The Ben Mulroney Show - Best of the Week Part 5 - Alex Pierson, Warren Kinsella, David Knight Legg

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Best of the Week Part 5 - Alex Pierson, Warren Kinsella, David Knight Legg Guests: Warren Kinsella, Jaskaran Sandhu, Chris Chapin, Ian Lee, David Knight Legg, Mohit Rajhans If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It is time to get into this Week in Politics. And boy, a day in politics is a lifetime. This Week in Politics, lots to talk about. Let's bring in our brains and fine minds. We've got Chris Chapin, political commentator, managing principal of Upstream Strategy. We've got Jessica Aron Sandew, co-founder of Baz News and board member of the World Sick Organization of Canada. Warren Kinsella, former special advisor to Jean Chrétien, CEO of the Daisy Group. Gentlemen, how you doing on this

Friday? Good morning. Wow, that's pretty flat. I thought you'd be more excited. There you go, here we go. All right, it's Friday guys, it's Friday and it's sunny. Let's take it. Lots to get into. I want to jump in into the breaking news we got in this morning about Canada job numbers. It's the biggest monthly drop we've seen since 2022, losing 32,600 jobs compared to about 10,000 that we were expecting to get. So our unemployment rate jumps to 6.7%. We have, or I certainly on my show, have been talking to companies, trucking a lot of companies that we don't talk about a lot, but they've been shedding jobs in anticipation of these

tariffs for quite some time, and now it's almost like, okay, here we go. Let me kick this off with you, Warren, because on the liberal side, Mark Carney, he's going to, as the Prime Minister, where does this take the campaign? Does it change the campaign? Because we talk about, is Trump the focus or affordability and cost of living? When you've lost your job, you're not necessarily thinking about Trump. You want to know where your next paycheck is coming from. So does this change the election? I don't know if it changes at the election, but it's bad news.

Bad news is bad when you are the incumbent. So this week we've had a ton of it in the form of Trump's tariff attacks on the country and what that's meant for autoworkers and aluminum steel and potash and you name it. So we do have sectors, the important sectors of Canadian economy have been attacked and have been hit. And so this is just like a confirmation, I guess, Alex, some more bad news. And you know, when you're the incumbent, you need it like a hole in the head. So I think it's fodder for Pierre Poliev. I fully expect he's going to make use of it. He's going to say, Hey, look, not only do we have a Donald Trump problem, we've got a problem with the way these guys have been managing the economy. You need to pay attention to that and you need to make a voting choice based upon that.

Will it work with people? I don't know, they're overwhelmed with the bad news these days. We shall see. All the polls pretty much suggest that Carney is ahead, mainly on the economic question. He is an economist, he can speak credibly about this stuff. Paulier is very good on it as well.

So I guess the puck has dropped and we'll see how they handle it. Chris, you know, I was out in Oshawa last night for that rally. 6,200 people. It's the biggest one yet. They've now got to get hangars. These things are getting so big and I don't know where they're going. But the conversation certainly, I mean, there's a real deep concern about affordability and tariffs, taxes, when you're looking into the abyss of what's your next step, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. You just know you can't make sure that your food's on the table. And so for Poliev then, what does he do with this? Because you don't want to be exploiting this, but he is the one campaigning on this issue. He is. And I think, you know, Alex, he needs to get back to his, like, this was his bread and butter issue for so long against Justin Trudeau was tackling the liberals, you know, inability to manage an economy effectively.

And I, it's very tricky, but I think he has to get back to his roots and start talking the same way he did a couple of years ago, just being relentless on the liberal failures that led us to this point. Because right now, the challenge is, I don't think Canadians are blaming the Liberal government for the tariffs. They're blaming Donald Trump. I don't think they're blaming the Liberal government or Mark Carney for the inevitable layoff that came as a result of the tariffs. And that's unfortunately what we're seeing. But I think where Pierre needs to get back to, and I think they will get to that,

is just let him run wild on the troubles that got us to this point. We were not a strong economy before Donald Trump took office, and we're an even weaker economy now. And I think he needs to get back to being relentless, attacking the Liberal government for their failed, you know, he talks about the lost liberal decade.

I think he needs to be a little bit more prescriptive of what that exactly means. You know, it's not a buzzword. It needs to talk about, you know, we were weak before this and it was all their fault. Yeah. And it came out quietly, but you know, we learned of our GDP numbers over the last 10 years, and it is a long line down showing that we are a very flattened economy, Jessica. And it's concerning because these tariffs aren't going away, the instability is not going away, and the hit is going to start to accelerate.

And we don't really know what the plan is other than here's what we've got your back. Like we have workers, Jessica, who don't know when our EI is going to kick in for them because they've gotten no details on that. But we need to actually know like, are we looking at this as a pandemic style bailout? Because we don't have enough money for that. Like, how do you see this? Yeah, it's a very complex question because every industry is being hit differently as well.

Right? The tariffs are not necessarily just a blanket. Everyone's we're all in it together. If we're going to take from COVID language, the issue is, but we weren't then, by the way, right. We weren't there. There's a lot of hurt. But my point being is that, you know, some industries are already

being impacted far greater than others because of these tariffs, because of the policies coming out of America and the decisions that our government's going to make. You know, if we look at the job numbers, 60,000 odd full-time jobs are lost. Half of those came out of the wholesale retail trade sector. And you started this conversation by talking about the trucking industry.

