The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 2 - Bryan Passifiume, Steven Chase, Tom Parkin

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

Best of the Week Part 2 - Bryan Passifiume, Steven Chase, Tom Parkin Guests: Tom Parkin, Marcel Wieder, Adam Zivo, Bryan Passifiume, Steven Chase, Mohit Rajhans If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. Okay, flights on air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris. Those gardens. Gardens. Amsterdam. Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has carnival.

Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand. Lantern Festival. Boom. Book it. How did we get to Thailand from Prague? Oh, right.

Prague. Oh, boy. Choose from a world of destinations, if you can. Air Canada. Nice travels. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great discussions, including one of our spiciest political panels ever.

Enjoy. Hey, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Sorry, I started talking way too early there. But very excited for my midweek panel of This Week in Politics. Please welcome to the show Adam Zio from The National Post, Marcel Weider from Aurora Strategy Global, and Tom Parkin from Impact Strategies welcome to all three of you. Thanks so much. Okay so the news thus far and we're all

learning about it in real time is the conservative election platform has been unveiled it's costed pledging 75 billion dollars in tax cuts, referendums for future tax hikes, it looks like they want to cut the deficit by over 50% in four years, all while adding about $100 billion to the debt in four years, comparing that to Mr. Carney's $224 billion over four years. So there's a lot to sink our teeth into. And I think let's start with Tom Parkin.

Tom, high level, what do you think of this so far? There's a lot in here, Ben, that is completely unexplained about how these numbers get on these pages. And that's, you know, it adds up to the billions and billions of dollars. For example, there's 10 billion marked in as cuts to aid to hostile regimes and global bureaucracy. Which hostile regimes? Which are we talking about the UN, the WTO? Like it's not, there's no mention of any of that in the text to explain where this $10 billion comes from. There's $13 billion marked in as additional revenues

from getting houses built. It doesn't say anywhere where this revenue comes from, how many houses are we talking about? There's 13 billion marked in as revenue from eliminating capital gains. Again, there's just absolutely no detail, no modeling, no analytic, no discussion about why 13 billion?

Is it just nicer than 12, but not as apparently ambitious as 15. And I can go on and on. There's an EV mandate, which is supposed to be removed to save $11 billion. It's not even mentioned in the text. There's a tax cut, which they proposed for capital gains, people making capital gains on Canadian corporations that they've marked in at 6.1 billion in 20 this year, 6.6 billion next year. But then somehow it goes to zero in the years after. So I don't understand that. All right. All right. I have Tom, Tom, I want to bring Adam into this. Adam, you're an you're an evidence guy. You're, you know, you like to see the numbers. You're a best practices guy. You come from a different part of the political spectrum than Tom Parkin. Do you see things the same way as he does?

I do. And I think that if you're going to position yourself as the party of fiscal responsibility, you need to do your accounting better. Right. So this platform just came out. So none of us have had a chance to review it carefully. But I'm looking at a chart of their numbers right now. And I see, for example, they Expect to get a hundred million extra dollars every year by quote-unquote halting funding to drug downs aka cutting funding for supervised consumption sites and here's the thing I'm not a fan of these consumption slides But I don't believe that the federal government is giving 100 million dollars a year to them So this number seems to have come out of nowhere, right? On top of that, I think it's not great policy

to simply gamble on this idea that your spending will be paid for by economic growth going forward, right? So you can't just say, oh, our programs and our governance is gonna create economic growth that's gonna pay for the budget. No, you know what? Like you should really be more concrete

and that's not what I'm seeing budget. No, you know what? Like you should really be more concrete and that's not what I'm seeing here. Marcel, your thoughts. Oh, I was looking for any independent analysis as part of this proposed platform and didn't see any. It's just strictly conservative talking points that they've put together, cobbled together six days before an election. It would have been a lot better had they released it.

And fair criticism to all the parties. They should have done this before the advance polls were released so that Canadians could have a chance to review all the party platforms before they went in for the advance polls. The advance polls are closed now. Now we have to wait till the 28th to cast the vote. Yeah.

And that's a really interesting point as well. You know, Adam, we've been going through, we've had the Tories have been thinking about these things since Pierre became leader two years ago. Can you understand a logic that would have them releasing their platform this late in the game? I have no idea why it's so late. Can you understand a logic that would have them releasing their platform this late in the game? I have no idea why it's so late.

