The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Dr. Michael Bonner, Ron Chhinzer, Kris Sims

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Dr. Michael Bonner, Ron Chhinzer, Kris Sims Guests: Dr. Michael Bonner, Ron Chhinzer, Tony Chapman, Marcus Kolga, Adam Zivo, Kris Sims 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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So wherever you find us, we say welcome and we say thank you. So if you're a longtime listener of the show, or you may pop in every now and then, you know that the broken immigration consensus is something that we try to focus on a lot on this show because it is it when it worked, it was something that we try to focus on a lot on this show, because when it worked, it was something that helped us build this country into one of the best versions of itself. And now that consensus has been broken, we were promised that the numbers of new Canadians

and new people brought into Canada was going to be significantly pared back. So when I read that Canada took in 817 new immigrants in the first four months of 2025, well, that was a WTF kind of moment for me. And so here to talk about that is somebody who knows a thing or two about a thing or two, Michael Bonner, the Senior Fellow at the Aristotle Foundation

for Public Policy and former Senior Policy Advisor to the Federal immigration minister. Michael, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I mean, this was a, this number is huge, 817. Now, is it new immigrants? Are these new Canadians people who will be staying here or could this possibly be an inflated number

due to temporary foreign workers who come in and say, work the fields in our agricultural sector? It's temporary foreign workers. That's the majority of it. And the majority would be very unlikely that they would be doing mostly agricultural jobs. The problem with the temporary foreign worker program is that it's become effectively a business model abused throughout our economy, especially in the hospitality sector. And it's used to keep wages artificially low effectively, like a kind of subsidy from the government, which, you know, really has no business continuing. But what happened, Michael, to the government's mea culpa under Justin Trudeau in the dying days of his government where they admitted pretty much that they had, for lack of a better expression, screwed the pooch.

And they were going to be walking back a great number of their policies and they were going to right size the number of people coming into Canada and figure it out and course correct. This doesn't seem like a course correction. This seems like an explosion of new people entering Canada. Yeah, not at all. And screwing the pooch may as well have been the motto of the Trudeau years. But no, I mean, you raise an important point.

When is our government going to take this issue seriously? This is not economic growth. It doesn't benefit the economy and it doesn't employ Canadians. The whole thing about the, you know, elbows up crowd and buy Canadian and so forth, you know, where did that go? Why not hire a Canadian? Yeah, good point. This is a fundamental structural problem that we have built into this country that was greatly exacerbated under the Trudeau years. Their excuse was to stave off a recession after COVID. Right? And, you know, maybe we avoided one, you know, some people say we're, you know, we're, we might be on the verge of one now, or possibly in the middle of one. But,

you know, economic, economic growth and productivity haven't been great. And one of the reasons is this constant churn of temporary low wage, low skilled labor. Well, Michael, I want, I want to jump in because the churn suggests that those who come in eventually leave. But in all the conversations I've had about our immigration system, be it temporary foreign workers or permanent residents

or immigrants or refugees, we simply don't have the bodies or infrastructure in place to ensure that everybody who is supposed to stay for a determined amount of time leaves when they're supposed to. In fact, a lot of them disappear through the seams that we never see them again. And they just make their way through sort of the,

the black market economy being paid in cash under the table and they stay here for an indeterminate amount of time. Yeah, well, I mean, they're supposed to leave. Yeah, they're supposed to. being paid in cash under the table and they stay here for an indeterminate amount of time. Yeah. Well, I mean, they're supposed to leave. Yeah, they're supposed to. Yes. And as you say, many of them don't. And there are now, there's now such a huge number that it's probably beyond the resources of the government and the CBSA to keep track of them all. There are reports that some sort of go underground. They apply for asylum under, I would say,

sort of dubious circumstances or citing sort of doubtful claims. But yeah, churn might not be the right word. I mean, it's become a kind of addiction that is sort of recycled. People are effectively used to subsidize the low end of the Canadian economy. And this, you know, this is extremely bad for us. Yeah, it's, it is, it is the kind of, you know, we're talking about the kind of jobs that, you know, a young student might have originally, you know, once upon a time, have taken to get a foothold into the labor market. The kind of, the kind of job working at a coffee shop, you know, like Tim Hortons or whatever, where you want your kid to get an experience

serving your neighbors in your local community. And learning discipline and learning to take orders and learning that you gotta show up on learning. It's about learning responsibility in the workforce. And those jobs do not exist for sort of the young Canadians at this point. I did wanna fold in an article that we talked about on this show last week that you authored

for the hub.ca entitled, It's Time to Totally Overhaul Canada's Immigration System. And I'm, you know, on good days when I'm optimistic, Michael, I believe that crisis breeds opportunity. And is there any way we can look at the mess that is currently our immigration system and see opportunity and see a chance to take it down to the studs and not go back to the consensus that we had a few years ago, but rather build out a new consensus based on a different kind of immigration system purpose built for the 21st century?

