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

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

Best of the Week Part 1 - Warren Kinsella, Max Fawcett, Tony Chapman Guests: Warren Kinsella, Max Fawcett, Tony Chapman, Dr. Oren Amitay, Wendy Sachs 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

Okay, Martin, let's try one. Remember, big. You got it. The Ford It's a Big Deal event is on. How's that? Uh, a little bigger. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Nice. Now the offer? Lease a 2025 Escape Active all-wheel drive from 198 bi-weekly at 1.99% APR for 36 months with $27.55 down. Wow, that's like $99 a week.

Yeah, it's a big deal. The Ford It's a Big Deal event. Visit your Toronto area Ford store or Ford.ca today. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great conversations this week, including the awful decision by Mark Carney to not turf one of his candidates. Max Fawcett and I had an honest discussion about expanding our population and if we're even ready for it. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and every now and then something happens in politics that defies all logic, all expectation, all

reasonable belief that it's going to end one way and it goes another. And so for the past four days we have been occupied with a story that should have been put to rest on day one. It was uncovered that a few months ago, a candidate vying for a seat in the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, had suggested that his opponent be kidnapped by his opponents in China and sent to China and whoever brings them there could collect a $1 million bounty. This was the most bananas bonkers thing.

First of all, that it wasn't talked about for since the guy said the things in the first place, eventually did. But for four days, everyone's been saying, this is a layup for Mark Carney. Just do the right thing. Maintain the moral high ground. Turf the guy and move on.

And for four days, he did nothing. Well, he gets in front of a podium today. And I believe Mackenzie Gray of Global News asked him what are you going to do with this guy? And he said that his candidate Chang apologized. First of all, he didn't apologize. He offered an apology. But it doesn't really matter. It was a veteran policeman. And he is an honorable man. And therefore, this is a teachable moment to to to lift right out of Justin Trudeau's

playbook. And he's going to stay on. It is an abdication of moral leadership. And so to discuss this, as well as the polls and whether or not Mark Carney has a Quebec problem, we're joined by Warren Kinsella, the former special advisor to Jean Chrétien and CEO of the Daisy Group. Warren, this just, what do you make of this? It blows me away.

Yeah. Like this is easy. Yeah. Like, I, like, this is easy. Yeah. Like it was simple. All of us thought, okay, all of us were puzzled why Carney was waiting all weekend to dump this guy who's done something. And I'm putting on my lawyer's hat here that arguably approaches a criminal offense. He's urging a regime that is hostile to this country to commit an offense against a citizen of Canada. Okay? So that's problematic enough. But Carney said nothing on this all weekend, was hiding from the media for the most part. And then we get

this extraordinary statement where he says he's standing by this guy, Paul Chang, who has said that Joe Tay, the conservative candidate, should be handed over to the Chinese regime, which has put a bounty on his head. Yeah. This is the party that wraps itself in the charter when it suits them, but the second that somebody's rights are trampled on feels unsafe. All of a sudden, you know, it's a teachable moment for us.

And it's a measure of character. Yeah. And in this case, Mark Carney's character. Well, but that's, Warren, I've got to ask, listen, they've been very good at protecting their leader from really any real scrutiny. I don't think it's a bad faith argument to say that I've never seen a less accountable candidate in terms of willingness to talk to the press.

You know, he'll take a question and then the second he answers it, like he did with his word salad on the Quebec law, he turned on his heels and walked away and press conference over. There's no ability for the press to push back anytime he says anything of significance. And so because we don't know a lot about him, and that's been by design, I don't think it's wrong for us to have questions about why this is. This is too weird. This is too weird for us to just accept the answer that we were given. And it doesn't work. You know, going back when I ran Chris's war room in 93, you remember the moment, all of

us remember when we were around, Kim Campbell saying an election is not a time to discuss, you know, issues. And it's like, well, no, Kim, and no, Mark, an election is precisely the time when we talk about these things, you know? And this one in particular, because it's, you know, it's an existential historic moment in our, in our election history. This is when we are supposed to be talking about these things. And this is what's a test for Mark Carney. And he has failed it. Because everybody the NDP, not just the conservatives, everybody, the Green Party, everybody's saying, you're going to dump this human rights groups, human rights groups, the left and the right. I mean, you green part, everybody's saying, you've got to dump this guy. Human rights groups.

Because I've done so. Human rights groups, the left and the right. I mean, you name it. There isn't a single person that says this was the right move. And so I think it's incumbent upon us to ask why. Like, what else is going on here? And I don't think I'm wearing a tin foil hat when I say that. I just think it befuddles me.

