The Ben Mulroney Show - "Comply" or fight back? A discussion. Just don't talk about it on University campus'

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Bull Rooney show on this Friday, September 5th. We made it to the end of the week, and what a week it has been. Tiff, the Toronto International Film Festival, has opened. It's the 50th anniversary of what is roundly considered to be one of the most significant, biggest film festivals in the world. If you go by certain metrics, people say it's the second biggest. But because of its place on the schedule, on the calendar, it is very important for award season. This is when early favorites start getting announced. And the festival opened with a tribute to Canadian great John Candy. The subject of the festival's opening

night film john candy i like me it was a heartfelt documentary about the late actor the incredible comedian who passed away in 1994 let's listen to a little bit of the trailer he was amazingly funny thank you he was one of the top performers out of all of them guess my secret to acting uh would be i pretend real hard he was so gentlemanly and so canadian nobody had bigger expectations for himself than John. And then all of a sudden, it kind of jumped to a different level. I've made winning my whole life. And when you make winning your whole life, you have to keep on winning.

Yeah, he was incredible. He was incredible. And I heard somebody give an interview yesterday when they said, we as Canadians, there's a hole in ourselves that we don't even know is there because he was supposed to fill it. His career wasn't even, he wasn't even scratching the surface of the talent. that he had and his abilities and what he was going to do in the next chapter of his life and the one after that. And so he was taken far too soon. And the fact that at the 50th anniversary

of TIF, this great Canadian is being honored with what is roundly recognized as a really great documentary produced by Ryan Reynolds as well. This is, yeah, everything's lining up for Tiff to be great this year. For Capita, we've had our share of amazing comedians and actors. Oh yeah. Dan Aykroyd, you know, Ryan Reynolds, Jim Carrey. Think about that. Yeah. And people don't remember John Candy's. It's been a while since he died. He was up there. He is in the, he's on the Mount Rushmore. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know what would have been great if they had named Sancofa Square, Candy Square. Some people suggested that. Yeah, John Candy Square. Why not? Well, of course. But why not? There's a million reasons why not.

No, they would have been offended by, I don't know, his. They would have offended somebody. It would have offended somebody. All right, we got to pivot from this great news about the film festival, which is going to be just an incredible event for the city. It's really when Toronto shows up and invites the world, invites Hollywood here. We got to pivot from that to the most important news here in the city of Toronto. It's this feeling that crime is everywhere. Now, that may not be accurate, but that's how it feels.

No one's going to tell me that my feelings are wrong, right? And no one's going to tell me that the people who call in, the people who write to us, the people who tell us their stories are wrong. And so you'll remember that, was it yesterday or the day before that the York Regional Police Chief made his infamous speech? Day before. Day before. So you'll remember, in the face of all of this, in the face of these home invasions, the chief of police in York region decided to try to get ahead of things. and he sort of made that point that if you are face to face with a criminal in your home, just comply, just comply.

And you heard what I had to say about that. Yesterday, I was none too pleased with this idea that if somebody comes into my house, I have to listen to them, especially if they're threatening my family. But that was his position. He's taken a lot of slings and arrows. And I would like to reiterate, I have so much respect for someone, like that the chief, Jim McSweene, because he wears the uniform, and he has done so for his entire career, and so he has my respect. He came on to the Alex Pearson show where he didn't

back off from his position. He clarified, here's what he said about life versus property. The best advice is, and this is the best crime prevention advice anybody would give, give up the property, it's not worth your life. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. When we have a conversation about people and protecting families, every individual case stands on its own merit. And I cannot suggest to any one person what they should or would do in a circumstance inside their own home,

protecting a loved one who may be attacked or, you know, depending on what the situation is, every situation is different. And people have to make their own determination on what they can and will do and have the capacity to do. Yeah, listen, that makes sense, right? That makes sense. It would be really nice if the people that are doing these crimes, we learn after the fact that the people who do these crimes that are caught,

we find out after the fact they were out on bail. It would be really great if once they were caught, we kind of kept them in custody so they wouldn't be able to do things like this. I think that's one of the frustrating things that people are feeling today. You know who these people are because you've caught them and you've released them and you've caught them and you've released them. And then eventually they're going to make their way to someone's house. And that is what is frustrating a lot of people. It feels like at that point it is the individual's responsibility to deal with them.

