The Ben Mulroney Show - Ben's mailbag, Is it BS or is Real?, and the outrage over the colour of the year

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

GUEST:  DR. EVAN FRASER / Co-Author of “Canada’s Food Price Report” If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights,

festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is best. back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide, with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney Show, and you are listening to the Ben Mulroney show, And look, we like to tell you that we like to find you where you are. And a lot of the places where you are, there is the option to communicate with us with comment sections, right?

On Instagram, on Twitter. I think we're on TikTok too. I think I noticed that yesterday. I don't know. I'm not on TikTok personally. But people can comment and they can let us know their thoughts. They send us emails. They send us texts.

And we figured a few weeks ago, let's start mining those comment sections. for your opinions on the show, your thoughts, and we want to share them with the audience. So time now for what we'd like to call the Ben Mulroney Show Mailbag. Do-wop, do-up. Welcome friends to play and sing. This is Reply all the Ben-Moruny mailbag.

Yep. And Mike Droulet, my intrepid producer, used AI to write that song, and I can see the smile on his face. He's not here today because he's dealing with the black lung. and so he's but I can see the smile on his face he's so proud of that song

Mike why don't you kick us off with the mailbag well yes how could you not be proud of that song you know we get it's amazing the number of comments we get like this so I just got to start off with this is this one is from

trying to read the name it's from Herman Emil not to drag this off topic but Ben's hair is on point well thank you very much Herman Emile. It's what you're, what I think you're seeing is a proprietary blend of steel and fiberglass. And it's, it takes a good two or three hours every morning to build the, the undergirding of what you see.

And yeah, and it lasts for six weeks before I have to shower again. it pops right on and off like the Lego hair and there we go. That's that's it. It is quite amazing. I always, I kind of liken it to, you know, a beaver pelt.

Yes. It's thick. It's wonderful. So the next one is in response to a couple of serious ones now. The Ryan Wedding story, which is a serious story. The comments, not always serious.

But Ryan Wedding, obviously being the snowboarder, Canadian snowboarder, who is supposedly the next Pablo Escobar, who was one of the biggest drug kingpins of the last century. So there were a bunch of comments in a row on this one, who said, one person sounds like a great movie plot. Yeah, it does.

Can't wait to see Leonardo DiCaprio as Ryan Wedding. Yeah. What do you think? Yeah. And then the last one, another addition to the list of famous people to come from Thunder Bay. Look, I'm going to, if it does in fact become a movie and an American plays Ryan Wedding,

I think Glenn Powell should play him. Glenn Powell? I don't think he's got the beefiness. What? What? He looks like a big guy. He plays a quarterback on Chad Powers. No, I'm saying big guy is in like he's ripped,

but I'm talking about beefy, like a thicker kind of guy. Yeah, well, listen, and by the way, this will be made into a movie. I know it will be because I'm on Amazon Prime right now. I'm watching something called cocaine quarterback and it's a story of a of a USC

third string quarterback who instead when he did who started selling steroids and then he got into drugs like the hard hard drugs and running guns and he was working with the cartels and now he's in prison but the story

is just wild and this story this Ryan wedding story is even wilder so of course this will become a movie at some point. But do you see it becoming a movie if they don't catch them? Yeah. Look, if they don't catch them, then it'll just, the

movie will end with a black screen and just a white font that says, as of today, Ryan Wedding is still in the wind or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But then the producers are... Of course they're going to catch them. They produce the movie and they're halfway through

and then they catch them. They have to rewrite the whole thing. No, no, no. They'll prepare for it either way. We did a story this past week on the BC Teachers Federation, talking about the queering of nature. You can remind people what that is after we listen to this question. So the one person wrote,

I come from a whole family of teachers. And while the classroom has definitely changed over the last 20 years, there's nobody indoctrinating kids. These people barely have time to teach. the regular curriculum because the system is so underfunded. Most of them are buying supplies out of their own pockets dealing with students with severe behavioral challenges, all with zero support and members of the public chiming in at every term. What do you think?

Look, two things can be true at once. The system can be underfunded and you can be indoctrinating children. Look, I know what I read. I know what I read. You cannot tell me that what I read with my eyes and what was processed through my brain, did not, the conclusion was not indoctrination. The queering of nature is not education because it's, first of all, it's a fallacy. You're taking kids out into the natural world and rather than showing them what is actually there, you're filtering it through a political lens. That is indoctrination.

