The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben says The NDP can't help themselves when it comes to Identity Politics

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ben says The NDP can't help themselves when it comes to Identity Politics -Toronto undercharging developers for blocking lanes with Guest: Brad Bradford, Toronto city councillor for Beaches-East York 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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We'd love to talk business. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the Thursday edition of the Ben Mulroney show. I want to say thank you to everyone listening. You might be listening on CFPL in London, you might be listening on 640 in Toronto, or you might be listening on the iHeartRadio app or across any podcast network in any event, in any manner, in any fashion. We always say thank you. It's today we got a busy day with all sorts of different topics to touch on.

Let's start with one that captivated our attention and our concern just a few days ago with that incredible crash of the Delta Airlines flight at Pearson International Airport, where almost everyone walked away safely and of the people who did not walk away, all but one is now out of hospital. That is the biggest and greatest news that we have heard thus far to have seen the explosion and the rollover and the impact of that crash. And to see that everyone so far

fingers crossed is going to get a come away from that accident intact and as healthy as possible is wonderful. But now we're moving into the next phase. We're moving into the investigation, finding out why. And once we find out why, who is to blame? Blame is a very big part of this because there will inevitably be lawsuits. There will inevitably be a seek for redress and a demand for accountability.

A Toronto law firm has already been hired to represent passengers in the Delta plane crash, there will be more on that front. But I think the most interesting part of this phase is that Delta Airlines is offering $30,000 to passengers aboard that flight. $30,000 and according to them, no strings attached. This, according to the CEO, this does not, sorry, a spokesperson for the company says that this is a gesture that has no strings attached and does not affect rights. I find this to be a really fascinating thing because typically any any money Comes after a negotiation and the fact that Delta is putting this on the table I mean it opens up a whole bunch of questions. Why do they do they know something already?

Do they feel that yes This won't affect your rights, but it could affect an ultimate payout, meaning we've done the math, we've done the research, maybe it's something particular to case law in Ontario versus elsewhere in the United States, if this were to happen in the United States, that if you accept $30,000 now, it will, we have a greater chance of lowering our ultimate financial liability later on. I don't know. But I don't see this as a bad thing.

I'm not suggesting everyone take the money right now without consulting with a lawyer. But to have money offered without a lawyer coming to get that offer, maybe that speeds up the process to which we get a resolution where everybody is made whole in one way, shape or form. It's something that we'll definitely be paying close attention to. And as always, you can stick with this radio station and this show for any and all updates that we think are relevant to this story.

We know that the Ontario government was putting the full court charm offensive on to the Americans with an ad campaign on Fox News. We talked about that glorious commercial about Ontario being a trusted partner, an ally to the United States. Well, during Sean Hannity's show with the Donald Trump, Elon Musk interview

that we shared with you yesterday, that was quote unquote brought to you by the province of Ontario. And a lot of people were wondering whether that was a special ad by by the Ontario government, it turns out it wasn't it was part of the package that had been negotiated months ago. But because this this show was so big and so sought after and so viewed, I guess the Ontario government got more bang for its buck. Now, obviously the opponents to the government, I believe Bonnie Cromby took issue with it, but look, we spend money on tourism dollars

all over the world telling people to visit Ontario and visit Canada, go to Quebec, go to British Columbia, go to Saskatchewan, go to PEI, Newfoundland Labrador, that's a big one. Why wouldn't we spend money on touting ourselves as a trade partner? It's, to me, they are one and the same. You could argue that one is more important than the other. And in this case, the circumstances that we're living in,

speaking directly to the people who speak directly with the president on Fox News is the right move. And to do so on a show that had so many eyeballs on it, I don't I don't see how that's a problem. Now here is where we have a problem. This is where we have a problem. We are just a week away from an election, an election here in the province of Ontario. And there is an NDP candidate in Elgin Middlesex, London, named Amanda Zavitz. And she's a white woman. And she tells us about her little secret. My secret is that I want to be a black woman. I want to be an