But let's move on, because I want to ask you, so much of the liberals' electoral success rests with being successful within the province of Quebec. And Mark Carney in saying no to the TVA debate has made an enemy. They are not taking this lightly. He is getting hammered on the most on the biggest and most influential news organization daily in the in the in the country. More people tune in to TVA

news in Quebec than tune into any other news source across the country. And he's getting it on TV. He's getting it in newspapers. And so I've got to wonder at some point, is that going to affect the possibility of coming out of Quebec with what they need? It does affect it. You know, like, you know, they're not the first campaign to do low bridging with their candidate. And you know, you do low bridging when you're ahead, as a lot of the polls say that they are. And you do low bridging when you're not totally confident about your candidate's ability to respond to the issues. Okay, so we know Carney, we've seen him be testy with reporters asking about his holdings, we've seen him be somewhat dismissive. So clearly, the Liberal campaigns decided we've got to limit his interaction with the media. Again, that's not something that has never been done before.

The problem is now, here's Warren and Ben talking about it. Here's lots of people talking about it, and it looks like he's hiding from scrutiny. He looks like he's being unaccountable. In the case of Quebec, he's still going to do a French debate. I had a problem with the TVA debate because they were asking for each candidate the pony up 75,000 bucks that's not how it's supposed to be but anyway, he's still doing a French debate But again, you know here you and I are talking about it where it's like the first issue we were talking about He's hiding from scrutiny. He's hiding from you know, critical response to the stuff that he does and it's a bad look But weren't like I I get the idea called it low bridging. I understand that. But even in the

limited interaction he has with the press, he's presenting as problematic. I mean, I referenced being asked a pretty direct question, would the would a liberal government challenge the Quebec religious symbols law in court. He didn't say it, but every fiber in me knows. He has no idea what that law is. The word salad that he put together wasn't him trying to find his point. He did not know what that law was. And so whatever they're doing to limit his interaction

with the press, should he be doing even less? Well, he's heading towards a come to mother moment, and that is the French debate and the English debate. And those are coming up in just a matter of days. Like it's going to be a bad week for the conservatives, I think, because the, you know, the tariffs are going to hit on the 2nd of April, and that's going to eat up a lot of the news bandwidth and I think that's what the Liberals are calculating. But like the moment,

you know, I've gotten prime ministers ready for those debates. You're up there without any advisors, you're without anybody speaking in your ear, there's no talking points, it's just you and millions of people watching you and this is where this liberal strategy they've had playing hide and seek with this guy is gonna fall apart because we're gonna see whether he's ready or not. And my prediction has been since he became leader, the debates are gonna be a very, very difficult time

for him and for his campaign because, you know, as people like to say in campaigns, he's just not ready. I wonder if he's ready. I got 45 seconds left for you, but we're seeing the polls are so fluid and I can't make heads or tails of them. I'm trying not to spend too much time on them, but you were in a war room, you ran campaigns.

How much did you pay attention to the polls on a daily basis? Me, not so much. You know, the media polls are free, so they're worth what you pay for them. You know, a lot of them are showing the liberals a little bit ahead, or there's a tie. You've got abacus saying that the conservative, they're tied. The prom the Tories have got is they've got a lot of wasted vote in Alberta and Saskatchewan. And you know, and in 2019 and 2021, O'Toole and Shear got more popular

vote, but they still lost in the end because the liberal seat count is more efficient. So my advice to everybody is, you know, don't get all anxious. Don't get all worked up. Just, let's just wait to see because these polls right now, they're not telling us, I think what is the real picture, which is that it's still a very tight race. Warren, thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Thanks, my friend. All right. So, listen, I talk a lot on this show and a lot of times I speak with great bravado and confidence. But a lot of people infer from that, that my mind is closed to new ideas and that it is impossible to change my mind.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I, oh, I'm, I engage in good faith conversation. And if somebody presents me with facts that change my opinion and my mind, I do so happens all the time. It just doesn't sound like it because like I said, I speak with confidence. And so this next segment is about just that I want to,, and we're gonna do this on a regular basis. I wanna take hot button issues on which I think I have a strong opinion.

And I wanna bring on somebody with an opposing view to hopefully possibly change my mind and hopefully introduce new ideas to our listeners as well whose minds in turn might be changed as well. And today we're gonna be talking about the notion of growing Canada's population. There's talk of a project that perhaps we need to grow our population to 100 million by the end of the century. And for a lot of people, it's a bridge too far.

However, Max Fawcett, who by the way, I was tussling with a little bit on social media this weekend. And again, in a respectful way, glad we had fun with that. Lead columnist for Canada's National Observer. He writes that growing Canada's population isn't just radical, it's essential. And so joining me to discuss this is Max Fawcett himself. Max, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me on Ben.

