The Ben Mulroney Show - Culture clashes flame up globally/Last political panel of the year.

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulruni show. It is the 22nd of December. Just a few short days until Christmas, two days before Christmas Eve, 2025, it's Monday. Hope everyone's having a great start to their week. All right, Bondi Beach happened last week. This time last week we were talking about it, still reeling from it, still dealing with it. And over the weekend, in Australia, a sick procession in South Auckland was briefly halted when protesters blocked the route and a number of them were Maori. And they performed a haka and displayed nationalist and religious slogans

prompting debate over religious freedoms and multiculturalism. Let's listen to this. Yeah, so listen, it was essentially had a group of sick members of the community who were out doing some display of their culture. It was a religious procession. And there was pushed back by the Maori as well as in New Zealand. And this is, police separated the groups, prevented escalation, no arrests or injuries. Organizers said the authorized procession was unexpectedly disrupted. And look, it feels to me like certain countries are experiencing a ground swell of pushback by everyday citizens who are saying themselves,

if our governments aren't going to do something to protect our identity and our culture, then we're going to do it because if it doesn't matter to the government, we are going to show people that it matters to us. Now, I can't speak to New Zealand's relationship with the sick community. I can't. I have no idea. I don't know whether this was an important day for their religion, for their culture. I don't know.

But what I do know is in the West, there is a feeling that has been growing for a while that the values that people like I hold are somehow a problem to be overcome and that the simple act of taking pride in my culture and my history is something that I need to dispel myself of because I have nothing to be proud of

and instead countries from around the world that bring their cultures here those are the things that need to be celebrated we saw it here in Toronto last week when a Christmas concert at a public school was in was they pulled a bait and switch and it wasn't a Christmas concert anymore instead it was a winter concert

and what was on stage a reminder by the kids that we are on stolen land probably the most divisive thing you could do at a time of the year where it's all about unity and so this kind of thing is going to continue happening

it will continue happening until the leaders of our countries acknowledge the value inherent in the place where people are coming to. And I say all of that as we go right into our next story. There was a national commemoration of the slaughter at Bondi Beach where 15 people were killed, including a 10-year-old. And there is no question as these men

who gunned people down on the first day of Hanukkah and killed, I should, you know what, I'm sorry, I should have been very clear. They were, they killed Jews. It wasn't just people. They killed Jews. It was an ISIS-inspired event. We know so because we know what we know about the killers.

So it was an ISIS-inspired event. And despite that, the leaders of that country are doing everything they can not to say it was an ISIS-inspired. inspired event. Let's listen to the Prime Minister of Australia as he showed up for the Bondi Memorial. Yeah, there you go. That went on.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and other national leaders are twisting themselves into pretzels, trying not to say the words Islamic radicalization. They said that this was anti-Semitism. Yeah, it was anti-Semitism.

But it was anti-Semitism coming from a very specific place. There's right-wing anti-Semitism. That had nothing to do with this event. They said they're going to tighten up gun laws. You already have some of the tightest gun laws in the world. And the last mass shooting,

deadly mass shooting was in 1996, bro. So, yeah, that's not this. He was booed mercilessly because he linked the shooting to broader problems in anti-Semitism and hate. And I'm sorry, unless you're willing to say the quiet thing out loud, you're not going to solve the problem.

And so that's one thing. That's a political problem. On a personal level, he or his office, did not attend the funeral of the 10-year-old Matilda, who was killed at Bondi Beach on the first day of Hanukkah. His office didn't even reach out

to the family. They did post a picture of him online in the hospital room with the man that tried to stop the shooters. Ahmed al-Ahmad. So this woman was, there's a woman who confronted the prime minister

at an event, and let's listen to what she said in her own words. I eventually just took his hands in my hands. He was quite surprised at that. And I looked him in the eyes and I said, Prime Minister, this will be your legacy unless you make a change.

How did he respond? He was incredibly defensive. He pulled his hands out of mine. His feathers were really ruffled. He said, that's not fair. That's not right. He said, he gave me a whole laundry list of everything that the Australian government had done in the past two years.