And I wish this had been released earlier. At the same time, what I will say is that the fact that they delayed this did allow them to add some last minute policies that I do like. And so like one that I really want to well, okay, for example, just a few days ago, the conservatives announced that they, if they were to be elected, they would take the $22 billion that Canada has seized from Russia

and give that to Ukraine to help fund the defense of Ukraine and the reconstruction of Ukraine, right? And that's something that no other country in the world has been so bold as to endorse. Obviously supporters of Ukraine said this would be a great idea, but many people are a bit more reticent. And I think I really like seeing that kind of pro-Ukrainian stance, but this is something that they only announced, I think on Saturday, right? So they, they really slipped that in at the last minute. Um, and, and I have

mixed feelings about the fact that they were able to do that. Cause on one hand, it's nice to see that on the platform. On the other hand, I don't think that things should be so ad hoc. Yeah. Tom, you know, we're all learning about this in real time, but is there anything at first blush that you like from this platform? Well, it does provide numbers and it does provide more detail than Mr. Carney's plan, which marked in twenty eight billion dollars in just completely unexplained cuts. I think my criticism of what he has done, he's really taken his years of three year,

three word slogans and put numbers beside them. But there's more of them. And Carney's thing is just kind of, it's really just one line. Tom, I'm going to come back to you in a second, but I want to bring Marcel into this. Marcel, when you hear that Tom says that there's actually less detail in the liberal platform than there is in Pierre's, what is your thought? Well, I think, you know, these are just general ideas that people, you know, to give a sense of where the Liberal Party is going in direction, and more of it will be spelled out, obviously, once government is formed and a proper budget will be tabled. So, it gives people an idea and a direction of where the Liberal Party sees its priorities

and puts some numbers to it. Listen, I agree that there should be some more details. I've always been an advocate for detailed, independent analysis of all the parties' budgets, not just the Liberals or the Conservatives, but every party should have a properly costed and analyzed budget budget proposal. Tom, am I wrong to sense that generally speaking, none of the major parties have done themselves the favor that they could have had they released,

I don't know, more fulsome, different policy or different platforms? Yeah, well, maybe then, maybe not. I think the conventional wisdom in politics right now is that you don't put out these things and you put them out in obfuscatory kind of ways, because they just become magnets for attack that people, you know, people, it's easy to go after a document, it's hard to go after, you know, warm and fuzzy words. Yeah. And, and, uh, you know, when I looked at, when I looked at the liberal platform, it

was very, the way the document was produced, it was very difficult to understand how it added up. Uh, and, and so I will give credit to Mr. Paulia for at least providing, you know, lists of revenues and lists of expenses. Although I very much complain about, you know, I think there's a lot of stuff in there is pure fiction. Adam, what would you say to the document based on your complaints if the follow-up

by the end of today, you had economists that come out and say, no, no, based on these projections, we do think that there could be X amount of economic development, economic growth spurred by this platform. I mean, that would be lovely to hear, but if that's something that could be produced within a day, then my question here is,

why didn't the conservatives find such an economist to add their credibility to this budget? Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's fair, that's fair. You know, I recall, you know, past liberal campaigns, Jean-Claude Cretzsche and Paul Martin, when they presented their platforms, they did have independent analysis of their spending platform.

So I'm somewhat disappointed in terms of the current Carney, especially since he's an economist, and should know better to have that done. But I understand the political aspect of it. Not for nothing. But the first promise in the liberal red book was axing the GST. I'm just saying, Marcel. I'm just saying, Colin. And they didn't say what they were gonna replace it with.

I'm just saying. GST they replaced it with. Yeah. But a liberal version of it. A liberal version, yes, written in red ink. Exactly. Gentlemen, we got a lot more to get to when we come back from the break, including

When in Doubt, Bring the Abortion Issue Out. That's next, right here on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show, and welcome back to Adam Zeebo, Marcel Weider, and Tom Parkin for our This Week in Politics mid-week panel. And it's that time in the campaign where the liberals tell us that the Tories are coming for your reproductive rights.

It says, it's as reliable as the tides. And, well, can we listen to it? Do we have the audio? No, we don't have the audio. But here's what Kate Harrison said. For those interested in facts as opposed to accusations on women's rights, check part 19 of the Conservative Party platform. A Conservative government would, quote, maintain the party the party's 21 year old policy to not support any Legislation to regulate abortion now this came after After mark Carney said it is not his feeling it is a fact that the Tories are coming for women's

Reproductive rights and during the break Marcel Weider told me he's got something to say about this Marcel over to you Marcel Weider told me he's got something to say about this. Marcel, over to you. Well, Ben, you know, he's already said that he's prepared to use the notwithstanding clause on certain things. On criminals! Which slippery slope, once you start there, you go out. But let's look at the facts. And the facts are that Pierre Poliev voted five times on the issue of reproductive rights, against reproductive rights. In 2023, Bill C 311.

