The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Chris Chapin, Mia Hughes, Mike Moffatt

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Chris Chapin, Mia Hughes, Mike Moffatt Guests: Chris Chapin, Mia Hughes, Mike Moffatt, Tony Chapman, Adam Zivo 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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Get 50% off lens upgrades in the Specsavers Spring Sale. Hey, I can upgrade my kids! You chill, Mom. I'll load the dishwasher. Awesome! Exclusions apply. See Specsavers.ca for details. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great discussions this week, including an important conversation on pediatric gender clinic practices. Enjoy.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us. And it feels to me like as we leave the election behind and look towards the next parliament, both the liberals and the conservatives are going through a little bit of an identity shift for completely different reasons. And we're going to discuss that and many more topics with Chris Chapin. He's a political commentator, managing principal upstream strategy and a good friend of the Ben Mulroney show. Chris, welcome. Always a pleasure, Ben. Okay, so let's start with the lay of the land in terms

of what the makeup of the House of Commons is actually going to look like. A lot of changes since election night. The riding of Terrebonne in Quebec has flipped to the Liberals after it shows in a recount that they won by a single vote. Yeah, it's crazy. And it's you know, we've always joked in politics that, you know, every vote matters. But in this case, it's exactly that, you know, every vote truly did matter in that riding. And it's, it's flipped back after the judicial recount to the to the liberals. So it's certainly going to be interesting to see what the the I believe there's three other

recounts, judicial recounts that have been ordered. So we could see a couple more twists and turns before the House of Commons ever sits. Well, the liberals are sitting at 170 seats to have a majority, they need 172. And so a lot of these recounts have been going their way. A lot of them have been flipping liberal or being confirmed liberal.

And so nothing to suggest that they couldn't get to 172, maybe even 173. So I think everyone is just assuming now that we're gonna have a pretty stable government for at least, what, three years, you think? I think that's safe to say. I actually then think the only chance we might see an election any sooner

than three or maybe the four years from now is if the prime minister thinks the cards are in his favour, perhaps he's able to renegotiate a deal with the President and he thinks it's favourable for him to go to the electorate and ask for that full majority mandate. But at this point, you've got a leaderless NDP with only seven seats. There's certainly been talks about the Liberals trying to poach one or two of the NDP to cross the floor. I don't think Elizabeth May is going to bring down a government anytime soon. So

I think it's pretty safe to say you're going to see Carney govern like he essentially has a majority mandate for the next several years. Yeah, I'm hearing things like that. Elizabeth may may want to put herself forth to be the speaker of the house, which would free up one liberal from having to sit in that position. And that's one extra vote on the government side. But so let's talk about the NDP for a second, because yes, they don't have party status. I've heard that they are in discussions to receive party status, official party status, even though they don't have it.

How do you feel about that? Because the, you know, the progressive conservative in me that saw the party decimated in 93 wasn't given that sort of benefit from from the incoming liberal government. And yet, the conservative in me recognizes that the in order for the Tories to be successful at a future election, we kind of needed NDP. Yeah, you know, Ben, I think the rules are the rules. I've thought a lot about this. but you know, we've seen it here in Ontario. It took two election cycles for the liberals to regain official party status in the Ontario legislature. I don't think we should bend them just at the will of what's good for our own political good and what's frankly for the good of the NDP federally. So I think they're in real trouble. I think a party was seven feet without a leader.

I think there was reports over the weekend that they're going to fall short of getting their refund back in hundreds of writings across the country. I think they're going to be decimated. I think they very well may be decimated for years and years and years to come. And I just don't see who's going to put their name forward to lead that party anytime soon. I think there's a couple of impressive new Democrats out there that could take down, but I don't think somebody like Premier Wabkanoo

or former Premier Rachel Notley is gonna step forward anytime soon to lead a party-less, baddest-less party. Yeah, and even a successful rebuild. Like, what are the electoral prospects of the NDP ever? If they're lucky, they may find themselves in a moment in time where leader of the opposition is a possibility. But realistically, ever forming government is not a possibility. But I think their issues are greater than that. Chris, I mean, I think that

we've been using existential a lot, but in their case, you know, their existence is in jeopardy. They, they, in a, in a good time for them, they have a tough time raising money. And now it's going to be even worse for them. I don't, I don't even know if they're gonna pay the bills. I mean, I think I do political parties go bankrupt? I think they can. if they're gonna pay the bills. I mean, I think I do political parties go bankrupt. I think they can. And I think the end of the very well make, you know, they're in a they're a real pickle. And I don't know

whether the left of the electorate has just decided they don't need, you know, you know, kind of a single issue party or just that progressive voice in the in the discussions when it comes to an election. They're clearly quite content backing the liberals and have done so for several election cycles in a row now. And I think trying to rebuild that party, I think there will always be a social democrat left in this country. But I'm just not sure it takes the form of the

