The Ben Mulroney Show - Charlie Kirk manhunt and Sarah McLachlan? We talk about everything!

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

-  Jonathan Rosenthal – lawyer - Sarah McLachlan/Singer If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody. who's actually trained to help. That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment.

After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada, Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's better, help.com slash Mulrooney. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh? I bet you it went straight into your bank account and you didn't even check your pay stuff. My what?

Your pay stuff. Back in my day, you had to wait for a physical check. Then you had to go to the bank. Deposit it and wait for it to clear. Your pay really meant something. Payroll was incredibly complex. It's art and the science. It literally keeps the economy moving.

Parole professionals do a lot for us. You know, it's about time we do something for them. How about we ask our leaders to name a day in their honor, a national day to recognize payroll professionals? I got it. This is perfect. Why don't we explain to people just how important the roles are the payroll professionals play in our lives? We can even ask them to sign a petition. We can even ask them to sign a petition to recognize the third Tuesday in September as the National Day to recognize payroll professionals.

Will rally support and bring the payroll party to the nation? A national payroll party? Precisely. Sounds like a plan, you know, just one thing. What's that? I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the back seat.

The whole way? The whole way. It's Greg Brady and for Ben Mulroney. Thanks very much for giving us your time. Ben will be in the chair around 9.30 this morning. He is hot to trot some kind of negative slogan. He's definitely hot to talk about several things this morning. So you'll get that and much, much more when Ben is by.

Don't forget he's hosting the West Block, which is on global Sunday morning. Make it part of your Sunday morning habits. It's been off air for most of the summer. Mercedes-Stevenson is on maternity leave, which is awesome for her. So she thinks for the first several weeks. No, I'm kidding. You want as much time with your new infant as humanly possible. You know, in the States, we had our baby.

I mean, I was sort of there. And part of the process, you can, it's probably in the single digits for influencing the actual, well, not the conception, but the actual delivery, single digits, I would say. and the woman, if you will, no names, gets 12 weeks, 12 weeks of maternity leaves, what our family got for our firstborn in Michigan. And then you go back three days a week. And it was like 12 weeks at like 60, 70 percent of your salary. Not awesome.

We do things a little bit better here. When we talk about this American divide right now, where were the Democrats, where have they been forever on increasing parental leave? Nowhere. That's where they've been. It's like the only Western democracy that doesn't seem to take it more serious. I don't understand that. For those of you listening earlier on our show on Toronto today,

we gave away Morrissey tickets all week. And I meant to play this so much earlier. So I'm going to hijack some of Ben's time here and play one of my favorite moments. And I know Stephen Colbert's been in the news a lot the last several months, right? His show gets canceled on CBS. I thought he gave terrible medical advice during the pandemic. And he was a shill for all the pharmaceutical companies. We can't be having that.

not a lot of objectivity. Like to me, a late night host, you joke about everybody the same way. You joke about this president and this politician, that politician. And there's a defined slant, which is some of what we're going to get to as well in the eyes of this Charlie Kirk shooting and assassination on Wednesday in some of the recent developments just in the last several minutes. But at one point, Colbert had it going on. And he hosted the Colbert report playing, in essence, a caricature of, I guess, what would we call? a right-wing radio host, a controversial, provocative radio hosts because there's no provocation or controversy on any side except the right. I don't know if you've noticed that. But bottom line

is he had Morrissey on this, you know, generally grumpy, noteworthy new wave artist, really did a lot, revolutionized the British sound and was in a band called The Smith. But he's an absolutely aggressive vegan. And Colbert, in character, challenged him on that. And it's one of the funniest things. If you're like Stephen Colbert's never been funny, let me challenge you here. I think this is. You're a renowned vegetarian.

You're kind of militant about it. You requested, demanded that this building, everyone on staff, did this be a meat-free environment for the day that you are here? So if I'm a little woozy right now, it's because I haven't had my bacon. Why?

Why are you so militant about not only, like, you having meat, or not even seeing meat? Because animals are nicer than humans and they're conscious beings. Really? Yes. What about animals that eat other animals? Can I eat a lion?