In 2016, Bill C 225. In 2012, M 312. In 2010, C 510. Obama was against same-sex marriage, Marcel, until he wasn't. C 484. Obama was against same-sex marriage. Bill Clinton was against same-sex,

I mean, these people evolve. The party has a- Well, 2023 then? Oh my God. Adam, what do you think? First of all, this doesn't feel like a front runner campaign tactic to me. Well, so what I'm going to say is that, I mean, I have friends throughout the entire political spectrum and I know many different conservatives, including many conservative insiders, and no one in the party is interested in banning abortion, except maybe like a small section of social conservatives,

but they don't have a lot of influence. And so it's frustrating to me to see this disinformation spread that the conservatives are secretly conspiring to take away women's rights to choose, and I find this politically toxic, much in the same way how I'm annoyed when my conservative friends claim for example that Progressives want to turn Canada into a communist autocracy

Yeah, like this doesn't help the political discourse in Canada We should leave this kind of toxic behavior to our neighbors in the south. We need to be more mature than this Tom I have no like you're a smart guy who disagrees with Pierre Paul, you have the conservatives. I'm sure you got a list as long as my arm of real issues that you take issue with, with the conservatives. I don't know that we have to start making stuff up. Well, I, you know, I'm sure there are some backbenchers in the conservative party who, you know, are, don't want choice. And that that's they always give these little, they manage to give their little hints that Mr. Carney can pick up on. So this is, I believe it actually is a bit of a front-runner tactic because Mark Carney goes into this last week here, we're voting a week from

today, well the ballots are counted a week from today, he's got a large lead in the poll averages, plus the Conservatives have bad vote efficiency, but They actually have to run ahead. So at this point, he's pretty comfortable. If he just has to throw out a few chippy things to keep his opponent off balance and prevent him from gaining any traction, the death of the Pope was a blessing, can I say, for Mr. Carney, because it just, it was one more day of time slipping by on Pierre Poliev, where he's not making the gains. And this is just another thing to keep them unbalanced. So I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more chips like this over the next few days. But Marc, so what kind of campaign is this? It's a campaign of, the liberal

campaign to me is one that has been defined as stoking fear, creating chaos, saying be afraid of the guy south of the border, this is the greatest crisis we've ever encountered, forgetting we just came through a global pandemic. And now throwing, oh, and let's not forget Buttongate from last week, which was misinformation pulled right out of the dictionary,

and now you got this as well, like what? week which was which was misinformation pulled right out of the dictionary and now you got this as well. Oh Ben, please, please. What? The conservatives you know sent voters to the wrong polls in previous election. In fact a conservative was charged and tried on that and you know that was... Okay fine I'll take you I don't know that story I'll take you at your word. Let's talk about today he's a different kind of liberal We're a completely different government. We're told even though everyone is the same except for him I mean, I'm sorry. I I'm not seeing a difference except in the carnival barker at the top

He's definitely a different liberal and yes, we're facing an existential crisis from south of the border And so that's what this election is about. Who do you want to have Canada represent to deal with Donald Trump and the Republicans south of the border? I mean, look, him saying it's an existential threat to Adam Zivow and it being an existential threat are two different things. I mean, as far as I can see,

he's a guy, Donald Trump's a guy who likes to sow chaos and wants to renegotiate some deals. But to get there and scare... Honestly, he's scaring people on a daily basis either with fact, with massaged facts, or by making up facts. He's not. Hold on, I'm getting to Adam. Okay, sorry. Well, I mean, look, I think that Trump could pose an existential threat to Canada, but

not necessarily because he's malicious. I mean, he is malicious to a certain extent, but I think the danger lies in his sheer incompetence. He seems to genuinely believe that high levels of tariff are good economic policy, right? And so I think that he could crash our economy, not necessarily because he wants to annex us, but because he doesn't have the requisite knowledge to wield the vast amount of power that he currently holds I want to throw it a question that I didn't send you guys and I do apologize But as I as I'm watching the polls and the number of undecided voters dwindle I think we're down to like 6% which is the lowest it's been at this point in a

campaign. Tom, I want to throw it to you. You know, already we were talking about how hard it was going to be for the NDP prior to the the writ dropping to prosecute an entire election campaign where they don't have the funds or the ground game. It doesn't look like they're going to come out of this one much stronger. What's the future hold for the NDP as you see it? Well, it's it's it really much depends on what happens on when the ballot boxes are open and counted. The you know, what we've seen here is I think there's a lot of things that the NDP has talked about this campaign that are attractive to people.

But as we talked about in a panel, maybe three or four weeks ago, Ben, it really is, there is that territory, but it's the blue door, red door story that squeezes them to the margins. And that's what they've been able to, Carney has been able to do that. It's been much aided by the fact that people

who are center leftleft have a real visceral dislike of Mr. Poliak very, very strongly. So it becomes a big motivator. And it was a big, I think, strategic mistake way back for them to become so antagonistic to the NDP, so antagonistic to Jagmeet Singh, and to embark on this kind of three-letter phrases, kind of nasty, British and short politics. It just really rubs social Democrats the wrong way. And so a lot of them are. Number one priority isn't casting a vote for Jagmeet Singh in the NDP. The number one priority is making sure it's never that Pierre PaulPaul Yabbi in the prime minister's office. And if I have to vote for Mark Carney to do it, I will do it.

