The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 3 - Matthew Lynn, Tony Chapman, Craig Baird

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Best of the Week Part 3 - Matthew Lynn, Tony Chapman, Craig Baird Guests: Matthew Lynn, Tony Chapman, Clayton Campbell, Hank Idsinga, Craig Baird, Adam Zivo If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Up to five percent off orders and five percent Uber credits back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. So many great conversations this week, including a chat with a UK writer who says Mark Carney is not what he's built up to be, why the Hudson's Bay Company failed to adapt, and insights into the tow truck wars. Enjoy. So there is this general consensus, and I believe a good faith consensus,

that thus far Mark Carney's success in the political arena has been due in large part to his reputation and his resume. And there are a number of people who may not agree with him, but are respectful when they say at some point he is going to have to campaign on something other than his resume and his reputation. And earlier today on another Corus Radio Network show,

a journalist out of the UK named Fraser Myers joined host Greg Brady to tell him about the reputation of Mark Carney that led to a particular nickname. He got a nickname actually in the financial world. Everyone called him the unreliable boyfriend. And that was because whatever he signaled in terms of interest rates, he would often end up doing the opposite

in terms of policy. So that might be something for Canadians to worry about. And so we've heard from a number of people in the UK who were there at the time when he was the governor of the Bank of England. And a great many of them have come up and said publicly that he isn't all he was cracked up to be. Another voice echoing that is my next guest,

Matthew Lynn, financial columnist and author. Matthew, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Hi, good to talk to you today. Okay, so on one hand, we've got what I think is a pretty devastating nickname, the unreliable boyfriend. You've got one as well. You say Canada is about to discover Mark Carney is the man with the reverse Midas touch.

Tell me what you mean by that. Why did you want to pen this column? Well, I think I mean, obviously, you know, we noticed the become prime minister of Canada is about to become prime minister where, you know, we're familiar with him from his eight years in the UK as Governor of the Bank of England. And as you said in your intro there, you know, he runs a lot on his resume. He's got a great CV. I mean, you look at the track record of big jobs, it's very impressive. But it wasn't so impressive when he actually did it. You know, he wasn't a catastrophe as Governor of the

Bank of England, but he was relatively poor, particularly when you consider that he was kind of bought in as this rock star global central banker. He was the best central banker in the world. It was unusual to have somebody who wasn't British. And the track record was not very good. The economy did relatively poorly over the eight years that he was in charge. We can't blame all of that on him. There were lots of different factors behind that, but he didn't help. If he was so magnificent, we were kind of seeing the statistics, wouldn't we? But we couldn't see it. The economy did quite badly, and he made quite a number of different mistakes. Well, and we'll go into those in just a moment, but just a level set for you, because I think I'm like a great many Canadians.

After his time here in Canada as the head of the Bank of Canada, when we got word that a Canadian was making his way across the pond to lead the Bank of England, I think without drilling down just on an emotional level, I think a lot of us were quite proud of that. And I'll be completely honest, once he left, I didn't really pay too too much attention to the day to day operations of Mark Carney or the Bank of England. So when you say he made a number of missteps and mistakes, what are you talking about? Okay, well, there was as you as as the previous guest said a bit earlier on your station was in the intro, he was he had this nickname, the unreliable boyfriend. He came up with lots of

kind of fancy ideas on forward guidance and where interest rates would go, but he never stuck to them. Second mistake, I think, was that he clearly, in retrospect, printed too much money. He was very keen on quantitative easing, basically blasting the economy with money. And we had the highest inflation rate in the whole of Europe. It spiked up a lot. And I think you have to put that down to his role as governor. There was a decline in the city of London. The city of London was one of the great financial centers in the world, centers of the world. It's been in steep decline with the number of companies that are listed, the number of share issues, the amount of bond trading. Again, it's not entirely the fault of the governor, but you might expect this kind of

rock star governor to do something to turn that around, to do something to fix it. And finally, and I think this was perhaps the most important point, he really politicized the role. The governor of the Bank of England, bit like the Bank of Canada, or any other central banker was kind of above the political fray. It was like your bank manager. We don't expect your bank manager to tell you how to live. He's the person who looks after your money and keeps it safe.