Okay, so I think I laid the groundwork there. A lot of, so tell me why growing Canada's population isn't radical, it's essential. I promise you, my mind is open to this. I'm glad. I look forward to the challenge. You know, Western countries, countries around the world, we're all dealing with the same issue right now, which is a, you know, declining birth rates, slowing population growth. And as we look towards the future, that means aging populations,

it means fewer workers, more benefit payments. It is sort of the inverse of the demographics that helped us grow our economy so fast in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And so lots of people have sort of cottoned on to this notion that if we grow our economy so fast in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And, and so lots of people have sort of cottoned on to this notion that, you know, if we grow our population significantly, you know, we can stimulate the economy, we can, we can, you know, be able to pay for our seniors, fund our social programs, and kind of stave off the negative impacts of population decline.

And one of the one of the supporters of this idea was actually your late father. Yeah, no, I know. However, and I'm glad you mentioned him, but, and I don't speak for my father, I never would, but I believe he spoke that at a time where there was far more buy-in from the general population that the way we were growing our population

through immigration was the right way. If anything, if I think a lot of people over the past few years have looked at what we've done, it feels like we got rid of the guardrails, we opened up the doors, and we grew our immigration irresponsibly for a few years now that has led to all these negative knock on effects and a lot of people are gunshy. They're saying, look, if we couldn't handle it for the past five years, how the heck are we gonna do it responsibly to get to a hundred million?

Especially since we have a housing shortage, an affordability crisis, an employment issue. So we're in a new world today than we were say say, five years ago, as it relates to how people view immigration. Absolutely. And you know, the liberal government deserves most of the blame for that, you know, they, they implemented policies, or they took their eye off the ball on policies that, you know, allowed, you know, all these knock on effects, like you said,

so you know, rent skyrocketing, housing prices going up, labor market issues. And they eroded the sort of national consensus that we had had for so long around immigration being a good thing. That consensus is kind of rare around the world. And so we have to, the first priority, regardless of who wins the next election, is to rebuild that consensus. It's to give people confidence in the system, confidence that it is being used to further

everyone's best interests, not just large corporations, not system, confidence that it is being used to further everyone's best interests, not just large corporations, not colleges, not whatever it might be, that immigration is being treated as an engine of not just growth, but of cohesion and sort of collective interest. So let's assume, Max, let's assume that we get back. Let's assume that we get there, right?

We're back on track. The consensus has been rebuilt. What do we do moving forward differently that we didn't do in the past? Well, I think we have to ensure that the immigration system is targeted to the people around the world who want to come here and build a better life. That's not just, you know, economic immigrants.

It's not just the smartest people in the world, although of course we want them. You know, we need to be open to a lot of different streams. We have to have the policies and programs in place that make it so they can integrate, make it so they can land on their feet. Housing, healthcare, all these sorts of things. We need to be recognizing foreign credentials more, I think, openly than we have in the past.

We have to break down those silos in the professions that keep doctors driving taxicabs. We have to break down those silos in the professions that keep doctors driving taxicabs. We've all heard that sort of story. We have to really kind of have a bigger picture approach to it, but the idea of getting to 100 million, it sounds like a big number, but it's actually a lower population growth rate

than we had under the Harper government. Like it is not a radical number. Okay, it is just, it is just, it just feels that way, because it's a large round number, but we can absolutely get there. And then, you know, one of the the knock on advantages is a country like the United States can't push us around quite as easily because we'll be bigger, we'll have more. Yeah, I think that's more military have. So where I'm where I'm at on this, Max, is I believe all that stuff.

I like the end goal, and I like what comes from that end goal. Canada and 100 million people is a completely different force around the world than we are today. I get that. And I think a lot of people would believe that if you just looked at the end goal. But how do you get from here to there? saying that we have to put put policies in place that ensure that people can properly integrate and that we have the housing required. That's

the problem. Like unless we haven't shown that we can build enough houses for the people we have right now and a sustained push to to get us there to 100 million. I just don't, I doubt our ability to do it responsibly. I totally hear you. I think that doubt is rooted in recent evidence, you know, but hard things are hard. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do them. No, I know, yeah.

This is, you know, this is an audacious goal. You know, your dad compared it to, you know. This is an audacious goal. Your dad compared it to the national policy of Sir John A. MacDonald, which was audacious and controversial. But we have to be willing to take those sorts of big swings now, I think. And so maybe that's gatekeeping immigration levels

based on housing numbers. You don't get to increase your population unless you've built enough housing numbers. You know, you don't get to increase your population unless you built enough housing units. Federal funding can go in place to more aggressively reward provinces that build housing quickly. And, you know, we're starting to see that obviously that's a policy of care polyam. It's a policy of the federal government. That's good. We can do more there. We have to get really ambitious and aggressive here, but there is such a huge opportunity right now in front of us. You know, we have all of these talented people in the United States, you know, doctors, researchers, who kind of don't want to be there right

now and are looking for greener pastures. We should be welcoming them up here and and, you know, making ourselves stronger, smarter, richer, better. Like that, that is the way forward. I think for too long our politics have been defined by, you know, a sense of scarcity, and I'd defined by, you know, a sense of scarcity. And I'd like to see that replaced with a sense of abundance and ambition. I agree with you, Max. I think the 100 million population is a part of that. I 100% agree.