Only when they really have to. What about an animal that's already dead? Like a cow that's been sentenced to death for a murder? Or a pig that commits suicide from listening to too many of your songs? You shouldn't laugh at that. I know a lamb that's a fucking ass. could I eat that lamb could I eat that lamb

I know I mean if you if you stick your grandmother in an oven she will probably be tasty but is that any reason to eat your grandmother apologies to all the grandmas out there hearing that anyway Morrissey tomorrow at Bud State so the breaking news we had during our show last hour was there is a suspect in custody

and very soon will be announced This is a joint effort. Utah police, the FBI. It's, to me, the manhunt of all manhunts to track down the assassin of Charlie Kirk, 31 years old, who was shot in a huge crowd at Utah Valley State University on Wednesday afternoon. So Donald Trump goes on at Fox and Friends this morning. He was at the 9-11 commemoration at the Yankee Stadium last night for the ball game, got some cheers, got some booze, but sat down this morning.

Now, what was odd, because we always hear this, you got to, you got to, see what Trump says as opposed to what he does is he got asked about the hunt for the killer. And maybe he wasn't supposed to, but in true Trump fashion, he kind of spilled the beans a little bit. Have a listen to what he said. Any updates on the suspect? Yeah. Can I always say, I think, just to protect us all, and so Fox doesn't get sued and we all don't get sued and everything else. But I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him. We're in custody. Right? In custody. That's why you got to ask the question. Amazing that that ended up transpiring.

So our newsroom here is rolling on whatever FBI director Cash Patel says. Trump also notes that it actually was a minister and someone close to this person that turned him in. Again, the FBI and the investigators are like, stop saying things. But he's Donald Trump, so he won't. Here's what else he told Fox and Friends less than an hour ago. I don't want to go too far. I'd like to tell you some stories at how it happened, but essentially somebody that was very close to him turned them in.

And that happens when you had some of those good shots. Somebody is going to say, whether it's a parent or whatever, I'd rather not say right now. They're going to announce it today sometime later, probably talk about that. But somebody close to them turned to them. They said, whoa, it's interesting where we had very good pictures, but not great, not perfect. And when you look at it, what happened is somebody, and this happens a lot.

It happened with the crazy Boston bomber. It happened with others. Somebody that Schloss recognizes even a little tilt of the head, which nobody else would do. And somebody that was very close to him said, hmm, that's him. And essentially went to the father, went to U.S. Marshal, who was fantastic, by the way. and the person was involved with law enforcement, but was a person of faith, a minister, and brought him to a U.S. Marshal who was fantastic,

and the father convinced the son, this is it. Okay, so there's Donald Trump just earlier, given a lot of detail. There's two things you can notice about Trump right away, as if you didn't know already. One, his recall is remarkable. And I'm not even talking about somebody who's older in his late 70s. he's recalling all that. Now, again, you might have a little bit of a detector on that handles the BS and goes as he throwing in some of his own anecdotes in there.

But that's a lot of detail to suggest that someone close to the suspect turned him in. Again, we're waiting. We could be minutes away from finding out name, residence, get a mugshot. But this has happened all within the last 45 minutes or so. Also enjoyable when Trump begins his statement, his 70 second. rampage there and says, I don't want to go too far. I don't think that's something everybody's terribly, you know, positive on that he'll fulfill his mandate there. He will go too far. He will go and say more than the authorities want

him to. I don't want to go too far that Donald Trump story is not going to be on Netflix with, you know, a five-season arc anytime soon. On the other side, he mentions the Boston Marathon bombing. And that's one for whatever reason sticks in my mind really well. I saw the FBI director, or one of the, sorry, the Utah governor note, they've gotten more tips on catching the Charlie Kirk killer who will find out if he acted alone or not or whether he was contracted out by somebody else. We're going to know a lot. Clearly, if we can keep Trump on Fox and Friends every morning, we'll know a ton. But the Boston Marathon bombing, they've gotten more video tips than any investigation since then. And you might think, is that so strange? Because that was a huge deal. And the Boston Marathon. is always on a Monday, but they didn't catch the second suspect until very late Thursday going into Friday. And my recollection is pretty clear on this one. Two things to remember.

The Red Sox always play a matinee game at Fenway Park on the morning of the Boston Marathon so that traffic's cleared it. They'll play like at 11.05 a.m. It's an odd start time for a Major League Baseball game. But they want people off the streets and they want the traffic and the Red Sox fans cleared out so that marathon traffic and the marathon can run over the course of that afternoon. But the second thing is, is Boston was super locked down when they couldn't find these guys. Okay, one of them was killed, one of them was captured. So there is only

one in prison, but they basically locked down the city. And the complaint I've heard is there's just been none of that from Utah, none of it whatsoever over the course of the last few days. So people I think in the state of Utah and on that campus will be awfully relieved. They've got a suspect. More of the Ben Mulrooney show coming up next. Hey, thanks for being with us. Greg Brady taking some extra time of Ben Mulroney's show. I'm going to have to, you know, invoice accordingly. To him, I owe him time.