NDP party. Yeah, well, then that's what I agree with as well. I think, you know, at their most successful under the Jack Leighton's and the Ed Broadbent's and the Tom Malkares of the world, they were not this single issue pro Palestinian party. And so part of me thinks that with the debt that they've got and this attitude that they are just beholden to, pushing that over anything else,

which includes workers' rights, which is what they were known for. Part of me thinks that all the adults in the NDP should get together and possibly start their own party and just say, if you seed the ground on Palestine, say you can keep that, we're gonna go do what we used to do over here under a new banner, free of the debt, free of the free of the scandal,

and free of the of the burden of trying to not just rebuild, they've got to dig themselves out of a hole. Absolutely. I think the real challenge for the NDP then is that, you know, you talked about that labor movement side of the party, we've seen in jurisdictions across the country, that that part of that party has moved to the conservatives. Whether that's Doug Ford's conservatives or Pierre Pauli's conservatives, the blue collar worker movement that used to build up a huge chunk of the NDP has moved to the right side of the political spectrum. And it'll be interesting to see

how Mark Carney governs, but the liberals have done very well at taking those social issues under their fold and really embodying them. And so I'm just not sure what's left for the the new Democrats to really stake out when it comes to you know political ground because the liberals are quite strong on environmental issues and you know kind of what I'd call like the woke issues but those you know social ideology you know lame that I just don't know what's left for a new Democratic party to represent. All right, let's move on to the conservatives. And, you know, there are two schools of thought,

that if you are the leader of the official opposition, your job is to oppose, right? But on the case of trade with Donald Trump, I wonder whether a case could be made that the Tories should be more constructive in this parliament than oppositional on as it relates to the file with Donald Trump. Because if Mark Carney comes out of this, having quote unquote saved us from this crisis and the Tories are on the outside looking in having not contributed but rather opposed that might spell doom for them for a number of elections moving

forward. You know, it's such a tough question, Ben, because I've always believed that the hardest job in politics is being the leader of the official opposition. And it's times like these that really, you know, tells me why. And it's, you're, you're darned if you do and you're darned if you don't, because it's easy to oppose. But you know, the logical thing, I think what most Canadians like the idea of is that they'd work together. The problem is you just saw what happens to somebody like Jagmeet Singh. If you work together with the government for a long time, they take

all the credit. And when it comes election time, get to go to the electorate and say, look what we've done. And it's very difficult for the opposition to stake out and defend the position they took for the last several years. So I think there's a lot of issues that the liberals and conservatives are aligned on. I think probably 80 to 85% of the electorate is aligned on key issues, real nation building ideas that I think would be smart for the conservatives to get behind.

It's just a difficult trap to fall into because, you start agreeing with them too much and then when it comes election time, what is there to differentiate you? Now, lastly, and we only have about a minute left, but let's assume for a second that Pierre Poliev maintains his leadership of the conservative party. When Pierre Poliev 2.0 comes out and reintroduces himself, do you think he should take a completely different tack? Should he be doing more mainstream media interviews that he didn't do on the campaign, or should he lean in and do

say something like Joe Rogan? I mean, I don't know why he doesn't do both the campaign? Or should he lean in and do say something like Joe Rogan? I mean, I don't know why he doesn't do both, you know, and I think part of the challenge I thought from the approach they took is he did neither in the election campaign, you know, he didn't make that splash and go on one of the US, you know, big heavy hitting podcast. You know, he certainly did yours. And I think it did him a heck of a lot of good, but I don't think he did much of anything else when it came to the mainstream media. So I think it'd be wise to do both. I don't think you can

shun, you know, he struggled with older voters, older voters still listen to the mainstream media. And so, you know, that's where I would start. All right, Chris Chapin, thanks so much for the insight today. Thanks, Ben. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. All right, this next discussion, if we had had it a few years ago, it would be fraught with pitfalls and landmines. And my, my Twitter would be blowing up calling me all manner of sin. But it's an important conversation to have. And I want to have a measured, fair, fair and balanced to use the expression for Fox News. But I do, I want to have a real conversation about Canada's position as it relates to how we treat young people in who are going through gender dysphoria. What are our policies as a country? Are we going down

the right or wrong path? And joining me to discuss a really great article that she wrote in the National Post is Mia Hughes, senior fellow at the McDonnell Laurier Institute, specializing in research of pediatric gender medicine, psychiatric epidemics, social contagion, and the intersection of trans rights and women's rights. Mia, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. So it feels like, you know, in a lot of ways the Western world was all in on, you know, if a child tells you that they feel like they were born in the wrong body, that we take that as gospel and we run with it.

