The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 4 - David Frum, Stephen Lecce, Michael Higgins

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

Best of the Week Part 4 - David Frum, Stephen Lecce, Michael Higgins Guests: David Frum, Stephen Lecce, Michael Higgins, Dr. Eric Kam, Moshe Lander, Francis Syms 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

From commutes that become learning sessions to dishwashing filled with laughs, podcasts can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending, you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC optimum points everywhere you shop. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show Best of the Week podcast.

We had so many great discussions this week, including political heavyweight David Frum joining me to talk about the state of play in Canada-U.S. relations. Plus, we had an excellent economics panel. Enjoy. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And of course, you can always find us if you're not listening on the radio or a streaming app. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music.

You just search up the Ben Mulroney Show and have at it. We're making a lot of hay over the first meeting between our new Prime Minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump that happened just a few days ago in the Oval Office. There's a lot of ways to look at it. There's a lot of, I think a lot to like, and I think there's some fair criticism as well.

But no person I would rather talk to about this And I think there's some fair criticism as well. But no person I would rather talk to about this than a man who finds himself in the podcast world in his own right. Since April 9, David from he's a writer at the Atlantic, host of the David from podcast and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, David, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. And it's always such a pleasure to talk to you. Before we go into the 51st state of it all, how are you finding hosting a podcast? I'm learning a lot.

The podcast, thank you for asking. We launched on April 9th. We passed a million views on just on YouTube with a 50% more on the audio platform. So it's very exciting. And I invite people to listen to the latest, which posted Wednesday dialogue with Ann Applebaum, my colleague at the event. That's wonderful. Well, yeah, it's the more time you get in the chair, the more time you get behind the mic, the more comfortable you're going to be. And I'm just glad that you're spending a little bit of time with us today. So I'm so glad to have you because you understand

both sides of the border as well as as anyone. What did you make of the, since the beginning of the 51st state rhetoric and the fact that it still was omnipresent in that first meeting between Mark Carney and Donald Trump? Well, it's very hard to negotiate with people who have asks that you could say yes or even no to. Normally in a negotiation, Canada and the United States have a complex trading relationship. Canadians want this, the Americans want that. Trump wants Canada to end its national existence as a sovereign country. It's like that scene in Goldfinger, you know, where James Bond says to Goldfinger, are you expecting me to talk? And Goldfinger replies, no, Mr. Bond, I'm expecting you to die. Great line.

That's sort of Donald Trump's position. And it's hard to negotiate when someone says, my ask is that you die. So, Prime Minister Carney's problem was, he needs to keep the lines of communication open, but there's not a lot to communicate about. And Donald Trump delights in acts of symbolic humiliation, and it's important that you not comply

or take part in the act of the ritual of symbolic humiliation. I've been often wondering about whether or not Mark Carney is the right man to negotiate with someone like Donald Trump. One of the reasons he got elected is because the Liberal Party sort of diminished the amount of daylight between the Tories and the Liberals in terms of policy. So they were able to make the entire thing about leadership and specifically leadership in the face of Donald Trump.

And then I heard that a number of people who were in the private meetings with Donald Trump said that he was very curious to learn about who Mark Carney was and who he knew and what his life was, what his connections were, what his world view was, quite taken by this uber successful person. And knowing what you know about Donald Trump, is he attracted to people like Mark Carney? Is he almost admiring of him? Look, Trump's a bullshitter who doesn't know anything about trade, doesn't know anything about policies of his own government. So he wants to talk about biographical details because you start talking to him about anything specific and he's lost. But the job that Carney has is not negotiating

with Donald Trump. It is actually, sorry, this is gonna be complicated, it's a lot of negatives. His job is not to negotiate with Donald Trump. Canada should not be negotiating too fast. Trump has thrown the American economy, he's just, he's driving the American economy toward a wall.

There are gonna be shortages of goods, there's a gathering recession, and the people around Trump know this and they're visibly nervous. The situation gets worse for the United States by the week. And it would be a big mistake to start talking too early. Better to talk in the fall, after the American recession

has started than to talk now before it started. And I'm glad you brought that up because that was something that I sort of saw on the horizon as well. And one of the one of my contentions early on was Canada has girded for the pain. We were prepared for the pain. We've been dealing with pain for 10 years anyway. But that wasn't the bargain that got Donald Trump elected. He got elected on a promise that the sunshine rainbows it happens the day after I'm elected. And so what Americans are seeing is this was not the bill of goods that they were sold. Do you think is your suggestion then that the Canadian government needs to slow play this until after the midterms? government needs to slow play this until after the midterms? Yeah, not a lot. You're a million percent right. Not a lot of the midterms. But look,