Well, I'd like to think so. on a different kind of immigration system purpose-built for the 21st century? Well, I'd like to think so. Look, one of the fundamental challenges that we're going to have in the future is that as the entire world, as sort of birth rates of the entire world go down, there's going to be less and less of a surplus population of young, motivated, well-educated, trained people looking for opportunity around the world. I just don't see any way around that. And the kind of business model or the economic model of immigration that Canada has made use of for the past several decades. I just don't think that's going to be available to us for much longer.

So from that perspective also, there has to be some kind of new approach has to be found. And in the meantime, yes, let's by all means try to recruit the best and the brightest that the world can produce and amongst, you know, amongst whom there must be many who would be very happy to live here. But it's not fair. It's not fair to the, you know, to established Canadians and it's certainly not fair to the immigrants, first of all, to treat people simply as units of economic input and just sort of bring in as many as we possibly can without thinking at all about things like infrastructure, housing, or even just the number of jobs.

Now, speaking of jobs, I've got to repeat again, we cannot keep giving privileged access to the low wage, low skill portion of our labor market. This is a disincentive to businesses to, first of all, to hire Canadians. Second, to invest in skills training, to invest in our economy, to invest in our people. It needs to be cut off, probably not, you know, very suddenly it needs to be ratcheted down. Yeah. And businesses have to be given every, every incentive we can possibly think of to train and hire Canadians. Michael, I thought we had reached that point. I thought the ratcheting down was happening and the fact that it seems to be on steroids right now is exceptionally disappointing and concerning. But I want to thank you for joining us on the show and I hope you come back soon.

An absolute pleasure. Thank you. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And I'd like you to buckle in because we are about to have a heck of a conversation that if you are anything like me is going to make your blood boil and your head possibly explode. So here is the background. In October of 2023, Constable Anand Gandhi, and by the way, the name Anand Gandhi is, should just remember that, stop a Jeep in Brampton on a Sunday afternoon

after an automated license plate reader, an automated license plate reader on his cruiser detected that the owner of the Jeep was facing drug charges in Toronto was under a license suspension for medical and administrative reasons Gandhi determined that he could impound the vehicle if the driver was a suspended owner was the suspended owner now earlier the same day apparently he was he stopped another motorist and gave them a ticket um but in this later stop Gandhi arrested and handcuffed the black male owner of the Jeep, called for backup and ordered a search of the vehicle and detained the driver for 90 minutes.

And according to a judge, according to a judge, the appeal regional police officer, Anand Gandhi, engaged in the racial racial profiling of a black motorist in an example of a systemic problem within the service. And the case has since unraveled. Here to, so here, so we've got a, we've got a cop of Asian descent who used technology to stop a guy with drug and gun charges on him. And a judge said that that was racial profiling. I'm sure I'm missing some nuance to it, but to sort of break it down as somebody who actually broke it down very well on Twitter over the weekend,

we're welcoming Ron Chinzer. He's a former police officer for Toronto and Piel. Ron, welcome to the show. Hey, Ben, thanks for having me. And yet you hit it on the head. This is ludicrous. Okay, so, I mean, are we getting to the point, Ron, where like, what did the cop do wrong?

The computer alerted him to a license plate that was attached to a car that the owner of the car had charges against him. And the law states that if the driver is the driver of that car, he can be detained and arrested. Absolutely. So what am I missing? You're not missing anything. And that's the crazy part. You know, the general principle of the law, especially when it comes down to rulings,

yes, there's technicalities in court, but anybody can read the summary. Anybody can read the case file on canley.org, which has all these judge rulings. And a normal average prudent person would look at it and say, this doesn't make sense. And you don't have nothing about this makes sense. The cop did nothing wrong. It was all textbook. It was all routine. And this becomes a huge divide from an idealism driven judge and the actual application of the law. And you know, this was brought to my attention by a police officer who said, Can you believe this? And they sent it out to me almost immediately. Well, and I'm glad you brought that up because over the weekend, I was hosting an event for a Jewish charity. And in my remarks, I was addressing the fact that, the protests have gotten out of control

and the police haven't really done what I think is required for Jewish Torontonians to feel safe. But then I put a caveat on that. I said, I've talked to enough police officers, the brave men and women who defend this city, who feel like they are handcuffed from doing what they think is the right thing by decisions that are made high above them.