I just think, unfortunately, what it's going to take is it's going to take almost like a moratorium until we get back to that consensus that you described that we all enjoyed. And there was something really uniting in that notion that left, right, didn't really matter. We all believed that the path forward was responsible growth through immigration. And until we solve all those knock-on effects have been created by the irresponsible growth

that we've experienced recently, I don't think we're gonna, I just don't know that it's a conversation that's going to find purchase anytime soon, although I am glad that it's starting with articles like what you wrote. Well, yeah, I think I agree with you. I think we have to fix the problems that we've created

before we can start building this new ambitious program, but we have to start seeding the ground for this idea and what makes it good and not salting the earth with anti-immigration rhetoric and you know that can happen I think if we let this get too far out of whack so I'm glad that there is sort of a consensus among all the major parties on the near-term immigration targets, on the caps, on things like that and let's continue building that momentum and rebuild that consensus we used to have. Did Max Fossett and I just agree on something? I think we did. Max, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate

it. It was a pleasure. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And I don't know if anyone's seen this on social media, but there is an ad campaign by Burger King. They're trying to demonstrate that their food is without preservatives. And so there are pictures, very high resolution pictures of a whopper that is completely covered in mold. And it's, I mean, it's, it could be strange. It could be, but they're, they're trying to position themselves as, hey, McDonald's uses preservatives, we don't.

And so I find it really interesting. And I want to ask the question, because we've seen Pepsi take shots at Coke, a bunch, right? We see it all the time. But I wonder about this idea. If you're in second place, is it best to go, you know, take aim at the king? And so to talk about this and many more stories,

we're joined by Tony Chapman, host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters and the founder of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome to the show. Always a pleasure to be with you, Ben. Tony, does a picture of a moldy burger make it more likely that you will eat that burger? You know, the interesting thing they're trying to do is to create a point of

difference between themselves and McDonald's. You can't do it with price. You can't do it with the number of locations. Can't even do it with your menu. So where they feel they have an advantage is that they don't put preservatives in the food like McDonald's does. And they want to say that to the consumer. This is something that you should think

and it's material to you making a decision. My question is, is somebody that's looking to indulge in a fast food burger actually gonna go to that step? And I don't think they will. Yeah, I mean, look, I remember for the longest time, Burger King was the flame broiled option, right? And Wendy's was a fresh, not frozen. And I think Wendy's also did the square patty

as a way to differentiate itself. So those are all differentiators. This one just happens to be really disgusting. And I just, I don't see it as being a smart move, but we rarely hear McDonald's going after Burger King or Wendy's because they are at the top of the mountain. Is that standard in marketing that the people, sort of the rebellion goes against the empire

and not the other way around? Absolutely, you put your slingshot out and try to get, try to take Goliath down, but McDonald's doesn't need to do it. McDonald's competition is share a mouth. Can they get more people to buy their burgers? Right. Get more people to buy their burgers? Right.

More people to buy fast food. And that's what they do very well. And they do it things like their dollar menu, their $2 menu, their free coffee, anything they can to drive traffic into their stores. The other ones are even, you know, another one is a great Canadian company, Harvey's, it's all about personalization. You know, you can, you can top it any way you want. McDonald's doesn't care about it. McDonald's says our proposition is quality, value, cleanliness and service. You go anywhere in the world. And if you remember Pulp Fiction, a quarter pounder is a quarter pounder. Yeah, but but now you now you can customize anything,

which I think a lot of people appreciate. And we'd appreciate it more if the price has resembled what we used to pay, say, five years ago. But that's a conversation for another day. You got to make heads or tails of this next story for me, because I I tried reading it and tried understanding it and I just can't do it. Elon Musk said over the weekend that he sold X, all of Twitter, to another company he owns, X.A.I.

What exactly is this about? What am I not understanding about this story? Well, what this is about is that A.I. is a shiny object and it's raising billions, if not trillions of dollars of capital around the world. He thinks with Grok, he was last to the party and he wants to he wanted to elevate it. It's not getting the attention of the other platform. So he feels that by combining his A.I. company with Twitter and convincing people that this will be the new social platform,

totally powered by AI, that he's going to get the currency and capital that he feels he deserves. And so that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to say one plus one equals five here. The question is, and knowing Musk, because he's a very brilliant guy, if he can in fact use AI to make advertisers get a bigger bang for their buck, then he's going to succeed with it. But it's not that he's the only one trying to.

