The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 4 - Heather Exner-Pirot, Regan Watts, J.J. McCullough

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

Best of the Week Part 4 - Heather Exner-Pirot, Regan Watts, J.J. McCullough Guests: Eric Kam, Heather Exner-Pirot, Regan Watts, J.J. McCullough, Sylvain Charlebois 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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Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Best of the Week podcast. We had so many great conversations this week, including a breakdown of the lost liberal decade and how far behind everyone else it has put us. Plus, we waltzed to the Susa Band? Mine wasn't the music grand. Chowder parties down by the seashore. Every Fourth of July, test your memory, my dearie. Do you recall when Henry Ford couldn't even fix The running board under a Chandler Six? Dearie, life was cheery

in the good old days gone by. This is the Ben Mulrooney Show. Welcome to the Ben Mulrooney Show on this very special March 20th. My dad's birthday, he would have been 86 today and I want to share a little bit of his love of a particular type of music. I remember when I was a kid, I had this realization, I was doing the math in my head. He was born in 1939, which means he would have been in his prime in the 50s and 60s, 60s really, 60s and 70s.

And I said, I said, dad, how is it that you were like, you're living your best life as a young man in the 60s and 70s, and you don't know a single rock and roll song? Like not one. And then he proceeded to hum what sounded like when Irish Eyes are Smiling, but it was, it wasn't humming it, he was singing tooty fruity

to the tune of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. And that's when I realized, and it's a joke I've told family before, that he didn't live through the 60s. He had two 50s and went straight to the 70s. Anyway, happy birthday, dad. I think if at my two cents,

if I had an audience with the leadership of the conservative party, I would say, do not focus on Trump, do not focus on tariffs. Make the central question about this election. Are you better off today than you were 10 years ago? That's it, that's what this is about. How can you trust people the next 10 years if this is what they did to the last?

Which is increasingly being called the liberal lost decade, the productivity gap, the per capita growth, and GDP. Last week, there was a chart that showed American growth over the past 10 years of over 20%. Ours was about 0.5%. Now there's an even worse chart, real GDP per capita growth across the OECD. For example, Ireland, 41 percent, the United States, 18.2 percent. Canada, right at the bottom, just above Luxembourg at 1.4 percent. So to discuss this and every other economic story I could find, let's welcome to the show Dr. Eric Kam, economics professor at TMU. Doc, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Benedict. And I have to ask you an honest question. Yes, sir. Your father's singing voice wasn't bad. Was there anything he couldn't do? Is there anything he couldn't do? He wasn't a particularly good driver. Well, because for years he wasn't, you know, he goes into politics in the 80s and he comes

out in the 90s and, you know, I don't know, the technology in the cars changed. I don't know. He's a very slow driver. He was a very, very slow driver. But but no, he could do almost anything. Never ever ceases to amaze me. Okay, the lost liberal decade. I know it's very political to call it that, but

what else do you call it? A tire fire. I mean, what is so infuriating, I know that graph you're talking about, is that if you want to wreck an economy, here's how you do it. Number one, you increase immigration to levels that nobody has ever seen to make sure that you push every per capita variable as low as it can go. And then you decrease economic growth to as close to zero as you can. Those are two things you can do to ensure economic hardship. And lo and behold, we did them both. And so what I don't understand is with this groundswell of liberal support, I see over

the last couple of days, you have the exact same people. I mean, all you did was take out one guy with good hair, bring in another guy with worse hair, but you've kept the generals all around. So you have the exact same liberal brain trust as we've had for the last 10 years. And you're telling Canadians, okay, they didn't do so great the last 10, but trust them now. Now they've seen the light and this is baloney, Ben. And well, and Eric, does anybody think that Justin Trudeau was ever the smartest guy in the room? And that's not a knock on him. But if you look at the team around him, a lot of these people are people

who are educated or worked in the fields in which they became experts and ultimately ministers. A guy like Mark Carney versus Justin Trudeau, when they would sit around and hash out economic policy, do you think Justin Trudeau was ever the guy leading those conversations? It's asinine to assume that that would be the case. So you've literally taken out the least significant person from the equation and replaced him with somebody who I have to assume was the Svengali of it all. Yes, Svengali. Well, it's time for that guru to start guruing.

The problem is, is I don't think he has any guru in him. All I've seen over the last 10 years is a roller coaster ride on interest rates. They went up too fast, they went down too fast. We printed gobs of money. 70% of all the currency in circulation today we printed since the pandemic. What kind of idiocy was that? That's like saying please go and inflation on a spiral, which of course it didn't take God, it did it by himself. So I don't understand what's going on. Every recipe for the economy in the last 10 years has been disastrous.