That's very near due to my heart as a Brampton man. Trucking has been shedding jobs for a couple months now in anticipation for a slowdown because of tariffs. So there's different industries that are gonna feel this a lot faster than others, but we know how this works. You know, it's the scenario in the coal mine. You're going to feel this down the line. All of a sudden, your housing is slowing down, your construction starts slowing down, and people lose confidence in the economy. And it's a very tough position to be in, and how do you address it?

It's going to be, and it continues to be the election question. Yeah, no question. It's going to be a roller coaster ride. I want to jump this one off on you guys because I just talked about it. Mark Carney, of course, talking, he said it a few times that our relationship with America is over. I've heard it played on American newscasts. I'm always uncomfortable to hear it. I want to ask both. I'll give you all 45 seconds. I've heard it played on American newscasts. I'm always uncomfortable to hear it. I want to ask both of you, I'll give you all 45 seconds because I've got to get to a break, but Warren, you know, look, that's a pretty declarative statement. Relationships change, for sure this one has, but is it a mistake to go that far to say that given we're gonna need them for a while to come?

I had the same reaction when he said that, you know, some liberals have said to me, well it's just an acknowledgement of the reality, when he said that, you know, some liberals have said to me, well, it's just an acknowledgement of the reality. It's the inevitable. And I said, yeah, yeah, maybe you're right. But it creates a duty on you. It creates a duty on Mark Carney to say what's next. What is he going to do to deal with them?

Because under successive governments, liberal and conservative, United States of America became our biggest customer, to the tune of nearly 90%. So obviously all of us now agree that was a big mistake, we need to diversify and so on. I've heard from, I went to see Paul Yev speak to a Bay Street audience this week, and he kind of detailed what his plan is for that. I haven't heard much detail from Carney about that and I've heard the poetry, you

know, the relationship is over and so on but I want to hear the nuts and bolts and so far, you know, that's been a bit lacking. Well it's been non-existent Chris, I'll dumb it down to that because, you know, look he took a lot of policy from Poliev off the top. It's easy to say build but given his background and his ideology on climate change, he's going to have to explain what he's going to say to Quebec to get pipelines built and what pipelines because he doesn't say the word oil and gas. No, I mean, frankly, it feels like Mark Kearney has been MIA for the last week and a half. They're running a very high campaign right now. I think the problem is when he's been pushed on those questions, Alex, he's been, you know,

frankly honest that he won't repeal C-69, you know, he's not actually going to do it. And so I think, you know, what troubles me with that comment that he made is it's a very fine line that he's walked. I think Premier Ford walked a very fine line when he was running as, you know, running in his election, but also the Premier at times. That line for me really made me feel uncomfortable because I think he Ford walked a very fine line when he was running as, you know, running in his election, but also the Premier at times. That line for me really made me feel uncomfortable because I think he crossed the line. I think making that comment as Prime Minister,

when you haven't been elected and you're in the middle of an election was just, it was way over the line and not appropriate in any way. Let me give you the last 30 seconds at just Garen. You got your point on this one. I think he was absolutely right. Our relationship with America is never ever gonna be the same.

We can never trust them. It's not the high trust relationship that it was in the past and that we have to start thinking about how do we decouple to use Trump's language, our political, military and economic relationship with America. And I think Carney made the statement loud and clear at the gate where his first, you know, foreign trip. Hold on.

Hold that thought. I got to get to a break or I get in trouble. Stay with us more in this week's in politics after this on the Ben Mulroney show. Great to have you here. I am Alex Pearson. This is the Ben Mulroney show. We are in this week's In Politics. We have Chris Chapin and Jascha in the Sendoo and Warren Kinsella joining

us to talk about the big, certainly, well, the big days in this election campaign. Let me talk about, or let us talk about the NDP campaign, or I think there is one. But the, I guess they had to drop one of their influencers that they brought out, the OnlyFans creator who joined them. Very troubling questions about Holocaust and her position on Israel. I mean, nevermind the porn star and stuff. I gotta be honest, Warren, there's some odd stuff happening.

That's just one of a number of oddities with this campaign. What is going on with them? How did they get so disorganized? I couldn't believe it. Somebody said to me, hey, Jagmeet just did some audio and video with a porn star. I'm like, what? I went and checked it out. It was like true.

And you know, I give her credit. She's a very flexible young woman. Flexible or in a voting position or flexible other ways? Because I haven't seen her show. I can't get into specifics. You know, this is a family show. But her position on, more seriously, on Israel and Gaza and Palestine is disgusting. It's disgusting. And it's reflective of the NDP campaign. They don't care about Guelph, They're focused on Gaza. That's what they care about. And, you know, and it's a mass Alex, like they're down to some, I've seen them down as far as seven points.

At that point, and as of last night, Jogmeet Singh is losing his own seat in BC. The only seat that they're gonna hold on to at seven points is maybe Winnipeg center. So like, it's like boys and girls in order to get attention, you're hanging out with kind of Holocaust doubting porn stars. Like that's your strategy. Like it's just, it, it feels like it's lights out for the NDP.

