The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 2 - Scott Jennings, Candice Bergen, Robyn Urback

Episode Date: April 5, 2025

Best of the Week Part 2 - Scott Jennings, Candice Bergen, Robyn Urback Guests: Scott Jennings, Candice Bergen, Robyn Urback, Brad Lavigne, Andy Gibbons, 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

My parents have had a lot of time on their hands lately. At first, it was nice. Hey mom, can you drive me to soccer practice? Sure can. We're having slow cooked ribs for dinner. It was awesome. And then it became a lot. Some friends are coming over to watch a movie. Oh, what are we watching? I'll make some popcorn. Thanks to Voila, they can order all our fresh favorites from Sobeez, Farmboy, and Longos online, which is super reliable. And now my parents are reliable. A little too reliable." Voila! Your groceries delivered, just like that.

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 4 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's Dying for Sex, now streaming only on Disney+.

Sign up now at Disneyplus.com. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great discussions this week, including a chat with Scott Jennings about America's perspective on the tariff war. Plus Candace Bergen joins us to talk about the double standard for conservative women in politics. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right. Our next guest, in my opinion, represents the best decision that CNN has made since bringing James Earl Jones is booming voice back

when he says this is CNN. Please welcome to the show for the first time and hopefully not the last, Scott Jennings, political pundit on CNN and partner at Run Switch PR. Scott, great to have you. Well, thanks for that intro. You're saying CNN went from one Darth Vader to another. I'm here for it.

I also hear that you and I have had sort of reverse careers. I started in TV and pivoted to radio and you did the opposite. Yeah, that's right. Early in my life, I was radio guy back in Kentucky and enjoyed every minute of that. It's a great medium and I'm glad to be on with you today. Well, I wanna talk to you. It's really great to talk to somebody

who has their finger on the pulse of what's going on south of the border, because look, there are a lot of Canadians who when they saw Donald Trump win his second term, they said, you know what, good on him. He's got his mandate. And after the past four years that they saw as disjointed and overly woke, they thought good on him.

He's got a mandate to do what he needs to do. And hopefully a little bit of that might come to Canada. And then we find out that we are enemy number one. And he starts talking about how we are gonna be the focus of tariffs and trade wars. And we're trying to make sense of it up here. What is your sense of what the people of America feel about this denigration of a historical ally

of the United States? Well, I think a couple of things are true. Number one, I think the ally of the United States? Well, I think a couple of things are true. Number one, I think the people of the United States love Canada, and I don't think that's going to change. Number two, I think Donald Trump does not love, did not love Justin Trudeau, nor did he love the sort of lurch to the cultural left that Trudeau represented. And so, you know, and I think that impacted his thinking about how to deal with Canada.

Now, obviously you're having elections there and new leadership is coming in. My hope would be that we can have a resetting of the relationship between whoever wins the election in Canada and the president of the United States. I think that'd be positive for both countries. But some of this to me goes right back to Trudeau. Yeah. And Trump, you know, Trump is kind of a bulwark against a lot of people on the left who I think, frankly, as a conservative, I consider to be kind of an enemy of Western

civilization in some ways. And that's a big part of what was driving his election last year. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but you know But this is a scenario that's not going to be good for anybody. I mean, we see it every day. Every time a little bit more chaos is sown, the Dow Jones drops. And it used to be a barometer for the president. He said, look at the stock market.

That's how good the economy is doing. And now it's telling him that they don't really like these unknowns. He didn't get elected. He didn't run on tariffs. He didn't get elected on tariffs. And, you know, in your home state, where both your governor and senator have spoken out, Kentucky specifically is going to suffer because of these due to how much alcohol we buy. I have

to wonder if this is going to put pressure on his popularity, his ability to hold the houses in the midterms and therefore his agenda moving forward. I disagree a little bit that he didn't run on it. Trump has been very transparent about how he feels about tariffs. In fact, even before he got into politics, he spent 30 years in interviews talking about how he thought tariffs were a good idea. It is absolutely true. So I still think there's been any hiding of the ball on it. It is true that what he's going to announce tomorrow is well beyond what he did in the first term. And this is full implementation of his vision of a period of time in US history, the McKinley era, dating back from the 1890s up to about 1932. He believes the tariff regime of that era made the country rich. Now, there are economists that disagree. There are people that agree.

We're going to see it play out because I don't think there's anything stopping him. On the Kentucky piece, you're right. The governor of Kentucky and both senators actually have spoken out against tariffs. And to be fair, a lot of Republicans are very nervous about this because the party has been a free trade party for many decades. And now it's going to be a party that's built on tariffs again. And there are nervous Republicans, but I'm just telling you, he believes in it. I doubt he's going to be talked out of it. I do think there are negotiations to be had between countries after this is implemented and we'll see what other countries do in, you know, in relation to this, I saw this morning Israel is going to try to reduce or eliminate tariffs

that they've had on the United States as an example. So we'll have to see how it plays out. But you're right, the markets have been a little roiled by it, but I don't think he's going to be deterred because I think it's such a long held principle that he has. What do you make, how do you decide what stories you're gonna follow and how much you're gonna discount coming out of the administration?

