The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 1 - Tristin Hopper, Tony Chapman, Flavio Volpe, Franco Terrazano

Episode Date: February 15, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Tristin Hopper, Tony Chapman, Flavio Volpe, Franco Terrazano Guests: Tristin Hopper, Tony Chapman, Flavio Volpe, Mohit Rajhans, Franco Terrazano, David Booth 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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backfires. The battle on the battle on if and how we should regulate AI plus some damning results on how well EVs hold up in cold weather. Enjoy. I was offered a position on a corporate board and a lot of people were asking what my qualifications were to be on that board. Now I've got a law degree and I've, I had a lot of qualifications, but they were different from a great many people

on that board. And the person who brought me onto the board said that he was done only having lawyers and business people on the board. And what he wanted was differences in perspectives, different perspectives that could offer up perhaps a different way of looking at problems and therefore solving problems.

And that was the justification for me to be on that board. And I was on the board for me to be on that board. And I was on the board for 10 years. I'm very, very pleased to have contributed in the way that I did. So I'm really happy to have Tristan Hopper for the first time, hopefully not the last, columnist and reporter at the National Post

to join us right now because he's written a story in the National Post about how universities seem to have fallen into that very trap of hiring with diversity in mind, but only a specific type of diversity. And so welcome to the show, Tristan, thank you so much for joining us. So thanks for having me. Yeah, so so talk to me about what you uncovered because the

numbers are quite stark. Oh, I'm just reporting with the Aristotle Foundation. This is what you would call a think tank. Yes. So they were looking into, they thought, there's something I reported on a lot in that within academic hiring, you've started to see in the last few years. So over the last 20 years,

universities would say, oh, we prioritize ethnic diversity in our hiring. But in the last few years, you've started to see examples in which that's very explicit, in which there will be a position. I'm thinking of two years ago, there was a couple positions that opened up at the University of Waterloo, and the advertisement specifically said, oh yeah, don't apply unless you're, you know, identify as a woman, or you're black or brown, et cetera.

So you started to see advertisements like that in which jobs are very specifically, you know, targeted to a unique identity or the job posting will say, you know, we're going to prioritize black people before we get to the non-black people. So the Aristotle Foundation said, well, let's try and figure out how often this is happening within academic hire. So they said, well, we'll just take a representative sample of academic job postings and we'll see how often diversity is sort of prioritized

in the hiring process. And we'll see, you know, maybe it's 50%, 60%. And they found by their criteria, it was almost all of them. There was only 12 positions out of 489 in which you didn't factor into the hiring process in some way. So it's a range. The most extreme is when they say you have to be black or you have to be Asian or something, you have to be indigenous to have this job. That was only 16. And then the least extreme is where there's just a boilerplate diversity statement. Yeah. Like we're hiring and that's everywhere.

I even found postings for they're hiring a janitor. And even before you get to your, you know, your qualifications as a janitor, they're like, well, we prioritize, you know, diversity and you know, you must believe in diversity, equity, inclusion to be a janitor at this particular university. So there's a whole range. A lot of them had to fill out a diversity survey, in which which just means you're you're checking boxes of what race you are with different identity, you know, are you are you are you queer? You know, we need a queer

janitor for this. Of course, you do. Of course you do. But Tristan, it seems to me that it's a it's a it's a performative diversity. It's it's it's diversity of how people look, not necessarily diversity of thought. And in fact, I said, yeah, and Aristotle Foundation, let's call it a right leaning think tank, they point this out, there's like, oh, yeah, this isn't diversity of opinion. This isn't, oh, we need, you know, this particular political leaning to balance up this particular political leaning. It's entirely immutable characteristics. So, you know, what you look like and who you like to sleep with.

And the irony that this is happening in, you know, in our institutions of higher learning where diversity of thought and the collision of diverse thought is what you should expect from those places. That's actually the low watermark. That's the least you should expect from a university that you're gonna be able to have robust debate between divergent opinions. And the fact that they are building up their staff

from the janitors up with this level of group think, but so long as they look diverse, then that's what we want. This is also why you may have noticed we have a bit of a pretending problem in Canada, in which every couple of weeks, we find out there's someone else, often in higher learning,

who is just, they've been white the whole time and they just have a heavy tan and they're wearing hair and braids and pretending to be native. That's because you get to the hiring process and it's, you know, your three diversity surveys deep and you're like, you know what, maybe the family rumors about the high cheekbones were true and I've been pretty dismal fun. Tristan, I mean, I've said with no data to support it that while it does seem like generally speaking in the Western world, the pendulum is swinging away from, you know, the worst aspects of the past

few years as they relate to sort of identity politics, that if there's going to be one last bastion, it's going to be Canada. And within that last bastion, the holdout is going to be the higher education. This is going to be where identity politics have their last stand right here in Canadian universities. I think so. Yeah, because it hit us harder than I think almost anywhere else. Because we had no defenses against it. We have sort of a much more centralized system. And we had a very high trust society. So when, you know, so-called woke policies started to be introduced, Canada said, oh this seems fine, no it's anti-

racism, that sounds fine. So I think, yeah, we've got a much more extreme version of all of these and that's particularly true in academia. So I think the extent to which it's been applied in academia, if you just look at grant funding, I mean people don't believe me when I say this, when I say like, you know, when you're filling out grant funding for like computer science, something that's, it's not sociology where it maybe you would make sense that you want, you know, a range of different ethnicities reporting on it, you know, just the basic law of sciences, how much identity factors into it, like this, you have to, there's an identity statement, there's an identity survey, there's a statement saying, oh, we're going to prioritize this particular race for this computer science grant before