But he became very political. So in the whole debate about leaving the European Union, obviously that was a big argument here in the UK, but he very clearly took sides. And then actually in the last election, he came out very clearly with a big endorsement, very public, high profile endorsement of the Labour Party. You know, a lot of us felt that was inappropriate, given his reputation as governor of the Bank

of England. We thought that he was going to be neutral. He wasn't involved in party politics. He just kind of kept the financial system sound. But he very clearly, he was the first governor to very clearly take political sides. And a lot of people in this country felt that was a mistake. Was he in charge of the bank when he became sort of this poster child or the tip of the spear for carbon pricing

and for net zero? Because I know I've heard a lot of him speaking on panels around the world, but I don't know if he was actually speaking as such in his role as the central banker. Yeah, I mean, he became, you know, he became very, very associated with, you know, the fight against climate change, the targets of net zero. And again, it's been very, it's been very controversial. You know, everyone agrees that climate change is an important issue, but actually in the UK,

it hasn't worked too well. We have the most ambitious climate targets in the world and it's actually hammered our industrial base and caused a lot of damage to the economy. So we're now kind of rowing back on it. And again, climate change is an important issue. It is something we can all debate about, but you're not sure you want the governor of the central bank to be taking the lead on it. He should be more restricted, that person should be more restricted to running a good financial system, a solid financial system, rather than crusading on political issues. I was going to point out, because I want to draw our attention back to one of the points you made about how capital was fleeing the city of London, it was becoming increasingly hostile place for investment. And I can't help but be reminded of a moment.

First of all, he was in the past five years, he's been an advisor to the Trudeau government, which has been set the tone for investment in Canada. And he was also the head of Brookfield Asset Management. He got into a little bit of trouble when we learned that six days after Donald Trump became president, he was the chairman of the board that led to the office of that company moving to New York City from Toronto. And you know, he could have gotten himself out of trouble by saying, look, this country

has been hostile to investment for a few years. I'm going to make sure that that doesn't happen when I become prime minister. But it seems like this is shades of that where it's almost like despite knowing that it was going to his policies and his ideas and his influence would lead to an environment that was hostile to investment, he was full steam ahead. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And I think it's a vatic criticism. And we know, we noticed that, you know, in the in the UK, that for example, I touched that's absolutely true and I think it's a valid criticism. We noticed that in the UK. For example, I touched on this a few minutes ago. There was a significant decline in the regulatory system.

The Bank of England used to know the inner workings of the city, the plumbing of it pretty well and could get on top of any problems and sort them out before they became a major crisis. And Carney didn't seem interested in any of that. He was kind of grandstanding on the global stage, hobnobbing with Greta Thunberg, making a big noise about climate change and ignoring the kind of day-to-day issues. I think that was a significant problem and part of the reason why at the end of the eight years we were pretty glad to see the back of him. Good luck

to you guys in Canada. We wish you well and you're probably fortunate you've got a general election coming up quite soon. So obviously the electorate can take their own view on whether they want to miss their prime minister or not. But when he trades on his CV, which he does a lot and says, look, I've got this fantastic track record, I've done brilliantly in all these big jobs, you know, the actual record is slightly different. He hasn't done that well. Well, Matthew Lynn, financial columnist and author, you have sounded the alarm.

The article is, Canada is about to discover Mark Carney is the man with the reverse of my distouch. Will enough Canadians listen to you that a fourth liberal government does not become a reality. Only time and only an election campaign will tell. But to you sir, I say thank you for spending time with us on the Ben Mulroney Show. Pleasure to talk to you. A lot of people believe that the liberal brand has been saved because of the election of Mark Carney as their new leader.

But we as citizens of the world interact interact with dozens, if not hundreds, of brands on a daily basis. And here to discuss some of the most iconic ones and the stories around them is our good friend Tony Chapman. And Tony Chapman is the host of the award-winning podcast Chatter That Matters, as well as the founder of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome to the show. Ben, always a pleasure to be with you.

Hudson's Bay, it is a historic company. It's been around longer than Canada by a country mile. And it is currently looking at closing about half of its 80 stores in a restructuring plan. How did they miss the mark? How did they fall so far behind in sort of adoption of a digital strategy that would have allowed bricks and mortar to survive in this new world?

That's a great question. A little personal history, I used to work at the Bay when I was in university selling suits and on Bay Day, there would literally be hundreds of people lining up to get in because that once a year sale mattered. What happened is the department stores used to own the high street because they they delivered two of the most important things when it comes to retail. Convenience and location. They had everything under one roof. And then the suburbs happened with the you know the advent of the car and the highways and next thing you know commercial real

estate were giving department stores free space. If you had a Simpsons in one side and a bay at the other side, and as people walk between those two great department stores, they could rent out the boutiques for a fortune. So what happened? Convenience and location became in the palm of your hand with Amazon.

