The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Pierre Poilievre, Warren Kinsella, Dilemma Panel

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Pierre Poilievre, Warren Kinsella, Dilemma Panel Guests: Pierre Poilievre, Warren Kinsella, Brad Smith, Shawna Whalen. Marcus Kolga, Dr. Gordon Osinski 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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Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great interviews this week, including a chat with Pierre Poliev about Mark Carney pitching one thing in English

and a different thing in French. I talked to Justin Trudeau's legacy with Warren Kinsella and the Dilemma panel was really, really good. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show on this Thursday. Thank you so much for joining us across the Chorus Radio Network. We appreciate it. Well, more and more we're getting closer and closer

to what looks like the coronation of Mark Carney as the next Liberal leader and ultimately as Canada's next prime minister. So it's time to speak to somebody who is hoping to be the prime minister after him, Pierre Poliev, the leader of the official opposition and Conservative Party of Canada. Pierre, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show.

Great to be with you, Ben. Thanks for having me. So Mark Carney has been speaking a little bit more recently to the Canadian press, which is a nice change of pace from his conversations with Americans. But he recently laid out his vision of running deficits to spur investment, and ultimately balancing the operational budget of the country after three years. Mr. Poliev, it sounds a lot like Justin Trudeau's modest deficit line. Is this, Carney,

just saying that Trudeau's playbook, it wasn't bad. I'm just smarter than him and I can run it better. No, it's exactly what you said that we have here, the reputation, maybe even the plagiarizing of the Justin Trudeau 2015 liberal promise of three modest deficits that we're going to one, stimulate growth to build infrastructure and three help the middle class. Remember that? Yeah. Well, those three deficits have turned into nine deficits.

The $25 billion in borrowing is turned into $700 billion of borrowing. And as for growth, it's the worst in the G7. As for investment, we've lost a half trillion investment to the United States. And as for the middle class, well, 80% of them are paying higher income tax, 100% of them are paying a higher carbon tax, and almost none of our middle class people can afford homes for the first time in our history. That is how that promise played out the last time liberals made it. Now, Mark Carney is making exactly the same promises with exactly the same words, exactly the same timelines, exactly the same liberal strategists writing it,

and exactly the same liberal MPs and ministers who would be expected to implement it. Why would you expect the result to be any different? Pierre, I heard Mark Carney on the CBC with Rosemary Barton when he was explaining, he is gonna scrap the consumer facing carbon tax, but he's gonna create a new system of carbon credits. And I've listened to it a number of times. I don't think I'm that dumb,

and yet I cannot make heads or tails of it as he tries to say these large emitters are going to buy carbon credits, but a those things will not get passed on to the consumer. The cost won't get passed on to the consumer and it will also make life less expensive for the large emitters. I can't square that circle in my head. Well, either can he.

He started off by saying that his brand new carbon tax on Canadian industry won't affect you because for example, they'll pay the tax, but you don't use steel, do you? He said to Todd Badus, the CTV reporter who was asking about it, he said, when was the last time you used steel? Well, I don't know, Mark, when he got into my car or when I used my appliance in the morning or when I about it. When was the last time you used steel Todd? Well, I don't know, Mark, when you got into my car, when I used my appliance in the morning or when I went to the gym and used exercise equipment or perhaps when I got on the elevator in my apartment complex, all everything in modern civilization is made of steel. So you're taxing steel, you're

taxing everything. And take away, you know, he loves this idea of a Canadian carbon on steel. Donald J. Trump, he is going to devour our steel industry because I'll tell you stelco, DeFasco, uh, Al Goma, they're all going to leave. They cannot pay this carny carbon tax. And then so will Canadians will pay the price through everything they buy. It's a trick he's going to hide the tax for the duration of the

election period, he's going to cancel, take it off gas for 60 days, just like they did with the GST for 60 days. But let me tell you, watch out if this guy is reelected, we are in for the mother of all liberal carbon taxes. Well, I'm also not seeing a lot of meat on the bone for somebody who's going to be our prime minister in short order. He he's giving these very high level broad bullet points of what he's going to do. And they're so broad, in fact, that they sound with respect, a lot like things I've heard you say in the past. He says that he's going to review federal spending.

He's going to curb federal spending and all future federal spending is going to be based on outcomes. He says he's going to use AI to drive down costs. These are all things AI I've heard from you months, weeks and months ago. But I personally think Canadians deserve a heck of a lot more specifics at this point, given that it's an inevitability that he is going to be in charge in a few weeks. I don't know why we haven't heard more from this guy who will be our prime minister. Yeah, what we have is slogans.

The only two policies he's proposed have been to rename the carbon tax something else and rename government spending something else and rename government spending, something else. Other than that, there are no specifics. I've laid out about 30 specific platform proposals, things like taking the GST off new homes to save you up to 50 grand buying it, um, bringing in a dollar for dollar law requiring that the government find a dollar of savings each time it makes another dollar of spending. Um, we, I've said that I would bring in life sentences for fentanyl

kingpins, but I'd hire 2000 more frontline. The VSA officers to keep, to stop drugs, guns and stolen cars. And I would pay for it by getting rid of 2000 bureaucrats. I said, we're going to cut foreign aid to pay for four new heavy ice breakers in the North and a brand new base up there. Those are real policy proposals with dollar costing with details and timelines. And there I put up literally dozens of these. And yet this guy who's supposedly some kind of policy genius,

all he came up with are slogans and rename existing failed liberal policies. Canadians will choose common sense and that's why we're going to win this election. Pierre, there's also a tale of two Mark Carney's. You've got Anglophone Mark Carney saying that he's going to do whatever it takes to use extraordinary powers to get pipelines built on it. When he speaks in French, he says, Oh, well, yes, yes, but I'm going to respect it, you know, Quebec's ability to essentially veto these things if they need to. So who do we

believe Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Carney? I wish I thought of that one. I would believe neither of them. I mean, look, the guy, the guy spent the last 15 years of his life trying to defund our energy sector. He had a full on corporate initiative where he was telling Canadian banks and financial institutions don't invest in Canadian oil because it will hurt the environment. Meanwhile, his company, Brookfield, was buying pipelines in the Middle East and investing in coal in the United States of America. They're moving a third of their investment to China, which is the most polluting country

in the world. So he seems to be profiting off of shutting down Canadian industry and Canadian jobs to reduce competition for his foreign investments. We don't want a prime minister who's gonna ship money out of our country, sell out our people for his own profit. Rather, we need a prime minister who will put Canada first and bring the money home. Pierre, I only have a short period of time left.