we get to the other races. So it's much more prevalent. If you have an academic friend, just ask them a few questions and they'll get the thousand miles there and then they'll tell you what it's really going on. Does a report like this that exposes the flaw in the hiring practice, does that move the needle in terms of demanding change at these universities? Or are they set in their ways? Are they insulated against the criticism? Oh, I think they're going to be real, ways. Are they insulated against the criticism? Oh, I think they're going to be real, uh, set in their ways. I mean, just, just look at how we saw, um, when we saw like the pro

into side up protesters, uh, you know, pro pro-Himathim comments. Um, the problem was obviously much more acute on university campuses than anywhere else. So I think it's, uh, I think it's, yeah, they're not going to be able to turn around on a dime on this. So in terms of moving the deal, I don't know, it's probably going to be, I mean, you're seeing it in the United States right now, there's probably going to be a change of government. And then it's going to be quite blunt. It's just going to be you know, funding is cut, you know, quite bluntly to the university sector on EI grounds. You've seen what's happened with Donald Trump doing

that in the states. He's made it very clear, keep behaving like this and you're gonna lose all federal funding. All federal research is going to go elsewhere if you are if you insist on perpetrating these hiring practices. And I could absolutely see the same thing happening here, especially because these universities in Canada depend even more on government funding than they do in the states. That's right. So I guess in terms of moving the needle, it's just changing public perception. There's actually something a friend mentioned to me a while ago. If you met a professor, uh, some, some says, oh, I'm a professor at the university, say it's circa 1984, and you'd be like, oh, you, you must have a better view of how society works and how, how things are working than almost

anyone else. And now if you meet an academic and you meet a professor, um, at least me, my first inclination is like, oh, you probably don't know where meat comes from. You're probably completely out of it on several aspects. So I think, yeah, in terms of a study like this, moving the needle, I think there was a growing public perception that, yeah, there's something what universities are supposed to be. Tristan, Tristan, we got to leave it there. We got to leave it there. But I hope to talk to you soon. Thank you.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And let's put Donald Trump aside for a little bit. And let's talk about what so many people were watching yesterday, the Super Bowl. If you're watching in Canada, the one thing you didn't see were the American ads. But that doesn't matter anymore because they released those well in advance. And there are websites that you can watch them on and people are sharing them on social media. And so we don't necessarily feel like we're missing out the way we used to. Although I have to say I very much enjoy experiencing sort of the American Super Bowl experience with those those Super Bowl ads in real time with everyone. And so to discuss that and so much more,

we're joined by Tony Chapman, good friend of the show and host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, as well as founder of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome back. Did you watch the Super Bowl? I watched some of it. I was on the plane for most of it. I was coming back from Costa Rica.

I've got a gig in Ottawa today and tomorrow. But I caught enough of it. And obviously, I've been watching and seeing the Super Bowl ads unfold as you said over the last two weeks. So it's just, it's always, it's always to me, it's the greatest game in town if you're in marketing to see if you can win the Super Bowl. Well, and that's the question. I mean, everybody appreciates that you've got so many eyeballs and so much interest in the idea of a Super Bowl commercial It's it's it's more than a commercial. It's an experience. It's an event doesn't matter What what the company is if somebody bought?

You know an eight million dollar 30 second ad is because they think they've got a needle to move But the question I guess I have is back when you had a captive audience watching through one stream, you know, CBS or Fox, I could appreciate the value of that. But given the fact that we now not only enjoy those commercials through different streams and different channels, but at different times, and you don't have that mass event anymore, is that $8 million price tag still of the same value? It's actually of more value. And it's a great point you make because initially it was about scarcity. I had to watch it. I couldn't get up and replenish in the fridge because I didn't want to miss the ad because once it was there, it was gone. And that had a certain magic to it.

And there's some ads that just made their entire year around one event. But today it's almost like liquid content flows without dead ends. And if you're smart and you think of the Super Bowl, the center, the epicenter of that earthquake. But what can I do to tease it in? What are all those little shocks going in? I can use YouTube and Instagram. I can get the media talking about it. I can tease the celebrities. I can put out a 180 second ad because I control the real estate on YouTube and then there's the event and then afterwards if you if you commanded attention, if you're worthy of validation and more importantly

sharing, you get the another after-effect. So it really it really becomes this this game of how many times can I get people talking about what used to be a single piece of real estate and now in fact becomes the entire Monopoly board. You know, a fact that many people know but not everybody. I'm always surprised when I find out that people don't all know that the Super Bowl halftime performer does not get paid. And when they hear that, then they say, well, what are the economics of that?

Explain how that makes sense. And I'm almost always at a loss, but I suspect you'll be able to explain to our audience why it makes sense for somebody like Kendrick Lamar to invest time and resources to give essentially a free concert. Yeah, this is great. Another great question.

So I was at the event in Pasadena when Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, what's he doing in the NFL? The NFL is the old boys. It should be a country in Western. It should be, you know, and the NFL said, you know what, we're going to attract a younger audience. We might not be able to attach it to pigskin, but we're going to attach it through culture and music. And Michael Jackson played and performed. It was one of the greatest performances. And that set off a whole domino effect. And the NFL said, listen, I'll bring you 120 million viewers. I'll validate you're the top star in the world. I'll put my cameras on you, but in return, you're going to do it for free. So not only do they get the talent for free, they sell the sponsorship of the halftime show.

