The Ben Mulroney Show - BC renames a bridge, and few can read the new name. Not this again....

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

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Thank you so much. We've got to go to British Columbia. We've got to start this hour in British Columbia. There was a bridge called the Petulow Bridge that connected Surrey and New Westminster, New Westminster. And they've been expanding it, building a new bridge right next to the old bridge. It was called the Petulow Bridge, and now this new one has a new name called the Stalewasam Bridge. I think that's it, because it is named for the Quantlin and Musqueam First Nations means a space where you can view the river.

Now, there's also an English name called Riverview, which should allow the public to find the span using modern devices and not having to worry about the apps that don't support indigenous language. but this is you know look I don't have on its face and in a vacuum I don't have a problem with this at all at all right you want to show respect to First Nations you want to show respect to those who were there before you want to show respect to stakeholders you want to show respect to the community but we are living in a world where the BC Supreme Court made a decision that makes things like this a little trickier.

Now, before we go down that, before we go down that road, let's listen to the indigenous group explaining the name. Stolvo Awesome translates to English, roughly as place to view the river or river view. And the name can be broken down into four syllables. The first is stall, stall, as in, that's a beautiful bridge. I hope my car doesn't stall. second syllable is oh oh as in oh that's not too hard to pronounce

third syllable is ah ah in in hunt kavina we would say ah see em to see yeah and the last one is sum as in some like the sum total all right uh lay i'm having fun with it having fun with it but there are very real uh issues that stem from like i said that BC Supreme Court ruling on the Cowich and land claim, saying that the Cowichin Tribe may have claim, may have title over pretty much all of, what, Richmond? A chunk of Richmond, not all. A chunk, most of Richmond, B.C. And the BC Transportation Minister says, the name recognizes the land's indigenous history

and the bridge will significantly improve regional transportation and support the economy. At least this is the bridge. Remember when they changed the street name in Vancouver, Yeah, like this is an easier pill to swallow. It's an easier name to say because that street in Vancouver, that residential street is about, I don't know, 30 characters long. And almost some... That's way harder than this one. Now, they did claim that it was replacing the name of somebody who had a problematic history.

I can't speak to that. I can't speak to that. But yeah, this is British Columbia, man. British Columbia. What's you doing? No, no, honestly, I don't want to sit here and harp and take issue with every single thing that's done. Because as I've said before, you know, I want real reconciliation. And I believe things like this can be part of that.

But given what had just happened a couple of months ago with the Cowish and Tribe decision by the BC Supreme Court, this stuff takes on more importance. It has more heft now than it did before. Well, Premier David Eby and his NDP government have made these calls. And they have made, I mean, he spoke about so many times of the past, about stolen land. There's only so many times you can say that before you're, well, just give it back then. Just go away then. Just everybody in BC leave. If you keep saying it's stolen land, people are going to believe you, right?

And people are going to say, okay, well, if you stole it, what are you going to do about it, right? I mean, that is the logical next question. you keep saying it's stolen, what are you going to do about it? So, well, that's, I'm sure that I'm, I'm hammering it. I'm, this is like a blunt force instrument. There's more nuance to it than that. But the point needs to be made. I do want to, I want to move to Europe now because, and the reason I want to move to Europe

is because we spent a lot of time on this show harping on the Canadian criminal justice system. and the problems they're in. But the problems of the criminal justice system in Canada, not unique to Canada. And so we might feel a little better when we hear about a Swedish court. There's these climate activists from a group called Restore Wetlands.

And a while ago, they essentially, they went into a museum and they threw some paint on a Monet. Right? And they ran their hands down it or something and they were trying to make some sort of environmental point. Well, they went to court for this, for vandalism, and they were acquitted. They were acquitted because the Monet had a protective glass on it,

and therefore the artwork was not damaged. I have a problem with this. I don't know how art galleries are going to be able to survive in the future. So the court found that they didn't intend to cause significant harm. and their action was linked to climate protest motivations. Please don't tell me that's a mitigating factor because of the environment and therefore it's noble. Please don't say that.