They put the world with an arms race of desire. Specialty stores said, yeah, it's good that they have a few mattresses, but we're going to have every mattress and we're also going to have people on the floor that know about mattresses. So they lost out in terms of any expertise and they never reinvented themselves as much as they tried to go digital. When you start off as a pure play bricks and mortar store, it's very difficult to make

yourself obsolete by being a pure play digital store. That's something the department stores have yet to figure out and I'm not sure they ever will. But you and I have talked about it. It's not about making yourself obsolete. It's about, as somebody once said to me, participating in your own cannibalization, recognizing that things are going in one way. So you're gonna hedge and you are going to invest

in something that, yes, may take some of the foot traffic out of your company, but you're gonna more than make up for it in sort of your digital revenue. Yeah. And it's absolutely the right strategy until private equity comes along, buys you, and starts looking, saying, how do we get the biggest and fastest return? Let's sell our best real estate. Let's sell some of our top assets.

Let's start trying to cobble together all these different brands under one roof that make no sense to a consumer. And this is what you see happens. And very often it's this, and you look at private equity and retail, time and time again, you're seeing major retailers go out of business because the people that built that brand,

the people that believed in that brand have no longer any interest in the brand. And that's what happens. Passion disappears, profit takes over. And before long you've, uh, you've squeezed the goose to the point where they lay no more eggs. Let's, let's switch our focus to meta. And, uh, you know, years ago, Facebook was where all the young kids were.

Now this is where all the angry uncles are. Uh, but Facebook marketplace, uh, somehow has managed to supplant Gijiji and Craigslist for a big share of that market and it's keeping a lot of young people on the platform. How do they do that? It's a great thing. I mean ten years ago 70% of youth was on Facebook, now it's 30%. You can't see a faster downward spiral in a brand that used to stand for something, but they need the data, they need youth, they need the eyeballs. And so when they put up Marketplace and said, we're not gonna charge you for it, next thing you know,

people flocked because we're all treasure hunters, we're all bargain hunters, and they get the data. And that data they can monetize in so many different ways and include the cross-referencing, what you're doing on Marketplace in terms of what you're doing on Instagram and WhatsApp to the other platforms they own. So make no mistake, data is the new oil. The barons are the people like that own the data and all marketplaces is another way to understand how you think,

how you feel, and most importantly, how you shop. Marketing stunts are exactly that, but sometimes a stunt goes big, right? When that guy walked across Niagara Falls, everybody was paying attention. But by and large, you can fall flat on your face. But Moosehead Breweries came out with what they're calling the presidential pack of 1,461 cans of Canadian lager, which is the equivalent of one can of beer

for every day of the next four years of the Donald Trump presidential term. I have no idea if it's going to be successful, but in my humble opinion, this should be a marketing home run. I think so. I mean, listen, you could run a ride a moose down Main Street and nobody would pay attention and nobody really connect you to Moosehead. But what Moosehead has done and what smart marketers realize is I'm going to feed into

where the attention's going. And right now the tension is all about Donald Trump and what's he going to do next. So for Moosehead to come in with this pack is brilliant to use it in terms of a case of beer that that big. And what it gets is we're talking about a brand we haven't talked about in a very long time. And next thing you know, when you're an LCBO or the beer store, your convenience store, and you see Moosehead, you're gonna go, oh yeah, maybe I'll give them a try again. Not to me, smart marketing.

I mean, but with something like this, I haven't seen any commercials for it, but I could absolutely see a really funny marketing campaign behind something like this. They should take it to influencers and deliver cases of Moosehead to people that are gonna absolutely talk about it. They should have a pallet and deliver cases of moose head to people that are going to absolutely talk about it. They should have a palette parked in your radio

station today because of the size of your podcast audience. That's what they should be doing. Television commercials isn't the way to do it. The way to do it is having people personify it and talk about it in the media and on radio and with humor and just saying how brilliant this is. That's how you want moose head to be talked

about. Cause are you going to talk about the taste of moose head over any other lager? No, doesn't exist. But you are going to talk about the brand saying, you know what, I'm part of the conversation. Therefore, this might be a beer you want to drink because when you're drinking beer, guess what? It's a social lubricant. You're also part of the conversation. People of a certain age remember that a time where you could get pizza at McDonald's. The McPizza came and went, it had a moment, and it was gone.

A lot of people miss it. And someone pointed out that Tim Hortons is now in the pizza game, for better or worse. Some people think it's not pizza. But there was a time where McDonald's was the number one purveyor of pizza in Canada because of the McPizza. And it's gone.

And I often wonder as a brand, what did you think of that moment in time? And why do you think they never brought it back? A lot of capital that was involved in bringing in those pizza ovens and the franchisees went along reluctantly. And then they realized it takes 12 minutes to serve a pizza. McDonald's is all about seconds.

How fast do I get you through a dry through? How fast do I get you through a restaurant?through? How fast do I get you through a restaurant? So it was operationally not a smart move on McDonald's point. Marketing was great. Hamburgers, the favorite snack food in the world, bar none, pizza's number two. Yeah.

