The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Max Fawcett, Chris Chapin, Regan Watts

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Max Fawcett, Chris Chapin, Regan Watts Guests: Max Fawcett, Chris Chapin, Kieran McMurchy, Regan Watts, Mohit Rajhans 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

Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great discussions this week, including one of our very best political panels. Enjoy. This is indeed the Ben Mulroney Show. It's also time for this week in politics, our mid week panel. Please welcome to the show,

Chris Chapin, political commentator and managing principal for Upstream Strategy. We've got Kieran McMurtry, senior consultant at Navigator and political strategist, and Max Fawcett, lead columnist for Canada's National Observer. To all three of you, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having us. Kieran, I want to jump in with you first, because there's something about conservatives. They just don't play well together. Liberals are able to keep their struggles internal. They fight behind closed doors, but Tories seem to do it out in the open. And the latest example of that is Doug Ford defending his, his, yeah, his Cory Tonite,

his campaign manager and bashing Pierre Poliev's campaign. Let's listen. As for Cory, I've said right from day one, he's tough as nails, but he's the best campaign manager As for Corey, I've said right from day one, he's tough as nails, but he's the best campaign manager in the country. And to be very frank, if Corey was running that campaign, I don't think Mr. Poliev would be in the position he's in right now. But it's still a lot of time left. We still have debates. At the end of the day, the people will decide which way they want this country to move forward.

But sometimes the truth hurts. Yeah, Kieran, make sense of that for me. I think what it shows is that as much as Poliev's conservatives have had message disciplines the last two years, when it comes to their cooperation, you know, with the provincial jurisdictions, there's not a lot of love lost between Doug Ford's progressive conservatives and the feds.

I mean, especially since Paul yet became leader. I think when Corey tonight, a few weeks ago came out and made similar comments on the PCs, we internal pull provincial polling. I think that was a warning sign, you know, a break in case of emergency button. Now I don't see how this has helped for them at all. Yeah, Max, you know, I think for those who follow the internal squabbles and machinations of political parties,

we understand why there's no love loss there. But politically, when Pierre Poliev came out announcing that he was gonna build a road up to the Ring of Fire in Ontario within six months and allow the regulatory red tape to be cut so that Ontario could leverage and build out the ring of fire. I would have thought that that would have gotten him a little bit of good favor from the PCs. How do you see it? I think it's a good example of why you should never get too high on your own supply.

I think the Conservatives, when they were polling 20 points up, 25 points up, they thought they didn't need anyone's help and they acted like it. You know, they did things during the Ontario provincial election that were not actually helpful to the progressive Conservatives because I think they assumed, we don't need these guys' help, we're going to win this crushing majority and lo and behold, now that they do need their help, it's not being offered. So it speaks, I think, just to the approach that that Pauli has had when dealing with with other stakeholders, other levels of government where he really kind of beats them up a little bit. And that works when you're 20 points

ahead. It doesn't work when you're five points behind. Chris Chapin, I've got to ask, what is it? What's the difference between conservatives and liberals in this country where liberals are able to hold their nose and work with people they can't freaking stand in order to get elected but on the on the right side of the political spectrum if people don't get along they take their toys and they go home? Well I think liberals are far more cynical and do it far more effective. I think pretending that they don't do it themselves is just they are far more sophisticated in stabbing each other in the back. I think this whole thing is frankly done pretty blown out of proportion.

You know, your sister was at an event, prominent PC cabinet minister welcoming Paul Diev just a week and a half ago. There's, you know, are there some tensions between the parties? Absolutely. Am I surprised the premier came out there some tensions between the parties? Absolutely. Am I surprised the premier came out and said that and defended Corey? No, I'm not. You know, he's gonna stand by his team. But I think this is, you know,

I really do think this is getting blown out of proportion. We just, we happen to fight each other in public and that's the challenge that the conservatives have. But I think at the end of the day, even the tail end of the premier's comments there when he was forced to answer about Corey's comments, acknowledged that there's still a lot of time to come. And we've seen the polls tighten. So I think this is just easy fodder for the media to kind of try to pick us apart. And I think we're, like I said, I think this is being blown out of proportion.

Max Fawcett, I want to come to you next because you find yourself in Alberta and pipelines are central to the conversation that so many people are having on this campaign. And I don't think there is a position that Mark Carney has that is less clear than his position on pipelines. He has said he wants to build them. They says he might build them, not necessarily build them. Depending on where he is or what language he's speaking,

you might get a tweak here or there. How do you see it from the ground in Alberta? I actually think he's been very consistent. He's just been very nuanced on the issue because he understands that the conservative approach to this, what Daniel Smith wants is, you know, you commit everything to building pipelines at all costs. And look, the Harper government did that. It did that repeatedly with its policies. And guess what? They got zero pipelines to Pacific Tidewater built. So

Carney understands the lesson of that. He has said, we're going to build more pipelines, but we're going to do it with the consent of the provinces where the pipelines are going through. And I'm sorry to say that's the only way you can do it in this country. He's been very consistent on that point. So, you know, for folks looking for a kind of two dimensional answer to a three dimensional question, maybe they're upset, but I think his answer has been crystal clear. Chris, I'm not looking for a two dimensional answer from you, but I suspect you might take issue with the clarity, dimensional answer from you, but I suspect you might take issue with the clarity, the positional clarity of Mark Carney on pipelines. I couldn't disagree with Max more.

