The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben asks if a heavy handed response to Tariffs is the right way to go

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ben asks if a heavy handed response to Tariffs is the right way to go -Ontario’s toothless school cellphone ban isn’t working. It’s time to rethink it with Guest: Katherine Martinko, Globe and Mail Contributor and author of Childhood Unplugged: Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. It's the Tuesday Tariff Edition of the show. Thank you so much for joining us. You may be just waking up, and yes, it is a different world today.

Donald Trump has made good on his threat to levy 25% tariffs on everything that goes from Canada into the United States, as well as Mexico. He's got some tariffs on China as well. And despite all the work that has been done by premiers and leaders in this country, including the federal government, to try to address what he claimed was the sticking point,

which was a porous border, which was fentanyl pouring across the border, which was the Canadian government seemingly not taking seriously issues that the Americans do in fact take seriously, organized crime, money laundering, illegal migration. Despite Canada pouring over a billion, almost a billion and a half dollars into that problem, working hand in hand with Tom Homan, the border czar, despite Howard Lutnick saying we are doing well, problems were being addressed, despite joint task forces and thousands of new people patrolling our border and beefing up that security. Donald Trump went ahead with the tariffs.

On the tariffs, is there any room left for Canada and Mexico to make a deal before midnight? And should we expect those Chinese tariffs, the extra 10 percent, to take effect tomorrow? No room left for Mexico or for Canada. No, the tariffs, you know, they're all set. They go into effect. Mr. President, just to follow up on my colleague's question. And just so you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from Mexico and, as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada. And China also had an additional 10, so it's 10 plus 10. And it comes in from Canada and it comes in from Mexico.

And that's a very important thing to say. So, yeah. We did what he wanted and he still imposed 25% tariffs on Canada. It's a bananas reality to be waking up to. It makes no sense to some of the most well-read, well-connected people that I've ever met as it relates to the Canada-U.S. relationship. This makes no sense at all. And so we have to respond as a country. We absolutely have to respond. Justin Trudeau put out a statement that said, today, after a 30-day pause,

the United States administration has decided to proceed with imposing 25% tariffs on Canadian exports and 10% tariffs on Canadian energy. Let me be unequivocally clear, there is no justification for these actions. And then he goes on to list all the things that we have done as a nation to address the problems he said he had with our border. Canada will not let this unjustified decision go unanswered. Should American tariffs come into effect tonight, which they did, Canada will effective 1201

respond with 25% tariffs against $155 billion of American goods. And he goes on, it's a very strong statement. I find no fault in it. And Doug Ford, and we should point out our prime minister will be speaking to the public in a press conference addressing the nation at 1030 this morning. We'll be taking that live on the Ben Mulroney show. So please stick around for that. Of course, we'll have analysis of his words

following his statement. Doug Ford yesterday decided to talk directly to Americans to let them know what Ontario was prepared to do. He spoke on NBC News and he said that this war, this tariff trade war is gonna hurt everyone and markets will plummet. I'm going to tell you exactly what's going to happen here. You know, President Trump ran out of mandate to create more jobs, keep inflation low and lower cost. It's going to work totally opposite. Plants will show or will close down within a week.

Assembly plants in Michigan, which is a red state, the manufacturing will stop. And the people of the US, which I absolutely love the American people, they're gonna be paying more. The market is gonna go downhill faster than the American bobsled team. It's gonna be an absolute disaster for both countries.

We're your largest trading partner. I don't want to respond, but we will respond like they've never seen before. So he points out that the markets will react negatively. And after the markets open today, we will let you know how the stock market is responding to Donald Trump's unprovoked attack of Canada. You know, he was very, the markets were very bullish on him when he got elected, a massive spike in the Dow Jones, massive, and he loves that.

He loved that all through his first term. So we will see what the markets think of this asinine, dumbfoundingly dumbheaded move by Donald Trump. And Doug Ford continued to lay out all the things that America needs from Canada. You need our uranium, you need our potash, you need our high grade nickel. I will stockpile our high grade nickel

that 50% of your military and manufacturing needs, your aluminum, the steel, the lumber. It will be an absolute disaster. And this is all due to one person, that's President Trump. I have talked to endless governors, Republican governors and Democrats, senators and Congress people. I love the U.S. I lived there for 20 years.