So don't tell me that's not what it is. By the way, I want to say to this person who comes from a long line of teachers, thank you for what you do for our kids. But I'm telling you, look, what I think this teacher tried to do here was take what is clearly a misstep by the BC teachers and turn it into some sort of attack on the government for not funding them properly. No, no, no, no. You don't get to do that. Your union messed up. Your union messed up. And everyone saw it. And I'm glad that I was one of the people to show it to them. But I'm sorry. I'm not. don't talk to me like I'm an idiot and you sir or ma'am are trying to talk to me like I'm an idiot and we have seen in the school boards across the country similar things like this going on I mean we've seen it with our own kids we've seen

how they've tried to bring a lot of this ideology into the classrooms which is you know if that's the way somebody wants to live fine but this is we're not teaching religion school we saw it we saw it in we saw it in in in Ontario when a school took a bunch of young kids to a First Nations protest without asking the parents. Like, that was insane. Don't tell me that that is normal.

Don't tell me that that is the normal course of affairs. And don't tell me that taking kids out into the forest and say, you see that cloud up there? You see how it moves around? Well, that's like sexuality. That's like gender. It can be anything. Transformation.

Yeah, no, no, no. Like I said, don't, don't. And what's the other thing? I said, don't, I said, don't piss on my shoulder and tell me it's raining. Okay, I don't. That's not, that's, that's, that doesn't work anymore. It worked once. It worked once. Yeah, of course. I got to put my slicker on. Yeah. Okay. I, I titled this one, where did this come from? This, this message came out of left field. Also, you're still my favorite Spider-Man character. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what that means. I saw that and I don't know what it means. Do I look like a Spider-Man character? Was I, I mean, I, that was on, that was, I was, I was wearing a green puffer vest. And I wonder whether he thought I looked like Doc Ock? No, were you in one of the Spider-Man movies? No, no, I was in Fantastic Four.

Okay, see, that's what Amy said, and Amy thought you were in. But maybe, she thought you were in a Spider-Man. No, no, no, I was in, I was in, I was in Fantastic Four. The first Fantastic Four, not the good new one, but the bad old one. There was two bad old ones. Yes, yes. And the first one was terrible, and the second one was even worse. But, yeah, I played myself.

I was dating a woman at the time who was a publicist for 20th Century Fox. And the director of the movie, there was a press, there was a press event. And this was when the Fantastic Four introduced themselves. And they needed another member of the press to say something. And because it was in Canada, and I was a member of Actra, they gave me a line, which I wrote myself. And the line was, does it hurt to stretch? And I didn't get a writing credit, though.

Anyway, I think we got time for one last one, very quick. Okay. This is one on the Dan Julian segment, who is a doctor, not a doctor, but a nurse practitioner who works on people's cosmetic surgery stuff. He does, we're talking about Bradley Cooper, and people said, oh, he looked, talking about Bradley Cooper, he looked better before, I didn't think he was aging badly, why the facelift, it looks worse. Yeah.

He looks like Barry Manelow, somebody said. Well, somebody said, like, he's dating a very young woman, G.G. Hadid. And apparently some people are suggesting this is what happens when 50-plus-year-olds start dating 20-somethings. They start chasing youth in a way that makes them look the way Bradley Cooper does now. All right. Up next, how will Mike Drolle, who's working remotely gloat if he wins this week's, is it BS or is it real? At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're people just like you who believe in the power of yes. Yes to new opportunities.