But to be honest, Aviva, it's pretty much like somebody who's pouring fuel onto a fire. And with the other hand, they try to put it out with a watering can. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it's. it is you're you this this will continue happening right because by the way they they October 7th protests just like in Canada have been happening in Australia ever since and there are plenty of people are saying this is going to get out of control people will die and they've done nothing

and now people have died now they're wondering oh my goodness what happened like I think you're being deliberately misleading you know exactly what happened you're choosing to ignore it so every now and then you need some comic relief to shine a light of truth on the situation. And I want you to hear this, oh, no, do we, do we have that audio of the Australian guy? So there's this Australian guy who positioned himself as a leader and he's doing social commentary. It would be very funny if it wasn't so tragic, but it's so reminiscent of what's going on in Canada. It's eerie.

Good day, Australia. Today I want to address the recent situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those affected. There, I'll said the words, and that is leadership. Now, some people are saying we should do more than thoughts and prayers, that we should maybe identify the problems, name them, address the root causes. But that is very dangerous thinking.

You see, if we actually said what the problem was, someone might get offended, and hurt feelings are much worse than other types of hurt. That's mathematics. So instead we are going to focus on the tools. Not the people using them, not the ideas motivating them, the tools. It's like blaming the pen for writing hate mail. It's very sophisticated.

The important thing is that we never ask why this is happening, that we never identify the patterns and we never say certain words words because saying words is divisive not saying words that is unity um come on yeah not saying words not having a discussion not debating it tell me he's wrong tell me he's wrong because you can't because he's absolutely right and i was actually struck with you know a reminder it it took bondi beach to realize that when when people, when leaders say this is anti-Semitism, they're only half right because they're not, because anti-Semitism comes from all sorts of places. And there's a whole bunch of anti-Semites out there that are not going around shooting people

or in the city of Toronto trying to kidnap women. They're not doing it. It's a certain type of anti-Semitism. And unless you're willing to say that, you're not going to fix the problem. So I commend this guy for using comedy to tell the truth. All right, time to, here's what we want. We want to fix our bail system. We want it fixed.

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Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. I want to thank you, by the way, for finding us wherever you choose to enjoy the Ben Mulroney show. You may listen on the radio or on a streaming app. I personally listen on the IHeart radio app all the time. It's better reception than on the radio.

You may listen to us as a podcast, and you can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. We've been really doing our best to build the community on Instagram. I think we're pushing 90,000 followers. Not bad. We only started this account in June, I think. June so we're well on our way to 100k and that's because of you and and but one of the reasons we grow it is because you like what we do there and you share it with other people and the same goes for YouTube our YouTube channel is is growing quite quickly and that's because you have

subscribed and then you you like our our content and you share it with other people so please keep doing that in the new year we really I set one rule for this show when we started it I had one goal and the goal was for the Ben Mulroney show to become quote undeniable end quote now I didn't know what that meant but what I think it means is all conversations go through this show and that so many people out there are informed in one way or another a lot of them listen because they want to know exactly what not to think right but all conversations go through this show and that to me is the definition of undeniable and we're getting there we're getting there I don't think the job will ever be done. And so hopefully we can do this

for a long time to come. But I thank you very much for that. Can't do without Mike either. My Tripid producer, Mr. Mike Droulet. Thank you. And I can certainly say when I go out, and you've said this to me a million times as well, the number of people coming up to saying, hey, you know what? I heard a show, and they reference different

things that they've heard. And they go, thank you very much for speaking honestly and saying stuff that even five years ago you'd get canceled for. But again, as we always say, we have discussions. Yeah. We don't pass judgment. We might have opinions, but we listen to everything and we just talk about the issues people are talking about and we're not scared to do it. Well, here's another one.