the Canadian public was told Canada doesn't want this trade war. Canada didn't start this trade war. Canada has no special demands of this trade war. But Canada understands the stakes here are national injustice. And so Canadians must endure what will be painful painful but wasn't their fault. Trump told Americans I'm going to go around the world taking other people's money and put it in your pocket and it will be cheap, it'll be easy, it'll be risk-free, I'm doing something that's kind of immoral when you think about it but you're going to completely get away with it and no disruptions. So yeah the United States is stronger than Canada, it can inflict more pain on Canada, Canada can do

it reverse. But the Americans were told there would be no pain at all and they're not Yeah, the United States is stronger than Canada. It can inflict more pain on Canada than Canada can do. But the Americans were told there would be no pain at all and they're not ready. So I wouldn't say wait till after the midterms, but just go slow because the American position is deteriorating fast. And Donald Trump doesn't quite understand that because he doesn't really understand how things work.

Well, you mentioned something a little bit earlier about how the people around him are getting nervous. But if you watch the video from his cabinet meetings, where the likes of the Navarros, the Millers, the Lutnicks, and everywhere around the cabinet table are just heaping praise on him, is there anyone in his orbit that is telling him what you and I are discussing right now? Probably not directly. Here's what's happening is people are called television and are saying Your children are gonna have fewer toys, you know, this would be a very concrete example something that's happening I got an email the other day from the American Association Halloween retailers

That sounds like a small thing. Yeah. But Halloween is the second biggest holiday in the United States after Christmas. Almost all Halloween gear is made in China. It's sold, of course, between the middle of September and the end of October. You wanna have your goods from China in time for the middle of September, your order has to be in by the middle of April.

Your order's not in by the middle of April, no it's. And so guess what is not gonna be happening on the 25th? Halloween. And guess when the Christmas orders have to go in by the end of May. They're gonna be, if you want Christmas decorations, if you want some strollers.

You know what is almost 100% made in China? Baby gear, car seats, strollers. What happens if you're expecting a baby in the latter half of the year? You're gonna find it hard to get a stroller. The goods move, it takes about 30 days, a baby in the latter half of this year. You're going to find it hard to get a stroller. The goods move, it takes about 30 days, goods from the Chinese coast to the west coast of the United States, 45 days to get them to the east coast of the United States. So when you embargo China on

April 2, it's about now that goods stop stop showing in Seattle and Long Beach and Los Angeles. And it's in about none of the week they stopped showing up in New Jersey and the Gulf Coast. But they're going to stop showing up. And it's not just China, because Trump's waging a trade war against the whole world of Canadians well now. And anybody's he's hoping that that trade war turns into renewed trade deals that happen under what he views as more favorable conditions for the United States. I believe there's an announcement that the US and the UK are announcing a new trade deal or at least the framework of one. Is there anything

you know about that? Yeah, it's vaporware. It's total vaporware. The US Columbia trade deal. Columbia is not a major trading partner. That was negotiated during the Bush administration. It was negotiated during the Bush administration. It was started when I was in the Bush administration in the first Bush term, and it was signed by President Obama. These things take years. They're very complicated. You don't pull them out of a hat.

You don't pull them on an all-nighter. And this thing with Britain, all they've done is said, Britain is going to reduce one particular tax it imposes on Google services, and in exchange, the United States will lower tariffs on the very, very, very few cars that are imported from Great Britain. But most of the important trade issues between Britain and the United States, and Britain is only America's 11th biggest trading partner, by the way, those are all postponed to the future, everything complicated and difficult.

So is it vaporware? There's nothing. This is not, this is an act of economic aggression by the Trump administration against the world. And the way it ends is the Trump administration stops its economic aggression against the rest of the world. Yeah. It's also a self-immolation on a national scale, the likes of which I have never seen before. David Frum, thank you so much for being here. We know how busy you are. And I know that the audience here at the Ben Mulroney Show appreciates you. All the best to you, sir. Bye-bye.

One of the reasons I would never run for office is because my knowledge of economics is in the toilet. I'm terrible at all aspects of money and finance and everything, but that doesn't mean I don't like talking about those things. And fortunately, I've got a couple of guests here who are willing to walk my hand through, hold my hand as we walk through a number of very complex stories. And they're going to talk to me like I'm a child. Please welcome to the show Dr. Eric Kam, economics professor at TMU and Moshe Lander, Concordia University economics professor.

To the both of you, I say welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hello. Benedict, I have an issue. Why is this guy muscling in on our time? Hey, there's a lot of Ben to go around. And sometimes it's good to get varying opinions. Let's start south of the border with the US Fed.