Yes to second chances. Yes to a fresh start. That's why we've helped over 4 million Canadians get access to a credit card. Because at Capital One, we say yes, so you don't have to hear another no. What will you do with your yes? Get the yes you've been waiting for at Capital One.ca.ca. slash yes. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to the Ben Moor Rooney Show, and it's that time of the week where my

producer takes things way too seriously. It's a game we've been playing for a very long time called Is It BS or Is It Real where Mike Droulet tries to stump me on stories that he is either picked out of the headlines or made up out of whole cloth. And it's a lot of fun. The show starts. The segment starts with some spices. language so if you don't like that sort of language turn off the the radio or or walk away from whatever speaker you're listening on for a moment and then come on back uh it well and with that let's start is it BS or is it real see now that's a bullshit this is bullshit man this is some bullshit you want answers I think I'm entitled you want answers I want the truth you can't handle

the true. You are fake news. All right. So Dave Bradley from the 640 Toronto Newsroom sounds a heck of a lot more official than I or anybody else. So he's in charge and has been entrusted with reading these stories, real and fake. And then I have to determine what's

what. So on that note, Dave Bradley, please take it away. FIFA is facing sharp criticism ahead of today's World Cup draw in Washington after it emerged that the new FIFA Peace Prize is being overseen by Zaza, a Myanmar tycoon and long-time head of the country's Football Federation, who's been accused of aiding ethnic cleansing and other war crimes. FIFA President Gianni Infantino is expected to announce the inaugural Peace Prize winner, likely U.S. President Donald Trump, while questions grow about why the organization chose Zazaa back in October of 2025 to lead the committee that will show.

shape how future laureates are selected. Hmm. Okay. I've never heard this, but just because I haven't heard it doesn't mean it's, it didn't happen or it's not true. I don't know if this Zazaa person is real. I don't know if any of this is real. So because I have no perspective at all, I have nothing to tether me to any sort of reality

or truth, I'm just going to take a stab here, Mike Drolet, and I'm going to say that it's, I'm going to say that it's real. Zaza? A similar event did take place. Booyah! Come on. Zaza, you believe that? I didn't believe that. No, it was so out there, and it's, look, it's

FIFA, man. Like, they got to, it's, I don't, it's a whole other world for me, so sure, why not? All right, look at that. Look at that. Oh, I'm already ahead. Just like last week or two weeks ago, in the week before that, and I think, no. I won two

weeks ago. I don't recall. No, of course you don't recall. I don't recall that. All right, number two. Children's content creator, Miss Rachel. Legally, Rachel Akerso, has been named a top 10 finalist for Stop Anti-Semitism's Anti-Semite of the Year award. The group accuses her of spreading Hamas propaganda and inflated casualty claims during the Gaza war. While she rejects the label, she says she advocates for children's well-being. Her critics say standing up for starving children is not anti-Semitic. It's all the other stuff. Other nominees include Tucker Carlson and Cynthia Nixon.

Okay, so I did, I know that Tucker Carlson, Cynthia Nixon should be on that list. This Ms. Rachel person, I don't know who they are, but I did hear something about a YouTuber or something like a child. So I'm going to say it's real. It's fact. There we go. she's super chippy and like in happy and then she says this stuff that you're like what the heck yeah i look at that uh jeez uh children you're just guessing i'm not guess but that's the whole point that's the whole point of the game it's a look oh are you are you suggesting i'm supposed to come

in here knowing for sure which ones are real and which ones aren't i want some critical thinking here you should have said no to both of those oh i should have i see okay i apologize what See what we will do. Dave Bradley will read the next one. Then I'll ask you what I should say, and then I'll say that. Oh, but that could be throwing you a curveball as well. All right, go ahead. All right, number three.

Number three, please, Dave Bradley. Columbia Sportswear has taken a humorous jab at flat earthers in a new ad. CEO Tim Boyle declaring that anyone who can photograph the literal edge of the earth can claim the company LLC and its 100. thousand dollars in office assets that includes clothing samples a copy machine a stuffed deerhead even a decommissioned gondola the actual columbia brand is worth around three billion dollars the ad filled with the boyle family's trademark deadpan humor ends with boyle's playful pitch if you're going to the edge of the earth wear columbia um so i i like this story i like this i remember a

story, there were these flat earthers that wanted to prove that the earth was flat. And so they positioned like a laser about a mile away from a board with a hole in it. And if the world was flat, the laser would have gone right through the hole. And it didn't because the world is round and there's curvature there. And they discovered it in real time. And watching them try to wrap their head around that was impressive. So I like the fact that this guy, I want to live in a world where this guy is taking shots at the Flat Earthers, so I'm going to say it's real. It happened. This one took place.

Oh, oh, sorry, one, one, one, two, three in a row. Oh, you can count. Great. Yeah, yeah, I can count and I can win. I can do both those things. All right. This is terrible. Let's move on to story number four.

