The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben says Canada has a crime problem, and we're not doing enough about it

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

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TD, ready for you. Happy Monday, Canada. Thank you so much for joining us. And if you're listening in London or in Toronto, we want to say thank you, but you might be listening in podcast form or on the iHeartRadio app in any event. We hope you had a great weekend and you're gearing up for what is sure to be a busy and exciting week, especially in the world of politics, both here at home and abroad. Before we kick off the show, we've got a new show coming to 640 Toronto and it starts tonight

after Ben O'Hara Burn. It's called The Last Show with host David Cooper. It debuts at 10 p.m. We're talking fresh content, interesting interviews and some different takes that you won't get anywhere else. Again, The Last Show with David Cooper at 10 p.m. on AM 640. Congratulations and welcome to the team, David. Listen, if you have even a shred of political interest

and you like political intrigue and you care about what's going on domestically, then you had your eyes peeled for what was happening at the, I mean, it's not even called it wasn't called a liberal convention. It was called a liberal leadership event yesterday, where by and large, the safe money was on Mark Carney winning the leadership. And I think we all knew he was going to win it pretty handily, but I didn't think, I don't know anybody who thought that he was going to win quite as resoundingly as he did.

I mean, he took almost 86% of the votes, obviously, on the first ballot. And to see Christia Freeland, who has been so front and center, who has been so visible, who has been so prominent and influential for so long to take home less than 10% of that. She took 8% of the vote, not even winning her home riding. I don't know if it speaks to the dominance of Mark Carney or the performative nature of this entire race

and how it was a contest in name only. I mean, you'd have to be really cynical to believe that. And depending on the day or the time, I can be that cynical. But here he is, the new leader of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney. And I was watching it quite closely, quite closely, until I went out for dinner last night,

because it was my birthday. And I had a dinner with my family, knowing full well Mark Carney was gonna win. And I came home and caught everything I'd missed a little bit later. But 86% of the vote. And so now he is, you know, he's the Liberal leader. I'd missed a little bit later. But 86% of the vote. And so now he is the liberal leader.

I believe he's the prime minister designate. I'm sure there's some hoops that need to be jumped through before he becomes prime minister. I'm not even quite sure what that process is. I think we've got Warren Kinsella on the show a little bit later. I'll ask him. His former boss gave a little bit of a barn burner speech

yesterday, Jean Chrétien gave a speech. There was some love for outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau. We heard his daughter speak. She spoke quite eloquently. He should be very proud of her. 16 years old giving a speech like that to the nation, no small feat. So proud of her. 16 years old, giving a speech like that to the nation, no small feat.

So congratulations to her. As I said, as a dad, he should be very, very proud. And then, and now we're in a new era. We're in a new era. So stay tuned. We'll be talking about what happened yesterday as well as what to look forward to in the coming days over the course of the Ben Mulroney show today.

But I want to turn our attention to Doug Ford, because I mean, I don't think he thought he would be speaking to Americans as much as he has. He's speaking to Americans more than that show. Remember that show, Talking to Americans? Yeah, that's a that this is the new version of that with Doug Ford pushing his vision and pushing Ontario, Ontario's priorities to the people who are deeply affecting them, you know, the American government and and and Donald Trump. And so he was on the American, he was on American TV over the weekend. and he was asked the question, what did you think when you first heard Donald Trump talking about Canada becoming the 51st state? First, I thought it was a joke. I joked around and said, yeah, he's upset because we burnt the White House down in 1812,

and he's holding a 200-year grudge on us. But then I thought, boy, he's serious. And then I thought, you know, maybe it's a compliment because we are a great country. He's not saying that to anywhere else. He's not saying anywhere in South America. He's not saying Mexico will become a 51st state. He knows how great Canada is. And we share the same values.

Like, Americans and Canadians share the same values. We have the same democracy. We have the same democracy and so we're two great countries. Let's continue working together. The interviewer followed up and asked him if if you were to speak directly to Donald Trump and he said and in your capacity as a premier and not the prime minister you may never get that chance but if you were to be given that chance what would you say to the president of the United States? We're very disappointed.