I don't know. I don't want to know what they do when they've got the lights out. Like what's up next? Furries? Chris, like, I don't know where this goes. It's just, they, they, they, he's going to be appearing on a debate stage and I'm looking at the polling and I'm thinking like maybe he shouldn't be. It should maybe just be the top two leaders because I don't know

what their campaign is about. I don't either. You know, I made this joke yesterday after seeing this story come out, but you know, if, if any one of Jagmeet's candidates was caught doing the same thing as what Jagmeet Singh did with this porn star, he'd be forced to give them the boot. Really? I don't think so. Well, any reasonable party that wants to form government, certainly. And I joke, you know, has any party ever contemplated booting their leader in the middle of a campaign? Because I think the NDP would do substantially better if they replace Jagmeet Singh with just about anybody at

this point. And so it certainly won't happen. But I mean, this campaign so far has been an abject failure. I mean, we've seen it coming. The writing's been on the wall for Jagmeet Singh for what feels like a year and a half, two years now that the party's just been on a decline. But this is just literally the definition of hitting rock bottom. Yeah, I gotta be honest. It's I mean, how did they go so wrong? Just got in. They are the the party or they were supposed to be of the worker, right? And all the workers are signing on to pure poly of that whole private labor movement's gone over to to pure

poly of because the NDP it's like they want to stand for something but they stand for all the wrong side. They stand on all the wrong sides of history these days. Yes, it's a very sad campaign. It just objectively is incredibly sad. And, you know, the shame for the NDP is, you know, the big policy wins that they did help secure and that are very popular on the farm material and the dental care. You know, it's not even making their campaign on that. Like how many people actually know that the NDP played the role they did on executing

that? I don't know. I don't think people do understand the role that they played. And that's just a shame of just poor communication. This is a party that I believe needs to really sit down and think about how do we place ourselves at the centre of, to your point, the worker class, you know, the unions, the factories, the manufacturing, the labour jobs, the blue collar workers. It appears that they've totally lost that to the right end of the spectrum, to the Conservatives. And this is not a uniquely Canadian problem. You've seen this in America where you see a lot of the blue collar Rust Belt kind of areas of America start itching

towards, just the way towards Republicans. And this is an ongoing issue for folks on the left, especially the social democratic states. Well, just be normal. That's it. Just be normal. That also works. That also works. Again, I don't know what today's campaign picture will be like, but based on the last couple, it could be an interesting Friday. So let's then just kind of ask the basic question. And you know, you're a war room guy, Warren, who had the best week this week, right? Like week number one was getting the cobwebs out and I think tripping and stumbling and Mark Carney making a big appearance and kind of establishing himself and and Pierre

Poliev kind of dealing with the inner battles of Cory Tanik speaking on behalf of the whole party when he doesn't necessarily reflect the party but what's the win this week and who's leading the way on that? Well you know in terms of stuff in terms of things happening like it looked like Poliev did better even though Poliev had in one 24-hour period he got rid of poor you know, in terms of stuff, in terms of things happening, like it looked like poly of did better, even though poly have had in one 24 hour period, it got rid of poor candidates. At least he is the leader did that. Whereas Carney, you know, with MP bounty hunter, you know, dithered and dithered and then for, you know, the events were forced on them.

So here at poly have ironically, even though he had four more problems, looked better than Carney did. But it's not hurting Carney. And it's like, in terms of the issue matrix, the thing that's sitting on top of everything, you know, whether it's Doug candidates or, you know, social programs or healthcare, it's Donald Trump, right? He continues to be the elephant in the room. And for Canadians over about the age of 50, they see Mark Carney is absolutely their guy to deal with it. And what we're seeing at the rallies is Pierre Poliam's getting these amazing visuals, young people coming out

because they're feeling the affordability crisis the most. But it's just not translating into the numbers and what we're seeing in the polls. So, I mean, for me, for hacks like me, you know, I just love elections and it's exciting and interesting. And, you know, and I think that Poliev still has a shot at winning this thing, because he's hands down a better debater than Carney. So we'll see how those work out. Yeah. Chris, where would you be going with the campaign then to make sure you're punching through? Because look, that vote at those rallies is a very, very committed vote and they are getting out and they're getting involved. But where do you take the campaign then to, you know, shore up your positioning against Carney? Hey, Chris. Yeah, I think sorry, I think you keep doing

what you've been doing for the last week. I think Pierre had great week. Um, you know, the, the Trump terror stuff, not withstanding, because I think, you know, everybody kind of responded the same, but I think you need to talk about how you're going to deal with the president of the United States. I think you need to continue to talk about how you're going to defend Canada's economy. defend Canada's economy. It's very difficult for policy to break through in a campaign these days, but I really do like some of the bold visionary ideas that the Conservatives have put out over the last couple days. The reinvesting the capital gains would be a game changer for our economy. The TFSA just for Canadian equities, when the economy bounces back is a great way for Canadians to invest in Canada. But I think the biggest thing that they need to figure out and it's going to be a challenge