I mean, he is just the most cynical liberal you could possibly be on this issue. He knows that he is up ahead in the polls because the NDP vote has collapsed behind him and he knows darn well that the New Democrat progressive voters across the country do not believe in pipelines, do not think we should pull anything out of the ground. And so he has said different things to every different audience he can. And he was getting away with it to begin the campaign. And I think that's part of the reason I talked about the polls

tightening. I think if he's getting scrutinized more, it's becoming harder and harder to say that in different parts of the country to different audiences without the media catching on to it. And I think this isn't 2D or 3D chess. It's pretty simple. He's playing checkers and hoping nobody's paying attention. Yeah. And listen, I respect Max and I respect his position.

I just the part that I can't square, Kieran, is is apparently we're in a crisis. According to him, it's a crisis that was brought on by Donald Trump. It requires immediate action. And yet we're getting this. We may build pipelines, we may not. Like I'm not sensing immediacy in his position, immediacy that would be required from this crisis that we have been told we're in.

I mean, I think I'm gonna agree with Max and push back a bit again. I think Carney has been consistent with his plans to make Canada an energy superpower. And he's promised trade corridors, energy corridors throughout the country. On to the Mont-en-Pau, he said it would be better for Quebec to use Canadian oil instead of importing US oil. I think he's been clear in Quebec throughout English Canada as well that, you know, you need to bring people on board to creating these energy corridors in a time of crisis,

as you point out, as Mark Carney has pointed out as well. And you have to meet people where they are and bring them along. A recent poll from Nanos I saw showed that three in four Canadians support an east to west pipeline, and nearly 50% of Quebecers do as well. I think there's movement. We've just got to be able to get there.

And I guess Max, I'll give you the last word on this. And I think that's what a lot of people are fearful of. He seems to be hedging, even though we are very close to a national consensus on building a national consensus on building these pipelines. It feels like the people are there. They just need somebody who is a leader who acknowledges that we're almost there as well. And it will require federal leadership to get us over the top. Sure. And the federal leadership will be around permitting around regulations, you know, the National Energy Corridor. I don't

think conservatives want him to to propose another national pipeline. And so he he has said he's going to do all those things. But he understands that the most damaging thing you can do from the perspective of the consensus that was just described is the federal government to put a thumb on the scale, especially in BC and Quebec. That's why it blew back on the previous government and some of those projects. And I think he's determined not to make the same mistake again. I would ask why conservatives seem to want to make the same mistake again, I would ask why conservatives seem to want to make the same mistake again. Chris, you want 10 seconds to respond here? Yeah, because it didn't get done because we acquiesce to the provinces. And so I think you

need to force it through. And I think that's what the rest of Canada is looking for, that BC and Quebec can't stand in the way of the pipeline. Well, it'll be very interesting to see over the course of the next couple of weeks, whether the conservatives are able to push Mark Carney, if I'm of the opinion that he's not being as clear as he could be, we'll have to see if there's enough runway for them to get him a little bit clearer on that issue. But more with our political panel when we continue, including should high school students have a say on who the next prime minister is? Should 16-year-olds be able to go to the polls and vote in a federal election?

That's next on the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and welcome back to our midweek panel for this week in politics. Welcome back Chris Chapin, Kieran McMurtry and Max Fawcett. Great to have you guys with me again. There is a push as tends to be every few years, a push to consider lowering the voting age. In 1970 we lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and there's a push now from certain groups to lower it as low as 16 years old and I'm wondering, it's an honest good faith question, I don't have a super strong opinion on this, but I'd like to start with Kieran. Kieran, what do you think? Is this is this an issue whose time has come? I mean, sure, I think more people voting is good for democracy, right? But the last federal election when more than 70% of the electorate cast a ballot was when your dad was running in 1988. But I mean,

participation in democracy is is dwindling the 18 to 24 turnout is low. I'm not really convinced that if we lower it to 16 and 17 year olds being able to vote that it's going to be much higher. I mean, I think the real priority should be civic engagement, teaching people about which levels of government are responsible. But I'm hoping that a renewed sense of patriotism and that's 51st state sort of rhetoric makes turnout a little higher this time around. Max, if, I mean, we've tried a lot of things to get people enthusiastic and involved and every year it's the most consequential election. It should matter to your pocketbook. It should matter to your values. It should matter to how we see ourselves in the world and we can't seem to

get people to go. What about mandatory voting? They do it in Australia. I mean, I love the idea of mandatory voting. I've written columns in support of it. I also love the idea of letting 16 year olds vote. You know, to Kieran's point, we have to be doing more to sort of stimulate civic literacy. But I think getting letting 16 year olds vote would be a great way to do that you would suddenly have these conversations in high school where it wouldn't just be theoretical.

