The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Danielle Smith, Pierre Poilievre, Roy Green and More!

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Danielle Smith, Pierre Poilievre, Roy Green and More! Guests: Danielle Smith, Pierre Poilievre, Warren Kinsella, Roy Green, Dr. Nadia Alam, Maureen Leshem 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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Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great interviews this week, including a conversation with Danielle Smith about a true Team Canada approach, a chat with Pierre Poliev about unlocking our true potential as a country, and a goodbye to a broadcasting legend. Enjoy.

Very pleased to welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show the premier who has spent more time with the new 47th president of the United States Donald Trump than anyone in Canada Alberta premier Danielle Smith premier. Welcome back to the show Hi Ben happy to be here So we know that a lot of people's plans for the inauguration got scuttled due to the change of venue because of the cold But how was the event for you? How was the your time in Washington? because of the cold. But how was the event for you? How was your time in Washington? Well, it was great. I mean, we had a plan to be at the Canadian Embassy and it was packed. There were lots of Canadians down there, obviously, everybody trying to make contacts with the new administration. We've got some big issues I think we need to solve in the coming months in order to avoid tariffs.

And I was just pleased to see such a strong showing of Canadians down here. Well, you bring up a very good point because a lot of Canadians were holding their breath yesterday. We knew that there was going to be a flurry of executive action by the president. He signed 100 executive orders yesterday. Canada was not among those 100, but he followed that up quite quickly by saying, at new deadline of February 1st, what does that signal to you? The fact that he's given us a little more runway a little more breathing room? When you look at the executive orders, he's given direction for a review of all of the trade agreements. And he's given actually a deadline of April the first. So I don't

know if he misspoke yesterday, but it does seem to me that what he put in writing was gives us a little bit more runway than that. But it's pretty clear what they're going to be looking at is whether any of their existing trading partners are engaging in unfair trade practices, as well as ensuring that the issues around border security are addressed. I think that we saw pretty clearly with the declaration of the state of emergency on their southern border, he is singularly obsessed with addressing issues of sentinel, drug trafficking, human trafficking and to the extent to which we can address those issues in Canada, I think that that will demonstrate some good faith and hopefully be able to avoid terrorists.

But I think we do have a little bit of runway to make that case. You know, you've been spending time with the premiers. I'm sure you've had many conversations with the federal government. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like we've had a flurry of activity from provincial leaders, and it feels, at least, that there has been an absence, a vacuum of leadership, or a feeling of motivation. The fire has not been lit in the federal government

the way I think a lot of Canadians would have wanted. I just read that we bought a bunch of drones from China that we can't use. And we always seem to have a plan for a plan. What is your assessment on leadership at the federal level? I think, unfortunately, we've really taken the relationship, the trade relationship with the United States for granted. And there's a lot of relationship building

that needs to be done now with the change administration. Keep in mind, yesterday if we'd talk to the administration, before this swearing in we would have been talking to Biden officials. Today it's Trump officials. And so now I think the relationship building can begin in earnest and we can really get to the bottom of why it is we have these trade tensions and what we can do to resolve them. But this is why I've been calling for a federal election. The federal government is clearly distracted. The Liberals are distracted.

Within 48 or 47 days, there's going to be a new Prime Minister. And then if the threats of the opposition party are to be believed, within another 40 or 50 days, we're going to have another new Prime Minister because we'll have a general election. So that isn't the kind of environment that you have for firm decision-making and it seems a bit unclear about even who the chief negotiator should be from the federal government. That's why I think you'll see the provinces take a greater lead in trying to develop that out ourselves to try to put some issues on the table that we think are going to be persuasive

to the federal government in Washington. We know with the emergency declaration he signed on energy that there's an enormous opportunity for us to talk about building new pipeline infrastructure, new electricity infrastructure, critical minerals infrastructure. So I think Canada, every single province, is a great case to be made. And I think you'll see the Premier's making it And I think we have to take these this as an opportunity to start being forward-thinking But I've been trying to figure out what ails us as a nation and it just feels like we are we are governed

From we are we are so reactive in everything we do. We're not we're not proactive We we haven't been building the pipelines we need to build We haven't diversified our ability to get our incredible natural resources to market from coast to coast to coast. We've effectively turned ourselves into a landlocked nation despite having access to the globe. And I don't know how we change that perspective, but it seems that we are constantly reactive. Very little of what we do is proactive.