is they need to litigate the liberal record and remind boomers that have felt comfortable shifting back to Mark Carney that they got us in this predicament in the first place. And that's the biggest challenge they have to overcome is they need to rattle that cage. I think the debate is going to be an opportunity because I think disproportionately the audience for that debate is naturally always going to be an older audience. And Pierre-Paulien needs to remind those older voters that the liberals got us in this mess

and he's the only guy that can get us out of it. I'm sorry, Jessica, I've got like 45 seconds. I'm not mean, I love you, but I've got that. 45 seconds to finish it off. Yeah, look, to put it very simply, you either campaign as a status school guy on the change guide and the confusion right now for a lot of folks is that both candidates are change guides. And for Carney, it's to continue to press that message that this is a completely

different administration under my leadership. And for Pierre-Paul, yeah, this is like, no, no, if you want real change, you feel the language from 2015, from the Liberals, if you want real change, it's me. And that's going to be, at the end of the day, what's going to happen here this week. Who can convince Canadians more? Because as we've always seen, the last two weeks is usually what makes or breaks the campaign. We've set the table now.

Yeah, it's going gonna be a fascinating next couple of weeks. Gentlemen, I'll let you go on that note. Thank you so much and have a terrific day and weekend. Take care. There you go. We got Chris Chapin, Jaskar and Sandu and Warren Ginsella weighing in on all things this weekend politics. McDonald's new cheesy jalapeno and bacon quarter pounder with 100% Canadian beef is here. So if you crave beefy burgers with a pretty peppery punch and pickled jalapeno peppers pile in a perfect bunch and if you plead please if a cheesy taste came in threes with cheesy jalapeno pepper sauce poured with ease and if smoky strips of bacon make burgers better,

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or laundry machine supports the preservation and restoration of Canadian forests through the Miele Forest Initiative. Join us in making an impact today for a better tomorrow. Visit Miele.ca to learn more. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And you know, yesterday I was joking when I was at the airport coming down to Washington.

People were saying, why are you going down to Washington? I said, I'm going down to solve this whole Trump tariff thing. Obviously, nobody's going to solve it. This Donald Trump has it in his head, in his heart, in his mind that he is going to rebuild the world in his own image. Of course, to rebuild it, he's going to have to burn it down. At least that's what it looks like if you look at the public markets in the in the wake of liberation day, as he called it.

And to discuss all of this and so much more, I'm joined by Ian Lee, associate professor at Carleton University and the Sprott School of Business. Professor, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure, Ben. So yeah, a lot of us had we had no idea what to expect yesterday, I think, probably because up until yesterday, there was a big chunk of the administration that didn't know what was coming. What did you make of the pageantry, the theatrics, the big signs, and the fact that Canada was not on those lists that that list of countries that were going to be

subjected to reciprocal tariffs? Yes, yes. I mean, it was classical Trumpian pageantry, as you put it. That's a nice way of putting it, you know, the Rose Garden, you know, what the props and so forth. I did think it was clever. I mean, he had union guys there from the auto industry. Of course, they've been devastated by over the last 1015 years, that that's there from the Rust Belt states. And so I thought it was it was clever subliminally because what he's saying to all the critics who are mostly

you know people like me, you know professors and you know from that segment of society shall we say, you know he's saying you want to criticize these guys? That's what he had them there for. You really want to go after these people that have left their jobs in the rust belt and beat up on them because they're not as privileged as you are? Because it is the privileged class, the upper, the chattering class, as they're sometimes called, that are attacking him. I'm not here to defend Donald Trump because I disagree with him on tariffs, but I thought it was very clever.

But to your question, Ben, very very quickly on on Canada I was not at all surprised not because I was clairvoyant or clever or anything just look at the Cosmo agreement and about 97 or 98 percent of the goods pass tariff free under our free trade agreement and we are there are many other countries in the world there have much more egregious protectionism against the u.s. corporations that we do and so i thought you know i've had i've read the paper the steven marin paper the chief economist

and he said we're going to but the highest care of on those countries that are the worst and he said he's specifically in that paper said china he said how about sixty percent well guess what the number came in yesterday at fifty eight percent against china in that paper said China and he said, how about 60%? Well, guess what the number came in yesterday at 58% against China. So that paper turned out to be quite prescient my in forecasting what was happening. He said the

different countries will be hit differently. The more they protect against us companies, the bigger the tariff retaliation. And that's basically what we saw yesterday. But given the fact that at least symbolically, Donald Trump has been punching us in the face over the course of the last few months, has he normalized the battery that has become an everyday occurrence that when we avoid getting hit in the face for a day, we consider ourselves lucky. I'm going to put it to you a little bit differently than that. I mean, there's no question he's been doing what he's done. We all know that, you know, calling the Prime Minister of Governor

and that sort of thing. And of course, the tariffs, that's much more critical. I think he is softening us up for the negotiations that he knows are going to come, partly because Cosmo requires that there be a new treaty in 2026 because the old one's on set. And so I think, and he's very clear on what he wants us to do. And Stephen Marin talked about that again in this paper.