And for our national audience, we're bringing this conversation back to Toronto, but it's not a specific to Toronto conversation. So after Bondi Beach, we talked on this show about how the closest national analog in anywhere in the world to Canada is Australia. similar demographics, young country, ties to the British crown, built on immigration, First Nations population, you name it. If it's a problem here, it's probably a problem there. And so a lot of us were saying, just because it happened there, doesn't mean it couldn't happen here. As a matter of fact, because it happened there, we need to be prepared for something like

that here because we've allowed the same things to fester. And then just a few short days after Bondi Beach, the Toronto police and the RCMP arrested, three men, one of them, 26-year-old Waleed Khan on terrorism-related charges. Well, no, sorry, that's what he was arrested on before. Oh, no, I'm sorry, alleging he funded and supported ISIS and conspired to commit murder alongside charges of hate-motivated violence targeting women and the Jewish community. So that's, that's Walid Khan.

He's a winner. Then he's got two other men, Osman Azizov. He's 18. And Vahad Sadat, he's 19. accused of two attempted kidnappings in the GTA, involving firearms and knives. Time to ban some more guns and some knives. Now, with this story, you may recall us speaking about it back in August, when there were some terrifying situations, reports of women attempted kidnappings

where three men in a car had gone and tried to grab these women and they managed to escape. And it wasn't the first time we'd heard about it. But at the time, it was shocking as heck. And we're like, they better catch these guys. And these are the guys who allegedly were the men. And we're going to talk in a second about how messed up this whole thing is. Because searches of their homes allegedly uncovered weapons, ammunition, evidence of anti-Semitic hate-motivated extremism. Police laid 79 charges in total.

And officials praised the arrest for averting a potential threat to public safety. Okay. So that's the lay of the land. But at the time, nobody was, I don't know. don't remember coming on the airwaves and talking about a statement by the Toronto police saying, hey, they're out there trying to, they're trying to kidnap Jewish women. I don't remember saying that. And I don't remember saying because it didn't happen.

And I'll go to the end of this and then come back. So we know all of this, right? And the response by the Toronto police in a tweet on the same day as the arrest, goes as follows. There are no known threats to Toronto's Jewish community. We are actively monitoring, working with our partners

and increasing our presence where needed to ensure community safety. I'm going to read that first sentence again for you. There are no known threats to Toronto's Jewish community. You're effing with me. Like this is a friggin' joke. There are no...

Are you telling me, is the Toronto police that all your work has yielding goose eggs. There's no, there's no known threats. There might be some threats out there, but we don't know them. Is that what this tweet means? Because if you,

like you put this out there, Toronto Police. If I were you, I would pull it down. This is an insult. If there are no known threats to the Jewish community, why have Jewish communities reinforced and all of the schools and so many of their places of worship. Why have they had to hire private security?

And if you know known threats, you want to tell me about that? While every single weekend, we see people who have active hatred in their hearts to Jews marching through Jewish communities telling them that they're all baby killers? Indigo Bookstore. Yeah. What about the Indigo Books? Owned by Heather Reesman. Owned by Heather Reesman.

And they're apparently all her. money is going to the IDF so they can kill babies. You don't think that, you don't think that is an active threat? You don't think that's a known threat? That's wrong. That's wrong. But let's go back to the arrests because that is a positive thing when you arrest them, right? Like you think it's not going to happen anymore.

So you got that first guy, I told you, winner number one, Waleed Khan. But he was out. We want to give you the Waleed Khan timeframe. We don't have a ton of time left, so we have to get to this in Osman. So May 31st, while on probation, he makes his first armed attempted kidnapping of a Jewish girl. Then they do a second one. Then there's an assault with a knife. Then he's arrested and charged with 33 offenses.

That's August 18th. Post-August 18th, released on bail with an ankle monitor. December 19th, re-arrested charged with seven terrorism offenses. Okay, so he's arrested, he's out on bail, and he does this. But he was originally on probation. Yeah. But then you got Osmond Azzov. He's already out on bail.

So he's like the future version of Walid. Potentially. Potentially. Allegedly? Because Walid was out on bail. He's on probation. And he tried to kidnap two women. Now this guy's out on bail.

