The Ben Mulroney Show - Cops get Calgary murder non-charges right/Political panel on EVs and Convoy

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Guest: Marcel Wieder, Liberal Strategist, President and Chief Advocate of Aurora Strategy Global   Guest: Chris Chapin, Political Commentator, Managing Principal of Upstream Strategy 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 Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And selected varieties of VH sauce just 244 each. Only till January 21st. Shop in store or at metro.com. Thank you so much to the Ben Mulroney band for that lovely song. Welcome to the show. It is Friday, January 16th, 2026. Welcome. Mike Drole, are you there?

Of course I'm here. Well, for those who are just tuning in and don't know, I am not in Toronto right now. I'm in Miami, Florida. I came down for work and I left during a snowstorm. It took me eight and a half hours to get here. Normally it's a three and a half hour flight. and my flight home today was delayed, canceled, delayed. I was supposed to be on a 7 o'clock flight tonight.

Instead, I'll be on a 7.30 tomorrow morning. And thank you very much to my boss, Mike Ben Dixon, for finding me a home at Hot 105 FM. Today's R&B and old school here in Hollywood, Florida. Nothing suits you better. Hot R&B. So yesterday I was talking to Mike. I am old school.

I am old school. You are old school. I was talking to Mike and I said, you know, I think we've got to play. for Ben not being here tomorrow? He said, no, you'll be back. I said, look at what's going on with the snow. I said, maybe 20% chance that you wouldn't make it back.

And what percentage, did you think there was a chance that you weren't going to make it back this morning? Well, I knew last night that my flight was canceled. So I knew I was coming home tonight, but they wanted to, Eric Canada said, we've booked you on the next available flight at 7.30 p.m. So 12 hours after I was supposed to. way that's the next available flight and it was through Tampa which meant I was

going to have to connect through Tampa I wouldn't get home until after 1.30 a.m. and fortunately the organizers of the event that brought me down here were kind enough to extend my hotel room they said you know what just go back to the hotel when you're done get a good night's sleep get some room service and then go home tomorrow morning so I'm on the 730 flight tomorrow direct I'm very very happy and thank you to them well that works out it does work out it does you know we don't have our weeks are long and we want to put in A lot of, we want to put in the time and attention it deserves,

but in order to do that, like so many people, you want to have your weekends to rest and reconnect with the kids and, you know, do all those things that you can't do during the week. And so to get a good night sleep and get home fresh tomorrow is great, as opposed to getting home tonight at 2 in the morning. Yeah, when you were talking about that, I said, why don't you just stay with the night? No, no, I wouldn't stay the weekend.

I wouldn't have done that. Amy Siegel, yeah, Amy, Wynette said stay the way. Yeah, but then, you know what would have happened? I would have waited. I would take the last flight out on Sunday. And that would have been canceled. So yeah, not doing that. Not doing that. Hey, we have spent a lot of time on this show talking about stories of crime

involving ordinary, everyday people who find themselves face to face with someone who wants to hurt them in some way, like a lot of home invasions, for example. And when that person defends themselves, If they defend themselves too well, they get in trouble with the law. Then the law flips and the person who broke into their home becomes the victim of a crime. And the person who is defending themselves because they didn't use the right amount of force in that split second to defend themselves or their home or their children, God forbid. It's a completely unreasonable idea to think that somebody has time in under a second to be able to go, okay, well, you know, what should I be able to do? Well, that person has a pipe, so I need to go find a pipe.

But all I have is a knife, so I can't use the knife because otherwise I will be viewed as the aggressor. That seems to be the story that we've told a number of times. So when I heard the story today, thank you, Mike, for bringing this up, that a Calgary woman in her 30s fought off an unprovoked attack and the police call it the most clear-cut case of self-defense ever and no charges will be laid, I was really happy. I was really happy to learn that she's not going to face any consequences beyond the trauma. of what she endured. And what she endured was she was lured to a home under the guise of a property showing. She eventually escaped to the neighbors who called 911 and the attacker, whose 48-year-old Shabazz Ahmed, was later found in medical distress and he died at the scene. Let's listen to the cops. After a thorough investigation, police believed that the man had lured the

woman to the residence under a false pretense of a property showing. While in the residence, attacked the woman without provocation. An altercation ensued, which resulted in the death of the man. As investigators have determined that the woman was acting in self-defense, Amad's death has been deemed not a non-culpable homicide, and no charges will be laid in the incidents. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy for that. I can only imagine how she feels, though. Well, she's going to be dealing with this forever. And by the way, you know, even if you scare off people who break into your home, you're never going to feel safe in that home again. No.