The Perfect Bean is a Richmond, Virginia Cat Cafe. It's temporarily closed after a major, major, flooding incident that was caused by a cat named roller. It reportedly dragged a towel into a running sink, blocking the drain and sending water pouring from the upstairs lounge into the cafe below. The cafe's owners found the cats holding onto cushions that were floating in nearly a foot of water. All cats are safe and are being housed by former fosters, while repairs expected to keep the cafe closed for the rest of the year are underway. Okay, so I'm not a fan of cats. I think think the perfect bean, a P-U-R-R-R-Fect Bean, is a terrible name. It's a cafe I would never go into.

As far as I'm concerned, all cat cafes should be closed. But I think Mike Droulet was banking on my hatred of cats to cloud my analysis. And he wanted me to say it's real. He wanted me to jump on board with this. Yes. Damn the cats. Damn the cats for doing what they did. I'm going to say it's fake. It's BS. Is it possible this story is true? Yes it is. Oh, you're right. I see it. I thought you were going the other way on that. I thought you were going to say it was real. I thought I thought you were trying to, you were trying to cajole me. You were trying to get me to lean into my anti-cat bias. Well, I was as well. So maybe it. Yeah. All right. All right. Let's go to story number five.

A San Jose special education teacher who had just moved from Minnesota lost her job after California's teacher credentialing commission mistakenly matched her common last name, Smith, to someone else's 2009 DUI conviction. Now, despite clean fingerprints, the state relied on a soft name-based background check that wrongly flagged her, forcing her to fight through months of bureaucracy while working at reduced pay as an aid and a substitute. The Department of Justice eventually cleared her record in December, confirming the conviction belonged to a different person. But the teacher says the ordeal cost $24,000 in lost wages and severe emotional stress. Jesus. I mean, I could see that happening. You know, I got flagged.

There's a lot of info there, isn't it? Yeah, there's a lot of info there. I got flagged. I was put on a watch list when I was flying years ago because the, the news. name of the person on the watch list, they had accidentally, like, clicked on my name and said the other guy's name that was next to me alphabetically. So for two or three years, I'd get

stopped every time I went across the U.S. border. So I could, I feel for this person. So I'm going to say it's real. A similar event. Oh, look at that. Four and one. I'm calling to put you on the watch list down.

Dave Bradley, thank you very much. Mike Drole. Better luck next week. Oh, look at that. Gosh, you feel so good to win. I mean, I should feel like I should be used to it by now. But thank you very much for that. Lots of fun. And coming up, how much more should you expect to spend on food in the coming year?

Sadly, it's more than you think. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. You know, I don't remember living. I don't remember that the expression food inflation was a thing until recently. You know, inflation is inflation, but food inflation, the rapid rise in prices at the grocery store has been so stark that I guess we gave it its own name. And, you know, it's so even if inflation goes down, food inflation, if it goes up, we have less money to buy. the stuff we need that costs more and more and more. And if we're not making more money, but our food is costing more, that's a problem.

And every one of us hopes that the worst is behind us, that we as a nation can start figuring out how to bring those prices down all while increasing the size and heft of our of our paychecks. However, our next guest is the co-author of Canada's Food Price Report, and he may have some bad news for us. So please welcome Dr. Evan Fraser to the show. Doctor, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Thanks for calling. Okay, so is this, am I right, that we've got some bad news to look forward to in 2026? Yeah, fortunately, I wish I was the bearer of better tidings.

But yeah, so we just put out what's the 16th annual food price report. It's basically a reflection. on what food prices are going to do next year. And yesterday we released our report for 2026. And the deadline, food prices are going to go up between 4% and 6%, which is more than our wages are going to go up. So we're going to fall farther behind. And that means that for an average family of 4, it's about an extra $1,000 out of their budget

that they're going to have to find in order to stay fed. And it's a very tough situation that many, many, many Canadians find themselves in. What is this going to translate into in terms of the raw numbers, how much more we're going to have to spend? Yeah, so, I mean, average family of four, our ballpark estimates are that we will spend approximately $17,000 on food as a family of Ford, which is up about $1,000 from what was the budget last year. But, you know, $1,000 might not seem like a lot of money. It actually is, in my opinion. and we put that in the context of, say, $2,100 for a small one-bedroom apartment in the outskirts of Guelph, which is something that I absolutely know is true, that's a really,

