The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben doesn't like Bono weighing into Canadian Politics

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

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Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show and thank you for taking time out of your Tuesday to enjoy this show with us. And I don't even care how you enjoy this show.

You might be listening on the radio or on the iHeart radio streaming app, or you may find us on the podcast platform of your choice. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, wherever you find us. We say thank you. By the way, if you go to those platforms, just search up Ben Mulrooney or the Ben Mulrooney show and there you will find a whole bunch of content that we are pretty, pretty proud of. So one of my favorite quotes from any movie is from the Big Lebowski where the Big Lebowski and Goodman, John Goodman are having an intense conversation

in a bowling alley. And Donny played by Steve Buscemi keeps trying to inject himself into the conversation. And John Goodman's character just explodes on him. It says, Donny, you're like a child walking into the middle of a conversation, wandering into the middle of a conversation. And that's how I feel sometimes

when people not from Canada decide to opine and editorialize about our politics. Like we are very, we are very content to be the country that everybody likes, but nobody really knows, right? They have ideas about us and they have ideas about how cold it is and how nice we are and how big the country is. And they don't know anything about Canada. They think they know, but they don't know. And so when Bono, who I have a lot of time for musically,

was welcomed on to Global's The Morning Show, I mean, he said something that just got my we got my got my ire got my goose got my gander. I don't know. Let's take a listen. The whole world is in all what you've done. And thank you for for getting together, putting all and not electing a populist. But actually competence turns out to be the rarest thing on the planet these days. A numerous, thoughtful, intelligent leadership. So thank you. Yeah, like there are some people

who are going to agree with that, but even those who agree with who are going to agree with that, but even those who agree with that are going to have to admit that Bono doesn't spend two seconds thinking about Canadian politics. He saw the result, liked the result, and reverse engineered a sweet little thing

to say to people who agree with him. He doesn't know the first thing about Canadian politics. Do you think he sat up all night watching the returns? Do you think he watched any news? No, somebody showed him an article. He read something about Mark Carney and he called it as he saw it, right? And it's irritating.

It's irritating because the only reason people are paying attention to us right now is because of Donald Trump. And Donald Trump doesn't know anything about Canada. Donald Trump talks about this artificial line that was drawn for no reason at all, all while securing the artificial line on the Southern border.

He's a man who has never, he doesn't know a single thing about Canadian history, but he's got people following because he says, look over there, everybody looks over there. And I wasn't even gonna play this because this is from a while ago. But Patrick Bette David, who's a right-wing American podcaster was railing against Pierre Poliev's decision

not to do the big American podcasters and is determined, steadfast in his belief that that is the reason that Pierre Poliev lost the election. Let's listen to this nonsense. The candidate you adore and admire and love doesn't want to work. God forbid he has to cross the border and go talk to other borders to bring attention. God forbid too much travel time. He's got to eat his apple.

He's got to eat his apple because he's got to get his apple in his system. Go to New York, do a damn podcast, I said, of Jordan Peterson. Go to Joe Rogan's podcast. Go to some other podcast and talk to Lex. Go talk to whatever these other podcasts are. Go talk to Andrew Schultz down the street from you in New York. And you lost to Justin, you couldn't beat him.

That's embarrassing. Yeah, okay, buddy, Patrick. What's embarrassing, what should be embarrassing to you, but it won't be, is that you are under the impression that Justin Trudeau presented himself in this election. Pierre Poliev and Justin Trudeau never ever met in an election. Justin Trudeau is yesterday's news.

Mark Carney is the reason that the liberals were competitive in this election and ultimately won. The fact that you said that with such conviction is the reason Pierre Poliev should not do your show. You don't appreciate the nuance of Canadian politics. You don't appreciate the difference of Canadian politics. And because you start from a position that Donald Trump is a net positive for everyone,

that is why a conversation with you would be like having a conversation with a child. Because Pierre would have had to educate you on all this stuff. And you also don't appreciate the fact that even in right-wing circles in Canada, talking with somebody who is perceived to be an ally of Donald Trump could have been viewed as a liability for Pierre in the last election.