You would have real stakes in some years if there was an election that year. And look, we let 16 year olds make decisions about their reproductive health. We let them pay taxes. We let them drive cars. I just don't see any reason why we wouldn't let them vote. I'm aware of the argument that,

they're not fully developed cognitively until they're 25. And fair enough, but a lot of people out there who are voting right now who are not perhaps, you know, cognitively all there. And we don't try to take the vote away from them. So I think 16-year-olds should be let in the tent. Let them vote. I had a great conversation yesterday, Chris, with a young man who's the tip of the spear on this 16-year-old, a 16- 16 year old who made a lot of the points that Max just made. And I respect those points, but the flip side to me on that is the fact that in fact, we don't have a robust civics lesson in our public schools.

Ontario is the only province that offers it. And even in Ontario, those students get a failing grade. So to me, that is demonstration that we have to do a lot more before we open up the vote to 16 year olds. If we get to a place where we have a national civics lesson in our high schools and our students are demonstrating an aptitude for governance and those ideas, then maybe at that point we say, all right, now you're ready. Yeah, I listen, I don't think there's anything wrong

with the voting age where it is right now. I get what Max said, but you know, we don't think there's anything wrong with the voting age where it is right now. I get what Max said, but we don't let kids drive by themselves at 16. They have to have somebody with a proper license in the car with them. We don't let them drink until they're 19. So I think 18 is, you become an adult legally at 18, I think it's the right age to start voting. I completely agree with you. I think it's a shame that the civics class, I believe it's still just a half credit here in Ontario,

that we should have, you know, a far greater civics presence in our in our elementary schools and in our high schools. But I think, you know, every time this debate comes up, I just find it so silly. I mean, I think if anything, the logical age for all of us in the province should be 19. Yeah. All right. Well, you think it should be even higher. Let's move on to the debates because they are coming up fast and furious. And look, everyone talks about how debates move the needle. But most of the time when I think about those big events, and it's obviously for personal reasons, Kieran, it's I think about my dad's performance in 84 and 88, but that was with three people on stage. It's a lot easier to control the narrative

and have real conversation with three people on stage. Five people is a cacophony of noise. And I wonder what you think about the format and I wonder what you think about the effect of debates on an election result. So I think, you know, I don't think that the debates are gonna make anyone switch the votes, right? To your point, it's gonna be a lot of people yelling

at each other, talking over each other, trying to claim that they win the day. I think most Canadians are getting close to baking in their votes, but I do think a disastrous performance could throw things up in the air, right, and you saw what happened to Joe Biden in the US, sort of horrific debate performance. It quite literally changed the course of history in that country. I think people are going to be looking to see that the leader of their choice is playing well,

that you know, for Poliev, if he comes across too strong, it could hurt him. But at the same time, he has to be strong. And for Carney, people like that he's calm and measured. And as long as he doesn't get flustered in either Carney, people like that he's calm and measured. And as long as he doesn't get flustered in either language, I think his supporters will nod, confirm their choice, and probably change the channel. Chris Chapin, the Bloc Québécois leader, Yves-Francois Blanchet says the Green Party shouldn't be allowed to debate. They fell short of the threshold that the Leaders Debate Commission had set for participation in the debates. Plus, they're also polling below a certain level of polling support. Is he right?

Yeah, I think he's I think he's completely right. I mean, you know, I just find it amusing because I'm not sure which of the two Green Party leaders would actually attend the debate or whether they both attend the debate. But but we have these rules for a reason. And it, you know, the rules kept Maxime Bernier out of the debates when his PPC didn't reach the thresholds that the debate commission set out. So I don't understand why we don't hold the Green Party to the same standard. Max, what do you think? Should the Green Party be there? Or if we're being honest and we take a motion out of it, fewer people on stage makes for better debate. It makes for clearer messaging. It makes for stronger moments. And if they're not,

if they're not competitive in any real meaningful way, should they be there? No, they shouldn't. I mean, the rules are the rules. And if the Green Party wants to be present in the leaders debate, they need to win more votes and win more seats. It's just that simple. And to your point, it makes it harder to hear the people who Canadians really need to hear from, and that's Pierre Polly and Mark Carney. If you have this sort of noisy cacophony of people, it just makes it harder for voters to get the information they need. And that should be the object of the exercise here

is to hear from the main contenders, get their best ideas, see how they perform, and maybe adjust your thinking accordingly. And it's just harder to do that with more people on the stage. Yeah, Chris, real quick, why do you think that there's been this push, this allowance to keep a party afloat at the debates

when they're proving that they just can't grow their base in Canada like the Green Party? I think there's some that just like the idea of what the Green Party stands for, and that just doesn't fly with other parties. And we have these rules to keep the debate concise to what you've spoken about. So that it's a thoughtful, meaningful conversation

between the party leaders and that we keep out the fringe. And unfortunately, I think for the Greens right now, they've fallen into kind of fringe party status. Yeah, and Kieran, I mean, if people like how the Green Party makes them feel, I mean, if you're not going to vote for them, sort of irrelevant, there are plenty of people who would say, I like the way the People's Party makes me feel, but they're not involved. I mean, between friends, I'm not particularly fussed if the Greens are there or not, but I am interested actually to see how Pennow does.