It is Sweden. Defendants owe no damages, though the museum noted the stunt required several days of organizational work to address. It probably cost something to clean up. But the fact that, and it was a very visible, like this piece of vandalism went viral, right? And if people now know that so long as the painting is protected,

you can do what you want to it and you're going to get acquitted, more people are going to do it. And that was, that piece of work was on loan from the Muzi d'Alce in France. If I'm them, I'm saying bring it back. Yeah, bring it back. All right, Sweden, you don't get to look at it. But this, this, like, we talk about it here all the time that unless there is an element of real punishment

for these sorts of infractions then somebody else is going to think to themselves okay it's not that what they did it's not like the problem was they didn't do it well enough I'm going to do it better and if I know I'm not going to spend any time in jail if I know I'm not going to have any

financial repercussion if I know it's not going to alter my life negatively in any way I'm going to do it there's nothing making that person think twice and this decision by this court has all but guaranteed copycats in the future. Yeah. So let's go to a court in England.

Yeah, we've been watching this happen more and more often where people are being policed for their words online. Joey Barton is a former footballer and he's been sentenced to a suspended six-month jail term and he's been ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work and pay over 20,000 pounds in restitution after being convicted of sending grossly offensive posts targeting three people.

On social media. On social media. This is where we are now, where people's social media posts are being investigated. And we've heard a lot of it. We've heard people being visited by cops at their homes for liking posts. online. Now, this guy, by the way, he did say some stuff that is, as far as I can tell,

some of it, he should be facing some consequences for. He compared a female football pundit to a serial killer and superimposed that person's face along with another person's face on images of the killers. He attacked one of these football pundits with racist and misogynistic remarks. She's black, by the way. Yes, saying that she was only there. to tick boxes, calling diversity and inclusion efforts a load of S, and linking her position to affirmative action. But then he targeted a broadcast. That's an opinion that he can have.

Yeah. Well, no, not in the UK. Well, the thing is, I don't see that one as being criminal. I see that being as an opinion that whichever side you stand on, you could say it's gross or not. This next one I do think is slanderous. He targeted a broadcaster calling him, implying he was a pedophile. and he would be on Epstein Island telling followers they should call the police if they saw

near our primary school. To me, that slander. That slander, that's where the full force of the law should hit you. But everything else is an opinion. If we're going to start policing opinions, God help us all. Hey, up next, it's the end of the year. Who's been naughty and who's been nice in the political sphere? This is the Ben Mulroney show, and as we get closer and closer to the end of the year,

we get closer to the moment where we start looking back and taking stock. And fortunately, the good people at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation this time every year put together their naughty and nice list. The taxpayer, naughty list, and the taxpayer nice list. So who better to talk to about this than Franco Tarasano from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Franco, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on today. Okay, so tell me what are the, what are the rules and regulations for making it on to the naughty list and the nice list according to the Canadian Taxpayer Federation?

And Mr. and Mrs. Claus, right? Like this is, remember, it's up there in the North Pole. They're giving us the marching orders and they're pretty straightforward, right? You're on the naughty list. If you hike taxes, if you waste money, if you balloon the debt, and if you try to duck accountability, and you can get on the nice list if you do the reverse, right? Cut taxes, cut spending, improve transparency. Now, I will say it's always harder to find politicians and bureaucrats who make the nice list than for the naughty list. Well, that's what I was going to ask. It must be a lot.

You got to go over with a fine-tooth comb to find people on your nice list. All right, well, let's start with the naughty list. We'll go with the easy. The low-hanging fruit, if you will. Who's on the naughty list? Well, you know, I'm just going to start here in Ontario. And I will say, Premier Doug Ford, he's made. the nice list before for the gas tax relief.