They held the rates despite what Donald Trump wanted. He wanted lower rates again. They held the rates where they are. Eric, make that make sense for me. I think it actually makes a lot of sense. First of all, I think there's two reasons. Number one is that by keeping their rates a little bit higher than

other parts of the world that have had a holy war on inflation, it's caused capital flight into their country. It's called monetary flows going into their country, and that's propped up their dollar, propped up their exchange rate, propped up their economy, number one. Number two, Jerome Powell also knows that if you just do nothing more than stimulate spending by dropping interest rates, that's great for the business cycle, but does nothing toward long run growth. And I think so, Powell is trying to look at a long run versus a short run scenario and say, you know what, we don't have to rush and push our rates so low if all that's going to do

is stimulate consumption, possibly inflation, and for sure, just the business cycle. So I like the move. Moshe, you were nodding. I think you like it as well. I do. I think it's also for credibility. You can't have the president undermining the credibility and the independence of the

central bank. That's where I was going to go next. Exactly. He really loves sticking his nose where he knows it doesn't belong. The independence of the Fed is paramount, no? Absolutely. And it was one of the things that happened in Canada 30 years ago was that when the Bank of Canada was cut loose from government interference or when they were given a mandate and told, now you do whatever you need to, that helps to make things easier in terms of the

interest rate cycle, in terms of making sure that we don't have too big a boom, too big a bust. So yeah, if nothing else, you just have to do it to make sure that I am not giving into political pressure because the next time around, it's that much easier to cave in. And the appearance of propriety is as important as propriety itself. People have to feel that it's independent, not just that it acts independently. All right, let's move on to Mark Carney because during the campaign, he sold everyone,

he sold enough people on the fact that because he was an economist, he knew how, and he loved using this expression, to catalyze investment. Now let's afford him a little grace, and it's gonna take some time to implement things. He can't do a whole lot on day one. He's not in parliament yet. They haven't brought the House back.

But what's one thing, mostly, he could do right now, right now, immediately, that could provide a boost to the economy. He can hand over money to the Competition Bureau and have them do a little more investigation as to what exactly is going on with competition in this country. So the biggest thing that's been holding Canada back for 40 years is an increasing lack of competition.

You and I could probably make an alphabet if we wanted airlines, banks, cell phone providers, food distributors. There's a lot of industry that's not competitive. When a merger takes place, the argument is not convince me business why this is good for Canada, but it's tell me government why this is bad for consumers. And you shouldn't put the onus on the government to have to try and explain why a merger is bad.

You should have the onus on the business for why this is a good thing. If you can pry open competition, all of a sudden you get lower prices, greater diversity, better output, higher productivity, which means our standard of living rises, our cost of living and affordability issues start to go away. But if you're seen to be doing something from the beginning, saying that this is something that we're going to attack head on, that can restore a certain amount of confidence to the economy that's been lacking. going to attack head on, that can restore a certain amount of confidence to the economy that's been lacking.

Eric, let's let's stick with Moshe's idea of competition in this country. One way to do that, and I don't know whether this is a radical idea or a bad idea, but one way to do that would be to open up the Canadian market to the foreign competition. To you know, if if if all of a sudden, in order to build out the next generation of say wireless technology in Canada, Rogers, for example, could partner with Verizon, right? All of a sudden those costs go down and ultimately the cost of the consumer would go down, no? Well, yeah, and it takes nothing more than opening up chapter two of any economics textbook to know that competition is a good thing and

can reduce prices. The problem is this country is hung on to the idea of monopolies. And you hear people of my parents' generation say things were so much better when Bell had the phone lines and Rogers had the TV lines. But that's baloney. They had a complete monopoly. They still have something of a monopoly and they can just set their own prices. And it's why we have some of the highest

Communication prices in the world my friends who live in Europe here what we paying pay for our cell phones Yeah, and they laugh out loud So I actually agree with you and I actually agree with moist that we've got to start bringing in real competition I don't mean two firms in an industry I mean firms in an industry if you can survive in this country Then you should be able to survive. And if you can't, you can't without government intervention to prop you up.