I'd love to get your take on this surprise announcement by our caretaker prime minister that we are gonna be building a high-speed rail. A lot of Canadians love that idea. Weird that it's coming from him at this point. He also said he wanted to make it harder for future leaders to cancel this project. If you were to become prime minister,

what do you do with this high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto? Well, there is no project to cancel. What he's announced is that he's going to spend billions of dollars and five years to come up with a plan. Yesterday the consortium head who's going to be leading this thing said it will take half a decade just to find a route and that there won't be a spike in the ground on this

rail line for at least five years. So somebody emailed me yesterday and I confirmed it. It's true. And an S and C lava land report done for the federal government on this project in 1995, 30 years ago, when the liberals were last promising this under Jean-Claude Gretchen. So now that we are right before an election, they say, hey, everyone, look at us, we're going to suddenly build a national rail strategy.

My friends, it's just another liberal promise that will go nowhere. I've been in conversation with Pierre Poliev, the leader of the official opposition and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Pierre, as always, we appreciate your time. We know how busy you are. Thank you very much and we hope you come back soon. Great to be with you, my friend. Many blessings to you. I'm joined now by Warren Kinsella, a good friend and former special advisor to Jean Chrétien,

the CEO of the Daisy Group. Warren, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks, my friend. So we got a lot to talk about. And I think one of the most interesting stories of the week that I don't think anybody saw coming was Justin Trudeau's announcement of a high speed rail corridor between Quebec City and Toronto, something that people from all walks of life and all political persuasions have been hoping for.

I just think it was really odd that it came from a caretaker prime minister. And like, forgive me for being cynical, but I am cynical. Like Ben, as you and I know, this has been promised by governments in Canada, going back to the early 1960s. And we still don't have it. So like color me not impressed. Like it just, it's like, seriously, this guy's departing in just a matter of days, and he makes an announcement of this magnitude. It just didn't feel serious. No, it didn't feel serious. I'm wondering where the like we're in a parodied situation. His his minister of transport was sitting next to her. She's not running again. He's out the door. I'm wondering where the money's coming from. I don't I don't know where the where the political will comes from. So so let's explore two cynical scenarios. One of them is that he's worried about his legacy.

I mean, look, when my dad resigned, as unpopular as he was at the time, there wasn't a single candidate lining up to replace him that was suggesting jettisoning his major policy initiatives. That is not the case with this outgoing prime minister. This is a guy whose signature policy initiative it was the carbon tax and the people who supported it

are willing to jettison it immediately. So besides that, what does he, he's got legalizing marijuana. I think he's got a couple of things. The political one is taking a party that was in third place in a distant corner of the House of Commons and propelling it into a majority government. That, in fairness to him, that's never happened before. Having, cutting in half child poverty in Canada

with the Canada Child Benefit, that's good. You know, we probably did better than the other countries during COVID. So he's got some things to point to, which is the point where, you know, I think you and I and other people said to him, well, for the love of God, go, you don't have anything else to prove. And that's what, you know, made this high speed rail announcement yesterday. So bizarre is like, why are you doing this? Like you, you literally are going to be a private citizen in just a

matter of days, like, and you've got a minister transport, who's announced she's not running again, like it just doesn't make any sense. You know, like, have one of the liberal leadership candidates around, you know, they're going to be there. So it just, it just didn't feel credible, credible, it actually felt quite cynical. Okay, here's cynical scenario number two. If you look at polls across the country,

the the the Tories are still in in the lead in every region, with the exception of Quebec, where it's a two horse race between the liberals and the bloc Québécois. Something like this could shore up support in Quebec, where a lot of jobs would be would be created and and and the the proof to me that validates that theory is the Bloc Québécois rushed to endorse this idea as well. Yeah and I you know it's for sure and it's been talked about in everywhere from Calgary to Edmonton, Vancouver to Calgary, you know high- speed rail has been a fantasy of successive governments of

all political stripes, as you pointed out. So, you know, maybe it does something for you in a tight race and the tight race is now what we've got now that Polly has lost that 30 point lead he had at the start of the year. So, you know, they're going to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks and the, you know, the Tories are going to do the same thing. But at the end of the day the ballot question to me is not high speed rail. It's Donald Trump and you know where people stand on Donald Trump and tariffs and what they're going to do about it. Well I want to play some audio for you of our Prime Minister getting quite emotional and I think sincerely emotional at one of what he's calling his last speeches and this

was to the Haida nation. I was one of my first trips as liberal leader. And I can't think of any place more appropriate for what am I very last. You guys, this, not just because this place is an incredibly breathtakingly beautiful place, not only because of the incredible hospitality of the Haida Nation, not even because this place is so important to me and my family.

And look, I don't wanna go down the path of saying I'm tired of hearing his voice and I'm tired of hearing the emotion. That's not the point of this. I think that the emotion was genuine and it reminded me of the last days of my dad and then the ensuing chapter out of politics where we as a family noticed that there is an identity crisis that happens in a former prime minister where you quite literally go from the nexus of everything,

the center of everything to outside of all of it overnight. The country is concerned about themselves. They're not concerned about you and your party has moved on to other things. And so there is a tough shift for any former leader who is so central to also go from the middle to going to the outside. Yeah, and I saw that with my guy, with Christian.