And pizza, mom's love because you can serve as a Trojan horse for putting vegetables on, the kids don't like. And so, but what they didn't realize is yeah, but the thing that matters most to McDonald's consumers is I want to be in and out of there in seconds, not 12 minutes. 12 minutes is a lifetime for a McDonald's consumer. Well, also, you know, I remember when last year when they surprised everybody with the

new edition of the spicy chicken nuggets, they said, oh, there was a big guessing game online, what was coming, what was coming. And my brother was the one who said to me, my brother Mark said, it's gonna be spicy chicken nuggets because it doesn't require any new machines. And cause I was like, maybe it'll be a hot dog. He's like, if it's a hot dog, then they have to,

they gotta figure out a way to cook hot dogs. Whereas they already know how to cook nuggets. So it's just gonna be a different flavored nugget. And he was absolutely right. Now without question, and not only just the machine, think about the training involved. You've got part-time people, they're coming in frequently, lots of churn. You have to have an operation that's so simple to understand that

the second day you're there, you can work the French fry fryer. And so when you bring in something new and complicated to the system, you're bringing, you're throwing a wrench into the gears and McDonald's stands for quality value, cleanliness, and service. It doesn't stand for delicious, nutritious food. It stands for four things that people have a value and on top of all that affordability. Sadly, it's still, right now it stands for food that's more expensive than it's worth and I want to get back to a time where it's not a premium product anymore.

It breaks my heart when I see the, like how much 20 nuggets cost these days. Oh, there's no, I mean, listen, I wouldn't want to, the restaurant business is the toughest business around. Inflation is roaring in every part of the supply chain, including labor, food, transportation, and taxation, and you're dealing at a time where discretionary income is falling.

Tough place to be, and you have no choice but to raise prices to make a profit. And every time you do that, you know you're dealing at a time where discretionary income is falling. Tough place to be and you have no choice but to raise prices to make a profit. And every time you do that, you know you're abandoning the people that used to trust you for the dollar menu and the $2 menu. Hey, Tony Chapman, always love our chats. Thank you so much. Have a great week. Always a pleasure, my friend. Chat soon. When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in,

we all need someone who has our back to tell us we'll be okay, to remind us of our ability to believe. Because their belief in us transfers to self-belief and reminds us of all that we're capable of. We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. The play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet 365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only.

Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connexontario.ca. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a bit of your day with us. We are going to do a a take an in-depth look at the tow truck war that has been gripping the City of Toronto for years now. But before we start, first let's welcome our guests to the show, Clayton Campbell, President

of the Toronto Police Association, and Hank Itsinga, 640 Toronto's Crime Specialist and former police inspector. To the both of you, thank you so much for taking time out of your day, because this is an important issue that should be top of mind for so many Torontonians. Good morning, Ben. Good morning, Ben. Let's get into the conversation that I really wanted to have today,

and that's about this tow truck war that for a lot of people we've heard about it. We've sort of, some of us may be chuckled, and it reminded us of the Sopranos and the waste management situation of Tony Soprano. But this is a very serious issue. I mean, we saw what happened in Scarborough on Friday night. A lot of people believe heavily and strongly

that this was evidence of the tow truck war. There've been 15 tow truck related shootings so far this year, representing 70% of shootings in the city truck war. There have been 15 tow truck related shootings so far this year, representing 70% of shootings in the city so far. 63 tow truck related shootings in 2024. That was nearly 15% of all shooting incidents. Hank, this is, I mean, this seems like a problem

we should have under control or we should be all over. But when we saw it happen on Friday night, doesn't feel like it's under control at all. You know, Ben, I started with the police service in 1989. And it was a problem back then. And it's a problem now. And it's only gotten exponentially worse. So it's tough to imagine the amount of criminality that hides behind this legitimate industry. But it's been happening for a long time and it involves not just the front

end, really if you look at the criminal opportunities from what their core service is, which is towing vehicles, everything from body shop referrals to insurance scams to car rental scams, that's the tip of the iceberg and that's a moneymaker. But then we get into the drug dealing, the gun running, the tow truck drivers have been arrested and charged with in the past. And you can see that it creates a real problem, especially when you have active criminals getting into the tow truck business

for the sake of promoting their criminal enterprise. And that's the problem. And we've seen again and again over the years, multiple projects, multiple task force focusing on the tow truck industry. And it seems like they make some small dents and then everything rebounds again. So it's something that really needs to be stayed on top of

across the entire province and the GTA. And some assets have to be put into combating this problem 24 seven, not just a temporary task force, but an ongoing task force. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at some of the sort of the high level crimes that are associated with the tow truck industry. You've got insurance fraud, money laundering, theft, racketeering, corruption, bribery, price gouging, consolidation of criminal control or territory. Clayton, if you had a magic wand to police this problem effectively, what's the fastest

way to clean up this industry? Yeah, I think we're lucky we have an amazing unit or gang gun unit. There's four teams on that one shooting in Scarborough. And I think we come back to it when our members and I say when, because they're amazing and they're gonna track these people down, put them in jail and keep them in jail.