So I'd love to hear from you at 401. I'd love to hear from you. Let me know is anybody else tired? Is anybody else tired of people who have no idea what they're talking about opining on Canadian politics? I think we got a call from Max Max. Welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben.

Good morning. Market eight, dude. What's that? Market eight, dude. Oh, yes. Market eight, dude. Showbush office. It ties the room together. I could go on for hours. Yeah, I know. So I have some thoughts on this. All right. First off, Canada as a country is an institution as a nation, whatever you call it, loves to weigh into other countries politics, be it us politics, be it, you know, coughing up $10 million. So this, you know, largely unknown country knows how to not beat women or $20 million for this, that is the Canadian way is to interject its values onto the world.

So that's item one. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. We're gonna have a conversation here because the suggestion that, look, Canadians from a very young age are taught that if you don't understand the, if you don't get with the Americans, if you don't understand the Americans,

then you will be lost in the world. The Americans are omnipresent, they are ubiquitous, they are the most dominant force in military, finance, economics, culture in the world. They do not need to know about Canada and they are not educated to know about Canada. Canadians by and large, know far more about America than Americans will ever know about Canada. So it's not, it's not two sides of the same coin. I won't, I won't give you that, but continue. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'll take that point. You know, there's a large level of ignorance that Americans are raised with that, you know,

just does not concern them. They just don't need to know about it. It's not ignorance. They just don't need to. Fair enough. At the same time, we need to have a real conversation about where we're at in this stretch of time in the human trajectory. People, everyone with a microphone and a voice and a production crew or none of those has a voice. And there's only so many countries where, you know, if you're talking generally speaking, someone comes in and weighs into a country's politics, a foreigner into Canada in this case,

whether it's in Canada or outside of Canada, like, hey, I don't like this about Canada, whatever. You have to know where we are in the world. And there's only so many countries, someone can do that kind of thing without the consideration of that government, silencing them. Right, so Canada's right for it.

Max, thank you for the call. And I appreciate the Big Lebowski reference. I got time for Frank. Max, thank you for the call and I appreciate the Big Lebowski reference. I got time for Frank. Frank, welcome to the show. I know, so Patrick Mede David, yes, is a blowhard. Every now and then these guys get it right, but he did not get it right.

No, he did not. I listened to him on a regular basis and he's got a great podcast, great host, everything. But I think the only reason we got so much attention in oxygen was Donald Trump constantly saying the governor, this is where they chimed in, our election was close to theirs, the tariffs. But one thing is to be said about Pierre Pauli, he was going to win it.

I don't know what happened to him, but once they announced that Mark Cardy was coming in, he basically shut down Pierre. He did not say anything, he disappeared. Yeah. It's almost like he was pulled, sit back little boy, big boys are in town, we're taking over this term, you'll get your shot next time.

There are a lot of reasons they lost, there are also a lot of reasons they grew their appeal. It's a complicated issue, far more complicated than a lot of these American podcasters want to make it, which is what is so frustrating because they're so loud and so sure of themselves, so American in their take that it's just a little frustrating. Anyway, thanks to everybody for calling in. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door.

A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. This is the Ben Mulroney Show and thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Tuesday with us. It is an exciting day because only twice prior in the history of Canada has a throne speech, a speech from the throne, been read by a monarch twice before it was Queen Elizabeth.

And now today in Ottawa, in the Senate of Canada, King Charles will deliver the throne speech that will lay out the priorities of Mark Carney's new liberal government. It's gonna be quite a moment full of pomp and circumstance. And this is in a lot of ways, Mark Carney signaling that he wants to kick things off of the bang and do things differently.