So I'm all for competition. Yeah, I think we have to get off of this notion that in order for us to be the fullest expression of a nation, we have to have a proud national airline and a proud national this and a proud, I would prefer, like you wanna build a strong country, make it so that I can fly from Ottawa to Vancouver for 250 bucks. Make it that my cell phone bill is a third of what it is. All of a sudden you're spurring business, you're spurring tourism, you're having

that people have more disposable income. That's to me how a pretty easy step. But first we've got to get over this fear that to do that means the foreign hordes are going to come and take us over. Well, let me say one more thing on that on that topic, because I think you're exactly right is everybody with their national pride that keeps costing us billions of dollars that has to get bailed out is ridiculous. And the number one example of that airlines is number two. Number one is our beloved national broadcaster, which takes billions of dollars a year

and produces no quality. Why don't we start there? I think we had that debate, Eric. Sadly, you and I came out on the losing end of that bargain. Moshe? Oh, I was just gonna say, you know, in the leaders debates, especially in French, the idea that supply management

was off the table in negotiations. I mean, go meet with Trump and say, all right, you win, you win. We'll pry open the dairy industry. What are we going to get in Canada? Lower prices for butter, cheese, milk, eggs. Like who's going to complain about that except for the dairy farmers, but they're very powerful lobby.

And so everybody's running scared from, from dairy farmers. That's an easy industry that you could pry open within 10 minutes. Okay. Let's look at the energy sector that CEOs abound are calling on Mark Carney to take action to support the domestic energy sector. Now, during the campaign, he said some positive stuff, he said some confusing stuff, he said some negative stuff. I don't know where he's going to land on that.

So Eric, is our energy sector the single best opportunity to spur economic growth in Canada? And if so, and I'm going to give you about 40 seconds to do this, what does the Prime Minister have to do? He doesn't know where he's going to land because he has no idea. The reality is he's got to throw up an energy to the same reasons that we just talked about. You can't have people knocking at your door to want to buy your energy, your natural resources, your LNG, and you turn them away. Canada's productivity growth has stagnated to a level that people don't understand. Far too low business investment in technology, innovation, LNG, all that does is limit long-term growth, start selling the things in which we have a comparative advantage and natural gas is just one of them, Ben.

All right, Moshe, you got the last word on this. So that sounds like chapter three of an economic textbook, comparative advantage. Look, the problem is that in order to get the oil to market, you have to build pipelines. So, solution is very simple. You have to get the premiers together and you have to knock heads in whatever way necessary, offer them whatever goods we need to get pipelines built,

whether that's the energy corridor or just trampling people, but you got to get it built to coast to coast, and that's how you're going to find markets in Europe and in Asia. Yeah, well, I liked some of the things that Mark Carney said, but every now and whenever he would go back to that line that was used under the Trudeau liberals, that it was all about meaningful consultation with stakeholders,

like, oh, this is why nothing got built, because we had too many cooks in the kitchen and that was done by design. So if he can get away from that, and you're right, if he can just do from that, and you're right, if he can just just do one big national energy build, I think that'll go a long way to to giving him the resume he needs out West. Hey, Eric, I hope you saw that three people on a panel very good idea. Well, you and I were a tremendous idea.

And then moist can drop by to startlingly, he said some things I believe so that was really something. All right. This has been the Cam Lander moment on the Ben Mulroney show. We'll see you guys soon. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get Global National every day as a podcast.

The biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news journalists. New episodes drop every day, so take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National podcast. You can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you for spending a little bit of your Thursday with us. We really appreciate it.

And look, for the 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, this conclave to select a new pope is something that is being covered very, very closely and paid very close attention to. But for a lot of us, we're really unsure as to what the process is, what's going on behind those closed doors, and how we get from there to a new pope. And I'm joined now by the author of The Jesuit Disruptor, a personal portrait of Pope Francis, Michael Higgins.

Michael, welcome to the show. And this is, I'm not the only Mulroney you've talked to in recent days. Ah, yes, that's right, Ben. I was privileged enough to receive an honorary doctorate from St. Francis Abbey University where, as you know, your mother is the chancellor. So she bestowed the degree on me and during the lunch and dinner afterwards, she asked me who was going to be the new pope. And I said, well, the best source would be the Ben Mulrooney. I hope she's listening. Thank you Michael and congratulations on the honor. Thank you. Okay so explain to me and to our listeners generally the process of conclave.

How does one you know if you're if you're part of it if you're one of the one of the people on the inside how how does someone put forth their ambition? Is there a nominating process? Well, the first thing that happens actually, Ben, is you have to disengage from or in disincentive yourself in any way from any demonstration of partisanship or self promotion. Okay. The an old Italian phrase that a cardinal who goes into a conclave of Pope will exit a cardinal. And that's proven to be true. If you're involved in any

kind of lobbying or advancement or self-promotion, it's the case of death. So first of all, they have to demonstrate the requisite humility that they don't want the job but they're not campaigning for it. Secondly, there will be various ways in which the cardinals, particularly as the conclave unfolds and as you see fluctuation in the voting, will form off the cuff, in the hall, Soto Voce alliances in which they say, okay, who's the best candidate on the group that we have that could best serve the church at this time in its history? But we have to remember, and we've been surprised by this in the past, that very often there's