Yeah, Marcel, real quick, I wanna get Marcel, what happens to the center of the liberal party if the vote on the left comes up for grabs in a meaningful way and maybe in a permanent way? Well, we're gonna scoop up those votes. But then what happens to the center of your party? I think that there's enough room, it's a big tent party that will be able to encompass all points of view. Look, I'm what's

called a fiscal liberal. I'm a blue liberal and a progressive socially on things. And there's room for me and there's room for people who are on the left. And I think they can live together quite nicely. Adam, the last word is going to be to you, but if that's the action on the left, which is almost like the red tent stretches from the center all the way to the far left, what happens to the reaction on the right? Well, I'll be honest, I think that the right will end up

scooping up the center because we already had, you know, essentially a coalition government between the NDP and liberals for several years. And we saw up until very recently that the conservatives had a surge in support in the center. I think the past three months have been anomalous. And you know, they've been very much the product of Donald Trump messing everything up. But I think that going forward, if the liberals essentially formally absorb, you know, the NDP voters, that the conservatives could very much, you know, take the center as they did up until January.

Yeah. And then, but then you've got the wild card known as Wab Kanu. If he comes in, the entire dynamic on the left could change. And I am here for that. Adam Zivow, Marcel Weider, Tom Parkin. Thank you so very much. A really important panel on the eve of an election and I hope to talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

Cheers, Ben. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get Global National every day as a podcast. The biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news journalists. New episodes drop every day, so take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National podcast. You can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. There is a government report that is looking forward in time

to 2040 about what the state of Canadian society, Canadian economy will be and it is not good. Collapsed economy, people hunting for food, it is not good. There's a warning of a decline social mobility. We could revert to a society of land-borne aristocracy. And this is coming from the government itself. And the man who took that study and made it readable is Brian Passifium of the Toronto Sun. Brian, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning, how are you?

I'm great. So yeah, this is not fear-mongering from one side of the aisle Sun. Brian, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning. How are you? I'm great. So yeah, this is not this is not fear mongering from one side of the aisle or the other. This is the call is coming from inside the house. Exactly. You know, when I was reading this report yesterday, like the one thing that kept popping into my mind is like, no, like, who wrote this? Is this like, all of these people? Right. Is this the some sort of conservative fear-mongering? But no, this is coming right from the government. This was a foresight brief entitled Future Lives, Social Mobility in Question, and it's produced by Policy Horizons Canada, which is an internal government site, I guess, think tank for a better term that it's overseen by the Priview Council Office. So this is an internal government

document that is based on, I guess, the past decade of government policy. And when you read it, it's just bone chilling is what this predicts. And we'll dig into it in just a moment. But I saw a tweet about two minutes before coming to air where somebody said, look, this is, no one's suggesting that this is going to fully realize in the future, but one has to ask oneself, would something like this have been written 10 years ago? And the answer absolutely is no. And so we find ourselves today with somebody looking at reading the tea leaves and saying, look, this is, these are, these are the trends that we're seeing. Oh, absolutely. Like you said, this is a decade ago, people would just dismiss it as pointless fear mongering, you know, trying to, you know, do whatever, whatever. But

yeah, this is like, kind of the thing that also popped in my mind reading this report and writing the story was that, you know, this is kind of how things are already like it. Yeah, it talks about how, you know, like a dystopian future wealth and property ownership is entirely generational. And that really is the way things are today, you know, unless you have, you know, some sort of intergenerational wealth or, you know, parents with a couple of bucks willing to find some money for a down payment, like, you know, buying a house. No, no. Yeah, it's scary in that it already looks like it's coming true.

So, Brian, why don't you pull back the veil and let the listeners of the Ben Mulroney show know not what's being predicted, but what could be on the horizon? Yeah, it's, for example, post-secondary education. It's already becoming unaffordable now and even then just trying to find a place to live. And the report predicts that, you know, pursuing post-secondary education is no longer considered a reliable path to social mobility. You know, when I was in school, and I'm sure the same thing you went through too, you know,

guidance counselors are always telling you, university education is the way to go, university, but the way this report is predicting is that university is going to be a place where the elite can establish their place in society. You know, only the rich will be able to afford tuition and the housing that belongs with it. So, you know, post-secondary education will, you know, it won't be the key to social mobility the way it was. In fact, this report says that social mobility will be impossible. If you're born a serf, you'll die a serf, pretty much. One of the lines from your article, I think, is really quite chilling.

