The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben speaks with Premier David Eby about navigating Donald Trump's rhetoric

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -David Eby among premiers heading to Washington to tamp down Trump tariff threat with Guest: David Eby, Premier of British Columbia -What Liberals must do to regain Canadians' support with Guest: Anthony Housefather, Liberal MP for Mount Royal  -What Liberals must do to regain Canadians' support with Guest: Yvan Baker, Liberal MP for Etobicoke Centre -Apple defends Siri against privacy concerns after $95M settlement with Guest: Francis Syms, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology at Humber Polytechnic 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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Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing. Conditions apply, offer ends January 31st, 2025. Visit td.com slash dioffer to learn more. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining us and it is my great pleasure and honor to welcome the British Columbia Premier, David Eby,

to the show. Thank you so much for being here, Mr. Premier the British Columbia Premier, David A.B. to the show. Thank you so much for being here, Mr. Premier. Hi, Ben. Thanks for having me. So you've got a, you've had a busy few months coming off an election victory and now into the fray as it relates to our relationship with Donald Trump. You're going to be going down to visit him in short order. Talk to me a bit about that trip and what are your goals?

Yeah, I mean, a really good example of sort of your best laid plans during an election about what you're going to do in that event, catching up with it. A lot of British Columbian families are really anxious about what these tariffs could mean for them, loss of employment, a lot of businesses concerned about loss of business. And I hope there's a growing awareness among Americans about the impact it's gonna have on them, higher fuel and home prices and loss of employment south of the border as well with higher input costs. So when you put all that together,

it's really important for us to get down to the US and talk face to face with decision makers, including people close to the president-elect, but also all of the governors that have businesses in their states where they're dependent on Canadian input. So from BC, things like electricity, natural gas, lumber, critical minerals, critical minerals that China just restricted to the US that you can only get from British Columbia if you're not getting them from China.

So bringing that message down there face to face is our goal and a unified front among all the premiers despite political differences is going to be really important. I'd love to get your take on the health of the relationship between our country's premiers and our federal government because there was this hope early on in this tariff with this tariff threat looming that everyone would be rowing in the same direction.

And it does feel from my perspective, like there has been an absence of real meaningful leadership in Ottawa and therefore the vacuum has been filled by voices like Danielle Smith out of Alberta, Doug Ford out of Ontario. What's your assessment? Yeah. Smith out of Alberta, Doug Ford out of Ontario. What's your assessment? Yeah, I mean, the relationship has been strained. And unfortunately, so there have been many, many requests from the premieres for the prime minister to have a first minister's meeting on a whole array of different issues. And we've really struggled to connect over the years, even before my time as

premier, and was a source of frustration for Premier Horgan before me. And I think, you know, that there are a couple pieces that come up in terms of the current state of affairs in Ottawa, and, and the state of the relationship between the premiers. First of all, the leadership on this piece is clearly coming from the premiers. We're stable, we're unified, we have different political perspectives, but we're using that to leverage different contacts in the United States. And we're providing the consistency at a time of instability in Ottawa. With that said, there's a critical role that remains for the federal government here. Well, yeah, I mean, you premiers are working very well together. I have never seen unity like this amongst premiers in all of my time paying attention to politics.

We've seen real leadership from Danielle Smith putting forth a border security plan in whatever way a provincial government can. That was followed quite quickly by Doug Ford as well. What are, what do you feel your responsibility is as provincial leader as it relates to picking up, picking up the mantle on border security? Well, there's, there's a couple of pieces for us. I mean, we've been pushing the feds for a while on border security, unrelated to this terror threat. We've got a big opioid issue, obviously, in British Columbia.

It's washing across the country. And what we're seeing is precursor chemicals shipped in from Mexico and from China into British Columbia, which are then used to prepare drugs that are coming in through the port. The absence of port police, the fact that so few containers are inspected, the delays of Health Canada in responding

to the different versions of the chemicals. So that's our concern in Quebec and Ontario, the focus obviously on migrants, people arriving at airports, crossing at Roxham Road and other issues like that. It's been front and center. So for us, we've been doing our part around the different companies that are operating across the border, transparency around ownership, making sure the information is available for border police as well as for RCMP,

the international links between the money laundering that's been taking place to facilitate this. But I refuse and I've been very clear to take over responsibility for the border in the way that Danielle Smith and Doug Ford have been more willing to do. We take over a lot of federal responsibilities here in BC. We can't get the police that we need for the province, let alone for the border. And so pushing hard for Ottawa to really step up and assume responsibility for such an obvious federal job