Steve Bannon has referred to it as flooding the zone. Others have said there's the signal versus the administration. You know, Steve Bannon has referred to it as flooding the zone. Others have said there's the signal versus the noise. And when you hear about Donald Trump musing about a potential third term, sometimes it sounds like it's a joke. Other times it's not. And I got to wonder, is that something that anybody should be taking seriously? I don't take it seriously because the U.S. Constitution is quite clear about it. Two terms for presidents and the 12th amendment makes it clear that you also cannot serve as vice president if you are ineligible to serve as president. So I actually don't take it very seriously.

And I heard Trump comment on it yesterday and it sounded to me like he was downplaying it somewhat. So I signal a noise that I hear a Canadian, Kevin O'Leary, we're on TV together sometimes. He says that a lot. And I think there's a lot of truth in that. I try to pay attention to the things that are actionable today, the actual policy decisions that are being implemented.

And I try not to get too hyperventil, hyperventilative about about some of the stuff that seems a little more farfetched fever swamp kind of stuff to me. If you're just joining me, I'm in conversation with Scott Jennings, and I'm trying to get the lay of the land south of the border. And look, one thing that Donald Trump did campaign on, and a person he campaigned with,

was Elon Musk and cutting government waste by way of the department, or Do Doe's rather. And yet, despite that promise and getting a mandate, there is a type of American who has decided that their outrage trumps his responsibility. And there is a lot of blowback on Elon Musk on Tesla's. Tesla's everywhere are unsafe right now. What do you make of this? Tesla's everywhere are unsafe right now. What do you make of this? Well first of all, all the Trump derangement syndrome of the first term has migrated to Elon derangement syndrome.

I've never seen anything like it. I mean, here's a private citizen who does a lot of things for our country in terms of entrepreneurship, innovation. I mean, just rescued our astronauts for goodness sakes. Yeah. And the American left has lost its mind over Elon Musk all because he committed the unforgivable sin. He supported a Republican for president. You know, he used to be beloved on the left. Now you have these people losing their minds over. I think it's frankly,

domestic terrorism. I agreed with that label when Donald Trump put it on there. I think it's true. I mean, it's more than just vandalism of individual cars. You've had dealerships fire bombed and, and, uh, Elon, I know for a fact gets a lot of death threats every single day. I, I like Elon Musk. I think the Doge effort is long overdue. I think Republicans have been desperate for someone to come along. Didn't, didn't Obama suggest something very similar a few years ago? I mean, that video is all over my social media feed.

He said he echoed this years ago. He did. And you know, the truth is all over my social media feed. He said he echoed this years ago. He did. And you know, the truth is a lot of politicians in Washington have echoed or given lip service to this over the years, Republicans and Democrats. And now Trump and Musk have finally decided to do something about it. And you know, back home in Kentucky, we say a hit dog hollers and in Washington, and in Washington, that's what's happening. There's a constituency for everything. There's always a reason not to do things, but in this case, we're almost $40

trillion in debt. The fiscal health of the country is important. And, you know, just since 2019 in the last five years, I mean, the government has gone from spending four and a half trillion to almost $7 trillion a year. Tens of thousands of employees added to the government. It is expensive to operate. It is huge. And that's just in the last five years. And all Republicans are asking is, does it have to be this big? Does it have to be this expensive? And I think Musk is saying, no, it doesn't have to be. It can be more efficient. Lastly, and I only have about 35 seconds left, so I'm going to ask you to

give me a quick sound bite. Greenland, what do you think the prospect of the United States taking control of Greenland actually is? I don't know, I love the idea of acquiring it. It's a long-held Republican idea dating back to Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, who wanted to buy it in 1861. And so I thought it was a great idea in the first term.

I think it would be great to have. I thought it was a great idea in the first term. I think it would be great to have. I don't know what the prospects are, but I've been broadly supportive of Trump's views on this and on the Panama Canal, frankly, because I do think that's a serious national security threat that the Chinese pose on the canal. Scott Jennings, can't thank you enough for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us on the Ben Mulroney Show. Hope to do it again soon. Thank you very much. Wow, what a great chat. I do, I really do hope we get to talk to Scott again.

Just trying to understand what makes that man tick, I think is really important. The more you know the guy opposite you on the, across the table, the better you are. One rule for me, one rule for thee. It's a, it's a hard and fast rule in politics. Do do as I say not as I do. But it has been laid bare by our next guest in an article called the double standard how conservative women are vilified for leading and joining us to

discuss this and many more topics. I'm pleased to have the former leader of the Conservative Party and MP Candice Bergen in for a chat Candice, thanks so much for joining us again on the Ben Mulroney Show. Hi Ben, thanks for having me. Okay, so lay it out for me. Where do you see the double standard? Well, you know, I noticed it,

I've noticed it many times over the years. And you know, I think like many conservative women, we're just like, we're used to it. If a liberal woman does something, it's incredible. You know, it's leadership, it's strong, it's success, it's breaking down glass ceilings. And if a conservative woman does it, it's just kind of, oh, whatever, you know, she's an extreme conservative. You know, ask Leslyn Lewis, the first black woman who ran for leadership of a major conservative party, our major federal party.

So yeah, I've seen it before, but Ben, where it really has hit me, and I've seen it so clearly, is the way the left has been treating Danielle Smith. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're right. She went down to Mar-a-Lago, she went to talk to the president, and she was tarred and feathered as a traitor.