And I don't know how we change that. We have to accept that if whether it is the traditional energy economy or the new energy economy, you have to be prepared to do major industrial projects. You cannot get lithium and cobalt and copper and uranium, which are going to be necessary for the new economy without having a permitting process that allows you to to dig up the ground and make sure you're taking care of environmental issues along the way. But these kinds of projects can't take five and ten and twenty years to be able to permit and get done. And so there has to be a rethinking of what

it is that energy security looks like and be realistic about what we need to do to develop some of these resources. And I think that that's the lack of realism that we've had over the last 10 years, is that I think that we've got a federal government who believed that the entire world could be powered on solar panels and wind turbines with batteries, but never talked honestly with the public about where steel comes from, where those solar panels come from, where all the components for the batteries come from. And that's, I think, the recalibration that happened yesterday is that energy security matters, affordability matters, and that is at the basis of a productive economy.

And so I think we've had a 180-degree turn, and we've got a federal government that hasn't pivoted in the same way. And so we're going to have to, because the Americans are going full steam ahead. And if we want to maintain the integrated trade ties, we've got to do the same. But we also know that we can provide a service to the rest of the world and our allies by getting more of our resources to the West Coast, more of our resources to the East Coast and be able to diversify our markets and be able to support our allies that way too. So I don't know that this current administration in Canada is prepared to make that pivot,

but I think that's what the next election will be fought on. Premier, when I hear you say that, laying out a vision for economic security and turning Canada into the energy superpower that we are capable of being, I hear a vision from a premier for a strong global power of Canada. And so what does it make you feel that there are people out there banging a drum that you're only in this for Alberta?

What I think maybe I came to the conclusion sooner than anyone else about the fact that we needed to do this pivot. I mean, keep in mind, Alberta is part of a sedimentary basin that has a trillion barrels of oil in reserve with 200 billion recoverable, 500 trillion cubic feet of gas, basically inexhaustible, expansive pore space for CO2. And we had a federal government that was prepared to just, you know, write a pathway that would shut all of that in as opposed to developing it for our benefit and for the benefit of Canadians.

You then you talk to Saskatchewan and you see that they, with the uranium resource provide 20% of the world's need for uranium. The Americans right now are getting it from Kazakhstan and Russia. Why wouldn't they want to get it from us? And then you talk to British Columbia. And with China saying they're no longer going to export Germanium, guess where they can get it from? BC. They can get antimony from Ontario.

They can get gallium from Quebec. These are the kind of cases that we need to make is that while China has been going around locking up the supply of rare earth minerals, we're here as a solution for America so that they have the supply chain that they need to continue to grow their economy. I believe that we can play not only just a supportive role, but we can jointly be able to say that North America is an energy superpower, a resource superpower, and I think we should be proud to play that role.

Well, I want to thank you for your time, Premier. And you know, this could be an opportunity for us to reimagine what it is to work together, break down inter-provincial trade barriers and start doing what we can do for Canada to be the fullest expression of itself on the global stage. I want to thank you very much for your time and I hope you come back to the Ben Mulroney show soon. Will do, thanks Ben. Listen, I could talk forever,

but I'd much rather introduce and bring on our guest who wants, I believe, like 77% of Canadians, wants an immediate election. Please welcome to the show again, Pierre Poliev, the leader of the opposition and Conservative Party of Canada. Mr. Poliev, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you, great to be with you, Mr. Mulroney.

So you've said before that when you form government, if and when you form government, you believe that the finances of that you'll uncover that the finances of the country are even worse than you thought. But when, but when you factor Donald Trump into it, do you think you're also inherit a trade war and 25% tariffs? Oh, my goodness. Are you trying to discourage me from this job? It is going to be a mess. Just like your father inherited a mess from the first Trudeau. I'm going to inherit a mess from this Trudeau.

He's doubled the debt. He's doubled the debt. He's doubled the size and cost of the federal government. He's pushed a half trillion dollars net of investment out of Canada into the United States. He's driven up poverty and food bank use, doubled housing costs. Like it is an absolute and total mess. Everything is out of control. And that's why we need that acts the tax election as soon as possible, that we can fire this costly and incompetent government and replace it with a common sense conservative government

that will bring home the promise of Canada, that anyone who works hard gets a great paycheck and pension that buys them affordable food and Homes and safe neighborhoods, and that's what I'm going to bring home as Prime Minister But you can't have an axe the tax election if everybody on the other side is now renouncing the carbon tax That's if you believe them yeah, look mr. Mulrooney up until a week ago all of them were not only supporting the carbon tax, but enthusiastically raising its level. Christia Freeland, carbon tax Christia, was the finance minister who raised the carbon

tax by 167%. And they went on to brag that she had done it in the middle of an inflation crisis. Carbon tax Carney is not only the economic advisor to Justin Trudeau, but he said his criticism of the tax is that it's not high enough. And yesterday he got the endorsement of the crazy carbon tax minister, the biggest loon in the Liberal government, this is Stephen Gilbo, a guy who got arrested for scaling the CN Tower and climbing on the roof of the Alberta Premier's home to protest against our energy sector. This guy said he would resign from the Liberals if they ever got rid of the carbon tax. So that means he must have a secret promise from carbon tax Carney that what they'll do is they'll suspend the tax until the election. And then