I think, you know, he's a new face. No one in Canada knows who he is. But a second Quebecer on stage, particularly in the French debate, I think, could prove an interesting dynamic with Blanchet as well. Which may, Max, the last word's gonna be to you, which may be why, to come back to Yves-Francois Blanchet, maybe why he doesn't want him there.

He wants to be able to control the French. He's the master French on that stage. Maybe he doesn't want to have to share the Francophone spotlight. Absolutely, which is, you know, coming back to the French. He's the master French on that stage. Maybe he doesn't want to have to share the francophone spotlight. Absolutely, which is which is, you know, coming back to the rules. That's why we have the rules so that, you know, leaders can't work the refs and get the orientation of the debate that they prefer. So, you know, hopefully, hopefully he gets his shot and hopefully everyone gets to hear what they need to

hear. Does anybody anybody here think that there's going to be a clear winner out of these debates? Everyone, right? That's what they'll all say. Everyone's going to claim victory. Yeah. And so who has the highest expectations on the max real quick? I think Pauli does. And he has to do something really difficult. He has to land a knockout flow without looking aggressive. Kieran, 10 seconds to you. Who has the heaviest lift in the debate? I agree with Max. I think Paul Yev has a second chance to introduce himself and we'll see how he does with it. Chris, do you think that fortunes can change? Do you think that election

results can change because of the debates? No, no. You think it's baked in? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's still lots of time on the campaign, but I don't think the debate's gonna make a big difference. Guys always love having the three of you together. A great, great conversation. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your week. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from global national life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get global national every day as a podcast. The biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news

journalists. New episodes drop every day. So take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National podcast. You can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you for listening wherever we may find you at all parts across the world, across the country. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your day with us. When Donald Trump announced his tariffs, the 25% auto tariffs on March 27th, he described them as permanent. And so when I hear today that he may temporarily exempt

the auto industry from the tariffs that he previously imposed, that makes me, that gives me whiplash. As a matter of fact, a number of people are saying, we should be fitted for a neck brace for the amount of whiplash we're getting from this administration. We don't know what comes from one day to the next.

Very hard to make investments in any sector if you don't know how much things are going to cost. But now he's saying that in order to give carmakers a time to adjust their supply chains, he may give them a reprieve temporarily. And he said he doesn't change his mind, but he's flexible. That's what Donald Trump says to explain his ability to pivot and reverse course and have it make sense in his own mind.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies with it. He said that automo, automo, excuse me, automakers needed time to relocate production from Canada, Mexico and other places, quote, and they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I'm talking about things like that. Now, all of that was always true. If anybody want to relocate, they can't do it overnight. You can't flip a switch and all of a sudden, your production in one country can move to another. I've spoken with enough automotive experts on this show to know that the minimum amount of time to move an entire factory that makes, say, Ford F-150s from Canada into the States would take

five years. That's what it's going to take. Any change to the supply chain and where these cars come from is going to happen after Donald Trump leaves office. That's assuming he leaves. And so when he says that, that's not to me a reason that makes any sense because that was always the case. But I think what's happening is he's seeing the paralysis in the automotive sector due to these tariffs. And he's looking for an off ramp. And if he can justify it this way, that's what he's going to do.

But that also is not new. We've seen him do that before. That being said, there is apparently some movement from Canada and Mexico to the United States as it relates to car production. Honda is considering switching some car production from Mexico and Canada to the United States aiming for 90 percent of the cars sold in that country to be made locally and that is in response to new tariffs. That's according to the Nikkei newspaper. You'll know that Honda is Japan's second biggest automaker by sales

and it plans to increase U.S. vehicle production by as much as 30% over two to three years in response to US President Donald Trump's decision to levy that 25% tariff on imported vehicles. So look, if you look at it through this lens, this is assuming that what they're considering becomes reality. This is a victory for Trump's tariff play. Can't look at it any other way. They may not like it. We may not like how it's getting done, but the end result is he's getting them to do what he wants them to do.