And so I think what he's been doing is hitting us hard. Yep. And, but he, I believe, I believe this. I know a lot of Canadians don't because I get emails But I believe he knows this is gonna end up at the negotiating table That's how you end wars and military wars and trade wars. You don't throw more You know, you don't end a trade war by doing yet more retaliatory tariffs. You go to the negotiating table to end it all I take your point. I think a lot of people are expecting that's what's going to happen.

In fact, your polio of yesterday essentially said if under a polio of government, I'm going one of the first things he was he's going to do is call up the president and say, let's get back to the negotiating table right now. But first, what I want is a sign of good faith where we drop all the tariffs. So if that if that's his goal, great, but there's, I mean, it's still five weeks until until the Canadian election. And Canada is not only means he's taking on the world right now and the markets are are are in shambles. Yes, you have how much how much

runway does he have? You can't separate the politics from the economics here. So we have to ask the question, how long can can can the the the world economic system be be thrown into chaos before he gets what he ultimately wants? Yep, yeah, Ben, absolutely correct. That is the strategic issues facing him. I'm going to put forward my own sort of take on this. I don't believe it's one size fits all in terms of solutions. The smaller the country and I'm talkingdp i'm using out of my proxy for power

of five and influence the smaller the country the more quickly they will keep it to be blocked and they will be able to do a little side deals all across the story he's doing bilateral could be cracked targeted for each separate country so he's going to all through his trade office and his

secretary of state, are going to do car votes for each of these countries one by one by one. And the smallest ones will cave the first, I predict, because they have the least amount of power. The ones that are going to be much more difficult to resolve are going to be China, because it's the second largest economy in the world at $19 trillion, expressed in U.S. dollars, and Europe, which is 18 trillion. So they're going to be a tougher road to hoe. I do think, though, to your point, that all of this, or most of this is going to be wrapped up at the end of this year.

And the reason why is, again, the politics. Next year is the off-year elections. And the Republicans only have a small advantage in both the House. I think it's five seats in the House, three seats house three feet of the senator might be the other way around and of course those houses typically historically go to the other way at an off-year election that president at the present see that that the power and power at the the party that's it at the white house

loses the congress typically so he has to get deals done and get the economy going again. I would say by the end of this year or sooner so that he can be out campaigning next year and saying look at what I did. I solved these problems with Canada. I solved these problems with China and so on. So yes it is this can be painful. You're absolutely right. But I and five weeks is a long time when you're paying these tariffs. But I think he's gonna do the smaller ones. I think we're gonna be one of the first up. And there's strong willingness

for us to do it. I mean, for the for the for the hope in the automotive sector is that that that comes to pass. I mean, you're already hearing stories of two week layoffs and closures of factories for a couple of weeks, it's really hard to turn those things back on once you turn them off. And and so but but the the pain that we're going to feel here, they are absolutely going to feel there because of the integration of that

industry. You're right. But the one big difference is that scale thing I keep talking about, you know, they're 30 trillion dollars, we're 2.5 trillion. So anything we do do as a percentage of their economy is vastly smaller than a percentage of our economy. To put it another way, they've got a lot more runway and they can take a lot more hits. Yeah, we know they can take a lot more hits, but he needs Michigan. I keep going back to that. Like, we as a nation are prepared. We have we have made peace with our maker that this is gonna hurt. He has done no such thing.

He promised sunny days in sunny ways and that's not happening. So he's going to have to explain to the voters of Michigan why he hollowed out the automotive sector and they voted for him. I'm in agreement. He said the other day, I don't know how sincere he was, but he said, I don't care if the prices go up or they lose business in some plants in Michigan. He said in the short term because he said in the long term,

I know I've got the right plan. So I think he's gambling. He is playing high stakes gamble that he is going to cause most of these countries to cave in and that he's going to have agreements that he can then go to the voters. Next year is the big one because it's the whole Congress about one third of the Senate and the entire House of Reps are up for re-election so he's got

basically I think he's looking at he's got till the end of this year maybe early first quarter of 2026 and so he doesn't have to really face it. We gotta leave it there my friend thank you so much. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. it there, my friend. Thank you so much. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. I am indeed in Washington. I'm here for some fun, but also some work. And my hope is that when I return, I'm going to return with a whole bunch of new friends of the Ben Mulroney Show. People in positions of power here in Washington, business people, legislators, perhaps people who work in the Trump administration, journalists, all people who may have insights into, you know, the next four years that we are going

to be enduring experiencing possibly one day eventually benefiting from, and to get it from their perspective. So that is my hope. That is my goal. And I will, I will keep you updated as the week end goes by. And those updates can come for you in any form. You can listen to us on the radio, you can listen to us on the iHeartRadio app, or you may find us on Spotify on Apple Music, or on Amazon Music. Just search up the Ben Mulroney show and there you shall find it. There's some news that came out yesterday that I thought was so interesting that I thought, you know what, let's talk about that and all the other tech stories that are lining up. Let's not wait till our regular scheduled time to talk to them. Let's bring on Mohit Rajan's, a meteorologist. Oh, oh my goodness. I was looking at the wrong part of the schedule.