And then when they do deal with them, if you deal with them too harshly, you're going to go to jail. That is one of the frustrating things. He continued and talked about one of the big worries that they have, the erosion of trust in the police. If people are feeling like they don't trust the police, I understand why they're feeling that way. My response to that is they do need to trust the police because there are many cases I can tell you where we are apprehending people

because we are responding in the appropriate amount of times. Yeah, and listen, if I'm looking at the entire supply chain, if you will, of justice, right, I'm not looking at the cops as problems. The cops haven't changed. The cops protocols haven't changed. What has changed is the laws that they are told to enforce. That's what has changed. The cops have been there.

They go out every day. They defend us on the streets. They protect us. They do their best to enforce the law so that the country runs according to those laws in each city that they're in. The police haven't changed. The laws that they enforce have changed. So I don't feel an erosion. of trust in the police. I feel a frustration on their behalf because I am sure that nobody knows

better than them that the streets are getting more dangerous, that their jobs are getting more dangerous, that they are releasing the same people over and over. They're arresting the same people over and over. I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be for some cops who come face to face with the same criminals over and over and over again. Meanwhile, I should mention that in our third hour today, we're going to be taking a live press conference of Mark Carney and a number of his ministers, apparently massive announcements are coming. There is, uh, Greg Brady had, uh, it was very comfortable saying that he believes the EV mandate is going to go the way of the dodo bird. Are they going to make an announcement

on criminal justice reform, on bail reform, on anything to do with how Torontoians and people in the GTA are feeling about their personal safety and personal security? I don't know. So far, they haven't said anything. That being said, we can still have a little fun with this. There was a video that was going around yesterday that essentially posited. This feels like what the liberals want us to be doing. When we hear about complying and just leaving your keys for them, this one guy took it to, I think, the logical conclusion. Hey, get in here.

Close the door. I don't want you to get bit by the mosquitoes. So, first of all, thank you so much for choosing my house to rock today. There's so many options, it's a privilege for you to be here. I've got a selection of drinks for you to choose from. Great choice. Fancy Peria. I like it. Okay, so the kids are upstairs sleeping right now, and if they wake up, it's really going to make this whole experience very unenjoyable for you. So to streamline the process, I've got a few things laid out, I've got a 50-inch 4K for you,

got a MacBook air, and I even have a pair of earrings from people's gifted to my daughter for her baptism. Really, who needs them more? You or her, am I right? And look, I saw a video yesterday of Just Compli, and then I saw a video of a sort of an analogous police officer from Florida saying, shoot them in the face. If you got a gun, shoot them. And somebody pointed out, why are those the only two options? Can't we have something in the middle here in Canada instead of just laying down, finding a way to protect ourselves without going so far as to have arm up with guns. I agree. We'll figure it out.

But in the meantime, let's play a new game. It's called Guess Who's Out on Bail. That's next on the Ben Mulerney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulerney show. we finally jumped into a story on this show. It took us a few days to get into it because it was just too heart-wrenching. It was too...

It made me uncomfortable. And I know a lot of you were uncomfortable. And just talking about it, it feels gross because it's really that kind of thing. When somebody assaults a child, it's not something you want to talk about. But yesterday there was enough new information that it didn't just become about the crime anymore.

it became about treating how we treat the criminal. And so we're going to continue with that story today because there was some information floating around in social media and even in other news sources that perhaps this person who sexually assaulted a three-year-old was already out on bail. Like that story actually traveled pretty far yesterday. And it turns out that is not what happened. But we did learn a few other things. The police came in and pushed back on that rumor. But they also had their own sort of brand of, is this right? Is this not right?

They referred to the incident as a, quote, stranger attack and how this person had broken into the house. But we spoke with Ron Chinser yesterday, former cop, former candidate for the conservative party. and a great friend of this radio station and this show. And he said that a 25-year-old Daniel Seneca lived nearby, possibly even next door, and he had a relationship of some sort with the victim's mother. And the victim, this poor, wonderful child called him uncle. As Seneca, by the way, he's on the child abuse registry after assaulting a young boy just a few years ago in a relative's house where he was.