Right? And so add to that, oh, well, but you had a knife and you cut the guy and he bled. Well, you didn't bleed and therefore you, the homeowner, are to blame and you committed a crime. That's insane. But that's not the case here. It looks like sanity prevailed and justice is done. And this guy, you know, he effed around and he found out. And I'm not going to shed a tear for him.

But, well, actually, before we get to the next part, here's what the, Tracy Wilson of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights said about this case. Unfortunately, we're at the point in this country where we have to have these conversations. I mean, nobody wants to believe that something like this would happen to them. And for the vast majority

of us, it probably won't. But if for every person who has had to endure some sort of, you know, violent attack like this, they didn't think it was going to happen to them either. So, you know, unfortunately, that's kind of where we are right now. And there's a big

misconception in Canada that you don't have the right to defend your life and that is totally untrue. In fact, you do and it's protected under the criminal code. So all's well that ends well, right? Not in Canada, because here's the twist. This Calgary woman should never have been in this situation in the first place. How can I say something that categorical? Well, Ahmed, the man who died, the terrible person who tried to hurt this woman, was known to police and had previously faced and been acquitted of multiple criminal charges and had communicated with the woman months earlier about renting a property. And let's go back a little further.

Here's another scenario. A man named Henninger says he met Shabaz Ahmed in June 2023 while trying to sell him a vehicle and agreed with his wife to drive Ahmed to Erdry, Alberta, to get people. Now, during the drive, his behavior made them uneasy, prompted Henninger to tell his wife to stop the car and seek help, at which point Ahmed allegedly pulled a knife from a briefcase. Now this man Henninger, he's in his 70s. He fought back. Ahmed fled before later being arrested and charged with assault with a weapon, robbery, and

breaching a release order. But then he starts gaming the system and after two and a half years within the court, system. Ahmed was found not guilty in October 2025, and Henninger says Ahmed repeatedly fired his lawyers, secured repeated releases during the proceedings. He gamed the system. Let's hear from Henninger. Let's hear from Henninger himself. It was supposed to be a routine sale. Harold Henninger says he and his wife were driving Shabazz Ahmed to his home in Erdry to get the cash. But as the drive went on, a feeling of unease settled on the couple. I told my wife to stop the car, get out, and flagged down somebody and called the police

because this isn't right what's going on. And that's when he took the knife out of his briefcase. While Henninger, who's in his 70s, fought back, Ahmed ran off and was eventually arrested. He faced nearly a half dozen charges in that case, including assault with a weapon, robbery, and failure to comply with a release order. After a two-and-a-half-year process,

he was found not guilty on all charges last October. He fired his lawyer and got him another six months, once free on the streets and just kept billing himself out all the time. This is this is the part that should make you angry. It makes me angry. And it also makes me want to have a larger conversation. We're going to open up the phone lines after the break because it seems to me our judicial system is made up of well educated, learned, legal experts.

And the people who are making these decisions are supposed to have been put in those places because they are the stewards of the law. They understand it. They know how to apply it. And the end result is supposed to be a better, fair, safer society. That is not the outcome that I see in a lot of these cases. And if you agree that we should be putting these, the smartest, most learned, most well-spoken, you know, well-thought-out people on the bench, and if these are the decisions that are coming down, then are the right people on the bench. Are we making the right decisions? How do we fix what I think is a problem in our judicial systems?

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get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ, AI for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much. And we want to hear from you at 4168-70-6400 or 1-8-225 talk. We're talking about our judicial system. I have great respect for anybody who works in that vital aspect of our democracy. However, in the past few years, it feels like the outcomes from a law.

lot of, from a lot of court cases, is not to the benefit of society. It is not to the benefit of victims. It is not to the benefit of the country. I think specifically the Cowich and Land claim by the BC Supreme Court. And I think oftentimes of these court cases where people are given a wrap on the wrists or the on the hand told and there's nothing to see here only for them to go and commit another crime far worse. And we say to ourselves, You had the person. You had them in your midst. They were guilty.