And that was sort of the reality we all lived in for a significant amount of time. But now evidence is coming out that might not be the right way to proceed. And other countries are taking meaningful steps to address it. And Canada is sort of in the same position we've been in a long time. Is that a fair snapshot of where we are? That's completely fair. Yes, I would say Canada is an outlier on the world stage now in that most of the world has at least scrutinized taken made some attempt to look at what we are doing to young people in pediatric gender clinics and

Every nation that has looked at what's happening has halted the process reverse cause no more medicalization And we in Canada are the outliers because we just refuse to look at it We still have our heads in the sand okay So so give me a give that our listeners sort of a snapshot of where we were and where most countries find themselves by and large today Okay, so starting I would say around 2014 pediatric gender clinics very swiftly adopted puberty suppression So if a young person says they are transgender you have to believe them them, you have to affirm them, and then you block their puberty. And this was the idea was at the time in 2014, that it would buy

the young person time to think it would slow things down and they could really figure out whether further medical transition was right for them. And so the entire Western world adopted this protocol, even though there was no solid science to support it. None whatsoever. So Mia, I want to jump in right there because if there was no solid science to support it, why did the argument that this is settled science become so prevalent and so powerful? Anytime somebody would say, have a conversation like the one we're engaging in right now, there would be pushback from a lot of people saying this is settled science you're denying the science you're

denying the truth of the matter because this is this this treatment protocol and the entire field of gender medicine is guided by political ideology it's a political movement but it's tied to a very drastic life altering treatment protocol. And so in the beginning, nobody actually really understood how atrocious the science was. It started in a Dutch gender clinic. Nobody really noticed how terrible the science was. We've since scrutinized and we can see that these studies were so flawed, they never should have been accepted as legitimate science. And because it's tied to a very aggressive political movement that forbids any dissent.

If you even question the practice of blocking the puberty of a young person based on a self-declared adolescent identity, this movement would vilify you, attack you, destroy your career, hound you, hound your family. And so because it was so viciously promoted by trans activists, everybody was afraid to look at it. But we're not just talking some inconsequential medical pathway. We are talking a medical pathway that is as brutal as cancer treatment.

It can leave a young person infertile for life. It can leave a young person with drastically reduced sexual function. These kids often end up losing healthy functioning organs, healthy parts of their bodies. So if- And that's Mia, that's also a part of sort of the misdirection that I saw as well,

because on top of saying it was settled science, we were also told that this was a protocol that was reversible. It was not something that the reason that everybody should get behind it is that if if a child decided to change their mind or or came to a different conclusion, well, that's okay, they could go and resume the life that they had when they got off those drugs. But it turns out that's not the case. That's absolutely not the case. And our media and our medical professionals in Canada still push that lie that puberty blockers are a fully reversible pause, because that's what they thought they were around 2010, 2014. As is so often the case in medicine, there are unintended consequences. And what we have seen is that 98 to 100% of the kids who are put on puberty blockers go

on to take cross-sex hormones, which are completely irreversible. And in the past, about 85, 90% of kids would desist and reconcile with their body and not want medical treatment. So we've seen a dramatic reversal in the persistence and desistance rates, which means basically puberty was the natural cure. Let these kids grow, let them mature, let them settle into their sexual identities and their adult bodies, and then they will cease to want medical interventions. But because we block the puberty,

we block the natural cure, and therefore we set them up for a lifetime of medical interventions. But doctors get things wrong. History is full of examples of the medical world getting things wrong. The most important thing now is to face up to the fact that we got this catastrophically wrong and stop doing it.

And Canadian gender clinics, Canadian professional associations and our politicians, they just refuse to face up to what we've done. So in the last few minutes, I'd like to like, let's try to come up with the most constructive way to end this conversation. So where is a best practice as you see it in the world? Who's got it as close to right as possible?

And what changes would have to happen in Canada in terms of our leadership? What organizations, what bodies, what leaders in what positions in Canada would have to see the light to get us to that best practice? This may be a hard pill to swallow, but for Canadians certainly, but the best available document out there right now

is the document from the Health and Human Services department in the US, that I wrote the article about. It is complete, it is thorough, it has got everything that you need. All of the evidence reviews have been done and they've been shown. Canada's done one, Sweden, Finland, England, it shows there's no evidence. So all Canada now has to do is look at the evidence reviews. We know that there is no evidence and then we need to scrutinise what's going on in our gender clinics.