But this year he's on the naughty list. And we had to here at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, right? Just after an election, Mr. Ford announces that all of Ontario's politicians, so, you know, every party getting a 35% wage increase this year for salary increase alone is something that would make even Ebenezer Scrooge blush a $73,000 raise this year. They also brought back the platinum taxpayer-funded pensions that they did away with back in the mid-90s. And then also too, right, like making political welfare permanent in Ontario, despite the fact that Ford used to rail rightly against Ontario's per vote subsidy this year,

Mr. Ford made Ontario's political welfare system permanent. And for all of those reasons, while the debt continues to balloon, while the government is running a deficit in like $13 to $14 billion range, I think Mr. Ford definitely deserves his spot on the naughty list this year. Now, Franco, let me play devil's advocate for just a second because you want to be able to attract good people to politics, right? And if the people, if MPPs in Ontario haven't received a raise in over a decade, then doesn't that make it hard to attract people,

if you can't pay your bills, why would you want to join, why would you want to sign up for politics? Like, is there an argument to be made that that pay increase was necessary? I don't believe it was necessary, but also too, right? Like, the same politicians who ran for the previous salary before the election are the same politicians that we have now. And like, look, I mostly deal with the federal level. And I hear these MPs, these cabinet ministers make the same argument. all the time. Well, like, it's not like the higher pay has attracted better cabinet ministers in Ottawa, right? Yeah, fair enough. I'll actually say one thing here. I actually worry that

politicians across Canada are becoming financially divorced from the realities facing their constituents, right? Where the average Canadian worker now makes around 70,000 bucks, that was the salary increase in one year for Premier Ford. Yeah. All right, well, let's move on because we are going to move to the federal level now. You've got federal finance minister François-Philippe Champagne. Well, yeah, for sticking future generations with a massive government debt bill. And let me tell you, right, if you're going to add more to the debt than former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau planned, you're on Sanis Nautilus, right? And Champaign, he plans to add about $320 billion to the debt by 2030, twice as much as what even Prime Minister Trust and Trudeau plan to do over those

same year. So the patron saint of children, he doesn't like it when you stick future generations of taxpayers with massive debt to payback. Now, explain to me how an entire federal agency can make your naughty list, the Canadian Revenue Agency. Well, you know what? They kept on, they kept Santa on hold for nearly an hour when they finally picked up the phone. They forgot to check their numbers twice, and they gave Santa the wrong tax information. Now, Ben, let me tell you. Yeah. Santa is not surprised that the auditor general found that the CRA only gives the correct answer to personal tax question 17% of the time.

But Santa is real mad. Let me tell you, right? Santa reads every single letter he receives, and the CRA can barely bother to even pick up the phone. Okay. All right. And now back to the provincial level, because you've got. Another finance minister, this time the British Colombian finance minister, Brenda Bailey, on the naughty list. Yeah, yeah, for taking a golden sleigh ride at taxpayers' expense, right?

So, look, Stan's little helpers, they caught Bailey billing taxpayers more than six grand for a limousine service during a four-day trip to Boston. I mean, like, come on, Rudolph doesn't even charge that much. But, you know, where it really gets crazy here is, you know, a politician, if they get caught wasting too much money, What they should do is just apologize, in some cases, pay the money back. But Bailey doubled down, right? She even admitted that the trip was a junket. But instead of apologizing, she told reporters, like, this was exactly the type of trip she would take again. All right.

And let's stick with the provincial level. Quebec, Premier Francois Legoe, he's on the naughty list. And he's already dealing with some pretty bad polling results. And now he's got to deal with this. Well, he's also lost favorability with Mrs. Claus, let me tell you. And it's because Lago is the only premier in Canada who's still charging a consumer carbon tax, right? Even the liberals in Ottawa got rid of their consumer carbon tax. Even the NDP and B.C. got rid of their consumer carbon tax.

But Quebec's premier, Francois, is clinging to it. And, you know, I spoke with the Clause family earlier this weekend. And they were telling me that, you know, they were planning to take a vacation to Montrein-Blanc after Santa's big day. but Lago's carbon tax would have made their snowmobiling too expensive, right? And they're telling me, Ben, like they were telling me Santa would give Lago a lump of coal for Christmas, but Lago would probably just carbon tax that lump of coal, too. All right. You know, we don't have a lot of time left.

