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

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Warren Kinsella, Max Fawcett, Chris Chapin Guests: Warren Kinsella, Max Fawcett, Chris Chapin, Demetrios Nicolaides, Mohit Rajhans, Craig Baird 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

At Starbucks, we serve cold coffee just the way you like it. That refreshing chill of ice, that rich, smooth taste you crave. That handcrafted care every time. Your summer ritual is ready at Starbucks. Welcome to The Ben Mulroney Show Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great discussions this week, including one of our spiciest political panels ever. Enjoy.

Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending some of your Tuesday with us. If Donald Trump ever needed an example of how Canada and the United States are different, the expression, the British are coming, the British are coming, means two completely different things. To them, it is a warning. They are girding for war. Here, we roll out the red carpet because the King is here for the throne speech. And I'm very pleased to discuss this and so much more with my midweek panel for this week in politics. Please welcome Chris Chapin, Max Fawcett and Warren Kinsella.

Guys, it's great to see you. Really appreciate your time today. Thanks for having us. Good to see you. Okay, so let's talk about sort of the gist of the throne speech. King Charles said this, quote, the prime minister and the president of the United States, for example,

have begun to define a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States based on mutual respect and shared interests to bring transformational benefits to both sovereign nations. Warren, you've been involved in throne speeches before. This to me sounds like these lovely words. I don't know that they mean anything.

What do you think? Well, it's pretty cool. Like, you know, let's face it, like getting the King to read your throne speech, it's a lot better than the speaker of the House of Commons. So, you know, the spectacle of it is pretty neat. But I think that, you know, I think that the speech so far, he's reading it as we speak right now,

it reflects closely the liberal election platform. The divergence is the point that you just made. You know, at the end of March, Mark Carney appeared very solemnly before a battery of microphones and said, our relationship with the United States is over. But what you've just read to us suggests that maybe not so fast. Maybe that's not the case. So I'm unclear, you know, where the government is at on our relationship with the United States of America. But the rest of the speech, so far at least, reflects what people voted for at the end of April.

And look at Max, pomp, circumstance, pageantry, they do matter. Like these are, there's a reason there are 21 gun salutes. There's a reason there are military flyovers. There's a reason we have parades. There's a reason that the buildings, the national buildings that we have are imbued with history and value. Those things matter. To have a moment like this when the king,

our head of state comes to Canada as a show of sort of what makes Canada different from say our neighbor to the South, there's real value in that. I subscribe to that. I wholeheartedly am glad he's here doing this. Yeah, it there's value in reminding Canadians of, you know, the, frankly, the beauty of our institutions and and and the pageantry and it, you know, nobody is a bigger fan of this sort of pomp

and circumstance than Donald Trump. He clearly desperately wishes for more of it in his own country. You know, he's talked about having military parades and clearly thinks of himself as a monarch, even though that is sort of not how the system works down there. And so this is clearly a message to him that he can't have what we have. I don't have a lot of time for the double talk, the idea that the relationship is based in mutual respect. No, it isn't. There's no mutual respect. And I don't think that there have been folks saying that Carney is kind of walking back his previous statements, but he said that the relationship we used to have with the United States is over.

And that remains true. That relationship is never coming back. We are now in the space of defining what the new relationship is gonna look like. How close will we be on security? How close will we be on economic ties? And I think there's a lot of balls that are still up in the air there.

Yeah, listen, I agree with almost everything you said there, Max. Look, the relationship the candidate had with the United States under Pierre Trudeau was different than the relationship under Brian Mulroney and different than every successive prime minister after that. It wasn't over, it was just a change in personality

led to a difference in the relationship. The dramatics of it's over and we've got to rebuild something new, to me, is short-sighted. It doesn't ring true in terms of the history that I know. But I do take your point. And now, Chris, I did note that the King mentioned the word catalyze, which confirms that Mark Carney had

a hand in writing this. But he also talked about this being the most ambitious change in the Canadian economy since World War II. What do you make of that? I mean, so we'll follow Ben. I think the actions that we've seen from the federal government match that. I mean, it's going to take time, but we've never seen, for example, the breakdown in trade barriers that we've seen within the provinces and within the country ever, certainly in my lifetime. I think the speed in which the deadline they set for Canada

today, we're seeing the provinces smash down the provincial barriers. And I think that's a very good thing for our economy. It's been so silly for so long the way our federation has acted from an economic standpoint. And so the idea of them moving quickly, catalyzed or not, is, I think, very good for the country itself. Yeah. And look, as I've said before, the election's over. I put my sword down. I'm trying to, I want to be as productive as possible. I'm not looking to score any cheap shots. I will take

issue on policy. I will take issue if I think somebody does one thing and says one thing and does another. That being said, Max, do you remember when they announced a fentanyl czar? And why haven't we heard word one from this person in three and a half months? I vaguely remember that. But I mean, the reason why we haven't heard word one is because it was entirely designed

to placate Donald Trump's irrational and factually baseless belief that the fentanyl was coming from Canada. It was just a sop to his beliefs. And I think that's probably why we haven't heard anything because there's no there there. Yeah, but Chris last week- The fentanyl's not coming from Canada, right? But Chris, last week you had Cash Patel of the FBI doubling down saying that they're all, the Mexican cartels and the Chinese triads are all in cahoots up here in Canada, making more fentanyl than the world can handle.