And that is to our detriment. It would be nice if we had people in Ottawa who could respond in kind to make it more attractive for carmakers to stay in Canada. But that sadly is not the reality that we're living with. Yesterday the internet was ablaze as was this show with what I think is the appropriate level of outrage when it was uncovered by the CBC that liberal staffers from the liberal election campaign war room went to a conservative convention in Ottawa last week and disseminated misinformation,

trying to falsely link the conservatives at that event to Trump style election, Trump style politics by strewing buttons, lapel buttons all over the place Trump style election, Trump style politics by strewing buttons, lapel buttons all over the place with words like stop the steal, wags it, highlighting division within the party by suggesting that one person at the top of the campaign should be replaced by another. And the outrage is real,

the moral failing of the liberal party is real, and heads should have rolled. However, Mark Carney has shown yet again that we don't yet know what line one needs to cross in the liberal camp that would have you sent into the political hinterland. We saw with Paul Chang, nothing he could do was enough to have him dropped as a candidate. He left on his own.

And now we find out that that this is totally unacceptable to Mark Carney. However, dot dot dot. Look, this is totally unacceptable, to be absolutely clear. Acceptable to Mark Carney, however, dot dot dot. this behavior or anything approximating it or in that in that spirit is is unacceptable cannot happen cannot happen again. But he didn't but he didn't fire them. They got reassigned to somewhere else in the campaign. And I got to wonder why. Because Warren Kinsella, who knows a thing or two about war rooms, and getting pretty down in the mud in order to fight a campaign. Like he knows how to get nasty if he needs to.

He said that in any war room that he's ever been in, if this had happened, these guys would have been turfed immediately. So it begs the question, why weren't these guys fired? And I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that if they were fired, if they were cut loose from the campaign, these guys may give an interview and explain who else knew and what the direction was. Maybe this goes higher than these staffers who may or may not have gotten carried away. I think it's right for me to speculate because they've demonstrated that they there's no depth to which they won't stoop in order to win this

election. So I get to speculate I get to give them the the the onus of responsibility is on them to prove they didn't do it not the other way around. They don't get the benefit of doubt from me anymore. And here's Lisa Raitt of the Conservative Party explaining on the CBC why this is such an issue that we that a real problem why this is a real problem. For sure and it was very nefarious I don't think it was innocent at all I mean I looked up to see what the other buttons were that were out there I mean we've done button competitions in the past but it's usually mocking people it's not about actively seeking to draw attention to an issue to make it sound more Trumpy than

what they are. So, for example, lock Justin up was one of them. Wegs it now. Make Canada great again. I mean, what is this crap? They should absolutely be off the campaign. They're lucky they're not getting charged. They should be talked about whether or not they're spreading disinformation by this committee in the House

of Commons or by this committee of bureaucrats. I mean, this is absolutely outrageous. And for us to tut-tut it away as, oh, well, you know, kids are being kids. The other part, David, that really bugs me, I'm on a roll now. The other part that really bugs me about this whole thing is the hubris and the arrogance of bragging about it and not giving a damn like do they think they're that far ahead in the polls that it's not that it's not that um terrible to talk about out loud that they're going to get away with it. This is corrosive stuff this is corrosive stuff and it needs to stick around until until these people are held to account like they've been reassigned that's that's no punishment at all what does that say

about how the liberal party and how the war room and how the prime minister view what you did if they he did not punish you to the fullest extent of his power that means he doesn't think this is the worst thing you can do think about that this is the definition of misinformation by trying to convince people that conservatives are something they are not. And not by using fact, not even by using creative wordplay. You are outright lying about them trying to create a false reality. And you have not been fired, which means Mark Carney doesn't think this is the worst thing

the liberals can do. My goodness, what is the worst thing they're capable of? Only time will tell. Joined now by my good friend and a great friend of the Ben Mulroney show, Regan Watts. He's the founder of Fratton Park, Inc. He's also a former senior aide to the Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty. And we're going to talk about where we stand today in the election campaign. Welcome to the show, Regan.

Bonjour mon chum. Bonjour mon chum. Bonjour mon chum. All right. So listen, we've been talking about button gate. I don't think it's going away. I don't think the punishment fit the crime. Mark Carney did apologize on behalf of his campaign.

This is what he had to say. Look, this is totally unacceptable, to be absolutely clear. And on behalf of my campaign, I was unaware of this behavior. But on behalf of my campaign, I'm, I was unaware of this behavior, but on behalf of my campaign, I apologize for it unreservedly. I've made it absolutely clear to my campaign that this behavior or anything approximating it or in that in that spirit is unacceptable, cannot happen, cannot happen again. I mean, Regan, to me, this behavior is so corrosive to our democracy and to the free exchange of ideas that the fact that they weren't fired tells me that this is not the worst thing

they could possibly do. This is not the basement, as far as Mark Carney is concerned, with the behavior of his staffers. How do you see it? There's a couple of things in your comments there, Ben, that I think are worth discussing. First is I actually believe Mr. Carney when he says he has no idea or didn't know anything about this, I think that's probably true. The full response is what really caused me to pause because Mr. Carney has now been met for a second time