And they're given their marching orders on what they can and can't do. I have to assume that there are plenty of cops in Peel region who heard this story. You're like, yet again, another example of us not being able to do our jobs circumscribing our ability to do what we signed up to do, which is protect the public. No, you're 100% right. And this is not just in the Peel region. Look, Peel is the second largest municipal police service in the country. Number one is

Toronto, and Peel is well known. And about this whole thing, here's the major issues with this. So you have this Peel officer who, as you mentioned, there's an automated system that just scans license plates. We've been hit up by car jackings, auto theft, stolen autos. We need to make this as lean and efficient as possible. So he's driving around,

this automated system picks up a random plate to suspend a driver on drug charges By the way, you know what that means? That means this drivers also on bail Yeah, hold it over finds out the guys on drug charges pulls him out and they talk about this 90-minute gap while he's detained Yeah, because from the moment he gets detained for driving while suspended in that whole investigation They find the gun now there turns into a criminal charge. So yeah, 90 minutes is sounds like, wow, Ron, I'm glad you brought that up because in the article that I read, sort of summarizing this, the judge referenced a baseless search. How is it a baseless search if everything proceeding that gave this, uh, this police officer, every indication that the person

driving that car is probably on bail and probably has charges laid against them. How's it baseless? You have a reasonable suspicion that there could be something bad going on in this car because the person whose car it is is a bad dude. Yeah. And even in this case, the officer searches the car, not with the intent to look for evidence or anything suspicious.

They do an inventory search because we're going to tow the car. And all that means is we have to be able to look in the car, just like a very basic search to be able to see if there's anything valuable, if there's anything dangerous, because it's going to be towed by a tow truck driver to a civilian yard. We do this thousands of times throughout the country, probably a month. So it's routine. This is normal. It's during that inventory search, they find a firearm, a loaded firearm, it's routine, this is normal. It's during that inventory search they find a firearm,

a loaded firearm by the way, in the car, which then transitions into a criminal investigation. Now that's all within the 90 minutes. So the initial search was done out of ill will. It's just to make sure if this guy says, listen, I had $10,000 in the car, I had a gold chain, and these guys stole it, the cops can say, we searched it, there was nothing of value there. If we did find something of value, we'd seal it up and give it to the owner as he gets released. So when they say baseless search, that's to my mind, to my experience,

that's a judge who doesn't even understand the basic concepts of a search. And this judge is an interesting one, because I Googled her right away to find out, well, who is this judge? And there's a video clip on TBO, and I put it up right after and it shows her specifically talking about this. Now she references in her decision that when

the officer took this guy's phone, so his personal belongings after detaining him, so he gets unsuspended driver under the highway traffic act, they can arrest him, detains and puts him in the back of his car. And he does that probably because this guy's already on drug charges. So it's common sense to say, look, I can arrest this guy. I'm going to make sure he has no weapons, because what happens with drugs is probably drug dealer and there's guns, which happened to be in this case. So he does all this stuff, takes his wallet, takes his cell phone, takes his personal belongings. The judge says that was unreasonable and now is a breach of his rights. That's not unreasonable.

Then it transitions into something else. So the judge utilizes the cell phone, right? And the cell phone's important because there's a TVO clip when she was the commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission where she's being interviewed on TVO. And she talks about specifically, and it's in the video, she says, yes, you know, just because we have a cell phone

doesn't mean we should be able to search it, even though that might stop crime. But that's her brain. So when she utilizes that in her judgment from this case here, almost 15 years later, and says, you know what, this cell phone is what triggered me to look at systemic racism. And she applied it. She had a single lens here and who loses on this community loses the service loses and this poor copper who's doing their job. And when a judge says something like systemic

racism, how do you come to that conclusion from this? Like it's so- As I like to say, you can't get there from here. And Ron, like, what do you think this does for people who wanna become police officers, who are, we just went through the defund the police nonsense and we see the reputation of a lot of good cops. And there are bad apples in every industry. I'm not talking about that, but there are good cops out there

who are besmirched every day, who are putting themselves at risk every day. They're not getting back what they hope they would get back in terms of respect from the community. And then you see, you've got judges like this who, in my opinion, have an agenda and are besmirching their reputation further, making it harder for them to do their jobs, the jobs, the hard, difficult, dangerous jobs that they signed

up to do. What does that do to our ability to invite the best into the fold to become cops? I mean, if I, if I was on the fence about what I want to become a cop or not, something like this would make me think long and hard. I mean, like, why would I even want to go through the hassle? No, you're 100 percent right. You know, right after I resigned from policing about two years ago, I was invited by the Solicitor General's Office to sit on this this committee

that called Pathways to Policing. Let's talk about the recruiting crisis that we have in policing from not the number of applicants, but the quality of applicants. Because and this this type of behavior, this type of stuff we're seeing from judges from not the number of applicants, but the quality of applicants. And this type of behavior, this type of stuff we're seeing from judges from on the Supreme Court, this is a total killer for people, not only from wanting to come into the profession

because they're like, well, what's the point of me doing this service if nothing happens? From terrible bail system to terrible judgments, but existing good cops that have their heart in the right place are saying, why am I doing this? What's the point? And this is where you have people that will just overlook things because they're so frustrated with the system. They're like, why am I going to do this? When my name is going to get blasted at a newspaper,