Thank you very much for that. That's what happens when you can't see somebody's eyes and you're working remotely. I was wondering, top of the hour, we do need to talk about Donald Trump. And top of the hour, I just heard on the news that the markets opened to chaos. If you sow chaos, you reap chaos. And so to discuss the world that we're now living in under Donald Trump, I'm joined now by David Knight Legge, political analyst, advisor in energy security and economic development. David, I apologize for that terrible intro. Hey Ben, I'm just happy. I don't have to comment on technology.

Let me tell you. Yeah, you must have been wondering what the heck is he asking me about. But no, but I am asking a comment on yesterday, how it was rolled out and what the markets are saying, and how we are faring in Canada. Look, I think the biggest issue in Canada is the markets are looking for political leadership right now. Everybody knows there's an election going on. Canadians and the markets in general are looking for direction on what's going to happen in the longstanding decade-long loss of market confidence in Canada to see if there's some

signals that Canada will return to economic sanity on the trade-off we've been making on energy and the environment. I think that you've seen that the two most popular things the Liberal Party has done in the last month have been take two ideas from the conservatives and ensure the markets know that they're going to back Canada for capital investment by dropping the capital gains raise they were going to do that, of course, hit our markets badly. And then also that they're going to end this ridiculous carbon tax that was doing nothing for global emissions or the planet, and it was holding Canada back. And I think Mark Carney, you know, he should just keep borrowing these conservative ideas because they're great for the markets, they're great for the country, great for Canadians, and he should drop C69, C48, a host of other things, implement the industrial corridors. Canada has been missing in action from the markets for a long time. That's why our dollar is at 68 cents, and that's why we have been the lowest productive country in the OECD and G7. And

it's time to change that. I think there's an opportunity to do that now. Well, there might have been an opportunity but it you know, Mark Carney, he's deliberate when he speaks, but he's not always clear. He was clear when he said that a liberal governor under Mark Carney will not repeal bill 6 c 69 with Jason Kennedy referred to as the no new pipeline. So that's why we when he speaks, but he's not always clear. He was clear when he said that a liberal governor under Mark Carney will not repeal Bill 6 c69 with Jason Kennedy referred to as the no

new pipelines law. And he says he's going to protect the environment by not repealing it. He swears he's still going to expand production and create jobs. I don't know how he can square that circle. It to me, it's all very confusing. You can't square that circle and and Canada has been unable to square the circle that Mark Carney has sold the Liberal Party for a decade. You know, he's the he's the origin of the fake and false trade off between energy, the economy and environment. It's had a terrible effect in the UK, where he was

pushing that zero. I'm in the UK right now and there's a host of things that we could talk about with respect to his tenure at the bank here, but I think the critical thing for Canada is that these things don't square. And I think that when you saw Mark Carney originally say he was gonna impose an industrial tax instead of the household tax, and then a week later had to be at DeFasco

telling people whose jobs would be at risk if you did impose an industrial tax, that he backs them. And then after that in Halifax saying we should be using Canadian steel in these ships, you know, you just don't have an industrial policy that can sustain the kind of climate approach that he wants to take. And I think we need a media and I'm very by the way, congratulations on a terrific podcast with the future Prime Minister, Paul Yev. And we need a media that's more honest about these things. We haven't had a very good national debate. And we have a media that's compromised by the incentive

structure that the Trudeau government put in place. And it's podcasters like you that make a difference in helping people really look at what the issues are in an open way. Well, I'm talking with David Knight leg and I thank you very much for the compliment. So do you think that when when liberal MPs can post on social media, and take a victory lap in front of a gas station saying, look what we did, we we put more money back in your pockets. Do you think that that speaks to a lack of pushback

from the press? Because I'm looking at it, and I can't believe the hubris, it's a combination of hubris. And I think it's a belief that they can sell whatever they want to a particular type of voter, they will buy it. Well, Ben, it's like watching a hockey team score on their own net and then run around celebrating, you know, I love it. As a as a conservative, I love it's like watching a hockey team score on their own net and then run around celebrating. I love it. As a conservative, I love it.

I love seeing my liberal friends celebrate conservative policies as being good for the country, especially after 10 years of telling us we were crazy to oppose them on these issues. Now they're celebrating it and they're hoping that the public will buy what they're selling. The issue is one of ideology and principle. And I think the problem is that Mark Carney has a couple of decades of embracing an ideology that's failed. It's long past due that they changed this. We're still not shipping Canadian gas to offset the huge emissions coming out of China and India, which we could be doing. We have regulations in Canada that stand in the way of doing us something truly meaningful for the environment. It's also a profound commercial opportunity and would be profound for Canada's diplomatic position in the world. And we've stood in

our own way, partly because we're just a lucky country and under the Liberals, we've become far more dependent on the United States than we needed, partly because we're just a lucky country and under the liberals who've become far more dependent on the United States than we needed to be because we haven't built this global access to the rest of the planet. But look, they can take all the conservative policies they want and pass them into law, like go for it. Just keep going.