And we want to run it back with the same B team. I'll never understand it. And I hope Canadians open their eyes and realize that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing twice and hoping for a different result. That's a good point. That's a good point.

But hey, some good news, whether or not you like that the liberals did it or not, the fact is with the consumer carbon price at zero, Desjardins saying consumers could find, quote, meaningful savings as the carbon tax ends. Define meaningful savings for us. How soon do you think it could be noticeable? I think it could be noticeable very soon,

as long as you realize that you've got to take these things in small increments. It's not going to come in thousands. It's going to come in fives and tens. Well, yeah, but Eric, I mean, the liberals were very proud to tout that on April 1st, a leader of gas was going to drop 17.1 cents. So immediately, like that's an immediate pocketbook fix. Pocketbook fix. But what is it in real terms in your pocket, Ben? Seven, eight, nine dollars. And I'm not trivializing that.

If everybody saves seven or eight dollars every time they fill up their tank, that's fine. But here's my question, and I'm going to sound like a broken record because that's what you got for nine years, is if all you do is put money back into people's pockets, if all you do is reduce the interest rate, all you're doing is money back into people's pockets, if all you do is reduce the interest rate, all you're doing is saying, please continue spending. That is fine. That is fine in the short run if you don't care about the long run health of your economy.

And this government doesn't. If we don't create some true productivity, supply side growth and shift that aggregate supply curve to the right, the only thing that any of these policies is going to do is create further inflation. And that's how we got in this mess in the first place. That was Eric Kam, economics professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Of course, great friend of the show will be joining us again in short order. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. If you remember last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford congratulated Mark Carney in his

ascension to the role of Canada's Prime Minister and he said, congratulations, I look forward to working with you. Now get out of our way in the Ring of Fire. And for those of you who don't know, the Ring of Fire is a deposit of critical minerals worth billions upon billions upon billions of dollars in Ontario's north that is currently undeveloped due to years of restrictive policy by the Liberal government. Well, Pierre Poliev heard that ask, I assume, because just a couple of days ago, announced that a Poliev government would in

fact get out of Ontario's way and allow them in short order to develop that rich deposit of minerals. Something similar happened when energy CEOs wrote an open letter to federal political leaders on how to boost production and increase and improve Canadian sovereignty. It's quite a bold vision asking what they want, what they need, what they think Canada needs. And it's not directed to any one particular leader, but to discuss the contents of the letter as well as who we think maybe might answer the call is Heather Exner-Perot, Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the McDonnell

Laurier Institute. Also, Special Advisor to the Business Council of Canada. Heather, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Good morning. Thanks for having me. So what are the key takeaways from this letter? Yeah, so there's six main points. I'll just say it briefly for your listeners. One is regulatory. So in particular, C 69 or the Impact Assessment Act, people might have heard, which was quite a burdensome regulatory process and really interferes

kind of from the federal level interventional to your ring of fire point you just made. And also a tanker ban, which you obviously can't export oil. Oil tankers. But then also a few other ones. One is that there's an emissions cap. They want to get rid of the emissions cap, obviously, because they cannot grow production if that exists. They want to increase loans to indigenous groups so they can have equity and all these oil and gas projects and be partners. And they want to have a commitment to reduce the regulatory process to six months, which is ambitious, but certainly would make a better business case in Canada if they could do it. Well, you know, one of the things that surprised me was this notion of declaring an energy national emergency, which would then be, I guess that comes with a raft of additional powers where you don't have to jump

through certain hoops. I think it's, you know, in regulation where you have a public interest test and say that something is in the public interest or the national interest. Then the regulator just looks at everything else through that lens. So, okay, we know that we wanna get this done.

This is a project that needs to get to yes. So it's not about should we build it, but how are we gonna build it? And let's go through the process. So it does add to the regulator some urgency and also I think you know some leash to do things you know in a bit more proactive way. So I have to assume the Greens would not pick up this this uh the torch and say yes what you're asking for we will do. I have to assume the NDP would be against this.

