The Ben Mulroney Show - Blowing the Lid off Wasteful spending from our Federal Government

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Blowing the Lid off Wasteful spending from our Federal Government with Guest: Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation -The big business behind the Super Bowl with Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founder of Chatter AI -The new Canadian-original documentary series Sounds Black with Guest: Cazhhmere Downey, Director, Award-winning filmmaker -Canadian Connection at the Super Bowl with Guest: Jean-Olivier Dalphond, Chief Commercial Officer and Partner for PixMob 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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Depending on what your news feeds look like on Twitter, you may follow certain accounts that are giving you regular updates as to the sort of fat that's being trimmed by the US government, the ridiculous stories of money going out the door for this pet cause or that pet cause. out the door for this pet cause or that pet cause. And a lot of people are hoping that that's, that those stories are going to come to the fore in Canada as well. It turns out they are. And to talk more about those is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Tarzano. Franco, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show. Hey, Ben, I think this one's going to be a fun one. Yeah, this is, yeah. This is, this is one of those things like the notion.

Some of these are not huge expenditures. But if you subscribe to the notion, watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. This is a government that is not watching the pennies at all. No, they're not. Right. And they're not doing the little things right. And they're definitely not doing the big things right. And when you waste money through every department like crazy all the time, well that adds up. Exactly. That's how you eventually get to a 62 billion dollar deficit. Yeah well let me

yeah well let's look at some of these. So the government spending seven point two million dollars for quote gender responsive system approach to universal health care in the Philippines. Oh this this one drives me nuts, right? $7.2 million for a gender responsive systems approach to universal health care in the Philippines, as you mentioned. Now look, like, there's so many Canadians here who are struggling with pain, waiting forever to get a hip replacement, right? Yeah. And yet the government somehow finds 7 million bucks to be spending on this waste overseas. And that's just like the tip of the iceberg. Now, folks, don't get out of me. I'm just the messenger here. But the government also spent 8800 bucks on a sex toy show in Hamburg, Germany, called whose jizz is this?

called Whose Jizz Is This? I heard that on the radio a few days ago and I couldn't believe that it was real. I mean it sounded like something from The Onion. Yeah no it's real unfortunately. Like this show featured sex toys spouting water. It was absolutely nuts and you know it's not the only time this type of spending is happening. The government also dropped 12 grand paying senior citizens in other countries to talk about their sex lives in front of live audiences. They spent 12 grand outsourcing old people sex stories. Like, welcome to the state of Canada.

Well, we like to say that this government is led by someone who enjoys theatrics and performance. And there's a few line items here that speak to this government's appreciation of live events and and theatre. For example, $1,700 for a musical called Lesbian Pirates. Yeah, totally right. And like this was about two lesbians who cross dressed as male pirates, they fell in love, they slaughtered swaths of men stole treasure and escaped persecution from the law. And you know, like we're making fun of this stuff. Like here's the thing, if you want to go watch that musical with your own money, fill your boots, right? I couldn't care less, nobody cares. But like, come on, right? Why should like Susie and Bill in Brooks, Alberta

be forced to pay for this with their tax dollars, especially when there's so much infrastructure in Canada, government infrastructure like healthcare, like education that is getting failing grades, why are we spending this type of money? Now, you know, there's also $34,000 for a string orchestra in Ecuador. Yeah, right. Seventy five hundred bucks to promote diversity, equity, inclusion at a music festival in Estonia. This one was crazy. Seventeen grand to fly a Canadian chef to India to cook Indian food. Like what is going on? And Ben, like I know these are like smaller numbers in the grand scheme of things, but there's also some big spending items here, like $41 million for three properties in Afghanistan, which were quickly abandoned to the Taliban.