of securing the border. And we'll be there to back them up as needed. Yesterday, you tweeted, our world-class BC wildfire service reached out to California Fire, California's fire response service. BC will offer any assistance we can to the people of LA as they face these challenging fires. We will always stand with our American neighbors when they are in need. So you've reached out. Have you heard back from them? Are they put in an ask? Yeah, a couple of days ago, we reached out to Cal Fire and we had a

meeting with them yesterday. They're asking for personnel from us, which we're happy to provide. I mean, it's kind of a, it's a, it's a bragging point for BC that we have a world-class fire service, but of course it's also obviously sort of terrifying and awful thing that we do because it's been in response to some really catastrophic fires here in the province due to climate change. And so I've got to ask, I've got to ask Mr. Premier, to me, nobody wants to see the tragedy unfolding as it is in California. It is absolutely heartbreaking. But Canada has, I think, valiantly and courageously and nobly stepped up to the plate to say, we are ready to help, much like we did after 9-11. And I wonder

in on the eve of your trip to the United States. I wonder whether there's an opportunity here to use this, not use the tragedy, but use our response to it, to remind the Americans that we are good neighbors. Yeah, absolutely. You're 100% right on that. I remember the airplanes landing in Newfoundland. I remember the work that we did cross border around 9-11.

And I know that this is the nature of our relationship back and forth. And in fact, when we had catastrophic fires in BC, we had California firefighters, we had other firefighters from the US coming up to help us out. When there's flooding, we have cross border flooding protocols to support each other. Here in British Columbia with Washington state, you know, it's just so vital that we have a good and active friendship and partnership given our shared interests. And we support each other like family and friends,

which is what we do. Which is why it's so bizarre that the approach of the incoming administration has been to belittle and pick fights. And so we're hopeful that this is temporary and that people recognize the importance of this relationship and what better example than what's happening right now in California. I am speaking with David Eby, the 37th premier of British Columbia, his first time on the

Ben Mulroney show. I hope it's not his last. You've just came out of a very hard fought victory in your provincial election against a newly resurgent conservative party. And at one point in time, we didn't know which way it was going to go. It fell in your favor. But I'm reading of accusations of voting irregularities in one seat that could have swung the election in the other way. What is your take on these accusations? Yeah, I mean, I guess my short version is it's a bit embarrassing to watch.

It's the allegations. There's really nothing new to see that during the election, Mr. Rustad said that he believed the election was rigged. Now he says, of course, because he lost in the only seat there in Surrey, that's just the one where he found the irregularities happens to be the one that was close and it happens to be the one that he would need to, to push us into a minority government situation. It's, it's, it's a bit sad, frankly. And I, you know, if there's anything there, elections BC and the courts will find it. I know that he won't put his party's name or his own name on this complaint, which tells you all you need to know about it. And lastly, I'm going

to leave the last minute to you and ask you what, in your opinion, as the leader of British Columbia, are the biggest challenges facing your province this coming year? Well, the immediate and the most obvious is what we've been talking about then. It's the tariffs, the impact to our GDP in the province, but more importantly, the impact to families

in our province will be profound and quite devastating, but nothing compared to the impacts in Ontario and Quebec, and we're also dependent on our relationships with those provinces as part of the Federation. So that's front and center. And then, and then beyond that, we're really focused on economic growth, on creating good high quality jobs for British Columbians and supporting them with the cost of living crisis that they're facing everything

from housing to groceries. That's an international issue right now. And we're going to remain laser focused on that for them, as well as high quality services like education, health care. So we'll be focused on those tariffs, but it's all part of a larger economic agenda that we're driving here. David Eby, Premier of British Columbia. Thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulroney Show and have a terrific weekend. Yeah, you bet. Ben, thanks for having me. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us on this Friday. Hey, wanted to let you know, in case you don't know,

we have an opinion line. You can reach us anytime at 1-833-724-1811. That's 1-833-724-1811. We wanna know who you are, where you're calling from, and why you're calling. You may want to say something positive. You may wanna say something negative. But if it's fun, exciting, and it catches our attention,

then there's a very real chance that we will play it on the radio because we want you to be part of the Ben Mulroney show with us. Leadership races are always an opportunity for parties to reevaluate, reset, reengage, sometimes reinvent who they are in the eyes of the people. in the eyes of the people. And the liberal brand is not what it used to be, but two party faithful who have been sitting in the Trudeau government for years, believe that it can be restored. And that's why I'm very pleased to welcome

to the show Anthony Housefather and Yvonne Baker, who've penned an op-ed in the National Post called What Liberals Must Do to Regain Canadian Support. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks for having me with you, Ben. Anthony, let's start with you. It's great to talk to you.