Canadians are very disappointed. In times of crisis, no matter if they got when they got attacked on 9-11, whose soldiers died? Canadian soldiers died because one of their family members got attacked. And we do exactly the same. When the hurricanes just came through a few months ago, who sent the hydro linemen, the electrical linemen down? Ontario sent them down.

When the fires were happening in California, we sent water bombers on our way over. We stopped in British Columbia and we had 300 urban firefighters ready to go. There was over a thousand urban firefighters ready to go. We had to cut it off at 300. We love our American neighbors and we will do anything to help them, to protect them, and that's what Canada does. Yeah, you know what? In that short clip right there, he made a compelling case for how Donald Trump

is misidentifying the problem, and he is wrongly ascribing sort of villain status to his neighbors who are not by and large, like we are great neighbors compared to the other countries with whom the United States does business and has relations. We are at the top of the heap. We are good faith actors.

We are good neighbors. We are honest brokers. And I think Doug Ford clearly laid that out in less than a minute. That being said, so he probably won't ever speak directly to the president, but that doesn't mean that the opinions of Ontario will not be expressed directly into Donald Trump's eye holes, because the ad campaign that we started prior to the Super Bowl is going to get a little bit of an update.

Let's listen to the changes that Doug Ford wants to bring to our ads. We're going to ramp up the ads. We spent tens of millions of dollars. But now the ads are going to be a little different. They're going to show, you know, before he was elected, and then when these tariffs come, and if we don't get a tariff deal,

they're going to be assembly line shut deal, there are going to be assembly lines shut down, jobs are going to be lost, unemployment is going up, and inflation is going up. Matter of fact, inflation is going up right now because of the uncertainty. Again, I don't want to do this. We didn't start this fight. And neither did the Americans. The president started this fight.

So if I'm hearing it, you're saying you're going to run attack ads basically against what he's doing in the states. Well, I wouldn't call them attack ads. I'm going to call them information ads. And they're going to inform the great people of the United States how it could be and having two great nations and how it might be if these tariffs continue to go through. As far as I'm concerned, it's unacceptable. And how it could be in the very near future is a little more expensive for 1.5 million homes

in the United States who rely on Ontario electricity as the exit tax of 25% is slated to be applied to that electricity starting today. At the end of the Ben Mulroney show today, we are going to have energy minister, Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce on the show to talk about exactly that. So stick around for what is a very important interview on a very important file as it relates to the Canada-U.S. trade war. And coming up, we've got a huge problem with crime in Toronto and a lack of leadership coming from the mayor's office. I'm going to play you some audio that shows just how tone deaf

this mayor is. That's next on the Ben Mulroney Show. When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in, we all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay, to remind us of our ability to believe, because their belief in us transfers to self-belief and reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe.

Hashtag, you got this. Warning. I've got this. Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. No. If this is how intense Nova Kane sounds, Oh, wow. imagine how it looks.

Is there more? Yeah, big time. Nova Kane. Pulling theaters March 14th. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. On Friday night at 10.40 PM, three masked men entered the brand new Piper Arms Pub near the Scarborough Town Centre

and began to unload firearms indiscriminately in what Toronto Police Chief Myron Demke referred to as an incredibly brazen act of violence. And some will call it good luck, others will call it criminal ineptitude, others will call it divine intervention. But nobody was killed. Had things gone differently, we would be talking about one of the single most violent nights in the history of this nation. We would be mourning the death of possibly a dozen fellow citizens of the City of Toronto. This is an emergency of the highest order that requires all hands on deck. And at a press conference the next day, oh by the

way I want to take your calls on this 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. This is a Toronto story of the highest order and I want to hear from Torontonians on it. So at this press conference, the mayor was asked a very simple question about how we can, how, what she can do to reassure Torontonians that they are in fact safe in a city where they feel increasingly unsafe. Hi, Nathan from the Toronto Star. I was wondering what are you doing to reassure residents' fears in the nearby area around, or what are police doing to reassure residents' fears? Well, I... Well, I, we don't know at this point what's the motive. And we also don't know where the suspects are at this point.