a dark horse. So right now there are several candidates that are we the Vaticanisti, the experts on the Vatican, talk about as the lead runners and they would be Cardinal Taglia of Manila and Cardinal Peralin who's the Secretary of State, the number two in in the Vatican. But then there were a whole group of others. So that we pretty well have a composite of somewhere between 12 and 18 that we anticipate they will draw on. But we're always surprised by somebody

who comes up for the middle or somebody who perhaps even could come from outside the College of Cardinals, although that's fairly rare in recent centuries. So, Michael, so the people who are on the vote, the cardinals who are on the ballot, so to speak, they cannot show that they want this job in any way. But I'm assuming that there are groups that form around them,

who are what? Over the, when a vote passes, when a vote is done and it fails and they have not selected they do those do those groups then try to bring more people into the fold yeah there is a kind of a unrecognized or below the surface realignment yeah so if the cardinal electors are looking and they were um we're probably they were in the middle of a ballot right now actually because they're six hours ahead of us and they went in at 345 and so that they're in the process right now of actually going to that next ballot. So what they'll do because they know it's not secret, they'll know who the names are and they will know how many are voting for this particular

candidate. So they will sit down and they'll think, all right, well this candidate that seems to be moving up the scale, he's worth my vote, or alternatively there may be significant opposition for a particular candidate and others will form a, again, quiet, unofficial alliance and say, well, we really don't, we want to stop this candidacy because I'm happy with it. So there's just a fair bit of politicking that goes on. They just don't like to call it politics. Michael Higgins, where do all of these cardinals sleep? You know, what happens when a day of voting is over? Where do they turn in?

That's a very good question, Ben, because people often wonder where they go. They have to be pretty well sequestered. So when they finished their balloting session in the Sistine Chapel, they're then transported to the Casta San Marzo Santa Marta, which is a residence, basically a guest house, that was built by John Paul II. And that's where the Cardinals are housed. So they stay in that building, and then they're transported either by bus or they take a route behind in the Vatican itself, but behind the walls, that is not available to the press.

And depending upon their mobility, there are 133 cardinals that are voting in this election. There are 135 that are eligible. Two of them are ill and were unable to attend. But if any of the cardinals who are in Rome right now are unable because of sickness or any other reason to attend, then their vote is also secured through what are called the infamari, the kind of infirm infamarians, or cardinals who are dispatched to deal with the vote of an ill cardinal.

You know, a cardinal is not just a figurehead. They have responsibilities to their flock wherever they're from. Who's tending to those flocks while they're in conclave? Oh, that's a good administrative question. Many of the cardinals, if they're in charge of a large archdiocese, they're called metropolitan, and so they're cardinal archbishops. As a consequence, they would have a significant number of auxiliary or assistant bishops that would assume responsibility for management while they were away. The cardinals who are in Rome are called curio or dicasterio cardinals.

They live in Rome. They have no immediate responsibility for the flock, as it were, although they have titular churches. So their responsibility for whether or way would be minimal because they're resident in Rome and they work in Rome. So there are residential cardinals and then there are cardinals who are responsible for curio operations, who are responsible for curio operations and they both provide appropriate alternative governance in their absence. Michael, is there a historical or religious significance to the different colored smoke that we're seeing? Not really. The chemicals are used actually because in the past there's

been some confusion. The white smoke indicates that the Pope has been elected the black smoke, that the vote has failed. But sometimes it comes out gray or something, everybody gets confused. The 4,000 journalists, yes, 4,000 journalists that are credited to the Vatican for this event, they're all scurrying about. So they in order to ensure that indeed there's clarity, they provide chemicals to the burning ballots and so it's clear now whether it's white or black.

I've got one last question and I hope you can answer this in about one minute. But once the vote is done and and someone wins, does that person immediately become pope or is there a process whereby they become the pope at a later date? No, as soon as the cardinal dean or his designate approaches the, which would be Cardinal Peralin in this case, approaches the candidate and asks him if he accepts as soon as he says either yes or no. If he says yes, then he's Pope. Right then, at that very moment, he becomes the Bishop of Rome. That to me is fascinating. I would have thought that there would be just more pomp and circumstance and mechanisms by which other things have to happen.