Oh, wow. So now the Taliban has new digs and we're at 41 million bucks. Well, I'll tell you what I juxtapose this to, which is why it's sort of, it's upsetting. This government has done nothing to improve, you know, how easy it is for entrepreneurs to get investment in Canada. So I work with a number of startups and the groundwork, the environment for investment in this country

is really at a low point. Meanwhile, our government seems willing to quote unquote, invest in anything that comes across their desk. And so when you juxtapose those two things on one side, you've got, you know, wealth builders and job creators, and they can't, they can't get the money they need to build wealth and to create jobs. But then you've got money like being sent out a fire hose at anything $13,000 for an Oscar party in Los Angeles. If you can't pay for an Oscar party in Los Angeles during the Oscars, then you're doing something wrong.

Well, yeah, or two grand for a dance festival in Serbia. Like, what? Yeah. Why is there money doing that, right? And like, you know, Global Affairs Canada, one of the worst waste offenders in all of government, which I think is saying an awful lot, like they're dropping $51,000 a month on booze.

Yeah. 51 grand a month on booze paid for by the taxpayer. And you know, I'll just extend your story a little bit further. Not only is it very hard for entrepreneurs to find investment or to, you know, build a business, but our government is actively making it harder for them, right? Like there's been so much in the news about the now delayed capital gains tax hike, but like this is why Canadians are so upset where you have the government continuing to reach

deeper and deeper into our pockets every single year with tax hikes, making life more expensive. And then they go waste money abroad or even within Canada. Now we're talking about some smaller items here, but if you just take a step back and you look at the total foreign aid budget, okay, it's $15.5 billion dollars. Yeah. $15.5 billion dollars in foreign aid in 2022-23. Well, I looked at some other spending for comparison. That's about the same amount of money as the federal government sends to the provinces through the Canada social transfer. Almost the same amount of money. Yeah. Right. And the Canada social transfers for like university education, college education, social assistance and social services,

almost exactly the amount the government is spending on that they're spending in on foreign aid. And let me put that into context, just just one more. Okay, the government spends almost three times more on foreign aid than it does through the entire Department of Veterans Affairs. Yeah, I mean, what do they say, if you want to know what a government's values are, take a look at their budget. And this is what they value. This is what they value over other things. And so when I hear Pierre Poliev in the Arctic, talking about Arctic sovereignty

and the protection of our Arctic by way of a beefed up military presence, he says he's gonna pay for all of that by cutting foreign aid. A lot of people are gonna clutch their pearls and say, oh no, but what about Canadian values being spread abroad? If these are the values that are being spread abroad, I think a lot of people are

going to come onside and say, yes, Pierre Poliev, by all means, cut this fat, cut this waste. Yeah. And I think that's going to have to be the challenge for a Pierre Poliev government is I think they're going to have to do what we're doing right now and just go line by line on some of this crazy spending. Right. And a lot of this stuff, to your point, is being framed by the current government as cultural diplomacy. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't know how forcing taxpayers in Canada to spend almost nine grand on a sex toy show

in Germany, I don't know how that's helping us Canadians spread cultural diplomacy abroad. Well, that's the issue. You know, we just heard the Prime Minister at a private event saying that, you know, we have to be prepared as a government to help businesses and help people through the tariffs if they do come into effect. In other words, spend our way to the other side of them. I would be very leery to give authority to a government that is so gleeful to spend our money another kick at the can.

I want somebody who's allergic to spending my money to have to have the responsibility to do that. Oh yeah, I love that. And hey, as we're talking about this looming tariff threat of up to 25%, you know what's actually happening in Canada that's still on the books? What?

A 19% carbon tax hike. Yeah. April 1. Yeah, that's coming. So while everyone in Ottawa is losing their collective minds And you know these tariffs will hurt for sure But our government is making things worse right with the carbon tax a 19% hike right around the corner The carbon tax costs our economy like 12 billion dollars last year. Yeah, that's 12 billion dollars ago right back into our pockets

Hey Franco Tarzano. thank you so much for being here. I mean, it is, there is humor in this, but we gotta laugh. Otherwise we're gonna cry. It's a sad state of affairs, but I'm glad you're here to highlight this waste because I guarantee you, there's a heck of a lot more. They just haven't lifted up enough stones yet. Oh, I agree.