But the second that Mark Carney does it, oh, it's a very productive meeting. Exactly. And I'm even seeing some argue, well, she shouldn't because she's just a premier. Whereas Mark Carney, well, Doug Ford has been doing a lot of good work for his province. Yeah. Nobody's criticizing him. And you know, he's doing what he believes is right for his province. It's only conservative women. And frankly, I think some of them are a bit jealous of what Danielle has been able to accomplish, frankly. Yeah. Well, and yeah, but also let's not forget that the reason she had to do that was because

there was a vacuum of power of leadership at the top and every premier had to do what they could to fill that vacuum. Nobody was doing anything in Ottawa. So the premiers had to pick up the torch and do it themselves. And she accomplished something. You know, when that first round of announcements when Trump was imposing 25% tariffs on everything, he said, I'm going to carve out oil and gas. It'll only be 10%.

Yeah. Well, that was because she did what, frankly, I think a lot of, you know, not just conservative women, but I think women, we we tend to know how to kind of navigate difficult relationships. We, we have to deal with them, whether we're moms or, you know, whatever our role is, we have to navigate difficult relationships and have strong EQ. Yeah. And, and I think Danielle really showed that, which I thought should be, you know, whether you don't want to, maybe you don't want to celebrate it. Maybe you don't want to praise her for it. But you certainly don't call her a traitor and say she's betraying her country when she's doing the exact opposite. Oh, Candace, the same people who told us that we that we that we have no core beliefs and no

values as a nation, the same people who want to cancel big swaths of our history are now picking up the flag wrapping themselves in it and deciding who is a patriot and who isn't. It's, it is so rich that I can barely stomach it. But you know, we can broaden this conversation out about the double standard, not just about women in politics, but about the subject of women. You know, yesterday, Pierre Poliev was talking about he want to stand up for, you know, couples whose biological clock is ticking and it's good. And it's going to run out before they're able to afford a home. He wants to stand up for those couples. And that's been weaponized against him. Now people are claiming that he's talking about women instead of couples. But there where

was where was the where was the attack on Mark Miller when he said that we need to normalize talking about women's menstruation? Yeah, that was Mark Holland. Oh, Mark Holland. Yeah, it was Mark Holland who did. And I mean, listen, a biological clock that women have is a fact.

And maybe some men don't wanna talk about it. Maybe they don't wanna admit it. Maybe they don't wanna think about it. Maybe they don't want to think about it. But the fact is there was only a certain amount of time that we as women can bear children. And the older we get, the harder it is for us to become pregnant. That's just a biological fact.

And couples usually, it's couples who are dealing with that. Sometimes women are single and they want to have kids. And for different reasons, they aren't able to and they really regret it and they're very sad about it. It's actually heartbreaking for women. I went through some secondary infertility problems when I was a younger woman. It's heartbreaking every single month when you can't get pregnant. But it's another thing if you are able to and you want to, but then you can't because you can can't afford it. And you aren't able to pay the bills. And you know, if you have a child, you won't be able to get that house.

That's what Pierre was talking about. And it's a reality that a lot of women and couples are going through. And frankly, I think we need to be talking about the real issues that women are dealing with. And many times the liberals think they own women's issues. And you know, actually the things that we're dealing with and our young women are dealing with right now, we don't want to talk about. So I thought it was very refreshing that Pierre had the courage to talk about the real

things that women are dealing with. Well, one of the issues specific to women that they are dealing with, that this Liberal government is going to have to own, whether they like it or not, is the subject of my conversation in the next segment, because a group of survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence have announced that they're launching a landmark charter lawsuit against the government of Canada, alleging systematic failures by the feds,

particularly since the Supreme Court case in 2016, that has caused severe injustice and left dangerous offenders on the streets. So like you can't, you can't have it both ways. You're either you're either a feminist or you're creating conditions for for women who've already been victimized to be re-victimized. Yeah, and we we've seen what the liberals did. It was I think about a year ago when a victim of domestic violence

tried to testify at committee. And the liberals shamed her and shut it down. And listen, there are a lot of liberals who truly are, they believe in women's equality. And I don't put every liberal in the same category, but there are a lot of what I called fake feminists. Frankly, I believe Justin Trudeau was a fake feminist. I see

now Mark Carney with the same disdain towards some women reporters. We saw when he called out Rosemary Barton and said, Rosemary, look inside yourself. It's such a patronizing, can imagine a conservative man or any man other than Mark Carney saying that to a woman. So there is a sense of, again, it's back to the old virtue signaling. They say they believe in women's rights and standing up for women, but when it comes to the action, they fail miserably. So I just, I see Carney and Trudeau the same

in terms of their so-called feminism. And for the liberals right now to be, and I do just wanna to get back to this because I think Danielle Smith is somebody that will go down in history as somebody who has not only stood up for her province, but there was nobody there a month and a half ago. Danielle Smith was the only one

who was making concrete effort to get something for Canada. Donald Trump, you have to think about these things around Canada and our oil and gas and what you're doing to our province and our country. That was only Danielle Smith that was doing it. She wasn't just going down to that lowest common denominator you know we hate to hate the Americans, we hate orange face. She would say no we actually need to get something done. Yeah and I just see that as such strong leadership and solid leadership. Well, the article is entitled,

The Double Standard, How Conservative Women Are Villified for Leading. Candice Bergen, in our remaining time, I want you to put your former leader hat on and talk to me about sort of the perplexing behavior of Mark Carney for standing by his candidate who said deplorable things about essentially renditioning an opponent to China

for a bounty where he most certainly would have been executed. Standing by someone like that when every single rational person on both sides of the political spectrum would have told him that was a bad idea. Well, initially I would have thought, oh, poor political judgment, somebody's was a bad idea. Well, initially, I would have thought, oh, poor political judgments. Somebody's giving him bad advice.