You had the evidence. What led to you letting them off? And I don't know what the problem is and I don't know how to solve it. I certainly want to, I want to live in a world where our trust in our judicial system is utmost. And I believe that a number of decisions are eroding that trust. And I don't want to live in that world. So let's try to be positive and let's see how we can fix this. Mario, welcome to the show.

Hello, Ben. I'm going to start off like this. Maybe this is because satire, the truth and the satire is where the humor lies. You remember a red rose tea commercial where you heard a guy with a British accent said, only in Canada pity, this was guarding red rose tea because he liked it so much. Well, this is what the criminals are broader saying. Only in Canada, pity. Do you remember the guy who shot the copper in his stomach and the copper survived?

Yeah. He was here illegally. He had just been released from prison two days earlier on serious criminal charges. And the gun, Tracy Wilson, would love this. The gun he had was illegal also. Yeah. Okay. And this guy was here illegal and still released from prison.

Well, yeah. So don't forget, Justin Trudeau issued that order that people need to be released under the least onerous conditions possible. I believe those were the exact words. Like people who are facing criminal trial need to be released under the least onerous conditions possible. I know him. Yeah, I mean, to me that is such a boneheaded, dangerous thing. And it's led to a lot of these people who should be behind bars awaiting trial for the security of the rest of us, who are playing by the rules.

And instead, we give them a wrap on the wrist. And we say, just promise to play nice. And of course they don't. And you've got these people who should be behind bars committing even more crimes. You're absolutely right. And because I saw them say on camera that you're not allowed to defend yourself in Canada. That's another one for Tracy Wilson and Rob Giltaka. I've seen them many times on YouTube.

Can I make another comment, please? Sure, go ahead. Yeah, they called the wrong bunch of ostriches. They should have called the ones in Ottawa, not the ones in B.C. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Well, listen, I'm going to choose to view what you just said symbolically and not actually. And I thank you for your call, Mario.

All the best. Let's go to Calgary and welcome Edna to the Ben Mulroney show. Hello, Ben. Thank you for my call. Absolutely. You know, this might sound very childish, but I've often thought over the years, if a judge or anyone in the judicial system, if one of their members, wife, daughter, whatever, were in a situation like this poor woman here in Calgary,

and then they have the guy in front of them in court, what would they do if this was something that happened to one of their family members? Oh, don't do it again. Out you go and behave yourself this time. I wonder what they'd do if it was their own family member. Yeah, the shoe was on their foot. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, I don't want anything to befall anyone. But yeah, I mean, I think sometimes they look at things a little too academically. And I would point to the numerous decisions that have come down over the past few months where a rapist who happens to be of First Nations background was given a far more lenient sentence than he otherwise should have gotten because they claimed that his upbringing made him do it. That is a very dangerous precedent to set. That is two-tiered justice. That is saying that certain people get a pass. I remember back in the day when somebody would say, oh, I committed this crime because X happened to me.

And the judicial system would push back and say, if you're telling me that every single person who has your upbringing would have done what you did, that's one thing. But there are plenty of people who have had tough upbringings who do not resort to raping little kids. And because of that, you do not get a pass. And that's not what we do anymore.

And that is a problem for me. And if the people that we have chosen to interpret the law and pass down judgment see the world that way, I think we have to have a real conversation about do they belong on the bench. I'm not going to name any names. I'm not going to point at anyone in particular.

I want to keep this fairly general. But that, to me, is a fundamental problem that will lead to very toxic and eroding aspects to our not just judicial system, but our trust in the judicial system. Edna, thank you very much. Let's go on to Steve the Greek. Hey, Ben.

Hey. I hope you're keeping warm down there. I'm sure I'm warmer than a lot of people back home. Perfect. Yeah. So number one, I think that. that the law is written this way because it was written by lawyers. If you look, for example, at the franchise law in Ontario, lawyers love it

because there's a huge gray area that they get to argue in court, fillable hours. This law is one that requires you to give pause and be careful and play a game when you're under attack. So the other side of me looks at this and says, morally, you have a duty and an obligation to preserve your life. Yeah. The moment someone, the moment you perceive, come across the line, and they are now attacking your life. You need to use everything and anything at your disposal in order to eliminate that threat. Now comes this stupid fine line.