What do you think he's capable of? Allegedly. And we don't know about the third person. We don't know about it. He's a wild card. He's a wild card. Well, you know. Yeah.

Can we guess? We can guess. So this guy's out on bail The other guy was out on bail And he did these things Now the other new guy's out on bail You're telling me he's not a known threat He's the definition of a known threat

He kept company with somebody Who was in the exact same position Out on bail And he tried to kidnap two women Allegedly So at what point Do we have Do we look at the system and say

Okay Where are we getting Who is failing us? Well, it's the directive by the Trudeau government to release people under the least onerous conditions. And we do have new proposed reforms that were introduced in October. But they're not yet law because there's no official aid. They have to still debate it. They have to go through.

I mean, it's going to be a little while. No known threats to the Jewish community. I mean, that's a frigging joke. That's an April 1st, April Fool's joke come way too early that just that. doesn't happen to be funny. After Bondi Beach, you uncover that these three men were going around with knives and guns wanting to allegedly kidnap women and do God knows what with them. One of them has been released on bailed.

The first guy who was released did these things allegedly. And now his buddy is released under the same conditions. And you can say with a straight face, there are no known threats to the Jewish community. This is one of those things. Again, I've said it before. We are a country that should take certain things very seriously and we are decidedly unserious about them. The safety of the Jewish community being top of that GD list. Up next, our final political panel of the year.

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and it's been a hell of a year. So let's close it out in style with our final political panel of the year. The next one you have from us will be in 2026. Please welcome to the show, Dmitri Sudas, and Max Fawcett to great shows of, two great shows, to great friends of the show, welcome, welcome, welcome. And before, in case we run out of time at the end, I hope that you guys had a great 2025, and I hope next year is even better. So on that note, let's talk about a group of people who did not have a good 2025, the NDP.

And we'll start with, we'll start with why are they allergic to fundraising. That's the article in the CBC. What is it about this group that can't rub two pennies together? Dimitri. Well, the NDP has always had a hard time raising money because people usually donate to parties that are either popular in public opinion. in polling and in popular support, and number two are the viable alternative to replace the government. And 2011 is the only time where the NDP had the best election result in its history, winning

more than 100 seats. But again, raising money for the NDP is always a challenge because they're not seen as a party that can win an election. They're not seen as a party that has support beyond a core base of anywhere between 10% of the electorate. Yeah, I get that, but it just feels, but they've always been, they've always positioned themselves, Max, as sort of the conscience of Canadian politics. And, you know, the goal is to send as, they would say, send as many of us to Ottawa as

possible to keep these other parties in check. And that is a message that isn't even resonating. Well, I feel like those two objectives are intention, because, you know, if you want to send as many people to Ottawa as possible. You need to advocate for policies that are popular, that are middle of the road, that resonate with a lot of people. If you want to be the conscience of the country, that's about staking out perhaps more unpopular positions. And so this has been sort of the internal conflict of the NDP for as long as I can remember. They don't know who they want to be when they grow up. Do they want to be the government? Or do they want to be a principled but small caucus of

morally pure individuals. And that is the ballot question, quite frankly, in the leadership race that they're undergoing right now. And we'll see, I guess, where they net out when the votes are it. Well, but there is this report of their post-mortem on their election loss. And I don't know that it's particularly helpful because the review largely avoids blaming party officials. And it concluded the NDP technically ran a very competent campaign, but was overwhelmed by

external forces, especially in election framed around what could be, what would be needed to confront Donald Trump. I mean, if you're not willing to look as, to use our prime minister's words, to look inside themselves, then this is, they're doomed to repeat the problems of the past, no? Dimitri? Yeah, not necessarily, but at the same time, victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. So it's, it has nothing to do with their leader, um, formerly. leader, Jack Meets Singh, who literally sold himself out to the liberals and propped them up and at the same time criticize them. At the end of the day, everything starts from scratch when a new leader is elected. These were similar conversations we were having before Jack Layton was elected leader of the NDP following Alexa McDonough and his predecessors. The next leader will have to decide what the value proposition will be and will that value proposition echo with voters so they can get votes and money. All right, well, let's move on to this next story. This is how we're going to round out this segment.