The police may or may not, but, you know, I'll leave the police to comment. I do want to reassure the residents of Toronto that since the peak of the respond time on October 2023, which was 26 and a half minutes when you call 911, it took the police to get to you at 26 plus minutes. That's almost half an hour. It's unacceptably long. Okay, what I just played for you should be labeled the worst possible answer to the question. There is no worse way to answer the question, how do you make people who are scared for their lives feel a little more safe? The first thing you don't do is pause for nearly 10 seconds.

Then the next thing you don't do is say all the things you don't know. We don't know who they are. We don't know where they are. We don't know why they did it. And then the cherry on top of what you don't do is pat yourself on the back and say response times are 50% better today than they were a year ago. That does nothing to make people feel more safe. Nothing.

Now I could tell you what I think she should have done and said, but instead, we're going to go to some audio of Hank Itzinga, our crime expert here at 640, who was just on the Greg Brady show. He compared one shooting to this shooting. Let's listen. Back in 2018 on the Danforth, I was there on the Danforth and there's some great photographs of the mayor and the police chief standing right in the middle of Danforth in the middle of the night

coming down there out of bed to Help out and see what's going on and to address the public and to address police officers who are there So definitely a contrast between that and what we saw from the mayor this past weekend There's definitely a contrast between that and what we saw from the mayor this past weekend. I'll give Chief Demke a lot of credit for getting out there the next day and speaking with the members of the 43 Division and also addressing the media and reassuring the public that the Toronto police are doing everything they can do to bring these offenders to justice. Mayor Chow should have said in that moment that every single effort is being brought to bear to bring these people to justice. That the streets, that the city is there for them. The police will be in their neighborhood to reassure them that the streets are safe.

And then she should have looked right into the camera and said, I am talking to those of you who perpetrated this terrible, vicious and disgusting crime. You will be held to account. We will find you. There is nowhere you can hide. This city is better than you, and you will be held to account for the crimes that you perpetrated against the innocent of this city. Your reign of terror will end shortly, and you will never forget that this was a mistake

you should have never made. Everything she said was shameful. Everything she said. She literally patted herself on the back to say, oh, we've made wait times for police better. How did that help people? How did that help the 12 people with gunshot wounds and glass wounds who all they wanted to do

was go out and enjoy some time at the pub. That was a failure of leadership and a vision. And I guarantee you, if the mayor could have done it again, had a redo, she would change what she said. I cannot believe that those words came out of her mouth. I cannot believe it. So 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. What is happening in the streets of Toronto?

And where is our mayor? Why isn't she leading? Why wasn't she in the streets of Scarborough that night? Let's start our conversation with Steve. Steve, welcome to the show. Warning, I'd like to start off with saying, can you please run for mayor? No.

I love what you have for our city, but they always keep saying, we're gonna take the guns away from the law-abiding people, but they always keep saying, we're gonna take the guns away from the law-abiding people, but they never spend money at the border to stop them. It's serene over and over, and they just banned 200 guns again. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That happened quietly on a Friday.

They dumped that news on a Friday, so we wouldn't be talking about it today. You're absolutely right, Steve. Thank you so much for the call. Scott, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. I love what you said, like what the mayor should have said. But let's be honest, everything that you said they should have said is a joke because they'd be out of parole.

They wouldn't be held accountable because that's not what's happening. No, and Steve, Scott, you're right. But the city is in control. The city is in control of going out there. Myron Demke said of going out there. Myron Demke said they're out there hunting and looking for them. The city can control how people feel in the streets.

The city can reassure Torontonians that everything is being done. And the best way to do it is to go where they live. Walk those streets. Show people that they have nothing to be afraid of in their streets. And Scott, I don't know how you feel, but the fact that that didn't happen, the fact that the mayor spoke from the safety of a press conference is telling. Anyway, I apologize. I would have kept you around for a little bit. Dan, welcome to the show. What say you?

Good morning, Ben. Good morning. A few points. One is since carding stopped, I think whatever it was called in 2013, our homicide rate by gun has gone up or shootings have gone up. I think it was 91% or some crazy percentage. Look it up. If you look at the Toronto's own police statistics, I'm looking at it now. Just look it up. We've already matched and beat the past five years except for 2024 in terms of shootings from firearms. And not one of them has come from a registered firearm.