if God forbid they win, they will not only bring it back, but they will hike it higher than ever before. So let's not anybody be fooled here. If these guys, these lying liberals get back in, not only will you pay a carbon tax, but it will be higher than ever before. Yesterday on the show, we spoke with Alberta premier Danielle Smith, who laid out her vision of what we could get out of this challenge with Donald Trump. She posited that it's actually an opportunity

for us to finally have a real honest to goodness conversation as a nation about how we can develop our natural resources, how we can work together to break down inter-provincial trade barriers, and how it's an opportunity for provinces to actually help each other out to get these markets, to get these goods to market in a way that we never have before.

And I think a lot of people were quite impressed with the vision that she laid out. You've been beating this drum for a while. You've been talking about inter-provincial trade barriers for years. You've been talking about building pipelines for years. Are you sensing satisfaction that more people are willing to have this conversation now

or are you frustrated? Yeah, well, a bit of both, but you know, I'm in Quebec right now, for example, Trudeau and the liberals just killed the LNG Quebec project, which would have shipped Western Canadian energy to the Saguenay, which where it would have been liquefied and then sent off to Europe. But that got blocked by the hardline anti-development liberal extremists, just like they blocked LNG plants in Newfoundland

and British Columbia, they blocked two pipelines. You know, it's funny, these people who wanna kill these energy projects, they also claim to be critics of Donald Trump, but they keep giving him our energy at a discount. You know, natural gas trades for $4 per million metric British thermal units. It trades for $13 in Europe. You can buy something for $4 and sell it for 13 and do that billions of times. You're going to make a lot of money. Yeah.

But you got to be able to get it there. We don't have a single operating liquefaction terminal to export our gas overseas. We give all of it. 100% of our natural gas exports go to the Americans. They liquefy. They profit from it. Just like our oil. If we want to go around the Americans, we need pipelines and LNG plants, and I will enthusiastically permit them when the private sector steps up to build them. But if the activists that have been empowered by this government for years with quote unquote meaningful consultation, if they stand up and try to block these things, how far are you willing to go? Is the notwithstanding clause on the table. Well, that wouldn't legally notwithstanding clause would have no use in this case, because it

doesn't apply to the duty to consult. So what I would say is the judges should interpret the duty to consult as it was meant, which is we will consult, but we're not going to have unanimous support. Like I'll give you an example when Trudeau killed The Northern Gateway pipeline the majority of First Nations groups along the path supported it Yet he killed it against the will of the First Nations people. He killed the tech frontier mine Even though all 20 First Nations communities around the mine were on side So what I'm finding is the First Nations actually want to develop these things. It's the radical activists that use First Nations communities against themselves.

And I'm going to be standing up to those radical activists and I'm going to be building a coalition with indigenous groups who desperately want to develop to end poverty on reserve and in treaty lands. And I'm also going to allow corporations to pay a share of their federal tax to the local First Nations as an incentive for them to say yes and benefit from the massive wealth we will generate. Mr. Poliev, you're a busy man. I appreciate you taking time to talk to our listeners on the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you. Many blessings. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for

total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. for total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. And last week was all about Mark Carney's launch, his bid to replace Justin Trudeau. Christia Freeland is next on deck. She threw her hat into the ring. And I gotta say, her launch was preceded by a video, an online video where Freeland,

prior to the word Freeland appearing on screen, it was free land. And then those two words came together to form Freeland. I liked that very much. What ensued at the launch was, well, I'm sure there was some good, but people seem to be focused on the bad with the popping up of protester after protester

after protester and rapid succession that really deflated the energy in the room. Let's listen to one of the many protesters. And at one point, she touched on getting rid of the carbon tax, something that she has defended time and time again. She tried to explain it away. The time has come for us as a government, as a country, to do two things. I think we all know we have to fight against climate change.

We all get that. We need to do it for our kids. We need to do it for the planet. Liberals believe in that, and that is a fight that has to continue. But it is also the case that we need to get better at listening to Canadians and at listening to what Canadians are telling us. And we have heard very clearly from Canadians in provinces where there is a consumer facing price on carbon that they don't like it. All right, to give us his unvarnished opinion on this as someone whose opinion I value a great deal in these matters. Warren Kinsella, former special advisor to Jean Chrétien and CEO of the Daisy Group.