And I want to make sure we get to, honorable mention on the naughty list for federal public safety minister, Gary, and on to Sangerie. Let's move on to the nice list. Because I think we've got to end on a positive note, right? Jason, how do you pronounce Jason's last name, the parliamentary budget office? Jason Jakes. Jason Jakes.

Yes. He's on the nice list. I just think he's been doing such an incredible job. I really do. Just improving transparency, improving government accountability in Ottawa. And, you know, he's been taking some flack from some other pundits in the media. But I think he's been doing such a good job actually calling balls and strikes. And let me tell you, there's a whole lot of errant pitches when it comes to federal finances.

So Mr. Jock's was the first to actually sound the bells. over the growing government debt, you know, warning that this could be unsustainable, warning about the shocking amount of debt. And then he called out the Carney government for their creative accounting, right? The PBO caught the Carney government relabling $94 billion of operating spending as capital. So the PBO, Jason Jake's doing great. All right, we're going to do three at the same time. Three premiers are on your nice list.

You got Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, Nova Scotia Premier, Tim Houston, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Yeah, well, Scott Moe, hey, he made Saskatchewan carbon tax-free, the only carbon tax-free province in Canada by getting rid of the industrial carbon tax. You have Tim Houston, he cut income taxes, he cut sales taxes, he cut small business taxes, and then Premier Smith out in Alberta, she refused to spend $2 billion more during the Alberta teacher strike, right? It's not like she cut Alberta teachers pay.

Alberta teachers are going to be the highest paid in Western Canada, even without a provincial sales tax. But Premier Smith, despite all of the pressure, she did the right thing and she refused to spend $2 billion more. Lastly, and this is one that I think is people are not necessarily aware of. Who is indigenous activist Hans McCarthy? Oh, well, he, you know, he really did something great to improve transparency. So he launched a court challenge and was successful to force the government to release records regarding Frog Lake First Nations Trust Fund. Okay, so he won the challenge. The court ordered the federal government to provide the records.

And what McCarthy's victory really does is that it sets a precedent, okay, that band members have a right to know how their community's money is being used. So for his courage, he's definitely on the nice list. And we're going to put Cape Breton gun owners on that nice list as well. Got to run, my friend. Thank you so much. That was a lot of fun. Hey, thank you so much, Ben. Really appreciate it.

Up next. And Justin Bieber threatened to put everyone at Apple in a rear naked chokehold. Oh, Bebs. Keeping it real. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your day with us. We've got lots to get to with our next guest. Carmi Levy, our technology analyst and journalists, because there's lots of tech stories out there. Carmi, welcome to the show. Great to be

if you, Ben. Thanks for having me. All right, I did not have Justin Bieber threatening Apple with a rear naked chokehold on my 2025 bingo card, but this is where we are. Yeah, definitely not on my bingo card either, but he had a bit of a fit. He posted online to X over the weekend. His frustrations with how the messages app is designed. He says that he's always hitting the microphone button or the dictation button accidentally after he posts a message after he sends a message and it's stopping his music from playing because of course when you hit the record button of course it stops your music from playing but it's it's a design quirk and you know and what's interesting is he threatened to put Apple employees into a near naked chokehold if they don't fix this problem so he

Does he have a point? He does. I mean, you know, I'm certainly not going to approve the violence thing. You know, Mr. D. I remember you when you lived in Stratford. However, you know, it is a design quirk of messages because, you know, as you start, you know, when you open up messages, there's a text entry box at the bottom just above your keyboard. And so it starts off as a microphone.