I just wish they wouldn't stop at those two. I hope they keep going with industrial corridors. I hope they keep going with freer trade. And I think what you're gonna see coming out of this, I know you're down in DC now, and I think you'll probably hear a lot about this from some of the people you're meeting with, but there's a very intentional strategy

within the current administration at moving through the tariff process into a free trade environment. That's what the tariffs are meant to implement. And they're also going to be moving towards the corporate tax cut from 21 to 15. And when that happens, there's going to be a lot of pressure on the Canadian economy and political class to really focus on what it takes to make Canada a more vibrant, productive economy

again. And I think that's the debate that I think a lot of Canadians want us to have, comparing sort of the economic, the business environment, the investment environment in Canada to what exists in the United States. I think the tariffs muddy the water. And I'm wondering whether now that Liberation Day has come and gone, I wonder whether we can go back to having a more honest conversation about where is somebody going to want to invest their money? Where are they going to want to set up a business? Where are they going to want to set up a factory? And the Americans seem to be moving

towards a place that is more attractive to those types of things. You bet Ben and look, I think each of the premiers has to ask themselves how high those corporate taxes should be. And I think also the federal government, Canada is a federalist nation. And so the premiers have an important role to play at reducing debt and creating an opportunity, society and economy in the provinces. But federally, it's time for us to create a real vision

of what we should do and be in the world. I think that's economic, but I think it's also cultural. I think that Mark Carney's sort of had this strange kind of geriatric elbows up positioning, which I don't fully understand with respect to the States. But then with respect to China, we've been hands up. There's been virtually no strong conversation with or against China and their canola tariffs,

which is a huge $45 billion industry for us. The Paul Chan comments were disgusting and Mark Carney missed the easiest sort of open net on just telling him it was time for him to step down. He did not do the right thing on that front. David, we're gonna have to leave it there, my friend. David, I hope we can continue this conversation at a later date.

Enjoy the UK and we'll talk soon. Yeah, absolutely. This episode is brought to you by FX's Dying for Sex on Disney Plus. Based on the podcast of the same name, Dying for Sex tells the story of Molly, who is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Determined to feel everything she can before she can't feel anything, she decides to leave her unhappy marriage to explore her sexuality with with some encouragement from her best friend, Nikki. FX is Dying for Sex, now streaming only on Disney+.

Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. On April 11th, the amateur arrives in IMAX. I want to find and kill the people who murdered my wife. Critics rave the amateur is a tense, unpredictable ride... You're just not a tense, unpredictable ride. You're just not a killer, Charlie. Train me. That constantly finds new and inventive ways

to up the stakes. The first one you kill, you let the other ones know you're coming. You don't want them all? Academy Award winner, Ronnie Malik, and Academy Award nominee, Lawrence Fishburne, The Amateur. Only in theaters and IMAX, April 11th. Welcome back to the Ben Morissio Show and thank you so much for joining us

and I got a little ahead of myself in the last segment but here we are a huge story, but could be a huge story, I don't know. To talk about a big, big story in tech as well as a few other stories we didn't want to wait until our regularly scheduled appointment with this man we want to jump right in today. So let's welcome Mohit Rajan's mediologist and consultant with think start dot ca Mohit, thank you so much for being here. We got to talk about this possible coming together of Amazon and tick tock. If this

is real, this could be huge. This could be huge. And I'm so happy to be talking with you today. You know, this NBC first reported this, this idea that Amazon is a late entry into bidding for TikTok. Obviously, anybody who's followed the story knows that the US has threatened to ban TikTok and kick it out of the country and follow suit with many other countries. If it hasn't been divested of its financial interests from China, Amazon comes in in a very interesting way. I got to admit, Ben, if you, you and I both follow social commerce and e commerce, and we understand that there are many different companies that try to amalgamate and get a bigger market share. I

think to be honest with you, if Amazon was serious, they would make a very, very good partner in buying tick tock. In what way? I mean, I get it. There's people buy a lot of stuff on TikTok, people buy probably even more through Amazon. Explain to me why this could be a good fit, because I, I don't know enough about those two ecosystems to see how they could be mutually beneficial. So let's take it back down to the fact that TikTok now doesn't

want to be a place where it's just endless scrolling. In fact, they've started to commit to the endless aisle take it back down to the fact that TikTok now doesn't want to be a place where it's just endless scrolling. In fact, they've started to commit to the endless aisle when it comes down to shopping. And there's a lot of shopping that happens on that app to begin with. It's video shopping, it's live shopping. They've redefined the way that people connect when it comes down to e-commerce. But on the other side is Amazon, where their fulfillment has created a world that's completely different than it was 10 years ago. Amazon doesn't have anything like this in their ecosystem, even though deep down inside,

a lot of it is run on Amazon products. So I think there's a real gap that they fulfill here from straight to consumer. I don't think the TikTok that was 10 years ago and sort of started with this just virality of one or two creators is where it is anymore. It's really a place where you get a lot of advice, do local shopping and find out what what's trending. I gotcha I gotcha. Well, only time was I've lived a great life without tick tock and I don't care what it turns into. I don't