And the interesting thing that's happened is we've got a former prime minister's club a bit happening in the form of Stephen Harper and John Christian. They've actually become quite close and you know communicate quite often and your dad was part of that kind of circle too because you become a citizen unlike other citizens and people think you have a lot of power, but you don't. You're just a regular citizen like everybody else and you have to be very, very careful about what you say about the politics of the moment. That's what has been so extraordinary about Harper and Kretzschia and Clark and Campbell all coming out. And I know

your dad would have too, if he'd been here with us, speaking out against what Trump is doing. But that's an unprecedented event. It's a historic event. So Justin making the transition to that, it is tough. So I'm not going to make fun of him for being emotional. I know he's genuine about Indigenous issues, but as a dad to an Indigenous girl, I share my daughter's cynicism. I don't think he's actually done much

and Jody Wilson-Raybould would agree. Lastly, and we only have a little bit of time left, but I wanna get your take on the state of play of the liberal leadership campaign because we're hearing that there are questions surrounding Ruby Dalla's leadership right now. And we saw Chandra Arya being sent away of the dodo bird. We are promised a national and robust campaign.

It looks like it's a full-throated coronation of Mark Carney at this point. So I wondered what you made of the questions surrounding Ruby Dalla at this point. Well, it's a Bob Fife story in the Globe and Mail. So we always, you got to take those seriously. Those are real stories. Bob Fife is, when you hear he's holding and waiting to talk

to you, that should make your blood run cold. So my suspicion is that the difficulties for Ms. Dollar are about to just starting. And you know, the allegation here, the Liberal Party was warned about this. You guys need to change your membership rules to avoid foreign interference precisely during nomination campaigns and leadership campaigns and they didn't do it. You know we've all heard about Yaha Sinwar signing up from India to be a you know participant in the leadership race so that now that now we're seeing what happens so you know she's a marginal candidate she was never going to be a serious candidate, but this is a mark on the Liberal Party's reputation,

not just hers. And look, I'm not somebody who feels that we should be focused on race or ethnicity or cultural community, but the fact is, in this race, there were two people of color, and both of them, one is out, and the other is under a cloud of suspicion. And the two front runners are people who

look like you and me. And they set for a party that that that puts that in the window so often it seems I'm trying to reconcile those two those those those two things. Well, how about this here, because you're bang on. This is the liberal party that lectures everybody about feminism all the time, particularly this prime minister. And once again, they are the only political party that's gonna have a leader, because we all know it's gonna be Carney,

who's not a woman, right? Every other party has had a woman as leader. And so the Liberal Party, again, it's just they're not on the walk and the talk. And people notice. So I think it, like I say, it's gonna be a very competitive race, and I think it's coming pretty soon.

Warren, thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the hockey game tonight. Thanks, brother. At BDC, we know being an entrepreneur means always being ready to take on challenges and seize opportunities. Get up to one hundred thousand dollars with our small business loan to make your projects a reality. Simple, quick and with no application fees.

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off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Welcome to the Dilemma Panel. No question is too awkward. No problem too petty.

And no opinion goes unchallenged. Our panel of overthinkers is here to dissect, deliberate, and sometimes derail the conversation entirely. Grab your popcorn. This isn't just advice. It's a front row seat to life's most hilariously relatable train wrecks. Here's your host, Ben Mulrooney. I think we might have oversold that a little bit. Welcome back to the show. It's time for the Dilemma panel. Just a reminder, if you have a problem, in the immortal words of Jerry Maguire, help me help you. Right, and so give us an email, shoot us an email at askbenn at chorusent.com,

askbenn at C-O-R-U-S-E-N-T.com, send us your dilemma and we will deliver you salvation. And I wanna welcome Brad Smith back to the show. Brad is a regular on The Dilemma. Yeah, I don't think I've been a regular to anything. Have you left the building since last year? No, I've been sleeping in the, yeah. No, you guys have very good accommodations here.

I'm very glad to see you, and welcome, Shana Whalen. Thank you so much for being a Shana. She's the co-host of Q Morning on Q107. Shana, great to see you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. I love telling people what to do. Exactly.

Well, let's jump right into our first Dilemma, shall we? All right. Okay, here it goes. Dear Ben, I am 48 years old and I'm having a midlife crisis career-wise. It's like I blinked and found myself knocking on 50 with no real retirement setup. I'm unmotivated at my desk job

and too scared to venture off without having any real nest egg for retirement. I'm afraid I'm destined to work till I drop. I'm divorced but no kids and have been single for eight years. So I don't have any dependents. I'm in a rut. Give me a little guidance here.

Signed, Frank. Shawna, you like to tell people what to do? Frank is free. He has no kids. Yeah, this is not a problem. And he's divorced. Go do something, Frank. Go somewhere.

Go back to school. Find out what it is you're passionate about. You're not too old. No, yeah, I don't see this as a problem. But we've been told that we're, you know, once you get to a certain age, and I think it was like, it's Gary Vee, right? I'm not like a huge proponent.

I don't know that much about him, but I've seen that Instagram clip where it's like, your life starts at 40. Yeah, yeah. You know, you think about the back half and everything because it's so informative, right? College, everything that you go through, all your formative relationships.

And yet at 40, you're sitting here in his situation, 48, and go, oh my God, what am I going to do? And just like you said, Chana, you got the world at your fingertips. There's so much time. And this whole thing about retirement, if you love what you do, that's one of the best to ask. He clearly doesn't love what he does, which means he only has one choice. Leave what you're doing and go do something else. And because you have no dependence,

I was reading that going, oh, you're like me. I'm knocking on 50 and no real retirement set up. And then it stopped there. It said I'm unmotivated. But then he says, I'm divorcing and have no kids. It's like, come, then you don't have any problems. You're free. Yeah, you have no responsibilities except to yourself.