We're talking about unions and how they're really pushing back in Ontario and federally about getting their members back to the office. And they're really pulling out all the stops. Now they're citing pests as another reason federal employees can't return to the office. Now, Max, every building has something. We got mice here. I was at the I was at Trudeau National International Airport I saw mice like there are mice everywhere and if if they're going to push back it feels to me like they are doing they are doing

themselves in because nobody thinks that the federal public sector has been right sized yet and people are if people don't want to come back to work all it's going to take is one fed up minister to say okay you know what don't bother ever coming back and I wonder what you think like, if I were them, I'd say, you know what, we're reading the tea leaves here, guys. Get back to work because we don't want to give them any excuses to get rid of you. Yeah, there's a common thread here with the previous segment, which is that this is another sort of left-wing-oriented group that is not willing or able to have the honest conversations about where it's going wrong.

You know, if you're a union leader and you're getting involved in international politics, if you're a union leader and you are making, going back to work the hill you want to die on, You are doing the work of the people who want to break unions. You are helping them because you are putting your members so clearly offside of what the public expects of them and what it expects of their leadership. Yeah, I mean, offices have rodents. That happens. Oh, well, you know, you call the pest control and you get on with it.

But this idea that you're entitled to work from home. I understand why people like working from home. But your job as a public servant is to serve the public. and if the prime minister, if the government says that means you have to be in the office, then you have to be in the office. Yeah.

Yeah. It seems clear to me. It seems like a rational understanding. I don't know why there's still today so much pushback. Dimitri, like I've said it to union leaders on this show. None of their excuses or reasons

for not wanting to go back to the office are specific to their experience. And yet they are trying to live in a world where, the issues of going back to the office for a public service worker are exceptional to them. And when they do that, it feels like they are untethered from reality. Well, they are. And I will concur with Max.

And I will also add that over the last 10 years, the public service grew by 42%. We have 100,000 more public servants than what we did 10 years ago. If there is a pest problem called pest control, and my dog ate, my homework is not a justifiable excuse. Yeah, but don't you think that all it's going to take is, look, if this year doesn't go the way the liberal government expects it to, they're going to have to make more draconian cuts, and attrition ain't going to solve it, and they're going to look to the squeaky wheel. And if this wheel is squeaky, they're just going to rip it out. And I don't, I just, I don't get it. Like, after you've seen, we're seeing what's happening, Max, at Canada Post, right? If you wait too long, if you're not part of the solution early on, the solution will present itself and you're not going to like it.

If you didn't participate in it, then you can't complain when all of a sudden economics dictate that we've got to do something drastic. Yeah, if you're not part of the solution here, you're part of the problem and the government is going to deal with you accordingly. I think union leaders need to be way more attentive to where the public is. The public is dealing with a cost of living crisis. you know everything is getting more expensive and they look at union leadership presenting uh being forced to work go back to the office as like a kind of civil rights issue yeah it's not going to land well with them they're going to go wait a minute i have to go to the office um you know my my kids have to go to the office why are you special and oh by the way you get a pension that i don't get and oh by the way i'm part

of paying for that like it's just they are creating the conditions yeah for an environment where the government can really do some cutting and slashing. Yeah. My rule of thumb, and it's a general rule of thumb, is unless you were hired as a public servant during the pandemic, then you literally don't have a leg to stand on. You have to demonstrate. You have an extraordinary personal circumstance that forces you to work from home. But barring that, if you accepted the terms of employment that began while you were in the office, you have to go back. And it is your responsibility to prove that circumstances have to have to allow you to stay home i don't know what you think about that

dmitri but i think that's a pretty good starting point it isn't i don't know what kind of eggnog max is having but he he's been going to a lot of conservative parties clearly because uh i i i just don't you know the plumber has to go to work the electrician the waiter the waitress the truck driver and so on and so forth these public servants uh that have great pensions great salaries are refusing to go to the office to work. The pandemic is over. It's done. Time to go back to work.

