depressed area oh they're they're changing the they're changing the demographics and they call it what did I just call it?

Anyway never mind listen my friend thank you very much for the call we got a few more people to get to. Jose welcome to the show Hi. Good. What's going on? Long time listener, first on color. Thank you.

I think the whole country should do what to start. Yeah, I mean, it's not even, when you look at what they've done in Europe, what they've done in Quebec isn't even remotely as far reaching as what they've done in Europe. No, it isn't. No, there's some election. There's some big elections coming up. in Portugal, and in terms of that, and they passed some serious legislation in terms of the Burk in Portugal.

But, yeah, what they've done in Europe is huge compared to what actually happening here. Here, there's nothing whatsoever, no barriers. Hey, thank you, my friend. You take care. Merry Christmas, happy holidays. All right, who do we have? We got. Arthur, thanks so much for calling.

And good afternoon to you, too. How are you? Good morning. Yes, good morning. I'm good. Yes, I call you. you last week from northern Columbia, too it is. Yes, you did.

Welcome. So what do you think of this whole debate? Well, I think it falls into another problem is Canadian population, and we would say women, basically, we're not having enough children, and that's why we're bringing in immigration. If we had more children, we wouldn't need these people. So that's the first aspect. The second thing is these immigrants who are coming here have to fit into

the country. If they don't fit into our society, why do we need them? You know, and that That's the thing. We clearly have a problem having babies in Canada. And if the answer is immigration, if that's the answer that we have a society have decided to hitch our wagons to, I'm fine with that.

But it has to be done in a way where this country has a long-term strategy for survival. And based on what we've seen in the past few short years, the path that we are on is only weakening the country and only weakening our institutions and our identity. So if you want to, if you want to build this country on immigration, I'm fine with that.

But be smart about it because what we've seen is a failure of planning and a failure of doing anything beyond, again, what we talked about in the last segment, a great announcement, and then we don't follow through with the details. Thanks to everybody for calling in. Appreciate it very, very much. Up next, how soon is too soon for jokes? Well, let's, let's check it out.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulrudey show. We want to pepper the show with humor and comedy, and sometimes unintentionally so. I do that a lot. But in this next segment, we are leaning into the funny with one of the funniest Canadians out there. Mark Breslin is the executive producer of Massey Hall's production of New Year's Eve comedy extravaganza. And it says so right in the title, it's a big deal.

And Mark's been doing this for 22 years. He's also one of the founders of Yuck Yucks, and he's here joining us yet again. Mark, welcome to the show. Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. All the trappings. And I hope you're having a great holiday season so far. I am, and I'm happy to check all of those books.

Yes, check, check, check, check. Okay, so let's talk first about this extravaganza. Who do you have on TAP so far? Well, the host is Colin Mockrey. Oh, fantastic. And is Colin Mockery not one of our national treasure? Yes, indeed. And he's going to be doing improv with the students from the Humber School of Comedy.

Okay. That's pretty excited. It is now. And listen, for some people say improv is not their cup of tea, but the way he does it, you know that there's going to be no misses. Like, that's the fear in improv, right? That what you're going to watch is going to be a train wreck, but he is one of the best to ever do it.

He knows exactly how to do it. And he knows how to rescue a scene. Yes. And really, you know, improv is really about knowing how to rescue a scene. But that's not the whole show, remember. That's only maybe 12 minutes off the top of the first half and another 12 minutes off the top of the other half. We've got a lot of really great comics.

There are eight comics on the show. Our headliner is Mike Rita, and Mike Rita, is a Portuguese-Canadian comic who has now gone global in the way that Russell Peters went global, you know, 20 years ago. That's amazing. So that's really exciting. And then we've got some people coming in who are Canadians, but living in other places like Michael Gelbart from Los Angeles and Sharon Mahoney, who's just wonderful, also from Los Angeles. So it's going to be a terrific, terrific show.

There's a band of an orchestra led by the crazy James B. And, you know, I never ask him what he's going to do because I don't want to know. No. Because it could be anything. Yes. It's called plausible deniability. And if it worked for, if it works for presidents, it can work for Mark Breslin. Yes.

I like to think that. You know, this is, let's go into the more serious stuff, right? We're living in a world where some of the headlines that we talk about, disappoint us, sadden us, break our hearts. And we oftentimes look to comedians for that respite in the storm. And there are some comedians who will say, or there's some critics of comics who will say that certain things are just off limits. Can't make fun of that. Years ago, it was rape, right?