They're all saying this is the craziest thing that someone could ever do. It's going to create massive problems. He continued on how he, he's right. I take, I, I, I, I take no, I see no fault in what our prime minister said in his statement. I see no fault in what Doug Ford is saying here. Here's, he goes a little deeper into how he's prepared to retaliate. Well, we'll respond strongly and we don't want to. On the critical minerals, I will stop shipments going into the U.S. for nickel.

It will shut down manufacturing because 50% of the nickel you use is coming out of Ontario. I've ordered our bureaucrats to cut off tens of billions of dollars of contracts that we have with the U.S. We are the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world. We buy over 3,600 products from 35 states. I talked to the governor of Kentucky and Mitch McConnell, don't touch our bourbon. I'm going after absolutely everything. And I don't want to. We keep the lights on the 1.5 million homes and manufacturing in New York, in Michigan, and in Minnesota. If he wants to destroy our economy and our families, I will shut down the electricity going down to the US. Yeah, so listen, what we're talking about here is it is an escalation, right?

This is not just tariffs. This is essentially freezing America out of the Canadian market completely. That's what's at stake here. And it's a game of chicken for sure, because I read a tweet this morning that apparently in response to what Doug Ford said, Donald Trump said he's prepared to shut off Canada's access to American cloud computing.

I'm pretty sure that that's a bullet through the heart of a lot of industry in this country. But it's a game of chicken. And I think he's betting that we as a nation can withstand it more than the pressure that we can exert, as well as assuming Mexico follows suit and China follows suit, the three countries together can exert on the American economy. And Doug reiterated what I've already told you about the work that's been done at the border.

We're working with the DEA. We're working with US border patrol, with our Canadian border patrol. We're ramping it up because we're seeing, so far in the last couple of weeks, we've busted 624 kilos of cocaine coming from the southern border, endless amounts of guns, illegals are coming across.

I agree with President Trump. Let's both tighten up the borders and we're doing it. You know, your borders are Holman. He seems to be satisfied because we're showing results. We're listening and we're agreeing with the administration. We need to tighten up both sides of the border. And that's exactly what we're doing. So I think we just have to admit at this point

that this was never about and will not be about the border. It's not about the border. So what is it about? It's the law of deductive reasoning suggests that based on everything I've seen, he wants to hollow out the Canadian economy and he wants all the industry that makes this country hum move south of the border. That's what he wants. Now, how that keeps America safe, if Canada is a shell of itself, unable to defend itself, I don't know. That's what he wants. Nothing short of taking what is ours and bringing it to the United States.

That's what's at stake here. There's no, nothing else makes sense. That is what he is looking for. He wants what is ours, full stop. And I don't know a single Canadian that wants to let that happen. Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero.

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and reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. If you've ever listened to me talk about cell phones in schools, you know that I was quite bullish on this new cell phone ban that came into effect this year, this academic school year, I have said many times that the role and job of a teacher and the role of a cell phone in a kid's life are diametrically opposed. A teacher's job is to get kids to think deeply, to work in tandem, in together,

to calm them down, to create an atmosphere of learning. And cell phones do the exact opposite. They create isolation or hyperactivity, they distract, they can make kids aggressive. So all the things that a teacher is trying to do are stymied and countered by a cell phone. And there are 30 of those phones in a classroom. So the teachers already have a tough enough job.

I was very glad to hear that this cell phone ban came into effect. Very disappointed to read in the Globe and Mail that the cell phone ban isn't working. Here to talk about the article in question is the contributor to the Globe and Mail, Catherine Martinko. She's also the author of Childhood Unplugged,