All right. Well, on that note, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to try something different, perfect for the end of the year. Our panel is going to put on their prediction helmets for 2026. We're going to look into their crystal balls. And we're going to see what, in their expert opinion, is to come down the road politically for all of our major political parties in Canada. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. It is the final segment of the show. And we wanted to look ahead to 2026. And you can't do that without an official theme song. The BMS look ahead to 2026 for Canada's political parties. Max, Dimitri, give us some hot take. that's sizzle. All right.

Yeah. So less of a theme song and more of an announcement by Morgan Freeman, AI edition. Okay, so gentlemen, let's look ahead to all the political parties and we're going to start with smallest

and make our way to the government and we'll start with the Greens. And Max, I'd like for you to go first. Oh, boy. Well, I predict more Elizabeth May drama. You know, will she vote for the government? Will she not?

Will she be the speaker? Will she, you know, they are a party of one. I still think it's worth watching whether it's Stephen Giebo crosses and becomes their next leader. That feels like his calling. But apparently he has not decided to do that yet. Yeah, that could be interesting. Demetri, what do you think? Because, first of all, I don't think Elizabeth May is suited to be the speaker.

There's so much back and forth that I think she would, that she, I don't. I don't know. She wears her heart on her sleeve. I think that's a very nice way of saying it. And I don't know that she can be the impartial arbiter that is required from that job. But Giebeau, Giebeau is the leader of the Greens. That could be very interesting for that party. Demetri. It can be, but I highly doubt it. I highly doubt that Gilbo will end up wanting to go and lead the Greens after having been a minister. He may end up just leaving politics and going back to Greenpeace or Ikita. The biggest challenge for the Greenpeace, party is who will lead this party after Elizabeth May. She's tried to leave so many times. They keep pulling her back in. Like the old saying goes every time she tries to get out, they pull

her back in. So the future of the Green Party depends on essentially on their ability to find their next Elizabeth May. Yeah. But it doesn't have to something to do with a platform that resonates. I mean, for the longest time, we as a country have wanted to will this party into relevance. The point that they've, we've had two sets of rules for the Greens and say the People's Party, for example, that we're polling in about the same amount, but one got invited to the debates and the other didn't. I'm not making a value judgment on the people's party, but it really did seem like a voter for the Greens was worth more than a People's Party in the eyes of the debate organizers. So we've wanted this. She wasn't, though. She wasn't at the debate

in the last election if my memory serves me right but the one before that she was the one before that she was because I think they got they learned their lesson that time but again rather than let the people's party in they just let they kept her out

but it feels to me like you know the Greens Max in in Europe find a way to have platforms that resonate far beyond a few select ridings and if they're not willing to do it I mean if they can't do it

then maybe maybe the air of of wishing for a green party of value is over. I mean, a big part of, big part of their problem is the electoral system that we have here. You know, the first past the post system is not friendly to single issue parties. A lot of, you know, the German parliament is elected through proportional representation. So if we somehow ever magically got a sort of more mixed system, then the Greens could become more relevant.

But I think as long as we have the first past the post system, they are doomed to, if not a relevancy, a very low level of it. Well, speaking of a low level of relevancy, let's move on to the NDP. What predictions do you have, Dimitri, for this party in 2026? Well, again, I will put my Francophone hat on. There's about 100 writings in this country

where Francophones, Quebec and Ontario and New Brunswick, where francophones play a determining role as to who wins. The challenge with the NDP is not a single one of their candidates right now vying to replace Jagmeet Singh, speaks French that is comprehensible. Oh, yeah. No. I watched a little bit of that debate. It was awful. It was awful. And the irony is the guy with the best French would probably be the worst leader. And that's Eve Engler. And he's back back to doing what he, I guess, is comfortable doing, which is being a piece of S. Anyway, Max, what do you think?