really hard thing for family to swallow. And so the response is poor quality food, less food, skipping meals, and an over-reliance on charities such as food banks to make ends meet. Well, that's right. I mean, the amount of stories that we've done on this show about the chronic use of food banks in in Canada it's uh it's it we have to we have to figure our way back from that because it's an unacceptable status quo um okay so let let's go second segments by segment where where are Canadians going to see the the highest uh rise in price like what what type of food

is going to become more expensive yeah well maybe i'll start with the good news and if you're a frugivore you're going to get off less badly than everybody else so fruit and that fruit products are probably only going to go up one, two, maybe three percent. If you're a carnivore, however, you better take a deep breath because our estimates meat prices will go up between 5 and 7 percent more. So a basket of groceries that is more meat-heavy will set you back significantly more than a basket of groceries, which has got a lot of bananas in it. And what about – let's go region by region, too, because I have to assume – like,

this is – we're speaking generally here, but there are going to be certain provinces are they're going to be affected more than others? Yeah, the estimates that we're making, I should add that this is the model that we use this year is pretty robust. It made very good accurate predictions for this past year. So, you know, a year ago, we made similar projections for 2025, and indeed, those came in really accurately. So I'm pretty confident that the model we're using is fairly accurate.

It's suggesting, you know, Quebec and Alberta, the North P.E.I., they're going to experience the worst food price rises and the other provinces a little bit less. But headline, food prices are going up more than wages are going up. And so Canadians are falling farther behind. All right. Well, I mean, none of this is good news. But, I mean, there's a couple of things that pop out to me that I think we should talk about. Household spent $16,577 on food in 2025, which is slightly less than predicted.

It could be a lot of reasons for that. one of them could be that we just bought less food. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a forensic answer to that question. You're right. What we predicted people would spend this year was a little bit higher than what they did. And so maybe people are cutting back on food, maybe that reliance on food banks, which we know from all the data and all of our connections in the field, is higher than ever before. maybe we're buying poor quality food or going more to discount stores to do the food purchasing. I mean, I think what you've got to realize, or what everyone has to realize is that a household budget has fixed items, mostly rent, and you can't change what your rent is, but you can skimp on food, or you can go to a food bank, or you can buy cheaper quality food.

And that's one area in a household's budget that you do have a little bit of flex, but that is a terrible statement for our country. the health of our country. Yeah, this is, now, look, a couple of years ago, a lot of the blame for the rise in food prices was the carbon tax, right? The argument was, whether it was real or not, but the argument that a lot of people bought was that the cost of gas and to transport everything and was passed on to the consumer. But the consumer carbon tax is gone.

So I think a lot of people were expecting, at least in food inflation to slow. And yet here we are with these huge jumps and $1,000 more for the same groceries next year. I don't know that a lot of people have that $1,000. No, A, they don't. And so we're going to see more reliance on food banks and more food insecurity.

That's the implication of this. So that's the first part. Second part, with regard to the carbon tax, you're right. Food prices were not sensitive to the personal carbon pricing mechanism. food prices rises were a global phenomenon. Jurisdictions all over the world have seen food prices rise. And I think the major culprits are climate change,

which is causing food to be harder and more expensive to produce. The trade war, which is making it more expensive and more challenging to move food across large distances, and issues like the ongoing war in the Ukraine, which is significant because, A, Ukraine is a major producer of food ingredients, and B, Russia was and China were made. major suppliers of the ingredients that went into, say, fertilizers and pesticides. So all of those forces are pushing the price of food up, and they're not related to any

particular domestic policy. In the last couple of minutes we have, let's pivot away from food at the grocery store to food at a restaurant, because restaurants are expected to hike their prices again, which makes sense if the food costs more. They're going to pass that on to us. but restaurants I've had such a tough time since the pandemic things just keep getting worse for them again I said this about the about families

and I'll say it about restaurants I don't know how much more the restaurants can take and another problem doc is Canadians are drinking less alcohol which is where they make their money so this is not this is not good news for restaurants across Canada is it There's nothing I can say that's good news here, I'm afraid. This is a very, very gloomy moment that we find ourselves in terms of the food system. If you take it like a thousand mile view, the food system that we've all enjoyed throughout most of our lives

has been based on cheap energy, good weather, easy trade conditions. And that sort of allowed things to flow along, growing incomes, growing productivity that kept consumers and household spending ahead of food prices. And for the last 50 years, you know, I'm 52, so for the majority of my life, that was true. And ever since the pandemic, maybe go back a couple of years more, perhaps. But ever since the last five or so years, those arguments no longer hold. And consumers are falling behind the things that keep food prices low are going up. And we're entering a new regime that I think we have to acknowledge and plan for.