Pepsi used to own it. And I thought they'd never give it up, but it got so expensive that Apple had to turn it over. And that's the game of the NFL is so smart. They realize that they're the only game in town, live eyeballs. Everybody's tuning in. I tell you something else. When you look at the polling, I did a chatter AI polling. And the why, when you factor in both genders, the most popular part of the Superbowl is a halftime show because it's something watched together and talked about together where I would argue a lot of the game, if you're not a passionate football fan,

your attention veers. Oh yeah. So if you haven't found those, you've got that asset. I was watching with five guys yesterday and all of a sudden right before the halftime show, three women showed up to watch the halftime show with us and then they left. That's absolutely right.

Hey, I want to switch gears to Starbucks and I think this number surprised me that Starbucks is planning to cut 30% of its menu. What is that attributable to? When I hear a number like that I hear something they're they're they clearly think they're going in the wrong direction on on a particular front. I'll tell you what it is. It's stuck in the middle and nobody wants to be in the middle. Starbucks used to be the premium brand. You paid a fortune for it.

You walked into barista, the steaming and the espresso and then they got caught in the middle because the local coffee shop showed up with the local date squares and the freshly baked goods and Starbucks suddenly looked at it and said that sandwich is coming out of a piece of plastic and going in baked goods. And Starbucks suddenly looked at it and said, that sandwich is coming out of a piece of plastic and going in a microwave. And then Tim Hortons and McDonald's showed up and said, you know what, coffee is only worth a dollar. And where Starbucks is lost in this translation, it doesn't know where to move.

So it's trying to find ways to be more efficient with its operation. But I'll tell you something, you're either gonna be in the dollar coffee business or you're gonna be the high-end boutique coffee shop. And I'll go out something, you're either going to be in the dollar coffee business, or you're going to be the high end boutique coffee shop, and I'll go out with a very bold prediction. Starbucks is going to have to do a major, major reset, or I question the relevance and

sustainability of that brand going forward. Because, uh, uh, people have moved one way or the other, discount, stampede to value, or I want to go to my local person that knows my name. And I love the fact that when that Saturday mornings when they have that freshly baked muffin, I'm going to go in there with my buddies and we're going to have a chat. Well what I couldn't believe and I just had this revelation because I saw it in real time every time I go to the Starbucks was that you don't have your plastic straws anymore,

but every single one of those goods that you order comes right out of a plastic bag and that plastic bag goes into the garbage, but I can't have my plastic straw. Oh, I know. And listen, I just this morning because I'm in Ottawa, I went down, no yogurt, no oatmeal. I'm going all it is is baked goods that have that's considered on a shelf for a week. And as you said, comes out of plastic and I get people, the youth, this curious sober youth, this more health conscious youth is saying that's not what I want to put in my body. So Starbucks is going to have to do a reset, but it's tough when you're a massive chain.

Again, you could be operational efficient like a Tim Hortons or a McDonald's or you could be superb like a boutique, but it's tough to be in the middle and that's where Starbucks is. So I expect a major reset, and maybe someone like McDonald's will buy them, or Pret De Manger will buy them and find a completely different way to reinvent the experience.

But as it stands now, cutting your menu, I don't think is your path to prosperity. I wanna spend a couple of minutes on Shopper's Drug Mart, because there's this outrage over an ad for the beauty side of Shopper's Drug Mart that features a bearded man. Now there's this whole controversy about a podcast that he did about being HIV positive. I don't even want to touch that.

I want to just talk about the marketing, the idea behind it, where the vast majority of people who are being targeted by Shoppers Drug Mart beauty are women. And so I want to understand the reasoning behind putting a bearded man in a place where most people identify as being cis women. Yeah, I mean, again, your calling should have been marketing. 82% of the purchasing decisions that happen to your own are women. When it comes to health and beauty, even a higher number, they buy the male product. Go to shoppers now, you see there higher number, they buy the mill product, go to shoppers.

Now you see there's a whole mill cosmetic section carved out, you know, beard oil, moisturizers. And I get a great thing about men is we don't want to use shampoo and conditioner separate because we don't understand it. We want two in one. Yeah. So, but it's all it's basically it's, it's, it's not really within your mindset.

So I don't understand this ad. I can understand shoppers saying we're in the male cosmetic care chasing found a use space because that's what shoppers is. I don't know who they're targeting with this ad because it's not, if I'm shopping for my man, I'm thinking the old spice ad, you know, and how much fun you could have playing on.

I just don't understand it. So I think it's probably data that's driven a decision that when you're put out in the marketplace, people are looking at it and going, I don't know who it's targeting, but I certainly know it's not targeting me. And I would say to you, that's not great marketing. Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a sort of a Bud Light

Dylan Mulvaney sort of scandal, but I do think it's a sort of wasted marketing dollars. I just don't know that it's going to be as effective as anyone either anticipated or hoped. Hey, Tony, I really appreciate it. I know that you're in between meetings and we love having you on the show to offer up your insights on so many of these stories. So thank you very much. Always a pleasure, my friend. Loving your show. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the

top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and we're ending this show as we began it. Talking about Trump tariffs specifically on steel and aluminum. Trump said so earlier in the show I spoke with an expert who suggested that this is a blanket approach for everyone who imports steel and aluminum into the United States and whoever plays ball with Donald Trump is going to get a better deal.

Whoever decides that they are going to invest in his country or put a quota on how much they send into his country might see see their share of these tariffs reduced, which would then give them a competitive advantage over their competition. Here to talk about that with me is Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive's Part Manufacturers Association. Flavio, great to have you back on the show. Hey, my pleasure.