my family is going to have to deal with this. I'm going to be called racist for just doing my job. We've seen this so many, so many times over again. And the biggest detriment is our communities are going to lose because we need good, great, and amazing people to apply to want to do public service. And my, my, my, the richest part of it is detective Anand Gandhi is now the face of systemic racism. Can you believe this? I can, buddy. I can, Ron. This is, of course I can. This is the, this is,

this is what we've built up in this country over the past 10 years. But anyway, I want to thank you for highlighting this. Thank you for opening up in this country over the past 10 years. But anyway, I want to thank you for highlighting this Thank you for opening up the conversation for us because on the other side of the break We are gonna open up the phone lines We're gonna ask the question our judges putting handcuffs on police officers making it harder for them to do their jobs Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show Now that the warm weather is here is it time to get rid of your old car Oh sure, it's served you

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These are the biggest deals of the season! I'm shouting it from the rooftop! We have a radio ad, you don't need to be up there! The summer big red sale is on from June 5th to June 12th. Conditions apply, details online. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Monday with us. It's that time of the week where we like to talk about marketing and strategy and media with a good friend of the show, Tony Chapman. He's the host of the award-winning podcast,

Chatter That Matters, as well as the founder of Chatter AI. Tony, happy Monday to you. I gotta love your studio. I love the fact that you're putting it out on YouTube. Well done. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, you and I have talked about this a lot,

about how streamers have an advantage when it comes to advertising, because they can pinpoint the demographic that an advertiser is looking for down to the person. Very, very granular stuff. And now Netflix is going to be adding AI, I guess, to supercharge that offering. Yeah. I mean, traditional media was always about a big DREF net.

Coke opens happiness. I'm going to spread it across the entire world to capture wherever I can. And then when social media came along, they said, well, actually we can target it very precisely to the gender demographic location. And then mobile came along and said, but not only that we can target the ad as the person's walking down the street saying, come in for a cup of coffee. What's happening now with generative AI and Netflix is another game changer, which is you're watching your program. They know who you are, how long you're watching, what else you stream.

They know the genre you're watching. They know the actors you're watching. They create an ad just for you. So they're fly fishing the exact ad with the exact bait at the exact time. For example, Hey, I love what you're looking. I love that turtleneck you got on. You can buy it right now. So that's the, that's how powerful we're getting in terms of your data,

which you excrete just by watching Netflix and their ability to fashion the perfect ad at the right time, very often to get you buy something you never wanted or needed, but suddenly you feel you deserve. But what's gonna happen to sort of traditional ad agencies if all of this is gonna be happening? I'm assuming Netflix is gonna be building this themselves.

So what's gonna happen to traditional ad agencies that are hired to come up with campaigns and to hire, you know, to storyboard these things, and then they put a team together and they hire the actors, and then they edit these things, and then they bring them back to the company, and the company says, yes, I mean, how is this gonna work? It feels like this will upend another industry.

Yeah, it's the biggest sledgehammer to hit. And we're already seeing the big agencies imploding because they realize they can't hold on to the body of work that justified their fees and justified offices with pooled tables and espresso machines. And now what's happening is Netflix not going to produce anything, AI is gonna produce it. So the reality is the data gets fed into an algorithm and turns into an ad. Now it will take three seconds, four seconds to create that ad,

maybe a nanosecond in the future. So again, what we've got to all come to terms with is the society, what are we gonna do when there's no jobs? Because AI is gonna populate every corner of our marketplace. I could clone your voice in 10 minutes and add that show out in 50 different languages. And you're going, well, what do we need producers for that? No, we just need AI. So we have to come to terms with society. This is one of many ways in which it's just going to disrupt what we used to take for granted was a good day's

work. I mean, I was assuming that this would be obviously disruptive to sort of traditional broadcasters and all the ad dollars are going to migrate to a place like Netflix work. I mean, I was assuming that this would be obviously disruptive to sort of traditional broadcasters and all the ad dollars were gonna migrate to a place like Netflix. I'm sure Amazon Prime is gonna be on this and so on. But I hadn't even thought about the sort of the people producing the ads that this is gonna be something that happens.

And as you said, could implode an entire other industry. And this is not stretching your imagination. There could be a thousand versions of your show airing next month based on what I'm interested in hearing. And they know your voice, they take the data, they fashion the stories and they put it out. So I'm getting a very custom version of your show. I like your personality, I like your persona,

I like your conservative views, but I'm really more interested in some of the things that when you talk about sports and entertainment, and as I tune your persona, I like your conservative views, but I'm really more interested in some of the things that when you talk about sports and entertainment, and as I tune into that, I will now get more of that show. It's the same reason why Spotify adjusts the playlist based on what you're interested, the Reco economy. With generative AI now, I'm not just recommending the Beatles,

I'm actually creating a Beatle-like song for you. Sure, yeah, but the problem with that is every now and then I say something that pisses people off. And that's one of the reasons people tune in. People, it's the Howard Stern effect, right? They, for every one person that tunes in because they love Howard Stern, at least the old Howard Stern,

there were two or three that tuned in because they couldn't stand him. And if it feels to me that what you're describing is a world where there will be a, there could be an AI version of the Ben Mulroney show that is tailored exactly to what you like. And what you like is me agreeing with you all the time.