Practical Advice to Get Kids Off Screens and Find Balance. Catherine, welcome to the show. Martinko. She's also an author of the author of Childhood Unplugged practical advice to get kids off screens and find balance. Catherine, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so this is a very disappointed. What did you learn in writing this article about about the ban? And why did you call it toothless? Well, I've been observing the ban in action. I've got three kids in the public system in Ontario. And like you, I was

very hopeful when it was first announced at the beginning of the year. But over time, I've seen that it really can't even be called a ban because the kids are still allowed to keep the phones on their person if they're between the ages of grade seven and grade 12. And that means that that's not going to stop them from looking, you know, they can sneak a peek anytime they want. There's no way that a teacher can possibly be policing that they have access to the phones during recess, during their lunch breaks, anytime they go to the bathroom. So really they're just as, this is just as scattered as it's ever been. And one simple interaction with your phone can derail you completely. I mean, you can be focused on your work and then you take a look at your phone and there's an emotional connection, especially with kids, that can completely derail whatever they were

working on before. So even if it's just a short period of time, it can have effects over the course of the rest of the day. Yeah, it's said that it takes 20 minutes to regain your focus after glancing at it. But there's also been a very infamous 2017 study called the Brain Drain Study that found that the mere proximity of a phone can affect a kid's Cognitive performance so the closer the phone is even if it's face down silent in a bag beside them the closer it is physically the Poor they perform on tests Katherine. We've got this data It is unequivocal the phone has no business in a place of learning like a school

Why can't we get this right? It feels like this ban, if your article is to be believed and there's no reason not to believe you, it feels like this was either a performative ban or a half measure, which by the way, Canadians are well known for. But why can't we hit this out of the park?

It seems pretty simple. I think there's a lot of factors at play, but a common theme that came up with the people that I interviewed and spoke to is that parents want to be able to reach their kids. And this is troublesome because parents should not feel the need to reach their kids during the school day. Your kid is not that special. Whatever you have to talk to your kid about, it's been talked about before in the past. Get over yourselves. There are established protocols for being able to reach kids at school.

You call the office like parents have always done and kids need, they need phone free spaces. The fact is kids are spending upwards of nine hours a day on average screening on their phones, scrolling on their phones for entertainment based purposes only. They have the right to have some screen free time and to be able to focus on what they're doing. So I think really we need to make a school conducive to that. We need to implement bell to bell, phone bands, where the phone is physically separated from the child

and they are not tempted to look at it. So whether that takes the form of introducing yonder pouches, which are these magnetic pouches that you lock a phone into. Some schools are using cheaper options like manila envelopes or just cubbies at the back of every single classroom at the front door of the school. There are ways around this. It's going to be unpopular with parents who have to realize that

they might not be able to talk to their kid throughout the day. I mean, Frank, I don't have time for parents like that because those parents are very likely also saying, telling the school, I'm in charge of rearing my kid. You're in charge of educating my kid. There is a line between the two. Don't get confused. I don't want to hear that you are teaching my kids stuff that I should be responsible for. And yet you as a parent are not staying in your lane and you are introducing yourself into the classroom where you do not belong. Yeah, I understand the desire to be able to communicate with a child. I think that's sort of a natural instinct, but parents do need to push back against that because it undermines the ultimate goal of parenting, which is to raise an adult, a child who's independent, able to do things on their own,

and of course, getting the education that they need. So I think even a bigger thing that I would encourage parents to do is not even to send phones to school at all with their child. Your parents want their kid to have the phone to be safe on the trip to and from school. And yet, is that really necessary? We all went to school without cell phones in our pockets or certainly not smartphones. There are cheaper, you know, dumb phone workarounds, flip phones, basic phones that you can give your child instead if you want to make sure that they can reach you in an emergency. But even that is not necessary much of the time.

So phones do not belong in schools at all. I think that we could avoid a lot of these problems if the phones never even left the house to begin with. What's frustrating is there are absolutely places in North America and in Canada where they've gotten this cell phone ban right. And rather than adopt a best practice where we've seen it work, we pull this half measure where it sounds like we're helping teachers and God knows frontline teachers need that help in the war against the cell phone. And yet it's a it's a ban in name only. Yeah. And the schools where they have implemented real bell to bell phone policies have seen, you know, a boost in teacher morale. They've seen a reduce in bullying in the classroom, improved focus, improved academic scores,

lower requirements for mental health services, even like everything just improves when they do that. So really, it's sort of a win win situation all like everything just improves when they do that. So really it's sort of a win-win situation all around if schools are able to do that. The problem is a lot of schools want to meet the students where they're at. Too often they're using social media for school related extracurricular teams and clubs.