And then as soon as you start typing, it turns to. send and then as soon as you hit the send button it goes back to the microphone but of course it's in a spot that's really easy for your thumb to you know maybe accidentally hit and so what was happening but justin bieber was accidentally hitting the microphone button and uh and and accidentally turning off his music he obviously likes his music he's a musician he got kicked off it illustrates a problem with what's called ui or user interface design you're not supposed to use the same piece of real estate for more than one thing but of course apple likes to have their screens clean, lots of white space, not too many things on it at the same time. Of course,

it looks good, but it doesn't operate all that well. And now Mr. Bieber, despite his violence, really is making a good point. Apple, you probably might want to listen to him because it happens to me all the time as well. And it's super confusing, especially when you're trying to explain to people how something works and the button is constantly changing based on what they're doing at that moment. That's ridiculous. It feels like an opportunity for Apple to take a advantage of this moment and do something. I think they could get a lot of free press, and I think they could get a lot of love out of the public because of it.

I'm hoping so, because, you know, Apple is the company of design. You know, they design something the rest of the industry follows, and they probably won't, though. They tend to not answer feedback like this, which I wish they would, but maybe, and what often happens is in a future update, they'll quietly update it without saying anything. And the world will be happy, Justin Bieber will be happy, and Apple can continue on its merry way. All right.

Well, there are few things that make me laugh more than the driverless taxi company, Waymo, and the videos online of the cabs just doing things that make no sense. And recently, I think one of the videos that popped up on my feed was a Waymo driving right into the line of fire of like an active crime scene. And I guess enough of these things have happened that Waymo is recalling their own cars. Yeah, they're sending, this affects their entire fleet. There's one particular investigation. So, yeah, I mean, every once in a while you hear all these, what I like to call edge cases. So in some cases, they hit gates in chains or they're driving into fences. In other cases, they'll hit the same vehicle more than one time or they'll crash into telephone poles with, you know,

significant regularity this time their pan and this one is a little bit you know not so funny they're passing school buses while they're stopped with their lights flashing god and their stop signs out and so what this will be is the good news is is they don't have to bring them in it's an over-the-air update it's a software fix but it has it is it is on the orders of the national highway traffic safety administration in the u.s and we're probably thinking well if it's the u.s why do we care because they're coming to toronto they're in negotiations we're in negotiations we're with Toronto city officials to allow Waymo driverless taxis onto the roads here in Canada. So this is technology that is going to affect Canadians fairly soon.

We want this stuff to be as safe as possible. I'm a cyclist. I don't want these things plowing into me either. Yeah. And look, Karmie, I'm sure their statistics tell them that their driverless cars are safer than cars with drivers. But it doesn't matter. There's some intellectual Rubicon that I cannot get past. I need it to be even safer than it is now.

Exactly. And it's not enough to say, you know, this is acceptable, right? And the company, to its credit, is saying they hear the feedback and they're going to update it and make it as safe as possible. But you're absolutely right. Even though technically, according to the data, autonomous vehicles get into fewer accidents and fewer serious accidents compared to dry vehicles with humans behind the wheel. So, you know, as someone who occupies the same space as them, I'm with you. The psychology of it is kind of disturbing. And, of course, an accident with a human at the wheel, most people don't care.

An accident that involves an entom's vehicle, that generates headlines. All right. Well, yesterday, we thought, as we say in French, Le Jeux en fait, we thought the deal between Netflix to purchase Warner Brothers was it. That was it. The deal was done. But now, Paramount has made a hostile bid for Warner Brothers discovery, challenging Netflix. Talk to me about this. Yeah, they're offering more money than Netflix.