with a serious story. Remember there was a discussion earlier in the campaign about the candidate who had ties to the Chinese government and wanting to turn over his opponent. And he let that story in the liberal campaign, let that story run for about five days. if the Liberal Party had issued a statement clearly denouncing the actions and terminating the employment of those who are responsible. They didn't do that. And now we're on day three of a story that shows to me that political management is something the Liberals are still struggling with and I can't quite figure out why. But the more important point here Ben is the Liberal government when they were during their time in office have presented and passed

legislation in the House of Commons that your listeners will know, prohibit us from sharing news on Instagram and on Facebook, those links have been barred. This is a government that took disinformation seriously. They said that many, many times, yet they are themselves guilty of disinformation when liberal party staffers are getting up to these types of antics. And so for me, it's a really strange one. I don't understand it. It's poor political management. And it also strikes me that because nobody was fired, perhaps it was more senior people on the campaign who were involved. Well, you know, this could have been a net positive

for the Conservatives. They could have had a great day because of it. They could have made a lot of hay out of it. They assumed the moral high ground. And then the Premier of Ontario sort of pooh-poohs that and comes out defending his campaign manager. You'll remember one of the buttons highlighted a schism within the party

where some people were suggesting the campaign manager, Jenny Byrne, should be replaced with Cory Tenyke, who ran three successful campaigns for Ontario premier premier Doug Ford. And, and so Doug Ford came out to defend his campaign manager, who criticized and has been very outspoken over not just Pierre Poliev, but how his campaign is run. Let's listen to what Doug Ford had to say. As for Cory, I've said right from day one, he's tough as nails, but he's the best campaign manager

in the country. And to be very frank, if Cory was running that campaign, I don't think Mr. Poliev would be in the position he's in right now. But it's still a lot of time left, and we still have debates. At the end of the day, the people will decide which way they want this country to move forward. But sometimes the truth hurts.

Yeah, you got to make sense of this for me. I've got a lot of time for Doug Ford. He's always been a very nice guy. I supported him. I've heard Pierre Poliev promise that under a conservative government, he'd open up the Ring of Fire, build a road within six months, allow Ontario to legitimately finally take control of the Ring of Fire and the critical minerals they're in. It makes sense of this for me. Well, it's unfortunate, both Mr. Tenank's comments and Mr. Ford's yesterday.

And it's a distraction. I personally don't like it when political parties are airing their grievances in public because the comments are distracting media from covering more important things. Mr. Poliev, his raison d'être, his reason for serving in office is to be a servant for the people of Canada. And sadly, unfortunately, and Mr. Ford's comments yesterday added fuel to this, we're spending time discussing personalities and opinions of people who either are not elected at the federal level or campaign backroom folks who most Canadians couldn't pick out of a lineup. So I think it's unfortunate. Obviously, there's some there's some history there, but it should not distract from the real questions of this campaign. All right, well, let's move on. So Darrell Bricker is a pollster with Ipsos. And he recently tweeted that the reason the federal race is tightening is because anxiety related to Donald Trump and Canada have eased a bit,

has shifted voter focus back to affordability and other economic issues that favor the conservatives, also bring liberal record back into discussion, which also favors the conservatives. Now, the race may have tightened, but that doesn't mean it's over by any stretch of the imagination. Do you agree with what Darryl Bricker says? I think Mr. Bricker is a good pollster and Ipsos are a reputable outlet. I don't know if I agree that it's tightening because of anxiety to Trump being eased. You were seeing some movement within the margin of error than in all of the polls, but the liberals are still clearly ahead. This is a race that features two thoroughbreds, which is the Conservative Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada, and three donkeys known as the NDP, the Bacchic-Bacquois, and the Greens. And in a two-horse race with donkeys, the vote is coalescing and consolidating.

And I said to a number of people this week, in my observations that you wrote a memo, you wrote a memo, right? I did. Yeah. Well, look, I see that consolidation is real. Four out of five Canadians are choosing either liberals or conservatives and the donkeys are, are picking up the rest of the liberal lead is holding, at least in the polls that we're seeing. And Atlantic Canada, in my view, is very much locked in for the liberals. And this is now down to a dogfight in Ontario and Quebec. But the reason the liberals are ahead and make no mistake is because the NDP are anemic and flaccid.