When the law says, well, you can only use so much chloro, and only this and that, and then once they stop attacking, you've got to stop replying. Yeah. Well, they can come back again in 15 or two seconds and attack again. and again and again. And then you're going to run out at Steve. Well, Steve, what it is, they are, they are applying a standard on, on regular people

that would only be applied on highly trained security officials, meaning you would, you would expect a police officer under a, under pressure if they are being attacked to know the difference, know how to apply the right amount of force because they've been trained to do so. You haven't been trained. I haven't been trained. Of course, why would we be trained? So we are woken up in the middle of the night by a noise downstairs and we are we are face to face with two armed men masks on and they've got perhaps who knows what they have in their hand.

I should never be expected to be to respond the way a trained police officer would. It is insane. It is insane that that level of of of skill should should ever be expected of me who all I want to do is is end the danger. And if it means I'm going to bash that guy's skull in and he's not getting up, that's what I'm going to do. And I may very well talk to the cops afterwards say, I blacked out. I don't know what happened. And you know what? That should be enough because I'm not the one who started the thing.

But the fact that we're living in a world where people have to ask themselves these questions, people in their own homes are going to get killed because they're going to second guess themselves. It's very, very dangerous. Hey, thanks so much for the call. I think we got time for a couple more. Mary Ann's in Calgary. How are you, Marianne? Hi, Ben. There's a little

quadisle to this Shabazz Ahmed story. It came out in the news last night and apparently there was a man and I think he may have been renting a property from this Mr. Ahmed and he went missing and they said last night news they're presuming he is dead

and may have been murdered by this man. So his history goes back in violent history goes back even farther. Well, thank you for that update. And by the way, this woman who ended up killing him, thank God she did, because he could have done exactly what he did in the previous case, gamed the system and done this again to another person. I've got time for Kevin.

Kevin, you got 15 seconds. I do apologize for the shortness. No, Ben, I wanted to say really quick, you hit it right on the head. These guys are academic marks, whether it's Kearnie, Anita, on the judges. They look at it from an academic. Marxist's point of view. That's why they make deals with China and not America. The people committing the crimes are the oppressed. The enemy in the eyes of the liberals are the truckers. I got to leave it there, my friend. Thank you so much. All right, after the break, it's

Friday, which means we are convening our political panel for the final political chat of the week. Days is on now with your local Metro. Save big on amazing items, like selected varieties of Campbell's broth for only 125 each and fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breast value packs for just 488 per pound, only till January 21st. Shop and store or at metro.ca. You are listening to Ben Mulroney show, but if it were just me, it would get really tired really quickly.

In the next half hour, I'm joined by two great guests for our Friday edition of this week in politics. Please welcome Marcel Weider, liberal strategist, president and chief advocate for Aurora Strategy Global, and Chris Chapin,

political commentator and managing principal at upstream strategy. Guys, welcome to the show. Great to be with you, Ben. How's the weather in Miami, Ben? Oh, it's better than Toronto. I can promise you that. It sure is.

I can't promise you that. Let's start with one of the two biggest stories of the day. We're going to hit both of them, obviously. And I'd like to start with the fact that our prime minister has opened the door. Not open the door. They're coming in for almost 50,000 Chinese EVs at a very low tariff. And there are certain people that are obviously very upset about this for all sorts of different reasons. I'm not willing, Marcel, to say this is a terrible thing.

I'm not willing to say it's a genius thing. What are you willing to say? First of all, Ben, let's get some perspective on things. Before the tariffs were introduced, there was 43,000 cars coming in from China, EV cars coming in from China. This now bumps it up to 49,000. So we're increasing by 6,000, roughly just about 3% or less of the full market. It's not a huge number. that we're looking at.

And here's the other thing. Most of those EVs that came in from China were actually Tesla cars. Okay, they're not the DIYs. Marcel, Marcel, I think you bring up a good point then. There is a difference between EVs built in China and Chinese EVs. This opens the door.

Right. But one is not the other, right? One has interest being controlled by people in the Communist Party. There's spyware. all sorts of, at least that's the fear. Tesla is not that. Correct. And so this is what we're talking.

We're not saying that there's going to be 49,000 BID communist built cars coming into Canada. We're just saying car EVs manufactured in China, which is allowing Tesla's to come back into the country at a lower tariff. All right. So Chris, what is Marcel missing, if anything? I don't think it's that he's missing. And I think it's the overall broader concern for, you know, especially Southern Ontario's automotive industry. And it's not that it's 50,000 cars. It's what if that balloons up to 150,000 cars or 250,000 cars?