expert in inequality with lived experiences of poverty and living in addiction and alcoholism. I want to be able to share my ideas without the barrier of looking the way that I do. O-M-F-G with an emphasis on the F. Are you effing kidding me? I'm sorry if you find the letters that I'm using offensive, but if you don't find what preceded it even more offensive, check your pulse. This woman, this white woman,

believes that in order to understand poverty, addiction and alcoholism, in order to understand those, she must be black. If that is not the most racist thing I've heard in 2025, that I don't know what to tell you. That is shockingly racist. And I guarantee you this woman is so comfortable in her self-righteousness that she would hear

what I'm saying and think I'm crazy and probably racist myself. We are all endowed by our creator with something called empathy. We have the ability if we want to access it to walk in someone else's shoes. I do not live in a world where I cannot put myself in someone else's shoes.

I can try very hard by listening to them, by trying to understand them, by being empathetic, by being warm, by being generous of spirit and giving of my time and my understanding. I can understand to the best of my ability, almost anyone except a bloodthirsty person from Hamas. I cannot understand that and I will not try. But if I want to understand somebody,

I most certainly can because I am a human being part of a collective called a society, a community. And this side of the left side of the political spectrum has been carving out silos for us to live in for so long that they feel it is impossible to understand somebody else's quote unquote lived experience. I can't have an opinion on abortion rights because I don't have a uterus. I can't understand the experiences of a black person because I am not black. All of that is nonsense because we are human beings with the innate ability

to connect with other human beings. Now, put that aside for a second. How about the even worse egregious crime, thought crime of believing that you have to be black to understand poverty, addiction and alcoholism? My father was a white Irish Catholic who was an alcoholic. Why don't you try to identify with him? I guarantee you, there are a lot of women, a lot of soccer moms who are functional alcoholics. Amanda Zavitz. The myopic racist tunnel vision that you have displayed is some of the most,

I mean it's, I'm trying to laugh at it because it is so offensive. It is so offensive and the fact that you've said it and you put yourself forth for public office and there are some people who will look at this and say, yes, I co-sign this. I will vote for this. This is a vision of the future that I want to be part of. This is the most regressive thing I have ever heard from a progressive.

I cannot believe that you actually put this out there for public consumption. And because you did, I get to judge you. And Amanda Zavitz, I judge you lacking as a decent human being. This is just, this is just awful. I am going to chuckle at it a little bit. I didn't even get to half of the stuff I want to talk about. We've got so much more coming up, including Olivia Chow has time to make jokes, but not to clear the snow. We're gonna discuss that next on the Ben Mulroney Show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And we're gonna do something a little different today. We're gonna take your calls as we are joined. Well, first we're gonna talk to our guest, and then he's gonna stick around for your calls. We're joined now by friend of the show and friend of mine, Brad Bradford, Toronto City Councilor for Beaches East York.

Councilor Bradford, welcome to the Ben Mulrony Show. Great to be with you. Hope you're staying warm down there in the studio today. I'm doing my best and look, you know, the City Council, there's a lot that happens there, City Hall, but I didn't know that every now and then it turns into a comedy club. Let's listen to Olivia Chow doing doing her best Dave Chappelle. We are working as quickly as we can. And yes, it's a it's a big snowfall. At least I didn't call it

the army. Okay, Brad, that I mean, she she amused herself with that one. Yeah, and thanks for providing the laugh track because nobody else was laughing. And I think that's why so many Torontonians are frustrated. This is a serious issue. It's not a joke. Yeah. And I think in light of the chow tax, the fact that she's increased property taxes nearly 25% over the past three years, people are rightly upset that the city cannot execute on the most basic core services. And that of course is snow removal. Yeah, this is Toronto. We live in Canada. We are a winter city. And the fact that it has been, you know, 10 days now 11, since we since the snow first