They're throwing up QR codes on the smart boards in the classroom. There's all a host of activities that are now based on the expectation that students are gonna be carrying these devices in their pockets. And we really need to get away from that. We need schools issuing statements in favor of families delaying giving their kids smartphones as long as well, getting them off social media if possible, and just really showing support for families who want to do things differently. Yeah, I listen, I am a very big proponent of not listening to kids

in this in this situation. I don't care what a kid has to say. I don't care how important their phone is to them. You're the kid, you're gonna listen to the parents and then having an adult conversation with the parents and saying, you guys are the ones mucking this up. You're complaining that test scores are down at the TDSB and yet you're also contributing to it by calling your kid in the middle of the day. Like pick a lane, figure out what you want

and do you wanna connect with your kid or do you want your kid's scores, test scores to go up? It's an either or proposition. Yeah, I think there's a lot of things we do as parents that are not going to make our kids happy. And we do that because we know that it's the right thing for them. And it's even hard for us. You know, it's there are lazy parenting tactics that might feel good in the moment, but ultimately

we will pay the price down the road when our kid has failed to develop the study habits and the sleep habits and the focus habits that they really need to succeed in life. So yeah, as parents, we have some tough questions to ask ourselves for sure. And we should not be outsourcing that tough work to the teachers. By all means, I do not blame the teachers for this. I think very hard job as it is to manage a classroom of 30 kids and then to throw smartphones into the mix too and expect them to be setting their own rules every single day and having to constantly battle with the students about that. I do not envy them that position. They need much, much clearer rules handed down from the administration than what

they're currently getting. Yeah. And they need to have the force of a real band behind them so that when a parent comes in or a student comes in and says, I need my phone, you say, I don't care. The rule is the rule. Like that's how a teacher can be helped. But when it's this willy nilly kind of milk toast ban, the teacher is the one that feels the stress of it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I'm hearing that from teachers.

One teacher I spoke to said that you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between walking into a classroom today as opposed to a year ago before this so-called ban was even implemented. So I think that that's very frustrating for them. And even though there are rules in place, another teacher I interviewed said that the teacher's union has explicitly recommended that teachers not seize students phones because they're afraid of the phone getting damaged, getting lost. And then the teacher would ultimately be on the hook for the thousand dollar device. Oh God.

So, you know, there's a lot of incentives not to even implement the rules when the teacher wants to and when there is an issue. The article in the Global Mail is called Ontario's Toothless School Cell Phone Ban Isn't Working. It's Time to Rethink It. And the author of it is Catherine Martinko and she just joined me.

Thank you so much, Catherine. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. Time to Catherine. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. Time to take your calls on an issue that should be important to every parent who has a child in the public school system, of which I have three phone numbers 416-870-6400 or one a triple eight two to five talk. Let's talk about this cell phone ban that seems to be a ban in name only. Catherine Martinko in the Globe and Mail suggests that the ban is completely toothless and that kids are operating with their cell phones with impunity and teachers are sort of left holding the bag.

And I want to hear from you as to what you think we need to do. Is this a problem or not? So give us a call 416-870-6400-1888225 talk. Let's welcome voltier to the show voltier welcome. Hi, good. I'm so sorry. You know, I just got sick and tired of this one day thing, you know, like, guys, media guys can contribute with this much more. And there's too many mandate in this country. Now I came from third world countries, a lot of mandate now. Now I have see mandate everywhere, you know, there's other ways to do it to stop the kids where use

the cell phone. You don't need to go go mandate. Well, we've tried a few things. I mean, what do you suggest? Because we've tried a lot of things and those phones, you know, have addictive properties to them and kids' minds sort of latch onto them pretty early. So tell me, how would you improve this? When you guys start talking about this, almost a year ago, I've been listening to you guys every day. You guys say, oh, when the kids leave the class, they grab the phone right away. No, because I watch them. I watch who

use the cell phone in the street. I don't use. I don't have the head down. Look at the cell phone at that time. Kids play. Kids leave the classroom. They play. They talk to each other. They play. They just want one another to do, but not like when people say, no, they keep so addicted, they have their head down. No, you guys need to do research. People have to do research before they do mandate. It's not fair. Okay, Voltaire, I'm going to respectfully disagree. I've seen the data. I've read the reports. I have kids. I've seen kids kids when I drop kids off and pick them up. I see kids with phones in their hands clutching them like grim death.