I the People's Party may be in favor of it but they are not a force in federal politics so it's sort of it's a moot point to even bring them up, which brings up then therefore, the two contenders. And on one side, you've got, as I said, Pierre Poliev, who sort of endorsed the development of the Ring of Fire. And on the other side, you've got Mark Carney, who just last week was asked in French about the building pipelines in the national interest. And he shrugged his shoulders and said, well, it's really not up to me. First of all, you have to have a project

and there's no project before me. And then you've got to talk to municipalities and First Nations and the provinces themselves. There's really a lot to do. And I don't know that we should even be discussing that right now. So based on that and Pierre Poliev, I have to assume there's only one guy who's going to agree with this. Listen, this letter, I think, is to smoke out who's serious

when they say we're going to be an energy superpower and who's not serious. Yeah. The sector is telling everybody what needs to be done to attract, and I'm telling you, tens and tens of billions of dollars. The Ring of Fire is an excellent property. The oil sands and the Montney natural gas properties are trillion-dollar resources,

and there is strong demand for them. And so the very fastest way, the lowest-hanging fruit for Canada to increase our GDP, to get more jobs, to attract more investment, is to do this list of six things that the CEOs just put forth. If you can't commit to that, then don't say we're going to be an energy superpower, and you better tell Canadians what your plan is. Yeah, and let's look at this holistically as well. For the past 10 years, we've had a government creating social programs that we can't pay for. If you are somebody who truly believes in those social programs and wants them to exist, not just today or as a performative, hey, look, we really care about this project or this program

or that. If you really want the most robust social safety net in the world, then you have to have industry that can pay taxes into the into the government and pay for them. And this is if so if you are if you are a bleeding heart, then you should support things like this. Well, I even have to say for the NDP, this puts them in a bit of a pickle too, because we know steel is under pressure right now. That's important to a lot of writings.

We know manufacturers, the workers that work at those jobs are under pressure because of threat of tariffs. And so to come out and say, the easiest thing we can do is build more pipelines, extract more oil, get a ton of GDP that way. And then to say, no, that's not the tack we want to take. I mean, now you're talking about people that way pipe for a living. So I think it's clever in a way. One thing is that they have been asked, the CEOs have been asked, how do we accelerate development? How do we boost productivity in this country? And this is their answer. Yeah. But it's also a way to say, you know, who is actually serious?

And I'm glad you say that because when that Financial Times article was written, I always love it when somebody from the outside highlights accurately what's going on on the ground in Canada, said, here is the pathway us to, for Canada to become an economic and energy superpower. It referenced, it referenced our lack of visionary leadership in Canada, which is why we find ourselves where we are. But certain people in the liberal government, including Minister Champagne and Minister Anand, retweeted that article. And so, so I agree with you. If you're going to tweet that, then you

have to have the courage of your convictions and follow through. You are the people with the levers of power. You should be able to get behind something like this and not just do something as performative as tweet about it. I'm speaking with Heather Exner-Perot about all things energy and all things nation building, because that's really what we're talking about here. A tweet from the opposition leader, Pierre Poliev, came out just a few hours ago, where he

said, conservatives announced plan for Canada first with shovel ready zones, pre approved areas to build mines, data centers, pipelines, LNG plants and more. No uncertainty or years of delay, just go. What were Your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, you know, on the one hand, it's great to hear political leaders talk like this, it does help investors proponents feel some security or some optimism that things will move faster that there is some, you know, a political partner on the other end. And I think there are, you know, some cases where like I say, you could designate something a corridor, you could designate something in the national interest.

If we're, you know, I can think of three or four projects that would be game changers for Canada, you know, that would get that economic boost we're looking for. And maybe he can do that there. But, but let's not, let's not forget that the constitution still, you know, affirms Aboriginal rights and treaty rights. And that is, that is a factor in all of these projects. Now, in some cases, the indigenous group already, you know, if I think of a few projects, tell me about you said three or four projects that could help boost the national interest. What are they? Okay, well, so Ring of Fire, there's uranium mine in Saskatchewan that has full indigenous support is really just worrying on on the federal regulator, they've taken their very sweet time on that one. That would boost global uranium production by 20%. And I promise

you there will be no nuclear renaissance without it. And there's silo-sense LNG and a related pipeline in BC and then Northern Gateway. So if we had those four projects rolling, you know, we would be providing those defence critical minerals, those energy minerals, nuclear, oil, gas, everything the world needs. Yeah, and look, I'm allowed to editorialize on this show because people want to hear my opinions. I very much like that central, whenever the conservatives talk about these plans, central to it is always ensuring that they have buy-in from First Nations, always making sure that they feel like they are partners in this development, that if something goes through their land, that they are compensated for it, and they are stakeholders.