And that's not the Ben Mulroney show. The wild card is when I throw in, I throw in something that surprises people. It's also gonna affect in your text boards and realize there's a spike of texts when people disagree with you. So they're gonna make sure that friction is part of the show. So again, it's just like what George does and what your team does is human connections. What works and doesn't work. And

they put it together. Algorithms just do that through data. It's not to say that we don't need the human touch, but I can tell you something. Someone like you is going to have an orchestra of 80 instruments. 78 of them are gonna be AI, and two of them are gonna be human. And the reality is those two are gonna have the most extraordinary job in the world because they've got this massive orchestra. The other 76 are gonna go, what happened to my job?

And that's what, and people will be yelling at me for years, I'm doom and gloom and AI. It is coming, it's gonna hit hard, and it's gonna impact all of society, and this is just one of the many stories. Well, yeah, well, listen, that dovetails perfectly into this next story that artificial intelligence could sound the death knell for entry level white collar jobs while causing us unemployment to rise as high as 20%. That's a huge number, but some are saying they could be even higher than that. Yeah, it's good. I think it's on my prediction is it's going to be

40 or 50%, which is going to be universal income. We have to find a way because we can't sell lipsticks to AI. So we have to find in a consumer economy, something to give consumers cash to do. But the most important thing is purpose. We find a lot of purpose in our jobs. A lot of people say, I hate my job. But the reality is you get social interaction, you get to go to work, you get to dress up, you get to escape might be a pattern of sort of boredom to go off and to find your path. You take those away, you take the entry levels away, the rungs on the ladder where I first become an adult, where I start learning responsibility. And I wonder how that's going to bode for a society.

I really do think jobs are an important part of our psychology. And until we figure that out, you can give me all the money in your work do but an idle minds is the devil's workshop And we've seen time and time again when countries have high youth unemployment. It's correlated to crime It's correlated to mental health issues and I'm I fear that's what's happening already in our society with 16% youth unemployment in Canada I want to talk now about Caitlin Clark, the massive star in the WNBA and the impact that she's having on the growth of that league. So apparently she was responsible for 26.5% of all WNBA economic activity last season. And by every metric or almost every metric, the WNBA is currently growing. And, you know, the question is, is her impact on the

WNBA greater than Michael Jordan's was in the nineties? And what does the NBA have? What does a WNBA have to do to ensure that this moment that they're having is turned into a movement? Fantastic question. So first of all, it's apples and oranges because the NBA was already established, but what they need to do all sports needs is rivalry. Having one person as your lead singer and you depend on it, it's almost a Gretzky effect. They go down to Los Angeles and suddenly people start falling in love in hockey. But it's only when there's tension, rivalry, debate, who's the best, who I think really fuels the growth of a sport versus just the growth of the individual. And you look back at golf, you know, Tiger Woods for a long time just was a runaway train and golf kind

of got very predictable. This started as you start getting challenges. So what they need to do is they need to find other talent of that level that you can go out and start having the conversations who do you think is better? And that's what creates an appetite to watch. But you know, like, like I said, it's about keeping it going as well, right? Because had Vince Carter not come to Toronto, Toronto would not have learnt about basketball in the way that they did. And that education would not have turned into the passion

that has now fueled basketball in Toronto and indeed across Canada. And it sustained the Raptors even in years where they're not competitive. And that's, I think the analog that I'm looking for with the WNBA. What do they have to do to ensure that on days where Caitlin Clark isn't playing,

if she's injured for long stretches, when she ultimately retires, what happens to that league when she is gone? Are they able to take advantage of this to, to bring in, uh, fans who aren't just fans of Caitlin Clark, but fans of the women's game, because that's what's going to sustain them long after she's gone. That's the greatest challenge that all women's sports face because there's a real appetite for them. They're getting sponsors right up front, giving them permission to go forward on it.

But the thing is, they've got to knock out because we only have 24 hours a day. And there's an absolute too much and too many chasing our time already. So what is women's sports going to do to knock out other sports so that we have a consideration to go to the games and spend our money and our dollars? That's the biggest challenge. Any sport that's not sort of in that top two or three phases, like any brand in a grocery store. Tony, gotta run.