And I think the biggest concern of them all, Ben, is that China's ability, as we've seen on just about any other product that's manufactured in China, has the ability to produce a vehicle at a far lower cost than we are here in Canada. And I mean, there's value to a consumer in that regard that you might be able to buy a car substantially cheaper and EV substantially cheaper than previously was possible here buying a, you know, a Chrysler or, you know, a Salantus product, you name it. The fear is what does that do to our auto sector long term? Because we've seen what happens when we shift all of our manufacturing to China. It killed manufacturing here in Ontario. And so for an economy, certainly in Ontario that relies on the automotive industry to, you know, play a big part of our economy. What long-term impact does that have here in Ontario and in Canada by opening up the floodgates?

Yeah. And Marcel, look, a lot of us were perplexed that our prime minister didn't get rid of the EV mandate. And a lot of people thinking that that doesn't allow the automotive industry to plan properly for the future. Is it here? Is it not? This idea that 100% of all the vehicles in Canada need to be in 2035 that are sold need to. to be EVs. Perhaps this is part of a larger strategy by the government. If you can bring in cars that are cheaper to buy and more people will buy them and maybe that will lead to an uptick in adoption. And maybe that's why that EV mandate wasn't eliminated altogether. Right. And one of the biggest things that consumers are looking at is the cost of EVs.

And so the EV market has actually shrunk over the last few years and you'll notice that a number of the manufacturers have stopped making certain models of EVs and have either gone to hybrids or continued in the old gas powered types of cars. So the other part of the equation is that we don't have enough charging locations. It's not like there's a gas station on every corner and then there's another, you know, electrical power station to plug these in. we don't have the infrastructure to make EVs a worthwhile choice for a lot of consumers. And Chris, I've got to say that my fear is not so much these cars, right?

I think the Canadian automotive industry is resilient and we can find a way to turn this to our advantage. I'm not overly concerned, at least in the near term with this. What I am concerned with is how this will be interpreted by the Trump administration, knowing full well, not only do we not have that deal that was promised to us in June, but we are looking down the barrel at a renegotiation of USMCA that the president has already at least publicly cooled to. And when you stack these things together, it feels like we're giving him a lot of reasons

to distance himself from Canada. Ben, I completely agree with you on almost every time we've ever talked about this exact issue. I was shocked when I saw the clip of the president earlier this afternoon when he was asked explicitly about Canada, you know, reaching a deal. And his initial comment, you know, basically said to Mark Carney, good on him. You know, if you can reach a deal with China good. I don't know whether that's just the typical, you know, Donald Trump, Art of the Deal kind of mentality that, you know, if you could reach a deal, that's great.

You should do it. I also remember that when, you know, it wasn't that long ago, two days before when he first saw the ad that the province of Ontario ran that featured Ronald Reagan, he didn't care about it. And then two days later, he shut down all the trade with the country. So, I mean, I recognize that this man can be all over the place. but I was shocked that initially, at least, he didn't seem to have an issue with us reaching a deal with China. Well, he didn't, but there are people in his administration that absolutely did. I believe they refer to it as as asinine.

And honestly, we could wake up tomorrow morning and we could wake up to a truth social where Donald Trump says that by executive order, any Canadian who tries to drive into the United States driving a Chinese EV will be turned away. And I could see that happening. Absolutely. But I mean, I think we've kind of hit that point.

I don't know, maybe it's just me personally where at some point we have to, you know, separate ourselves from his ups and downs, right? Like we can't go on, we can't go on living just completely by the whim of what side of the bed he wakes up on, unfortunately. No, and you're right. And Marcel, as I said that, I realized to myself, that may very well be evidence to support this decision to deepen our ties with China. I mean, there is, there's the tricky moral quandary of, you know, this is an, a, a, a

government that views itself as environment first and we are throwing in with probably the most polluting government in the history of the world. But I'm not so naive that I don't understand how the world works, Marcel. Well, two points. One is that the prime minister made very clear that we need to diversify our trading relationships and no longer be 100% wholly dependent on the US. And so he's reached out to the EU, the UK, now to China, South Korea, in the Middle East and trying to open up new markets and new opportunities for Canadians and for Canadian goods and services. The second thing is, to your point on the Chinese, the Prime Minister has said that he wants to put an uncertain amount of guardrails to ensure that, you know, that Canadian rules are respected, that there's no interference, that they're going to be monitoring very carefully

how this relationship unfolds. We're taking it as somebody's described it. These are baby steps. These are small steps. But they're very positive on the other side. We're talking about the EVs, but let's also not forget that this agreement also opens the door

for Atlantic fishermen, for canola growers, for pea growers. Like, you know, those markets, you know, those farmers, those fishermen were, you know, adversely impacted. And now they have an opportunity. to get back into the game. And this is a huge win on canola.