Well, I actually do think there's a lot of truth to that, Ben. I think, you know, I agree when I saw the topic about the fentanyl czar, you could have paid me $1,000 if I could guess what the name of our fentanyl czar was. I couldn't. I couldn't get it. Because I just, you know, no clue, absolutely no clue. But we have a real problem when it comes to fentanyl in this country. We have for probably the better part of a decade now. And so unfortunately, as much as we joke about this role, I'd love to see it actually, you know, mean something because we have a real problem. We do have huge fentanyl labs here in this country, especially out on the West Coast, that we need to do a much better job, you know,

breaking down, shutting down and getting this stuff off our streets because, you know, we do a lot of work in the addiction space. This drug is like nothing we've ever seen before off our streets because, you know, we do a lot of work in the addiction space. This drug is like nothing we've ever seen before on our streets. It's so toxic and so deadly. And so I think we need to be taking it far, far more seriously. And Warren, if Max is right, and this is all a fiction created in the mind of the president of the United States, then wouldn't it serve us to have, I mean, if it's a performative position,

wouldn't it serve us to have the performer perform and hear from him every now and then so that the Americans would at least on the surface see that we're doing something? No, I don't think it would because nothing satisfies this guy. I mean, the facts are the facts have been known for months. In fiscal 2024, 43 pounds of fentanyl went from Canada into the United States where we're seized by customs and border people. In the same period, 21,000 pounds of it came from Mexico and we're being lumped in with the Americans.

No, Warren, I take your point. I believe your numbers. What I'm suggesting is if the Americans are putting on airs that we are a problem and we have named a fentanyl czar, then wouldn't it help us to be publicly looking like we're doing something with the czar that we appointed? Yeah, no, I understand the question. But my answer is the same. It's not going to change their position when they're making crap up. They're making things up. So if we get into that space where we go along with their fiction,

you know, all of us have done it with our kids, you know, at a certain point you bump your leg on the furniture of reality. And so, no, I don't think we should say, yes, we are a big problem with fentanyl just to make Donald Trump feel better because he'll find something new to come after us at. And that has been the case. The reason why he did this is to get himself out of the terms of the free trade agreement that we've got with the United States. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break.

But when we come back, Max Fossett, you're up next because I want to get your take on Alberta's position on what they're calling age appropriate books in Alberta public school libraries. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. The Ben Mulroney Show marches on with our This Week in Politics midweek panel with Chris Chapin, Max Fawcett, and Warren Kinsella.

Max, I'm coming to you first because Alberta is laying the groundwork for a survey, rather government is, for a survey on what is age-appropriate content for kids K through 12 to access in school libraries. This after a number of parents have complained that they found what they found to be inappropriate books available for their school-aged kids. On the other side the equation is suggesting that this is a slippery

slope that could lead to book banning. And so who's inappropriate here? Is it the schools for allowing these books in the first place, or is the government for coming in and being an arbiter for what is allowed and what's not? I think it offers a very revealing window into Daniel Smith's approach to governing. She's very good at creating distractions that appeal to a small section of her base,

very bad at governing in the best interest of all Albertans. And so, you know, she said that this is not about book banning, this is about protecting children. Weird that she isn't as concerned about protecting children from the measles, which are just going crazy here right now. But hold on Max, two things can be true at once. You can be right on the measles thing,

but that doesn't address the issue of the books. And look, you say a small group of people, I mean, parents represent a big chunk of the population. And if parents feel that, I mean, listen, my two cents, Max, when I was a kid, this was not an issue. Like what was appropriate and inappropriate, that wasn't even a debate as to what we found in school libraries.