Societal classes will also become increasingly isolated, both in real life and online. Algorithmic dating apps filter by class. Gated metaverses, like real life, offer few opportunities to even meet people from different backgrounds. mass gated metaverses like real life offer few opportunities to even meet people from different backgrounds that That to me really does sound like something out of a dystopian film about the future And you're already seeing that now you're seeing people, you know into their in their respect of echo chambers when it comes to things like politics It's not like anybody who's you know deep into the conservative or the liberal echo chambers won't have you know? What anything to do with anybody outside of that.

So we're already seeing that kind of societal segregation and, you know, this report sees that just getting worse. Dating apps, you know, using AI to make sure that you only meet people at your social level. It's terrifying. And then, but it goes on to talk about the implications that would occur for the Canadian economy, and they're not good. No, no, it says that, you know, that, you know, the economy is basically going to collapse.

Or at the very least, people will lose confidence in the government, lose confidence in big business. They'll see both as kind of the, you know, the trigger that brought to this point. So people will be less likely to trust the relying governments and the reports particularly you'll see things like, you know, people stepping outside of government programs for assistance, people, you know, hunting wildlife for food, you know,

I don't know what a Canada goose tastes like, but you know, between that and your family starving, yeah, I'll go, I'll go. Well, I hope you get really good with a slingshot because every gun's going to be illegal. So good luck hunting for food out there. And we talk often these days about class warfare. But typically, class warfare exhibits itself

by way of tweeting at each other really in a nasty way. I would have to surmise that in a reality like this in 2014, where it's come to pass, that class warfare would take on very real, dangerous, and violent implications? Oh, exactly. They're predicting things like with the government and the economy collapsing, you're

going to see a lot more damaging activism from labor unions, work stoppages that damage, and labor action that damage economies, you know, we're already starting to see a little bit of that. You know, that, and probably the most interesting, or not interesting, but terrifying thing is that Canada is going to become a less attractive destination for migrants. Yeah. Workers and professionals, we're already seeing that now, will be fleeing Canada, and the people who are left will be stuck in this virtual serfdom

where social mobility is impossible and you are who you are. You're born a Dalit, you're done a Dalit. I mean, if this started 10 years ago and this study is looking forward 15 years, the fact that we could be talking about, and again, I'm not trying to fear monger, I'm just reading what the government put out there and I'm not even reading between the lines I'm

reading the words that they're putting on the page in 25 years Canada goes from having the most successful middle class on the planet to a failed state speaks to an in an aptitude of government the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen in a Western democracy. No it's eye-opening the fact this is coming from the government and they're based in this on government policy for the past 10 years. It's saying that, you know, the status quo stays the way it is. It's either going to turn into feudal Europe or maybe Mad Max or something.

Brian Pasifium, how the heck did the government allow this report to be published? Well, you know, these, you know, the public service is a vast and exciting place. People think that the public service is just people answering the phones and call CRA or people who process paperwork for, you know, when you apply for a passport. But you know, they have people in governments whose job it is to do this kind of thing, to look at the current government policy and portend from that. And this is the fact that, you know,

this isn't the first time that Policy Horizons has issued leak reports like this. And- Have you ever read a report like this before? No, I'm not, nothing this dire. No, huh? I think there's dire that comes from the government. Yeah, I can't believe that, again,

like if I had read this on the dark web, that would have made sense. Or if I had read it, if this was some sort of, some person's fan fiction of a movie they wanted to write, that would make sense. But the fact that using government data and government statistics, they are pushing forth 15 years and saying this is a version of Canada that could be

on the horizon. Yeah, this isn't a conspiracy. This is out of the preview council, man. Yeah. It's scary stuff. Yeah. So what are people supposed to do with a study like this? Well, these studies are meant to guide policymakers and future policy. Unfortunately, it seems that just reading the liberal policy, it seems that nobody in the whoever created this current liberal platform, which is we found out was made for Trudeau, but it's kind of, you know, been around for Carney. It seems that the policymakers makers aren't reading, aren't reading the warnings, they aren't reading the writing on the wall. And it's, you know, the scary thing is

that we're seeing a lot of what's in the support coming to fruition already. And if things don't change, yeah, who knows, in 40 years, we'll be deciding what wine cooler matches with Canada goose or whatever you're able to harvest for your food. Brian Pasifum, National Politics Reporter for the Toronto Sun. It's a heck of a story. It's a heck of a report. Yeah, this is who we are. This is where we are. I appreciate it and I hope talk to you again soon. Yeah, take care. It's been a really busy day already. We knew that Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives would be unveiling, finally unveiling, their costed platform and to discuss that. But more importantly we've got another story to talk to him about. We've got Stephen Chase

from the Globe and Mail joining us. Stephen, thank you so much for being here. Oh, glad to be here. Okay, so before we talk about the reason you are here, I want to talk about, because you wrote about this already. Give me in just a couple of minutes, your high level thoughts on this costed platform. Well, we're still assessing it because they just released it like an hour ago. It's an awful lot of spending cuts and an awful lot of tax cuts. So 75 billion tax cuts over four years for adding up the cumulative, you know, cuts over four years. We're adding up the cumulative, you know, cuts over four years. So 56 billion spending reductions over the same period.