So be true to yourself. We can't admit that it does increasingly feel isolated the more the older that I disagree. I disagree. Look, in my twenties, I was an idiot. I thought I knew everything, but I actually knew nothing. And then you move into your late twenties, early thirties. That's when you realize that you know nothing. And then it's only a few years later in your mid to late thirties that you start realizing, okay, here's, and now I'm starting to know myself. That you admit that you know. By your early 40s, you are firing on all cylinders.

So what I would tell this guy is like, you have everything you need at your disposal now. Take a, take a good hard look at yourself and honest look at yourself, see what you're good at, what you're not good at and try something. Maybe like we've said this on the dilemma panel before, try something as a side hustle. And if it, if you love it, turn it into your hustle. Yeah. But Frank, you don't have a problem here. You have an opportunity. Yeah. When he said no dependence, like I got, I got a mortgage. I got a dog. I got kids.

Like I have responsibilities that Frank don't got. That just triggered some stress in you right there. Go have fun, go sit on the beach for a few weeks, Frank, and figure yourself out. Stop complaining. Dilemma number two. Hey there, I've got a dilemma about the partner I'm with. He's a good human being with a good heart

and good moral compass. The type of man whose values I love and is a good future potential husband. Oh, there's gonna be a but here. But we don't have much in common. Sometimes it feels like all we're doing is making small talk. Our interests are completely different. So sometimes it feels like we have nothing to talk about. What do I do? On the one hand, I don't want to lose this great guy. But on the other hand, I'm worried what our future would look like if we can barely find things to talk about. Signed anonymous.

I'm going to defer to the woman on this one. I'm so bored by the question. She must be bored by the guy. Break up with him. That's too, you shouldn't be so head oriented. If you're not into him and you don't have a spark, there's no spark. Well, she didn't mention, listen, there's a lot that we don't know here and like, how's the sex? That's my question. It begs the question. She didn't even put it in there. She didn't put it in there which means exactly. Maybe he didn't put it in there. I'm gonna take a Ben Mulrooney stance from his last point of view which is maybe this person needs to incrementally make better decisions to be a better human being. You

know because... Anonymous doesn't seem like a bad human being. I think she's trying to be a good person. Do you think that if I came on here and I said that I was going out with a woman that was gorgeous, smart, funny, sexy, everything, but you know what, I really don't have anything in common with her and I'm just kind of walking around in life because of my ego attached to her. And I really feel like she heightens me except for everything that turns my brain on. I would be cancelled! What are you doing? You know what I mean? You have to make, when you're with a partner and you're choosing to be with that partner,

it's not just about the ego of what they bring to you for the outside life. It's about how they make you feel as a human being. Yeah, but yeah, here's the difference between someone who looks good on paper and somebody who is actually good for you. This is a person who clearly looks good on paper and has checked this person's boxes,

but life is not about checking boxes. No. No. It's a personal connection. Yeah, exactly. And this may be somebody who believes I'm supposed to be with this type of person. That's what it sounds like.

Forgetting that the special sauce, the royal jelly, is all that stuff you can't expect. We should go a lot of ways with that one, Ben. So anonymous, I would say, are we in consensus? Like honestly, you gotta cut them loose. Cut them loose. Cut them loose and go explore. I would go a lot of ways with that one, Ben. So anonymous, I would say, are we in consensus? Like honestly, you gotta cut them loose. Cut them loose and go and go explore. Find someone who makes you laugh.

Go with Frank. Go stretch your legs. Yeah, Frank, Frank's single. Frank's? By Ben's account, he's on a beach in a couple weeks. Exactly. He should be, he should be. All right, dilemma number three.

Hey Ben, at what point can I start charging my adult son rent? He's 24 years old, has a three. Hey, Ben, at what point can I start charging my adult son rent? He's 24 years old, has a job, makes good money, but doesn't save at all because he knows he has no obligations at home. He spends his money on wasteful things. We pay his cell phone, rent, and cable, and internet. The only thing he pays for is car insurance.

His father and I have been discussing how to deal with this problem. We don't want to kick him out, but we want him to start showing some responsibility. What can we do about it? Brad? See, I've been on two sides of this because I actually was dating a girl who was European. Family was very like old cultured where you stayed in the house until you were married.

And they did everything. And I thought I've never seen that before, but I thought it was amazing. And I've also left the house when I was 15 years old to go to boarding school and haven't been back since. So maybe, I mean, this kid is getting the best of all worlds here, but you just have to have a conversation with him. Yeah, it doesn't seem like the parents have,

I mean, I would say to Coral, I would say, have you actually talked to your son about this? Have you sat him down and said, all the things you just told us, you're making money, you're not saving it, here are all the things we're paying for, and here's how things are gonna change. Maybe you give him six months and say, you've got six months to get your life in order, but starting on this date, you're not saving it, here are all the things we're paying for, and here's how things are going to change.

Maybe you give him six months and say, you've got six months to get your life in order, but starting on this date, here's how much we will be charging you. And by the way, all those extra things, you're paying for those too. He's got it too good. They're making a bit of an idiot. Free loading is fun. I mean, it is. If you can do it. And that's on them. That's on them. Exactly. It's not his fault if you haven't communicated what you want from him. Yep, and I think if you charge rent, one of the things my husband's mom did was she saved the money and then he had a nest egg.

Yeah, but don't tell him that. Don't tell him that. No, don't tell him till, yeah, exactly. Yeah, don't tell him that. But at the end he had a little bit of a nest egg. But someone's gonna take advantage of the situation until it's presented to them otherwise. He's 24 and his family's paying his cell phone

and I gotta wonder also, Coral, are you doing his laundry that all 100%? Yeah, right? They'd like this is I Bet he still has his childhood bedroom untouched Listen I was always helped out by my parents, always. But I was always told like, this is because we love you. The gravy train will end. The gravy train will end and it did end. But I was always fortunate enough to have parents who helped, I'm not suggesting they don't help.