They're going directly to shareholders. They're basically saying that the Netflix deal is bad for the industry, bad for Hollywood, bad for creativity, bad for your local theater. And so what they're saying is that they're going to offer not just for the streaming services, not just for the TV and the film studios, but they're also going to include the cable system, the cable operations, HBO, and they're offering more money. And so this is, what's interesting is, is the original deal, the offer that Netflix made that was ultimately accepted,

or at least went forward, was the result of a bidding war. And that included Paramount. Paramount lost the bidding war. And here now it's coming back with a hostile bid, which essentially matches its last of six bids. So what's interesting, it'll be interesting to see what shareholders think, are they getting better value for their money? value for their money. The very future of Hollywood hangs in the balance here because Netflix's

vision is all about efficiency, driving its costs down, driving streaming forward. It might very well result in the closure of your local theater because we know Netflix not a fan of local theaters. Whereas Paramount's vision, because they are a studio first and foremost, is about artistry. It's about maintaining the integrity of Hollywood, having diversity in the kinds of films and shows that you watch. So, you know, depending on what vision you prefer, you're kind of rooting for one or the other. I know I'm rooting for Paramount because I want my local theaters to stay open. And I certainly don't want to keep watching, you know, franchise films to the exclusion of everything else. Hollywood needs more diversity than that. Yeah, well, this is that watch this

space. I thought it was over, but it's the drama continues. This is more exciting than most of the stuff on TV. I'm making popcorn. Yeah. All right, Mark Zuckerberg placed a big bet a few years ago on the Metaverse. I never bought in. I thought it was bogus, and now it looks like he agrees with me. Yeah, he has ordered his so he gathered all of his senior leaders at his house in Hawaii

and they basically ordered them all to cut their budgets 30%. So each department has to sort of pull in their class. But then... Karmi, remind our listeners of what the Metaverse is. So the Metaverse is kind of this, it's basically VR on virtual reality on steroids. It's a, it's a virtual

world. You put on a pair of like a headset, and you can walk through the virtual world and interact with people, with companies, with entities. It's essentially the internet turned into a 3D immersive world, which, you know, would have been cool if all of us were wearing these glasses, but no one's buying in any way. And that was the big thing. Zuckerberg renamed the company meta to, you know, reflect this metaverse future, invested over 70 billion dollars over the last four years in this through their reality labs division. and now they're saying they've got to cut their budget by 30%, so more than everyone else in the company. And that means a lot less money.

The layoffs are expected early in January. And basically they're recognized the future of technology is not the metaverse. It's AI, and they've got to free up money from this botched project that nobody cares about so they can continue to spend more on artificial intelligence. Carmi Levy always appreciate your insights, my friend. Great being with you, Ben. Thank you. I know that Karmie said that he thinks the future is AI,

but when it comes to the choice between virtual reality and augmented reality, I think they picked wrong. Augmented reality is the way to go in this one person's humble opinion. Up next, what Ottawa is doing to help fix Canada's doctor shortage. Hello and welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Really appreciate you joining us, whether you listen on the radio, on a streaming app, as a podcast. You might find us on social media or on YouTube. Wherever you are, that's where we want to be and we say thank you.

So welcome back. And as we know, across this country, we have an issue with Canadians accessing primary care doctors. And we're talking now with Dr. Margo Brunel, the president of the Canadian Medical Association because it looks like there is at least the beginning of a solution. Doctor, welcome. Thank you very much for having. So let's talk about the problem and the solution that you want to bring to bear. So the problem that we're trying to solve is access to care for Canadians.

We know that one in five do not have access to primary health care, family physician, nurse practitioner primary care access. So this is one step in the right direction to trying to increase the number of physicians within the workforce. And this is looking at an express entry program for internationally trained physicians. Yeah, because we've got so many people who come to this country with medical degrees and they just sit on their hands and they cannot do what we need them to do. We've got a shortage of doctors, and meanwhile, you've got over 10,000 of them just sitting there without being able to apply their craft. That's correct.

So this is one step with respect to the immigration piece of allowing them to obtain permanent residency. And it also allows the provinces to seek out these individuals for their provinces to practice. Doctor, why has it taken so long to identify the solution? I mean, we've known that we've had these people in the country. We've known that we have a shortage of doctors. Why haven't we been able to square this circle? This takes the cooperation of several departments within the federal government. It also takes cooperation of other stakeholders like the Medical Council of Canada

and the federal medical regulators of Canada. So it's important to get all the stakeholders on board in order to move this forward and we're pleased with this initiative as a first step. And talk to me about how hard, how difficult it is, how much work a doctor who's trained elsewhere needs to do to be eligible, to be a competent Canadian doctor? So that physician needs to source out a job opportunity.