That sounds like we're dealing with Don Corleone rather than the president of the United States. Yeah. Well, listen, you have been an advocate for measured calm. Let's not chase every headline. Let's deal with him as it comes. Let's not worry about threats. Let's worry about things when they come. Well, it seems like these things are coming. So what's your take today? So I read the executive order, which is one of the pieces of advice I tell everybody, read what they write. And this is March 4th.

So same implementation date that he was threatening on everything else. It's steel tariffs on everybody. He's relying on advice that he got in his first presidency. He talked about a report on national security for imports on steel and then he mentioned Canada and Mexico and he said in one piece of steel, reinforcement bars of the Canadian import surge has been 564%. So he's cherry picking to make the argument. I think, of course, he's trying to tell people that he wants to have investment in the U.S. But anybody who's been in the steel business or, you know, take a drive on the undergarter and go take a look from the

Burlington Scabry, what Hamilton looks like, and think for yourself, how long would it take to build up extra capacity? That's a long time. Well, that's what I was going to ask because he said, he said, he said, yes, there might be short term pain for Americans, but ultimately it's going to lead to lower prices. And I, and I started my show by saying the key word there is ultimately how long would it take for that tide to turn before that pain turned into gain for the United States. And you're suggesting it take quite a long time. Well, he did this last time in 2018, 2019. He did it for nine months.

It was a lot of pain, meaning everybody paid more for steel and steel goods. And all of the other importers into the US, whether it was Korean steel or Chinese steel, well, they raised their price by 24%, just under the 25% tariff he was charging on Canadian stuff. And they didn't get any extra steel built there. Um, this is, uh, his move to look like a strong man, uh, and to cause, uh, not

just pain, but political confusion. I think what he's ultimately looking at here is he's sending a message to somebody. Maybe that's domestic, maybe it's China, but he would like to get us, Canada, back to the table to renegotiate the USMCA. And I think it plays well in the US because it's admirable for the leader of your country to say, we got to go back to the golden days when everybody had a good job that paid for a mortgage and put food on the table and we got to do something for those flyover states, those heartland states, but ultimately his exact same move didn't work the last time and Canada is not a threat, especially in products made out of steel, which are cars, there's probably a

25% drop in the imports into the US since he signed the USMCA. I think we have to look for signs when he drops off ramps too. We are, I know we spend a lot of time thinking about him, but they spend no time thinking about us. Over there, the executive branch is challenging the authority of the judicial branch. They're in a full-blown constitutional crisis. We have to be patient here. And I wish we had a government that had runway.

You and I have had this conversation a long time. It's easier to forward plan patience into the summer, into the fall, into the winter when you know who you're going to be dealing with, we're going to be dealing with the next prime minister's next prime minister right now. And it's hard to do that part. I'm speaking with Flavio Volpe, the president of the automotive part manufacturers Association. And you just brought up the the car sector. Here's what Donald Trump said about well, this is

how he conceives of the entire thing. I don't want those cars. We can make those cars right here. Mac, you know, if you look at Canada, Canada has a very big car industry. They stole it from us. They stole it because our people were asleep at the wheel. So what happens is Canada is going to have our cars that we're going to take the car industry. If we don't make a deal with Canada, we're going to put a big tariff on cars.

Could be a 50 or 100 percent because we don't want their cars. We want to make the cars in Detroit. What's he not understanding here, Flavio? Mass and history. I tell you, look, on one hand, he's an effective communicator, right? Everybody who heard that goes, wow, they did that, didn't they? Well, half of the cars made here are made by Japanese companies that arrived directly from Japan

in the 80s. Toyota and Honda, who are the two biggest individual manufacturers here, make their decisions in Tokyo and Nagoya. It's got nothing to do with Detroit. And the Americans, I wish we were strong enough to steal things from the Americans. Ford invested in Walkerville, which is now Windsor, in 1904. I don't know what scrolls of history he's reading from. This was the number one export market for the U.S. as companies like Ford, in their infancy, started to grow. We are a really big part of the

success of Ford and we're humble about it. General Motors started in Oshawa in 1908. I mean, this isn't something that happened when the American industry declined in the 80s and 90s. They've been, by that time they were here for 90 years. Part of me thinks you're right. He's a storyteller, right? And this is him laying the groundwork for some sort of renegotiation where he can then turn around and say, I didn't have to tariff those cars, because I got these other things that are so great for America. But he's, he's setting up, he's setting up the the prerequisites for a renegotiation on a massive scale, so that he can claim wins later on.

Yeah, there's two types of presidents that we've encountered. This one that we've never seen before who will bluff with a bad hand. And then there's another one that your father worked very close with Ronald Reagan, who would say, we need Canada. They're an integral part of our security and our prosperity, but we want a better deal. We're just all used to that. That period, the Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney years are over. And Donald Trump is not going to change. And he's not going away. And we got to

figure out quick how to play poker with a guy who's sitting on a two on a seven and an eight and goes all in. I just I gotta ask you, how do you stay so calm? I mean you represent these people who's you know this this chaos cannot be good for your business and for the people you you work with and represent how are you able to telegraph such calm in the face of this looming storm? I don't know I guess paid for peace but I'm built for war. Don't, don't, don't test me because I don't need to sleep. Now you're still part of the the Prime Minister's Canada us. Again, what is it an organization? Is it a

Yeah, it's a it's a council. It's a council. And how often are you meeting right now? Well, we're probably speaking a couple of times a week and meeting in person, or virtually once a week. And, you know, there's a lot of good people on that board who are giving a lot of great advice, including that Canada-U.S. summit last week. The one Achilles heel is, okay, you give advice that's anything more than the short term, who's going to follow through in the mid to long term? And I don't know, no one can make that assurance because we don't know who the next prime minister is and we

don't know when the next election is. And so a lot of the value that we have has to be, the value and the advice we can give has to be immediate term and short term. Flavio Volpe, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate the insights and hope to have you back soon. Anytime, Ben. I'm so glad to have my next guest in studio. It's always a special treat when I can look my guests in the eye. So everybody say hello to Mohit Rajans. He is our tech expert, mediologist and consultant at thinkstart.ca.