I mean, that's the whole mandate of the meta. That's what everybody's trying to do is to use AI as a secret weapon to hyper personalize ads. But I think that we're missing all of this is that the master plan for me for access, he's going to use it as a platform for digital currency and He much like he did with PayPal. He's gonna use this as his base to have his coin Be the one that starts becoming the coin to choice and when doing that it'll be a rounding area with this company's worth if he pulls that off All right. Well, let's turn our attention homeward and

surrounding area with his company's worth if he pulls that off. All right, well, let's turn our attention homeward. And Canadians have been spending more their vacations in Canada, spending more dollars in Canada. So it's sort of like a elbows up for the tourism agency industry, I suppose. But look, I contend that what we're experiencing now with this rise in Canadian pride is not a movement, it's a moment. So how how So how would the tourism industry find a way to capitalize on this moment but turn it into a movement that propels

domestic tourism forward? Listen, that's a brilliant way to frame the brief that every tourism operator should be giving out. And I'd add one audience to it. I think there's a brilliant way to frame the brief that every tourism operator should be giving out. And I'd add one audience to it. I think there's a lot of Americans that want to signal their support of Canada and can do so by traveling here as well. Well, the Canadian dollar is so cheap. Of course, I also wouldn't make a domestic.

I'd also say, hey, come and come and show your support rally for Canada. But I think you're right. The thing that we're dealing with, though, is affordability. What we've got to also understand that how many Canadians can in fact afford a vacation this year. Right. And this is what, so you've got to first and foremost go, you've got to target people that still have the ability to have the discretionary time and income. They're not working two jobs. They're not trying to just cover their mortgage payments or the property tax increases that we just experienced in some cities

So all of this discretionary dollars are being soaked up by government So we've got to target the right Canadians and then we got a signal not not just pride But what the actual experience is because people feel often in Canada They're going down market if they stay home versus the excitement of traveling abroad Yeah, and I think we've got to reverse that psychology and say, hey, when you go to Fogo Island in Newfoundland, you want to go for hiking, you're an eco-tourist, the best hikings in Canada, the best cities,

the best multicultural, you've got to start packaging this as almost the international experience at Canada and in Canadian dollars. That's what I would do. All right, well, let's finish up with a conversation about streaming. And a lot of people have believed for a long time that streaming services were the extinction level event for traditional broadcasters in this country.

And if you didn't believe that before, you should now. Forty six percent of Canadian households do did not have a television subscription with cable satellite or a telecom based provider at the end of last year. That's up from forty two percent forecast to to rise to 54% in two short years. But explain to me because the value proposition was always I'm willing to give the money upfront so I don't have to pay I don't have to waste my time with ads. And somehow these companies are now running ads even with my subscription dollars and people

don't seem to have a problem with it. How have they been able to double dip and what was once so offensive to people's sensibilities on TV is now acceptable on streaming? Again, the double dipping is once I've conditioned you to move away from cable and come to me, I have a sticky customer, I can start monetizing it. We'll expect the same from Amazon.

When 50% of America now shops online through Amazon, same thing happens. You start taking advantage of that position. And that's what Netflix is doing. Apple streaming, Amazon Prime, they're all saying, we can feed from the advertising dollars. But the difference has been, where you might've bought an ad on CBS

and not sure who gets it, with streaming with streaming the data is I know what Ben watches I know how long you watch I know when you tend to go to sleep how much of the show you've watched I know what when you stay with the program or not what you like Yeah, all of that is incredible data for advertisers. Yeah, so not only are they gonna be able to monetize with advertising They're gonna charge an incredible premium because guess what? They can fly fish the ad to the right people versus the DriftNet advertising that was characteristic of network television.

And part of me feels, and I don't have any data to back this up, but part of me feels is if you get a hyper-targeted ad to exactly what you like, you're going to respond to it differently than if you see an ad that doesn't affect you at all. You're going to probably even have a positive interaction an ad that doesn't affect you at all. It may probably even have a positive interaction with it and it'll keep you entertained, it might keep you

engaged, but it's not like what you just said. They just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Yeah. And you're going to be able to click on that ad without interrupting your thing saying, send me information to my bot. Tell me more about this. And then when you have time, it's going to give you the, your bot's going to go out and do an analysis and it's going to rate and everything else. The world is changing in terms of marketing. Consumers, you've got to realize your data is gold and that gold is being monetized and streaming services can do it in the way the conventional television can. Expect more advertising or pay a massive premium to turn it off. Tony, we're going to leave it there. Yeah, we're going to leave that there, but thank you so much, my friend.

Always a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. All right, we gotta talk about this right now. If you've ever heard me on this show, you know that I think it is the exclusive domain of parents to parent their kids. When my kid comes home and says something, says anything, I can, as the dads say, I want you to reconsider that. Here's why that's a great idea and I'm going to support you. Here's why that's a bad idea. Here is, here is my

life experience and why I think you may be going down the wrong path. But it is my job and my right as a parent to make those decisions. And I will not listen to anybody who tells me how to parent my kids. And when I hear that newly published advice for Canada's pediatricians in their, in the Canadian Pediatric Society's flagship journal, that they should charge full steam ahead with gender-affirming care for children expressing questions about their gender as low as six years old because it could harm the child if they don't.