Can't make fun of rape. And now we're living in a time where it's terrorism or you can't make fun of certain races. can't make fun of certain communities. And the attack is always you're punching down. What do you think of those, what do you think of the idea of a comedian punching down? I think we live in a world that is so topsy-turvy that I don't know where up is or down is anymore.

That's fair. Yeah, yeah. And some, do you feel, because I see it more on my social media feed, but I don't know whether it's just because it's out there and the algorithm says I have to see it. But are there more hecklers at comedy shows now than there used to be? I've never seen that. In a good comedy club, a heckler will not survive.

I have personally, personally thrown hecklers out by the scuff of their necks. And I'm a little guy. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to play something for you that did pop up on my feed. And it was an Australian comedian telling jokes a week after Bondi Beach, the Bondi Beach Massacre, he was telling jokes.

And I'd love to know your assessment after we listen to, he's joking about irrational fears of Islam and comparing it to an irrational fear of spiders. I don't want to get accused of Islamophobia. You know what I mean? I don't want to get accused of Islamophobia, which is apparently an irrational fear of Muslims, which, you know, an irrational fear of Islamists.

I don't know, Islamists are kind of scary. They're a little bit scary. like people have irrational fears of stuff like spiders nobody's given arachnophobes a hard time nobody's like you know no I'm saying there's any similarity between you know Islamists and spiders either like you know spiders have got

hairy legs and they kill a surprising number of people in hot countries yeah I mean it's a week after and he launched from Bondi Beach into that and some people would say, oh, that's, it's too soon, it's too soon. I'm always of the opinion, Mark, and you tell me what you think, that there's no such thing as too soon. There's just a question, is it funny or is it not? Ben, did he get laughs? Yeah. Yeah, if he gets last, that's what I guess

it worked. Yeah. I mean, you have to be careful about exactly how you tell a joke that is difficult at a difficult time. And I can promise you in the next week, I'm going to be getting all kinds of Rob Reiner jokes. Yeah. Really tasteless Rob Reiner jokes. on my feed. But, you know, it's the way we deal with things that are painful. I can only compare it to massage. You have a sore in your neck, and the massage therapist presses hard on that sore, and it hurts a lot, and then if the release comes, and you feel way better.

Yeah, yeah. Before we end, I want to get your take also, sort of on the rise of the comedian as a social commentary expert. You know, we've got the Dave Smiths of the world, then you've got any number of comedians that take on hot button issues, certainly not.

You wouldn't necessarily call what they say comedy. But, you know, Dave Smith in particular, he's one of these guys who loves to pontificate about a number of things. Anytime he gets called out, he says, well, I'm just a comedian. And it seems like he, yeah, and there's

more than just him. I'm using him as an example. But I wondered what you thought of the rise of the comedian as an expert in anything. Because back in the day, you know, when the John Stewart's would do their new show, they never, I mean, even he does. He will debate people, hardcore, but then he all says, why are you listening to me? I'm just a comedian. And I don't think you can have it both ways. Well, this goes back even further to the great Mort Saul.

And Mort Saul would do so much political material. and if anybody came after for it, you say, hey, listen, I'm just a comedian. What do I know? Yeah, but, yeah. It's a really great way of being able to slide out of that responsibility. But if you are going to take on,

if you are going to take on the spotlight, and if you're going to go toe to toe to with actual experts, then you have to believe that you're in their realm and you have to be able to back it up and to simply say, I'm just a comedian, that, I think that's a, there's a real level of your irresponsibility there.

Yeah, and I would use the word sloppy. Yeah. I think it's kind of morally sloppy to be able to do that because they want to have it both ways. Yeah. You can't really have it both ways. No. If you want to go out and do the comedy circuit, then I don't know that you can then and take advantage of that

and ply your craft and make a living at that, then I don't know that you can be a tourist in something else necessarily. You can, but you have to be able to back. My name is Jordan, and I'd like to invite you. you to join me on the Canadian Gothic, a podcast covering stories of Canadian crime, mystery, and the offbeat. The Canadian Gothic blends the spirit of late-night talk radio with the depth of a documentary film and applies that approach to both developing stories in historical cases. So if you're drawn to the dark, mysterious, and offbeat, search for and subscribe to the Canadian Gothic wherever

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