For some reason it is today. For sure. I mean, I think that was a debate back then. It just maybe wasn't aired as publicly, but it's just, it's a very odd sort of rear guard battle. You know, if you're worried about protecting kids from information that you don't think is safe or you don't think is appropriate, can I introduce you to something called the internet? Because I think that's a much bigger threat than books at your local school library. You know, a big part of the issue is that this government in Alberta has laid off a lot of the librarians that used to curate this stuff, used to manage the books that

kids had access to and made sure that it didn't get into their hands. You know, are there a couple of books that are probably a little over the line for some kids? Sure. Should the government be getting into cracking down on their access to information, essentially sort of abrogating free speech? It feels like a slippery slope to me. And again, the internet is out there. That is the big concern if you're worried about kids learning about LGBTQ issues or anything else. Yeah. Chris Chapin, I'm assuming there's a counterpoint coming my way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at the end of the day, I see no harm whatsoever

when it comes to consulting parents. I think, if anything, we should be consulting parents and the education of their children far, far more often than the opposite. But to Max's point about the internet, I get where you're coming from. But we're talking about kids in like K to 9 here. And I think the bigger concern is, is those kids, you know, kindergarten, grade one, grade two, like if you're a parent, you're letting your kids scroll the internet

by themselves when they're, you know, six or seven years old, then that's a choice you make. But I think when you, when you send your child off to school, there's a certain understanding and acceptance that what's being presented to them while they're at school is appropriate for them to pick a book off the bookshelf in a library and read. And I think the concern the Alberta government has right now is that those books simply aren't perhaps age appropriate for children to pick off the shelves. And so the idea of consulting parents, I think it's something we should do far, far more often. I think there's probably, you know, the idea of a school board trustee is probably the least appreciated elected office in the entire country, that most parents should take a far, far more serious role in determining who, who they elect as their school board trustees. But I think in this case, you know, what's the harm about sending out a survey to parents asking them what they think

their kids should be reading. And Warren, I could make an argument that this is the most apolitical thing that the government could do. I could argue they're saying, listen, if you want to teach whatever you can teach whatever you want to your kids at home, but at school, we have, we have guardrails in place to make sure that what we're teaching them sort of falls in line with the curriculum. What do you think about that? I remember the days when conservatives said, you know, I'm against government overreach. And here you've got a government doing overreach.

I remember the days when conservatives would say that they believe in the free expression of ideas and a marketplace of ideas. And here she is messing in the marketplace. This is always every dictator first. She's, I'm not calling her a dictator. I'm just pointing at the history. I'm pointing at the, I'm pointing out the first thing every dictator does is burn books

and ban books. That's what they always do. So, you know, I've written 10 books. I've written an 11th that's coming out shortly. I would love for Daniel Smith to ban my book because I know what I would do. It'll shoot to number one. When I was a teenager growing up in Calgary, I would go and find that book. My dad, when

he was in high school in Montreal, the books that the Jesuits said they couldn't read, those are the books they all read. So this is stupid, it's idiotic, it's performative, and it's not gonna work, it's gonna blow up in her face like so many other things that she's done. Okay, well, in our last few minutes, I actually wanna have a little bit of fun because there are two videos going viral right now. And to me, they both feel like Rorschach tests

where you can imbue them with whatever your perspective is. And the first is Macron's wife shoving them in the face before they get off the plane in Vietnam. And the other is Mark Carney on his first day in the House of Commons, admittedly not knowing what the rules are, more importantly, where the cameras are, shooing away Mélanie Jolie. Which viral moment, and Warren will start with you, are people reading more or too much into? Well, I guess we don't know. The Jolie thing, Ben, as you know, I've never been a big fan.

I think she's possibly the worst minister we've had in the history of confederation. However, I heard from a number of women readers this morning saying every woman in Canada understands what just happened. And even if they voted for Mark Carney, they don't like it. It was whatever you think of it, millennials usually, it was condescending and to many women and we're all guys here, but to many women that was profoundly sexist.

So I think that that one is going to have resonance for quite some time. The macro thing is just kind of weird. I just, I was impressed about his ability to change and react for the cameras as quickly as he did. But the Jolie thing, I don't know. I don't know if I find that one funny. No, Chris, but not funny. But I think Warren, I think you pointed out on social media, like there will come a day where that, that doesn't roll off his back the way it is today. However, today it will roll off his back. Chris, what do you think? I just think the Jolie clip's just so funny that,

I mean, who hasn't been just shooed off like that in the middle of somebody focusing? And it just happens to be the prime minister's first day in the House of Commons, I found very, very funny. Yeah, it was, listen, and my producer said he saw that as somebody who was deeply intent on working and focusing and somebody was distracting him. But I said, for better or for worse,

it happened on the backdrop of what Warren Kinsella just brought up, which was sort of the appearance of not being very comfortable with strong women in his presence on the campaign trail. I said, that may be true, it may be not, but it is a thing. And so that to me was something that stuck in my mind. Max, what do you think?