He should be able to come in around 845 some morning and take up. Maybe on a Friday. That's perfect. Why didn't I think of this earlier? On a far more serious note, and before we get to that, worth noting later this hour, well, A, Ben will be back in a matter of minutes, actually. and B, the legendary. We played a clip of Morrissey on Stephen Colbert's old show

on the new show that's known as the Ben Mulroney show. You get Canadian music legend Sarah McLaughlin joining Ben before 10 o'clock. A must listen. We've all seen Sarah. Many of our girlfriends have taken us to see Sarah. And then we enjoy it just as much as they do. So that's coming up before top of the hour.

Disturbing doesn't quite cover it. And put yourself in the shoes of a Jewish student on a university campus in 2025, or really from October 8th onward on these campuses. Full disclosure, I went to Western. My son goes there now. I'm not Jewish. He's not Jewish, but he's seen things and has been stepping up and I'm proud of him to say things along with a lot of other non-Jewish students to make sure that others are feeling like you're just like the rest of us. I mean, shocking that we have had to get to that point. But a great concern at Western was a story from the National Post that I think

alerted the radar to a lot of parents. There was a private group chat belonging to Palestinian students or at least Palestinian supportive students. There's a huge difference here. Hey, here's what's going on in Gaza. Is this bothersome? Is this disturbing? Absolutely.

Hey, here's what I think Israel should or should not do with their foreign policy and how they conduct this war. Very fair game. But that's not what was happening. these group chats, there was a stream of Hitler memes. They were pro-Hamas videos. There were anti-Semitic cartoons and more and more and more. So a huge, huge problem that is worth documenting. Jonathan Rosenthal is a lawyer who joins us now on Toronto today. Talk about the ramifications of this. Jonathan, thanks for the time, first of all. You're very welcome and good morning. You know, I lay that out and it's really, you know,

there may be a Netflix show about this at some point in time. The group of Jewish students, kind of crept into these chats, but I think for very good reason to understand the threat level and what they needed to pass on to other Jewish students or students sympathetic to them, which should be most people, on these campuses. You summarize this very accurately. This is not about the situation in the Middle East where we all may have different views. Universities are the ideal place to fosters those sort of discussions and debates, But this is grotesque, racist anti-Semitism.

Jews are dogs. Drop a looney and sue who picks it up. Threats of violence. Carry a knife to a demonstration, but also carry oranges so that's your excuse if you get caught. And universities should be a safe place for students. And this is just pure anti-Semitism. And a complaint was made to the University of Western Ontario. From the get-go, it seemed to be.

and confirmed by their final actions, they wanted nothing to do with it. The first response to the complaint was not, thank you for bringing this to our attention, we'll investigate. The first response was really saying, well, if you want to complain against the students, you've got to send the email to this person. If you want to complain against the club, you've got to send the email to this person. So it was very clear from the outset. They did not want to address this issue.

These are threats of violence against the very students who obtain this information. The bottom line is the university refused to investigate this unless I told them the names of the students. And quite frankly, I don't know their names. To protect their identity, I was retained by another lawyer who is my client. So who are you representing, Jonathan? I was representing a lawyer who is my client who is representing the student. So I don't even have the names of the student, and we took that step to protect their safety based on the very threats. And the university said, unless I provide them with the names of the students who gave me these materials, they weren't going to investigate.

That is irrelevant who came up with these materials. The materials speak for themselves. And they used every excuse in the book to refuse to investigate unless I effectively gave them the confidential source of the information. Okay. Well, let me jump in and give some examples here because what you're saying is giving great context and is insightful. But some of the transcripts in the National Post, the Yahoo, meaning the Jews, own everything. That's how they control everyone. Money.

Quote, London is filled with these Yehouties. We have to make a list of where we can and can't eat. But I think the, you know, proverbial smoking gun, Jonathan, is one member of the chat being very worried about being outed. Quote, if someone sees this group chat and reports it, we all getting expelled. And that speaks to the volume of it doesn't take a genius at 18, 19, 20 to recognize behavior that could easily get one kicked out of a university. They saw it for their own eyes and they were participating in it. Right. And they were taking steps in the event. In fact, they said, don't call them.