Thanks so much. All right, man. Talk to you later. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And if you know the expression that revenge is a dish best served cold, then a corollary to that could be that if you are fighting an unprovoked war with Russia and you

are in a weakened position, then maybe the best way to hit back is by planning over the course of a year and a half here to discuss one of the most creative and effective offensives that Ukraine has had in this war, probably the most effective, when we saw a drone attack deep within the heart of Russia that affected so many aspects of its war machine. Our two great guests, Marcus Kolga, he's a senior fellow at McDonnell-Laurier Institute and founder of DisinfoWash, and Adam Zivow, who is a national post columnist

and knows more about what's going on in Ukraine than most to both of you. I say welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hi, thanks for having me on. Okay, so Marcus, I'd love for you to break this down. Jason Kenney, I think, effectively wrote in a tweet that this is Mossad level genius. Why don't you tell us about what happened over the weekend and why this is this rises to the level of what he called Mossad level genius. Yeah, you couldn't get the best Hollywood script writers to write a script like this. I mean, it's just incredible this operation. So over the past year, what happened is that Ukrainian intelligence basically concocted this plan to produce multiple lightweight drones

to place them into shipping containers and on trucks, basically deliver them into Russia, and then have them sort of remotely deployed from these trucks across five different time zones from these trucks across five different time zones at incredible distances from Ukraine in the middle of Siberia, basically the far east of Russia, remotely deploying these drones undetected to attack Russian military sites across Russia. And the results were spectacular. I mean, we have at least 40 Russian strategic bombers these are bombers that are being used to drop cruise missiles various different other munitions on on Ukrainian cities and such destroying 40 strategic bombers causing at least seven billion dollars in damage so the fact that this went undetected and the scale of success of this operation is really miraculous.

And Adam, I think one of the things that Jason Kenney highlights as well is that Russia will now have to carefully inspect hundreds of thousands of truck trailers, cargo containers, and temporary structures, and they'll have to tighten massively inspection of cargo imports. This is, I mean, time and money is binary. The time and

money that you spend on checking one thing is time and money you can't spend doing something else. So they're going to have their hands full making sure that this, this, this volley by Ukraine wasn't a one off, they have to assume there's going to be more. Well, of course, and this is where I think the Ukraine is doing something very intelligent. So after they launched the attack, they weren't shy about how it was done. They carefully explained how they managed to destroy all of these bombers. And basically it was a warning to the Russians that we've done this before, we can do it again. Now you have to check your entire supply chain very carefully, which then of course wrecks economic havoc.

And Russia right now is not exactly in a position to lose internal trade, right? I mean, right now they've got high inflation, they have high interest rates, their economy is sputtering, and that's a concern. So this is both an economic, psychological, and a military victory. However, we have to keep in mind that anything that the Ukrainians do to the Russians, the Russians can now do to any other Western adversary. So we've opened up a Pandora's box. The Ukrainians happen to have been the first ones to have realized that drones can be deployed this way, but now our enemies know that this can be done as well. And so this might revolutionize how we conceptualize security for

our military sites going forward and raise new protocols for security relating to transportation of sensitive materials, much in the same way how 9-11 changed the game when it came to airport security. Now that doesn't make the Ukrainians the bad guy. They were just the first to realize that war can be waged this way. And I would prefer that they made this innovation than anyone else. I've got to ask him what the psychological impact on the Russian people might be, Marcus, because for the longest time this was a war that was happening.

Every now and then the Ukrainians would be able to lob an attack from their own territory into Russia, but this is the first time that it started in Russia. And I've got to wonder if this has a psychological toll on the people and and and perhaps on their ultimately on their allegiance to this war Well, certainly I mean for those Russians who are who are able to receive information about this attack It will it will impact them It it means that though their cities even as remote as some of these locations may have been,

that they aren't necessarily safe. But I don't think that Russian media will, quite frankly, report on the true scale or the nature of this operation other than to try and blame Ukrainians. I think that it will change the calculus when it comes to Russia's leadership. I mean, this is a, this operation, as much as it was a success for Ukraine. It's also a success for for NATO and Canada, because now this is really degraded. Russia's perhaps its future planning for an attack on the Baltic States and also its operations targeting the Arctic.

You know, 40 strategic bombers, that's a huge number. It's one-third of Russia's capabilities. So this is a huge benefit for, this has a huge benefit for NATO and Canada as well. Adam, explain the timing of this attack knowing that today there was a meeting in Istanbul on, I'd call them peace talks or talks to slow down the war. So they've already happened today, but explain to me the justification or the reasoning behind hitting them hard today in advance of those talks. Well, so we have to keep in mind is that these peace talks are not genuine peace talks because Putin is not genuinely interested in peace. He hasn't dropped his unreasonable demands that Ukraine cede future territory.

And there were rumors that Russia was planning a major strike on Ukrainian cities last night in the lead up to these peace talks to demoralize Ukraine and pressure Ukraine into accepting a bad peace, which would leave the country vulnerable to dismemberment in the future. Ukraine then flipped the script by destroying one third of Russia's strategic bombing capability. And so now they have the upper hand in these Potemkin negotiations. They were able to avoid being cornered diplomatically.