Warren, happy Monday. What did you make of this launch? It was, well, good morning. And yeah, it was like the arsonist preaching about fire safety, like in fairness. I felt it badly for her that her event was disrupted about 20 times, but it was quite symbolic. She was Deputy Prime Minister and a senior cabinet minister for a decade during a period

when extremism and anti-Semitism has surged across the country. She and her colleagues did precious little about it. So it was ironic in the extreme to see these same people show up and basically wreck her event. Yeah, they totally destroyed her event. So kind of an irony there. But also an irony in terms of when she finally got around to saying some things about what she wanted to do. You know, casting doubt on the carbon tax. It's like seriously, yeah, she voted over 40 times in favor of the carbon tax, including

touting it as recently as two months ago. So to me, it she's just she's going where the votes are. It's not about deeply held beliefs. It's and if you don't believe in anything, then you stand for nothing. Exactly. And that is something that every voter gets. You got to believe in something. I mean, even Donald Trump, as much as a lot of people in the country don't like him, you at least know where he stands most of the time. And in Freeland's case, it's like, well, what are your core beliefs? What do you believe in? Like the carbon tax was a prominent feature. It wasn't just a line or two.

It was a prominent feature of every liberal election campaign document going back almost a decade. They believed in that policy and in fairness to them, polling showed at the outset a lot of Canadians believed in taxing polluters as well until they figured out that the government regarded them as polluters too. But it's just when you do these kinds of reversals, voters then do a calculus and they say, well, why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth? Because this one thing that was a cardinal was in your catechism. It was something you believed in in your soul. Now you're saying you didn't really mean it.

Warren, I want to talk to you about between Mark Carney and Christia Freeland, who has the most likely chance of success as presenting themselves as an agent of change? Because on one hand, you've got Mark Carney, who when he speaks, certainly sounds and makes you feel very differently than Justin Trudeau. There's the the the dramatics and histrionics aren't there and you can tell that when he speaks behind his words are thoughtfulness and deliberate nature. But he is the Trudeau candidate. He's got the cabinet behind him, he's got the machinery behind him.

On the other side, you got Chrystia who walked lockstep with Justin on so many key issues. And even though she's doing an about face on these things, I don't think she can escape those. So both are presenting as a simulation of change. I don't think she can escape those. So both are presenting as a simulation of change. I don't think that they have the patina of change, but not real change. Which one has the best chance of of succeeding in presenting themselves as

that change agent? Neither one, neither one. Like they're just if that is what they're going to do, it's going to blow up in their face. Carney is surrounded by the entirety of Trudeau's inner circle. He's been advising quietly on the QT. He's been advising Trudeau about economic policy for years now, not just months. The person that Trudeau wanted to replace Freeland with after he fired Freeland that fateful Friday was Mark Carney. So for him to depict himself as, as an outsider, he literally said those words.

I mean, if he'd been hooked up to a lie detector, it would have knocked out the power on the Eastern seaboard. And then, and then Freeland's case is the same deal. It's like, you know, Hey Krista, here's this, let's take a look at your LinkedIn profile where it talks about you being the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Global Affairs, and you've been with Trudeau from the earliest moments of his leadership. You've been with him through the entirety of his government as a Cabinet Minister, neither of them is an outsider. I think what she did was a bit smart. She had a better launch than him. His was a kind of dud. He sounded like a central banker trying to be a politician. She had a video launch that

preceded this terrible event that she had that was disrupted by the pro-Hamas people. And she framed herself as the anti-Trump person. Trump has said he doesn't like her, so she was smart. She leaned into that and said, if you're looking for somebody to face off against Trump, it's not me, not the other guy, not the banker. So I thought that was a good strategy.

So how do you see it playing out between the two of them? Because I think she did something very interesting as well, Warren, by saying that even if she loses she's going to fight in the next election. I think what she's not saying is, do you really think that Mark Carney, if he loses, intends to fight for you? He's in this for himself. He's enjoyed being an unaccountable influence on the government. He wants to be prime minister and only prime minister. If he doesn't get that he's gonna take his toys and go home. And that's the truth. That's what he's told I've spoken to,

you know, you speak to people in politics, I speak to people in politics, he is told members of parliament, he's not going to stick around if they lose. And she said, I'm going to stick around. That's one of the things liberals want to hear. But what a you know, I've been involved in liberal parties since I was a little guy. And the one thing I know about liberals, they're not so hung up on carbon taxes or anything else.

It's winning. Who can win? And we'll all know at the same time who they're going to go with. If the polling shows that Carney is more favorable of choice to Canadians, that's where liberals are going to go. That's in fact what the polls are showing right now. And the fact that he got Mélanie Jolie on board, does that speak to him having a strong ground game to bring in members in Quebec? Well, there is this mythology that she's got this great team in Quebec. If that were so, why didn't she run for the leadership? No, what I think it actually is more meaningful is Freeland had, you know, these pro-Hamas people

disrupting her event, as we talked about a few minutes ago, and the most pro-Hamas minister in the government of Canada is Melanie Jolie lining up behind Mark Carney. I think that is a meaningful development on both fronts. I think if the Jewish community is looking, you know, who would they be most comfortable with? I think it's going to end up being Christopher Friedland. Interesting, interesting. And then of course, you've got the wild cards like the Karina Goulds of the world. So make sense of that. She is the rumor there, because, you know, nobody could pick her out of a police lineup and she's going to lose her riding.