These videos that I'm aware of where essentially someone walks into this pub with what looks like an AK-47 and open fire into these poor people that are there just in the pub. Yeah, if bad guys are shooting bad guys, that's one thing, but when you come in and you terrorize a community and put our members in severe jeopardy, the first responding officer believed it was an active attacker still and putting their lives on the line to protect the public is fine. But when these things spread into the community and caused this terror, I think the biggest thing is,

when they're arrested, throw them in jail and don't let them back out. Well, it seems to me, and I'll allow either one of you to answer this, that this marks what it feels to me, like a massive escalation in violence. Like you said, this was innocent people at a pub. This wasn't tow truck on tow truck violence

that you could say, okay, well, at least one bad guy is hurting another bad guy. And this to me seems like a ratcheting up of the violence that requires a commensurate ratcheting up of attention from our police services. Yeah, I can say I agree with you, Ben, and always the concern is some sort of retaliation in some other place and some innocent, thank God, out of all those people, all those rounds and the blood and the shell casings in that bar that no one was killed, but there's repercussions

that are going to be felt in other places potentially, and God forbid an innocent citizen is caught in the crossfire. I guess what I'm trying to square in my own head is we know who these people are. I mean, I have to assume that there's a licensing process. So we have their business addresses. Why has this festered for 20 years? Why hasn't it been tamped down?

I think a lot of people are wondering, look, we know where the tow trucks are and we know where the criminal element is. This isn't like drug dealers hiding in a community, honeycombing themselves in an apartment complex. We literally know where these businesses are located. Hank? Yeah, sorry, I didn't know who you're directing that to, Ben.

You know, first off, I should delineate the linkage between the tow truck industry and that mass shooting. I don't think anyone's ever established that evidentiary based yet. I came out of social media, it very well might be the case. But until we see why this pub was targeted and whether there was a specific target in that pub, I think it's a little early to make that link. But you know, let's roll with that. And let's look at again, the task force issue when it comes to these tow truck businesses. And you nailed it with your first outline.

I mean, this isn't just a firearms investigation. This is a fraud investigation. This is a drug investigation. It's firearms trafficking and the attraction of the criminal element into the industry where obviously there's some issues with some of the background checks that are being done to employ some of these folks into the tow where obviously there's some issues with some of the background checks that are being done to employ some of these folks into the tow truck industry.

So all of these things should be addressed, can be addressed, but it takes money, it takes personnel. And as you know, police services right now are really hard up for attracting people and getting those people trained and retaining those people. So that becomes a core issue as well. Where do we start? Do we start with a provincial run task force

headed up by the OPP? Well, the OPP, as we saw it last year, just gave 200 officers to border security. Where are we gonna draw the officers on who have the investigative know-how and the investigative prowess to make a dent into this industry who are gonna be able to cover off all of those issues such as fraud and firearms and drugs?

That's that's a tough ask And you really need the personnel available to be able to do that Well that and that's that would be my next question Clayton are has this been and is it a pro the priority that it? Probably should be for TPS, given the violence and given sort of the myriad other knock-on criminal behaviors that we see? Does the Toronto Police Service have the budget and the manpower and the boots on the ground

to tackle this head-on and cut the beast off at its head? The short answer is no. And that's why it's so important that we keep hiring in the city of Toronto. Hank mentioned rightfully so, there is a multi-year hiring plan to bring more officers in. I know it's always, you know, let's create some amazing task force to do it,

but there has to be individuals that do it. When we create task force or redeploy people to protests or other type of violence or gang offense or drug offenses or child pornography, you can name it, we're taking those resources away from somewhere. So it's so important that we keep hiring to bring our ranks up to numbers that we need. But the bigger thing is we need

to also retain those officers. I talked about it earlier. We could only attract in the last class of 90 of this multi-year hiring plan, 76. So we're already 14 behind starting this year. And we've also seen that 61% of the people that have left our service resigned. They haven't retired. They've resigned. And over half of those have gone to other police services.

We need to make sure we can retain these highly qualified officers to do these investigations or we're going to be in big trouble. Clayton Campbell, Hank and Zynga, thank you so much for giving us the lay of the land. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks, man. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And you know, when it comes to history, one of the reasons I learned history is they say

you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've come from. And sadly in this country, too many people don't know where we've come from. And it has become incumbent upon one man, one brave, well-researched man, to teach us clueless hordes about our own history. And so let's welcome to the show. And by the way, this segment on our podcast gets so much love, people love hearing from him. So please welcome to the show. And by the way, this segment on our podcast gets so much love, people love hearing from him.