So I think that this move is brilliant in its symbolic value as well as the military value. I want to ask you guys a question. I may be asking you to speculate here, but I looked at this sort of how complex and long-term and sophisticated this offensive was. And I got to wonder, like, could the U.S. have not known anything about this? They're claiming they know nothing about it. But it just feels to me like something like this has to happen with, I don't know, a few a few advisors from the US helping out with laying out these plans. Am I am I being conspiratorial about that? What do you think?

Marcus, you go first. Yeah, well, just very quickly. I mean, this didn't really require much assistance from Russian or rather US intelligence. The Ukrainian intelligence, they knew exactly where these targets were. They had these devices, the drones placed in close proximity to them. So I'm not sure that they really needed too much assistance from the from the US on this one. And quite frankly, I think that that's a benefit. We know what happened with the pizza heads head set than the and the signal. Yeah, chat. So it's probably a good thing that the US didn't know about this. Adam? Yeah, I would concur. I mean, I don't think that the Ukrainians let the Americans know about this because the Trump administration can't be trusted to keep this secret. Also, this isn't a very

complicated operation. You just have to smuggle a few hundred drones into Russia and place them near military bases. And I know that sounds complicated, but these drones are not that expensive. They're pretty easy to hide. You know, these are drones that are commercial grade, the kind that you can buy your kids, obviously, not explosives attached. Yeah. So basically, just put drones inside container, you know, move that in a truck to an air base, allowed, you know, created a remote control roof that could open. It's not that hard. Yeah, it's a remote control roof that I just impressed the heck out of me, these swarms of drones coming out. Anyway, it's a heck of a, I don't know if it's a good news story, but I certainly love

it when the good guys score one. And I thank both of you for joining me today. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you soon. Anytime. Thanks for having us on. Thanks for having us. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most?

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Spec savers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149, and oh, you'll like this. One can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store? Mmm, not far. Come on. Let's hurry then. To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two Thank you so much for spending some of your Monday with us. This moment for Mark Carney's Liberal government, it's an inflection point. He got elected on the promise of building Canada into an energy superpower. What that means, however, and how he gets there, if in fact he does, that's what matters.

And he over the weekend met with Premier Daniel Smith. His tweet reads, I had a constructive meeting today discussing what matters most building one united Canadian economy, including getting big things built and major infrastructure projects off the ground in Alberta and across Canada. Sounds good, but the one word he didn't use was pipelines. Here is the woman opposite him at that table, Danielle Smith, talking about the revenue lost from unbuilt pipelines.

One of the numbers I've been saying, and this is a game to put into context why Albertans are so furious that we've been stymied. If we built Energy East, that would have been a million barrel a day pipeline. If we built Keystone, that would have been about a 900,000 barrel a day pipeline. If we'd built Northern Gateway, that would have been about a 900,000 barrel a day pipeline. If we'd built Northern Gateway, that would have been about a 600,000 barrel a day pipeline, two and a half million barrels per day at today's prices would generate $55 billion worth of revenue, of which about $17 billion would go to governments. So when you think about what we would be doing with $17 billion of additional revenue each

year, the hospitals, the schools, the ability to hire nurses and doctors, it is not just an academic argument when the federal government gets in our way of building those pipelines. It has a real impact on our economy. So in the short term, yes, we've got a bit of a pinch, but in the long term, if we can address some of those issues, then I think we'll be able to have the revenues

to keep up with growth. Yeah, so this is one of those moments where we are going to get to know exactly who Mark Carney is, what kind of prime minister he is, and what his values are based on what comes out of these meetings. And joining us to discuss this is Chris Sims, the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Chris, welcome back to the show.

Thanks so much, Ben. So you wrote a piece in the Toronto Sun over the weekend that said, what's the title of it? Otto and Carney must get serious and listen to the West. So I think we're both saying the same thing. You know, he's saying a lot of the right things. He took a meeting with a ton of oil and gas CEOs. It was a closed door meeting.

So it wasn't for performance sake. I'm sure they talked about it a lot. Are these good and positive indicators, or is the fact that he's not even willing to tweet the word pipeline concerning? It's very concerning. He won't say the term oil and gas. He won't say pipeline.

And we can't bank on word games. He can't say, we're going to build big things. Are you talking about a string of big windmills? I build big things. Are you talking about a string of big windmills? I'm not kidding. Are you talking about like an entire hallway across Canada of solar panels? Because that's not funny. We actually need full capacity for our natural resources. We did the math, Ben. You've probably heard the term since 2015, we've lost out on since 2015, we've lost out on revenue from natural resources since 2015 to the tune of like 670 billion dollars over the past 10 years. You add that to the energy cap coming from Ottawa, Ben, that is the entire federal income tax bill

for the populations of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba for 10 years. Yeah. No, no, this is real. Uh, no, I get it. I get it. But I guess I'm, I look at, I look at his meeting with all of the executives, the, the, the picture that was on his social media, but it was a closed door meeting. So I can't, I can't believe it was a, a meeting for performance sake. And I can't believe that that many oil and gas executives would show up, uh, just to be paid lip service. So I, I, I can't believe that that many oil and gas executives would show up just to be paid lip service. So I have to believe I have to operate in good faith and I have to