How do you win the country if you're going to lose your riding? The view there is where does she get the $350,000 to run and the $5 million limit to spend on your campaign? The rumor is that she is a stalking horse for Mark Carney. What that means is, and I know in in politics is it's basically somebody who knows they don't have a chance and they're kind of a kamikaze candidate who is in there to go after Krister Freeland and say things to Freeland that are critical that Carney cannot say himself. So he can stay above the fray. Hey, Warren, thank you so much. A really insightful conversation. I hope you come back again soon. Absolutely. That was Warren Kinsella, the former Special Advisor to Jean Crezien and CEO of the Daisy Group. So I've been doing radio now for just over a year. I started in October of last year. And one of my

great pleasures every week was to do a segment on the morning show called Think Tank, where I would be paired with other guests, and we would talk about the issues of the day. And every now and then, I would be lucky enough to be paired with Roy Green, the host of the Roy Green Show on the Chorus Radio Network. And I was gobsmacked at how well-spoken, well-prepared, measured, is to every, everything about Roy made me realize,

all right, that's the top of the mountain. That's the mountain I, as a broadcaster, have to climb because that's where Roy is. And it was all, I learned so much in my short time with Roy and I owe him such a debt for being such a model for me to want to emulate. And we were all saddened to hear the news of his health situation. And he's decided that in order to take care of that, he is stepping away from his duties as the host of the Roy Green Show. His final show is on January 26th and he joins us now. Roy, it is an honor to have you on the Ben Mulroney show.

Ben, you're very kind. Thank you very much. I love doing those think tanks with you. Yeah. Yeah. With that with that Greg fella. Greg guy. Exactly. What? So may I ask how are you feeling today? I feel honestly, I feel fine. It's just that the lab results and the scans tell me something else. Yeah. And what it is is stage four metastatic prostate cancer. You never want to hear the words stage four back to back. But I'm getting great care and I'm living my life and I'm doing the things I want to

do and for me this is now all about I'm gonna have to focus on myself. Yeah. I'm gonna have to focus on what I need for my health. I have great doctors and sometimes they make me take products that I wish they hadn't. But ultimately, you realize that these things, no matter how unpleasant they are, they do help you. And then it's a fight. Yeah, it's a fight, and I'm up for it. And you're right. You know, you've spent you've spent so much of your career telling other people's stories, sharing stories of the day interviewing people to get their story out

there. And now you, you have to make it about you, you have to be selfish. Yes. And I am going to be selfish. And I but I still have plans. Yeah, I was saying on the air the other the last weekend or the weekend before, but on my bucket list number one, it's a very short bucket list. There's only one item. And that is to ride my Harley up the Alaska Highway. Oh my goodness.

People are telling me I'm crazy because some guy pointed it out to me about a week and a half ago. You know, you can be between, you can be a hundred miles between motorcycles, shops, and the only roadside assistance is provided by Grizzlies. Yeah, yeah, you better not get a flat tire up there. That's for sure, Roy.

You know, so, but I still want to do these things. If my doctors tell me that I can, and if they say, you know, you can take four weeks, five weeks, then you can do this, then I plan to do it. The worst thing you can do is to give in, to lose hope, to lose your intent to win. It's all about winning. And this is the biggest game, if you will, and that's a pretty loose application of the word, with the biggest, most important scoreboard. And my objective, and it has to remain my objective, Ben,

is to win this thing. And I know it's going to be extremely difficult, but I'm not in any frame of mind to give up. Well, I have no doubt that you're going to give it your all as you did for so many years as a broadcaster. You're on since 1990, correct? Oh, that's when I started the talk show at CHML in Hamilton, but I've been on radio since I was 16. Oh my goodness. I was a 16 year old kid.

My mother got to know the wife of the general manager of the rock station in Montreal. We were at their house for dinner and he said, what are you planning to do this summer, Roy? I said, probably what I did last summer, ride one of those 600 pounds steel bicycles delivering groceries. Then he said, how would you like to work at the radio station? How would I like to do what? And it's rock.

And I'm 16. And the Beatles, hard days, nights. That's great. So I've worked, do you have time or are you in a rush? Me? Yeah. Oh, we got a few more minutes here, right? Okay, good, good, good.