It's actually refreshing to hear that despite all of this, like I said, pageantry, if you will, once that vote's done, it's official. It's a very binary thing. Michael Higgins, author of The Jesuit Disruptor, The personal portrait of Pope Francis. I want to thank you so much for joining us and answering all of these questions. It gives us a lot more context so we know what we're looking for. I hope you're well listening to this, Ben. I do indeed as well. Thank you, sir.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show. Thank you so much for spending time with us. And Canada, I always has this reputation at least in my own head at getting in its own way and squandering whatever lead it might have in an industry allowing another country to come in and lap it and take advantage of whatever work Canada had done and the next thing you know we're on the outside looking in well that's why I'm so excited to have this next conversation with the Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce, because we had had a leadership position in the nuclear reactor

space and it looks like with this announcement, we're going to maintain that. So please welcome to the show, Minister Stephen Lecce. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much, Ben. Good to be back. All right. So this is a very big deal. Why don't you tell the listeners of the show what you're announcing.

So this is when we talk about nation building announcements. And we keep hearing this from politicians, and we got to do big things. This is the big thing that this province our government is initiating today, a plan to build small modular reactors. These are essentially new miniaturized nuclear reactors. They produce enough power each for 300,000 homes for 65 years. This province and our country is literally the leader in the world in building the G7,

the industrialized world's first small modular reactor. And today we gave the green light, we started construction, we're gonna open up these SMRs a full fleet that's going to create 18,000 construction jobs and 3,600 permanent jobs over the 65 years. So what we're essentially doing today is we're saying yes to Canadian jobs, Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, Canadian metal, all the equipment, 80 cents to the dollar, 80% of everything we build is being made with made in Ontario. So we're really leading the way. Yeah. And you're right,

we've always been a leader in nuclear. This is just a massive step up. Okay, so so the announcement that I read was that the government or the province is starting with four SMRs. But, but, but explain to me what this is going to look like down the line is this? Are we as a as a province going to be building a fleet of these things and selling them around the world? Like what's the plan? So the advantage for Ontario is we know we need power, we need 75% more power the province. So we're building four, that's 300 a piece, that's 1200 megawatts of power, enough power for 1.2 million Ontario homes.

That's going to be secured by 2035. The first is going to come online, connect to the grid by 2030. So this is amazing speed. And we've really been leading the way to first movers advantage. But to your point, I'm just about building out energy independence and security for Ontario. It's for the country and the world. We're building small-modge reactor fleets in Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick. We have agreements for exports in Poland, as well as Czech Republic,

Estonia, you may pick up a lot of Eastern European nations who are looking to end their reliance on Vladimir Putin's natural gas by having clean electricity sources. So here we are selling our SMRs around the world. We own the IP, we get royalties on everything we sell. We are using Canadian, Ontario materials and components. Like I signed a billion agreement in Cambridge where we're building out much of the SMRs for Europe.

So the materials is Canadian, the workforce is Canadian, the royalties come back to Ontario taxpayers. I mean, this is an incredible example. You know, the first mover's advantage, we have to take a little bit of risk, but a massive economic reward. And I'm thinking about, you know, think about like, you know, you see unemployment rising given the insanity of what's happening in America, $11 trillion wiped off the, from investments. Like what can we do?

What can we do, Ben, to safeguard our country from these shocks that we don't control? Well, we can level up and we can invest in ourselves to be strong, self-reliant, you know, sovereign economy. And so this is the announcement today. I think it's just a really powerful example of Canada leading the way. And it's honestly, I couldn't be more proud to stand with the workers. But those folks, it's not just work for them, Ben. It's work for their children. It's 65 years of work.

So, Minister, allay the fears of some of our listeners who, when they hear nuclear reactor, their mind immediately goes to, say, Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. The fact is, SMRs are not your grandfather's nuclear reactor, their mind immediately goes to say Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. Like the fact is, SMRs are not your grandfather's nuclear reactor. But explain the difference, explain the leap in technology and explain the safety that comes with these these reactors. Well, first off, we have a absolutely strong, fabulous track record of building, a absolutely strong, fabulous track record of building, operating, maintaining, and refurbishing nuclear power in Ontario safely and reliably for over half a century. I mean, our grandparents made these original investments

that are reaping long-term dividends from Ontario. The strongest safety regime exists in the country, in the world, uh, in the world in Canada, you know, and so we're very proud and we're very frankly prepared to make sure that that track record continues. But what I'd also want to emphasize, you know, when it comes to the issue of reliability is that we need base load power, meaning we need to have power that is 24 seven, always running.

So I looked at, you know, what are the alternatives? What's the financial risk? If we don't do this, then what can we do? Well, we looked at the alternative. We had the independent electricity systems operator look at the alternative and what they said is, it would mean we would need to build enough solar and wind, the equivalent to the size of one third of the GTA and landmass cost 25% more.