Mohit, welcome to the show. Thank you. I didn't need makeup. That's nice. Okay. So we're talking AI and Justin Trudeau has been gallivanting around the globe. He found himself in Paris, areas on TV right there, talking about AI at a big conference. And he had some pretty bold pronouncements

about the future of AI. Let's listen. We, governments, the private sector and civil society, need to think responsibly about how AI is shaping the world. We cannot let AI pollute social media with empty slop and cunning disinformation. We cannot let it grow even more, the rifts within us, rifts that are already so deep, between the haves, the have-nots, and the have-yachts. We cannot let it drive our citizens further towards cynicism, populism, hopelessness,

and hatred. AI could unleash the potential of every human being to contribute, to create, to positively impact the world around us, but only if we choose to shape it that way. Okay, I mean, I want to live in a world where when I hear him, it doesn't sound like he is reading soliloquy on stage that was written in by chat GPT to sound like Shakespeare. But that's what I hear every time he speaks. I feel like that speech should have been made 18 months ago. Yeah, it is not a timely one.

And instead, if you look at the summit alone where people have gathered, there are so many different issues that have to be tackled that Justin Trudeau standing in front of the people with the opportunity to basically sell Canada for what our value is from a people standpoint, land standpoint, and resources standpoint, and the opportunity to show that we in Canada have built so many great things when it comes to AI. Let's continue that history. No, no, if he can condescend,

he's going to condescend. But also I personally think, yeah, you think that's 18 months too late. I think from a political standpoint, that's exactly what he wanted to do. I think because the next person that he's going to condescend. But also, I personally think, you know, you think that's 18 months too late. I think from a political standpoint, that's exactly what he wanted to do. I think because the next person that one of the next people to speak was JD Vance, the vice president of the United States. And so where you have Justin Trudeau talking about the need for guard rails, you've got JD Vance saying guard rails are going to stifle innovation. And this is part and parcel of his tactic right now,

which is to position the Liberal Party of Canada as the vanguard against Trumpism. I mean, you heard him say it, we can't, we don't want it to misinformation, disinformation, populism, hatred, division, all these things. Those that that's, that's red meat for his base against Donald Trump. Well, and also remember in the US, they're really encouraging private sector investment inside of the country in order to be competitive. We are in an AI arms race right now when it comes to the world. The rest of the world is not showing their cards the same way that Justin Trudeau is in speaking with this.

We should all hold hands and make artificial intelligence the thing that we all collaborate on. Instead, he's referring to issues that you and I can create with our phones. This is the social media, synthetic media creation with AI is stuff that's already left the station. Right now, if you're not telling people from the medical field, right down to construction, how you're going to create opportunities for the future, then you're already missing the point. So whose vision is winning? Is the guardrail, it shouldn't just be for the wealthy oligarchs vision of Justin Trudeau or JD Vant saying heavy regulation could kill AI?

Which vision is winning right now? I don't think any country is openly saying that their regulation is the way you should follow what they're doing with AI. In fact, most people have shut things down before they're letting them inside. So what I think is that somebody like JD Vance is already alluding to America's approach. They're already saying, listen, you're not going to tell us how we're going to play this game. You don't want to use our products great. We've got enough of a population.

We've got enough people to test out our stuff. But the bigger issue is big tech is at the table with America. They're not with Asia. Sam Altman went and did a tour of Asia and tried to get people all riled up again about chat GPT being safe prior to this conference. There's a lot of that political stuff happening, but we still don't have that middle ground right now

that is going to prevent us from not looking back at both Grok and Azure, which is Microsoft, and DeepMind and all this stuff and say some of it's problematic. Yeah, so you got Grok as part of X. But now I hear Elon Musk and investors are offering nearly $100 billion to control open AI. I must have been sleeping on this story because I didn't hear anything about it until I got in today. So can you explain this drama to me? That's exactly what it is, is drama. We're now in a situation where you have on one side,

these fantastic products being developed. You look at them every day and you're like, that's cool now. No, that's cool now. It's getting better. It's getting faster. And then you've got these bros, these brothers, essentially Sam Altman and Sam Altman and Elon Musk started OpenAI together with this promise that to control AI and what they were doing with ChatGPT was going to be something that was going to be fundamental and important to the world. Of course, now they are polarizing about both the value of it and what they should be done with it. And what scares me the most about this is what they actually know. Think about how many times we've asked ourselves, how did chat GPT come up with that? I feel like both of them know, and that scares me. But what's the direction of open AI that is so

problematic for Elon Musk that he feels compelled to put a group together to buy it? Oh, I wouldn't even pretend to understand how much of an ego play this is versus a product play. But I do know that Sam Altman has had a playbook for, you know, what are we in chat GPT four to five right now? He has one for 10 iterations that show that it'll