need it. But I don't know maybe the Ben Mulroney show does maybe we'll find ourselves on tick tock day. We'll have to see. Okay, let's let's talk about this other story. The nearly half of us teenagers said they were online almost constantly. I think that's, that's terrible. That was 24% just a decade earlier. One third use social media sites like YouTube almost all the time. And parents are only I guess only now realizing that their kids need a digital detox. 68% of them said their children under six needed a digital detox. I mean, have we have we crossed the Rubicon? Are we passed the point of no return here? I do think so. I kind of look at digital technology the same way that certain households handle sports. And the way it is like, you know, some people really enjoy this idea of connecting on sports and bonding on it. And other households

have now determined that, you know, they're happy and fine with technology and okay with it, being outside but not inside of the house. But the truth is that, you know, even if you ban cell phones inside of schools, which many schools have done this past couple of years, there's still this reliability that happens in a connected world. And we're, in some cases, doing our kids a disservice when it comes down to at least acknowledging that these phones and this connectivity is all a part of what they're actually growing accustomed to use accustomed to

using on a daily basis. Okay, well, what about what about AI in classrooms? I mean, we're always worried about kids using AI to cut corners. But now we're talking about deepening the integration of AI into Ontario classrooms. And I'm really shocked about how quickly technology is moving. Just last year, I was receiving notes as a parent from two separate school boards about the banning of any AI use in any form of education. As I start to follow the

bouncing ball across the country from Alberta right to here, school boards are starting to put out emails expressing how AI is being used not only in the classrooms, but also giving students some leeway in what tools they can use. The problem, Ben, is it's not clear. And because it's not clear and the rules are not clear, kids aren't going to stick to the, you know, makeshift rules that are being prepared right now. AI has left the building, has left the stable. And so I'm worried right now, even in the emails that I've received from certain school

boards about the permission to use AI, it's not clear what the tools are. And you and I both know that they're growing every day. Well, and what's what's frustrating about this mohawk mohawk mohawk hit is that there are there are best practices out there. There are school boards, there are individual schools, there are papers that have been written about studies that have been done about how best to implement what tools to use when to when to integrate them, how to approach these things with kids of certain ages. And it just doesn't it seems like it's being done ad hoc. And when you do it that way without a plan, you don't if you don't know where you want to go, then you're going to end up somewhere you don't want to be. Excellent point case in point is social media, right? They didn't know how to teach it in

schools, they didn't know if they should, they shouldn't address it, etc, etc. And we saw decades of them trying to figure out how it is that they were going to react to social media use with artificial general intelligence in the way that we're future proofing education, we in Ontario in Canada, especially cannot be left behind, because these students will not be prepared for the workforce ahead of them. Yet meanwhile, you've got you've got people who know a heck of a lot more than me about about artificial intelligence warning that if we come over reliant on AI, it could change the way we think now I tend to believe based on what we've just said, that there's nothing wrong with changing the way we think.

I mean, if these tools exist, they have to be part of the dynamic of our lives. And that could in fact change how we think, so long as the way we're changing that is optimizing our work and bettering our lives. And so again, you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan and you have to see who's doing it well.

I really don't care if my kids think through a problem differently than I, of course they're gonna think differently than I. I had a calculator growing up, I had a protractor growing up. You know, they've got the world's information at their fingertips. So of course they're gonna think through problems differently.

Of course they're gonna conceive of their fingertips. So of course, they're going to think through problems differently. Of course, they're going to conceive of, of, of their work differently and of their relationships differently. That's not a problem. So long as they're thinking of them in a better way than I did. Yeah, I think you make some great points. And what's happening right now is even the founders of this technology are starting to get scared that they're not putting the proper warning signs associated with the diminishing of problem solving skills and critical thinking that

could happen as a result. I see it in my own household. I have three different kids at different age groups and to try to impress them with some of the things that technology is doing right now is almost like trying to introduce them to my music from back in the day. It's really tough for them to stop and say, yes, I'm impressed by that because they're seeing so much of it so fast. So this idea that we are diminishing is in our critical thinking is definitely a problem to watch out for. Yeah, I just, I think it's a cop out when we say something like

that. I think, I think it puts all the burden on the technology, and it puts nothing on the creativity of the human mind to look at AI as a tool. It's not a burden, it's a tool. And what we're saying is we're too dumb to figure out how to use the tool, we've allowed the tool to use us. But every single one, somebody,

there's going to be a country out there that figures out how to use AI to make their kids be the highest performers. They're gonna find a way to make them the most efficient employees, the most creative thinkers, there will be a country that does it, because they're going to say, we're smarter than the tool. And unless we unless we decide that that's who we want to be, we're going to be at the mercy of the technology instead of using it to amplify the best

parts of us. Yeah, well, follow the money, right? Follow where the investments happen in which countries, you'll see which tech companies are actually excited about which populations to do this. Well, mo hit as always, I appreciate I appreciate our conversations. Did you do your your your keynote yet? I did not do my keynote yet is next week at DigiMarcon in Toronto April 16. Sorry, not even next week. I've you know, I've lost my days. I will be on the CH morning live tomorrow morning

about talking about AI and kids. So if you can tune in, please do that. Thank you very much. That is that's Mohit Rajan's, mediologist and consultant for thinkstart.ca and a good friend of all of us. Thank you very much, my friend, I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. We're live every day nationwide on the Chorus Radio Network, and you can listen online 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

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