When I read this, I gotta say, I mean, it's refreshing. I think there are a lot of kind of older, old school liberals who read this and say, yeah, that's what the party used to be. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, I first proudly cast my vote, Ben, for Gary Weiner, who ran for your dad, you know, a progressive conservative. And then I joined the Liberal Party and I was uh... you know a very please crack yeah liberal a marten liberal

uh... the and and i think this brings a liberal party back to the center i i think in in the past both parties used to be pretty centrist and and their policies were pretty close together and now i think for many canadians uh... the poly of conservatives have drifted far to the right the true to liberals went to far to the left over the last few years. And Yvonne and I sort of are looking at what are the policies that we believe

will bring us back to the center, focusing on the areas where we think our party should change. Yvonne, we're gonna drill down into sort of the meat of this op-ed in just a minute. But I wanna ask you a personal question. I mean, it feels to me like you and Anthony are of, want the party to go back to the way things used to be in a lot of ways.

When you joined up and signed up to run as a candidate under Justin Trudeau, did you think the party was going to become what it is today? That's a good question. When I signed up, Ben, I signed up primarily because I wanted to just make a difference for people in my community in Etobicoke Center for Canadians. And I felt that there was room in the Liberal Party. There always has been. I think there was when I joined and when I ran for office for a broad range of perspectives.

But I do agree with Anthony that over time, the Liberal Party, at least recently, has moved too far to the left. I think Anthony and I are advocating for a whole series of priorities and changes that we think would move the party back to the center for a couple of reasons. First off, because that's where we believe Canadians are. That's where we believe Canadians would like to see from the Liberal Party, but also because we believe, and I think many Canadians believe that these approaches, these pragmatic, centrist approaches would be the best way of tackling the issues that matter most to Canadians. It's the best way of helping to address the problems of the Canadian state. So it's in the best interest of the country.

Well, let's look at some of the bullet points that you highlight. The first is unapologetically showing pride in being Canadian. Now, Anthony, with respect, that was a drum that was being beat by Pierre Poliev just yesterday. I know, it was almost like he read Yvonne in my opinion piece in the national post in the morning. I listened to him and it seemed like he was taking

various parts from the opinion piece, but I believe that one of the things i envy often in american neighbors at the end of that pride in being american and while they're certainly flaws in our history like in every nation's history we're in the meeting country uh... where people from around the world have gathered together to come here because we offer opportunities that nobody else can offer to them and we all are our history has been great. We we we we

crossed the pond in World War One, World War Two, help save civilization for democracy. There's so much to be proud of to be Canadian. And and I think that we want to get back to an unabashed pride in being Canadian. Yvonne, when I look at let's just go through the bullet points quickly unapologetically showing pride in being Canadian, focusing on growing our trade relationships, prioritizing economic growth,

protecting and strengthening the services Canadians value, strengthening fiscal responsibility, ensuring fairness in the taxes we pay, keeping Canadians safe, restoring integrity to our immigration system, protecting Canada's Jewish community, and implementing a principled to pragmatic foreign policy, securing our borders, meeting NATO targets and strengthening our military,

disagreeing without being disagreeable. One could look at that and say these aren't tweaks to the Liberal Party. This is on almost every one of those. You could make an argument, and I think a fair argument, that you're asking for a complete about face on on policies on initiatives, and just the general the general thrust and mission of the Liberal Party over the last nine years. And if that case is made, then you could also go one step further and say, by by stating these things, gentlemen, you could be saying the last nine years have been a mistake. Look, I mean, I will say Ben, that I think what we're advocating is for some changes. you could be saying the last nine years have been a mistake. Look, I mean, I will say Ben that I think what we're advocating is for some changes. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't allude to it as an about face. I think when you look at what we've those topics

that you just listed, many of these things, the liberal government has been working on and has delivered results on and in many of these cases, we're advocating for a greater emphasis on those topics. So economic growth would be one of those and keeping Canadian states would be one of those. Restoring integrity to our immigration system. These are examples of areas where we've made recommendations for greater emphasis and more change but these are areas where the government has been working and some of them we're advocating for for things that that are more significant change but I would say that these are all consistent with liberal values. When I think of liberal values, I think about people and Canadians who support

equal access to opportunity, access to key services like health care and others, people care about protecting the environment, supporting the most vulnerable. But what we're also advocating for is just a greater emphasis on the things that we believe would improve the lives of Canadians and frankly would appeal to the vast majority of Canadians who believe we need to move more to the center. And that includes things like prioritizing our economic growth and making sure that we're being more fiscally responsible

and ensuring that Canadians are safe and things like that. Anthony, if we're just looking at these in broad strokes and you do drill down and get into some specifics bullet point by bullet point. But again, I could make the argument if we had a lot of time that these bullet points could just as easily find a home, most of them find a home, in the Conservative Party of Canada. Well, I think disagreeing without being disagreeable probably wouldn't right now. But yeah, I mean, look, look, I think that both parties really, you know, again, historically have tried to be centrist parties with the conservatives more in the center, right?