started flying, and they only started doing snow removal yesterday, when I was dropping my girls off at the daycare yesterday, I you know, chaos, like trying to get the strollers and going over the snow banks. And that's because the city hasn't taken the steps to get to remove the snow. Well, Brad, what do you do? Yeah, Brad, look, the joke itself didn't bug me. I someone wrote it for and she thought it'd be funny. And, and it didn the joke itself didn't bug me. Someone wrote it for

and she thought it'd be funny and and it didn't land that didn't bug me. What bug me was her tweet where she had a picture of somebody parked next to a giant embankment of snow that was right up next to a streetcar. And she said, like many of you, I am sick of the snow as the city and residents dig out. We must look out for one another. Yet I spotted this on my way to City Hall today. Drivers, do not park on snow routes, including all roads with streetcars. You block traffic and make it difficult

and you're gonna get ticketed and fined and so on. Now, naming, shaming, and blaming the people who are paying the taxes, who are being forced to live in a city that is incapable of doing this basic service, that to me, that to me is the thing that actually is offensive, not the joke. And this is the theme with her. There's zero accountability and zero leadership and just sort of a professional buck passer blaming everybody else for the issues.

I think that was Dundas Street by the looks of it. And you know, for your listeners, yeah, it's a car pulled over on the side of the road. There's a curve in the tracks there. So the TTC vehicle is having a challenge. But the alternative tweet would have been, we have removed the snow on main arterials like Dundas. And you know, if the snow had been removed, then it would be fine to park there. And she has sat on her hands for 10 days before any snow removal took place. And again, I was at TTC stations talking to folks yesterday and, you know, they remembered the fact that we had some reprieve last Friday. So the first snowfall was Super Bowl Sunday. Then we got whacked again on Wednesday

and Thursday. No snow Friday, but we knew it was coming on the weekend. And the city took a rest day. And it was family day, Brad. It was family day. Why would anyone work? But Brad, look, I don't think people, if people sat down and thought about it for just a moment, they would appreciate how insane this is. A week's worth of snow,

followed by three weeks of snow removal, is an entire month where this city that is already congested, that already has people stuck in gridlock, is further slowed down to a crawl. An entire month where people can't get to where they need to get to. And think about the lost productivity. Think about the lost tourist dollars. Think about the lost time spent with family. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah. And again, it's not rocket science. It's snow clearing and snow removal

in a winter city in Toronto in Canada. And again, this is why people are so upset, Ben, is they've seen the chow tax, they've seen the tax hikes, and it was all done, it was all predicated on the promise of better services. You know, I'm old enough to remember the last major snow episode in January of 2022. And, you know, it wasn't great then,

but the city managed to remove 17,000 tons of snow within six days. We are now at 11 days and counting, and there's been zero tons removed. And so if you're gonna rocket everyone's tax bill, which is what Mayor Chow has done, and you're gonna promise better services, you sure as hell better deliver on it.

And that's just not what we're seeing. And to your point that economic impacts, the quality of life impacts, they're dramatic. Yeah, well, I wanna stay on the question of gridlock and lost productivity and people stuck in traffic, because there's new information that's come out that says, Toronto charges $37,000 per month to close a lane of traffic for construction,

but the real cost to the economy is about $1.7 million per month, and that's on a major road. The delta between what we charge and what it's actually worth to us is insane. And we just got a statement from Olivia Chow's office. I'm going to read a bit of it to you. She said, we need to get Toronto moving. This means tackling gridlock and congestion. I think the Toronto Regional Board of Trade, I thank them for their thoughtful work and advocacy.

Congestion is a real issue that impacts all of us. The city appreciates the Board of Trade calling on the province to provide the tools we need to get Toronto moving like installing traffic cameras. Since the launch of the City of Toronto Congestion Management Plan in 2023, the City has been addressing many of these issues. The City has brought on dedicated staff in April. Road occupancy fees are increased to better address the cost of these closures. And we have directed staff to come back with a construction levy, an escalating fee. They encourage these projects to minimize road closures and the impact on congestion.