Yeah. And they're all, look, the act of giving him a place to live given the current housing shortage is a kindness, right? Like he's living there, not because he has a great credit score. He's living there because he's their kid. Well, let's be honest, a 24 year old in Toronto has to make a certain amount of money. And what are you going to afford?

Because a studio apartment here is $2,400. So if you're going to give him the benefit, you have to, like you said, maybe set up like a budgetary plan for him, but also an exit strategy so that he can survive and be the best. And I would say to Coral, by doing that, you will set him up for that transitional period

where he's eventually gonna get out, show him that he's gotta pay rent on time, that all these bills, his cell phone, his rent, his cable, his internet, all that stuff, he's gonna have to be responsible for at some point. He's 24, that's too old. Like too old to be doing that now. Yeah, 21 would be one thing, 24, yeah. You're pushing 25 by the way. You're that now. Yeah, 21 would be one thing 24. Yeah. Yeah, you're pushing 25

Yeah, I'm doing the math in my head. You see how I did that You don't have kids Hey, no, Frank doesn't have a care in the world. Frank is gonna haunt you for the rest of the day No, I'm gonna haunt Frank Contexting me Your dilemma Frank you have no dilemma sir. You can't handle the dilemma. Alright hey Shauna thank you so much. Brad don't go anywhere we got more of your dilemmas when we return right here on the Ben Mulrooney show. This is your host Ben Mulrooney and the dilemma panel is back. We've got more dilemmas for you but not before I tell you that if you have a

dilemma that you want to share with us that that you need answers for, you can email me at askbenn at chorusent.com, askbenn at c-o-r-u-s-e-n-t dot com. And my panel is, of course, Shawna Whalen, co-host of Q Morning at Q107. Shawna, thank you so much for being here for the first time. Hope you come back soon. I will, for sure. It's not much of a commute for you. You know, it's right across the hall. I love it. Thank you for having me. And you know what? Brad sleeps in the bathroom. Yep. So yeah so it's not that long. I'm actually the bathroom attendant. Fantastic. That's Brad Smedley. Host of the Big Bake on the Food Network. Former host of Chopped Canada.

The first contestant on Bachelor Canada and former CFL player. One thing about those Food Network shows and the flavor shows is you're eating food that's cold right? Yeah., frozen. It looks, it's always cold. Yeah, from the time that they actually placed the plate till, it's about 45 minutes from the first dish. The only one that I've ever been on that had really hot food was Iron Chef.

Really? If I judge on Iron Chef, it was unbelievable. See, that's the dream. I was like, no, I'm eating Sousa Lee's food here, hot off the plate. Yeah, if that's what you want. Eating amateur chef's food for 40 episodes a year, just frozen. Yeah, fundamentally.

Melted ice cream every two seconds. One of my biggest peeves. I do not like to eat food. If it was intended to be eaten cold, I want it cold. If it was intended to eat hot, I want it hot. So I will not eat frozen food out of the fridge, like pizza or Chinese food. It's the beauty of television.

No. It's the magic of television. You're still pissed about Frank, I can tell. Yeah need to read it. It's the magic of television. You're still pissed about Frank, I can tell. Yeah, Frank is annoying. Yeah. All right, back to the back to the dilemmas. Here's one that starts Dear Ben's panel. This is not for me. This is for you guys. My question is about grocery store etiquette, specifically people who go into express lanes with 20 plus items, when it clearly states an eight item limit. The cashier, of course, never says anything because they don't want to be confrontational.

I like to shop for groceries three times a week. This way all my fruit and veg and meat are constantly fresh. Plus it saves me from having to haul six bags home. I walk to the grocery store. I want to say something to people who jump in the express line while skirting the rules, but I think it should be on the cashier to speak up.

I have mentioned it to them before, but they just tell me it's okay, nothing to stress about. What do you guys think anonymous? Well, yeah.ish. It's not eight or less. Sometimes I've done it. It's just really driving someone crazy. It sounds like it. And it's not up to the cashier. Can we all agree on that? I don't think it's up to the cashier to tell the person. I'm going to give you a confession. I'm a stickler for the rules. But I was down in Florida with my family and I was in a new grocery store and I was just trying to getler for the rules. But I was down in Florida with my family and I was in a new grocery store

and I was just trying to get everything for the house. We had a hall and we were staying in Airbnb and I wanted to make sure we had everything we needed and I wanted to go as fast as possible and I'd never been in this grocery store before. And I had an entire, I got a ton of stuff. And I went into the line of 10, and this woman behind me was like, you've never been here before, have you?

I was like, no, why? And she looked, and I was mortified. Meanwhile, there's a movie sign over top of you in lights saying eight or less. She could see how embarrassed I was. She knew that I had no intention of doing it. And we eventually laughed it off. And I tried to get my stuff in and out as quickly as possible.

But it does present a problem, right? Like who's supposed to be the gatekeeper? See, I have less of a problem with the eight items or less. I have more problems of the grocery store etiquette with shopping carts in general. Oh, yeah. I love going to Costco for the actual fact of getting my monthly supply and then coming home, except for the fact that the people at Costco are maniacs that just have no social decorum, that don't understand that right, go for it.

Yeah. There's traffic laws that are involved in being in Costco. People with no wherewithal who think that they can park their cart wherever they want, walk around and they don't pay attention to who's around them. They have no spatial reasoning. Shana, how about when you're going to-

I've been banned. My husband doesn't let me go anymore. He says, you have no sense of who's in your space. Yeah, and also people who go there with no plan. I go to the grocery store with a plan. No, middle aisle. It's a strategic strike. But back to the dilemma.

Look, this person has a plan, they like to get in and out, I get it. They want a system that works, so I respect that. Yeah, of course. But you gotta catch the person before they're already putting the stuff down. Yes. And look, chances are, what that means is if that person's already putting it down

is because there was no one in the line. Is this person's name Karen? Anonymous. Anonymous. No, but I respect this person. No, I get it. I get it. I'm just joking.