So our politicians need to set politics aside and they need to look at this medical scandal as they would any other medical scandal. Forget the human rights aspect, forget the political battlefield that's going on. Just look at what's happening to these kids, review the practices. It won't take very much. We will see that we are harming young people and then we can follow Sweden, Finland, England, where they are, they've shifted into a psychotherapeutic approach, which just helps these young people understand

why they've come to the conclusion they've come to and helps them reconcile with their body so they don't need to be lifelong medical patients. Yeah, it's always, it's very rich, I find, that people on it from a certain political vantage point love to hold up sort of the Scandinavian countries as evolved on so many files, but they're, they're decidedly mute on on this reversal that so many of them have taken on on on the on the gender reassignment

question. If they're evolved everywhere else, are they evolved on this on this point, too? We don't we don't really hear from them on that. That's right. We pretend that everything that happened in Europe, we just block it out. We don't even acknowledge that it's happened here in Canada because it does contradict so strongly with this idea that pediatric gender medicine is on the forefront of some progressive movement. It's not it's a medical scandal and it needs to end. Well, I you know, my hope for this segment was that we were going to have a conversation exactly like this dispassionate and I think fair and not

looking to demonize or vilify but instead, educate and hopefully get us to a place where we're dealing with what we should all be dealing with straight up facts and not feelings. And I think I think we accomplished that. Mia Hughes, thank you so much. The article is called Canada must launch review of pediatric gender clinic practices in the National Post. I appreciate you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from global national life moves fast

these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get global national every day as a podcast. The biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news journalists. New episodes drop every day. So take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National podcast. You can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Now, if you've listened to this show for any amount of time, you know that we try to tackle

as many important issues as there are out there. And by and large, to do this show means you gotta have opinions. And I've got lots of opinions on lots of issues that are facing cities and provinces and the country writ large. But there's one file I just don't have any answers for. And that is the the housing crisis.

There is it is a crisis that needs to be attacked on from every level of government from so many different angles. It brings in issues of taxation and income and social mobility and inclusion and investment. And if you don't have a holistic approach, you're going to fail. At least that's the opinion that I hold as somebody who has, who's not an expert in these things, but I'm invested as a Canadian. And so let's bring in somebody who does have more wherewithal and know-how as it relates to this. Mike Moffat, he's an economist as well as the founding director of Place Center,

and he's a co-host of the Missing Middle podcast. Mike, welcome to the show. No, thank you for having me. So when I read your article that says the next housing minister must restore the dream of home ownership is finally somebody who's going to bring some some class to this conversation. Somebody who's going to bring some ambition and know how and knowledge to the conversation because it's look, it's a lofty goal restoring the dream of home ownership. But how we get there is what matters.

Yeah, absolutely. And I do think that the federal government or the incoming federal government isn't paying enough attention to the fact that young people feel like they'll never be able to own a home. You look at the liberal platform and there's a lot of great stuff in there

to increase the housing supply, but it's very rental focus. They're looking at bringing back a tax credit from the 1970s for rental housing, this new Build Canada Homes to help build the government housing. And those are all fine ideas. There's really not a lot in here to restore the dream of home ownership. And I think that is a mistake given, you know, the frustration that young people currently have. Well, yeah, and you know, you really attack this from a lot of perspectives in your article, especially,

and hopefully we can start with this one. I wanna, you know, in cities like Toronto, the condo market has never been as bad as it is. Nobody's buying condos, and as a matter of fact, I mean, there's a lot of condo construction where I guess the people building have to ask themselves, like, is it even worth it for us to finish building these buildings?

And so you say, you know, governments need to ask, where should pre-construction condo funding come from? What do you mean by that? Why is that a question needs answering? Well, so normally with a condo, you need to get the condo builder needs to get pre-sales. You know, they need to make sure that there's a market out there for these units. And the average owner-occupier doesn't want to wait four or five, six years, you know, put a deposit upfront, and then, you know, six years from now or whatever, get a home.

So who usually buys these things are investors. And we've seen from the liberal government, a lot of policies to try and deter investment. And this seems to be one of those, be careful what you wish for things, because now that the investors have all pulled back, they said, no, we don't want any part of this. And none of these projects are going ahead.

So I think the government has to ask itself, okay, if you don't want any part of this. And none of these projects are going ahead. So I think the government has asked itself, okay, if you don't want investors in that market, and that's a legitimate point of view, where are you expecting the condo developers to get those pre-construction sales from? Because it doesn't seem like there's anybody else out there. And so what's the answer? Well, I think there could be a few things.

One potential answer is CMHC financing. The same way that the CMHC helps build purpose-built rental apartments, they could provide financing to condo builders. So that's just one solution. But I think the federal government has to go a step back and just kind of admit that there's a problem where, you know, they, again, they try to deter investor activity.