However, I think he does have some pretty strategic shrewd people around him. So there's something deeper here. And I think it does go to his affiliation. And just like the man before him, Justin Trudeau and the party around him, they have a deep relationship with the Chinese communist regime. And there is some reason and you know, part of it in the case of Mark Carney has to do with his financial interests, of which we don't know all of them. There are some ties there that they feel beholden. That's the only thing I can see. There's no reason they wouldn't just

dump a bad candidate or somebody who made a mistake or did something wrong. Exactly, Candice. Like there are already a lot of questions that he needed to answer. And this decision is so perplexing. It only amps up the need, the responsibility of him to answer those questions.

I suspect we will not be getting them because he is a yeah, he's a candidate they they protect like a fine piece of China on moving day. Candice, thanks so much. Thanks, Dan. This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker with audio erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions.

And that's not all. New Galaxy AI features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. This is a Reese's Peanut Butter Cub sound experiment. We're looking to find the perfect way to hear Reese's so you'll buy more of them. Here we go. Reese's. Reese's.

Reese's. Reese's. Reese's. Hey, get out of here, you little stinker. Reese's. Reese's. Reese's. Peanut Butter Cub. Reese's. Reese's. Get out of here, you little stinker! Reeses! Reeses! Reeses! Peanut butter cups!

That breathy one sounded very creepy, am I right? Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show, and mark your calendars. In exactly 24 hours, I'm going to be sitting down at this very radio station across from Mark Carney for two... of course it's not Mark Carney. He wouldn't sit for an interview. That's never going to happen. I'm going to talk to somebody who isn't afraid of taking questions. Pierre Poliev, the leader of the Conservative Party, will be joining me for two segments

where we are going to have a wide ranging conversation and I'm going to do something that journalists, I'm not a journalist, but journalists would love to do with Mark Carney, ask some follow-up questions. I'm doing that with Pierre Poliev at this time tomorrow. So tune in. Now, in the meantime, right now I'm being joined by our midweek panel

for this week in politics. So please welcome to the show, Andy Gibbons, former vice president of WestJet, as well as a consultant. I've got Brad Levine, president of Council PA and NDP strategist and Robin Urbach, current affairs columnist with the Globe and Mail to all three of you. I say hello. Hi guys.

Hello. Hey. Morning, Ben. Andy, you are new to the show, so I'm going to start with you. We've got the story of Paul Chang withdrawing from the race after suggesting people in China could claim a bounty on his head. What is your thought on why Mark Carney would do something like that?

Well, the surprising thing is not the resignation. The surprising thing is that Mark Carney stood by him pretty strongly yesterday. I don't know if your viewers watched it but he said he had confidence in the candidate and he said that he was going to continue as a liberal candidate so they would have calculated all of these things then and they had chosen to stick with him and then at midnight they realized that that was not going to work. Well you know earlier

today Andy earlier today reporters grilled Mark Carney for failing to remove Paul Chang as a liberal candidate, noting that the conservatives ditched a candidate with an hour after learning he previously joked about Trudeau deserving the death penalty. Let's listen. It appears the involvement of the RCMP forced candidate Paul Chang to bow out of the race. Meanwhile, the conservatives just removed their problematic candidate in Windsor within an hour of learning of issues of this individual. Why didn't you do the same with Chang? And was this a teachable moment for you? Mr. Chang made his resignation, offered his resignation last

night. I accepted it. As I yesterday his uh... comments were uh... deeply uh... deeply troubling uh... and uh... and and regrettable we will move on with uh... looking for a new candidate uh... for mark elitism uh... robin does it blow your mind that he had he had no good answer to that question?

And does it suggest that there's more there there? I don't know. Well, first of all, I love that the reporter through that teachable moment in his face, I thought that was a cute little thing. I don't know. I mean, this was a really hard one to understand, because anyone who has been in politics, covered politics been around political campaigns would have looked at this situation and thought, okay, well, this was a no-brainer. Let's just boot the guy, kill the story, move on. And yet, Carney stuck to his guns over the weekend and on