Thanks for having me on today. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And let's let's put let's put Donald Trump aside for a little bit. And let's talk about what so many people were watching yesterday, the Super Bowl. If you're watching in Canada, the one thing you didn't see were the American ads. But that doesn't matter anymore, because they released those well in advance. And there are websites that you can watch them on and people are sharing them on social media.

And so we don't necessarily feel like we're missing out the way we used to. Although I have to say I very much enjoy experiencing sort of the American Super Bowl experience with those those Super Bowl ads in real time with everyone. And so to discuss that and so much more, we're joined by Tony Chapman, good friend of the show and host of the award winning podcast Chatter That Matters, as well as founder of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome back. Did you watch the Super Bowl? I watched some of it. I was on the plane for most of it. I was coming back from Costa Rica. I've got a gig in Ottawa today and tomorrow. So I but I caught enough of it. And obviously, I've been watching and seeing the Super Bowl ads unfold, as you said, over the last

two weeks. So it's just, it's always, it's always to me, it's the greatest game in town. If you're in marketing to see if you can win the Super Bowl. Well, and that's the question. I mean, everybody appreciates that you've got so many eyeballs and so much interest in the idea

of a Super Bowl commercial It's it's it's more than a commercial. It's an experience. It's an event. It doesn't matter what what the company is if somebody bought You know an eight million dollar 30 second ad is because they think they've got a needle to move But the question I guess I have is back when you had a captive audience watching through one stream, you know, CBS or Fox, I could appreciate the value of that. But given the fact that we now not only enjoy those commercials through different streams and different channels, but at different times, and you don't have that mass event anymore, is that $8 million price tag still of the same value? It's actually of more value.

And it's a great point you make because initially it was about scarcity. I had to watch it. I couldn't get up and replenish in the fridge because I didn't want to miss the ad because once it was there, it was gone. And that had a certain magic to it. And there's some ads that just made their entire year around one event. But today it's almost like liquid. Content flows without dead ends. magic to it. And there's some ads that just made their entire year around one event. But today it's almost like liquid content flows without dead ends. And if you're smart and you think of the Super Bowl, the center, the epicenter of that earthquake, but what can

I do to tease it in? What are all those little shocks going in? I can use YouTube and Instagram. I can get the media talking about it. I can, you know, tease the celebrities. I can put out a hundred eighty second ad because I control the real estate on YouTube. And then there's the event. And then afterwards, if you, if you commanded attention, if you're worthy of validation and more importantly, sharing, you get the another after effect. So it's really, it really becomes this, uh, this game of, uh, of how many times can I get people talking about what used to be a single piece of real estate and now in fact becomes the entire Monopoly board. A fact that many people know, but not everybody.

I'm always surprised when I find out that people don't all know that the Super Bowl halftime performer does not get paid. When they hear that, then they say, well, what are the economics of that? Explain how that makes sense. And I'm almost always at a loss but I suspect you'll be able to explain to our audience why it makes sense for somebody like Kendrick Lamar to invest time and resources to give essentially a free concert. Yeah this is great. Another great question. So I was at the event in Pasadena when Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, what's he doing in the, at the NFL? The NFL is old boys. It should be a country

in Western. It should be, you know, and the, the NFL said, you know what, we're going to attract a younger audience. We might not be able to attach it through pigskin, but we're going to attach it through culture and music. And Michael Jackson played and performed. It was one of the greatest performances and that set off a whole domino effect. And the NFL said, listen, I'll bring you 120 million viewers. I'll validate. You're the top star in the world. I'll put my cameras on you, but you're returned. You're going to do it for free. So not only do they get the talent for free, they sell the sponsorship at the halftime show Pepsi used to to own it and I thought they'd never give it up, but it got so expensive

that Apple had to turn it over. And that's the game of NFL is so smart. They realize that they're the only game in town, live eyeballs. Everybody's tuning in. I tell you something else. When you look at the polling, I did a chatter AI polling and the reason why when you factor in both genders, the most popular part of the Superbowl is a halftime show because it's,