Canada spent, the federal government has spent over $2 billion for this registry that could have been spent on clearing out the courts and taking care of this bail system. So it's all performative, it's all circus acts and Olivia Chow can't even talk. Look at her. She was stunned on a simple basic question. So police, citizens in Toronto should be concerned and should not listen to their politicians because they're absolutely incapable unless we take real action. Hey, thank you so much for the call. Let's welcome Steve to the show. Steve, what do you think of all this? Well, thanks, Ben. I love your show, by the way. It's great so far. I love it. It's great. Anyways, Mayor Chow, we, anybody who has a half a brain knew that this was going to happen. She's

all fluff and word salads, no substance. She's, she loves the title of being mayor, but doesn't want any of the responsibilities, nor does she care. She's just out there for funsies and making herself feel good about herself. Yeah, well, it's hard to argue with that. And look, I don't ascribe malice to the mayor. I don't uphold her values, her social values, but I believe she's a good person, but she really did not demonstrate leadership and courage at a time where people needed to see that from her.

I feel for the people of Scarborough who are fearful this morning about what's happening in their neighborhood, their area of town, a part of town that they love. And it would have gone a long way had she walked the streets all night long, talking to anybody who would have listened to say, we're here for you.

And that didn't happen. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and we are gonna continue with your calls at 416-870-6400, one triple eight, two two five talk. We're talking about the mass shooting in Scarborough on Friday night and the city's, oh, I mean the most diplomatic way I can say is lackluster response in, in response to the fear that residents are feeling, knowing that at any point, mass criminals can come and shoot up a pub.

The mayor was asked, how are you gonna make people feel safer? And her answer was lacking. That's the nicest way I can say it. And so we wanna hear from you. Look, one of the things she could have said, and I just came up with this while I was getting some water. She could have said,

Toronto Public Health has set up a hotline and anyone can call at any point to get immediate mental health supports. That could have been something she said. That could have been something that had been announced right then and there. And it wasn't. Instead, she paused.

She said, we don't know anything. Hey, but it's okay because response times for the police have been improved by 50%. To me, that's shameful. To me, that's not good enough. There was a moment where we needed her and the mayor did not meet the moment. Anthony, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show.

Hi, good morning, Ben. Thanks for putting me on here. I just wanted to address something that one of your callers mentioned about us, like carding and street crimes. Man, that's the Scott House in Scarborough. It's a heritage building. That's probably one of the most expensive pieces of,

I would say, rental real estate in the area. That's restaurant row. So as it pertains to a street level crime, I think we need to focus on a little bit bigger, like mafia and organized crime. Let's focus back on the towing situation that we've been talking about for the past 10 years. That is not speed crime. Cardin will not not prevent a situation like that. We're citizens in Toronto, Scarborough, yes. I think we have a bigger problem when the mayor cannot speak on

that level. Know that, hey, this is organized crime. This is nothing to do with Cardin and petty street crime like that. Well, well, and, and, and Anthony, I take organized crime. This has nothing to do with Carden and petty street crime like that. Well, and Anthony, I take your point. I think there are many different levels to crime, but the immediate impact of the moment we're talking about is because three guys with guns opened fire in a pub. And so the people pulling the strings may very well be organized crime.

And I can't speak to that. What I can speak to is what we actually know. The facts on the ground are that three guys with guns thought that they had the right to try to kill as many people as possible in a pub. And so that's what we're dealing with this morning. But I do take your point and I appreciate it. And thank you for adding to the conversation. David, what do you have to say about all of this?

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I really don't blame her because I will this reminds me of what the book the good book says it says, out of the abundance of the heart speaks the mouth. She couldn't say anything because there's nothing there. She's up and up there So all I know that I did not vote for her. So. I see. Well, I see what you're doing. You're giving her grace, and that is a kind thing to do. I just think that, I think the residents and those directly and indirectly affected

deserved grace as well. And it should have come in the form of reassurance from our leadership, those we entrust to fund the services that are supposed to keep us safe. And if they can't keep us safe, then the next step has to be showing us that the work is being done to get justice

for those who were affected, and to provide resources for those who were affected and to provide resources for those who were affected. And none of those answers came in a moment where those people desperately needed them. So let's keep the calls coming at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Very much wanna hear from you. What did you think of what happened?