So please welcome to the show, the host of Canadian History X, Craig Baird. Craig, welcome to the show yet again. Well, thanks for having me. Now, we're gonna talk about borders in a moment. And before we get to your thoughts on it, I wanna share with you a little history lesson. Here is some audio of an attack ad from the early 80s,

or maybe mid 80s, on my dad. This was, I don't know if it was a political party or an interest group that put this out there. Let's listen to this attack ad on Brian Mulroney. Since we're talking about this free trade agreement, there's one line I'd like to change. Which line is that? Well, this one here.

It's just getting in the way. Just how much are we giving away in the Mulrooney free trade deal? And one thing that is, that you can't tell because it's radio is that line that they're referring to is not a line in a budget. It is the border between Canada and the United States. And the American is erasing the border

because apparently that was what was going to happen. And by the way, I've seen the exact same imagery being used these days on attack ads on Pierre Poliev. We're not gonna get political with you, Craig, but instead I wanna talk about a thread of yours that I saw on Twitter, X, about how the Great Lakes borders were drawn up because I think we just take it for granted

that these are bodies of water that are shared between Canada and the United States, but it's more complex than that. Oh, absolutely it is. I mean, these are immense lakes and a lot of other countries would try and claim all of the lakes for themselves. But Canada and the United States really started working very early on on how to share these lakes even pretty much from the very beginning of the United States in the 1790s and onwards and it wasn't just one treaty that kind of defined this it was several

treaties that figured out where the border was how these lakes were going to be used even the fact that we chose to not really have any warships in the lakes and kind of created as a as a peaceful zone for trade was way ahead of its time. Now were these were the borders drawn up lake by lake or because there's a number of treaties that you list do the do the treaties just keep going deeper and deeper into the Great Lakes as a whole or did we break them down lake by lake? It was pretty much a drawn all at once so we did we knew where the Great Lakes were. We didn't have perfect surveying of them, so we didn't know the exact borders.

So it was more or less kind of figuring out the middle part of it, at least when we first signed what was known as the Treaty of Paris, which kind of ended the American Revolution. But then as we get into the 1800s and we have people like David Thompson, they're actually figuring out exactly where the border is. And that's when we start getting treaties like the Webster Ashburton Treaty of 1842 that resolves these issues and sets exactly where that border is going through

the Great Lakes. You know, and I love that you talk about this because it was such a timely thread, because, you know, you've got this narrative that our trial balloon of a narrative that Donald Trump is seems to be floating south of the border, that this is just an artificial line that could very easily be deleted or excised when in point of fact, there was deliberation and thought and reasoning and meaning behind each and every one of these treaties. Therefore there is value and importance to the border. Absolutely. And I mean, every border is technically an artificial line that's been drawn,

but there's so much that goes into it. There's treaties, there's surveying, there's, you know, figuring out what parts belong to what countries. That's why we have that kind of unique little spot just west of Lake Superior where it seems like the United States just juts up a little bit into Canada because we didn't know exactly where the border was when we were signing a lot of these treaties and we kind of just figure things out as we go and parts of Alberta were parts of the United States at one point and that had to be swapped with Britain for another part. So it's definitely a long process to really figure this out.

It's certainly not somebody with a ruler just kind of drawing a line through the country. Well, I urge anybody listening that your show is fantastic, but so is your Twitter. So how can people find you on Twitter? You can find me on Twitter by just searching for Craig Bear. That's C-R-A-I-G-B-A-I-R-D. All right, let's move on to the show this week. And you took a historical look at, is it Canada's unofficial sport or second official sport, but curling?

Yeah, I would definitely say it's kind of our unofficial winter sport. But I did look at curling beginning with the very early history when it was brought over here by Scottish immigrants. We like to think that curling was invented by Canadians and we have invented a lot of sports, but curling is not one of them. So I look at the history of curling, the history of the Briar, and the history of the Scotties and just show why this is such an important sport to Canadians. Let's listen to a little bit of the snippet of curling on Canadian History X. The company donated the McDonald Briar trophy at the Manitoba Curling Association Bondspiel and sponsored the winners in 1925 so they could travel east to play exhibition games. A year later Manitoba played in the Quebec Bondspiel. The matches proved

to be very popular and the company decided to sponsor a full national championship. The Briar, as we know it, was born. You're probably asking, why Briar? It refers to the woody root used at the time to make tobacco pipes, it was also a brand sold by McDonald Tobacco. And wanting to put their stamp on the tournament so to speak, the company called it the Briar. McDonald also created the Briar Tanker Trophy which was originally named the British Consoles Trophy. The heart-shaped patches awarded to tournament winners were modeled after a tin heart that