it's something watched together and talked about together where I would argue a lot of the game. If you're not a passionate football fan, your, your attention veers. So I was watching, I was watching, I was watching with five guys yesterday and all of a sudden right before the halftime show, three women showed up to watch the halftime show with us and then they left. That's absolutely right. Hey, I want to switch gears to Starbucks and I think this number surprised me that Starbucks

is planning to cut 30% of its menu. What is that attributable to? When I hear a number like that, I hear something they're they're they clearly think they're going in the wrong direction on a particular front. I'll tell you what it is. It's stuck in the middle and nobody wants to be in the middle. Starbucks used to be the premium brand. You paid a fortune for it. You walked into barista, the steaming and the espresso, and then they got caught in the middle because the local coffee shop showed up

with the local date squares and the freshly baked goods. And Starbucks suddenly looked at it and said, that sandwich is coming out of a piece of plastic and going in a microwave. And then Tim Hortons and McDonald's showed up and said, you know what, coffee is only worth a dollar. And where Starbucks is lost in its translation, it doesn't know where to move,

so it's trying to find ways to be more efficient with its operation. But I'll tell you something, you're either going to be in the dollar coffee business or you're going to be the high-end boutique coffee shop. And I'll go out with a very bold prediction Starbucks is going to have to do a major, major reset. Or I question the relevance and sustainability of that brand going forward because people have moved one way or the other, discount stampede to value, or I want to go to my local person that knows my name. And I love the

fact that when that Saturday mornings, when they have that freshly baked muffin, or I want to go to my local person that knows my name and I love the fact that when that Saturday mornings when they have that freshly baked muffin I'm gonna go in there with my buddies and we're gonna have a chat well what I couldn't believe and I just had this revelation because I saw it in real time every time I go to the Starbucks was that you don't have your plastic straws anymore but every single one of those goods that you order comes right out of a plastic bag and that plastic bag goes into the garbage but I can't have my plastic straw. Oh I know and listen I just this morning because I'm in Ottawa I went down no

yogurt no oatmeal I'm going what all it is is baked goods that have that's considered on a shelf for a week and as you said comes out of plastic and I get people the youth this this curious sober youth this more health conscious youth is saying, that's not what I want to put in my body. So Starbucks is going to have to do a reset, but it's tough when you're a massive chain. Again, you could be operational efficient like a Tim Hortons or a McDonald's, or you could be superb like a boutique, but it's tough to be in the middle, and that's where Starbucks is. So I expect a major reset,

and maybe someone like McDonald's will buy them, or Pret De Manger will buy them, and find a completely different way to reinvent the experience. But as it stands now, cutting your menu, I don't think is your path to prosperity. I wanna spend a couple of minutes on Shopper's Drug Mart, because there's this outrage over an ad

for the beauty side of Shopper's Drug Mart that features a bearded man. Now there's this whole controversy about a podcast that he did about being HIV positive. I don't even want to touch that. I want to just talk about the marketing, the idea behind it, where the vast majority of people who are being targeted by Shoppers Drug Mart beauty are women. And so I want to understand the reasoning behind putting a bearded man in a place where, you know, the most people identify as being cis women. Yeah, I mean, again, you know,

your calling should have been marketing. 82% of the purchasing decisions that happen your own are women. When it comes to health and beauty, the even a higher number, they buy the male product. Go to shoppers. Now you see there's a whole mill cosmetic section carved out, you know, beard oil, moisturizers. And I get a great thing about men is we don't want to use shampoo and conditioner separate because we don't understand it.

We want two in one. Yeah. So, but it's all, it's basically it's, it's, it's not really within your mind set. So I don't understand this ad. I can understand shoppers saying we're in the male cosmetic care chasing found review space, because that's what shoppers is.