And the response has to be socialized, or not socialized, public housing or rent control or things that will address the cost of housing, stagnant wages. It's those sort of more social-related issues that you're going to get the issue of food insecurity, going back down again. Well, Dr. Evan Fraser, the co-author of Canada's Food Price Report. It's not great news, but it's information we can use. And the more information we have, the more empowered we are to make changes. So thank you very much.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it. Up next, the color of the year and the outrage that comes along with it. Don't go anywhere. This is The Ben Mulroney Show.

Maybe it's just a phase you're going through. You'll get over it. I can't help you with that. The next appointment is in six months. You're not alone. Finding mental health support shouldn't leave you feeling more lost. At CAMH, we know how frustrating it can be

trying to access care. We're working to build a future where the path to support is clear and every step forward feels like progress, not another wrong turn. Visit camh.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show

and we are going to end this show in style. Mike Droulet, you still there? Hello, my dress. There you're still here. I just had to unmute. Yeah, you had to unmute and you had to pick your pride off the floor, having lost yet again another, another drubbing by Ben Mulrooney in, is it BS or is it real?

I like to look forward. That's it. I like to look forward. Sure, yeah. Why look back at the recent loss when you can look forward? When you can look forward to the next loss. Yes. All right.

So every year, at the end of the year, the Pantone Color Institute names their color of the year, right? And the past couple of years in 2025, the color of the year was mocha moose, a rich chocolatey brown. It's all about comfort and connection. It's a color that embraces calm and balance in a chaotic world, perfectly capturing a global mood of connection and harmony. Pantone 171230 TCX. That's their color. The year before was peach fuzz, a soft inviting orange. Apricot crush brings warmth and optimism, reflecting the world's need for joy and creativity

in a post-pandemic world. So I guess they set the tone for like what people are going to be painting their houses, their rooms in their houses with. I don't know. It's a thing that gets done every year and people take it pretty seriously. And so, I guess, let's listen to the audio of what people hoped the color of this year would be. What do you think the pantone color of the year is going to be for 2026? I feel like it's going to be something dark and moody.

So I'm leaning towards like ocean floor or blue grass. Okay, I know we just had mocha moose, but I am placing my bets on like a warm, caramel-y brown, something like in the honey ginger space. I think there's been so much like warmth and herbie tones and interiors that I just, I want it so bad. Okay, so that's, so people were hoping for something. They didn't get it.

This year, they got something called Cloud Dancer. And Cloud Dancer is another way of saying white. Yes, white. White is the color. Pantone Color Institute says the color of the year is cloud dancer, a billowy, balanced, white imbued with a feeling of serenity. So. Serenity now.

Serenity, Hoochie Mama. Okay. So in a normal world, it would just be Pantone's color of the year, right? That would just be it. But we're not living in a normal world. We're not living in a normal world. Let's listen to a man learning that the color of the year is white.

Pantone, are y'all okay? You mean to tell me in 2026 the color of the year is going to be white? My G, read the room. What does that mean, dude? What does that mean? Well, you know, I think what he's speaking about can be, it was encapsulated in the most CBC of all headlines. The CBC's headline on this news that the color of the year was cloud dancer or white.

Pantone's 2026 color of the year is white. Some critics say the optics aren't great. Like, why? Why? Why? Why, CBC? And some critics, look, there's going to be critics of everything, right? Why are you picking these critics and this color now?

Is the, the... Hey, Ben, some people would say the Toronto Blue Jays are a baseball team, but others would say, you know, they're not. Well, you know, first of all, I have no time for headlines that say, Twitter is outraged because XYZ. Twitter is always outraged. That's not news, right? And so the fact that the color of the year is white and they decided to turn it into an issue.