I have a problem with that. That is not your job to tell me as a parent that my choice to tell my child, hey, let's just slow down here. If you're questioning your gender, let's just slow down, you're six years old. You got a lot of growing up to do. That is somehow harming my child. I reject it and I reject the fact

that you think you can tell me that. That is not your place. Stay in your lane. And so to discuss this more, I am joined by Dr. Orin Abene, who is a psychologist who may have a thing or two to say about a thing or two. Welcome to the show, doc. Thank you, Ben. Yeah, look, I normally I'm, I try to stay out of this stuff because it's exhausting. As soon as you say something, you are a transphobe or look, a mice, if my six year old came home and said I don't feel like a boy we would have discussions about that but one thing I wouldn't do is tell you well then

you're definitely not a boy like and the fact that with dubious and weak evidence Canadian doctors are being told no no we have to affirm this in people, kids as young as six, and if you don't, you're harming the kid. Yeah, and that's based on a flawed, I would say fraudulent policy paper by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2018. And people can just look up Dr. James Cantor

and the AAP and this policy paper, because what they claimed was evidence that this is the best way to go. The gender affirming care is actually not. The papers they cited were actually about watchful waiting, which is what every sane, compassionate and evidence-based clinician used to do, which was basically you don't push the child in any direction.

You validate them as a human being. You listen to them, but you don't push. You wait and see, and you determine from there, with proper assessment, proper treatment, how things are going. But the point is, you never push them in any direction. And gender affirming care is pushing them. They talk about conversion therapy, Bill C6,

where you're not allowed to keep them in their natural state in their biological form. The fact is, conversion therapy is when you tell a child, no, no, you are the opposite sex. Yeah, no, and, and, and, and listen, and when a kid is six, and an adult with a, with a white lab coat and a stethoscope tells them that, Oh, you think that you're, you're born in the wrong body? You're absolutely right. That's a person in position of authority. You're gonna believe them. And frankly, that flies in the face for me

of just parenting. I don't believe a doctor has the right to do that. Well, it gets even worse, as I'm sure you know. Not only are they saying that, but they are telling this to the children and to the parents that if you do not affirm this other gender, then they will kill themselves. Yeah.

How many parents I've had tell me that directly that that's what they were told. These are good parents. All they wanted to do was help their distressed, struggling, confused child and the doctor or the counselor, I put quotation marks around these, by the way, or therapist told them, you know, would you rather have a, you know, a healthy trans child or a dead son or daughter? Disgusting, unethical principle. What I, listen, I always thought that these conversations were gonna stop at some point,

like the activism was gonna butt up against the legal principle of consent. A child cannot consent to a great many things, which is why, even if a 14 year old says, no, no, I wanted to have sex with that adult, that is rape because a child cannot consent. And so you wanna tell me how that notion of consent is not applied here?

Like, I'm sorry, you don't have the requisite intellectual ability to decide that you were born in the wrong body. So we're just gonna slow play this. We're gonna be here to support you and we're gonna be here as your parents and as the support in your lives, we're gonna be here to give you what you need. And you know what?

When you get to the point in your life where you can form consent and you decide you're still in this frame of mind, well then there we go. You have the ability now to make that decision. But until then, you're a child and let's just leave it at that. The fact that we cannot have that conversation

is mind-numbingly stupid. Well, and it's dangerous. It's so harmful. And the children that these advocates are activists with quotation marks again, are ostensibly helping, are being damaged irreversibly. And the way it's being sold that, oh, you know, if we affirm their gender, all we're

doing is socially affirming it. Well, the social affirmation leads in most cases to the desire to go on puberty blockers. And those puberty blockers in 98 to 100% of the time then leads to those hormones are the on so much serious damage, i sterilization. You're let down the path in the age care if it's 10 or 12 ea

that will have lifelong i to mention the numerous c girls who are having thei breast removed via doubla the age of young as 13. People say it doesn't happen. It happens. There are cases that this has happened. I've often said that almost jokingly that long after the wave of insanity, the woke wave of insanity that crested over the Western world, long after it's gone, Canada will still be holding up a torch for it. We will be the torchbearer in this country. And it is laughable sometimes,

the silliness that we see that outcrops from it. But this isn't silly. This is, and I struggle. The fact that in the scientific community, this is, they are being hijacked by social activism, is to me a failure that the medical community they are being hijacked by social activism is to me a failure that the medical community is gonna have to wrestle with for a very long time. The medical community, the mental health community