Monday, as you say, there were only two things that sort of came to mind in terms of like, what could possibly be going through his head. And one was that, okay, Wednesday, tomorrow is going to be so-called Liberation Day. And Kearney thought that that's going to eclipse this Paul Chang story and we just need to write it out. And the other, I mean, I'm trying to jump into his head because frankly, it's so strange. The only other thing that I could think of is that Kearney fundamentally is a business guy, right? And he looks at economics, he looks at trade. And when you bring something to him that involves China, I would think his first thought as well, that's Canada's

second largest trading partner. And perhaps, and again, I'm speculating, he thought that it would be damaging to the Canada-China relationship to give Paul Chang the boot. So we decided, okay, let's just stick by him, hopefully ride it out until Wednesday and the story will go away. I think it blew up more than he anticipated, which is why I, again, I'm assuming that that team Kearney gave chain the message that okay, you need to quietly sort of walk away from this. Is there more there? I don't know. I think that the liberals are going to do as much as possible to just kind of change the channel. And I think actually getting rid of him effectively does that. But Brad, you can't unring that bell. I think so many of us are sitting here perplexed

at the boneheaded decision that he made. His brand is built on him being the thoughtful guy, the guy that you can trust in really difficult situations. And this was a difficult situation that he made worse. So what does, I don't believe that, that, I mean, yes, he can come back from it, obviously, but the answers to the questions thus far have been insufficient. Listen, new leader, and you know, I know how difficult it is on a federal campaign that you, when you got a candidate leader, it's easier to do it now than it is on a federal campaign that you when you got a can of leader, it's easier to do it now than it is after the deadline for candidate nominations. So he had a lot of runway. I think

what he was doing is and his advisors were probably testing to see whether or not this met the bar. When you start, you know, canceling your candidates, it sends off a frenzy. And now I know both the conservative and NDP war rooms are looking for the next because you lose a day. But here's where the threshold that we learned yesterday was. So Carney comes out, defends him Sunday, Monday morning. You know, four letters, RCMP. The minute that this goes to the RCMP, this takes it to a new level that can't just let politics and maybe the cycle on the tariffs tomorrow wait it out. You know he had a choice to make but you know on the bright side as a practitioner you got to do this early

and it's 24 hours so we will like he will move on. Had he waited a number of more days maybe the RCMP maybe didn't have an investigation and he waited more, that would have been worse. So I think for the bright side on Carney, at least he only lost maybe 24 to 48 hours in this campaign on Mr. Cheng. Andy, how long is the line, you know, he's learning, he's learning on the job, he's new to this. How long is that going to work for? Because at some point, you then have to ask the question, well, what happens if you're learning on the job when you have to

deal with Donald Trump? Like at what point does I'm the new guy, I've got to find my sea legs, stop working? Well, it's been working so far. And I think that's why they stood by Chang yesterday. And this is sort of a moment for him. If you remember, then his trip to Alberta, he came out for the cap. His minister said they were sorry, his minister said they were keeping the cap. He said he wasn't for the cap. And they had some confusing days. And they've had some stumbles. They haven't been scrutinized the way this one has. And this one has really taken off. But this isn't their first stumble.

He is a rookie on the trail. And there will be more of them. And if you're a conservative, you want a hell of a lot more of it. Yeah, yeah. But this is not their first stumble, it's the first highly scrutinized stumble. All right, well, let's turn to tomorrow and Liberation Day as Donald Trump calls it. He says, the White House says no exemptions on tariffs

as we brace for this new wave of tariffs. I'm gonna give each one of you about 30 seconds to respond. But in my opinion, Robin, we'll start with you. This is just a win-win for Carney. If the tariffs come on, he gets the enemy he always wanted to campaign against. And if they come off, he gets credited. And it feels like he's going to win no matter what happens here.

I think that's right, actually. I mean, it's the incumbency advantage when something important happens. Carney gets to come out and sound and look like the prime minister. And I think people are going to applaud him if it's somehow less intense than we anticipated. And I don't think they're going to fault him

if the tariffs are imposed as promised by Donald Trump. Because frankly, he was prime minister for what? Nine days and then he went into an election. So I think you're right, actually, it is a bit of a win-win for him and it's gonna be very hard for Poliev and Jagmeet Singh to a much lesser extent to even get a word in tomorrow. Well, let's turn to Brad and ask you, what does Jagmeet Singh do in a situation like this?

Because Trump is the Trump is is Trump is the is the the Trump card for for Mark Carney. Yeah, now listen, I, you know, no Canadian wants these tariffs to go through. But if they do go through tomorrow, obviously, it's going to have a demonstrable impact on the lives of millions of Canadians. So let's let's let's be sure here that we're not looking. And I certainly wouldn't say I hope the terrorists come in and people lose their jobs for political advantage of my party or another party. So let's be absolutely clear here, no, we don't want any harm coming to

working men and women in this country. Now, if they do come in, we're gonna see half a million workers in the province of Ontario negatively affected in the auto sector and all the downstream effects on that. Now, what that means for the politics of the campaign itself in the auto sector and all the downstream effects on that. Now what that means for the politics of the campaign itself in the coming days, it does provide Singh an opportunity for him to fight like hell for people's jobs, for their pensions,

for things like employment insurance. And if Carney leaves any policy window to protect the working families who are going to be negatively affected by the Trump tariffs if they do come into moral, that will give an advantage to say, listen, Carney looks like he may be the prime minister after this election campaign. Do I trust the bank by himself without a conscience? Brad, we're up against the clock. Andy, I'm coming to you right after the break. We've got more at the panel, including a clear generational divide among voters that's next on the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and welcome back to this week in politics, our mid week panel. We've got Andy Gibbons, Brad