Yeah, I think both of them are, like you said, Rorschach tests. If you want to see something, it's there. If you don't, it's not. But, you know, Carney has to be wary, and this is like, you know, thing number 200 on his list of priorities. But he has to be wary of the fact that he is getting a reputation in some circles for being a bit of a bro. You know, there are concerns that the PMO is disproportionately filled with men and, you know, I don't buy that. I think that is just, you know, something that people want to make out. But if he keeps getting caught in these sorts of moments where he appears to be sort of brushing women away

or being surrounded by men, that that will take hold. And I think he's fine for now, but as the months go on, his coat of armor is gonna get a little thinner and these darts are gonna start to stick in there a little more. Well, it's sort of, and listen, it happened to Justin Trudeau that's not to say it will happen to Mark Carney, but with enough time and enough opportunity,

all of a sudden, like a bell gets rung and then you can't unring it. You can't unsee that thing. And all of a sudden, what you used to view in one way, you view in a completely different light. And that could happen to a Mark Carney. I'm not saying it will, and I'm not saying I hope it does but it could happen. Anyway to all three of you I want to thank you very much for joining me today. It's been a great panel. I hope we could the four of us can do it again real soon.

I appreciate you and have a great week. Thanks Ben. Sounds good. The My Choice sales event is back at Nissan and the choice is yours. Choose our best-selling Rogue always ready for adventure. Or the Dynamic Sentra, packed with safety features. Or the all-new, boldly redesigned Kicks. And now during my choice, you can choose up to $1,500 in Nissan bonus or accessory credit. Or choose three-year prepaid maintenance.

Hurry into your local Nissan dealer today. $1,500 applies to Sentra and select Rogue models when leasing or financing through NCF. Cond conditions apply. See Nissan.ca for details. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And if you're of a certain age, you're older than your kids. I want you to cast your minds back to when you were kids and you went to the school library. Do you ever remember coming up to a book in the school library that when you brought it home your parents were outraged that it was quote-unquote inappropriate for you to be reading? Because I don't. I don't remember a time when I was a kid where I encountered a book that was overly sexual

or overly violent or shared a particular political philosophy that was deemed inappropriate. I don't remember any of that. For some reason, it is a product of our time. And the Alberta government is launching a survey that will impact the books that are found in K through 12 schools across the province, saying that multiple books have been found in quote, some

school libraries that show quote, extremely graphic and age inappropriate content. There are, to me, this as a parent, this makes complete sense. There are people on the other side of this fight that are suggesting that it is a slippery slope that can lead to book banning. So to lay out exactly what this is, I'm very pleased that we are joined

by Demetrios Nikolaidis, the Alberta Minister of Education and Child Care. Minister, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulroney show. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. So this is, it's a survey. There are those who say, ah, it's a slippery slope

and that's gonna take us down the path of banning books to which you say what? Not at all. This isn't a slippery slope at all. The government's not interested in banning books to which you say what? Not at all. This isn't a slippery slope at all. The government's not interested in banning books. I'm not interested in banning books. I am however, extremely interested in making sure that we do not have books in our school classrooms,

in our school libraries, excuse me, that have graphic depictions of sexual acts. I I mean some of the examples that have been brought to our attention include for example graphic images of oral sex of Molestation that does not belong anywhere in a school library And so we just want to make sure that we have some very clear standards about what kind of material should be available in our school libraries, irrespective of topic or subject. And Minister, I was watching a news story on this and a representative of a parents group said something that resonated with me.

It said, look, it's not necessarily the problem isn't the books, it's the process that allows the books in. There is a process that was allowed to be created that has allowed for inappropriate content to be just justified and reverse engineered into a place where there's a home for it in these school libraries. And so I wonder as you launch this survey, is the logical conclusion to the survey an overhaul of the system that allows for these books to end up in a school library in the first place? I think that's a very important consideration.

I want answers to those questions as well. I want to get a better understanding of what process, what procedure was in place that allowed these books to end up in our school libraries in the first place. So I want to, apart from the survey, you know, the survey, I want to get a better understanding of the views and priorities of Albertans and use that to help inform how we draft these new policies. But outside of the survey, I want to have some more detailed questions with our school boards to understand

what are the current practices, the current processes, why is this not working? Because clearly it's not working. And how can we address it? And look, as I said off the top of the segment, I don't know if you heard, is that I don't remember this being a problem when I was a kid.

This is a new problem. And this is, I'm speculating, but I think I'm speculating from an educated perspective, especially as a parent with kids in the Ontario public school system, that there are new forces at play in the world of public education. And there are some activist minded people

who feel it is incumbent upon them to introduce our kids to things that should be the exclusive domain of parents. Yeah, you know, it's an interesting point. I certainly don't remember these kinds of issues or this kind of material showing up in my school when I was going to school as well. But, you know, I think different individuals of material showing up in my school when I was going to school as well. But you know, I think different individuals of course feel that there should be different priorities and there's always competing interests.