The fact that he was able to communicate with the King and convince the King, very busy man, very busy schedule to come to Canada on what is ostensibly a state visit to do so, is I'm watching the pageantry right now. You've got the RCMP and their red surge, and there's the king and queen in their horse-drawn carriage on their way

to what is going to be a very important moment for his government. You'll remember, I don't think it's unfair to say, we are learning who Mark Carney is, what kind of leader he is, what he values, what he prioritizes, and the way he's going to govern in real time. In my humble estimation, and this is not me being partisan,

I didn't learn enough about him, either in the leadership race or during the election campaign. So in a lot of ways, he is an unknown quantity as leader of this country. This this throne speech will lay out priorities. Now this is not a budget, right? Our hope was to get a spring budget. We're not getting one till the fall. That would really tell us what kind of government he's going to run. But in the absence of that, we're getting this, well, we're getting this. We would get this regardless. This is an important moment,

an important day for people like myself who are trying to figure out who exactly Mark Carney is. And I've got some questions. I don't know if the king speaks French and my sense is the throne speech needs to be bilingual. So if there is French that is required, will it be the king speaking in French or will somebody else be reading those parts? And if so, who? Very, very interesting.

So that's happening today. But you'll remember that yesterday we elected a new speaker and our new speaker said that Canada must be Athens to America's Rome. And Mark Carney then stood up and sort of doubled down on this imagery. Mr. Speaker, I have much to learn from the members of this great house. I will make mistakes. I have no doubt that you will call them out for good reason. Because this house has rules, it has traditions.

And it's on those traditions that our Athenian democracy is founded. Yes, we are Athens. They are Rome. Okay, so I would be lying if I said that I was well versed in, you know, early Athenian democratic history. I'm not. Fortunately, AI exists. And I simply asked ChatGPT, did Athens ever go to war with Rome? And the answer that ChatGPT fed me was yes, Athens did go to war with Rome? And the answer that chat GPT fed me was yes, Athens did go to war with Rome,

albeit not a pitched battle between the two. In 88 BC, Athens revolted against Rome, along with other city Greek states, Greek city states, and was crushed by the Roman general, Lucius, Lucius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. So take that for what it is. I think we like the imagery of being separate and different and distinct from the Americans. But if you're gonna use imagery of going to war with Rome,

maybe pick a side that actually beat Rome at something. Just not for nothing. But it is what it is. It doesn't rise to the level of getting upset over. But Mark Carney did say something else. You'll remember in what he, in, in, in that interaction with the speaker, he said, I, I'm new to the house. I've got a lot to learn. I'm going to make some mistakes. One thing he's going to have to learn is when the cameras are on him, right? The cameras are on. And you never know when, what they're gonna pick up.

You start getting better at it. My dad always told me, like, he always knew when he was on camera and he knew when the microphones were on and what they were gonna pick up. And it would allow for private conversations or to say something that you didn't want the microphones to pick up.

And you get better at that with time. But on day one, the camera picked him up, sitting at his desk and Melanie Jolie, an early supporter of Mark Carney, was sort of sitting there. Didn't look like she had a whole lot to do. She was, every desk is outfitted with an earpiece so that you can hear either in English or in French

and you can better hear the person speaking. And she was like wrapping around her finger. She looked bored. And then she takes wrapping around her finger. She looked bored. And then she takes one step towards him. She was sitting two seats away. She moved to the seat closest to him. And you can see him very clearly without even looking at her, shooing her away.

Now, this is like a Rorschach test. You're gonna see in that what you want to see. My producer, George saw a a very positive Vision of a man who was no-nonsense and want to keep working in the face of somebody coming to distract him That's what George saw and like he's nodding in agreement right now, and that's fair. I didn't see that I saw I saw a man who was lacking in bedside manner. And I also saw a man with the context of the election campaign who didn't really,

he had a bad reputation as it related to like dealing with strong women. You know, we saw it with Rosie Barton and we saw it with a few other female journalists. It wasn't a good look. Now, I'm not saying that's a fair characterization. I'm saying it's a characterization. And this plays into that for me.

Listen, again, not a big deal. He didn't know the cameras were on him. He might've been really, really busy. He might've been focused on something really important for the country. And he was, and he did not want to be distracted, entirely fair, but he's gonna have to learn when the cameras are on him and when they aren't.