Jews call them Zionists. If we call them Jews, it's problematic. But what is equally troubling or even more troubling is the university has refused to just investigate this matter. What are the legal ramifications of that and what actions could potentially follow now that this is very much in the public airspace? Well, I'm not sure what they're going to say and how they're going to justify this. And it's just false. So, for example, one of the administrators of the chat, and we gave them this name, was a tutorial assistant teaching at the University of Western Ontario. Maybe that's someone they should have wanted to go and investigate or speak to, sorry, not an industry, speak to, to ask her, who are the other people engaged in the chat?

One of the members of the chat, and I want to be very clear, he did not say anything anti-Semitic. He is a member of the Board of Governors of this university. Wouldn't he be a good person to go speak to and say, can you tell us who these people are? There were phone numbers. Could you not type the phone number into the university system and see who it is? They had no interest in investigating this anti-Semitism because, they didn't want to for reasons that I can explain why I believe they don't want to. But instead of making a safe learning environment, protecting Jewish students, they use

a technical reason, we're not going to investigate unless you tell us who the confidential informant is. Jonathan, I hope we can follow up in the days and weeks to come. I don't think it's a story that'll go away anytime soon. Thanks for the context on this one. And I think as many people need to know about this insidious behavior as possible. Yeah, and I just want to say one more thing. You substitute any other group than Jews.

This would have been investigative. Some of the game of a video, for example, the despicable members of the KKK walking through the university or burning crosses. You think they would have said, who took the video and you tell me where you got the video? It just seems that when the target of the discrimination racism is Jews, there's a different set of circumstances that exist. Thank you for the time. Thanks very much.

Jonathan Rosenthal. that story is in the National Post. Just to let you know, we got about a minute, 45 before breakup. Ben Morrides made his way into the room. I will just let people know really quick. The Daily Mail is reporting the suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination, has been IDed as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident. They say he was taken into custody early this morning. The killer confessed to his father, a 27-year vet of the Washington County Sheriff's Department. So former law enforcement. This is what the Daily Mail is reporting right now. we'll obviously follow this up all day and hear from

I know Cash Patel speaks Donald Trump speaks, whoever speaks, you'll have it on your show. Absolutely, absolutely. But back to this conversation. Thank you so much for picking that up for me. Last week on the show, we were talking about another article that was written about how people, university students don't feel like they can speak honestly on hot button issues. And in the polling data that this study

had, 8% of black students across Canada have felt actual racism on campus. 25% of Jewish students have felt real anti-Semitism. And so you think about how big of a deal we make, and rightly so, of racism on campus. And yet something like this that is, by a massive scale, even bigger of a problem these days, is being poo-pooed and it's being explained away.

It is rabid anti-Semitism, and I have no time for anybody who says, Oh, anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. When we have the proof from the people themselves who say, if we call it this, we won't be accused of that. I'm tired of this disingenuous BS, and I'm very glad it's being exposed. Yeah, the roads all end up at the same place, and it's not a good place to be. Ben's got you covered the rest of the morning.

Sarah McLaughlin this hour as well on the latest on the suspect being arrested in the Charlie Kirk assassination. More of the Ben Roald Mauritio. He's right here beside me next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and thank you for allowing me to jump in a little bit late today. And thank you to Greg Brady for starting the show with the audience here at the Ben Mulroney show. I was over at the television show, The Morning Show, Global's Morning Show, to get their viewers accustomed to the idea of me standing in and sitting in for the, a lot of. Mercedes-Stevenson, who's taking some well-deserved maternity leave to be with her new baby.

And I will be hosting that show as of this Sunday on global television. And so that was, I want to thank them for making me feel so welcome and for allowing us to use their studio as well. And so now I'm here and let's jump in to what is important here on the Ben Mulroney show. If you listened right before the break, you heard Greg Brady announce that they have a suspect in custody. for the murder, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who was shot on the campus of University of Western Utah less than 48 hours ago. Let's see, what can we say about this guy?