And I like that from the ground up, it's built with that intention. Yes, and it's possible, and that's what people need to know it's possible. A lot of these projects, the ones I just listed, you know, Ring of Fire is a bit more complicated. Silas and Tatsin, Indigenous proponent, the Euringian Mine in Saskatchewan has the Indigenous Chief order up at last week saying get your app together. Heather, we're gonna leave it there. We gotta leave it there. Thank you so much. I hope to talk to you again 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. And if rumors and reports are to be believed, we will be on an election footing any day now. It's anticipated that Mark Carney, our Prime Minister, will drop the writ and we should have a new government by the end of April or by the beginning of May, which means the scrutiny on everybody should go up, right? I don't know if that's necessarily the case because I'm noticing that Mark Carney's getting a pass for some behavior that had another leader demonstrated the same mistake, misspoken,

it would be a bigger story than it is. And so to discuss this and a number of other political stories, I'm joined by friend of the Ben Mulroney show, as well as friend of Ben Mulroney, Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park, Inc. and former senior aide to the Minister of Finance, the late great Jim Flaherty. Regan, welcome to the show.

Bonjour mon chum. Mark Carney had two major stories this week. He telling Rosemary Barton a look inside herself, claiming that she was acting with ill will, and then quite literally the next day, confirming that her line of questioning was accurate, by saying that he would recuse himself somehow of decision-making that if there was a

conflict. And then he got what a lot of people are interpreting as an endorsement by Donald Trump. Now, those stories were in the news for about 24 hours, maybe even less. And it's hard to think that had that those same things happened to Pierre Poliev, we wouldn't still be talking about them. if we wouldn't still be talking about them. I think you raise a good point, Ben. Mr. Carney comes to the job of prime minister with an excellent resume. But just because you have a good resume doesn't make you a prime minister.

And part of the job of being prime minister is to answer difficult questions. Your father, when he was in office, certainly did that. And every prime minister before him in since had the same. I have to say, I think if on the President Trump endorsement of Mark Carney, that certainly was not on my bingo card for this year. But, you know, here we are. I think if the reverse were the case and President Trump said something nice about Mr. Poliev. I expect we would have had 24 seven three six five coverage across all the major networks, radio, television, podcasts in this country, uh, alleging that Mr.

Poliev must love president Trump and therefore president Trump loves him. He must love him back. And that is simply not the case. It is also abundantly clear to me, Ben, as I reflected on what was said, there is now no ambiguity whatsoever with respect to who President Trump prefers. He, it's not hypothetical, does he prefer Mr. Carney? Does he prefer Mr. Playaev? He prefers Mr. Carney.

Canada has never been weaker and we have never been more poorly led, starting with Justin Trudeau and everybody in the world knows this. Yeah, well we know. Look, with Mark Carney, he is trying to sell himself as a brilliant steward of the economy.

And yes, his depth of knowledge of markets and his connections around the world are myriad and deep. But we just spent 10 years being told that a man with no economic knowledge whatsoever was the right guy to lead us. And now we're being told the only guy who can lead us is a guy with Mark Carney's resume. So it's a bit rich that we get that flip flop. But it does seem that every time or almost every time Mark Carney opens his mouth, it's

not an optimal moment for me. And I'm putting that mildly. I mean, just just a few days ago, he was asked a pretty simple question. What do you anticipate happening on your very first phone call with Donald Trump? And he hummed and hawed his way, took him about 15 seconds before he said something about the Houthis and talking about geopolitics.

And is it just a question of, is he just gonna talk himself out of this? And is enough evidence going to mount that comes out of his own mouth? That maybe the Tories should just sit back and let it happen? Well, there's a couple things in your question there, Ben. First is on the word salads that Mr. Carney serves up. He is used to the opaque, equate world of central banking, where word salads are an acceptable response to questions from journalists. Politics is much, much different. And I think Mr. Carney, because he is not a natural politician,

and has not done this before, is going to have a learning curve in real time. And it is unprecedented. We've never had a prime minister who's never had political experience like this before. Do I think Mr. Carney will get better? Yes. Do I agree with you that his early responses have not been great or not been strong? Absolutely. But I don't think we should discount Mr. Carney's ability to improve. No, of course not. He's a very intelligent man. Now, I will also say, particularly with your comment around Mr. Trudeau and his life experience as a drama teacher and other things, at the end of the day, elections are about one thing, which is who is the best leader with the best team

and the best ideas to move Canada forward. Yeah, well, look, and look, I wanna stick with that because that was gonna be my next question. It was gonna be an election on Justin Trudeau. Then it was gonna be a carbon tax election. Now, the liberals most certainly want this to be a jump ball election, who is best equipped to fight Donald Trump.