believe that he was there to listen to them. And I just I got to wonder, you know, at some point, those voices, aren't they going to find purchase? I hope so. I'm trying to stay kind of blue pilled on this issue. You know, because there's been a lot of black pills rolling around, especially since the election. I will say, though, when it comes to big oil executives, you got to be careful because they'll often love hearing lip service. Yeah. Because, for example, they love things like industrial carbon taxes. And when Rachel Notley slammed Alberta with a carbon tax of our own here in Alberta, she had oil executives up on stage hugging and kissing her because they get to play around with these credits. What matters here is for real people

with real jobs and real income. And so we really hope that the person that Carney is listening to in the room is Premier Smith. Yeah, so at what point, like, what's the drop dead date here in your mind when we as a nation need to understand what he's talking about when he talks about one united Canadian economy, big things built,

major infrastructure projects? It's vague, it sounds good, but that doesn't mean it is good. At what point is the rubber gonna meet the road? I think it's this summer. Yeah. I'm here in Lethbridge, Alberta. OK, I can see the border to Montana.

It's right at the center of I would call it the freedom movement out west. There are meetings all over the place, Ben. There are meetings every weekend. Yeah. For Western sovereignty. I'm not kidding. And when this thing gears up over the summer, over the rodeo circuits, and people are having chats over the fence post,

like they've got to have serious commitment. If he would get rid of Bill C-69, and scrap the energy cap, those are two huge pins he could pop in this balloon. That would help immensely. And look, I don't want to be an alarmist and I'm not trying to put something out into the universe that doesn't belong there. But I'm concerned that Donald Trump one day in an effort to change the channel

from some bad news he's having. Let's say he's in Kananaskis and it's a beautiful summer day in Alberta. And he gets in front of a microphone and says, you know what, I thought I needed all of Canada to be my beautiful cherished 51st state, but I'm thinking all I need is Alberta. And I can promise you no more equalization payments. And all you got to do is build some more pipelines, which I've already authorized south of the border. We'll take care of everything and we will send back trillions of dollars into your economy. I don't know what that does.

I mean, if if if Carney can't get ahead of that, I think we've got a real problem in this country. You're right and that's a serious thing. I've seen flags all over the place with the shape of Alberta with 51st state and just imagine imagine him saying you'll automatically be on the US dollar. Yeah, you'll be paying world prices, nothing, you're gonna be paying world prices and you'll be living with the US dollar. Again, no equalization payments ever again.

And what we're gonna be sending back to you, we're gonna make you one of the richest places on the planet. It's unlike the Quebec separation question of 1995. It's not about building, the question on the sovereignty ticket isn't about building some amorphous potential relationship with Canada. A real live deal would already be on the table with the Americans. I don't want that to happen, but it could. The thing that people are asking each other at these very serious meetings with serious people at them is if you were offered to join Canada under this deal we have right now, would you? Yeah, I mean, people are I've heard that I've heard that thought experiment before and it's so but Mark Carney has the option to get ahead of it. He has an opportunity to get ahead of it.

And he could, like you said, stick a pin in the balloon that is growing of a Western alienation. Yes, and he could practically do it. This is not some pie in the sky thing. And I gotta clear something up. We don't mean for taxpayers to build pipelines. That would be horrendous. What happened to Trans Mountain was a joke.

That was supposed to be a private company spending about 6 billion of its own dollars. The Trudeau government foot dragged so long, the government threw up, the company threw up its hands and walked away. Taxpayers were on the hook for 30 billion. That is not the way to go. What we're talking about is get rid of these laws that are restrictive and get out of the way. If he just got rid of Bill C-69 and scrapped the cap on energy, a lot of this would go away, Ben. Well, look, we're paying very, very close attention.

And look, I want to be somebody that is a responsible steward of the environment. And all of these things are possible. All of these things, we are capable of doing all of these things, but this government needs to put down the sort of the ideology and look at what is practically happening on the ground

and address these very real imminent problems that if they don't, they're gonna have a whole new basket of issues to deal with. Exactly, one of the best ways to reduce global emissions is to sell cleaner burning natural gas to places like India. Yeah, yeah, that's the smart way to go about it, man. Hey, Chris Sims, as always love having you on the show. I hope you have a great week ahead and look forward to talking

to you again soon. Thanks, Ben. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the chorus radio network. And you can listen online to the Radio Canada player and the I Heart Radio Canada apps. And make sure to follow and subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your streaming audio. We release new podcasts every day. Thanks for listening. The 2025 Nissan Sentra isn't just another compact car. It's Consumer Reports top pick in its class. Why? It beat all other compact cars for exceptional reliability, value and safety to become Consumer

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