And I think it's important as well that we expose students to a range of different views so that they can develop strong perspectives about complex subjects and help them be a lot more intellectually stronger than we were and we are. But obviously this goes way too far. And again, I want to conduct a much more deeper investigation to find out how did this happen? How did these books end up in our school libraries? And how are we going to make sure that that doesn't happen again? Well, I interviewed somebody months ago about

this very subject and he said that the problem is while it eliminates some books that should go, both sides on the political spectrum use the opportunity to eliminate too many books that they just disagree with, that they're uncomfortable with, that they feel that they just don't like. And it might not be that they're graphic, they're just not liked by the adults. And so how do we ensure that the system that would replace this one would focus, would have a very narrow focus?

Because I think that's the concern for people who oppose this is that that narrow focus could become overly broad. Well, that's a very good point. And that's exactly my intent is to keep it very narrow. Right? This isn't about books or topics that I find disagreeable or that I wouldn't read or that I wouldn't want my kids reading. This is, this is about making sure that we don't have graphic depictions of molestation and graphic images that showcase oral sex in our school libraries. So this, my intent is to craft some policies and guardrails that are very narrow that make sure these extreme types of offenders are, do not find their way into our school libraries because going further and having

a big broad policy objective with respect to offensive or questionable subjects or content could open the door quite wide and could be misused. So my intent is something very narrow. I'm surprised that I even need to put something like this in place. It should just be commonplace that we don't have images that have graphic sexual acts in our school, that we don't have Hustler and Playboy and other magazines. Yeah, just because it's drawn,

just because it's drawn by the hand as opposed to a photograph doesn't make it any less graphic. And to the developing mind, it's just, it's inappropriate. And look, I don't understand, because in me you have somebody aligns with you on this. I don't understand what, like if there's a parent out there who feels that this is vital information for their child to consume, they can consume it at home.

That is the parent's right. That is the government, that is a person like myself saying you as the parent are the final deciders to what your child learns. But at school, that is not appropriate. That's an empowering of the parent, not anything, anything else. I don't get why that's not getting through. Yeah, I completely agree. You know, you know, every, every

parent, every adult has the ability to look at any kind of topic they want to find that material, make it available to their kids, that's their own discretion, that's their own authority, and their own ability when it comes to parental autonomy. But again, having some of this material on the bookshelves of school libraries is completely inappropriate, and the thing that really caused me a lot of significant concern was the fact that many of these titles were appearing in our K to nine schools.

So, you know, kids as young as five, six could be potentially accessing this material. And that's completely inappropriate. So minister, walk me through the process. What happens next? So we have opened up the survey. We will be getting more perspective from parents to get a better understanding of where are the boundaries or what kind of lines can we draw here? And more importantly, what do they feel is most appropriate? So that survey will be open for a couple of weeks.

We'll also be talking to our school boards to get a better understanding of how this happened in the first place. Take a look at the processes. I will develop some new standards after I've listened to parents and school boards and put those new standards in place for the upcoming school year. So those new standards should be available within the next month or so. And we'll probably have some more to say at that time when we actually develop the new standards.

Well, I hope that when you do, you'll come back on the Ben Mulroney show and share your findings. We appreciate it, Minister. Thank you so much. Absolutely, yeah, would love to. Thanks for having me. All the best.

All the best to you. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. It is Tuesday and we got a lot to get to. I remember last week, we were having a conversation on this show about a school board in Canada that had a data breach. And they had been using an American company to protect their data.

There was a data breach and that company then had to pay the ransom. And the data was never returned. And it sparked a conversation on data sovereignty that maybe what we should be doing in Canada is finding companies that reside in Canada, making it easier to keep our control, keep dominion over that information.

That's one small example. That's one school board versus all of these other, I mean, think about all the different industries. Think about the data breaches that could happen in the oil and gas industry, in IT, in the service industry. I mean, you name it, even small businesses, right? And so there are conversations happening around the world over what nations should do to protect its citizens

and its industries data from encroachment from foreign leaders and from foreign players rather. And so there are a growing number of countries that are pursuing data sovereignty policies and procedures. And to talk about this is Mohit Rajan's great friend of the show, great friend of mine, meteorologist, he works with thinkstart.ca. Welcome to the show, Mohit.