So I'm going to disagree with you Voltaire, but I do appreciate your call. Devin, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Morning boss, how are you? I'm well, thank you. Good, good. I'm a parent also, and I'm saying ultimately the parent, because it's the parent that's buying the phone, it's the parent that's putting the plans on the phone. The kids have unlimited talks, unlimited data. So it's ultimately the parent that's paying for it.

So the parent has to do some control there. Yeah, I mean, I understand. I bought cell phones, my wife and I bought cell phones for our kids. I get that. I'm not saying that they wouldn't have a phone if I didn't pay for it. But I don't know what to tell you. Like, I believe I'm in charge of rearing my child and the school is in charge of educating my child. Put a policy in place that allows you to educate my child. Ban cell phones in the school. We're always complaining that test scores aren't going up. Teachers wouldn't have to do anything. You wouldn't have to make a change to the curriculum

and test scores would go up. If the moment a kid got in the school, they had to put their phone in a basket on the teacher's desk. How hard is that? Let's invest in a plastic basket for every classroom. What is that? 50 cents?

And the second you walk into the classroom, you put it in the basket, you pick it up on your way out of the classroom at the end of class. That's it. Do that. And test scores go up. I don't understand. This is not rocket science. And I feel the fact that the TDSB can't get this right when there are so many issues facing our students

And so many of them are linked to the behavior of cell phone addiction like just do this thing Noah welcome to the show Hey, hey Ben. How's it going? I'm good. I want to give you two perspectives I'll give you one perspective for me when I was a student probably six seven years ago in high school We had a teacher every day we get in the class. He'd give us one of these again they're called like Gyonder cases. We put our phone in it locks we can unlock it. I actually thought I was most productive in Mr. Suits' class because of that. And then I'll give you quickly the perspective from my fiance who's

just starting her teaching career. I think the issue from her perspective is you don't know, some students can claim, oh, I don't have a phone on me. You're not gonna pat them down to look for the phone. And if she does catch someone with the phone out, the problem is there's always this worry that, hey, if she takes the phone from them and then they claim, oh, you broke my phone, or there was an issue,

there's always that kind of worry in the back of her mind. And so it kind of puts the teachers in a weird spot. So you almost need like a standardized practice for the whole school. No, these are all manageable problems. If the policy of the TDSB is, we are banning these phones during class hours. And your child will be expected to hand it over to the teacher.

You need to know, if you send your kid to school with a phone, you assume all liability for that phone as a parent. The school assumes no liability. So if your kid claims that the teacher broke the phone, tough noogies, sorry, not sorry. And that's it. All of these things are problems that can be laid out if everybody knows the rules of engagement

before the day starts, there are no problems. The school can insulate itself against all liability. And if a kid lies and says, I don't have a phone on me and they're caught with it, they're sent after one or two of these breaking the rules, they're sent home for the day. And then the parent has to figure out what to do with their kid in the middle of a work day, and it's their own damn fault. Okay? It's the kid for being dishonest and it's the parent for not teaching the kid to be honest with the teacher, and they won't do it again. To me this is low-hanging fruit, but Heidi, tell me what you think. Oh hi, so I think that this can be easily

solved, but then the teachers and the whole school has to be on board, meaning nobody used the phone during the time of the class. You just have to put a jammer in the class. They have them in sports events, they have them in all kinds of places. So you know, if you look at Asian country who had, you know, kids have phone way earlier than here, and people, kids have phones in school, and they don't, they have policy like that. And they also have a much, much more say in classroom than teachers in North America do. So nobody is use phones? I would love it if we had the budget for jammers in every classroom. But that to me feels like a non-starter.