What do you think that says about our city? And what do you think of the response from our mayor? Karen, welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. Thank you for having me. I love you on the show, Ben. Thank you. I live in New York City for 10 years, right after 9-11.

And I could say that the level of unsafety is that I feel in the city is extremely high, even after my experience in New York City. I don't understand people who are looking for defunding the police where we need them. The bell reform in this province is a joke. So I bet you these kids, I will say kids because I bet you this is not a 30 year old with a family coming to tune in up the place. It's a kid who knows that the bell reform is not working and is allowed to come in and do that and never be able to be found. Giuliani would never, that's all I have to say. No, and listen, thank you. Listen, the Giuliani of today is not the guy we're talking about. Rudy Giuliani made people feel better in the days after 9-11 because he met them where they were.

He met them where they were hit hardest. He showed up every day. He didn't go home. He became America's mayor. He became a symbol of American strength because he displayed strength. Karen Bass in Los Angeles when that city was burning was in Ghana. She failed her city because she wasn't there for her city. And if I'm looking at the spectrum

between Karen Bass and Rudy Giuliani, in this moment, Olivia Chow falls closer on the spectrum to Karen Bass than anywhere close to Rudy Giuliani. That's one man's humble opinion, very happy to be proven wrong, but that's how I feel. Lily, welcome to the show. Hi, hi, Ben. Hi.

Love your show. Thank you. Love your comments. I have to say, I am not only truly disappointed in Olivia Child, but I am angry. Yeah. She has not served our city well. I have written to her by email. I have called her office

never. What have you written to her? Oh, I've written to her about the protests in the city, that the fact that she wants to cut the police budget, snow removal, you name it. I've expressed my opinion. I've written to her and she never ever returns an email. I'm not the only one who feels like this. Many people in my neighborhood feel like that. I will be actively campaigning to, if she reruns, I will not be voting for her. I'm not running, but I will campaign against her.

Well, I wanna thank you for your call. I also wanna thank you for being one of the citizens of this city that when you have a problem, you write to the people to seek redress. And if you're not even getting an answer, again, that's a problem and that will hurt her when it's time for the city to pass judgment on her term as mayor.

Let's say hi to Fabian. Fabian, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Hey, Ben, how are you today? I'm well, thank you. Um, I'm not sure if it's the provincial government that's responsible for the tow trucks. It seems to be a turf war between them. What would it what would it be if the government did like a bidding war gave it to the highest bidder and then end this nonsense?

Yeah, listen, I'm not going to lie. If I don't know something, I'm not going to pretend I know something. And I know very little about the tow truck war in Ontario. And so if, you know, one day maybe we'll do a deep dive here on the show so that I can learn about it. And for those of our listeners who don't know about it, we can all learn a little bit more. But to me, I wanna deal with the problem

that's in front of us. And the problem in front of us is we have an entire community that is scared right now, that is worried that the next time they go out, this could happen to them again. This could happen to someone they know and someone they love. And it can paralyze a community.

It can act as a sort of toxic event that slows everything down, keeps everyone at home, makes you fearful of the person next to you on the subway. This is not how you build community. This is how you destroy community. And the antidote to that is strength projected from our leaders. You know, there is an element of symbolism to our elected leaders. They have to be able to, that's one of the reasons Justin Trudeau was very effective,

because he really, he leaned in to the symbolism of the office, because I don't believe he was particularly good at the nuts and bolts of the work, but he was good at making people feel things. And that counts for something. And like I said, Giuliani was able to make people feel proud and safe at a time where they most definitely didn't. And Olivia Chow had an opportunity to give people back their power, their agency,

over their community, over their lives. And she failed miserably. And I hope she's listening to this. So the next time she's in front of a microphone, she remembers this segment on this show, because I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm saying this because she has a job to do and did not do it to the best of her ability. And she did not meet the moment. And as the mayor of this city, that is incumbent upon her. And I hope she's listening to this so that the next time she's able to do better. and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business.

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