Yeah. You know, they try to get rid of plan A without identifying first what plan B is. And so that, listen, that's one thing that needs to be attacking. In my introduction, I talked about how, you know, if the goal is to restore the dream of home ownership, it's not gonna be solved simply by tackling

pre-construction issues with condos. There's so many more issues. So in your mind, what are the most stark and most important issues that need to be tackled by the new government that will yield real results and get that younger generation feeling that home ownership is in fact attainable? Yeah, well, we have a real cost of delivery crisis here

that we just can't build homes cheaply enough. One of the big reasons is tax. Tax makes up 30 to 35% of the cost of construction. The federal government has a really obvious lever there in the GST. When the GST was introduced, something over 95% of homes were eligible for a GST rebate. Nowadays, you know, and that was never increased for inflation, so nowadays in the GTA no home gets it. The conservatives had said

that they were going to, you know, make this available to homes up to 1.3 million, the liberals came out with a very modest plan to only make it available for first time home buyers, which really won't get that many more homes built. So I think the first thing they need to do is look at taxes, particularly the GST, and lower them, if not outright scrap them on new home constructions to get more homes built.

And then I think we need to look at the availability of land. We've become very restrictive on where we build, so it's hard to get those homes. But if governments can attack the cost of land and taxes, a lot of this takes care of itself. Yeah, well, there was also the issue, I mean, it's the taxes and the fees, right? And that's when this housing minister is going to have to take a leadership position in communicating with the other two levels of government. For the longest time under the Trudeau liberals,

there was this denial that the federal government could even do anything on the housing file. And it was a game of political hot potato where every level of government was saying, no, no, it's the other guy's fault or the other guy's responsibility. What what's mean, I have to assume that if if for this to be resolved in the next four years, because I think that well, that's the mandate that this this

this housing minister is going to have to be a leader, even on parts of this file that aren't necessarily his or her domain. You're absolutely right. And when Prime Minister Trudeau made those comments a couple of years ago that housing was not a, you know, primary concern of the federal government, there was a lot of backlash to it. And then, you know, after that, we started to see the federal government get more aggressive on the issue with things like

the housing accelerator that provides incentives to municipalities to do things like speed up approval processes and lower development charges. I think they need to go a lot further on that. And I think even they would agree, they have a piece in their platform around lowering, helping municipalities lower development charges.

That's an absolutely great thing. But even there, their development charge plan isn't across the board, is more focused on apartments. And we need to do that, but we also need to lower development charges on townhomes and other types of ownership-based housing. And again, it's where I'm kind of a little bit critical the federal government that they want to do a lot on renting, which is fantastic, but

we've got to address the ownership side as well. Yeah, no, absolutely. I remember when I got into the housing market, the first thing that we bought as a couple was was a condo. And then from that we moved on and bought a home. In this in the 30 seconds, if you can give me your take on this Build Canada initiative, because there was a lot of criticism that the government should do what the government's good at and stay out of the way of home.

Let the home builders build the homes. Yeah, I do think there is some merit there. We do need more social housing. So if we can figure out how to build it and use innovative technologies, I think that is a good thing. But you're absolutely right. This is a very complex thing to do. And governments aren't always the best

at doing those complex things. Well, I'm really glad that you wrote this. If anybody wants to take a look at the article, it's at missingmiddleinitiative.ca. The next housing minister must restore the dream of home ownership. Mike Moffitt, really great to talk to you. Hope it's not the first time.

Yeah, absolutely. Look forward to our next chat. Our next guest solves a lot of problems for us because he answers all the questions I have. Maybe one day we'll convince him to show up for the Dilemma panel as well. Please welcome to the show Tony Chapman. He is the host of the award-winning podcast,

Chatter That Matters, as well as the founder of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome. Always a pleasure. Okay, so Weight Watchers. I remember when Weight Watchers announced that Oprah had become an investor and also a client, and their stock shot through the roof. And then to learn that they have filed for bankruptcy

makes me ask the question, what changed? Well, the world went from community, which they were really good at building, to chemistry. And chemistry being, I can get instant gratification by getting a pill a day, keeps the pounds away. And they didn't really, they bought a company called Sequence to start prescribing, but it was too little too late.

Here's the reality, they're trying to take 1.4 billion of debt, take 1.1 million off their balance sheet, which means there's a big haircut for a lot of investors, and try to revamp. And unless they change the status quo, I don't think they can. I've got some ideas for them, but I don't think as they stand now,

it's to gratification America, versus actually doing the hard work. Well, but the studies show that Ozempik is good at taking the weight off, but for those people who don't take advantage of that weight loss to adopt the healthy, uh, changes in their diet and lifestyle that they need, they're going to put the weight back on. So maybe there's a role for weight watchers in a post-Ozempic world. So for people who are all taking it,

if they could become that life coach for the millions of people on Ozempic, if there could be, if an Ozempic endorsed Weight Watchers plan that they could then follow, maybe that's the path forward. It's an interesting one. I mean, the tension point for Weight Watchers was I stepped on a scale, I gotta do something.