Because look, there's two scenarios, right? There's a scenario where there are a number of people waiting in line and that person with 20 plus items is waiting in line, in which case you can cut them off at the pass and say, hey, you have too many things, you shouldn't be in this line. 100%. But if this person is already there, there's nobody in the line, I have less of a problem.

Like nobody's using it, first come first serve, it's sort of like a handicapped bathroom. You thought about this one in great detail. No, but it is, if there's nobody using it, I'm gonna use it. That's true, yeah. I will never do that with a parking spot, but I will do it with a parking spot. Yeah.

But I will do it with a bathroom. I mean, for someone who said he's such a stickler to the rules, we're finding a lot of wavering in your rule system here, Mr. Mulrooney. These are societal rules. These are the norms and values that, see, my thing is, if you go there, if it's an inconvenience and there's like a huge lineup

and it's packed, I get it. 100%. But if again, like Ben said, if there's nobody there, who cares? Oh, so you're agreeing with me? Yes, but I didn't cut it myself. Say no more, say no more. To the rules. Say no more.

You've agreed with me. You're just like, I stay uncorrected. Moving on to dilemma. Uncorrected. Moving on to dilemma number five. Hello, I'm recently divorced after 18 years of marriage. He was my best friend until I found out he was cheating on me.

We have three beautiful children together and he's a great father, so I have to give him credit there. The problem is his parents. We used to be very close and his mother and I bonded after his father passed 10 years ago. The problem is I found out she knew about her son's affair and kept it from me.

She still wants to keep our friendship and says it's for the sake of my children. I can't stand to look at her anymore. He's entitled to his children, but I don't want anything to do with anyone on his side of the family. She insists I would protect my child if they were in the same situation when they were married. I disagree with her completely. Am I wrong here, Lucy? I think you can split clean. I'm divorced and I think you can just get like she's going to have a relationship with

the grandchildren through her husband's side, right? Or her ex-husband's side. I don't think she has to be friends. Be cordial, be civil. They are your children's grandparents, grandmother. But I don't think you have to be a friend. Well, no, but she wasn't a friend. She proved she wasn't a friend in that she was, she chose, she chose to lie to this person

she claimed to have a real relationship with. So the relationship died when the friendship died when the mother-in-law chose to keep this for or at least not direct. And you know what? It probably wasn't her place to tell, but she should have directed the son to tell to be a better person. Right. Yes. At least on the fact that you're not friends anymore. Yeah. Like, like it's okay to have a relationship in a different role. but you're not friends. The way I was raised, my mother would never go up to any of the people that I've ever dated and tell them something like intimate about me.

I don't know if I'd ever go to my parents and say, hey, listen, I'm having an affair or screwing around. But at the same time, like it's hard to justify this one because I've been in the side where when you leave a relationship, obviously this woman really cared about the mother. And sometimes when you leave a relationship, I've been heartbroken on that I never get to hang out with the parents again.

Yeah, but the mom should have said to the son, I know you're messing up here and you're messing around. Be a man. Do the right thing and end it or fix this, but I can't be a party to this. And she clearly didn't do that. So I don't think Lucy's in the wrong. We only have a very short period of time for the next one.

So I'm gonna read it and then we're gonna get right to solving the problem. Rapid fire. Dear Ben, my wife and I have two different beliefs. She is Christian, I'm an atheist. It's never been a problem between us until we had our first child. She wants to raise him under her beliefs.

I don't feel comfortable about that. We definitely should have had this conversation before we got married, correct? But we didn't. And now here we are. How do we have this conversation? Because it's really putting a strain on things. Signed, Darren. For God's sake!

That's a big one! Come on! Where are the... You said before, where are the conversations that we're supposed to be having when we come into a relationship? Again, a conversation we should have had yesterday! Name the movie. That's a big one. The Wedding Singer.

Come on. Yeah. Greatest guitar player in the world. Okay, quick. Yeah, only we have one minute left. It's crazy. Like, this is something that you talk about even before you start officially dating, probably, because...

Okay, but if she has a belief and he doesn't, unless you call atheism a belief. It is. Or is it a lack of belief? It is absolutely a belief. It is a belief in non-belief. But it's kind of a lack of belief. But it's enough of a lack that he doesn't want hers.

It's a belief in non-belief. Yeah, it is. I don't know, I think you try to, at some point, you maybe instill enough of both and hope at some point the child can raise the decision I don't know how you proceed we only have a short amount of time so I will say I'm not a following practice religious person but you know Jesus isn't that bad of a guy yeah yeah based on all I've read about him I would say listen find it find a third way, raise the kid as a witch. That's the solution.

That is the solution. And on that, I say thank you to the both of you. Please come back soon. Donald Trump, Russia, and Ukraine, and the democracy of it all. It is a very touchy subject. It makes even some of Donald Trump's most avid supporters uncomfortable. His seemingly warm relationship with Vladimir Putin at the expense of the democracy that is Ukraine that was invaded violently by Vladimir Putin. It is not something that a lot of his supporters enjoy talking about.

And as we get deeper into this, the early days of this administration, it's getting increasingly uncomfortable for anybody because it just doesn't look right. The U.S. has started talks with Russia on ending this war without Ukraine at the table. And at this first meeting, Donald Trump got in front of microphones ending this war without Ukraine at the table. And at this first meeting, Donald Trump got in front of the microphones and talked about how this could have been said a long time ago. Well, I think I'm really disappointed in what's happened. I've been watching this for three years.

It's a war that would have never happened if I was president. And I've been watching these, these, you know these people being killed at levels that you've rarely seen, not even close, since the Second World War. And I'm very disappointed. I hear that they're upset about not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years, and a long time before that.

This could have been settled very easily. Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without, I think, without the loss of much land, very little land. All right, here to discuss it and wade into these waters and help us make sense of it is Marcus Kolga, the senior fellow at MacDonald-Laurier Institute and founder of DisinfoWatch.