I mean, we've got, we just don't have the budget for that sort of thing. Like I said, a $1 plastic basket. Phones go in there at the beginning of class, you pick it up on your way out. End of story. That's it. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Laurie, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? I'm well, thank you. I had to pull over because I was on Bluetooth and it was noisy. So I pulled over and then I'm off the road and I'm on the phone. So I'm a retired teacher

and I retired just at the time of like complete social media addiction which actually no maybe that started before that. I've been retired for about five years. We this is a problem and I have students I ran like support classrooms phones away because I had to be able to have all of their attention if they're gonna see any success. And you know, all know as adults how distracting it is. Yeah, I can't do it. I'm on my phone, I can't even hear a conversation. I can process a conversation.

Multitasking is a fallacy. It doesn't happen. There's no way you can give 100% to two things at the same time. It's just the math doesn't math. And so, and kids who are learning new things every day in school, quite literally, that's what school is. You are, you are expanding their minds, filling them with information they've

never grasped, grappled with before. And to suggest that they can do that and be scrolling through TikTok at the same time is, is, is idiotic. Thank you very much for your call. We have time, I think, for a couple more. Let's say hi to Arthur. Good morning. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. So my point is, it's all parents. There's nothing else. It's not up to the teachers to decide to raise the kids. But we're not, Arthur, we'll keep this conversation going. I don't want you to anywhere, but I don't mean to interrupt, but no, that's not true. The teachers have to teach. And so a policy needs to be put, phones aren't going anywhere. For anyone to suggest what was the parents fault

for giving their kid a phone, it's 2025. Get over yourselves. Kids have phones. But once they go to school, I'm handing my kid off to the school. I want the school armed with a policy that reflects the reality of the world. They have phones, but they have no business using them.

If I were in the school, if I were allowed to be in the school, I would take that my kid's phone at the beginning of every class. But I can't be there, and it's not my job to be there. The teachers should be, God love the teachers. Their job is hard enough as it is. They should be given a policy that allows them to teach. Well they should give them the policy to be able to do a sort of a punishment.

I mean, I'm sorry, a carrot and a stick works, right? Especially with kids. So you're right, there's no seeds for the teachers to actually have any power in a classroom or any way, but it still comes out of their house. If you do not have the proper values instilled in you at home, you're going to bring that to a classroom. Arthur, I'm going to say thank you very much. I've got time for one quick call in Boris. Boris, welcome to the conversation. Top of the morning, Ben. Thank you. And I couldn't agree more. I have young girls and

I'll just, I'll just tell you this really, really quick. My daughter was invited with her. I mean, my oldest is 10. She was invited to an escape room and they have to take away their phones. It was a birthday party a week, two weeks ago. They have to take away their phones. These girls, like they couldn't, they couldn't get, I'm obviously they couldn't get out. I am so worried about the future generation, you have no idea. I remember when one of the kids got their phone back at the

end, when they failed obviously, you know, one of the girls kissed her phone and said, oh, I miss you. I miss you. Oh my God. It drives me crazy. The fact that an escape room has a policy about taking phones away but our schools can't figure that out says everything you need to know about the state of education. And by the way, let

me reiterate, I stand 100% behind our teachers. And I think if we really respect our teachers, then we will give them a policy that empowers them to teach. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants his last parachute? I do. The exclusive Live Dealer Studio has your chance at the number one feeling. Winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling saying I do. Who wants his last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling.

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25% tariffs were levied on Canadian goods going into the United States. Thank you very much, thank you very much, Mr. Trump. And Doug Ford yesterday predicted that this would hit the markets really hard. You have two choices here, folks. We roll over as a country and just let them run over us, or we fight like hell like we've never fought before. I'm taking option two. I'm fighting like hell and we're gonna protect Canada.