be fully integrated in so many things. Remember how difficult it was to decouple from Windows back in the day? And we're just like, what do you mean you can't have a computer that doesn't have Windows? That's what I feel like we're getting to with what OpenAI is trying to do right now. Gotcha. And knowing what would be sort of the reverberations of DeepSeek that came out of China last week, was it last week or two weeks ago? Anyway, but that was sort of that was felt like a neutron bomb in the markets and across open AI platforms around the world. So resetting what excellence was and who the benchmark and the

high watermark were. Is open AI still, according to you, a leader? Definitely a leader in North American parts in terms of the benefits that we're going gonna get. But what people forgot about DeepSeek was right after that Alibaba came out with their own version. Alibaba is a huge, huge e-commerce play in Asia. And if you see what they're doing with e-commerce, you're gonna forget about what DeepSeek is. That's how quick we're moving. Yeah. Okay, well I want to finish with a story that's gonna make us feel good. These tech stories oftentimes scare us and perplex us, but the Portland Trailblazers have made it possible for blind fans to, quote unquote, watch games live.

Tell me what this is all about. We're quite simply in this phase where actually Portland Trailblazers have been very progressive in the way that they've used everything from analytics to data. But the in-game experience right now, they're changing for blind people so that you can have a physical board and listen to the haptics at the same time. Anybody who doesn't understand haptics, just think about, uh, somebody who doesn't need to use

their eyes, but can still cause something to either snap or use their hands and still create an interactivity. The amazing part about it is they're considering the immersive side. Yeah. So you're wearing the headphones, you're getting involved in your feeling like you're a part of

the game. I think people, I think when we start to realize how much we're spending for sporting events and all of that stuff, it's going to come down to some of this immersive experience that's going to feel good for everybody. It just happens to be a good story for a blind person. Well, yeah. I mean, I believe live sporting events are at the vanguard of these new immersive technologies, whether it's in-game or the ability to watch a game remotely. I mean, I saw it with VR goggles, where you can sit courtside at a Laker game, right?

Like those sorts of technologies are being developed for that live experience, which I find really fascinating. I think it just makes it so much more easier and fun for the kids, especially. Sometimes I've taken kids to the basketball games and I've been like, it's not all like three hours of fun. Yeah. So it's all part of it. But you know what? We'll see the price increase accordingly. But the accessibility was what we're talking about here. And it's a major part of what I love about our conversations is we can talk about the evil oligarchs all we want. But the truth is the

technology is pushing innovation to a point where the accessibility is doing some great things Yeah, and once the price comes down on those on sort of these innovative technologies It's they're gonna be available in the accessibility of these sporting events that are you know Normally hundreds of dollars can drop to a couple of you know You're gonna get a subscription right next thing you know you're gonna have a permanent seat at the front row of a Laker game If you want a mo hit, thank you so much for joining us Like I said, I love looking at I I'd I really great to talk to you and I hope you come back soon. My pleasure. Take care.

Depending on what your news feeds look like on Twitter, you may follow certain accounts that are giving you regular updates as to the sort of fat that's being trimmed by the US government, the ridiculous stories of money going out the door for this pet cause or that pet cause. And a lot of people are hoping that that's that those stories are going to come to the fore in Canada as well. It turns out they are. And to talk more about those is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Tarzano. Franco, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show. Hey, Ben, I think this one's going to be a fun one. Yeah, this is Yeah. This is this is one of those things like the notion some of these are not huge expenditures. But if you subscribe to the notion, watch the pennies and the dollars will

take care of themselves. This is a government that is not watching the pennies at all. No, they're not right. And they're not doing the little things right. And they're definitely not doing the big things right. And when you waste money through every department like crazy all the time, well, that adds up. Exactly. How you eventually get to a $62 billion deficit. Yeah. Well, let's look at some of these. So the government spending $7.2 million

for quote, gender responsive system approach to universal health care in the Philippines. Oh, this one drives me nuts, right? $7.2 million for a gender responsive systems approach to universal health care in the Philippines, as you mentioned. Now look, like there's so many Canadians here who are struggling with pain,

waiting forever to get a hip replacement, right? And yet the government somehow finds 7 million bucks to be spending on this waste overseas. And that's just like the tip of the iceberg. Now folks, don't get at me, I'm just the messenger here, but the government also spent 8,800 bucks on a sex toy show in Hamburg, Germany, called Whose Jizz Is This? I heard that on the radio a few days ago and I couldn't believe that it was real.

I mean, it sounded like something from The Onion. Yeah, no, it's real, unfortunately. Like, this show featured sex toys spouting water. It was absolutely nuts. And you know, it's not the only time this type of spending is happening. The government also dropped 12 grand paying senior citizens in other countries to talk about their sex lives in front of live audiences. They spent 12 grand outsourcing old people sex stories.

Like, welcome to the state of Canada. Well, we like to say that this government is led by someone who enjoys theatrics and performance. And there's a few line items here that speak to this government's appreciation of live events and theatre. For example, $1,700 for a musical called Lesbian Pirates. Yeah, yeah, totally, right? And like this was about two lesbians who cross-dressed as male pirates, they fell in love, they slaughtered swaths of men, stole treasure, and escaped persecution from the law. And you know, like we're making fun of this stuff.