as a guest. Are you seeing a pattern here? And right now he has decided that he is identifying as trans so that, and he's being treated as such in jail. Let's listen to some audio from Ron Chinser yesterday. The issue is you have this history. It's all within three years. And look, FYI for the general public who likes to live on unicorns and think that everything is always feel good. There is no academic or evidence-based evidence anywhere that suggests child pedophilia can be rehabilitated. Yeah, listen, I've known that forever. Like, this is, it is a disorder that cannot be treated unless, of course, someone takes

the extraordinary steps of, I think it's chemical castration and things like that. But by and large, if that's how you're wired, that's how you're wired. And we know he did it once before. He was on the registry somehow out, allowed to do it again. That's a real problem. Now, if you are, if your heart goes out to the family, there is a GoFundMe out there. And, like, I thought I was just going to be reading the stuff I already knew. But the description in this GoFundMe of what happened by, I guess, someone who's very close to the family,

it's heartbreaking. Apparently, this child didn't want, after the assault had happened, this child didn't want to bother anybody and just laid in bed until the morning. And nobody, nobody in the family knew that this had happened all night long. So he's still in jail. He's still in jail for now. But who knows? I mean, this is, I don't think it's me being a, a butthead to suggest, yeah, we might let this guy out. So, but meanwhile, there is somebody. who got out. You'll remember the 12-year-old. Remember the 12-year-old we talked about yesterday? And we talked about a few weeks ago. The 12-year-old arrested for attempted murder on Tuesday.

He allegedly shot a man in August. He was already out on bail for another violent offense. Well, he's already out on bail again. Meanwhile, the family of the victim are now calling for urgent reform to Canada's bail laws. Can you feel the pressure building? Because I can. There are people mobilizing. There are angry victims. There are friends. and family who feel the toxicity that comes with being the victim of this sort of crime, they are mobilizing. And this family is demanding urgent reform to Canada's bail laws. And think about what we're talking about here. They were victimized by a 12-year-old. But here's the thing. We've heard this so many times of 11-year-olds, 14-year-olds,

15-year-olds, getting arrested for a variety of crimes. We're starting. starting to take it for granted. It's not a shocker anymore. Yeah, well, look. I mean, this is horrible. All those people who have a knee-jerk reaction to anything we say on this show. Yeah. They say, oh, Pierre Poliyev wants Castle Law.

Well, he voted for that law in 2013, the Harper law about defending your home. That's the law that he decided. And that's the problem. So if you've got a problem with the law, take it up with Stephen Harper. No, that's not how it works. the problem is that we are living in a different time and that law is being interpreted differently. And I would say the exact same thing

about the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It worked fine for years until organized crime decided to figure out, hey, if we get foot soldiers for 12 years old, they're going to be sent right back home. And then they'll be right back on the street working for us again. That's the problem.

And people can be annoyed by Pierre Pauly of talking about this all the time. Sure, he's the leader of the opposition, but that's somewhat of his job to be able to hold government to account. But here's the easy thing. All the liberals have to do is say, this is what we're going to do, but we have not heard anything from them five months.

Well, you was talking about this yesterday. For five months, they've said nothing. It would be the easiest thing for Mark Carney to do because he's demonstrated more than once on really big key issues that he is willing to jettison those defining characteristics of the Trudeau-Libor. liberals. The carbon tax, we hear that he's probably going to get rid of the EV mandate. Apparently, there's a list of national projects that's coming out. Can we talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. And one of them is a pipeline. A pipeline. God. So he's willing to cut his own path. Why not do so on something that is so important to so many people? And if I can be cynical for a second, vote rich Ontario, vote rich GTA is where they need to stake their claim. They need to hold the votes.

that they got here in the last election. They need to expand in the next election. Because otherwise, Pierre Poliev is going to make domestic security his issue. He will own it. And every big city in this country that is suffering the blight of this level of crime, they are going to, I think they're probably going to migrate back towards him and say, look, if you're not going to keep us safe liberals, we're going to go to the guy who will. And it's not enough to dismiss all of it with just the, this is not the Wild West tweet that John Frazier sent out.

I bet you. Look, he's a good guy. I don't know that he acquitted himself very well in his position, but he's actually a very nice guy. I guarantee you, if he could, he would have taken that back. That was a timing issue more than anything. It was a kind of tone deaf, but yeah, I bet you he wished he could take that back. Well, it'd be nice if he said something more than that.