Ben, Ben, Ben, how are you? Good, okay, so look, the global trend is clear. Digital sovereignty is not optional, it is a national imperative. But it sounds good, but walk me through how it would happen because like, I know the big companies are the Amazons and the Googles of the world, and those are

American companies. Do we have Canadian analogs that can take over so that we can, so what is ours can stay ours? No, you make a good point. This isn't a flick of the switch situation. In fact, following this for such a long time, I've realized that countries have been doing this to protect their own data for a very long time. And Canada might be a little bit late to this party. I think you might remember certain times when we went onto YouTube early and a video was banned in our region. And we were like, wait a minute, this is the whole purpose of this? The idea that we're supposed to be able to watch videos anywhere.

So what we're seeing happening in real time, Ben is just we're being exposed to the fact that Canada is a little bit behind when it comes down to understanding this. Why is Canada behind? I mean, I know it's a very Canadian thing that we like to make bold pronouncements at the beginning of the race, and then we just don't even run the race. Well, there's a few things that both Europe, China and Russia, I would say, have done. And that's sort of mandated how these digital products can be architected within

their country. So it's built within the architecture. The protection is you can't use the software in other countries without them compliance. Canada never did that. I think the second part of it, Ben, though, is that we're heavily dependent on the American cloud infrastructure right now. When it comes down to the way we are built, we've leaned on them. This localization happens through Canada and through the US as well. And I think it matters right now for us to consider how much we're giving up in that process.

Okay, so I talked about an example off the top of a school board that was affected by this. But give me a sense of how this could affect the everyday Canadian. If you're a small business owner, you know what it's like to actually have something found by your customer in a local area. What's happened as a result of these big conglomerates in play is that they've been able to sort of market

themselves and target themselves to potential customers as a result of finding information. So if the data is not protected, small businesses, for example, will never stand a chance to sell to their local market. And there's also the idea of how you find people for news and information. We've seen so much of this happen in Canada, where we don't necessarily know if news and info is coming from better organizations. And what we can see is that it's because the data is being used by malicious organizations. They're able to retarget and re you know, reskin what they think is a local Toronto

newspaper and it gets out there. All of this is a part of what we need to protect against and understand why data sovereignty is at play here. Yeah. So because I remember, I mean, I remember when the cloud started becoming the thing, right? I remember it says, oh, you don't need to keep anything locally on your computer anymore. It'll exist in the cloud.

And everybody thought this is a brilliant and wonderful thing. But if the cloud is not a Canadian cloud, then it's essentially like you're handing over all of your data to somebody else, somewhere else, and trusting that they are going to be good faith players, good actors, and responsible enough with it that if there is a bad faith player that comes in, they will know what to do to protect your data.

And that's a whole lot of trust for an entire nation to place on a whole bunch of people and companies that we don't necessarily know. Excellent point. In fact, it gets to the point of what is innovation at that point? Who owns that? If you're making all of these gets to the point of what is innovation at that point? Who owns that? You know, if you're making all of these products on the back of our data, then technically isn't it a Canadian product as well?

Yeah, and then there's the economics involved in the way, you know, Canada has to get to a place right now where we can't show leadership in one area of innovation and not the other. We have to at least come to this place for understanding that there is trade offs associated with this. We don't want to get to a state where we can't necessarily access the world's best tools as a result of a company not being able to work with our citizens and use our data, et cetera. But we need it mandated at a federal level of what the companies are allowed to do here. Because otherwise we'll get into this legal red tape in the near future, which is going to prohibit anybody from wanting to do business with Canada. So would it be as simple Mo hit the next time a contract comes up, but let's say a big Canadian company and they've had a cloud cloud computing relationship with AWS with Amazon, right? Is it, is it about, is the quickest solution to, to rewrite that contract that

says that all the data that you have has to reside physically in Canada, like that cloud infrastructure has to reside in Canada. Is that what it would take or is it more complex than that? Well, you know, I think it's a little bit more complex only because I don't think all of the countries of the world consider the internet borderless. And that's the premise that the North American, you know, idea is the worldwide web. Other countries haven't created that for themselves. And so while we can probably create a solution that's a little bit more adept to our, our future needs, we have to understand that our actual basic architecture is still heavily dependent on this American system.

And I'm not saying that one's better than the other. We've we've flourished because of that as well. We need to get into partnerships on the private sector and public sector to make sure we're getting the most benefit out of the data we've been sharing. Is there something that either the government could do or that industry could do on their own immediate like one step that could at least take us significantly down the route of securing this data and giving us the data sovereignty that we need and deserve. I'm going to be honest with you, Ben, I feel like once again, the train has left the station. And instead, what we're going to

have to do is go back and clean up what's already been happening at a mass scale. It's the most Canadian thing, man. Like, if we just had our ducks in a row at the beginning of this thing, if we'd had our eyes open, if we'd acted responsibly, instead of just hoping for the best. And anybody who's heard those commercials, hope is not a strategy.