and what people have to understand is when they say there's consensus, like Rachel Levine in the States a couple of years ago, I called that person out saying it's not consensus. They believe that if it says consensus, then all the experts agree. No, what actually happens is a tiny group of, quote unquote, experts in various fields

within those larger fields, they get together, they make these policies, and then everybody else who's not an expert, they trust them and they go along with it. And many people speak out against it. And more and more are speaking out because they've seen the damage go along with it. And many people speak out against it. And more and more are speaking out because they've seen the damage that this has caused. They've realized, as with the CAS review in the UK

just last year, that the so-called evidence is not good. It's weak at best. That's literally from the report, it's weak at best. So explain, how does this work then? If this is the governing body, the Canadian Pediatric Society's governing body if you are a pediatrician and you're part of this society and you choose not to follow this advice What can happen to you if anything?

You can be sanctioned you can lose your license a nurse and I believe was BC just last week had her case I mean, she's been on going off for a couple of years, but she declared that, you know, men cannot become women and vice versa. And she had her license revoked, if I'm not mistaken. Eileen Ham, I believe, or Amy Ham is her name. So you can suffer severe consequences. And because of people who do not know

what they're talking about, because they're part of the government, they have made it a law in Canada that if someone were to to perform quote-unquote conversion therapy that they can not only lose their license but they can be arrested this is bill c6 people should look it up and a few of my colleagues again james cantor is one of them dr james cantor and dr david kenzooker they fought in the senate or you know against this saying the way the policy is written,

the way this law is being proposed, which is now law, they say it is going to be very difficult for anybody to be able to explore these things in a way that doesn't put met risk for being, once again, not just having a complaint filed against them, but to be arrested for doing their job, for helping confuse and distressed people. My goodness. If my child was presenting with these sorts of questions and doubts and I was worried, I was worried for them, I was worried for their future,

I was worried for what this meant, and I sought counsel from a doctor and the doctor, whatever they gave me, I would trust as the lifeline that I needed because they were the experts. And the fact that that's not happening is a shame. Dr. Orin Amadeide, thank you very much. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney+. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she

can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX is Dying for Sex, now streaming only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. You know that feeling when you find the perfect song? Imagine that, but for your next meal at Tim's. Whether you're craving something meaty, cheesy, or just straight up satisfying, make a meal of it with Tim's new three meat hat trick flatbread pizza

loaded with pepperoni, bacon, and sausage crumble. Pair it with our new garlic bread and a refreshing peach lemonade quencher for a meal that just hits. Order on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show and regular listeners of this show know that my very first day on radio hosting a show, I've never done anything like it before, was October 7th of last year

and I was told that I was supposed to tell fun stories about all the fun stuff to do in our city. And meanwhile, during the news breaks, the horror, the barbarism, the vile, disgusting nature of Hamas was laid bare in their crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. And as hard as that was to understand what ensued afterwards in the protests that erupted on college campuses

and the people taking over our streets with impunity and the pushback on simply standing up for the victims of October 7th is what really confused me. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Standing up for the victims of October 7th is what really confused me. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It didn't follow the script that I expected of standing up for our values, standing up for rape victims, standing up for democracy, standing up for the country that stands for LGBTQ rights.

None of it made sense. And now there is a documentary that attempts to do just that. Here is a little bit of the trailer for October 8th. The terrorist group Hamas has attacked Israel in the air, on the ground, and in the sea. in the air, on the ground, and in the sea. I am the king of the world!

Yeah, Horsford! The second I understood the depravity of what happened and the barbarism... They've kidnapped Israelis, including children. I thought that the entire globe would be in mourning. And not only was it silence, there was jubilation. Yeah! It was exhilarating, it was energizing. I wasn't seeing an ideological disagreement.

I was seeing hatred. Free power, Sasha! The hate started flooding in almost immediately. Students called it resistance, they called it justified, they began calling Zionist students racist. We are not! Standing up for being Jewish got me more hate than all the things that I have said on social media and on my podcast combined.

And I've said a lot. Yeah, so that is a listen to October 8th and I'm very pleased to be joined by the director of the film, Wendy Sax. Wendy, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm so glad that you have made this because, again, I think a lot of people after October 7th are like, okay, well, the allies that we've had in the past, the people we've

stood for and stood with to help defend them, they will have our backs. And that didn't come to pass in a lot of ways. So why did you want to make this movie? Listen, I think the abandonment is real, the hostility was real and that really drove me to make this film. I mean, we saw, you know, and the reason we call it October 8 is because it is about the aftermath. So what we saw on October 8 was the celebration of Hamas as freedom fighters rather than as terrorists in Times Square in New York City.