The liberals more in the center left, but both trying to appeal on a crossover basis to each other's voters. And I think both parties have moved away from that. And I think Yvonne and I are pushing for us to move back into that space where if you're a center left or center right voter you would feel comfortable with these points and remember i like been first of all if we we we are a broad coalition so what were arguing for are not things that you want and i have not argued for in caucus and have not argued for in other forums publicly or privately over the last many years

uh... this is a chance leadership contest or a chance for a party to redefine themselves uh... that you know that our first chance since two thousand thirteen uh... i mean and i think we're pushing all the leadership candidate to look at what we're proposing hoping that they will advocate for these policies and the can will actually see, as opposed to liberals just getting rid of an unpopular leader,

that the Liberal Party is actually offering a version of change. And we of course want that version of change to be the one that's more in line with where we are. Yvonne, I only have a little bit of time left. So I'm gonna ask this question first. And if we have time, I'll get a follow-up in. But yes or no answer to this question,

should the next leader of the Liberal Party in order to distance themselves from a legacy that requires some renovation ditch the carbon tax? Look, I think we need to revisit all our policies. So I think and that's including that one. Anthony Housefather, yes or no? Yeah, same answer. I think at this point, whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, Canadians have been convinced that the carbon tax needs to be revised. Anthony Housefather, Yvonne Baker have written an op-ed,

What Liberals Must Do to Regain Canadians' Support. I think it's a great read. It's a good think piece. And what you do with it next will be very interesting. So thank you to both of you and I hope you have a great weekend. You too Ben, thanks so much. A lot of stories coming out of the world of technology today so who better to talk with than Francis Sims, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Applied Science and Technology at Humber Polytechnic.

Francis, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on, Ben. It's always great to be with you. All right, let's talk about Elon Musk. Let's talk about sort of what I think is a benevolent move by SpaceX to turn on satellite texting for everyone who uses the T-Mobile network in Los Angeles, because apparently I guess the cell phone towers are all destroyed and it's really hard for people to communicate. Yeah, so Elon Musk has been making a habit

around deploying satellites. And as of the end of last year has 320 or so satellites that can serve as cell phone towers in space. They're low orbit satellites. Now for a while, Apple has allowed users in an emergency situation to be able to communicate via satellite if something happened. It only worked with the with the Apple products. But now what what Elon Musk has done is started doing partnerships with telecom providers across the world and in fact in Canada Rogers is one of those providers

allowing people that have cell phones that have LTE, every phone has LTE now, any phone, Apple, whatever Samsung to be able to communicate directly to the satellite in space. Right now what he's done this beloved move is to allow people in Los Angeles, which are, you know, going through a terrible situation to be able to communicate directly with the satellite, you know, text 911, text each other all through SMS, and for free for no charge. Yeah, I think it's a great move by him. He did something similar in the war in Ukraine as well.

And I think whether I heard a story once where there was a, I think there was a warlord somewhere who had a Tesla and he just had it bricked remotely. Sure, there was a Chechen warlord somewhere who had a Tesla and he just had it bricked remotely. Sure, there was a Chechen warlord who had mounted a weapon to his truck and started saying that he had, you know, saying Elon Musk had given them the truck for free. And they had a bit back and forth and then he just shut it off. Listen, it speaks to the power that he has, which could be used for good or ill. It just so happens that the three stories we're highlighting

are for good. And we can have a conversation another time about whether he has too much power. But I you know, I think I think it's Friday, we should we should have some good news stories. And this one, I believe, rises to that level. And you know, for Elon Musk, from his company's perspective, this is prototyping and testing, he just turned on this service towards the end of last year. He basically got approval from the government in the United States. He's working through Rogers to get approval in Canada.