Oh, so it's been concerned from five sources. Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old from Utah, was reportedly recognized by his father who detained him until police and FBI arrived. This has not been confirmed by multiple sources, However, it has been confirmed that in a certain way by the president of the United States himself. I don't want to go too far. I'd like to tell you some stories at how it happened,

but essentially somebody that was very close to him turned them in. And that happens when you had some of those good shots. Somebody is going to say, whether it's a parent or whatever. I'd rather not say right now they're going to announce it today. Sometime later, probably talk about that. But somebody close to them turned and they said, whoa, it's interesting. interesting where we had very good pictures but not great not perfect and when you look at it what happened is somebody and this happens a lot it happened with the crazy boston bomber it

happened with others somebody that slurus recognizes even a little tilt of the head which nobody else would do and somebody that was very close to him said hmm that's him and essentially went to the father, went to a U.S. Marshal, who was fantastic, by the way, and the person was involved with law enforcement, but was a person of faith, a minister, and brought him to a U.S. Marshal who was fantastic, and the father convinced the son, this is it. Yeah, and that person is Tyler Robinson, 22-year-old from Utah. His father, who I believe worked in the sheriff's office, detained him until police arrived and the FBI arrived.

And look, that has to be the most difficult decision that a father could ever have to make. We are genetically programmed to protect our own and protect our kin. And I don't know what the household was like. I don't know what the tenor of the conversation was between father and son. And that doesn't really matter to find out that if this is in fact true, that your son admitted that he did this thing.

He must have wrestled with how difficult it was. My heart goes out to the father, and I'm glad that he erred on the side of putting his son and his faith in the justice system. That is a choice that no father wants to make. I am glad that his father made that choice. And it also speaks, I believe, to this guy's probably, he probably admitted to his dad. Like I have to take this at face value because this wasn't an anonymous tip.

This was a father making the toughest decision he could possibly have to make, which means he was probably sure, which means I think we can move forward with a high degree of certainty that they're on the right path, at least as of now. We actually have some audio of this alleged assassin. Here's Tyler Robinson, in his own words, speaking about what must have been a high point in his life when he was awarded a presidential scholarship. Congratulations. You have been selected to receive the resident presidential scholarship from Utah State University. The value of this scholarship is approximately $32,000. This scholarship is available for four years or eight semesters.

I mean, yeah, can you imagine how proud that family was on that day, to be able. awarded something like that. I mean, that money can go a very long way in one's, in one's university journey. And so to go from that to this is a tragedy for that family. You know, I am not one who ascribes the sins of the father to the son, and it works the other way around. The sins of the son are not necessarily the burden of the father to carry. And so that family, I do hope that those voices online that feel so intent to add kerosene to the fire in any situation, but especially in this one, I hope that they focus their energy on productive things, on positive things, on trying to make the outcome of this terrible situation better because what we saw over the past couple of days has been disgusting. It's been disgusting. Yesterday morning, one particularly disgusting person bubbled to the surface,

pinged on our radar, and we highlighted it for you here at the Ben Mulroney show. I'm talking about Dr. Ruth Marshall of the University of Toronto, professor at the University of Toronto, who said, shooting is honestly too good for so many of you, fascist see words. And that's not a one-off for Dr. Ruth Marshall, by the way. Her, she has demonstrated through her words on social media the type of person she actually is. At one point, there was a conversation going on about, I mean, it doesn't even matter what it was about. This is where she took the conversation with a person by the name of Jesse. Hey, Jesse, it's likely because you're a piece of stinking hot trash and your loss would be a major W for humanity.

Maybe stop being an effing human stain and see what happens. Effing clown. This is a professor at the University of Toronto. This is what she deems as acceptable behavior as somebody who is entrusted with them with helping guide young minds at one of the highest esteemed universities in this country. I keep saying she is, she is, she is because she is no longer. she is she is no longer at the university i believe she is on a paid leave but she is no longer entrusted with the minds of those students and i believe that that is a good thing we're also there's also an update of of another person that acquitted themselves in a disgusting fashion

and we're talking about devon cassidy the employee of legal aid bc let's remind you what she said yesterday surely kirk got shot and he's dead finally finally somebody with a gun, which is almost everybody in the state. No, you know what? I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I feel, um, I feel, um, I feel, um, I feel, um, I feel, um, I feel, um, I can't, I can't play more than that. She's been fired. She's been fired. And look, let me state clearly, uh, that we on this show, In no way are fans of cancel culture. I believe that people can grow. If someone makes a mistake, I believe no one should be defined by their worst mistake. And I do not think that the mob should come for anybody and destroy their lives.