So I'm so I I was working nine to midnight, Saturdays and Sundays. I got the prime shift. And then I just learned to queue up records. Now you're too young to know what queuing up a record means. I know. Do you know what it is? Yeah. wouldn't you have to listen of where the beginning of the song was? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you put that round thing on the green felt and then you'd have to spin it

to get to the beginning of the song. Yeah, I say, I know what that is, but my sons just joined me in the studio. We're gonna have lunch when the show is done. They would have no idea what you're talking about. Oh, probably not. Although, the vinyl's coming back in a big way.

Yeah, yeah. But so I have just barely learned the fundamentals of spinning discs. And they had a live show from eight to midnight. Now I'd been going on the air doing station breaks for an hour, which I thought was the ultimate in broadcast and I thought I'd arrived. This was the big time.

Yeah. And the jockey was supposed to go on the air. He stopped at a few establishments on the way to the radio station. And by the time he got to the station, even I knew with just three weeks experience, this guy can't go on the air. It's just not, it's not possible. He can barely stand. So I called the general manager and I said, Mr. Wall, it's Roy at the radio station. George isn't feeling too well. And you picked up the baton and you never let go. He said to me, who else is there, Roy? And I I said nobody. And here's what he said to me, Ben, exact quote, well tag you're it. That's one of those things they say isn't luck is when

preparation meets opportunity. Exactly. And that's case in point. 30 seconds to prepare. That's one. And listen, Roy, you've been around for so long. And it does, I wanted your take on a couple of things before we say goodbye. Absolutely. It feels to me as somebody fairly new to radio that we seem more willing and able to have tougher tough conversations today that were verboten just a few years ago. Do you subscribe to that?

I've never really believed in anything was off the table, as long as I wasn't harming someone. If questions had to be asked, tough questions had to be asked, I asked them. Yeah. It's a different climate, though, because it certainly is a different world. But you know, we can go back 10 years, 20 years. I had the opportunity to interview your father one on one for an hour. And that was a real highlight for me. And I didn't shy away from the tough questions, neither did your father shy away from answering.

A lot of people say that politics is more is meaner today. It's more toxic today, but as a child growing up in Ottawa, you think you think I because I remember being plenty toxic back in the day. I think it's more so than ever. And somebody said to me, somebody who's in politics said to me, it's a couple of years ago now, we used to bark at each other while we were in parliament. We certainly barked at each other in question period, but at the end of the day, we'd go for a drink

or we'd go for dinner. It never happens, never happens anymore. There's actual, very strong, not only a dissonance, but a dislike. And I don't know how you manage, pragmatically manage the affairs of a country. If you actively and personally dislike the person on the other side of the aisle. That's, that's, that's what's happening now.

Yeah, Roy, we're gonna, we're gonna leave it there. I want to tell you what it means to have had you on the show today. I want to say it's been a pleasure sharing the airwaves with you. And it's been a pleasure learning from you. And I know this is a really tough battle, but you're the type of person who is equal to the task and I wish you the very, very best. Thank you, Ben. I'm going to fight this every day. And the best way I can, and the best way I can do this is to remain as

positive as I possibly can. And Roy Green's final show is this Sunday, the 26. Thank you so much, Roy. Thank you so much, Roy. Thank you, Ben. Here's a question for you. Have we peaked in terms of life expectancy? There are some experts who suspect that younger generations could lead shorter lives. So to drill down, because I could talk about this for hours,

but I don't know what I'm talking about. Let's bring on someone who has a depth of knowledge on these issues. Dr. Nadia Allam. She is a family doctor and past president of the Ontario Medical Association. Dr. Welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben. Okay, so how so is this a real concern? Or is this clickbait? No, it's a real concern. And anecdotally, so I'm not a researcher, I read the research I've read, but more than that,

I've heard from my colleagues, I've seen it as I'm raising my own kids. Kids are not as active now as they used to be. One, they're not offered as many activities at school because the schools are overwhelmed. But outside of school, you don't see kids playing hockey on the streets as much anymore.

You don't see kids playing basketball, pick streets as much anymore. You don't see kids playing basketball, pick up basketball at the courts in the neighborhood anymore. So, and you don't see kids during the free swim at the community swimming pool anymore. Well, cause like life back in the day when I was growing up, life inside the house was not as exciting

as life outside of the house. Exactly. My parents would say, all right, be home by dinner. Yeah. And I would go run out, play baseball, play whatever explore with my friends, and then be home by dinner. And that's not done anymore. The fact that not only are adults becoming more sedentary, right? The article talked about how adults spend half their day sitting on their butts. Kids are doing this too. Now. Yeah, 37% of adults. Really worrisome.