What do you think that the Poliev's main messaging should be? I'm noticing with the ring of fire announcement with the Canada first shovel ready zones, with his announcement on an emphasis on the education for tradesmen. It feels to me like they are quietly pivoting to making this all about the economy. So I think the election was always going to be about the

economy, whether Prime Minister Trudeau was in the seat or not. And I think carbon pricing was always going to be an issue regardless of who the liberal leader is, because our ability to compete against the world is is going to determine whether the Canadian economy does what it has done for the last 10 years. And I saw a report on per capita GDP growth among the OECD. That is how is Canada performing relative

to the 20 other countries we measure ourselves against. And we are second last place. 1.4% growth. 1.4. Over 10 years, which is, you know, honestly, it is not acceptable. And so when I see Mr. Poliev, and you asked the question about what is his message, I don't know if you caught his rally in the Nickel City last night or the announcement this morning or the announcement yesterday. He is, and I thought he looked and sounded great.

He is an optimistic warrior. He is a defender of Canada and he's demonstrating himself as the agent of change. I believe it was your father Ben who many years ago talked about the Liberal Party after they changed leaders from Mr. Trudeau the elder to Mr. Turner as the Liberal Party. Ben was the old, you know, the same old liberals. And I think that is going to be a message he's going to take to the Canadian people. The country is going to have to ask itself whether it wants a fourth term of this liberal government. Mr. Carney, I don't believe has made the case for change.

If you just look at his cabinet picks. And so I think Mr. Paul, you have, we'll have an optimistic, like he's a message, like he's had the last two days. I think he will continue along that path. I think, and I'm thinking of your dad today, Ben on his birthday and what he might, uh, think of the state of politics in this country. And I think he would say similar things, which is Mr. Poliev needs to be optimistic and look like he wants the job of prime minister. Looking prime ministerial is a phrase that many use. And his message, I think, will be one of hope. And the policy announcements that are rolling out inevitably are going to fill in a gap

where people perceive him to be negative. And I think Pierre, Mr. Paglia, pardon me, can be perceived as an attack dog, and that's his instinct. But he's got a hopeful vision for the country with some considered ideas, and I think the election is gonna bring those to the fore. Yeah, I think a lot of people are suggesting that the liberals are simply lifting conservative policies.

But I don't think that when all is said and done and we get to election day, I think there really will be a stark difference and a leadership clarity coming from one side. And I really, I've been noticing this notion that they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. You've got Anita Anand and Champagne who are tweeting that Canada is going to be an energy superpower. But then in French at a press conference, Mark Carney is asked about how he's going to lead on pipelines. He sort of shrugged his shoulders that that's really not up to me. It's up to a lot of other people and a lot of other factors. So I think when push comes to shove, you're going to

get a lot of opacity on one side and a lot of clarity on the other. At least that's my hope, because I'm looking at these polls suggesting that we have amnesia over the past 10 years. Ben Felix Well, I don't know if it's amnesia, Ben. I think it was, you know, let's celebrate the long national nightmare known as Justin Trudeau finally being over. I think the minute he announced he was leaving and the minute the Liberal Party decided

to elect a new leader, whether it was Mr. Carney or somebody else, I would even surmise that even if Christy Freeland was the Liberal leader, the polls would tighten. This was inevitable. I think it's healthy for the country to have a race. I don't think it's it's wise to have a steamroll. I would obviously like the Conservative Party to win.

Yeah, but I think it's a healthy debate, healthy for the country. I think it's tied. Give or take there. The Conservatives may be up a point or two on some days. It may be tied. I just don't. I don't believe that four in 10 Canadians are stampeding to the Liberal Party. I just don't. Yeah. And 10 Canadians are stampeding to the Liberal Party. I just don't.

And it'll be a battle of ideas. And I think that's a good thing for the country. All right, Regan. May the best candidate win. Regan, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a great day. Thanks, Ben.

Take care. This next conversation I'm gonna have is with a gentleman I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with at an event a few months ago. And I was taken by how much we agreed on, but also how he challenged the way I thought on a number of things. And if you go, if you find him on YouTube or on social media,

or if you read his articles, you absolutely will find yourself thinking about things in different ways. JJ McCullough is a writer and professional YouTuber, and he's written for the hub.ca. The article is called, Let's Not Complicate Things. Whoever wins the most seats in the next election should win power in Ottawa.

JJ, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Okay, so I read the article, and if people just hear the title, they'll say, well, it's not complicated. If you win the most seats, then you should win power in Ottawa. Why why? Why bring this up in the first place?