Now, there will come a time when the cameras are on him. We're coming up on the period in the summertime where the prime minister goes to summits, and he's gonna go to the G7 summit. He's also going to attend the NATO summit. And you'll remember Canada has been a laggard in NATO spending. Our commitment that we signed on two years ago was we were going to spend 2% of our GDP every year on defense spending. That's sort of the price of admission to being a NATO member. We have not done that since Brian Mulrooney. I don't mind saying it.

I don't mind tooting my dad's horn on that. It's a point of pride. All right. Hasn't happened since then. And we've been woefully underspending. And you'll remember that is the genesis of so many of our issues with Donald Trump. So getting to 2% has been a Herculean effort. We're nowhere close to it yet. But apparently at this NATO meeting,

it will be announced by the head of NATO that they want member states not to spend 2%, but to get to 5% of GDP spent on the military. How the heck we're gonna do that? I have no idea. Now, there's a professor from Université Laval in international relations, who said that Canada should be preparing to argue

that investing more in the military becomes much harder in the middle of a trade war. And there is some logic there. Say, look, we wanna spend more, but the leader of NATO, the de facto leader of NATO, the United States, is making that impossible because of his trade war. It's costing all of us billions of dollars on a day, and we need help. Now, to which I think that is not a very good argument because the counterpoint to that is,

well, there wasn't a trade war six months ago and you weren't at 2%. There wasn't a trade war three years ago and you weren't at 2%. There wasn't a trade war 10 years ago and you weren't at 2%. So explain that. It was Canada coasting on our relationship

with the United States all while talking down to them whenever it served us and now the chickens have come home to roost. So that is going to be a very interesting needle for our prime minister to thread but that's why he wanted to be prime minister. You want to sit in the big seat, you got to make these decisions and you got to come up with solutions. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And a little bit earlier, we were talking about the video of our prime minister shooing away Melanie Jolie in the house of comments. And it was a video that I'm sure he didn't know he was on camera. He will learn in the future.

And again, it's a, it's like a Rorschach test where you see it and you imbue it with whatever your perspective is. Some people look at it and say, there is a guy who just wants to work. And others say, there's a guy who bullied a woman. Neither is right, neither is wrong. They just are what they are. Well, there's another video that is dominating

everyone's social media feeds and people are breaking it down frame by frame. And it's of course the video of the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who was about to disembark from his plane arriving in Vietnam when his wife Brigitte, the door opens and all you see is her shoving him with both hands in his face in plain view of the awaiting press. The camera is trained on the door.

And then he looks stunned and he looks out at everybody and takes a moment, adjusts and smiles. And there are people who have broken it down frame by frame on social media, where you can see he tries to give her his arm, she rebuffs it, and once they get down the stairs, he's got one hand, the hand that's farthest from her clenched in a fist,

and his jaw is so tight, you think he's about to bust a blood vessel in his head. It is, and this follows the viral video where internet sleuths posited that on a train with other world leaders he was caught red-handed with cocaine. That was ludicrous. That was nonsense. That was insanity. This video on the other hand deserves some explanation. That's quite a violent push by his wife on him. And like not for nothing,

but if the video had caught him pushing her, I think we'd be having a different conversation. Like we would be having a serious conversation about him as a human being. So look, I know that the French have a policy of not addressing the private lives of their leaders and their politicians and what they do behind closed doors. Is there right?

This didn't happen behind a closed door. This happened in front of an open door with a camera trained on it. And therefore I think it's probably incumbent upon them to give the world press a little more of an explanation than, oh, it's nothing, don't worry about it. Another story that was caught on camera that was very disturbing was the imagery of a man in his car plowing through a parade for Liverpool FC. So they had just won a

championship and looked like hundreds, if not thousands of people were in the streets. And this man, white British man, important, that's an important fact. We all wanted to know, we were all worried about what it meant, could it be terrorism? A white British man, 53, plowed through the crowd, injuring four children and over 45 others. Nobody mercifully died. And well, here's an update on the story. The car stopped at the scene and a 53 year old white British man from the Liverpool area was arrested. We believe him to be the driver of the vehicle. Extensive inquiries are ongoing to establish the circumstances leading up