34 billion new spending. They're not going to balance the budget in the first term. They're going to obviously, as they promised, get rid of the English language CBC. And they are promising to hike defense spending to 2% the 2% NATO guideline which is that every country must spend enough sufficient amount of defense to equal this or 2% of annual economic output. There are lots of tax cuts this is a far more tax cut heavy platform than the liberals, yet it also does not balance the budget. It also relies on growth. They're betting that they're gonna get $20 billion

over the next four years in economic growth, which is always a risky bet, but they've made that one. Well, I mean, it would be risky, risky given the fact we've had almost no growth in 10 years. So I think we've come to expect that. I kind of like someone who's a little bullish on the economy, but that's me editorializing. But now and thank you very much for that. And of course, I'm going to be discussing that in depth with my This Week in Politics panel on the other side of the break. But

in the meantime, the reason we wanted to have you on the show today is because you've taken a look at and you've asked the question, why does the Communist Party of China seem so focused on one particular conservative candidate in this election? Yeah. So there's a fellow running in the federal riding of Don Valley North, which is in Toronto, and his name is Joe Tay. He is a former Hong Kong actor. In fact, he emigrated here in 2020.

He is also a harsh critic of the Chinese government's crackdown on Hong Kong, the former British colony, where Beijing has basically destroyed civil rights and eliminated dissent and jailed opponents and jailed journalists and so on. It's completely remade that place from what it had promised. Yeah, well, I remember the promise. It was gonna be one China, two systems. That was their little mantra. Yeah, it was 2049, but they acted 20 years too early. So Mr. Tay moved here, started a new life,

but he still has a YouTube channel where he criticizes the Hong Kong, the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong. The Chinese don't like that. They issued a bounty on his head last December, which is very serious. And so then when he decided to run for the Conservative Party, lo and behold, all of a sudden on Chinese language social media, whether we're talking about WeChat or the Chinese Facebook or Red Note or any other of these apps, suddenly he's a public enemy number one. They have got someone, in this case the Canadian government has told us it's connected to the

Chinese Communist Party, is circulating wanted ad posters and disparaging Mr. Tay and basically what the government told us on Monday is that the Chinese government is making a big deal out of this trying to disparage him among Chinese speaking Canadians in hopes that they don't vote for him and of course that they vote for someone else and this is completely wrong this is completely deplorable so the government called it out yesterday in the hopes of making people aware of what's going on sort of naming and shaming. Yeah, but it's so it's so clear that it's happening. And you've

got government agencies and government groups that are pointing this out. But it doesn't feel like we can do anything except as you said, name and shame. Yeah, that's the problem. Because for instance, these Chinese apps like WeChat, which is owned by Tencent, they're in China and they don't give a damn what we say and they're not going to make any changes. They're harshly controlled apps.

I mean, even at one point, the emoji of a candle was banned when a famous Chinese dissident died a few years ago. So they are very good at controlling these things and they have no interest in helping us out so but their government has talked to the the Chinese companies that only red note and Do you do you is like the Chinese version of tik-tok? Yeah, and then and we but you know, no no sense that they're cooperating So their resort to naming and shaming and that's what they did yesterday and and they haven't confirmed it exactly But I also think they've given mr. Taste some extra security right now. Now, I don't know enough about enough, Stephen, but it would seem to me that if you were somebody with a Chinese extraction living in Canada,

that you may not be particularly enamored with the Chinese Communist Party. And so who exactly is being targeted? Like who's the target, where's the target rich environment for the Communist Party to go after in order to sway votes in this country? That's a great question. That's a great question. If you move to Canada to build a new life outside of the reach of the Communist Party,

you still have relatives back home, you may have business investments back home, they've still got you. They can still make life difficult for you. So what this is really saying is all you people out there who still need to go back to China, who still have relatives that are maybe business interests, Joe Tay is a troublemaker. Don't vote for a troublemaker. Troublemakers get in trouble, troublemakers get jailed, and so it's a troublemaker. Don't vote for a troublemaker. Troublemakers get in trouble. Troublemakers get jailed. And so it's a very clear message. They want to make them a pariah. Right. My goodness. This is a... And look, I don't want to make this about, you know, one politician or another, but you know, that entire writing has been a soap opera since that very first story that we heard about Paul Chang

volunteering to rendition this guy on bounty to back to China. And then the silence and the strange position that Mark Carney liberals took in keeping him. And because we never got fulsome answers as to why that happened, you know, people like myself were forced to ask some really uncomfortable questions that I really didn't want to answer or ask, but in the absence of answers, you know,

the questions lingered in the air. Yeah, and Mr. Tay is obviously fighting this. And I think we're only seeing the tip of it. He's also getting in other ways. I think we're only seeing the tip of it. He's also getting it in other ways. He's been a target of the Chinese government for years. This sort of thing is really insidious because it sends messages to people and nobody wants trouble. So people want to avoid trouble. They avoid trouble by not taking taking risks by not supporting somebody who's hated in China Yeah, they it's a it's a it's a there's a cascading series of consequences that flow from this