Because there has been an effort afoot on on social media and in some of the, you know, sort of prestige publications of this country and elsewhere, to kind of normalize this idea that actually, there would be nothing wrong with a sort of prime minister refusing to concede power to a minority government which is to say there would be nothing wrong with you know Prime Minister Carney refusing to concede power to a conservative minority government I see you know as opposed to just kind of stay in power and just kind of ignore the

result of a minority conservative government. Yeah. And this, you know, this is this I think strikes most people is like deeply counterintuitive and unfair and unjust. But it is an idea that is sort of being increasingly sort of normalized. Well, sure. In some corners of the commentary space. But Jayden, not just in the commentary space. We've heard leaders. We know that the Green Party and the NDP have said, if the conservatives win a minority, they're going to lose the confidence of the House at the first possible opportunity. And so they've explicitly said so.

And there are people who would argue, well, that's how the system works. So what do you say to that? Well, but it's not how the system works because like what you're describing and like what, you know, uh, like the idea that, oh, well, we'll just non-confidence vote the conservative government at the first available opportunity. It's like, that's fine. That's the prerogative of the opposition parties.

But the way that our system traditionally works is that the prime minister is inaugurated based on his seat count and it usually happens very shortly after the election. So it's like you have an election, you know we get a result whether that's a majority or a minority and then the prime minister is inaugurated by the governor-general sworn into office, you know usually like a week or two after the election and then it can be like quite a long time before the parliament actually convened. You know, we may recall that Joe Clark's famous minority government in 1979, you know, he went months and months and months before convening the Parliament. You know,

he was sworn in as Prime Minister as a result of the election and went a long time before convening the Parliament. And then ultimately the Parliament did vote non-confidence in him. What some of these people are proposing is that we skip that step of inaugurating the Prime Minister, of giving him a chance to sort of make his case to the Parliament and the nation, and instead saying like, well, we don't really think that this Conservative minority government is going to last, so we're just going to decide not to allow that Prime Minister to come to power at all, even if it's just for a few months. Yeah, I see what you mean. Because when I hear these opposition parties lining up,

saying, if we have the opportunity, we are not going to let him form government. And that, to me, is disrespectful to what? I mean, for him to form a minority, he could get as high as 34% of the vote, I think, right? And so you're saying those votes don't count as much as the 22% that we got and the 5% that those guys got when you combine it all together, it's worth more.

And they haven't even given a conservative minority government a chance to see if they could, you know, put some water in their ideological wine and work with the liberals and find common cause with the NDP on how they could best serve blue collar workers and that sort of thing. And without giving them the chance, you're essentially saying the voice of the people who voted doesn't matter. Yeah, I think that that's I think that that's correct. You know, you can say that sort of like a conservative government that only lasts a few months or whatever is

ridiculous or is sort of dopey in some way. But the fact is, is that's how our system works, right? We inaugurate prime ministers shortly after an election based on their standing. Their standing might be shaky, but our system is sort of based on the premise that they deserve a chance. And to deny, you know, Pierre Pauliev, the chance to even have a small and shaky minority government just runs against over a hundred years of tradition in this country in the service of what I think will strike a lot of Canadians as a very sort of cynical effort to stay in power by pulling a stunt that no one in this country has ever seen a Prime Minister do. You know, whether we're talking about, you know, Paul Martin conceding power to Stephen Harper's minority government or, you know, Dieffenbaker conceding power

to Lester D. Pearson's minority government, like this is something that we've seen how, or, you know, Pierre Elliott Trudeau conceding power to Lester B. Pearson's minority government. Like this is something that we've seen how, or you know, Pierre Elliott Trudeau conceding power to Joe Clark's minority government that I just said. Like this, the idea that there's something fundamentally illegitimate about a minority government is just a radical rake with established practice in this country. And I think we have to be very on guard against it. Hey, JJ McCullough, let me ask you about your take on the general tenor and tone and quality of public debate these days. I'm finding it almost impossible to have a conversation, a good faith conversation with people who would disagree with me on Twitter,

for example, because simply simply we like to talk about the Americans and how they can't even agree on shared facts. I'm noticing that that's happening up here. The idea that I could, to point out that we are living in a very unique moment with the ascendancy of Mark Carney, an unelected prime minister. That's not a knock on him. I'm not saying he's illegitimate.