And by the end of this year, you could see a situation where you buy your cell phone plan, but say you're in the country, you pay an extra $10 or $20 a month, and that allows you to communicate through the satellite if you need to. Maybe you're out woods camping, backwoods camping. So this is a beloved move, but it's also a testing ground for Elon Musk. Well, let's talk about another company that is pervasive and everywhere,

and people love it and depend on it, but maybe they might've gone a little too far. Apple has defended Siri against privacy concerns. They settled a lawsuit for $95 million. Yeah, Apple's in the business of settling these lawsuits without actually, you know, taking responsibility, right? Of course, this happened a few years ago in Canada, when there was that lawsuit about them, people claiming that they slow down iPhones, right? So that people were forced to buy the new one. In this situation, there's a lawsuit that people, people say that Apple was listening to them via Siri all the time. And then

they started seeing ads pop up on their screen about some product that they didn't need or something about a surgery that was up and coming. And they had a conversation with a doctor. Apple said, you know, we never shared your information with third party providers. But the bottom line is things like Siri and Alexa are listening to you all the time. Yeah. Right. What recording and sending it off, you know, we can argue about that. But in order for them to hear you say, Hey, Siri or Hey, Alexa, it needs to be on 24 seven. And I think Apple wanted to settle this and put it to bed because they're promoting this Apple intelligence. And so now, you know,

even more than ever, they're listening to you and they're trying to reframe what you're saying throughout the day and trying to feed it back to you later. Right. So, so it's, it's a big deal. If this went the other way, um, it's a big deal, but the lawsuit was $95 million. Yeah, $95 million. But that's, that's not even change that Apple finds in the couch. It's, they're worth multiple trillions of dollars.

This is 95 million. That doesn't make a dent. Yeah, this is spare change for them. Yeah. Oh, no, it's less than spare change. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it's pennies. Remember how we used to, they became so worthless. The people were literally throwing out their pennies. That's what this is to them.

I'm speaking with Francis Sims, the associate dean in the faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology at Humber Polytechnic. We're talking tech and you just brought up AI. That's the next generation of Apple products, Apple intelligence. And apparently, tell me what's going on here in terms of inaccurate AI news alerts? Yeah, so if you have an Apple product or Google product, you probably have some news app that runs on that. And throughout the day, you might get some notification, like Trudeau appeared on CNN, you know, defending Canada and saying we're not going to, we're not going to be the 51st force state, you'll get these notifications all the all the time, we might get notifications about,

you know, about your emails to somebody, your boss sent you an email. What Apple is now doing with Apple intelligence is they're summarizing those, right? And they're basically taking, instead of like the subject line, which may be like 30 words or 10 words, they're compressing it into two or three words, and they're putting a comma beside it, and then putting the next thing that they compress. And the problem is that they're getting it wrong. At one point, Apple said that Netanyahu died, right, and and something else happened. And it was like three, three words in a line of everything that they

grouped together, because the idea is they want you to be able to look at your phone and maybe in 20 words or less, get a sense of the things that are happening in the world that you care about. But they're getting it wrong. It's hallucinating. Francis Sims, thank you so much for the chat. I hope you have a great weekend. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Ben, for having me on. So we were just talking about Elon Musk and what I think is a benevolent move by him to open up the Starlink satellite so that if you're on the T-Mobile network you can text in Los Angeles which right now has very terrible coverage. I think it was a great idea. But when Pierre Poliev

yesterday was in front of reporters they asked him about whether or not he thought it was a good or bad thing that Elon Musk was constantly name checking him on X and here's what he had to say. It would be nice if we could convince Mr. Musk to open some of his factories here in Canada, create some jobs, high-paying jobs for our people. I think Tesla, his company, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest automotive company in the world. Wouldn't it be nice if we were producing more without corporate welfare, without corporate subsidies, like the Liberals favour? We had more of that production here

in Canada. I think that would be fantastic. So if I ever get a chance to meet Mr. Musk, what I would say is, how do we make this an economy where we bring home hundreds of billions of dollars of investment to Canada so that our people get the paychecks? Yeah and you know it was um I thought it was a really good pivot because the question you know I don't know that there was any ill intent behind it but I think the the implication of it was that Elon is somehow a big bad guy. And if he likes you, are you a big bad guy by extension? And he was able to pivot his way out of that

and actually come up with what I think was would have been a more interesting question to ask him. Right? And I mean, what are you gonna do with this respect that you have from Elon Musk? Well, if he respects me, then I'll ask him to start building factories up here and bring home a massive investment for the people of Canada.

I thought that was a very, very good answer to the question. He, you know, Pierre really did lay out what I thought was quite an interesting, an ambitious view of what Canada could look like under a Pierre Poli of government. And that was an example of it. But this idea that Elon Musk somehow name checking him is a bad thing, I don't think that's the case. Thank you.