Like here's the thing, if you want to go watch that musical with your own money, fill your boots, right? I couldn't care less. Nobody cares. But like, come on, right? Why should like Susie and Bill in Brooks, Alberta be forced to pay for this with their tax dollars, especially when there's so much infrastructure in Canada, government infrastructure, like healthcare, like education, that is getting failing grades. Why are we spending this type of money? Now, you know, there's also $34,000 for a string orchestra in Ecuador. Yeah, right. 7500 bucks to promote diversity, equity, inclusion at a music festival in Estonia. This one was crazy. 17 grand to fly a Canadian chef to India to cook Indian food. Like what is going on? And Ben, like I know these are like smaller numbers in the grand scheme of things, but there's also some big spending items here, like

41 million dollars for three properties in Afghanistan, which were quickly abandoned to the Taliban. Oh, wow. So now the Taliban has new digs and we're at 41 million bucks. Well, I'll tell you what I juxtapose this to, which is why it's upsetting. This government has done nothing to improve how easy it is for entrepreneurs to get investment in Canada. So I work with a number of startups and the groundwork, the environment for investment in this country

is really at a low point. Meanwhile, our government seems willing to quote unquote, invest in anything that comes across their desk. And so when you juxtapose those two things, on one side you've got wealth builders and job creators and they can't get the money they need to build wealth and to create jobs, But then you've got money like this should be sent out of fire hose at anything $13,000 for an Oscar party in Los Angeles. If you can't pay for an Oscar

party in Los Angeles during the Oscars, then you're doing something wrong. Well, yeah, or two grand for a dance festival in Serbia. Like, what? Yeah, why? Why? Why is that money doing that? Right? And like, you know, global affairs Canada, one of the worst waste offenders in all of government, which I think is saying an awful lot, like they're dropping $51,000 a month on booze. Yeah. 51 grand a month on booze paid for by the taxpayer. And you know, I'll just extend your story a little bit further. Not only is it very hard for entrepreneurs to find investment or to, you

know, build a business, but our government is actively making it harder for them. Right? Like there's been so much in the news about the now delayed capital gains tax hike, but like this is why Canadians are so upset where you have the government continuing to reach deeper and deeper into our pockets Every single year with tax hikes making life more expensive and then they go waste money abroad or even within Canada Now we're talking about some smaller items here But if you just take a step back and you look at the total foreign aid budget, okay It's 15.5 billion dollars. Yeah, 15.5 billion dollars in foreign aid budget, okay, it's $15.5 billion. Yeah. $15.5 billion in foreign aid in 2022, 23.

Well, I looked at some other spending for comparison. That's about the same amount of money as the federal government sends to the provinces through the Canada social transfer. Almost the same amount of money, right? And the Canada social transfers for like university education, college education, social assistance and social services, almost exactly the amount the government is spending on that they're spending in on foreign aid. And let me put that into context,

just just one more. Okay, the government spends almost three times more on foreign aid than it does through the entire Department of Veterans Affairs. Yeah, I mean, what do they say? If you want to know what a government's values are, take a look at their budget. And this is what they value. This is what they value over other things. And so when I hear Pierre Poliev in the Arctic talking about Arctic sovereignty and the protection of our Arctic by way of a beefed up military presence, he says he's going to pay for all of that by cutting foreign aid. A lot of people are gonna clutch their pearls and say, oh no, but what about Canadian values being spread abroad? If these are the values that are being spread abroad,

I think a lot of people are gonna come onside and say, yes, Pierre Poliev, by all means, cut this fat, cut this waste. Yeah, and I think that's gonna have to be the challenge for a Pierre Poliev government, is I think they're gonna have to do what we're doing right now, and just go line by line on some of this crazy spending. Right?

And a lot of this stuff, to your point, is being framed by the current government as cultural diplomacy. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't know how forcing taxpayers in Canada to spend almost nine grand on a sex toy show in Germany. I don't know how that's helping us Canadians spread cultural diplomacy abroad. Well, that's the issue. We just heard the Prime Minister at a private event saying that we have to be prepared as a government to help businesses and help people through the tariffs if they do come into effect.

In other words, spend our way to the other side of them. I would be very leery to give authority to a government that is so gleeful to spend our money another kick at the can. I want somebody who's allergic to spending my money to have to have the responsibility to do that. Oh yeah, I love that. And hey, you know, as we're talking about this looming tariff threat of up to 25%, You know what's actually happening in Canada that's still on the books? What? A 19% carbon tax hike. Yeah. Yeah. One. Yeah, that's coming. Like while everyone in Ottawa is losing their collective minds, uh, and you know, these tariffs will hurt for sure, but our government is, is making things worse, right? With the carbon tax, a 19% hike right

around the corner, the carbon tax costs our economy like $12 billion last year. Yeah, that's $12 billion. Go right back into our pockets. Hey, Franco Terrazano, thank you so much for being here. I mean, it is there is humor in this, but we got to laugh. Otherwise, we're going to cry. It's a it's a sad state of affairs. But I'm glad you're here to highlight this waste. Because I guarantee you there's a heck of a lot more than we just haven't lifted up enough stones yet. Oh, I agree. Thanks for having me on today. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And you know, when it

comes to the EV marketing Canada, things have not been looking particularly good over the past few months. The uptick in terms of how many people are purchasing them hasn't been what what the governments have wanted hasn't been what industry has wanted. And now more bad news. There was a big study that was done on the range of EVs in Canada during cold weather. And the cold can sap up to 40% of an EV battery life that is according to the Canadian Automotive Association tests. So to join us to talk about this and more, David Booth, automotive journalist

and senior writer for driving.ca. David, this is a really concerning number for people who may be on the fence about getting themselves a car, but have, you know, EV range anxiety. It is, it is. And to be honest with you, their numbers are actually quite on the border of optimistic because they actually copied a Norwegian test the CAA did. In Norway, they don't have hardly any super highways.