was pressed into the center of McDonald Tob tobacco plugs with the slogan, The Heart of Tobacco. Alright, Craig, one of the things I found really interesting was how Scott Paper Towels began sponsoring the Women's National Tournament in 82, and it became known as the Scotties, and it reminded me of the Blue Jays. They got their name because the main sponsor was going to be Labatt Blue and so they wanted the word blue in the name so it could be Labatt Blue Jay Baseball. Yeah we have a lot of things like that that the sponsors really play a part in in creating it. I mean even in the even the Maple Leafs

they are named the Maple Leafs but their colors came from Con Smites colors for his gravel hauling company. I didn didn't know that always plays a part. Oh, I had no idea. Lastly, I want to talk to you. We talk oftentimes about the oligarchs of the old world. And we talk about Russian oligarchs and the oligarchy that controls everything. And again, my eyes were open to a piece of our Canadian history

that I did not know that Canada had its own oligarchy that pretty much controlled everything from the 1790s until the 1830s in what was called the Family Compact. Yeah, so what that was, was essentially a group of men over time who pretty much controlled everything from religious matters to the law to education to business, all of it. And it was all centered around these few individuals who controlled the Executive Council of Upper Canada and the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, and could make all of these decisions to really benefit themselves, and it really stifled progress in Canada as we moved towards responsible government. And how

did the responsible government wing wrest control from the Family Compact? Well, it actually started with the Upper and lower Canada rebellions of 1837-38. And that kind of ended the family compact's power because reforms came in soon after. In the 1840s, the province or the upper Canada and lower Canada were united into the province of Canada, which further eroded their power. And then responsible government finally came in in the late 1840s, which took gave power back to the people and away from this small group of individuals at the top. Hard power can sometimes morph into soft power and quiet influence. Are those the families that existed as part of that compact? Are they still present? Are they still influential in Canada? Not to not to suggest anything nefarious,

but just wondering if they still if they're still around. Not so much. No, a lot of these people were more politicians than business people. But not so much. But the family compact would eventually evolve into the political parties we have today. So all of the political parties can really trace their origin back to this oligarchy that existed 200 and some odd years ago. Something tells me the People's Party of Canada was not part of the family compact of the 1790s. Probably not.

Probably not. Craig, remind everybody, where can they find your show? You can hear my show on the Chorus Radio Network every weekend. Just look for your local listings and you can listen to the podcast Canadian History X, and that's EHX on all podcast platforms. I hear on Twitter quite often people who do not like me say they feel dumber when they listen to my show but I suspect that is not the case when they hear this segment because you sir make me feel just a little bit smarter.

Really appreciate your time and looking forward to our next chat. Thanks for having me. This is Carry the Fire. I'm your host, Lisa LaFlamme. Carry the Fire, a podcast by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation featuring inspiring personal stories about what happens when world leading doctors, nurses, researchers, and their patients come together to ignite breakthroughs.

Carry the Fire launches Monday, January 27 business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 people

who are watching this video. We're a company that's focused on the future. We're a company that's focused on the future. talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. There are some days where I wonder what is going on in the United States. And obviously the terrafore is one of those perplexing issues. But right next to that is what is going on in the world when Vladimir Putin is being

talked about like a level headed adult in the room And a democracy like Ukraine is denigrated and besmirched as some sort of bad actor in the area. I mean, accessory to that is why is Canada a bad guy and Russia a good guy? So to talk about how Putin has written a masterclass on hoodwinking American conservatives, I'm joined by Adam Zeevo from the National Post. Adam, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Good morning.

Yeah. This didn't happen overnight, I have to assume. This switching of the dynamic and this complete reversal of a historic dynamic didn't happen by accident and it didn't happen overnight. No, this actually has a really long history that goes back to the early 2010s. So Vladimir Putin essentially managed to stay in power for the first 10, 12 years of his regime by promising Russians economic prosperity in exchange for curtailed rights. But starting in the early 2010s, the Russian economy began to stagnate and there were massive anti-government protests after a rigged parliamentary election in 2011.

So that was suppressed after 18 months. And following that, Vladimir Putin basically rebranded his government as a defender of traditional values. And this was very effective at basically portraying Russia as being anti-West, right? He was able to create this permanent sense of besiegement within Russia saying the West is trying to pervert you, trying to make you into degenerates. We are against them. And he was able to direct anger towards his government outward at Europe and the United

States. So on top of that, you know, he was able to use this to effectively build alliances with social conservatives in Western Europe and in the United States. And by the late 2010s, he was able to win over the European far right. And then eventually over time, he was able to win over the American right, even though when you look at the data, Russia is not really a bastion of social conservatism at all. Their abortion rates are high. They are very religious, and they have a large number of divorces plus domestic violence and alcoholism is endemic in the country. I, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I still struggle to understand how there is on the Venn diagrams of the priorities

of Russia and the priorities of the American right that there is any overlap where what counterpoint are the American are American conservatives seeing in Vladimir Putin's government where they say no, this is somebody with whom I can find common cause. Well, I think there's a lot of ignorance about the realities of Russian society, but I want to give a bit of extra historical context here. So let's keep in mind that for decades, conservatives in the United States mostly followed a neo conservative foreign policy. Essentially they believed in exporting democracy abroad.