All I want is, I want this government to succeed. I want any Canadian government to succeed. Me too. And I want them to do what is necessary to keep us safe. And we don't have any plan. We're standing here in the dark. Well, hopefully in our third hour, when Mark Carney stands in front of the microphone, there will be something on the agenda as it relates to criminal justice reform, bail reform,

whatever you want, something to make the people of at least this city feel a little safer. Okay, so look, there is a narrative out there that I do not subscribe to, that there is an epidemic of trans violence. Like I said, the numbers, I don't think, bear that out. That's in response to the Minnesota shooting. Yes, yeah. So there are people in this country they're trying to ascribe

sort of motivation to a group and in the United States that has taken off like wildfire. And the U.S. is considering pretty drastic measures to deal with what they feel is this epidemic. The DOJ, the Department of Justice,

is considering banning transgender individuals from owning firearms under federal law that prohibits anyone deemed mentally ill from possessing guns. Essentially what they're saying is if you are transgender, that means that you are mentally ill. And if you're mentally ill, you cannot own a gun. There is no way

this will not be before the courts in a heartbeat. No way. Yeah. It'll get challenged. And for good reasons. You can't say because one person goes off or a few people go off and shoot up a whole bunch of people, that everybody who is of that ilk

is the same. Yeah, I agree. That's, it's, yeah, they're, they will, they will push back. They will absolutely, and rightly so, this is, this is a bridge too far. And I know that this will satisfy a certain type of voter in the United States. It'll make them think that something is being done. But this is not the right tactic. And I'm, and I hope to God we know, well, it's not like we're taking anyone else's guns away. They're all, they're all gone, all the legal ones anyway.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and I swear on all that is holy. I remember the first moment in school where I had an independent academic thought. I remember the first time I heard a teacher say something, and it didn't make sense to me. I had my own position, and I challenged it. My teacher was not happy with me because he was the type of teacher that believed he had all the information. and so we actually fought a little bit and it was exciting. I loved it. It was the moment I knew I wanted to study history when I got to college.

Once I was in college, this collision of ideas and the debate that we had was incredible. I look at the academic landscape today and I fear for my kids that if they have the same appetite for healthy debate as I had, I wonder what is going to happen to them. There is something going on on university campuses where if you have the wrong opinion or if you say the wrong thing, you could be smacked in the face with consequences that you never thought possible. Well, there is an organization, the Aristotle Foundation, that sort of drilled down into the attitudes of university students about these very topics. And so please welcome to the show, Professor of Psychology at the University of Alberta, Dr. Martin Morazek. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me.

So tell me what you wanted to look into and how you went about doing it. You bet. So our goal was really to dive into student experience on campus when we're sitting in a classroom setting, when they're having conversations about non-controversial subjects and then controversial subjects. And we wanted to get, our goal was to get, you know, a broad range of students. So we did ask them where they align on their political views, not who they vote for, but just where they see themselves. And then we asked about what that degree of willingness are they having to really, as you said,

express themselves in a classroom setting. So that was our goal. It's just to really dive into the student experience. And so we were very fortunate to do this across Canada, so multiple institutions across Canada. That was our goal. So, yeah, on non-controversial issues, I mean, it's almost universal. 93.4% of university students are comfortable speaking. So I'm guessing, like, we're talking about casual conversation, about literature or geography.

What are non-controversial issues? Yeah. So, like you said, it's just anything that is not charged in some way. We kept that pretty broad. Most students, I think, have an understanding of something that's not going to be debated, which is knowledge, science, things like that. The, you know, more debated topics, the controversial subjects, I really focused on religion, politics, gender, and sex.

Oh, wow. Yeah, those are the hot button issues. There was one point here that I wanted to ask you about. Apparently, here it says, despite religious students outnumbering non-religious students, two to one, only the latter is comfortable giving their honest views on religion in class discussions. That number, the two-to-one ratio of religious students to non-religious, that surprised me. I assumed that, you know, by and large, across Canada, you would have had more secular students than people who identify as religious. And you're saying they were out number two to one. Yeah.

And I think this is a thing is that there are a number of people that maybe have, you know, faith-based values or religious views that don't identify in a university setting. But clearly, our study said that they're out there. Now, this is a self-selected study. So obviously you may get some students that are more vocal about certain viewpoints or not. But the fact that we had, for us, it was a bit of a surprise, but we're also glad to see that there were a number of students who had religious or faith-based backgrounds that were, you know, answering the questions here. There's also this one.