What do you think of how much we charge right now? And what do you think of Olivia Chow's statement? Well, I haven't read the report yet. But congestion is a massive problem in our city. And I understand what one of the recommendations from the Board of Trade is, is to call for a traffic czar or congestion relief commissioner. And certainly when I ran for mayor in 2023, that was a key platform commitment because the diffusion of responsibility across all these different divisions and agencies, whether that's a utility company or the TTC or even divisions at the City of Toronto,

it means that nobody's in charge. And I've been beating that drum for years. And the fact that that is not in place and the mayor hasn't taken that up yet. Hopefully we'll see some progress on that with the board of trade recommendations because Ben, the reality is we continue to tie up parallel streets in the downtown core. Parallel street after parallel street tied up

and there's no coordination. I think your point here about the fees for lane closures, we got to look at that. If it's thirty seven thousand dollars per month, that's that is not reflective of the actual cost or the impact of that lane closure. I always want to be sensitive on where those costs go. And if that trickles down into the cost of housing for consumers on the other side of it. Yeah, there is a bad listen, I recognize there's a balancing act that has to happen.

But if it's costing a developer $37,000 a month, what do they care if they keep that lane closed for a month or two or three? It's that's that's a drop in the bucket. Yeah, I mean, multiply it by a factor of 10. And maybe we're talking about lighting a fire that's going to lead to getting that lane closed or opened up a little bit faster. I would also say Brad that something I've been a proponent of for years and and I say this without having discussions with the other side of the equation is I would mandate setbacks on every single new construction in the city. Every new

building should be set back set back so that you do not have to take over a lane of traffic, you just take over the walkway, the the the the the pedestrian area. Well, and there are ways to do it. And so whenever you're dealing with policy, you have the option for a carrot or a stick. I generally like to incentivize the type of behavior. So can we create some urgency by providing some incentives for them to get the job done faster, whether that is quicker approvals or some relief on some of the

fees and the charges. But then you also have the stick option, which would be increasing the fees on these closures. And I think we need to look at that too. Your point about the space that they take within the right of way, there's got to be a premium on that. And you look at cities like New York, they actually stack construction site offices, they stack trailers, they find a way to contain the impact onto the actual construction site, rather than spilling out into the right of way and onto the road. And whether we are using carrots or sticks to achieve that, we have to create the urgency that so that these impacts and these closures are shorter, and we get that equipment off the road faster because number one job has to be moving people and moving vehicles. Toronto City Councilor Brad Bradford is my guest and he's going to our good friend Brad Bradford. We've been talking about a Toronto region board of trade study that says that it costs

a developer about $37,000 a month to close the lane of traffic for construction. But the real cost of the economy is closer to 1.7 million. And now it is time for us to take your calls on this. Fabian, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking my call. How are you? Well, I'm well, say hi to Brad. Hello, Brad. Hey, Fabian. So just one thing regarding this no removal. I'm sure you're aware of it, Brad. I'm not sure if your listeners been are aware. The majority of the the snow removal is done by contractors and it's been done

possibly about a decade and a half if not longer. The accountability of those contractors, it's obvious that nobody's doing anything about it. The other day you were talking about how there's two lanes of traffic and then there's only one lane available after snowfall. I see it all the time. They go down one side of the road with their Salters and they never come up the other side. It's an ongoing thing, but it's been happening way before chow. Regarding your traffic, simple solution. All these major roads that have construction should be done at night, not during the day.

Yeah, well, listen, I appreciate that. And Brad and I have talked about that before. This idea that construction seems to start just as the roads start getting busy, to me is just a nonsensical equation that needs to be fixed. Brad, what do you think about that? Yeah, I agree. Like there's 24 hours in the day. And so there are certainly more opportunities for us to coordinate that construction in off-peak times.