The speed limits are very low and they'll basically repossess your house if you're 10 kilometers over the speed limit. So I actually did the test with the CAA and we probably averaged 80 kilometers an hour and we drove all these secondary streets. People who have range anxiety in Norway, that may be the way they run out of range, but here in Canada, the way we have range anxiety is we jump on the 401, we boot it at 120 to Montreal and that's where we need range and charging. And so the difference between what the range you get at 80 or 90 kilometers or 120 is quite a lot. So in other words, I think the worst one here was minus 34% or minus 37% compared to its advertised range. If you were doing a real test in Canada at 120 kilometers an hour in the temperature, we were at minus five, you'd lose close to 50% of your range if you were in a car.

If you were in a truck, it would be about 50 to 50, maybe even 60% of the range. David, that is such a huge number. I've got to wonder, how is this not part of the standard testing of these vehicles before they're ever put out into the market? Well, it's not a limitation they can do much about. I mean, no, I'm not suggesting they do anything about it. I'm suggesting they let people know about this long before they ever purchase it. Then I could do about a two hour radio show on the limitations of government testing versus range and fuel economy compared to what they actually do. This is just one of the limitations. You got to remember all of the actual estimations come from a laboratory test.

It's in a lab in a dyno room. They put the car, they test it according to a program that the EPA and Natural Resources Canada puts out and there's a schedule and they're about 15 minutes a piece. It's in optimal temperature all like that. That's all they do. They don't test real-world fuel economy by going out on the road with all the cars. They don't test it in really warm weather. They don't test them in really cold weather. They never have. It turns out that cold weather is more of a detriment to electric vehicles than it is to gasoline or diesel fuel vehicles. And, you know, and unfortunately the data you've

seen bears that out. So David there's there's no way that this is good news for the EV market that's already feeling the pinch I mean we were expecting adoption to be far greater today than than it is and with news like this it's going to like I said if somebody's on the fence oh maybe I'm maybe I'll consider one and then they hear something like that especially on a on a cold day, we're experiencing very cold weather this winter in lots of parts of this country, we're gonna say it just wouldn't hold up on a day like today. It can't be part of my life. Well, I mean, let I, I agree with everything you said, except that, to imply that there's no use

to EVs. But understand, if you're if you're driving all around town, yeah, and maybe it's going to be quite nice, it'll be warm when you get in that's part of the part of the deal of plugging it in. And even though you have reduced range, you don't really care. second car for sure. But in order for it to be the second, but given the fact that we, the liberal government has imposed this, this mandate on us that every new car in what, 2030 or something like that needs to be an EV. Well, that, that means that everyone's cars, including their first cars will be EVs. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Look, EVs are perfect for delivery vans in town. They're perfect for second cars. And what they're the very best at is for suburban commuters coming in from say Aurora to Toronto or Chilliwack or wherever to Vancouver, because it's a back and forth.

It's a set mileage. It's probably within the range and you're saving a whole bunch on gas. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, commuter cars. Okay. Absolutely wonderful. So what's a single car to go as far as you want? No, they're not. So what about this this other news that Canadian consumers who purchased say the Audi

Q4 e-tron vehicle reached out that they say that there are so many technical glitches that they has eroded their confidence in their vehicle that a lot of people who buy EVs the car almost immediately goes into the shop. Well, I'll say two things and one of them won't be kind. If you're buying a German car, thinking it's going to be as reliable as a Japanese car or even a North American built car, I suggest you look at Consumer reports and other reliability records. In general, they're just not. The other thing that I'll say is we're in the age of the software developed vehicle, the STV.

We've got so much computer hardware. I mean, there's a hundred computers in the car and an electric car is even more so. It's all electric. There's hardly anything mechanical. So the point is that where most of these problems are occurring are on the electronics side. Right. And you know, again,

German car electronics are not nearly as reliable as the electronics in other cars. Now the cars, you know, EV is more focused on the electronics, that problem is just exacerbated. And especially since Audi is relatively new to this business compared to say a Tesla or somebody like that, that's where the problems are. Do I think they'll get some fixed? Yes. Will they ever be as reliable as a Toyota? No, I don't think so. Hey, before I let you go, I'd love to spend a couple of minutes wondering, I wonder if you've

been in communication with anybody who may be feeling the impact or the worry of the impact of these looming steel and aluminum tariffs from Donald Trump, because he literally said that Canada has stolen America's automotive industry. And I gotta wonder whether this is part of his plan to steal it back. The big plan is to return certain amounts of production to the United States. His trick is he's got to

do it extremely quickly before the inflation that those tariffs will cause piss off his MAGA supporters. Are people worried? Yes. I'd say the biggest problem amongst Canadian people in the industry at least is that they still think that Trump is fooling around. They still think that he's just using this as a negotiating tactic. I'd suggest they read some stuff by a guy named Stephen Mirren and Robert Lighthizer. That's his two tariff whisperers. And they're very serious about tariffs being, if not permanent, long term. So I think the biggest problem we have to understand is this might not be transitory.

It's not gonna be transitory, could be permanent. And this could this could affect the cost of cars, both EV and internal combustion. It could. I mean, it'll affect our cars. If we put retaliatory tariffs on and really, we have to because if we just let him roll over us, he ain't going to stop. It's going to increase the prices of EVs and our cars when we send them down south, it could hollow out our auto industry. Thank you so much for your insights. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, I'll talk to you back. 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 through 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.