I don't know who they're targeting with this ad, because it's not, if I'm shopping for my man, I'm thinking the old spice ad, you know, and how much fun you could have playing on, I just don't understand it. So I think it's probably data that's driven a decision that when you're put out in the marketplace, people are looking at it and going,

I don't know who it's targeting, but I certainly know it's not targeting me. And I would say to you, that's not great marketing. Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be a sort of a Bud Light Dylan Mulvaney sort of scandal, but I do think it's a sort of wasted marketing dollars. I just don't know that it's going to be as effective as anyone either anticipated or hoped. Hey, Tony, I really appreciate it. I know that

you're in between meetings and we love having you on the show to offer up your insights on so many of these stories. So thank you very much. Always a pleasure, my friend. Loving your show. Thanks so much. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us on this Monday. And a lot to talk about. It's so nice every now and then to put Donald Trump aside, put the chaos aside and talk about things that should bring us together. And it's always really nice where we take something that, you know, we think we know or we're comfortable with and we're given context that allows us to appreciate it more deeply. And specifically what I want to talk about is the notion of what constitutes black music in Canada. If you're of a certain age, it's pretty much all you consume or you don't even notice that you're consuming it

because it's just part of the music that you love. And there's a new Canadian original documentary series called Sounds Black. It's from Chorus Entertainment, examines the origins and the impact of black music in Canada, it's directed by an award-winning filmmaker, and they're with us right now, Kashmir Downey, welcome to the show, thank you so much for being here. Hi, thank you for having me.

So I've got to ask, the idea of, I mean, it sounds like a very big, bold, ambitious project. How do you tackle something like this? Where do you start? Where's the beginning? That was a very good question. I didn't know where to start when I did this, to be honest, with my own self. But where I did start was, you know, I, 20 years ago, I started as a music video director

in Canada, working with a lot of local national stars and international stars as well. So I was like, let me just start calling up the artists. I've worked with a large portion of these artists and the ones that I didn't work with are people that I grew up listening to, learned from. And so I just called them up and just started booking in the conversations.

That was pretty much where it started. So it just starts with conversation. Now, one thing I appreciated in my rather long time in entertainment news is musicians of all stripes, the ones who are really passionate about what they do, they're passionate about it because they're passionate about other people's music as well. Absolutely.

They know who inspired them, right? And they have the reasons behind it. And that to me was always something wonderful to learn that it's not just somebody who someone handed them a song and they had a hit and they became a star, but they have music in their hearts and they know the history behind it. And so was that for you part of it,

like getting to know what made them tick? Absolutely, that was, I'm glad that you brought that up because for me, a very important part of making this project was not only working with, you know, speaking with the artists that I know, but I wanted to know who were the artists that influenced them. You know what I mean?

It's like, in Canada, we all know, you know, the staple household names. We know Maestro Fresh West, we know Missy Me, we know Cardinal Oficial, Julie Black, Deborah Cox, but it was very important for me with this documentary to let the audience know that it doesn't just start and end with those names. You know, like black musicians in Canada have been

a thing since the 1930s, the 1940s, you know, going all the way back to like Portia White and Oscar Peterson and Salome Bay, and those, they were the real pioneers. They built the foundation that the majority of black artists in this country stand on today. And so I don't wanna make this about politics, but given that we're talking about it,

and we've got a president in the United States talking about Canada should be the 51st state, one of the things that to me is ridiculous is we have such a rich and divergent history from the United States. And it goes back to institutional differences that mean that we are just not, we don't align in so many ways.

We're parallel, but we don't align necessarily. And that translates as well into our history and various subsets of our history. How is broad strokes, how is Canadian black music different from our American analogs? I think Canadian black music is different in the aspect where, you know, the first episode of the doc is called The Seeds.

And it's all about, you know, educating the audience on, before you can talk about black music in Canada, you have to understand how black people's got here in the first place. And that it's been happening since the 1600s, 1700s during the Atlantic slave trade. But as opposed to just a traditional history lesson on that,

I wanted people to understand what that looks like from a music perspective. The different sounds that came through all those waves of migrations. And the Atlantic slave trade brought gospel and spiritual music. And then we talk about political things, our American counterparts drink prohibition when the jazz musicians couldn't drink liquor in the States. They were all migrating up here, going to Montreal and jamming in the bars there. That's how jazzrating up here, going to Montreal, and jamming in the bars there. That's how jazz came up here.