I would never say anything like that. He is my prime minister, and I want him to succeed as my prime minister. But simply pointing that out, elicits calls of, you don't know our system. You're a traitor. What's your take from your perspective? It is it is interesting. And I've certainly been on the receiving end of that kind of thing. I like to call these people that our system people who just kind of think they can sort of bluntly say our system and that's supposed to sort of shut you up. But no, it's like it's a free country. We're allowed to express disdain and concern and worry for all sorts of aspects of how politics is playing out in this

country. I do think it's perfectly legitimate to question the rise of a Prime Minister that doesn't have a seat in the House of Commons that was elected by what? Like 140,000 just random people whose identities we don't know. And then as a result, this Prime Minister is now sort of cavorting around and making policy, whether that's the carbon tax or going and signing contracts with the Europeans or whatever. It's perfectly fair to say that there's something not quite above board, or at least doesn't sort of seem consistent

with our Canadian standards of what we expect a democratic system to be like. JJ, my issue wasn't even that much, but I absolutely agree with you. I wasn't even taking issue with that. I was taking issue with the fact that he has been bubble wrapped and protected by the people who wanted him to become the leader, and that's fine, but given the fact that he has been bubble wrapped and protected by the people who wanted him to become the leader.

And that's fine, but given the fact that there has been this opacity and this lack of transparency about who he is, I thought at the very least to make Canadians feel better, he might wanna be a little more open and transparent with the press and he wasn't even doing that. Yeah, because I think we're starting to see why traditionally we do like prime ministers with at least some political background to to hold high office because

they're used to how to deal with the press in that kind of way. But no, he does have this kind of imperious, very sort of condescending demeanor that I think is quite is quite off putting but nevertheless, you know, a lot of, to kind of get what you were saying before though about the polarization, like a lot of people do sense that the stakes are incredibly high in this election. And I think it's made sort of partisans on both sides

really in a very sort of like prickly kind of temperament where like the smallest sort of, they will not concede even the smallest objective reality because they view that as like weakening their guy, which then will lead to the downfall of the country and all this. I mean, and Frank, I'm prone to bluster as much as the next guy, but when it comes to it,

but that's when I'm talking on the radio myself, when I'm having a conversation, I genuinely want my ideas to collide respectfully with somebody else's. And you're right, they don't want to even concede one point, even if it flies in the face of a verifiable truth that we can all see coming. Hey, JJ McCullough, I want to thank you so much.

I know this is your first time on the show. I certainly hope it's not the last. Oh, thanks so much. You're great. All right. I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and for you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. This is the Ben Mulrooney Show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show. I want to share a little bit of my dad's singing because he loved, he loved singing and he loved that type of music. He loved this American song, great American song book and American standards. He loved Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, you name it. And today's his birthday and we are celebrating his 86th birthday in Montreal by commemorating him as Canada Post unveils a stamp of Canada's 18th Prime Minister. And he taught me to love that music too.

Like my favorite music is exactly that. If I had to be stuck on an island forever, I'd listen to Frank Sinatra, his entire catalog. I celebrate the man's entire catalog. Name the movie, Office Space, and they're talking about Michael Bolton. Okay, all right. Listen, we got a lot of news stories that I really wanna talk about

with one of the smartest guys in the game, Sylvain Charlebois, Canadian researcher and professor specializing in the food industry. I mean, he's the food professor. So let's welcome the food professor to the show. Sylvain, thanks so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me then. So I was really surprised when I read an article

that Quebec is going to allow restaurants to charge people for no shows. And I was surprised because I didn't know that restaurants weren't allowed to charge for no shows. In Ontario, I found out same thing. How is this allowed? How, why can't restaurants have the latitude and the ability to determine what value proposition

they wanna put before potential patrons? Oh, it's a good question. I mean, people don't realize that sometimes with a busy evening, you're one no show away from losing money as an operator. By disciplining the customers financially, you get them to commit. Sometimes I don't know how you pick your restaurant, Ben, but some people actually will make a reservation at two, three different spots for the same evening. Of course. And then they don't have the respect to call and cancel.

Exactly. And look, it happens, right? It happens every now and then where you either forget or something happens in an emergency. But I don't think there's anything wrong. If I have decided as the customer, I'm gonna call up that restaurant. I decide to engage in the contract with them, not them. The restaurant didn't come to me. I came to them and I said, I am creating a social contract with you

or I'm giving you my word that I'm gonna show up at your restaurant and you are gonna honor it by keeping a table for me and feeding me. And if you don't live up to your side of the social contract, there should be a penalty associated with it. Exactly. I've always been comfortable and, and frankly, in the last, I'd say two years, a couple of times I was asked to

actually put a deposit to guarantee that I will actually show up. I didn't I didn't have any problems. No, me neither. Me neither. But I do think that a lot of people, because I've spoken to a lot of restaurant operators and many of them are just frustrated. And so Quebec is moving forward, protecting restaurant operators with that practice. Yeah, but it's barely a protection. See, man, it's barely a protection $10 a head, but only if it's a table of five or more. Now I don't know everything about the restaurant business,

but something tells me the vast majority of reservations are two tops and four tops. It's symbolic. Yeah, symbolic. Yeah, it's essentially symbolic. And frankly, I think a lot of people are uncomfortable seeing the state, the government getting involved here. Yeah.