Yeah, 37% of adults fail to meet the minimum physical requirement guidelines. That's up from 31% just 15 years ago. And yeah, they're saying the children are the same things happen to children. And everybody's sorry, go ahead. Well, I was gonna say you and I have talked about with that, you know, we've, we've managed to extend our lives, but it hasn't come with a, with a, um, a parallel extension of the quality of that life. Correct. Yeah. Correct. And everybody talks about exercise, right? If you put in your half hour of exercise a day, a lot of people think they're home free. That's not actually true. What helps more or perhaps at least equally as much is moving around all day long. And, and that can include going for it, like marching in place. That includes standing up while you're working using a standup desk, for example, that includes going to the coffee shop,

walking there instead of driving there. Little things like that actually add up. Not just in terms of burning calories, but improving your health overall. And that just does not happen anymore. Well, unfortunately for me, the cold dictates how active and how mobile I can be. It's too darn cold for me to do all the things I love doing outdoors, but when the weather turns and gets nicer, then I walk everywhere all day long. I'll take my calls. I'll do my meetings just by walking down the street.

Oh, that's amazing. People should follow that example. I will point out. It's just as cold as it used to be when we were kids and we are not like the cold doctor. I hate the cold. I'm not built for the cold. I'm not built for this stuff I'm getting too old for this stuff Okay. Now let's let's talk about a story that Really resonated with me that more than a third of Canadians are turning to online information due to a lot a lack of doctor access that's according to a poll and it's Part of its unsurprising,

but it's the second part that surprises me. I think 37% of respondents say they use medical advice that they found online because they couldn't access a medical professional for help. But then 23% of them said that they following that health advice resulted in a bad reaction. So I go online to guess, look around and hunt and peck to see what might be ailing me.

But I don't take that additional step of then taking that diagnosis and prescribing myself a cure. The challenge is that we are now in an era where people not only have a hard time getting in to see their doctor, they don't have a family doctor, and they've got a wealth of information from the internet. There is information overload. And there are online programs that will help you quote-unquote diagnose illness. These programs in research have shown to work fine, just

fine, for young healthy people, but for people who are complex, they fail completely. And I wonder if that 23% who suffered bad outcomes, right, where they got sicker, where they had complications, where the diagnosis was entirely wrong, if those were the more complex people. They tried this in the UK. It didn't work very well. It was called Babylon. And now I think we're actually trying it in Canada, which I also think is a bad idea. Wait, what is Babylon? Babylon is one of those online programs that uses artificial intelligence to help you through a series of questions and the expectation and hope is that it will help you diagnose illness. Yeah, but without the accountability of a human behind it as a guardrail, then it's honestly, it's buyer beware.

If there is a human component who's accountable for the results for the diagnosis and the ensuing treatment, that person will work their butt off to make sure they get it right, because they don't want the accountability that comes from getting it wrong. Yeah, yeah, there's no accountability with a machine. No, there is not. And every day that I go into work to see my patients, I think of myself as their safety net. If we can't figure it out on the first go, if we can't figure it out on the second goes to specialists can't figure it

out. I am there to catch them. Yeah, that is my job. And it's incredible. I love it. My jaw dropped though when the CMA announced that we are not only short, we're not only going to be short about 50,000 doctors, but we're only going to be able to fill about 30,000 of those spots. That's the leaves 20,000 of those spots. That still leaves 20,000 doctors. That is millions of patients, millions of Canadians. I'm not surprised that they're turning to the internet. I wish the governments and there are some provincial governments that have really focused on family medicine and have actually increased their number of family medicine graduates who are like me are providing comprehensive care. We need this in our most populous province, Ontario. Yeah.

And we need that to happen. We need Ford to commit. We need the entire like actually it's not even about partisan parties and stuff. This is about all political parties saying we are committed to the health care needs of our citizens. And so we are going to go all in to improve family medicine, just like the other provinces have. And hopefully people have to turn to the internet to Dr. Google to run the risk of misdiagnosis. It can be heartbreaking. I want to take our last little bit of time and we don't have too too much time left on talking about Ozempic and how yes, it can help curb your appetite and you can lose weight but it could boost other health risks. It's in the sense that it actually lowers the risks

of other illnesses. The interesting thing about obesity that I think a lot of people don't understand, everyone always thinks the cure to obesity, walk more, eat less. That has been the mantra for decades. What we now know is that being obese, being unhealthily overweight, leads to a series of, a cascade of changes in your body that makes you crave all the bad things for you. Your body does this to you. Your fat cells do this to you.