Levine and Robin Urbach joining us and Andy, I want to get your comment on this idea that no matter what happens, whether tariffs come in or tariffs don't come in, this benefits Mark Carney. I'm counter-opinion here. I don't think that's necessarily the case because if you're Pierre Pauliev, you have the ability to say to Canadians, if you want to manage the tariffs, the Liberal government has made it worse. Christia Freeland said in her letter, Ben, that the government had not prepared itself properly for these tariffs. Mark Carney said the Canadian economy was weak. If you want to look after workers,

if you want to look after businesses, if you want to have the strongest, most resilient country, your argument as peer polio is that the liberals have made that harder to do. So why give them a new contract? Why let them manage this? I think that might be some conventional wisdom today, but there are four more weeks of this campaign to go and I don't necessarily believe that this is a win for Carney no matter what. Well, Poliev said that the federal election campaign can't just be about Donald Trump. He gave an impassioned defense of that, of why he's not just beating the Donald Trump drum yesterday and he did point out to our lack of productivity

and the issues that he believes have stemmed from 10 years of a liberal government. Brad, if the polls are to be believed, and we can have another conversation about whether or not they should be believed, but if they are to be believed, why isn't the liberal lost decade resonating with Canadians the way the conservatives hope it should?

Right. The Trump tariffs have forced the electorate to look forward, not backwards. So in many times when an incumbent government, particularly after three elections, you know, you look back at their record, you can base your decision on your vote, whether or not they've done a good job for you or a bad job for you. The minute Trump brought in his tariffs, the country's now looking forward to the future. Will I have my job in six months? Will I be able to afford rent? Will I be able to make my mortgage payments? What's going to happen to my kids? All of these things are forward-looking, not backward-looking.

So we can try to prosecute the last decade for sure. And rightfully so. I think the opposition parties should be doing that. But the electorate are already, they've moved on and now they're afraid of the future. And therefore the leaders have to provide some solace, some policy options for what's gonna happen in the future, not a prosecution of what's happened in the past. Robin, I wanna talk about this,

but I wanna add sort of another dimension to this because while I take Brad's point completely There does seem to be a generational gap here where on one side of the equation you've got boomers who Feel that everything is is okay in their lives And yet you've got younger people lining up behind Pierre poliev who are in fact worried about not the past but the here and now What so I guess how does someone like Pierre bridge that generational gap and have people all reading from the same hymn book? Hard task, frankly. And if you look at where a lot of

Karni support has come from, it's from those boomers who have a lot of current support has come from. It's from those boomers who have decided with Justin Trudeau gone now that it is safe, so to speak, to go back to support the liberals. And you're right, if you look at some of the polling about what people value, how they look at the state of Canada now, you'll find that there's a lot more general content among boomers

than there are among younger people. And the reasons for that are obvious. If you're living in a house mortgage free and you've got a healthy retirement and you've lived your life rather comfortably in Canada, you're going to be a lot more content with the status quo than you are if you're struggling to get any or all of those things.

What's interesting though is if you ask people if they want change, overwhelmingly they say yes, right? So people are saying this is a change election. Both Mark Carney and Pierre Pellier are seen as that sort of embodiment of change, which is a whole other element in and of itself. But I think people want change in concept. But if you ask a lot of people, particularly boomers and maybe Gen X at this point, if they want a higher age of retirement, if they want multiplexes in single detached neighborhood communities, or if they wanna get rid of supply management,

or a lot of those other issues that would make things more affordable for young people, they'll actually say, well, you know, we kinda want change, but we don't want that much change, or we don't want change in those areas. And that's a really tough bridge to gap. We see Pierre-Paul Liev trying to do that. Yeah. But he's sort of speaking out of both sides of his mouth a little bit.

Like he's promising all of these changes, for example, to housing, making it more affordable to young people. But he's also said that he's going to keep the age of retirement at 65, which is basically just functioning off the backs of younger workers. So I understand why people are gravitating more towards Pierre Pagliav, if you are in that younger demographic, because he seems to embody change more so. But I don't know that we're seeing that radical change actually from anyone. But I guess the question I have, Andy Gibbons, is, you know, young people and old people don't exist in a vacuum.

If you're an old person, you probably have some young people in your life. If you're an old person, you probably see how hard it is for young people to buy a home, to pay for rent, to get a job, and all of those associated things. And when it comes time for you to pass from this world, you're going to want the young people in your life to be able to take as much of it from you and as little to the government

as possible. So I'm there. There should be. We should all be operating in the same reality. And yet it's really feels like this is two worlds. It does feel like it's two worlds today. But if you look at elections around the Western world, when young people want change, they typically get it and they will be heard.

The interesting thing here, Ben, is it's always conservatives that are accused of being the party of old people and the party of the status quo. And here we are in 2025, where it's the inverse. So that's a real new dynamic for Canada. That's going to make for a lot of interesting Easter conversations. But, you know, there's going to make for a lot of interesting Easter conversations. But you know, there's going to be so many interviews. You know, Mark Carney's resume might be at the top of the file folder, but the boardroom is going to have interview after interview after interview, and he may be the favourite candidate for boomers today.