Those poor farmers in Saskatchewan were caught in the crossfire and they have been suffering with those massive tariffs on their agricultural goods. And so for this to have been, the canola tariff to be dropped to about, what, 15% that is a huge win.

But with each win comes potentially new issues that are going to have to get resolved at some point. We can't keep punting the ball on our deal, on our relationship with the U.S. at some point, We have to figure out what that's going to look like. Gentlemen, don't go anywhere because when we come back, the other big story of the day. The emergencies act by Justin Trudeau, they brought in to solve the freedom convoy.

We've been told it was not applied legally. What do we think that means? So don't go anywhere. The Ben Mulroney Show marches on. This is the Ben Mulroney show, and that includes Marcel Wheater and Chris Chapin, who are joining me for a second segment on this week in politics, the Friday edition. Gentlemen, thanks so much for sticking around. Thank you.

Any time. Hey, Chris, I want to start with you because today the news came down that it was deemed that the use of the Emergencies Act on the Freedom Convoy was used illegally, or not legally, rather. It was not applied legally. I find it very rich that the party of the charter, no offense, Marcel, but the party of the charter is the one that is being deemed shredding of that charter. And I wondered what you thought the knock-on effect of this is going to be moving forward. You know, Ben, I think it's a great question. I think the answer is, you know, hopefully very little. Personally, I think not a surprise that it was an overuse to use to use the Emergencies Act the way they did. I hope we're never in a situation again where we find ourselves with the dynamics that were at play in our country that led to the convoy in the first place, led to anybody feeling like they needed to do what those folks were doing on, you know, Rito and Wellington. did that constitute what the Emergency Act was defined and, you know, legislated for?

Absolutely not. Do I understand for the people in Ottawa at the time that wanted these guys to stop honking their horns and get out of their, we'll leave? Yeah, I mean, I think it was more of an indictment on just our local police forces, not feeling comfortable to just enact and implement the laws we have on the books. So I don't think long-term there's much impact of this, Ben. I really don't. But I do think, you know, it's not a surprise. And I think it is, if anything else should be a wake-up call that, you know, using legislation and taking people's rights away isn't a joke.

And it should be done appropriately. Well, I'll tell you, Marcel, I think, you know, I'm, my position on this has been evolving since the beginning. At the time, I looked at it and said, all right, well, if this is, if this is an emergency, then okay, it's an emergency. And the more I watch, I was like, well, this is pretty heavy-handed. I thought that the Freedom Convoy people vastly overstayed their welcome. I think the point could have been made in a day. And so there was a little bit of F around and find out. However, watching this drag on for years, especially for the organizers who just until recently were still dealing with this, I thought was unfair to them.

And then when I compare this to how lackadaisical and how permissive we have been with the low-grade fever that we've been dealing with, of the pro-Palestinian protests that have been taking over our streets for years. Now, this was like three intense weeks. What we've been dealing with is the low-grade two and a half years of the pro-Palestinian. And nothing has happened to those people. And when I look at that, I see two-tiered justice. And by the way, I am not making a judgment call on either one of those incidents. But I am saying that one was treated one way and the other being treated completely differently.

So, Ben, I agree with both you and Chris on this issue. Yes, it probably was an overreach and it was, you know, it's a largely, it's a technical thing that the courts were being asked to weigh in on. But here's the reality is there was an abrogation by both the province and the city in dealing with this. And at a certain point, the government said enough, if you guys aren't prepared to deal with it, we're going to deal with it. And, you know, put an end to this, not just in Ottawa, but in winter and in Saskatchewan and in other places before it gets out of hand. And yes, it may have been a bit of overreach, but, you know, something had to be done.