And then during the first major wave of the Caribbean migration in the 60s, that brought a lot of Caribbean sounds with them, reggae, ska, calypso music, and all those different waves, those seeds planted in those earlier days have now grown the branches and the trees that make the black Canadian music sound so authentically different than our American counterparts.

Now with, and this is pure speculation on my part, but I would think that with the explosion of hip hop in the early 80s, and the rise of music TV on both sides of the border, that there was a faster exchange of sort of the cultural identity than we'd had in the past. Absolutely, you know, because in the earlier days of hip hop, you know, we were always so focused on, you know, keeping up to speed with our American counterparts, right?

But what really set us apart when we started to get our own recognition is when artists like Missy Mee and Maestro started to really, you know, own up to what makes them different. Yeah. You know, Missy Mee, she's of Jamaican descent. She was born in Jamaica, moved here when she was young, and she was very different. She incorporated her Jamaican background, her Jamaican culture, her Jamaican sound into her music, you know, as a rapper, which was very different than the rap from the female rappers that was coming out in the 80s.

That was her superpower, you know? The same with Maestro Fresh West and the Dream Warriors and the Cardinal Officials and even like Julie Black when you get to R&B and all the other sounds. It's like, we have a superpower in Canada as black musicians because there's so much, there's a lot of seasoning involved in what makes us artists over here. A lot of layers, yeah.

Now, are we now at a point where, you know, there's a level of global excitement over Canadian musicians? Are we now at the point where we're taking the lead on global music culture? I think, I think yes. You know, I think that, and that's not just because we have, you know, global superstars

like Drake and The Weeknd. We also have, you know, some of the biggest producers in the world, like Boy Wanda and, you know, T-Minus and 40, you know, that have made big hits. Like Boy Wanda and T-Minus and 40, that have made big hits. Boy Wanda has produced a lot of stuff for Beyonce and huge artists that aren't from Canada. I think that before where it was really just a few handful

of artists that were at the front of the industry as Canadian representation, we are sort of embedded in all aspects of the culture now. And I don't think people appreciate the true importance of a producer on a track and the influence that they can have on the artist. They bring things to the table, they bring suggestions and ideas and beats

and notions that might get overlooked because the star is the star. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I say like you have artists, like pretty sorry, producers like Boy Wonder and Forte and those artists, like, when Drake and The Weeknd are coming out and their sounds were so different, you know, American counterparts are like,

what's that sound? Like, we've never heard that before. Who's behind that? Yeah, exactly. And then they're like, oh, Boy Wonder's behind that? I gotta get you in the studio. I need that special juice that you have that you're bringing to this new music sound. I'm talking with Cashmere Downey, the director

of the Canadian original documentary series, Sounds Black, from Chorus Entertainment. Tell me where people can watch it. So you can view it on the History Channel on TV and then you can also stream it on Stack TV. That's amazing. What are you working on next? What am I working on next? Have you thought about it? Or was this too big of a mountain for you to take a rest? I have. I mean, I have a couple ideas

for some other documentaries, but I also direct a lot of TV, you know? So I'm working on shows like Heartland, Murdoch Mysteries and things like that. So, you know, I'm all over the place. I'm a storyteller. I got about 30 seconds left. What did you think of the halftime show yesterday?

Loaded question in 30 seconds. But I mean, I enjoyed it. It was entertaining and I'll say, it's, you know, the beef removed, it was important for the culture. You know, the culture of black music and black culture as a whole, it was very important and very significant.

No, I thought it was, I couldn't believe how many dancers he had. That was a lot of dancers. I mean, at least a lot of dancers. I mean, at least a couple of hundred. I guess when Beyonce's on stage, that's all I see. That's all you see, yeah. Right?