More than three and four, quote, very liberal students are not at all concerned that sharing their political views would result in a formal complaint. And that, from the outside looking in, that is definitely. what I suspected that there is the default setting across, you know, not every university, but generally speaking, is the liberal point of view. That is the default sort of, this is what we expect of you. And if you derogate from that, that's where the trouble starts. Yeah. And this is, you know, the findings of our study were pretty compelling.

So that means in any given classroom setting, when there is discussion around certain topics, you're going to have a skewed number of students from specific backgrounds that feel freer to speak and to voice their opinions. And there's going to be other students that do not want to share. They don't want to be canceled. They do want to be labeled these things. And so you're going to get a very limited, you know, discussion, debate. People are going to be really hesitant to engage in and voice their opinions. And, you know, that's really important because when we look at the ideals of post-secondary schooling and, as you said, critical thinking and just really having debate that helps us learn from each other's perspectives, that's not

happening. Our results are saying that most students are so reluctant to say anything that they're not saying anything at all because of the fear of repercussions. And so when we look at, you know, the questions are, is what is going on in post-secondary institutions that seems to be driving this? I mean, to us, it's one of the questions that we're asking is, obviously, the way information is being presented is leading students to have these strong perceptions that, boy, I can't say anything because otherwise I'm going to face very severe repercussions. Do any of those students who feel that, you know, saying what they truly believe will get them in trouble, do they go so far as to parrot sort of the talking points of those people who seem

to have everything under control? yeah our study didn't go that far right is to flush out some of those things ours was the first step of just to just to get their primary experience and what their perceptions of the feedback that they would receive a great question you know to move on from this but we didn't go into that necessarily well i got to say that the the last point that we have here in in my document is is a really interesting one uh you said daily abuse on campus is the experience of at least 15% of jewish students just for being Jewish Not a single atheist nor agnostic participant reported daily mistreatment for their views on faith and religion, and just 2.6% of racialized students experience racism daily. So the fact that you, and I have to assume this is a very in-depth study that you did, 2.6% of racialized students experience racism daily, but 15% of Jewish students experience hate just for being Jewish. that is a skew that I did not anticipate. I knew that life was hard for Jewish students on campus, but compared to what we've been told about systemic racism, structural racism everywhere, the 2.6 to 15,

that's telling. Well, it is. And that's clearly saying that there's something about the environment in Millu on campuses that is, you know, leaving some groups to really feel marginalized, to not feel included, to feel that, you know, respected for who they are and for their views. And anytime you see that degree of skewing, it has to raise questions of what is going on. And, you know, our question is what is the accountability and what is responsibility here? If I knew that when I'm giving a lecture,

that there's some groups that are feeling so, you know, disinclined to speak up because of some things, there's a problem there. we want to adjust that in terms of pedagogy. We want to make sure that, you know, our message is being received that students can express themselves. So when you see stats like that, you're right. It really is a significant concern when you see certain groups that are marginalized. But Dr. Morazik, I can't imagine that the powers that be at some of our biggest universities

are going to receive this study well. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, our hope is that we can just drive. you know, the discussion further, that there would be an openness to looking at this. I think any time we're looking at a movement or a philosophy, it has to be open to be criticized. It has to be open to be critically thought through, to make it better. I mean, that's what we, you know, knowledge should be about is how do we make things better? And, you know, when we see the results like this, where less than one in four students

are actually comfortable to express themselves, that's how many is that the current state, is, is, is there, it's quite problematic. And so the hope is that institutions will not just ignore this, but they will actually look at this and say, well, how can we do things better? How can we actually make sure that all students are being represented, uh, in post, you know, uh, in, you know, classroom debates, discussions, all those kind of things. We want that. We need that.

We need everybody to critically think and come together, not to feel isolated. Uh, Dr. Martin Morazic, uh, professor of psychology at the University of Alberta. The study is published by the Aristotle, Foundation, it is absolutely a must read. Thank you so much for the work, sir. Thanks for having me. The end. For four years, Noah and Sarah have been clying out from beneath the Denver airport.

They have faced monsters, secret armies, and killing machines. but they're done running. This season on Escaping Denver, the truth is revealed. Captives become legends, and a war a thousand years in the making erupts around them. Join us for the end of our story. The final season of Escaping Denver drops August 11th on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.