Think about it, just for the battery, it would have to be a third of the GTA, like 260 times more than the small modular footprint. So land scarcity, scarcity, cost, reliability issues. So we looked at a variety of those risks, financial, when it comes to energy, et cetera, and it's clear. This technology is leading edge. It is the most modern tech adopted on earth. And here we are leading the way, leaning in to clean, reliable, affordable nuclear power. Ontario is a nuclear nation, a nuclear powerhouse. Canada is too. We have the uranium in Saskatchewan, the technology of Ontario. I mean, this is a

beautiful story of us harvesting our economic resource potential. So, you know, be assured, these investments are safe. They are reliable and they're clean. I mean, we're displacing the equivalent of like 600,000 vehicles from the road. Yeah. I mean I remember. I remember years ago watching a 60-minute special on how clean the technology was, the nuclear technology was in France that went all in on on nuclear I think in the 50s or 60s and and and they have a spotless track record and in Europe it's technically viewed as a green technology. And so if we can bring some of that to Canada, I think we'll all be better off. Minister Lecce, congratulations on behalf of everyone here on this great announcement.

I stand behind you on this and I want to see more of this, not just in Ontario, but across Canada. So we appreciate you coming on to the show to let our listeners know about it. We're just getting started. Appreciate this. One of the stories that is becoming increasingly commonplace in places like, like Canada, North America, and across the West are data breaches and cyber attacks, ransomware attacks. And one of them happened very close to home at the Toronto District School Board, where students and staff personal information was stolen during a cyber attack. And that happened

four months ago. But even though the ransom was paid, they didn't get it they didn't get it back. It wasn't destroyed. And they found out about that after a separate ransom demand was made in exchange for the stolen data. This brings up all sorts of questions. And so here to walk us through this really complex notion that a lot of people aren't super aware of is Francis Sims. He's the associate director in the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technologies at Humber Polytechnic. Francis, welcome to the show.

Then thanks for having me again. Okay, so these things happen all the time. Is it always a question of the of an organization not having robust enough security? Or are these guys just always going to be one step ahead of whatever the security protocol is? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, ultimately it comes down to trust. So when school boards like the TDSB PO or you know, this impacted over 80 school boards in Canada, right, all the way from Cape Breton through to Calgary. So it's a massive breach. What happens is you buy this software. It's no different than you buy software to put in your computer and you assume that the company you're buying it from is legit, it has great

security and you can trust it. But in some situations like the ticket master breach, over a year ago, it was because somebody didn't have multi-factor authentication turned on, an administrator. They were able to get in and they were able to do lots of crazy things. We don't exactly know what happened here except that during the month of December last year for nine days the hackers got into the network for Power School. Now Power School is a company based out of I think California Folsom and they were in and they just started taking as much data as they could. And they didn't do the typical ransomware attack where they helped, you know, they encrypted the data. They just said, I'm'm gonna take your data and I want you to pay a ransom in order for me

to delete it and they never did and they paid it the TDSP paid it but they didn't the data wasn't deleted he had the power power school paid it a power school okay pay the bad guys that you can't trust and and lo and behold and they report it like the on the internet says maybe millions of dollars the company didn't disclose how much what it was, right, but it wasn't cheap. And then they just started knocking on doors all across the country in Canada. And the TDSP was one of them. And said, Okay, I want you to pay up again.

Yeah, but it's hard. It's hard for school boards to know how do you when you buy the software that's used all around the world? Yeah. How do you know if you can trust it or not? That was going to be my next question. Like a school board has one job, right? It's to administer and keep the schools afloat and make sure that the kids that are going through it learn something, right? They are not experts in cybersecurity. So they must be taking their, they must have to take their marching orders from someone. And I have to assume that someone is the federal government. No, wouldn't there be directives from the federal government on

how these organizations should be protecting themselves? Yeah, no education, though, it's managed, I think, at the provincial. Okay, all right. So I don't know, but there is definitely a role, I agree 100%. There's a role at the federal level here. I mean, I think at the federal level, really, what it comes down to is data sovereignty, right? This is what I always say is, you know, the data that we create in Canada should be intellectual property.

Should be protected in Canada. Right? We shouldn't be outsourcing our students' data to some US tech firm. We do enough of that with TikTok and Instagram and all these things, but that's super personal. We wouldn't do the same thing with our tax records. Allow our tax records to be still hopefully, I mean maybe they are, database down there right? So that's the way I feel is that the federal government should be saying okay if you buy the software, here are the

grand rules right? We need to make sure that you have this type of security plan yeah right and we need to audit it, vet it, because a school board, like maybe that TDSP has great cybersecurity staff, I'm sure they do. I don't really know. But a small school board like where I come from in Cape Breton, they might not have that stuff. Yeah. And that's not their specialty. Even if they've got a few cyber geeks working for them, their job is education.