Yeah. Right? Where I would say gyms and apple carrot, and a lot of people are playing at preservation of that weight. Here's what I would do. I think they should move away from weight watches to more of a longevity play. Longevity is about chasing your fountain of youth. So why can't weight watches be much more thought

leadership? Could they be brain watches, foods that I should be eating for my cognitive abilities, functional, sexual, all the functional foods that I should be consuming. So it abilities, functional, sexual, all the functional foods that I should be consuming. So it's not just about losing weight, it's about being the best I can be. I think that would be a play.

And I would absolutely double down on the fact that the prescribing drugs is if they have that data, then your idea kicks in. If I've got a million people I'm prescribing those Zempik to, then why not those one million people be, now that you've taken off, let's keep it that way. So it's a combination of the two that I like, and that's what I would be doing.

Brain watchers, I don't know if sex watchers would get the clients. Well, you might have to use sex watchers, but you could certainly just talk about your sexual health. And the reality is functional foods, we now know we can eat to prevent cancer, we can eat to chase that found youth. Weight Watches needs to own that territory,

because if it's just simply about losing weight, I think that the trains left the station. Tony, for as long as I can remember, it was Pepsi, Coke, followed by Pepsi. That was number one, number two. There was one, two punch, right? And now to find out that Pepsi has fallen out of the top three in terms of carbonated beverages

in the United States. The people at Pepsi are probably asking themselves, what the heck went wrong? I worked on Pepsi for 32 years and when the Cola Wars were at their height, there was nothing more fun. You could have fun with each other, it was playful punches. They had great ad campaigns. The other guy blinked. I mean, everything was fun.

And then what happened is the category expanded from a handful of drinks to thousands. I think Pepsi lost their focus and their core beverages. Coke has always stayed true to it. So Pepsi had their, obviously their potato chip business and Lays. They had a wide menu, big orchestra to play. Coke has always said, first and foremost, we've got to fill those trucks and sell a lot of Coca-Cola and by sticking to their knitting, I think they did an extraordinary job. And then Dr. Pepper and Sprite, Sprite's of Coca-Cola. And by sticking to their knitting, I think they did an extraordinary job. And then Dr. Pepper and Sprite, Sprite's obviously Coca-Cola,

Dr. Pepper's bottled by Coca-Cola, all of those three things. If you own the shelf space in the store, if you got the lead pony being Coca-Cola, you can command attention from the retailer. And if you command attention from the retailer, you push Pepsi in the corner, and that's what we're seeing happening

in the grocery stores, and obviously the market share. No, you know, that's interesting that you say that because I've been thinking about the branding at Coca-Cola, even when they've added new drinks, right? When there's Coke Zero or Coke Zero Sugar now, it's still the ethos is still the same as that classic that, you know, like when they add a new flavor, it's a flavor, but an ion maintaining. They say it still tastes like the original, right? And the polar bears at Christmas.

They all to me feels similar. Very iconic. Yeah, very iconic. And it's a wall in the store of Coke. And again, you've got a second, 10th of a second to catch the consumer's attention, the shopper's attention, especially soft drinks. Mom doesn't want you to go down that aisle anymore.

You're only allowed to bring soft drinks in for a hockey game because she doesn't want that sugared soft drink. So you gotta be Coca-Cola, get the end all displays and build it, stack it and they fly. So what should Pepsi do to get back to number two? I don't think one is attainable, but two is possible. I think if Pepsi wants to refocus on Pepsi or they just admit that that cola and soft

drink category is going to continue to decline and where they got to win is they got to win with bubbly, they got to win with some of their other energy drinks like Celsius that they've just launched. Really owned- I tried Celsius. It's, I don't wanna knock anybody in case we're looking for a sponsor. Way too sweet for me.

Yeah, I mean, it's, again, that's targeted more for the feminine palate and they love that sweetness. I mean, this is the stuff they test. They don't want that hard, you know, that Red Bull energy. So they want something a little bit more efficacy on it. So Pepsi's got to do that. And also they own the snack category.

Continue to build that. So keep Coke honest. I would be tactical with pricing. So Coke can't get too wealthy to expect. And at the other side, win with their ancillary brands. Okay, we got to talk about Disney here because you're never gonna find a, I had kids, I joke about it,

I had kids so I wouldn't be the old dude roaming the Disney parks solo. Like they're my insurance policy, so I don't, so the creep meter doesn't go off when I go into Disney park. That's how much I love Disney. And now I hear that they're building a new park in the Middle East, in the UAE.

This, and it looks like it's gonna be fantastic and phenomenal, but context is everything. And just a few years ago, Disney was very proud to go to war with the Republican governor of Florida over his stance on gay rights. So how does that square with opening up a park in an area of the world where it's illegal to be gay? It's amazing how money suddenly shifts,

your moral compass shifts when you have money attached. And you got to understand, this will be Disney on steroids. There's an unlimited budget. People down there, I mean, they're gonna put more money against this than we've ever seen in experience. They're gonna make the sphere in Las Vegas look like a snow cone bowl, right? And this is what they're gonna do.