It's just not how we're built here. And no matter whether you make a mistake on the left or the right, there is redemption. We are human beings. We can learn from our folly. however when you sign an employment contract and you break the terms of that employment contract that employer has every right and depending on what sector you're in sometimes is duty bound to cut you loose now you can rebuild your life once once that happens as far as I'm concerned that's the repercussion everything else that happens after that it depends on the

situation I really don't I don't think that once that happens it is incumbent upon to monitor the situation and make sure that once that person fell, they don't get back up. I don't subscribe to that. But in this case, this is an F-A-round and find-out situation. And you effed around. Boy, did you F-A-round. Devin Cassidy, you presented as a disgusting human being. You've got to do some self-introspection, figure out where that rot is, clean it out, and come back as a better person.

I wish we could get to so much more here. but let's move beyond all this and talk about what's better broken with a Canadian music legend. Don't go anywhere. We've got Sarah McLaughlin on the Ben Mulroney Show next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And if you heard, if you were just listening, you heard a voice you recognize, but maybe not the song. That's new music from our next guest, the incredible, the wonderful Canadian, incredible musician. Pioneer on so many fronts.

Such a great institution in this country. It means so much to so many people. Please welcome to the show, Sarah McLaughlin. Hi. It's so great to see you again. Thank you. Before we start. So that's new music,

and we're going to talk about the new music in just a moment. The song is better broken. A new album is better broken as well. And it comes out on September 19th. But I was thinking back as soon as I heard that you were coming on the show, and I'm so glad to see you again

because we go way, way back. one of the first interviews I probably did with anybody who mattered to me was you and it was 24 years ago and we were talking about the launch of your music school in Vancouver so it's almost a quarter century young I can't believe it's been 24 years

yeah yeah so how's it how's it doing tell everybody about it well it is a free after school music and mentorship program for at risk and underserved children and youth that started in Vancouver with a pilot project of 200 kids It's now over 1,200 students a year across three different schools, Vancouver and New Westminster at Douglas College and McKeown University in Edmonton. And it's completely free, always has been, always will be.

And it's incredible. I have so much pride. I mean, I love this place so much. I love that we get to give kids music. I mean, it gave me so much growing up. Honestly, it still continues to save me every day. So to know that I can give a lot of kids the same or similar opportunity. that I had growing up to have music in my life is profoundly important.

And the fact that it was 25 years ago, it means I'm sure you've heard stories of what people did with that education that they otherwise wouldn't have gotten and the lives that they've built. I mean, you must have enriched so many kids' lives through music. Thousands and thousands. Yeah. And I mean, our MO is not to, you know, it's not about the exams or, you know, pursuing, you know, the instrument to excellence. Yet, that being said, a small percentage of the kids do want to and they go, like we've got full scholarships to Berkeley School of Music, things like that, people, young people now pursuing musical careers, but also just becoming well-rounded humans who have EQ, who have empathy, who have understanding of working

together and being vulnerable together, which I think, you know, is incredibly important in our society to be able to be open and curious with each other. Sarah, why do you think it's so hard to get sort of entrenched powers and sort of governments when we talk about public schools and stuff to appreciate what you just said. I mean, there are study after study after study that talks about the importance of music. I mean, they do brain scans of young people when they hear music and they're parts of their brain that light up like the 4th of July and those are not the parts of the brain that are activated in math or in science or in tests.

Like, why is it, why when when push comes to shove, if something's going to go the way the dodo bird, it's music education? It's music education. It's arts education. It's sports. It's all those extracurriculars. Yet, you know, those were the only thing that kept me in school. Yeah.

And I think those are also the things that, again, allow for social, emotional growth, which is really, really important for our, you know, holistic well-being. You're in town for a number of reasons. One, we got this new album. It's been 11 years. Yeah, I know. And you said, you said music saves you every day. So why not make new music in the past 11 years?

What was it about this time in your life? I was making new music. It was just, you know, parceled with a lot of big distractions. I had two teenage daughters. I was a full on dance mom. I was also kind of the principal fundraiser off the side of my desk for the school for many years. And I was continuing to do shows as well. So I was wearing a number of hats and kind of kept my toe in the water.