Yeah. And I think that's where the government... I mean, we talk about whether we want government oversight or regulation. You can argue that, but this is one area where they could help, I think, because by putting a policy in place, by saying, if you want to do business in Canada, we hear that from our friend down south all the time, here are the ground rules, we can put some ground rules in place. And that means that any vendor that comes in, has to do A, B, and C, has to make sure that the data stays here, and has to make sure that they're secure.

And here are the steps that they're going to prove it. Francis, the conversation around AI in our lives, it's omnipresent, it's ubiquitous. And I often say, technology is neither good nor bad. It's how you use it, right? It can either be a shield, or it can be used as a shield or a hammer, right? You can either build or destroy. But has AI played a role in making these cyber attacks more sophisticated?

100%. Give the listeners an example, like a practical example of how that would happen. Yeah, so I would say now AI is no longer just in the classroom, it's in the attack, right, that happens. So what happens here is that when I was, if I was a bad actor, I've never been a bad actor, I'm very trying to steal money from you, Ben, and I might say, okay, Ben is only worth a hundred bucks and it's going to take me two hours to write up an email to try to convince him to do something. Well, I may say it's not worth my time, right?

Because the two hours of my time, it's not worth a hundred bucks. No, you're worth a lot more than a hundred bucks, I know. But if you were an AI tool, it would just happen automatically in one second in the background. And so that $100 is valuable because you didn't put any investment in to get that $100. And so that's what AI does is it automates and it makes it hyper-personalized because when it steals all this data, so now what happens is maybe you'll get some attack that says, oh, I know your daughter had an allergy, right?

We had this food allergy and we're just the medical clinic following up. We just need to get a little bit of personal information from you. Well, you're going to automatically assume, yeah, how are they going to know that my daughter had an allergy if they're not the doctor's office? That's what AI is going to do. It's going to highlight what the right vector is, how you go after somebody in sort of a really easy way. So it reduces the amount of time and investment for these actors to get the money out of you.

So what are the steps forward, Francis, in order to mitigate these issues? I mean, they're never going to fully go away, but I assume it's a multi-step plan. And we've outlined a few of them, you know, finding Canadian companies to work with, vetting them properly. What are some of the steps that the Toronto District School Board could take so that they do not fall prey to a problem like this in the future?

Yeah, number one is to require all student data or staff data to be stored in Canada, and which means that it's under the jurisdiction of Canadian privacy laws. That dictates how it can be shared and what the penalties are if you breach that. Right now, it gets stored in the United States. In the United States, all the laws are state-driven. There's not really a federal legislation around how these data can be shared.

Once it goes across the border, it's gone. That's step number one. You buy a system, you make sure it's in Canada, the data is in Canada, and then have Manus story cybersecurity standards, right. And I think school boards can work with the provincial governments, the federal governments, doing a lot of work here in Ontario, I know, and other provinces around that, to say here are the minimum threshold, you need to make sure that anybody that has access to the system, I know who those people are, right. This is the steps for them to get in. I can audit it anytime, basic things like that, right?

It's like if you go buy a car at the car dealership, you're gonna look under the hood, you're gonna take it for a test drive, maybe you're gonna get it over to your own mechanic to make sure that it's okay before you buy it. So that kind of stuff we wanna do. And I think the third thing is that we need to start thinking about Canadian built digital infrastructure

for schools, for hospitals, for our data, right? Because no longer can we rely on, you know, servers coming out of the United States, right? Yeah. A lot of great companies down there, but we can't rely on that to support our digital identity. And so I think that's a bigger conversation and school boards can't do that. That's more of a government thought process. And I know, I know Premier Ford in Ontario here is talking about and others are thinking about it. But but I think those are three three areas of focus.

And it just feels to me like we're always prepared for the attack that just happened, not for the attack that's imminent, right? Because these guys are always one step ahead. And it does feel, Francis, that what you're suggesting, while could be inspiring and could build an entire new industry in Canada. I mean, this just feels like a multi, multi billion dollar effort that's going to take years and years before it gets actualized. But I want to thank you for joining us, for walking us through this. You know, people's data should be safe and we've got to take the steps to do so. But I appreciate your time today, sir.

My pleasure. Thanks, Ben. Thanks for listening to the 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. The My Choice sales event is back at Nissan and the choice is yours. Choose our best-selling Rogue, always ready for adventure or the Dynamic Centra. Hurry into your local Nissan dealer today. $1,500 applies to Sentra and select Rogue models when leasing or financing through NCF. Conditions apply. See Nissan.ca for details.