Are there other international bad actors who might be looking at the model of the Communist Party of China and saying okay? Well, if they can do it, you know, maybe we can do it with our our own cultural community And you know, it's interesting because during the foreign interference inquiry nobody comes close to China. Russia's attitude is not so much election specific. They just for instance their efforts to sow disinformation, misinformation are mostly to sort of destroy your will to care about anything. Yeah. I think that everybody's a bad actor and why bother. So the Iranians you know the Iranians would be another group that we'd be worried about but we don't see that kind of activity. Of course, let's be clear, we

also don't have big diasporas from these other communities that are quite as significant as the Chinese community. We've been blessed with a lot of Chinese immigrants over the years and so they are now, they have significant sizes and I would say about 16 or 17 writings. Yeah. It's hard to approximate that for other diasporas. And I gotta think if he does not succeed in winning his seat,

that could send quite a chilling message to anyone. Not because he's a conservative, that I'm keeping that out of it, but if somebody's being targeted by the Communist Party of China, and they lose their seat, I mean, if you're somebody who wants to follow in his footsteps in the future, you may think twice.

Stephen Chase, I wanna thank you so much. It's an important story. It's an important story, not for the partisan politics that we're currently fighting right now, but because of the health of our democracy. It's really important, I appreciate your reporting. Glad to be here. I always love talking with Mohit Rajans.

He's up next because I read these stories and they immediately elicit questions in me and more often than not, he's got the answers. Mohit, welcome to the show. Well, that's a great way to introduce me. Thank you so much, Ben. Well, but yeah. Nice to be here. Well, look, because this first story I wanna talk about

is how a student started an AI website that matches flatmates. It's essentially a dating app for people who want to share apartments. And I'm trying to figure out what AI can do here that you couldn't do before by filling out, you know, like answering like 50 questions about who you are and what you're looking for. Like it's a matchmaking thing,

right? So what can AI do that we couldn't do before? I think what's happened with this program, but the story is really coming out of the UK, it's about matching flatmates and watching a couple of different kids and cousins, etc. go through the process of having to find a roommate or finding a place when they're taking a new job, etc. Hearing about the story made me realize, oh, this is the phase of the world we're in now

where a generation is going to look at an AI solution for a modern day problem and eliminate exactly what you said, that middle area of 50 questions in order to be vetted properly, etc. And I think it's just genius now because we're starting to see people just solving for problems. Remember when people started originally creating websites for every business problem? And then eventually you realize not everybody needs a website. Right. With AI, I think what's happening here with a program like this is it's really empowering people to tackle smaller problems that could have real world implications.

Sure. But what data set has this AI been trained on? It doesn't know who I am, it doesn't know what I like, it doesn't know anything about me. So how is AI helping solve a problem here? I think the two things that it does automatically is it lets you connect with whatever social you're already out there with. So let's say you've got a verification through Snapchat or another social media platform, it automatically shows that you are who you are. And then the second part of it is geographically, there's not many people who necessarily want to point out that they're looking for certain things or leaving certain places, et cetera.

So there is an element of privacy that you can attach to be able to looking for a new place. What I know it's not yet is perfect. Right, okay. But what it opens up is this idea that people and students from around the world have the same dilemma at different times of year. How do you vet, find and actually move along the process

of finding a flatmate, or in this case a roommate, in our case sometimes. And I think it's a great example of how people are taking some of the power into their own hands. And then we always say AI will never be as bad or as poor as it is today. In other words, it's only getting better. And then I read this next story. Yeah, that's the other thing I was worried about, Ben, was what if your flatmate is virtual all of a sudden?