But boomers also felt that Canada was broken. Boomers also felt that the Liberal Government had really failed in all the things that they care about. So I get why Pierre is continuing down that road because that is what has been successful for him. I think you're right, the more boomers see 4,000, 3,000, 5,000 people rallying for change in this country, I don't think it's something that can be ignored. Something we'll give at some point here. Brad, you know, we're spending all this time talking about change as it's embodied by Pierre Poliev's conservatives, or Mark Carney's liberals. Where, where does jug meat Singh go? Where does the NDP go? It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room by both of them. How does he, how does he gain a

toehold at all at this point? Singh has to go hard after Carney as someone who, you know, governor of the Bank of Canada comes from Brookfield made millions of dollars charging single moms too much in rent. That's how they made their their quarterly profits. You really trust this guy to be there for you when things get tough with all the economic uncertainty and the terrorists and four more years of Trump maybe longer. You know, you've got it, you can't give Mark Carney a blank check, you got to make sure that there's

a strong contingent of the Democrats in the House of Commons to fight for working men and women day in and day out. And nothing, Robin, nothing would make the Tories happier than a resurgent NDP to eat away at some of that support where, where Tories support is weak. I'm just, I'm just, I'm watching it like they're, they're, they're putting up a good fight on social media, some really good attacks on Mark Carney on social media. I'm just not seeing it translate in the polls.

Yeah. I mean, Pierre Pelliot can lend the NDP a million dollars and maybe the NDP can put out some ads and maybe that would help, I don't know. It just seems like they're out of the conversation now. There's a way that the NDP can in a way make Pierre-Paul Liev less scary. Like I like what Brad sort of suggested in terms of going after Mark Kearney from the left.

I think that's kind of the Hail Mary for the NDP and there's room there frankly, because Kearney has brought the party back to the center and because he is, you know, the literal embodiment of a big banker, big business type guy. Like he's the perfect boogeyman in a way. The NDP can do that, but it's a tough slog really, because they're seeing their support already bleed to the liberals.

And I don't see a way to meaningfully get that back. Well I want to thank all of you for being here. Brad Levine, a president of Council PA and NDP strategist, Robin Urbach, current affairs columnist with the Globe and Mail, to both of you I say thanks for coming back. And to Andy Gibbons for the very first time, former vice president of WestJet and consultant, I say welcome to the show and I hope you come back McDonald's has entered a Minecraft movie universe and grimace birdie and Hamburglar just spawned his new collectibles in the overworld Now for a limited time you can get one of six McDonald's collectibles when you order a Minecraft movie meal with your choice of a Big Mac or a 10-piece Chicken McNuggets with Spicy Nether Flame Sauce. A Minecraft Movie Meal available now at your local McDonald's.

See it in theaters April 4th. Meal available for a limited time while supplies last. At participating Canadian restaurants. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments. Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits.

Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back to the Ben Morini Show. Thank you for joining us. And I want to remind you that despite all the intensive, intense, hardcore political stuff that we talk about on this show, there is a respite in the storm on Wednesdays as we try to solve your everyday problems on the D panel. And we can't do that without your dilemmas. So send us an email at ask ben at course and.com let us know might be an issue with a co worker or a friend or a family member and I alongside a two very interesting guests will try our best to fix your problem. And if we can't, well, we will strive to entertain you. Somebody with whom I never have a problem

is our next guest, Mohit Rajans. He is the mediologist and consultant with thinkstart.ca. We've got a ton of tech stories to talk about. And he is our Sherpa guiding us through the wilderness. Welcome to the show, Mohit. Sherpa is a very, very, very positive thing to be called. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. No problem, Mohit.

Listen, there's a story that I definitely guidance on because I don't know what it means. We saw news of just a few days ago that Elon Musk is sold X to another company he started, an AI company. I don't know what this means. I don't know what it signals. And I don't know how it ultimately will affect the consumer. Yeah, the Sherp Disturber, if nothing else, right? Of course, Elon Musk has pulled a little bit of a bait and switch here. Here's what I think is happening versus here's what is say they're saying in the business, as they say, it's an acquisition that is fundamentally going to change the way that data is used by Elon Musk and XAI from Twitter and its

archive to create products in the future. So we're essentially all going to have to sign up for a newer version of X that gives a bunch of permission, maybe, perhaps to build on the ecosystem that he wants to build rapidly. But what doesn't make sense is he owns both companies. And so a lot of people are assuming that he's running away from some major debt associated with the original Twitter company. And that's why he's trying to bury as much as he can in terms of the value in a new company called X.A.I.

OK, but conceivably, this could reinvent the value of X in our lives by really powering it by AI? Yes, there is a very strong move from Elon to be able to, I think Grok, if anything, which is his AI function that he's built in is just sort of the beta tape to his DVD, right? And I do believe that he's built in is just sort of the beta tape to his DVD. Right. And I do believe that he sees the intense value associated with the way he's been able to create discourse online, use the app to be able to fundamentally shift certain POVs. And, you know, he sees the value in you and I discussed this before, and there's in some cases you haven't signed up for a new social media app since being on the original Twitter.

Yeah, yeah. So there is some value associated with that digital footprint. All right, let's move on. I mean, listen, every week, it feels like there's another story of somebody trying to push the boundaries of AI showing us that they've got the AI platform to beat. And OpenAI has come up with their latest image generator. It's pushing technological limits. I heard earlier today that you can essentially take, you know, like the Lord of the Rings trailer, but you can make it in the style of Wallace and Gromit or a Pixar movie or Studio Ghibli, the world famous Japanese company.