Mr. Paul Yevgen, there was another poll today from Nanos that showed the Conservative Party at 39 percent. That is higher and a better result if the election were held today than Stephen Harper had in 2011 when he won his majority government. The problem is Stephen Harper had the NDP at 25% in Ontario and Jagmeet Singh is struggling to get to 8%. The last thing that I think people need to remember

at this stage of the game, Ben, is that the debates are coming up, but they will matter if there's a breakout moment. If there's no breakout moment, the low number of undecided voters, I think there's something like 10 or 15% of Canadians are still to make up their mind. If there's no breakout moment, it will make persuading them if you're one of the trailing parties even harder. So it's a tough position for the conservatives to be in, but as I say, at 39% nationally,

that's better than any result we've had since 1988, when some guy named Mulroney won a majority government in that election. And finally, can you make heads or tails of the liberal policy on pipelines? It feels like anytime Mark Carney is given an opportunity to explain his vision for turning candidate into a natural resource superpower, we get something different. Look, I struggle with Mr. Carney's comments on this because I think the consensus in the country, Ben, and whether your listeners are in Atlanta, Canada, Quebec, Ontario, or Western Canada, then the attitude of Canadians towards pipelines is aggressively shifting towards

building more of them, not less. And I can't quite figure out why Mr. Carney hasn't truly capitalized on that. I mean, Liberal Party has done its best to appropriate much of the conservative platform. That much is clear. They've tried to turn this election into personalities and eliminate issue differences. The one area where there is still differences are pipelines. And for me, Mr. Polyaev has to continue to lead on that issue if he wants to give himself a chance to win. And I think centrist voters, liberal voters who are open to voting conservative, let's call them

economic liberals, could be persuaded by that argument because there is no doubt, thanks to President Trump and other world issues, that we need more pipelines for this country. And Mr. Carney being indecisive, shall we say, certainly isn't helping him, and I think creates an opportunity for Mr. Paul Yepp. Regan Watts, always appreciate picking your brain, my friend. Thank you so much. And I'm sure we'll talk to you probably later this week. Thanks, Ben. Looking forward to it.

Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show. Always appreciate you joining us, whether you find us on a podcast or you find us on the screaming app or you listen to us on the good old fashioned radio machine. Thank you so much. And I want to remind you that every Wednesday, we like to do a little bit of a palate cleanse a little reset by having some fun. And instead of trying to solve the world's most important problems, we try to solve your problem on the dilemma panel just send us your personal dilemma, whatever it may be at askben at chorusent.com and me and my friends sit around

and we have a lot of fun. Try, trying is the operative word to solve your problems. Cannot guarantee we're going to do it, but can guarantee it's fun radio. I love speaking with my next guest. Please welcome to the show Mohit Rajans. He's a mediologist as well as a consultant with thinkstart.ca. Mohit Please welcome to the show Mohit Rajans. He's a mediologist as well as a consultant with thinkstart.ca.

Mohit, welcome to the show. Happy Tuesday. And g'day, g'day. So James Cameron has always been at the forefront of sort of new technology in film. Either he's one of the first to adopt it, or he's the first to use it in a way that a mass audience will see.

And if the technology doesn't exist, he oftentimes invents it. So one of the reasons it took so long for him to make Avatar was because the technology didn't exist yet and he had to help invent it. He had to invent a special camera so that he could shoot underwater for Titanic. And now he seems to be at the forefront of AI in film.

Yeah, like you mentioned, James Cameron has actually been appreciated across the industry in the film business from technology places right down to obviously, you know, the Oscars, etc. And right for innovation, right? He's always been at the forefront of innovation, and he's been a catalyst for it. And he's also, you know, never compromised in that, you know, he's been a leader when things like health and safety and making sure that people aren't sacrificing the wrong things to preserve Hollywood. All of that to say he is on board with AI and he's on board with it mainly because of what you said, which is this idea that it shouldn't take two to five years to make a movie the size of Avatar.

And there are movies like Dune that could actually benefit from shrinking budgets and still be as good. But someone, you said at the top, you know, he really, he puts health and safety and the welfare, I think welfare is key, of the people who work with him at the top of the list, even though he is aggressive on the technological front. But it does seem in this circumstance, adopting AI to slash budgets could put certain people's jobs at risk, no?

A hundred percent. But I think what he's more so identifying is how much time is lost in efficiency in the process. And I think when we look at anything from a workflow process that could be stabilized or, you know, just even look, you look at anything from a workflow process that could be stabilized, or just even look at production that happens in the city of Toronto, I think we all know that you don't need the size of these trucks anymore in order to fulfill the productions that you're doing. I think everything's about scalability in Hollywood. And James Cameron is just looking at the AI side of it and saying, yeah, we need to jump on board in order for us to even have an industry. Yeah, and also like who's to say that just because

you shorten the amount of time and therefore the amount of people required to make a film, that doesn't mean that another production won't come in. If all of a sudden the barrier to entry to making a film is a lower cost, then a smaller budget film could come up, a film that never would have been made because the budgets wouldn't have allowed for it. All, a film that never would have been made because the budgets wouldn't have allowed for it.