I think you could also take it a step further and coordinate deliveries during those periods of time as well. And again, other cities certainly do that. And it's long overdue that Toronto explores that. You know, with respect to the commentary about contractors out doing the snow, you're right. Like the performance is not there, but that comes down to this issue

that I see at City Hall every day that has gotten worse over the past couple of years, which is there's a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability. Your job as the mayor or an elected official is to hold those contractors to account. And other than yesterday, the mayor showing up to make that joke,

we hadn't really heard from her, sort of 10 days into this snow episode here in Toronto, we hadn't heard from the mayor. And so I would be assembling the war room, getting everybody around the table and demanding answers and pushing for better performance. We are way too quick to accept status quo and complacency about these sort of things in the City of Toronto and it shows. All right. Let's say hi to Michael. Michael, say hi to Ben and Brad.

Hey there. Hey. I cannot believe it's only 30. I mean, to rent out the Convention Center for a trade show, I think it's at that. And to be honest with you, I think it should be about a million bucks a block. Well, Michael, I think, listen, I think all of us agree that that $37,000 is too low. But Brad brings up a very good point that there has to be a sweet spot where if you charge too much, and Brad, tell me if I'm misconstruing your words,

if it's too much money, then that money will then get passed on to ultimately to whoever buys the condo or the rent that's gonna be charged for the business or whatever is there. And so it has to be enough that it's the carrot to incentivize them to speed up construction, but not so much that it becomes onerous on ultimately the to speed up construction, but not so much that

it becomes onerous on ultimately the end user. Brad, is that fair? I think that's right. Obviously, $37,000 is the wrong number. That is woefully inadequate, but it is that balance. We know that in the city of Toronto, 30% of the cost of a unit of housing and whether it's condo or coming forward as rental is taxes and fees. So, you know, you have to be cognizant of that with with the cost of housing right now. But thirty seven thousand dollars is is way too low and people take advantage of it. And that's why you have these road closures that, you know, go on for six months, eight months, a year, because it's just it's the path of least resistance.

And obviously, you know, developers are going to take advantage of that. But are there also incentives on the other side of the ledger where if you get things done faster, your application is processed quicker, you get your permits done faster, there's a reduction in fees. So, you know, it's both carrot and stick, that fee has to go up. But we also have to figure out how can we encourage the type of performance that we want to see from the people building the housing that the city needs. We've got a time for one last call with Brad, I'll take more calls after he leaves, but he's a very busy man. And

we thank him for his time. And let's say hi to Adrian. Adrian, welcome to Ben Mulroney show. Hey, how you doing? Right. So I don't know why we're not talking about the elephant in the room, which is the real reason why we don't get the services that we ask for. I mean I'm a contractor myself, I go for the city bids, I'm always looking for ways to get those bids and the amount of corruption that's in there I've seen it firsthand you know I've been doing this for 30 years you're actually getting 40% of what you're paying for so you know you're paying 100% you're getting 40-50% of the. And it's all through, you know, sealed bits. And the contractors already know who's getting what and who's getting where and that has to do with painting contracts. That has to do with cement that has to do with salt that has to

do with snow clearing has everything to do with the with the main companies that control it. And you know, if anybody wants to challenge that, I'd love to have that challenge. Brad, you're on the other side of that fence. What do you say to Adrian's take? Well, I could tell you Adrian's right in that we're not getting value for money. There's only a few contractors that bid on things in the City of Toronto. Our procurement process is so cumbersome and difficult. The insurance liabilities that you have to carry in the City of Toronto, it far exceeds municipalities in the GTHA. And so all of the hassle and aggravation of dealing with the City of Toronto, chasing us down to get paid at the end of a job, the congestion and traffic that you have to fight to get in here, a lot of people just don't want to work with the City of Toronto. So they place their bids in markets in the GTHA. We have far fewer bids on our projects. And then we also have that uncomfortable conversation that again, I brought

up in the mayoral run in 2023, but we're a closed shop. You know, we only let some unions bid on the work and not all of the unions. And as a result, you know, from a capital perspective, it costs us $340 million more on an annual basis that we are paying because we only have two sets of unions that are able to bid on the work rather than all the unions. So Adrian's right, there's a lot of stuff we could do on the procurement front to get better value for money for taxpayers. And as a result, we're routinely paying three times as much as other people. And the jobs seem to take three times as long. Brad Bradford, thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulrooney show. And we hope we come back soon. You betcha. Thanks, Ben. All right. Let's keep these calls coming.