So Disney is gonna take their properties and now have a new flagship. And that's what's interesting. The flagship for Disney will no longer be in Florida, but in the Middle East. And that's the other thing that I gotta come to terms with, is the world moving to the Middle East because they've got the cash, cash is king.

And I can't wait to see it. I'll tell you something, I love Disney as well. I can't wait to see what they do over there because I think every experience that you have will be on steroids. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to reconcile it with their ethos. They were very proud to be the tip of the sword. It had become, in a lot of ways, their corporate identity.

It was a badge of honor. Is nobody noticing the situational hypocrisy here? No, they're not. And I can imagine the board meeting how they debated it. And then somebody stood up and said, hey, you want to continue to have your share prices go up? You guys around the board, you've got about $100 million in options at stake here, maybe a billion dollars.

I think we've got to do it. And money, sadly, obviously will change your moral compass. And there's no doubt that they put billions of dollars on the table to license Disney and to take it to the next level. Well yeah, and sports are moving there too. You've got golf, UFC, boxing, soccer, Formula One. I mean, it's only a matter of time before we can go to an NFL game. I'd love to do a show on how they can take over sporting and gambling and experience

and entertainment because ultimately they can justify money that we could never make a case for in the United States. I need a return in 10 years they don't care about returns. Last thing and we only have about a minute left but Hudson's Bay 17 bids to find a new owner. The question we've already talked about these pop-ups that you think would be a very good idea. How long until we see a new iteration of Hudson's Bay? Oh they'll be weeks and not very it'd be so quick because again my belief is show me your stripes, connect Canadian culture, identity, our need for being united. Show me your stripes could be the

rallying cry and out of that, they will populate so many different products. Oh, just so long as it supplants elbows up because I can't take that anymore. Tony Chapman, always great to talk to you. Fabulous. All right. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And I don't think anybody thought that we would be still talking about the Russia-Ukraine war in 2025. I think, I mean, Vladimir Putin certainly thought it would end pretty quickly. But here we are three years later. And it is an ever evolving topic, ever changing topic. And so here to get the lay of the land as it is today is our resident expert on the

file, Adam Zivow, national post columnist. He's also the executive director for the center for responsible drug policy. Adam, I hope you had a great weekend. I hope I've got a great weekend too. Thanks for having me on the show. All right. So here's where we are now that Donald Trump and European leaders are threatening massive sanctions if Putin doesn't accept a 30 day ceasefire.

By Monday, there is this coalition of the willing made up of the UK, France, Germany, the United States, that is really, it seems like everyone's coalescing behind Ukraine again and putting pressure on Vladimir Putin. What what has happened in the past few days? It seems like just a couple of weeks ago. This was not the scenario that we were staring at. Uh I mean to be honest I think part of it is that Trump seems to have soured somewhat in Putin and realized that Putin is merely playing the United States here and I think that that shift in approach has inspired other world leaders to be more confident in their advocacy for Ukraine. At the same time, I wonder if the coalition,

the willing is doing enough to support Keefe here. They say that they want to perhaps institute more sanctions. But what does that actually mean? Right? So after three years of sanctions, direct trade with Russia is quite low for many of these countries. Of course, countries like France still import a lot of liquefied natural gas from Russia. So it'd be great if they stop that, but they haven't yet. But the, if you really want to, uh, put economic pressure onto Russia, you have to advocate for secondary sanctions where you essentially sanction third parties that trade with Russia. And I'm not sure if they're advocating for that yet.

On top of that, you know, if this coalition wants to really put some fear into Moscow, they should explore once again, putting French or British troops, or at least offering to put those troops into Western and Southern Ukraine as peacekeepers to allow Ukraine to free up troops there to send to the front. That would be bold action. That's something that would actually make a difference, but we're not seeing that yet. And this it does seem like Donald Trump is on board with his allies. I mean, to see Donald Trump working in a multilateral world in a multi on a mat, multilateral team

flies in the face of sort of his worldview, doesn't it? It does, but I think he realizes that this is not a problem that he can solve by himself. And I think that he was idealistic before he came into power. He said that he would solve this war right away. He thought that Putin was his friend, and now he's realizing that this is not going

to be the simple solution that he wanted. He's not going to have that simple solution and that this is embarrassing for him and it makes him look bad. And considering how egotistical Trump is, I think he's willing to work multilaterally if that means coming off as a strong man. So what's the timeline here? What are our expectations and when do we timeline here? What are our expectations? And when do we expect Vladimir?