But with somebody else, I'm able to look elsewhere. And it was choreographed perfectly. It was very well put together. And Serena Williams. Yeah, yeah. Sam Jackson. It was all very well thought out. I thought it was great.

Well, Caspar Downey, thank you so much for being here. I love talking with you. The show is called Sounds Black from Chorus Entertainment. I appreciate you. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And you know, way back in 2010,

I had the honor of participating in CTV's Olympic coverage in Vancouver, which meant they gave me a ticket to the closing ceremonies. And I remember they gave me a wristband that I didn't know what it was for. I thought it was just some sort of a gift, that commemorative gift that I got. And midway through the show, it lit up

and I noticed everyone's wristbands across the entire BC place lit up, which I'm sure made for an incredible visual on television. Well, if you watched the Super Bowl yesterday, then you saw that technology on steroids and it allowed the entire crowd to become part of the action and incredible effects were generated to the benefit of the viewers at home. The company responsible for what we saw yesterday is a Montreal company called PixMob.

And they have been creating immersive fan experiences with LED lighting, products and technology. And it was such a huge hit yesterday. I'm sure there's going to be many, many more milestones to come for them. I'm very happy to be joined by Jean-Olivier Dalfond, the chief commercial officer and partner for PixMob. Jean-Olivier, welcome to the show and congratulations on the huge success. Thank you, Ben. So how was, during the show yesterday, are you on pins and needles? Has your work been done or are you actively working to ensure the success of the event?

Definitely pins and needle because there's nothing I can do at that point. Everything is in motion. I'm sitting next to my programmer and I just don't talk to him to butter them. And but it was flawless. Of course, we have one of the best most solid media team over there. Now, because it's really done and listen, it's great, I'm sure to experience live. But when I was in Vancouver using I'm sure an earlier version of that by a different company, I thought to myself, wow, this must look great on TV. So are you, are you watching it from the vantage point of a viewer or were you there inside the stadium? I was inside the stadium,

but where we were, we also had the video feeds. I was looking at both at the same time while trying to film it with my phone. I was, I was busy at that point. But definitely this is a TV show more than a live show. Yeah, as opposed to an Olympic ceremony, which is both. So this is a really when you're in the stadium, it's really hard to capture the actual detail what's going on to the sound and everything. But on TV, it's like amazing. Now, where do you want to take this technology next? So we've had a chance to do the Olympics in Paris this summer, the closing ceremony,

so similar to your experience, but with, you know, when we displayed that giant dove that would spread his wing or the horse, these are there. Now what we're doing is we're doing a lot of the big shows. You know, what I'd like to do is do all the shows I want to do and be able to serve, you know, a 5,000 person conference that happens in DNF policy or such things. So how do we take it to the world? It's a and how do you stay ahead of the competition? That would be my question as a Canadian company trying to compete globally with other companies that have their own version of

this technology. How do you stay one step ahead? Well, the nuance of that everybody else copied our version of the technology, because we're the only one that actually innovates in this. And that's the power of it is that we build our product, we manufacture a product and we build every single piece of code that's in it. So a little bit like the model that Apple would be doing, right? We design and we manufacture, so we control the entire ecosystem. So that enables us to like iterate and advance super rapidly all year in Canada and we just watch our competitor copy and we're like okay well we got more for you. I mean because you've done the Super Bowl and because you've done the Olympics I mean that to me I guess the World Cup would

be next. The World Cup could be next or we've also done tours with Coldplay, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd, you name it, we've had a chance to work with them. So I wanna keep doing more and more tours so that we could bring it through all the cities around the world. Well, look, I'm a big fan of promoting Canadian ingenuity and Canadian entrepreneurs, and I'm so glad that Jean-Olivier Delfon,

so glad that we've been able to talk about PIXMOMP today on the day after your greatest success as a company. Thank you so much, congratulations, and more greatness for you on the horizon. Thank you, Ben. Have a great day. For the most important stories from around the world. We are here in Jerusalem, we just heard the siren.

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