Let's welcome Bryce to the show. How you doing, Bryce? Yeah. Hey, Ben. First of all, thank you for your years of public service. And I have a great amount of respect for you and your father. Thank you. And his legacy. So we're supposed to not park on snow routes, right? $200 fine.

Question is, I live in the old, the old core. Where are we supposed to park? And now are we supposed to find alternate parking for the next three weeks? So now the question is, are we being ticketed? Cart Bronx doesn't matter when snow removal operations start, or are the tickets going out only once snow operations start on that particular street? I put this question to my counselor, Alejandra Bravo,

who is well known for her left leaning politics and anti-car stats. Ben, radio silence. Can't get an answer. In the past, the city would always put up the orange sign and say, movie car in 24 hours. Very, very reasonable. So we're kind of living under this fear.

It's almost like a bully threatening us. And the cars can't even move on my street. There's snow didn't then. No, of course. No, no, no, this is, we've been put in an impossible situation by Mother Nature made even more impossible by an inept municipal government that doesn't seem to appreciate

that a week's worth of snow followed by three weeks of a city completely consumed by snow is an entire month lost to Mother Nature. How anyone feels that that is a timeline acceptable in something that is deemed a world-class city should not be in government. They should not hold the levers of power. These are people who should be doing anything else

but helping manage a city like Toronto. I have said it many times before, sometimes in jest, today I say it very seriously, this is a city that thrives despite the people in charge. We have become a world-class city despite the people that we've entrusted to lead us there. We succeed despite their best efforts. We've said it about Canada as well. Canada's biggest problem is Canada. Toronto's biggest problem is City Council. It has been for a while and it will be for as long as I'm going to draw breath into my body.

Alright, thank you all for your calls. We're going to take a quick break. But coming up, remember when Conservatives were worried about a slippery slope on Bill C-63? Well, we now know what the bottom of that slope looks like. That's next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And in a world where the left has been telling us that silence is violence

and that words are in fact violence against people. It makes sense that the Liberal government would put forth Bill C-63, the online harms act, that essentially tries to, doesn't try to, it makes illegal certain types of content that people post on social media. And the conservatives have been warning against this, saying this is a slippery slope that can lead to some pretty unjust, ridiculous, unfair, and dystopian results. And if anybody wants to see what that dystopian result

looks like, look no further than Germany, where they are prosecuting online trolls and in an effort to quote, combat online hate speech. Let's listen to sort of a typical reaction when the police show up in Germany. What's the typical reaction when the police show up at somebody's door and they say, hey, we believe you wrote this on the internet?

They say, in Germany we say, hey, we believe you wrote this on the Internet. They say, in Germany we say, that's what we're supposed to say. So we are here with crimes of talking, posting on Internet and the people are surprised that this is really illegal to post these kind of words. They don't think it was illegal? No, they don't think it was illegal. And they say, no, that's my free speech.

And we say, no, yeah, free speech as well, but it also has its limits. Well, yes, free speech, of course, has limits. But let's just listen to a little more, and then we'll discuss. Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes. Yes, it is. And it's a crime to insult them online as well?

Yes. The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the internet. Why? Because in internet, it stays there. If we are talking face to face, you insult me, I insult you, OK, finish. But if you're in the internet, if I insult you or a

politician. That sticks around forever. Yeah. The prosecutors explain German law also prohibits the spread of malicious gossip, violent threats and fake quotes. If somebody posts something that's not true and then somebody else reposts it or likes it, are they committing a crime? In the case of reposting, it is a crime as well, because the reader can't distinguish whether you just invented this or just reposted it. That's the same for us.