We have built way too much in this country on hope and not on planning and not on foresight and not on research and not on data. This is just, it's such a Canadian failing that it's almost, it's almost part of our national identity. It's sad also because we've got the talent in this country to be able to tackle these sorts of solutions right now. And so if we don't expedite the use of infusing into some of this talent that can help us really create a robust plan here, then there's no point in us even talking about it.

Mohe, in the last minute that we have, I want to talk about these videos that are popping up on everybody's social media feed from Google VEO3, this newest AI that just with a few text prompts can give you some visuals that are absolutely insane. Some video I've never seen before. And I'm wondering, we are getting to the point where we are not gonna be able to tell the difference. And part of me was wondering, I just have a quick question for you on it. Is the solution to determine what is real and not to give people the ability to look at the metadata

of a video so that they can see whether or not it's real or not? Would it be beneficial if we all had a tool where you could press a button and it could tell you whether it was AI or not? I think that's going to have to happen. Unfortunately, the actual video creators and the VO3 Google people aren't putting the synthetic label that they had promised on each video and it's getting out of hand, but also extremely entertaining. We will eventually in browsers have indicators that'll flag synthetic video. I'm sure that's what's coming next.

I really hope so, man, because these are entertaining, but you're right, we're gonna get to a point where we're gonna see something that is going to be complete fabrication and it will be on something serious, not on the fun stuff that we're seeing right now. Mohit really appreciates you on this subject. I hope to talk to you again soon.

Take care, bye. All right, Canada, time to make your brains grow because our next guest always comes armed with facts that most of us don't know. Please welcome back to the show as we do every week, Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X. Craig, welcome to the show. For having every week, Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X. Craig, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. So before we jump into the story that is going to intrigue us all, I want to talk to you about the statue of Sir John A that has been boxed up in front of Queen's Park, the seat of government in Ontario for five years for fear of, you know, he's a controversial historical figure and the fear has been we we gotta put him in a box or somebody's gonna come and throw paint on him or even worse topple the statue. And the question I have for you is what do you think

could be done to the statue, could be added, could be improved so that those who feel insulted or triggered by the image of our first prime minister would be more at ease and more comfortable with. Well, I think with Sir Joanna MacDonald and pretty much most of our early prime ministers, you know, there are good aspects to them and then there's controversial aspects to them. So I really think what would be a good option is a plaque and that describes, you know, he built the CPR, you know, he helped bring Canada into confederation,

that kind of stuff, but at the same time, brought in the head tax and, you know, brought in things that were not so great for the First Nations. So just something that outlines a lot about him so that people can form their own opinions about him and his history and his impact on Canada. I agree with you. I think a plaque with more historical context

should be enough. I would hope it would be enough. I suspect for certain people it will never be enough, but I think that's something that a lot of Canadians would be willing to live with. I also, you know, I heard that over the course of the past few years, in an effort to draw attention to the residential school part of his legacy,

people have been leaving children's shoes lined up in front of the box. And part of me thinks, you know, I wouldn't mind if bronze shoes were added to the, sort of the podium of that statue, along with a plaque. I'm absolutely willing to not only concede, but acknowledge that his past is complicated and parts of it are shameful.

But adding to it, I think, could be a middle ground that hopefully could help Canada move forward past the nonsense of just trying to pull down every statue we disagree with. I would agree. I would say putting something like bronze shoes in front, because then people will question why those shoes are there. And if you have a plaque, they will read and start to learn more. I think people have to remember that the statues themselves are history. I mean, most of these statues were over a hundred years old and, you know, were created by some of our greatest sculptors. So they are part of our history. And by putting things like plaques or the bronze shoes or other things with them, we're helping to add to that history and explain it and explain who that person was. All right, we're going to move on to a story that again, every week, man, I don't know,

it's something about the way you tell these stories. I don't feel like an idiot for not knowing these things. And I'm just pleased that I learned about them later. But frankly, I should know this. Like tell me about the kidnapping of John Labatt. Well, everybody knows Labatt, you know, Labatt's Brewery, we've all had a Labatt blue at some point in our lives. And back in the 1930s, it was a massive company. And John Labatt, who was the grandson of the founder of Labatt's, he was one of the richest men in Canada.