And so they did what they had to do. You know, we're going to wait and see this may still end up being appealed to the Supreme Court. The government has until, I think, March until to decide whether to file a appeal on this or they accept the decision and just move on. I think for a lot of people who weren't affected, it's kind of an abstract, but the people in Ottawa who felt it and were dealing with it, they wanted somebody to act. And when the province and the city didn't act, the federal government stepped in. And that's the simple truth. Yeah, but I compare that to people in Jewish communities who are wanting somebody to act every week as bands of marauding, toxic, vile people come and shout at them every single week. Exactly.

We're seeing a repeat, both the province and the municipality have not done their jobs. The laws are on the books. The federal government has the laws. It's up to the provinces and the municipalities to. you know, implement them to, you know, charge the people and then try them and, you know, take them through the legal process. But neither the province nor the municipality have done that in the case of the Jewish community. And I happen to be one of the members of that community who lives not far from where these protesters take place every Sunday. Well, let's turn our attention to Quebec.

And a lot of people are writing the political epitaph of Francois Lego, the founder of the Coalition Avenir Quebec. premier of that province. He's won two governments, formed two governments in a row. And a lot of people are wondering, with him deciding to resign, could this spell the end of a third way in Quebec, which I believe, whether you like the KAC or not, was needed because it broke the artificial binary choice that Quebecers found themselves making every single time they had to vote. Because all they had to ask themselves back in the day, am I a separatist, am I a federalist? And that determined what party they had to vote for. It didn't matter if they were socially conservative.

Didn't matter if they were fiscally conservative. All that mattered was that one question. And because of the KAC, it changed the dynamic and I believe gave people more choice. And I wonder whether, Chris, you think we're going to be going back to that overly simple binary of, are you this or are you that? Unfortunately, Ben, I think we probably are. I mean, I think we were heading there with or without. excuse me, with or without Francolla

ago's resignation. I mean, you just look at the polling numbers even, you know, despite before Pablo Rodriguez stepped down. I mean, the Liberal Party of Quebec was not within striking distance of the PQ. It's 10%. It's 10%. They've got no leader right now and they're within 10% of the PQ.

So if they get themselves a charismatic leader who can galvanize that support and build on it, you know, but again, then you're back to the binary. But I would argue they had that in Pablo and it still wasn't enough, right? was an awful leader. Pablo was an awful leader. I'm glad he's gone. He's always a terrible person. I have not shedding a tear for that. You and I both agree. You know, maybe I'd take, you know,

some cash under the table and I'd consider voting for him. But apparently that costs you your leadership in Quebec. So I don't know, Ben. I think, unfortunately, it's always going to be, you know, an undertone of Quebec politics that the separatism question is always going to be on the table. Yeah. You know, I think, Francoisela Go deserves a lot of credit for, for distancing, that from the political discourse in Quebec politics. But I unfortunately, like I said, I don't think that's ever going to be fully removed. Marcel, a slightly different question for you is, I was speaking with Jean Chara on a, just catching up a few days ago, the former Premier of Quebec.

You know, he played a vital role in the 1995 referendum campaign. He was Captain Canada. He was the guy who could speak directly to his fellow Quebecers in their own language and say, we have the same lived experience. Here is my case for why I think you should vote for Canada. I don't know that that person exists today. I don't know who's going to play that role. And I'm actually fearful if the PQ does win the next election and they have the courage of their convictions and they trigger another referendum.

Who's going to be standing up for Canada in Quebec? Well, I'm in Ontario. So, you know, my comments are kind of a little bit biased. So I'll put that out first. You know, God willing, he's still going to be chugging along at 92 plus, but Jean-Cretchen still has a lot of vim and vigor. He just was in China prior to the prime minister's visit. He's still, you know, giving speaking engagement, and he's still full of passion.

And he is the voice of Canada in Quebec. And, you know, as long as he's around, I think he will muster up every, ounce of strength that he has to keep this country and keep the province in this confederation. Well, he's going to have to because he was one of the guys who helped kill Meachlaken. This would have been a dead issue had that thing passed just in 1990. Not for nothing. I get the last word. So I'm going to end it on that. Hey, Chris Chapin, I really appreciate it. Marcel Weeder, always great talking to you. All the best to the both of you. Thanks. And hopefully you'll get home soon. Yes, indeed. And just a reminder if you want more.

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