Because this is a choice, right? The CBC chose to make the story about the fact that some people are unhappy with it. Well, people are always going to be unhappy with everything, but you chose to make critics say the optics aren't great. Why? Why aren't the optics great? And by the way, white is the color of the clouds. It is not the color of white people. White people actually look more like the 2024 color peach fuzz. No, but like seriously, I'm looking at my skin.

I look like the 2024 soft inviting orange. Apricot crush. That's what white people look like. Not white the color of the clouds. Like, get over yourselves. Do you not realize CBC with stuff like this? You're making it harder for us to get back to a place where we can all find. common ground on on so many of the things we used to find common ground on this is exhausting it's

exhausting and the person who wrote that headline you know that they went home they went to bed warm in the self-righteousness that comes only from you know a particular type of social justice warrior dressed up as a journalist yeah yeah that happens yeah absolutely that happens okay well let's let's let's get back let's get in the way back machine go all the way back to the 80s where one because look I went back and I watched the opening of the sky dome you can watch it on YouTube 1989 if you go back and watch the CBC special and it's not I'm not knocking the CBC again but if you go back watch the CBC special on the opening of the skydome it looks like it was from the from the 60s and it also looks like it came straight out of um North

Korea it looks like a it looks like a it looks like a propaganda film But my point... You remember when you watched it at the time, the video was so crisp. You were like, oh, that looks great. Yeah, no. And now you look at it now and it looks... You can barely even see people.

I know. So, but like, it's funny how what we thought was cool or we thought was right just wasn't. And that's the perfect segue into Balloon Fest, 1986. The United Way of Cleveland, in an effort to raise awareness, released one and a half million balloons for a world record stunt and a hundred thousand people showed up and then stuff took a turn let's listen to the audio from

1986 two one here they go a liftoff amazing now they go john the Guinness book of world records has just been broken in cleveland over one million five hundred thousand more going up in the air at this very very moment look at the point do we do we do Yeah. But it quickly became a disaster because there was rain and wind. And so the balloons like start quickly descending and littering the city and clogging waterways and forcing the temporary closure of an airport runway. The release disrupted a United States coast guard search for two missing fishermen. The balloons made visibility so poor that the search had to stop. and the men were later found drowned.

I don't know if they were already drowned, but I guess we'll never know. There were traffic accidents everywhere as drivers were swerving to avoid falling balloons. Wildlife was harmed. An Arabian horse was spooked by the debris leading to lawsuits and settlements. The balloons eventually found their way

littering Ontario beaches. The city of Cleveland lost millions of dollars in lawsuits. This is one of the most dumb facts. astoundingly stupid city initiatives I've ever heard, but I guess it was the 80s, right? It was the 80s. But you've got to think, you look up in the air and you see all these balloons. You have to say, it doesn't matter what air it is, those have to come down at some point. And they're going to come down as rubber, which doesn't break down anywhere.

No, did we care about pollution in the 80s? I know my dad did. My dad worked his butt off to save the ozone layer. and acid rain. So, like, there were people who were paying. I know Elizabeth May was paying attention back then. But a one and a half of... Imagine playing this video for Elizabeth May today.

Oh, yeah. She'd have, oh, my. I know. I know. Oh, my goodness. Anyway, listen, right after this show is going to be the draw for the World Cup. So if that is... It's going to be very interesting.

Very exciting. It's getting ever closer. And so we'll be paying attention to that. I'm sure we'll talk about... it on Monday. But thanks again for joining us on today's episode. In fact, thanks for joining us all week long on the Ben Mulroney show. If you want to keep the conversation going, just follow me on Twitter at Ben Mulroney. Follow the show on Instagram at Ben Mulroney's show. We'll also post the podcast for those of you who miss parts of the show and want to catch up. I hope you

had a wonderful week. I hope you rest up this weekend. Enjoy the rest of your Friday. Have a great weekend with friends and family and we'll see you back here on Monday. Your day, your day starts right here. The number one place to be in the morning. We've got the news you need. Take that team candidate approach. The experts you trust. More exclusives than anywhere else.

And your first stop for the biggest entertainment stories. The morning show, weekdays on global.