And in some ways, it mimics almost a sort of addiction. And when people start losing fat, when people start losing weight, and I'm not a big fan of the number on the scale, what I am a big fan of is making sure they're losing unhealthy body fat. So if they lose that unhealthy body fat, all those signals triggering those cravings start to go away. They stop smoking, they start walking more, they start enjoying life more, they start

stimulating their brains by stepping out of their comfort zone and they reduce the risk of dementia as well. It's a positive feedback loop. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It has such a profound impact that you can't ignore it. Now that said, there are risks to the medication

and people have to go in eyes wide open. Yeah, it can't- Because there's a chronic illness. It can't- There's not a one done. It's not a one done. It's not a magic bullet. And it has to be done. Like I said, with with the guardrails associated with medical supervision and the appreciation that at some point you have to get off that drug so that you can start living a healthy, healthier life. Doctor, thank

you so much for your time. You take care of it. Last week, we were lucky enough to speak with Maureen Leshem. She's the cousin of Romy, who was an Israeli hostage, who was captured very early on October 7th and taken hostage by the barbarians of Hamas. And she lived in captivity for, I believe, close to 500 days. We spoke with Maureen last week about the prospect of bringing Romy home.

And with the ceasefire in place, the good news came to her family that Romy would be one of those first three hostages to be released from the hell that she endured. And once again, we are lucky enough to have Maureen on the show. Maureen, welcome to the show, and please tell me, how are you feeling today?

Thank you for having me. I am still incredibly emotional, and I don't think it's fully sunk in yet. You know, I'm often asked, what does it feel like? And I, two days after her release, I'm still finding it difficult to capture, you know, the overwhelming joy and the immense relief that Romy is safe and at home.

You know, when her feet touched Israeli soil and that moment that it happened, I know it was as if a million bricks were lifted off of our shoulders. Yeah, for a while you didn't know if she was alive then you found out that she was alive but you didn't know that she would be one of the first hostages released. When did you find out, when did you get that confirmation that she would indeed be one of the first? I received that confirmation from my family on Friday in the middle of the night. I was told at that time that none of the families were given notification whether their loved ones that are on the list are alive or deceased. So, ones that are on the list are alive or deceased. So you know, waiting to confirm that she was alive is just oh, it was living through this unbearable certainty.

Now Maureen in a press in a release that you put out following Romy's release, you said we know that the Romy who is returning to us is not the same vibrant, joyful young woman who was stolen from us on October 7th and then you go on to talk about what you need to do in order to bring her back into the light. So as joyful as you are I have to assume that there there's a push-pull of emotions frustration, anger that as to what happened to her to bring her to that dark place and also the

knowledge that there are still so many people in captivity that need to be released. Absolutely. I mean, if you notice the videos online of when the hostages were released and the entire global community had their cameras on them, you know, these not only Hamas terrorists but Gazan citizens, they exhibited such inhumane behavior shouting in their faces and they, you know, I was watching these videos and I couldn't help but think that they're behaving in a manner that is more reminiscent of wild animals.

And so you can't help but wonder if this is what they're doing with the cameras on them, what were they doing when the cameras were not on them? Yeah. So we know that Romi is physically fragile, noticeably thin. We know that she's injured, harsh conditions. We know this from previous released hostages. She's unable to use her dominant hand. She was shot in the arm on October 7th and did not receive medical care, but her spirits

are high. Her spirits are good. She is surrounded by family. Israel's medical teams are well prepared for this crucial moment. You know, they have experts that are in the field of, you know, medical and psychological and social work field that have deep, deep experience

working with trauma survivors. So, dad is giving us a lot of comfort that she's going to be getting the proper care that she needs. It's going to be a long road. It's going to be a long road. But to have that family to have that support is essential. And I know she's going to get it from you. Lastly, knowing that there is a ceasefire in place and but but only three hostages have thus far been released, knowing that there's still such a long road

ahead before they can all come home. Are you feeling optimistic about that prospect? Absolutely, I am I know that there are 94 lives that depend on us. This there's no time to pause, there's no time for us to catch our breath. I'm going to choose to remain optimistic and going to choose to believe. And we're not going to stop we're not going to stop advocating for our brothers and sisters and quite frankly for humanity.

Maureen I know that the backdrop is is one of sadness the back drop is one of still a frustration and of worry, but you have we have to we have to take the joy where we find it and the release of Romy and the joy that your family is experiencing needs to be highlighted and celebrated. And I wish for her on behalf of everyone at this show, I wish for her peace and I wish for her

a life of light and of joy. And thank you so much for coming onto the show and sharing this snapshot with us. Thank you so much. That means so much to us. the show and sharing this snapshot with us. Thank you so much. That means so much to us. Thank you. All right, take care. Best shows and your favorite trusted experts all under one roof. Are you kidding me? Every Thursday, watch heartwarming programs like an all new Extreme Makeover Home Edition at 8.

Home at Five! We are so lucky to be a part of this. And Honest Renovations, starring Jessica Alba and Lizzie Mathis at 9. Changing these homes, we can change families. There's no place like it. Home Network. Stream on STAP TV.