And then we saw what was happening on college campuses in the states and abroad here in Canada and in the UK and around the world with people celebrating the massacre. And it did feel like the world had lost its mind, right? And there was abandonment, as you're pointing out, from Hollywood to Capitol Hill in the United States to just leaders of governments. Where was everyone? Everyone who spoke out about the atrocities of Boko Haram, bring back our girls, right? Where are they now? And so, but when you, as a documentarian,

when you go into a project like this, I have to assume that you go in not necessarily knowing where the story's gonna take you. So what did you learn over the course of making the film that you didn't know at the beginning? SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine. That to me was the most revelatory piece of the film. SJP is an organization on college campuses

in the United States. And I didn't understand, I thought, and I think many people do, they think of it as any other student group, like Students for Climate Change, or Students for Reproductive Freedom, or LGBTQ plus rights. But no, they're actually an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and AMP, which is American Muslims for Palestine.

And they are connected to Hamas. So they're getting their messaging, they're getting their iconography, they're getting their messaging, they're getting their iconography, they're getting their marching orders actually traced back to Hamas. And that to me was really, it's sort of an eye-opening moment, there's this extraordinary scene in the film that I don't want to give the film away,

but there's this scene where you hear an FBI wiretap in a Marriott hotel room in Philadelphia from 1993 with Hamas leaders in America talking about how they're going to infiltrate media institutions in the US and universities. They were playing the long game. Yeah, but that's what I was gonna say. It struck me early on as like, and by the way, if you were, if you deigned to suggest

that there were connections to international bodies or nefarious organizations, you were tarred and feathered in the public square. And it's true, but it feels to me like the, they played the long game and they used our, you know, willingness to self-flagellate and look how progressive we are to their advantage. Absolutely.

They knew exactly what they were doing. Even in this wiretap, you hear they say, when we're talking to audiences on the left, we're going to speak in terms of apartheid. We're going to speak in terms of colonialism. And when we're speaking to people on the right, we're going to speak in language of patriotism and the founding fathers.

They knew exactly what their messaging was about. And of course, you have to believe that this has been the long game because you don't brainwash a college kid in one day. It doesn't happen on October 7th. That's years and years and years of building up useful idiots in academia. That's right. It's decades in the making. And it's also happening at the faculty level. It's happening in academia. It's happening in the social sciences, in the Middle East studies departments. So it's not just students. We're talking about faculty too. And you know, that I think was also very surprising to see how deep it goes. Also the foreign funding from Qatar, from Saudi Arabia. This has penetrated universities, not just in the States, but around the world. And they know exactly what they're doing.

They're sophisticated, they're savvy, and they're determined. And they were ready to go on October 8th. Talk to me about, now that the film is done and you're presenting it to the world, the battle isn't over. You were just telling me before we came on air that there is a battle just to get this film seen.

We were rejected from every major film festival, including Hot Docs here in Canada. We cannot get into a film festival. They'll probably tell you, oh, it's too political. That's right. We're always told it's too political. And let me be clear. We do not litigate the war in this film. It is not a political film. We unpack how we got to this moment where Hamas is being celebrated. But it is not a political film. But yet the resistance in Hollywood,

from agents to streamers to distributors, and to even getting on to screens here in Canada. We, you know, I'm excited that we're going to be on screens, but it has been difficult to get there. Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, if you tried to screen this at the University of Toronto, something tells me that just getting into the theater

would be difficult because of the protesters. Let me tell you, I mean, I don't know any other community that has to bring in metal detectors into screenings, but when we're screening in the United States, we've had several screenings at public movie theaters where because it's Jewish organizations, they have to hire security, they have to bring in metal detectors, because the chatter online and the chatter from the counterterrorism unit in New York City shows

that there's going to be protests. Well, I mean, the fact that you have to have the counter the counterterrorism group helping you out says a lot about how, you know, and anytime somebody says anti-Semitism, someone will say, well, now do Islamophobia. It's like, they are not the same. They are not the same. At least in this moment, they are not the same, and do not try to conflate the two,

because there are problems everywhere. This one is pervasive, this one is organized and orchestrated, this one is well-funded, the other is just like a bad person doing a bad thing. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right in the data support set. And we have FBI data statistics that actually show the levels of Islamophobia and hate towards

the Muslim community versus Jewish community. You know, there's no comparison and the data needs to speak for itself. But I do think that in terms of the culture and political correctness, I'm putting air quotes around that, it is always sort of an apples to apples. It's just not true.

It's just not true. And there's always this hedging that people in the press have to do, oh, I'm speaking specifically of Hamas. I'm not tarring all Muslims. But I think we're past that at this point. But regardless, I've been talking to Wendy Sacks. She is the director of October 8. When can people see it in theaters?

It's premiering here in Canada on Thursday. It's going to be in select theaters in Montreal and then throughout Canada the middle of April. Wendy Sacks, thank you so much. Best of luck to you. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the Chorus Radio Network, and you can listen online to the Radio Canada player and the 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. Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance to love your home with $15,000.

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