Marcus, thank you so much for being here on the Ben Mulroney Show. Thanks for having me on, Ben. Yeah, this I look I'm one of the things I learned in law school is the appearance of propriety is as important as propriety itself if something doesn't look right then it doesn't matter if it is right it's not right and this doesn't look right that Russia the aggressor in this war is sitting down with the United States to figure out a solution to a war without the victim there. Yeah, well Ben, I mean it smells like 19th century diplomacy where you had massive Imperial powers coming together

to decide the fate of smaller nations. I mean we haven't engaged in this sort of diplomacy for like a hundred years. And so yeah, it doesn't smell right. It doesn't smell right because it is Ukraine here that is the victim and it has been a victim going back all the way to 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea. You know, in your clip, you know, Donald Trump says that Ukraine had a seat for three years.

Yeah, it had a front row seat to witness the destruction of that nation, the targeting of, of civilian infrastructure, apartment buildings, hospitals, the kidnapping of nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children by Vladimir Putin, who were taken to Russia and brainwashed many of them sent back to the front lines to fight against their own people. And nevermind the billions of dollars in destruction that Russia has caused. So yeah, they've had a front seat there and they've been asking for peace all along.

But to now impose this sort of peace on Ukraine is, as you say, it's not right, it doesn't smell right, something is definitely off here. And, you know, something that needs to be repeated and people tend to forget that the history of the fall of the Soviet Union, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the third largest repository of nuclear weapons on the planet. They voluntarily gave them up at the request of the United States in order to sort of join the the the community of nations and they but they were promised protection by the West.

Yeah, and you're you're absolutely right. And part of that agreement, the Budapest memorandum, as you've noted, was a guarantee from Russia that they would not invade Ukraine, that they would respect the sovereignty of Ukraine's borders. And so Ukraine, you're right, they gave up that nuclear deterrent for those guarantees that Russia would not invade them. And so, you know, when Donald Trump talked about negotiation, that negotiation ended in 1991.

And I should say also it was to a certain degree with the involvement of Canada's then Prime Minister, Brian Mulvaney. And I would, but I'd love to, I would love for the, there to have been some pushback by these journalists to say, oh, the war never would have started. So what about the pretext for the war?

That the nonsense pretext that Putin had that he was going in there to denazify Ukraine. You're absolutely right. The justification for this was that there were Nazis running Ukraine. Of course, President Zelensky himself is a member of the Jewish community in Ukraine, but that was the justification that Russia was going in to denotify this country, that Ukraine somehow posed some form of a threat to Russia. There was no threat there ever. Ukraine never threatened to invade Russia.

Of course, Vladimir Putin promised his own people that this war would end in three days. We're now a few days away from the third anniversary, the third year of this war would end in three days. We're now a few days away from the third anniversary, the third year of this war. And this is what also is rather perplexing about Donald Trump's position in giving Vladimir Putin everything that he wanted. Just a month ago, you know, Vladimir Putin was on his heels. Things were not going well on the front lines. His economy is in tatters because of his war. His own people are not happy with the direction that Vladimir Putin has taken, essentially. And the oligarchs that support him

were questioning Vladimir Putin's own policy in terms of this war. Marcus, I wanna get to another clip here because all of those things are happening, but it seems now, I mean, if I'm those oligarchs who are worried, I'm less worried today because it seems like I have an ally in Donald Trump. Here's what he had to say about what it seems like he's talking about the undemocratic aspect of Ukraine right now.

Let's listen. Well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at 4 percent approval rating — and where a country has been blown to smithereens. You got — most of the cities are laying on their sides.

The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site. The whole — I mean, so many of the cities. I mean, they haven't done it in Kiev because, I guess, they don't want to shoot too many rockets in there. They've done it 20 percent, but they haven't done it 100 percent. If they wanted to do it 100 percent, it would probably happen very quickly. But you have cities that are absolutely decimated.

And yeah, I would say that, you know, when they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to, wouldn't the people of Ukraine have to say like, you know, it's been a long time since we've had an election. That's not a Russia thing. That's something coming from me and coming from many other countries also. Marcus Kolgo, what do you make of that? I mean, nobody would suggest that the elections in Russia are anywhere near free and fair. And so this, the fact that he's demanding an election in one place where we know the

elections are completely rigged on the other side shows that this negotiation is rigged. Yeah. I mean, the whole interview there, that whole segment, I mean, it's just absurd. You know, Ukraine has been under attack for the past three years. I mean any nation that is in that situation, I mean elections unfortunately need to get delayed because in order to ensure their ability to defend themselves and the stability of that regime. It's happened in multiple other nations including England during the

Second World War. So that's nothing new. And your point about Russia, I mean, if this is a Russia thing, as Donald Trump has suggested, maybe he should be talking to Vladimir Putin, who has been in power for 25 years. There hasn't been a free and fair election in that country during that time. And so I wouldn't be so worried about elections in Ukraine

as I would be about elections in Russia, which like I say, haven't happened in 25 years. Marcus Kolga, senior fellow at the McDonald-Laurier Institute and founder of Disinfo Watch. What a great conversation. I hope you come back so we can chat again. Anytime, back to me on Ben. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show.

It's time to have a conversation of global importance. And if any of you have listened to me long enough, you know that a movie that's very, very close to my heart is the film Armageddon. It's not a movie, it's a film. It's that important. I've seen Deep Impact as well, came out the same year, garbage, garbage compared to Armageddon. And you'll know the story of Armageddon is that there is a world ending asteroid that is making its way towards Earth.

And the only way to get rid of it is to train a bunch of roughnecks from the oil patch and turn them into astronauts so they can fly up to the asteroid and drill down into the asteroid, deposit nuclear weapons and blow it up before it destroys earth. And of course, the hero of the story is Bruce Willis, who died on the asteroid saving the earth. And so I think I watched that movie at least once a year, and I don't care what you think.