They were very confident in their values. But then of course, the forever wars of Afghanistan and Iraq, which can both be considered failures, discredited neoconservative foreign policy. And the Republicans were never able to really define a replacement framework with which to understand this issue. And so there was a void and ideologically destitution led them to subsume foreign policy under domestic policy. And so their foreign policy positions became an extension of the American culture wars

and they allied with Russia, an adversarial nation that wants to undermine American power across the world simply because they bought into this myth that Russia is allied with them against quote unquote world culture. So in in Trump 1.0, there was at least a belief on the outside looking in that Donald Trump believed that on some fundamental level, he could work with Vladimir Putin, they had many bilaterals and they they there was a lot of effusive language coming out of the Oval Office towards the Kremlin. What is different today about that dynamic? I think that many of the power brokers within the Republican Party that checked Trump's

more destructive impulses have now been removed. And so we're looking at Trump acting without any constraints and surrounded by sycophants. And now Republican influencers are buying into pro-Russian propaganda much in the same way how in the 20th century pro-Soviet leftists glorified the Soviet Union. And I think that's dangerous because as of now, Trump is still somewhat iconoclastic

with his foreign policy views. Many Republicans find his beliefs and his approach to be outrageous. But when you have a large number of media influencers and political influencers in the Republican Party saying that Russia is defender of church and the family, then that might start to change. And I know that Trump is trying to create some kind of Russo American alliance against China, which I don't think is gonna work at all. And I

think we're getting into really dangerous territory with all of that. Well yeah, and Adam, I'm talking to you with Adam Ziva from the National Post, and we're discussing his article, How Putin Hoodwinked American Conservatives. Let's not forget, lost in the conversation that we've thus far been having, is that caught in the middle is a democracy struggling for its very survival

after an invasion by Russia, Ukraine. And you've got very vocal, very influential people in the United States reimagining this conflict in a way that does not subscribe to any reality I've ever lived in. Well, the problem here is that people live in these echo chambers. And I know the term disinformation is used a lot and often abused, but I think that they often consume just that. So you have people, for example, who think that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis. You think that you have people who think that Ukrainians are clamoring for a ceasefire, if it means giving up NATO and all of their occupied territories. And the problem is that these people have never stepped foot inside Ukraine, yet they

feel very strongly that they understand Ukrainian society. I myself, you know, I've spent almost two years living in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. I understand Ukraine very deeply. And yet I find myself constantly lectured to, you know, by these very opinionated North American influencers who just see Ukraine through a screen whose political understanding is through short little YouTube videos, fringe websites and tweets. And I think that's a problem. And I think that we need to get more conservative journalists to Ukraine so they

can see what it's actually like and appreciate the struggle for Ukrainian democracy, which I want to clarify. Ukraine democracy has its flaws, of course, like many Eastern European countries, but they're trying so hard. And they value their freedom. And we need that real world experience to dispel all of these lies. If actual facts and images and voices from Ukraine

is not changing the minds of these influential Americans who control the powers of the purse and the ability for Ukraine to defend itself with the weapons and the funding that it needs. What is going to change that? Once again, I think it's just a real world experience. And I know from some of my work that there have been congressmen and staffers

who have bought into Russian propaganda, and then they've gone to Ukraine and they've realized that everything they heard on Twitter was a lie. And I know that on my end, but the conservative journalists that I work with, the ones who have real world experience in Ukraine know what's going on versus the ones who are very opinionated, who never set foot inside the country. opinion and we've never set foot inside the country. So I think that we should invest into creating real world interactions with Ukrainian community, with Ukraine so that people can see with their own eyes what is happening. I've been in conversation with Adam Zivo. Not only is he one of the foremost good faith voices on responsible drug policy here in Canada, but he knows what he's talking about as it relates to Ukraine. Adam Zivo, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me on the show. His article in the National Post is called How Putin Hoodwinked American Conservatives, and I urge everyone to read it. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the Chorus Radio Network, and you can listen online to the Radio Canada player and the iHeart Radio Canada apps. And make sure to follow and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your streaming audio. We release new podcasts every day. Thanks for listening. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans.

We've mastered made to measure growth and expansion advice. And we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do – business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business.