All of a sudden, maybe you have more production. Maybe you have more work that comes online because it just costs less to get into the business. Well, to your point, you can now make stuff for your market without necessarily having to go through a gatekeeping process in order to be the one person that gets to make the one project, right. So I think we're at least headed towards a place where people will start to feel like the barriers are starting to decrease. Now how it mobilizes

to continue to protect people in the business. That's maybe not up to James Cameron, but it is up to the next generation. Okay. So we're seeing, we're in the time of the election campaign where endorsements are coming out left and right, but sometimes it's not an endorsement. Sometimes it's an open letter, a call to action with groups of people asking and urging leaders to see things their way. And there's a coalition of Canadian CEOs that issued a direct appeal to federal leaders urging the creation of stable long-term strategies to support innovation, digital infrastructure, and global competitiveness.

Talk to me about this letter. Yeah, I stumbled upon this because obviously I'd like to follow what's going on in Canada with respect to how quickly we're able to advocate for being at least global providers of technology solutions and really being leaders. What I found about this, and you know, these are CEOs of some major companies.

There's the JNAP, there's Clio, there's the point click care, and they're all vested in multiple areas of interest that they need to make sure that they open up barriers or are free from barriers in order to develop in the country. The reason I found this interesting though, Ben, is that it's still too vague. It's not, you know, when I go and look at the Government of Canada website and I look at the guidelines associated with even, you know, engaging with things like generative AI, everything is still very surface level. And so while I do appreciate the fact that CEOs from these major companies are really calling on this push for innovation to be sort of barrier free and people to be able to collaborate and work.

You know, obviously this is a call to action on everything from how you can outsource things to how data can be used outside of the country. But it's not clear to me about how all of these technology companies think they're gonna move the needle with this letter. Finally, I wanna talk and spend a little bit of time on this antitrust trial in the states that could force

Metta to sell Instagram. And I got to say, if I'm at the top of my head, if someone were to ask me about which company did I think would be first in line to face antitrust laws, I wouldn't have said Zuckerberg and Instagram. I would have said Google or I would have said Amazon. I mean, this to me is quite surprising. Really? I think that what we've followed is a bouncing ball of just Zuckerberg pointing at look at the Cambridge Analytica story, for example, that was a clear indication that

the things were wrong. Our issue, I think, is that Zuckerberg has been hard to follow because he's been able to actually create such a great, prosperous company, you know, in the idea that if there's a company that's already shown that they have a market share, he wanted to go and get it. And this monopoly that he tried to build for years is being called to action. That's all that's happening. It's not like... Yeah, but I'm looking at it, Mohit. I'm looking at the sort of who his competitors are in the space. I mean, it's a healthy competitive space, the social media space.

You've got Twitter is resurgent. TikTok is certainly dominant. There's nothing that says that him owning Instagram in any way creates some sort of monopoly or even threat of a monopoly. As a matter of fact, the story that we heard last week or two weeks ago was he was thinking of spinning off Reels into its own app in an effort to become more competitive. So like to me, this doesn't rise the level of the things we should be most concerned about. There are other other spaces that are so completely dominated by one player, I think specifically of Amazon.

Oh, Ben, I agree with you. We are definitely in a situation where this actual FCC, this hearing, etc, etc, is six, seven, 10 years too late. Yeah, this is not a conversation that should be having now. In fact, Metta has moved so far past what they're doing with their entire ecosystem, that you should probably be asking them about, you know past what they're doing with their entire ecosystem that you should probably be asking them about, you know, what they're working on next. Yeah. How quickly they're able to scale up all of these AI products is more concerning with how quickly they're able to find my birthday online or scrape.

You know, and I agree, they're, they're gonna, Mark Zuckerberg has actually had five years to make his case mentally. And he's just going gonna point out the fact that they're not even number one in certain demographics anymore. I know. So I agree with you on that. This is definitely more theatrical.

Yeah. But if it, this is where it becomes problematic. If it becomes a generation laughing at another generation about why they're doing it a certain way, this will get dismantled in real time and it will have implications. So on one hand, I don't understand why it's happening, but if they do react the way that they're supposed to react,

a dismantling of meta from WhatsApp and Instagram will have ripple effects on us as well. Let me ask you a question. I know that for years, the worry that Google was so dominant in search that they could be running a foul of antitrust laws was an iceberg that they may be colliding with. But I've got to wonder with the ascendancy of chat GPT, I know a lot of people that do their search through chat GPT now, and I've got to wonder whether

they've avoided that iceberg. Do you mean if Chachi PT has? I wonder if Google is no longer sort of the target of this antitrust legislation, because there's all of a sudden the definition of search and what it means in our lives has changed and evolved. Yeah, it has changed so much so that all of the AI tools have search embedded in

them. Now think about that for a second. It completely changes what and how you're searching for within 10. It has completely disrupted the space. They're not in a place anymore where they're necessarily even first to market when it comes down to people actually searching for things. What I don't have an answer for based on your question though is whether Google is still answering for crimes of the past. Oh, I've got Moheed, I gotta run. I'm sorry. I'll talk to you soon. My bad. My bad. Didn't watch the clock. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the Chorus Radio Network and you can listen

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