to the collision and it is vital that people do not speculate or spread misinformation on social media. I know that people will understandably be concerned by what has happened tonight. What I can tell you is that we believe this to be an isolated incident and we are not currently looking for anyone else in relation to it. The incident is not being treated as terrorism. Good. Like, get to that point as quickly as you can. And it looks like the police did exactly that. You don't want people spinning out into conspiracy theories. And if you know for certain it's not terrorism, say it's not terrorism. It looks honestly, from what I'm,

from what I can surmise, as one of the worst possible cases of road rage, from what I can, from what I understand, this guy was getting really frustrated that he couldn't move his car. So he took matters into his own hands? I hope he gets what's coming to him. That shameful behavior. And my heart goes out to everybody who was injured,

who was traumatized, and thank goodness, no one lost their life. So we found out earlier today that every Hudson's Bay store in this country will close on June 1st. It's the end, quite literally the end of a chapter in Canadian history that predates Canada. The oldest publicly traded company in North America was the Hudson's Bay Company.

And now we're finding out the 8,300 Hudson's Bay employees will be without a job next week and others will lose a great many of their benefits, including disability benefits. This is a terrible look. I mean, I remember, was it 15 years ago, the resurgence of the Hudson's Bay brand. I remember the Vancouver Olympics and how

Hudson's Bay was the tip of the sword for Canadian pride. I remember being in Vancouver, seeing the lines that were outside, hundreds of people deep going into Hudson's Bay to get their piece of the Olympics, their piece of Canadian pride, their piece of Canadiana. It was a wonderful moment to see a great Canadian retailer in its ascendancy, its re-ascendancy. And then for years, as they were acquiring other global brands like Bergdorf Goodman's and Saks Fifth Avenue, creating the room here in Toronto,

which was this fabulous high-end store for women. It was luxury, like old school luxury, and Hudson's Bay was playing a role in the return of retail and to see how far it's fallen to the point that it's, it's not even a shell of itself. The shells are getting sold. And it's depressing, it's sad. So we're living in a time where Alberta separatism

needs to be taken seriously. And some people want to poo poo it. And some people say just talking about it and giving it oxygen is the problem. I disagree. I think you got to talk about these things to understand these things. And speaking of understanding,

I think this is a really scary number, that over half of Canadians, not Albertans, over half of Canadians say they understand the desire of Albertans to separate. Now more than two thirds don't want that to happen, which is something we should expect. But the fact that that many Canadians can empathize with the plight of what

they feel is an unfair situation, unfair bargain that Albertans have with regard to the federal government, that's dangerous. That's worrisome. That's something that we should be concerned with. Now, the silver bullet to kill Western alienation and any secessionist movement in Alberta is a pipeline, is a national project like a pipeline. And it's really pleasing to me to read a letter that was written by Western pro-development indigenous organizations to Prime Minister Carney, asking him to, quote,

fulfill Canada's global LNG potential, the first step on a road that includes hydrogen, nuclear power technology, and other innovations. So it's an open letter that they've written to him. And they point out something really interesting. They say Canadian energy is indigenous energy. Today indigenous peoples, nations, workers and business owners are involved in all aspects of energy in Canada, whether hydro nuclear oil, natural gas and propane, and they go on. It's a very positive, aggressively development, pro development vision for the future. And central to that vision is Aboriginal workers, companies, innovation,

technology. I think it is fantastic. And they urge the prime minister for the coming G7 leaders summit. We would ask the following to have a clear and positive message about the global energy security and emissions reduction role of LNG at the G7 leaders summit and in the communicate to follow. And of course that's huge, right? If LNG from Canada was sent to all points, including China, to displace their use of coal, you could see dramatic drops in CO2 around the globe, which should be the point.

And two, to reverse current G7 policies that restrict access to financing by energy customers for key infrastructure associated with conventional energy. I love this, from their lips to Mark Carney's ears. And know, sir, that if you build this, Western alienation in a very large measure will subside. The best high-concept sci-fi rig of her own in the universe is back. Ah! What the hell? Oh, sh**. How long was I out? Close airlock seven!

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