And on August 14th, 1934, he was actually driving back to his office in London, Ontario, from his cottage on Lake Huron. and he was forced off the road and abducted at gunpoint. And this became a massive media story. It was huge in the 1930s. Like all of Canada was transfixed by this. And so he was actually chained up to a bed for about three days while the kidnappers were waiting for money. But because there was so much press coverage related to this, they actually started to get spooked and they just ended up taking him towards Toronto and gave him money for a cab and told him to go to the Royal York. That's where his brother was. That's where a lot of reporters were because they were very much worried that with so much coverage that the police were going to descend upon them. And they ended up getting caught anyways and arrested and spending quite a few years in jail. But it really had a bad impact

on John Labatt because until he died in 1952, he spent most of his life as a recluse after that incident because he was very much worried about being kidnapped. It was a very traumatic experience for him. I mean, I'm sure he wasn't diagnosed with PTSD, but I'm sure that's what he had. Hey, let's listen to a snippet of the kidnapping of John Labatt on Canadian History X. One of the men gave John a pen and paper and dictated to him as he wrote a letter to his brother Hugh, which stated, Mr. Hugh Labatt, we are holding your brother John for $150,000 ransom. Go to Toronto immediately and register in the Royal York Hotel. We will negotiate with you from that point. We advise you to keep this matter away from the police

and the newspapers so as we can return your brother safely. You will know me as Three-Fingered Abe." That $150,000 would be about $3.1 million today. John was then blindfolded and put in the kidnapper's vehicle while another man drove John's car to London and left it near St. Joseph's Hospital. The reason this hospital was chosen was because John's wife had been a patient at the hospital with an undisclosed illness recently, and his car parked there would not raise any eyebrows. It was clear the kidnappers had done their homework on John Labatt.

Once the car was dropped off, Hugh Labatt was telephoned and he was told where the car could be found. At first, Hugh did not believe the man on the phone, but details about what his brother was wearing, the make and model of the car, made Hugh realize this was not a prank call. Detective Thomas Bolton was assigned to the case and with Hugh they rushed to the location of the car. As for John's wife Elizabeth, the family and with Hugh they rushed to the location of the car. As for John's wife Elizabeth, the family didn't tell her John was kidnapped out of worry of how she would react. John on the other hand was taken to a cottage along a lake.

As the car drove down the road, the blindfold became loose and John was able to catch glimpses of passing objects. And little did the kidnappers know that their actions were about to take the country by storm. So they got spooked with how much press they were getting and feared that the heat was going to come down on them. And that's why they released him to the hotel, right? Yeah, absolutely. This was kind of like the early days of mass media. And so I don't think a lot of people were used to the media firestorm that erupted around this.

So and then obviously there was a trial. We learned that they were arrested. They spent 15 years in jail and a fourth was killed in the United States. What did we learn from them in the trial? Like what? I mean, they clearly had a plan. They want $150,000, which was a ton of money, they seem to have a big plan. But I guess, like, did we learn anything else about who they were or why they were motivated to do something like this? Not really, I more or less what they were essentially doing was they were looking for the richest man they could find and wanting to rob him and, and hold him for ransom. And for them, they felt like john labatt was that person. I mean, it was the

1930s. So we're dealing with the Great Depression. There's not a lot of money. And for a lot of people, they were going to desperate situations like this. And unfortunately, they kidnapped one of the most famous men in the country. And, you know, it's cost them 15 years of their lives as a result of it. But this family, one of the richest in Canada, had the money to pay the ransom. Are we aware, had they gone through with it, would the family have paid the 150,000? I think they were thinking of paying the 150,000, but there was also a real worry that if they paid that 150,000, it would serve as an example for other very rich people, like say the Eaton

family, one of the richest families in Canada, there was a worry that it would entice other people to start kidnapping rich people and then demanding ransom. So there was a worry of having that. And that's kind of why it did take quite a while, three days before it was eventually resolved and then resolved when he walks into the Royal York and all these reporters are reporting on it and no one notices him right away. And then suddenly they see him and it's just as bedlam resolved when he walks into the Royal York and all these reporters are reporting on it. No one notices him right away. And then suddenly they see him and it's just as it's bedlam in there as people are trying to get an interview with the man who was kidnapped. Now you said that he was,

he led the rest of his life as a recluse, but did he also hire private security? Did he beef up security around his homes? Yeah. In his home, his cottage, and then his home around London. And obviously he had security around his family as well because he was worried about them. Even his brother Hugh had security. So it was something that really did impact him quite a bit because what he felt was, you know, just the safety of a drive from a cottage to his office was disrupted in three days being chained to a bed. He doesn't know if he's going to live or die. So it definitely had a massive impact on him. And lastly, and very quickly, if if the kidnapping was such a media sensation, was the trial

also publicized far and wide? Oh, yeah, the manhunt for these people when they were arrested, the trial, everything was a huge story at the time, because a lot of people were transfixed by this. This was kind of the, we call it like the trial of the century at that point. And it was just, it was something that spread across Canada and it was front page news constantly. Professor Craig Baird, host of Canadian History X. Thank you very much, my friend. I feel my brain grew just a little bit. My knowledge of Canada deepened because of you, as it does every week. Thank you so much, my friend. Thanks for having me. 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

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