But just I needed to amass enough material. And that just took longer than I thought of it, I guess. So what does this, what does this album say? Where, what does it, if people are, are being reintroduced to Sarah after so many years, what are they going to learn from you in this album? Well, you know, there's no reinventing the wheel. I've always written from an emotional point of view and also just, you know, from dealing with challenges in my own life. And songwriting's always been very cathartic and like therapy for me. So it's just a continuation of these are postcards of times in my life. But also, you know, I guess I'm a little more, a little more overtly political on this record than I ever have been before. Oh, really? I feel like this is a time where as women, we cannot be complacent. As humans, we cannot be complacent. We have to stand up for what we believe in and continue to talk and try to keep an open conversation going about how we may have different opinions about things. But we have to

keep this discourse alive and not vilify everybody else just for having a different opinion. It feels like we're living in a time where the act of conversation is dead and it's about shouting as loud as you possibly can, and victory is achieved by destroying the other side. Yeah, and we're never going to get anywhere doing that. It's, it's nobody, nobody wins in that situation. I mean, I remember back in the day, I would hear you speaking on one issue or another, and you did so with eloquence and empathy. And it was never about denigrating the other side. And it was never, it was about, okay, how do we find a solution? How do we get to a place where this can be addressed? Yeah, we need some common ground. Like, you know,

you have different opinions than I do, you have different attitudes than I do on a lot of things, I'm sure. But we can have a civilized conversation and I think if we continue to say open and curious with each other, we can find some common ground. And I think that's how we move forward.

And I know that maybe it feels like a luxurious place to sit when everybody is so angry and I get the anger. I understand it, but we have to find a way forward. And I think, you know, we need each other.

That's the kind of the bond. bottom line is we kind of need to figure it out together or it's never going to work. Before we sign off, let's talk about those postcards from your past as you talked about as you're a songwriting. What about the postcard that's taking you all the way back to Lilith Fair because you're in in Toronto for the premiere of Lilith Fair building a mystery. The world premier is happening at the Toronto International Film Festival. That's got to you. I'm so excited. Why are you excited? Are you? I'm excited to see it on the big screen for once. I've seen all that, you know, so many edits on my computer and on my little TV, but to see it on a big screen

like that, it just feels, it's cinematic and it's grand. And I'm excited for the world to see it again, too, for a whole new generation to see this amazing thing we created. It was such a moment in time, right? Like, I never went to Lilithera. I know exactly, but it means something to me in my soul. I know exactly what it means. I was listening to your music so much at that time of my life and it meant so much. And for you, is it, does it make you nostalgic? Does it make you sad for a bygone time? No, generally it makes me feel, I feel full of pride that I got to be part of something like this that really moved the dial forward in so many ways. You know, I think it created an amazing community for us as artists. I think it broke down a lot of

barriers within the music industry for women. I think it changed attitudes. I think creating creating a really safe space for us as artists and for the audiences to, you know, to feel free to say, hey, I like all these different kinds of music. And that's okay. And we can put all these eclectic artists together. And it all works. What is the state of the music industry for female artists today? I think it's a whole lot better than it was. I mean, look at the charts. It's dominated by women. You know, and I see so many, you know, like Taylor's Swift is an amazing example of just absolutely. I still have my friendship bracelets.

Owning her power, not being afraid of it, you know, staying, being graceful and kind through it all, but going, no, this is who I am. This is what I believe in. I'm fighting for my own rights. I'm fighting for my power. And I deserve this. I deserve to stand in these rooms with these people. And I'm going to bring all these other people alongside me, all these other women.

But you in that moment did that for the younger artists of your. generation. And I'm sure that today there are, you know, some of the biggest artists, I'm sure they quote you and they express their admiration for you for doing that back then. Yeah. I mean, I've had conversations with quite a few people. Brandy Carlisle is another great example. She was considerably younger, you know, a young teenager watching at the gorge. And, you know, she's like, you showed me that you can do anything. And, you know, largely due to that whole thing. This is how I live my life. And she's an absolute champion of women and other artists and, you know, like creating those communities.

Well, Sarah McLaughlin, such a pleasure to see you again and reconnect. The album is better broken. It's out on September 19th. The premiere of the Lilith Fair Building a Mystery at the Toronto International Film Festival. Congratulations with the school. Congratulations with your daughters. Congratulations with everything. I hope you come back soon.

Thank you. I dare you to pay attention. I dare you to speak up. I dare you to try something new. I dare you to challenge what you think you know. I dare you to think differently. I dare you to show up. Holland Blurview dares to shape the future of this.

disability healthcare for kids. Together We Dare. Donate today at together we dare.