And you're just like, well, wait a minute, this isn't how it works. Mohit, this next story is the one that really causes concern for a lot of people. I read that China will integrate AI applications into teaching efforts, textbooks, and the school curriculum as it moves to overhaul education. When I hear that, I hear they are about to make

some tectonic shifts in education. And if China gets behind the AI revolution and helps drive it, then yet again, we will be playing catch up as we take these half measures and try little things as opposed to taking the bold steps that AI should allow us to take. You're right on the money there. We're about to see an overhaul that's expected

to influence the entire global education sector because China is going to put themselves at the forefront of education reform. They're going to empower all their students and teachers, et cetera, to broaden more of their worldview as a result. Well, I shouldn't say worldview. Their ability to compete on the

world stage in order to give by giving kids AI early in their education system. Now you and I understand that there are still many implications of that. But I think what it's alluding to is that, you know, when China lets the world know that they're doing this and lets the world know that they're hoping to influence the global sector by showing, there is reason to worry. Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, because if they, with the amount of people they have,

and once they go out into the world having gleaned all that AI information from their school system, yeah, we're just gonna be playing catch up. Okay, again, we're back, we're back to Google. Now we're back to the North America. And they're facing this trial for because of their search monopoly. And we talked about this a little bit last week that it just seems to me seems a little odd that people will be coming after Google, especially because

we keep hearing these stories that bit by bit, it's gonna be death by 1000 cuts, but they don't have the they don't have the monopoly that we that they once had on search given the fact that people get their news from tik tok and they're using chat GPT more than ever. Is it really the problem it was five years ago? Ah, let's see. And that's the thing. What's being unpacked right now is five years ago, the dominance was real, right? And so when you go back and you unpack how they got there, you start to realize, oh, was this a little bit

of a crime story happening right in front of us where these deals were being made with various different companies to be the default search engine, where they were able to ride out a double-sided market where they could both be the supplier and the company that creates demand. There's so many layers than just the search side. You know what I mean? It's sort of like once we get the once we eat the pie, we don't care about the recipe. If it's good, it's good. If it's bad, it's bad. And unfortunately, what we're seeing right now, well, I wouldn't say unfortunately, what we're seeing is a

deconstruction happening of the way Google got to be as big as it got. And the question now will be, will it be preventative of any other company being able to do it again in the future? Or will America understand that there's a model there that they should be trying to create more of? And that unfortunately is another possibility of the situation as well. What could happen? I mean, could Google be forced to sell off what Chrome or the search engine itself? I mean, how big are the implications here?

I think what I think the two things that I will probably see right away is a deconstruction of their exclusivity in any relationship. So they probably won't be allowed to be the default search engine in certain cases in the way that they've been able to broker that deal. On the second part, yes, what you just referred to is that where is most of the data coming from? Where is most of the tracking coming from? Where is most of their pipeline and therefore revenue coming from?

It is things like the Chrome extension. They might be asked to, but on the other side, we both follow the European Union as well. And the European Union is throwing so many fines at them that they might be better off deconstructing themselves in certain parts of the world. So it would be interesting to follow. And lastly, we're going to move over to Metta from Google to Metta. Instagram is trying to use AI to determine if teens are pretending to be adults. What's going on, Mohit? You know, it's interesting because my, my teen, my new to the teen market teen, uh, told me that he

was kicked off of a couple of different social media apps recently because he became of age. So he was on the app prior to being of age. And I think what's happening now is Instagram is starting to say that, Oh, we're going to use our sophisticated resources to detect any kid that's possibly lying about their age. Now, let's be honest, using AI and any kids, likeness, pictures, etc, etc, is going to be problematic for any parent. Yeah. So even though a parent might read something and say, Oh, I think our kids are safer now on Instagram or something, be warned that any time a company releases

an AI-driven system where they say that they're going to help secure and keep you secure, there's probably some sacrifice on your end. Well, also, it feels like at least a year, maybe even more than that, that they've been telling us that they want us to opt in so that they can use our data to train their AI. So maybe they should turn that AI on themselves

and use it for good, because there are a lot of parents out there that are, yeah, and when we hear all these companies saying that they are gonna do right by parents and they're gonna put these safety protocols in place, the rubber's gotta meet the road at some point. Well, and also, let's be honest, I don't know, I can't track in all of Meta's platforms

what the rules actually are. For instance, can you be on their VR set if you're under 13 years old? Can you be on WhatsApp? Yeah, you know, can you be on any of their platforms? So I think that, you know, there are parent managed accounts, and it will be interesting to see if that becomes a solution for them. Hey, Mohit Rajan's Mediologist and Consultant with thinkstart.ca. Thank you so

much. It's great to talk to you again. And we'll talk to you real soon. Take care, bud. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We Thank you so much. It's great to talk to you again. And we'll talk to you real soon. Take care, bud. 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 I Heart Radio Canada apps. And make sure to follow and subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your streaming audio. We release new podcasts every day. Thanks for

listening. you get your streaming audio. We release new podcasts every day. Thanks for listening. There's no limit to how far criminals will go to cover their tracks, but investigators will go even further to uncover the truth. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for Global News. This season on Crime Beat, I'll take you from the crime scene to the courtroom and inside some of Canada's most high-profile cases and some You've likely never heard of before. Search for and listen to Crime Beat on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.