And I can appreciate that. So I think the $10, the figure, as much as I grew with you, Ben, I think it looks more like a compromise. Yeah. From a policy perspective. Yeah. All right. I want to go to an article that you wrote in the Toronto Sun. And the headline, it opened my eyes and I really want you to drill down for me. Farmers pay the price for Ottawa's electric vehicle obsession. How the heck did farmers get entangled with the EV industry?

Because China is smart at geopolitics. Tell me what you mean. We started this war back in October. So then Prime Minister Trudeau decided to to create this EV slash battery fortress called North America along with the United States with then President Joe Biden. Both countries decided to apply a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs to protect an industry that still doesn't exist. We have seen Ottawa commit almost $50 billion to build this sector of EVs and batteries. And so to protect that sector, to offer a Canadian option to Canadians when it comes

to EVs, they decided to protect the market. But everyone in the ag sector were, I guess, holding their breath, waiting for China to respond. And they pick the weekend Mark Carney was appointed prime minister to do it. And they're aiming at what? Not cars, they're aiming at very symbolic things, canola, Canada oil, canola, lobster, and so on and so forth.

So, that's how farmers are paying. Now, I was talking with my producer, who knows a heck of a lot more about the automotive industry than me, and he suggested that the 100% tariff on Chinese EVs doesn't make any sense, given the fact that nobody would buy one here because there is no infrastructure to support them if it breaks down, you can't take a Chinese EV anywhere. That's right. Yes, you would need to build the infrastructure for that. So that's why I've always questioned 100% against I think it was just basically to get along with our then friends, America.

So this is why it's a little bizarre because we made this deal, we made the decision when America was our friend. Now I don't know where the United States stand in terms of our own geopolitics, but it's not great right now. And again, farmers are harvesters right here in Nova Scotia are gonna be paying for that decision. Yeah. Hey, Sid van, read the tea leaves for me because I really does feel like things are moving

on the, in the world of inter-provincial trade barriers. If we can't trade with the Americans, at least we can trade with ourselves. And yet, and you've've got you've got President Trump banging the drum of how unfair our dairy industry and our eggs are to to the Americans. And central to this is is supply management. And I'm wondering, I know that the liberals have said they're going to break down and bust down every interprovincial trade barrier where they deform government.

But supply management absolutely off the table. I don't know what Pierre Poliev and the conservatives think about that. How do you think this is gonna play out? I'm not sure. So of course Ottawa's decision to support the elimination of inter-provincial trade barriers excludes food right now. And the reason why they're excluding

food is that they don't want to touch supply management because quotas are managed by provinces, not the federal government, but by provinces. And Quebec owns 40% of all the quotas that we have in Canada, despite the fact that they only have 20% of the population, so they're not touching that. Now, I do think that Donald Trump will continue to bang on that drum. He doesn't care about supply management. In fact, I don't think he understands how supply management works. Well, because he talks about it as if there's a $200 billion. Isn't it only if they achieve certain levels of trade, once that happens, then the tariffs

come in, but we've never achieved the level of trade that would ever turn those tariffs on? Exactly. I think he cares more about market access but he knows it's a wedge issue for Canadians. As soon as he starts talking about dairy and market access he knows that he's gonna ruffle some feathers right here in Canada. And he also knows that it could actually really scare some politicians as well. So that's why he's talking about it. And I don't know enough about the supply management and its importance in Quebec. I know it's very important, but something tells me that if the federal government under the liberals protect that, then you're going to have all the other the liberals protect that, then you're going to

have all the other provinces saying, well, if you're going to protect that for them, you got to protect this industry for us in this industry. And next thing you know, you're gonna be back in pretty much the same situation we're in. Exactly. To be honest, so we're likely to going to see an election coming up now in Canada, it doesn't matter who who becomes the ruling party, to be honest, then all politicians don't want to touch supply management. So you need an external force like Donald Trump to make some changes in Canada. That's really our best hope, really. Interesting.

All right. Sylvain, thank you so much for joining us. Hope to talk to you again soon. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. 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. There's no limit to how far criminals will go to cover their tracks. But investigators will go even further to uncover the truth. I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for Global News. This season on Crime Beat, I'll take you from the crime scene to the courtroom and

inside some of Canada's most high-profile cases and some you've likely never heard of before. Search for and listen to Crime Beat on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.