You may think that it's a garbage film. I believe that it is a how to film on how to save the earth because we're gonna need to know how to save it based on this story that we've been monitoring and following for a couple of weeks now. There is an asteroid called YR4 that is projected to hit earth at some point in the future. The probability of impact is 3.1%, That is a one in 32 odds of impact.

It's the highest probability of a collision ever. The closest before was one in 2004 at 2.7%. There is a very real chance that this thing could hit our planet. And so to discuss this, is Dr. Gordon Osinski, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario with an expertise in planetary planetary geology and impact cratering. Dr. Welcome

to the show. Thanks, Ben, for having me on the show. So this this is looks it's probably not going to happen, but it could happen. Therefore, we need to be talking about it. Absolutely. And you know, like you say, this is the odds of it hitting have gone up slightly since it was first discovered. And yeah, something we definitely have to pay attention to. So first of all, how far away is it? How big is it? So far away is, you know, it's still several hundred million kilometers away. The size

is actually one of the big questions right now. So there's probably two questions we need to know to figure out what potential effects it will have. One is its orbit, and we need more measurements to be able to plot that trajectory more accurately, and that translates into what are the odds of it hitting. But right now, we only know it's somewhere between about 40 and 90 meters across. Okay, so not as big as the one in Armageddon, which tells me, and the one in Armageddon was so big that you couldn't just blow it up with nukes, you had to drill down and blow

it up from the inside. So if it remains that size, and it remains on projected path to hit Earth, is it something that we could blow up with a nuclear weapon? That's a great question. So there's, you know, this whole conferences and you know, fields of study dedicated to planetary defense. And if you remember from that movie and actually the other movie you mentioned too,

Deep Impact, one of the issues is if you blow something up in space, it just creates more particles but are smaller. So you know, you could have the potential for lots more things still hitting the earth that are even smaller. One of the techniques that people are talking about a lot more these days is more deflection. And this was actually part of this deep impact mission last year. There's been a couple of missions recently where, you know, if you fly a spacecraft close enough, you could either fire a projectile not to destroy it, but to just nudge it slightly off course, which, you know, over years would mean it would miss Earth. And so that's one of the neat things that people are looking into.

And that is maybe a bit more feasible than blowing something to bits. Well, I just told you about one of my favorite asteroid movies, Armageddon. One of my favorite TV show of all time is the Apple TV show For All Mankind, which explores the alternate history of what would have happened

had the Russians landed on the moon first. And by the time that alternate history gets into the early 2000s, they are working on an asteroid capture program where they essentially stick a rocket on the back of one of these asteroids in order to bring it into orbit of Mars. Is that something that you could do with something like this? If you got if you flew far enough out to get could you put up essentially an engine on the back of it to fly it wherever you wanted to. So you know, it might it might sound far fetched, but people are talking about this kind of technology. The planetary defense, but also asteroid mining, you know, in the long term. The problem is, we couldn't do it now right 2032 2032 is not long in terms of space. If you

follow anything about the space program, take the Artemis program for going back to the moon. It takes several years, even decades to get the technology design, get it space ready and get it launched. So I think in the you know, let's say two, three, several decades in the future, sure, we could be potentially blowing things up, putting engines on and deflecting them. I think, you know, 2032, we don't have much we could probably do about this particular asteroid. Yeah. So, but in the future, if we were to encounter something like this in the future, let's say it's 30, 40, 50 years from now, would we have the technology to, rather than blow it up and fear that it's going to hit the earth, just move it enough that it would be caught by earth's gravity and it would just start, it would become a natural

satellite of the earth and we could just explore it and possibly mine it at our own convenience because it would just get captured by earth's gravity and it would just become a natural satellite? Yeah, I think the short answer is yes. I think in the future, we've done again in the last couple of years proof of concept studies such as this that have just nudged an asteroid off a few meters from its trajectory. So it is definitely technically and theoretically feasible. Like most things though, we can't just, especially with space, we can't just say, oh, we can do this and leave it until we discover something to design the technology.

Something that governments would need to put money into now so that we have the technology if this kind of thing was discovered in the future. Well, maybe, Doctor, this might be exactly what we need to spur that sort of innovation. I mean, if this thing gets closer and that number ticks up higher, at what point does this become something

we get truly concerned about? I mean, I don't know about you, but one in 32 chance. I don't do too much, but one in 32 chance, you know, I don't do too much gambling but bet some things, but you know, there's actually fairly high odds when you think about what, you know, winning the lottery. So I think it is something we should pay attention to, you know, NASA and the world's space agencies are definitely going to be following this asteroid, try to get more data to better define its orbit and its size, like I said, and then we can go from there. Just to kind of put the size into perspective, I did some quick calculations

before this show and 50 meters difference in the estimates may not sound like much, but it's the difference between something around three megatons and about nine megatons. If it's on that high end, it would destroy something on the order of four or five hundred square kilometres of terrain on the Earth's surface. And just for perspective, Vancouver is about 115 square kilometres. Oh my goodness. Let's assume the worst case scenario in terms of size. Where would be the safest place for something like this

to hit us on Earth? Oh, that's another great question. And it would probably be debated. You could think, well, maybe the ocean. This is where it goes probably well beyond the science, right, and into geopolitics. If it hit the ocean, you would have gigantic tsunamis radiating out. If it was only some small islands would affected, would that be good?

In the middle of a continent that is uninhabited would probably be the best case because then you would have a crater formed in solid rock and assuming nothing was, you know, living around there for a few, you know, hundred square kilometers, that would probably, if I had to choose, be, you know, the safest place for this thing to hit. Dr. Gordon Ozynski, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario, thank you so much and I hope you come back soon as we as this thing gets closer and closer to its final destination. You're very welcome. And hopefully we'll have some good news. Yes. Where have you gone? Bruce Willis. We need you. We need you, man.

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 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 iHeart 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. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious. His escapes defy belief. And when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it. His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt, but how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel?

I'm Seren Jones, and this is a Most Audacious Heist. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.