And there are a lot of IP issues around that, but more than that, this is an issue of server strain. There's more and more pressures being put on these things because they require a lot of juice. Yeah, two things are happening at once. Everything you just described is flooding the internet right now because OpenAI has created the most accessible image generator that we've ever seen.

And I don't mean that from hype perspective. As somebody who's in this ecosystem, it's crazy for me to think that our kids can just draw Pixar cartoons based on a story from the sporting event they went to. As a recid-, there's so many crazy, amazing things they're going to be able to do now that the cat is out of the bag, but what's it doing? It's doing exactly what you and I have thought it's going to potentially do, which is it's going to strain a bunch of systems that are not prepared for all the different things that AI can actually empower and do because once it's out of the bag, everybody wants

to play with it. So just in very, very basic terms, it is all of this content is being made as a result of people just coming up with ideas. It's creating server capacity issues for open AI, but they love the hype around it because so much so that there's a rumor right now that they're close to closing $40 billion in funding, which would make it the largest

private tech deal on record. Oh my God. Look, I learned something new from my kids every day. My 11 year old daughter dropped a bomb on me a couple of days ago. She said, she said, did you know that a search on chat GPT is the equivalent, just one single search is the equivalent of keeping your light on for six months, a light bulb on for six months. And I don't know whether she's right or not, but it does speak to the fact that people are starting to appreciate the power required

to build out these AI platforms. 100%. I think the one positive thing about that conversation is that it now puts the onus on that global footprint to be less and less, right? So if that's one of the things that we're keeping an eye on, think about how much many things we didn't keep an eye on when it came to social media. We're just like, yeah, I'll upload it. It'll go somewhere, right? And now we're paying the price. So let's, you know,

forward thinkers like your daughter is what we need. AI is infiltrating Hollywood. And I guess I'm reading that they're going from fear to feature. What does this mean? Well, now we're in a situation where it's just realistic that the tools are embedded into everything from let's say, if you're an Adobe studio, or if you're a place that uses various tools, you know, the tools that Hollywood has been asking for in order to be able to use AI at scale. Let's think about preserving old film that has never been preserved properly or the original version of people's voices

that were never been able to translate. That's happening. And it's creating this blurry line amongst people who are trying to create their and create, protect their IP versus studios who have to find different ways to make money because as you and I know they're not making it at the box office or on streaming the way they used to. So I think one of the conversations that will continue to happen

here is are you saving you know revenue streams for these big corporations that are need to be able to turn around their investment or are actors just going to have to come to grips with the fact that there's never going to be a plausible way to save their IP? Well, I think also, you look at how expensive it is to make a big blockbuster movie, you see how much money was lost in this ridiculous Snow White remake.

If you could get the cost down of the special effects, or speed up the time required to edit the film. All of those things are possible today using the tools that exist today. Then that could lower the cost of producing a film. But in doing so, you know that certain people are going to be left on the sidelines. You're gonna need fewer animators, fewer editors.

And so it's gonna be, there's gonna be a animators, fewer editors and and and and and so it's gonna be there's going to be a crossroads for Hollywood. Where are they gonna go? Are they gonna stick with the people that help them build Hollywood or are they gonna recognize that they have to cut costs and use AI? I don't know what they're gonna do. I think Ben, one of the things you allude to is think about how many times we've just had to sit around and wait for something. Yeah. You know, and I think, you know, you've made television in the past and you thought there's probably more efficient ways to do this. If we started thinking a little bit more about efficiencies, we're not going to have problems with people saying, Oh, they don't tell our stories or they don't

blah, blah, blah. No, it'll be efficient for you to just go make it rather than wait for somebody to give you a handout. Hey, before we go, before we go, I want to talk about something different because you're delivering a keynote in Toronto. Tell me about that. April 16, Digi Markon is happening at the Eaton Center CF Sheraton there, Pailton, sorry, forget the name. But I appreciate that because I'm talking about the media evolution to revolution when it comes down to the use of technology and AI. So if anybody's interested, I would love to see you out there. You're so you're gonna focus on early adoption of AI in media

and television. So give me an example, like where has it been adopted? So now I'm currently focused on efficiency with workflow. I think many of us have lived in a world where we've had all these sort of booking sheets and information and bookmarks and stuff like that. Just utilizing it to create proper knowledge that we can share with people so that we all feel like saving an hour every day is actually something we can aim for.

Well, I mean, we had a little technical snafu here a couple of days ago when the phone lines didn't work. And we asked ourselves, what would have what was it like before Twitter, like for information gathering? How did we get the news before it? I still have no idea. But you can't run from technology. You got to embrace it in a way that works for you. And I'm glad that you can be there to help Ben Mulrady Show Podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the Chorus Radio Network and you can listen online through the Radio Canada player and the iHeart Radio Canada apps.

And make sure to follow and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your streaming audio. We release new podcasts every day. Thanks for listening. I'm ready to eat. Want to kick your cooking up a notch? This is the moment you've been waiting for. Flavor Network is giving one lucky viewer $15,000 to put towards the grocery bill. Oh, I love that. Tune into Flavor Network every night at 9 Eastern or stream live on Stack TV.

Look for the daily code word and enter on our website for a chance to win $15,000. Oh my God, that's so good. We're going to blow some minds. Let's do it. Visit flavornetwork.ca for more details and to enter now. Game on, people.