He's underestimating the Canadian people, the resilience of the Canadian people, and the strength of the Canadian people. Yeah, so my bad. That was Doug Ford yesterday, but really threatening to if the United States wants to engage in a fight, Ontario is ready. Very aggressive language from the Premier. He did talk about how this was going to tank the markets. The Dow Jones is down a thousand points from yesterday's high, which is about 2.8 percent,

likely dropping throughout the day. I think it's down just over 400 points already today and it's only been open for 20 minutes. So we will see. And Donald Trump, for him, his success as a president, at least in his first term, he used the stock market as a barometer. Right? So this is going to be quite telling how he reacts to the stock market telling him that this is a bad idea. We'll have to see if he takes if he he's not listening to us. Maybe he'll listen to the Dow Jones. So but I want to hear from you at 416-870-6400 or

one triple eight two two five talk. Our premier has been very aggressive in his language, willing to do, as he says, anything to defend Canada. And it's not just about tariffs with him. I mean, he can't pull the lever of tariffs. So he's looking at shutting the Americans out of the Canadian market completely in a number of ways. Pulling American liquor off the shelves, canceling contracts, telling American companies they cannot compete for government projects here in Ontario. There's a just stopping the flow of critical minerals outright. This is an escalation that some predicted, some are bullish on others less so. And I want to hear from you.

Let me know what you think is how do you feel about Doug Ford's perspective on this trade war? Does he speak for you? Is this how you'd like to see us react to these tariffs? So let us know and let's welcome Daniel to the conversation. Hi there. Hey. Well, my opinion is all of this is a direct subsidy for Russia because everything we sell there, they sell. So the whole idea is for the United States to trade with Russia that's my point you

think so huh what else yeah well I mean listen I personally think it has more to do Daniel with with what Donald Trump has said he wants all of Canadian industry all of our jobs to move south of the border he thinks that that is that the recipe for American success. It's a binary thing. For him to win, somebody else has to lose. And he's looking at us as the first victims of that equation.

Welcome to the show. Who do we have? We've got Cam. Cam, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Absolutely support Doug. Let's get our steel mills make destroyers and have to defend ourselves our oil put an export tax on them they get as hard as possible for United States we don't need a pipeline across the country we've got a

pipeline that runs in the sarnia get the trains in there move it east the refining station go to the EU they're gonna need lots and lots of fuel yeah they're going to support Ukraine. Can let me ask you a question. But if we if we escalate in this fashion, Donald Trump has said he'd be prepared to say shut off many of our industry's ability to do any sort of cloud computing. I mean, that could paralyze the nation. He already has been. Okay. He already has. And we're giving him his wish if he wants to come back and blame us. I don't know. Your station and a lot of the media, when we had stops for fentanyl, those trucks were stopped at the Coots border coming in from the United States.

Does Donald think about Rockston Road? Yeah, I don't know that he thinks very much about the border because I think that was a pretense. I think he made that up because we've moved on the border and despite that, we still have these 25% tariffs. So thank you very much for the call and let's see what Jonathan thinks about this. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. I'm just eager to have someone talk about I'm eager to have someone talk about a mandate from the federal government, which seems to fall in death of yours about the pro-the sitting of our of our parliament. Oh yeah. No one's talking

about that. Oh we are. I talk about it every day. Wouldn't it be great if we had a functioning democracy and a functioning Parliament so that these issues could be debated out in public by the people that we have elected to represent us in moments like this? It is so frustrating, but we got to deal with the threat that's in front of us. As much as I think the Trudeau government is derelict in its duty and has put themselves before the issues that face this country, that is not the issue that we are dealing with today. So I've got to take the world as it is, and that's the clear and present danger that we have. Who do we have now?

I want to welcome Sarah to the Ben Mulroney Show. Hi, Ben. Hi. I honestly think that this is going to escalate, and I don't think there's going to be any winners. No, I know. I don't think there's any winners. And I think that honestly, these tariffs that were actually supposed to take place in April

are all happening because Justin Trudeau ran over to Europe. I honestly think that Donald Trump is beating his chest saying I'm the boss and he doesn't like Justin Trudeau. And I think that we could have potentially been delayed if Justin Trudeau doesn't keep slapping him in the face. He'd like to be the boss. The two of them do not get along. And I listen, my perspective is yes, if Pierre Poliev were the leader right now, we would

be in a different situation. I don't know what kind of different situation, but I do not think it would be this precarious. That's just my opinion. I'm not asking anybody to believe as I believe and had we had an election called when Justin Trudeau said he was going to resign as opposed to the the liberal party drama that we're all forced to endure, I think we'd be in a different place but that is neither here nor there. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans.

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