What are we expecting of Vladimir Putin? And when are we expecting it? I mean, who knows, right? So the coalition of the willing is advocating for a 30 day ceasefire, uh, starting almost immediately. And there's this possibility that Putin and Zelensky couldn't meet in Istanbul on May 15th and begin some kind of negotiation for peace.

But is there actually a chance that, you know, there will be any real peace deal? We don't know because the Russians keep on saying that they only want a peace deal that will add that will address the root causes of the war with Ukraine. And for them, they define the root causes and essentially Ukraine having its own sense of independence, its own national identity. They keep on lying and saying that Ukraine has a Nazi problem, and they say we need to address that by changing Ukraine's government.

What they're essentially saying is that they want to replace Ukraine's government with a pro-Russian puppet regime so they can dominate Ukraine much in the same way that they dominate Belarus. Ukraine much in the same way that they dominate Belarus? The last time Russia was a problem on a global or regional scale was the Cold War. And there are a lot of people that give credit to Ronald Reagan and the Pope, John Paul II at the time, for being leaders that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union. Just a few days ago, the new Pope, Pope Leo, called for peace, both in Ukraine and Gaza. It was during his first Vatican address. He said, never again war.

Do you think that the Catholic Church and the leader of the Catholic Church still holds the sway politically today that that office once did? I don't think they have as much influence as they used to, but I think they obviously do have a significant amount of influence nonetheless. The Pope remains a moral leader for over, you know, for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world today. Right. And so when you have the Pope calling out Russian imperialism, as he explicitly

did recently, I think that says something. And you know, the previous Pope was great. I respected him in many ways, but he equivocated too much when it came to the Russian-Ukrainian war. And I think that Pope Leo has shown more decisiveness and more moral clarity here. And I'm just going to say on a personal note, you know, my Ukrainian fiance's name is Leo, so I'm a big fan of Leo. Every situation, so I'm very pro-Pope Leo at this point. Hey, what are we supposed to look at from Putin if we can't take him at his word? I mean, if he says that he's committed to restarting talks with Kiev starting on May 15th, but his word means nothing, then what indicators will give us a better sense as

to what he's thinking? Well, I mean, like he continues to demand that he be given full control over the four Oblast that he quote unquote annexed back in 2022. So Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Herson, even though he doesn't fully control those regions. So he's essentially asking Ukraine to hand over more territory. And crucially, that would also mean handing over territory west of the Dnieper River, which would allow Russia to establish a bridgehead across that river, which otherwise, you know,

that river is otherwise a very powerful natural barrier. So as long as he continues to advocate for something as absurd as that, I don't think that we can really trust that he wants peace. He wants all of Ukraine. He's made that very clear. He published an essay in the summer of 2021, a 5,000 word piece, essentially arguing that Ukrainian nationhood is a fabrication. So the ideological grounds for his assimilation, his project is not ambiguous. We know that he's essentially an imperialist at heart.

Well, look, if this, if this peace deal happens, I think the picture that came out over the weekend of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron, as well as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Merz, I think that picture is going to be remembered as truly iconic of this moment. And it certainly flies in the face of the visual of Zelensky getting Zelensky in the White House. And it feels to me when we're seeing this picture that we're dealing with a renewed,

emboldened Vladimir Zelensky, who then turned around and he said that, you know, he hopes, like almost dictating, almost daring Putin. He said, I'll be waiting for you in Turkey. I'm looking forward to a ceasefire that you agree to, and I'm looking forward to seeing you there. It seems like he has wind in his sails today that he might not have had a month ago.

He does, but I don't think that if there is a peace agreement that it's going to be anything that we should be too proud of in the long term, because ultimately any peace agreement that we can come up with today is one that requires Ukraine to essentially accept that 20% of its land is under permanent occupation, right? And that's not a victory. No, we don't celebrate the people who negotiated the end to the Korean War in the 1950s, where North Korea, you know, continue to exist, right?

This is not this is a compromise. It's not a victory for us. No, it's not a cause. Yeah. But it's, it's the best of a bad situation. Yeah. But the question is, where do we go from here? Right? So the compromise is too significant. Are we going to have to worry about, uh, once again, Putin launching another invasion in a few years, as many Ukrainians fear that he will. And this is where I really want to emphasize that the coalition of the willing wants to come off as heroes, that they want to have their photos from this month celebrated across history as a great victory. They need to really commit. And that means, for example, putting troops on the ground in Ukraine to ensure that a peace deal is respected and that we don't get pulled back into war later on in the

2020s. We can end this now if we put the real effort in. This doesn't have to be the first step in yet another step towards global war. Lastly, and very shortly, Adam Zivow, do you think it's likely that Vladimir Putin and Zelensky will meet in Turkey? I have no clue. I hope they do. But who knows? Thank you very much for your candor on that, Adam T. I appreciate it. And I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Thanks for having me on the show. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulrady Show podcast.

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