They then need to apply for an immigration status, and so this is the step in smoothing that out and decreasing the barrier to that, making the paperwork seamless. Then once they have permanent residency status or a work permit, then they need their credentials assessed by the provincial colleges to define what type of license they're eligible for. if they come from a situation where the medical training is of a different standard, then those qualifications need to be assessed.

Those individuals may need to have more training or they may need to have their practice ability assessed by independent assessors. So, Doctor, how long until Canadian citizens who are looking for doctors are going to feel that the system has improved? How long until we can start injecting these doctors into the system? It looks like that will be fairly immediate with these processes being implemented, some immediately and some in the first quarter of 2026. So hopefully we will see those individuals start to see patients. Because right now, we've passed crisis levels. I mean, roughly half a million Canadians left ERs in 2024

without being seen. They just gave up and went home. This is an issue that needs to be dealt with right now, doesn't it? Yes, we're trying to increase access to primary care, which would provide some relief for our emergency departments. So there are other efforts that need to be made, and that is supporting team-based care, coordinating an integrated health human resource plan, looking at multi-jurisdictional licensure across Canada,

as well as increasing training of physicians within our own universities. Because the number that I've seen, you tell me if I'm wrong, there are 13,000 internationally trained doctors already in Canada who are not working in their field. and Canada is short, 23,000 family doctors. Does that mean we'll be 10,000 short, or is there more nuance to it? There's more nuance to that. Those individuals will need to seek a job position, and they will need to have their medical training and their credentials assessed by the provincial colleges. So we will await those final numbers.

Is there anyone pushing back on this idea? not that I'm aware of this has taken a lot of effort to bring together all the important stakeholders and we're pleased that the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Health have helped to move this forward and doctor for clarification this is a pan-Canadian solution this is going to apply across the country it is even in Quebec where they do everything a differently? As far as I'm aware. That's bad. Well, this is fantastic, doctor. You must be hearing really positive things from hospitals and from clinics across the country. Yes, we are. And the announcement was at the

University Health Network yesterday, and they're delighted to see this as well. So this will certainly improve the life for patients, for hospitals, for other teams looking to have more individuals in their teams so this is a good news story now what about nurses because we we know the issue with doctors but we also have a problem with a lack of nurses is this something that could be ported over to the nursing shortage this would be one opportunity for the minister to look at okay but you're you're focused on the doctors I am the spokesperson for the physician, so I'll leave the discussion with respect to nurses with the respective stakeholders. I mean, I got to say, Doc, this feels, if this becomes the fullest expression of what it's supposed to be,

it feels like this could be one of the most positive developments in Canadian health care in years. So this is really a good first step. We do need other steps at other solutions to. come forward. We need a single intake portal and a concierge style pathway to just really make it seamless for these internationally trained individuals to come to Canada and to join the profession. Well, yeah, that was going to be my next question. Are you as a medical association pushing the government to make sure that as we invite new Canadians in, we're bringing in even more doctors?

We would like to have doctors that are trained within Canada, that are currently trained abroad and are living in Canada and also individuals that are interested in coming to our country. The need is great. The need is great. Doctor, thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you very much.

Yeah, the need is great. And it definitely feels that if this program can be brought into full actualization, in other words, if we can take every single doctor that came to Canada and is not currently employed as a doctor to fill the hole, at least temporarily, of Canadian doctors, a dearth of Canadian doctors, then this could, be one of the greatest, most significant changes to Canadian health care in my lifetime. I don't think, I don't think that we are overstating it. And if that works on the doctor's side, I see no reason why you couldn't do something similar on the nurses side. And then all a sudden, it's a different ballgame. All of a sudden, the system that we complain about, maybe we complain about a little bit less.

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