Okay, on its face, it's ridiculous. You're never going to hear me tell you that online discourse is gentlemanly or respectful. It's a cesspool and it's disgusting. And you have to know how to govern yourself. You have to know how to protect yourself. But it is what it is. But when that ridiculous notion of it being illegal to insult somebody online is put into practice, you have what happened in 2022 in Germany, when a young woman was gang raped,

and the mother of the victim insulted one of the gang rapists, and she got more time in jail than the rapist. You can go Google that, it's a fact. That's the ridiculous world that is being created by legislation like this. So I put it to our listeners at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK and tell me,

what do you make of this? And where do you draw the line? Because one thing they don't do in this discussion with 60 Minutes is explain what constitutes a quote unquote insult online. What is an insult? Because what is an insult to somebody is factual to another. And again, I'm not defending online trolls.

I think the world would be better if they didn't exist. And frankly, I believe that from the comfort of the anonymity of their mother's basement, these trolls, if they were forced to say in person what they say anonymously, they would not have the cojones to do it. They just wouldn't. They are emboldened by the fact that they do not have to confront the person

and look that person in the eyes. And it gives them comfort because their lives are miserable. And so, but that doesn't mean that we have to take it to the extreme that we see in Germany that that that we are running the risk of of of making reality in Canada. David, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. How you doing? I'm well, thank you. Great to get a chance to talk to you. Thank you. Love your work. And I appreciate your father as a great politician here in Canada as well. Thank you so much.

And I just want to say you either have free speech or you don't. So I'm a Gen X kid, you know, grew up in the 70s and 80s and it was, you know, and it was pretty easy to explain to me, free speech is that everyone has a right to express themselves. And if you have true free speech, if you have truth, free speech, then you have to be able to aggressively defend those who speak the words that would just hire you and make you want to, you know, whatever, like you either have free speech, you don't. If you start, it started small, but they keep expanding how much they restrict it. Well, listen, and David, and I appreciate what you're saying

and let's keep this conversation going. There's a great line from a movie called The American President, where the president stands up at the podium and says, if you believe in free speech, then you believe that the symbol of America isn't just the American flag, but it is also the free expression of somebody to burn that flag in protest. He said, if you can appreciate that both of those things

are truly American, then you understand what it means to defend sort of the notion of being American. It's a complex idea with colliding ideas that you should embrace, but also that should repel you at the same time. And so so I understand that but I do believe David and you tell me what you think we're living in an era now where there is for example there is a mass there's a growing mass and mobilized group of people who are more than willing to create false narratives and create false realities because there's so many of them just spewing nonsense that the holocaust never happened, that Israel has

no right to exist, that there were no murders and rapes and burnings of babies on October 7th. When you have enough people saying it, you create a false reality and we have to have checks and balances against that sort of toxic behavior. What do you say to that? Well, that's true. But then you have the other side where you can't even say if a boy is a boy or a girl

is a girl anymore. And you're you're warping the sense of the true reality by limiting the speech that's allowed to be have. Oh, you're absolutely right. David, you're you're you could. And if you can get someone to believe that blue is, is, is black, that the sky is up and the ground is, you know, like if you could believe that,

if you could be able to believe that the reality isn't a reality, you basically don't have the power to get them to believe whatever you want. Yeah, no, you're right. Hey, question the reality that's around them. It makes it so much easier to pull the wool over their eyes. David, thank you so much for your call. And he makes a good point, like, asking this, a simple question about gender ideology, you're immediately tarred and feathered in the public square as a transphobe, that is nonsense.

It is BS. I do not subscribe to that. I don't subscribe to not have being able to have good faith conversations on any issue. But the question is, is it a good faith conversation? Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious, his escapes defy belief, and when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it. His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt, but how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel? I'm Seren Jones, and this is a most audacious heist.

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