Yeah, I've always, it's always been fascinating to me that the NDP has not been more determined to do well in Quebec deliberately, you know, to find. a francophone leader or someone who speaks french uh competently i you know i'm not trying to kick him out of the liberal party but maybe stephen gie bo would do well there um you know i i think the challenge for the ndp this year is is it looks like they are probably going to elect ovi lewis um you know the the noises he's signing up a lot of people yeah um he's never won an election in his life um but maybe this is the first one for him and if he does win he's going to cause so much problems for David Eby and not Haddanchi here in Alberta, he is going to be the greatest gift

to conservative provincial parties in Western Canada since at least Justin Trudeau. And that's an ongoing problem for the NDP. What sort of positions is he going to hold that could present opportunities for those right-leaning parties? Well, he'll talk about winding down the fossil fuel industry. He'll talk about, you know, blocking LNG projects. He'll talk about it just, it is,

it is the sort of overt hostility to fossil fuels that has long been popular in certain parts of the federal NDP, but is toxic at the provincial level in Western Canada. And, you know, electing a federal leader who continues to damage the provincial wings, the way Jugmeet Singh did, at some point, these parties are going to have to think harder about defeditating from the federal party. All right. Let's move, yeah, let's move on to the conservatives. A lot of people thought that by 2026, this party would be in government.

that did not happen. So what do you think the future holds for this party in 2026, Dimitri? Well, I think both for the party, but also for the leader, big tests coming up in January, end of January, where members of the party will congregate in Calgary and determine whether or not they want to have a new leadership race or keep Mr. Poilev. In the meantime, as a party, policy-wise,

what they have to wish for is, you know, Mark Carney has stolen. most of the conservative ideas. The hope now is that he doesn't deliver on them. Yeah, that makes sense. But maybe Max, in terms of policy for this conservative party, maybe the problem is they had too many positions that were easily pilfered by the liberals,

which maybe says that those positions weren't conservative enough. I know that Dmitri disagreed with me last time. No, I'm with Dmitra in this one. I don't think the problem is policy. Canadians like conservative policies right now. you can see it in the way they're reacting to to carney delivering them the problem is leadership they do not like the leader they do not trust him they do not think he is up for the job and so you keep seeing these pieces saying that you know the big challenge for peer polyov is he's got to

change he's got to grow i'm sorry folks the lady is not for turning as margaret thatcher said he has made it clear his whole life uh that he does not change he holds the same views that he held when he was a 17 year old uh and so if you're holding your breath waiting for this guy to turn over a new leaf you're going to run out of a oxygen. Okay, but listen, how much you like or dislike a politician, isn't it relative to how much you like or dislike his opponent? And part of me thinks that I don't think that this liberal government and this leader necessarily, I mean, there are a few things that they can win. If all of a sudden we get a deal on NAFTA and we get a tariff. If the economy turns on a dime and we all of a sudden

start making money again, and if all of that happens, unless that happens, unless that happens, don't you think relative to a disappointment on the liberal side, his star rises by default, Max? I don't think you can count on that. His star has actually continued to drop over the last few months. He is getting the distance between him and Carney is getting bigger, not smaller. And as Carney continues to add these conservative MPs, I think he starts to look like the leader of the progressive conservative party

that a lot of people in Ontario, you know, other parts of the country, want as their prime minister. And Pollyev kind of looks like yesterday's man. Well, it turns out of time here. So we're going to go real quick through the liberals. Dimitri, you go first. 20 seconds. You just took three seconds or 17.

He has to deliver on trade, but he also has to deliver on reducing Canada's dependency on the United States. Time for results. Max, the final word of 2025 is yours. Mark Carney continues to push the party back towards the middle. the coming year will, I think, say a lot about how successful he is at that. All right, gentlemen, thank you for a great year.

Looking forward to even better times together in 2026. All the best to you. Merry Christmas. And everybody, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. I thank you so much for allowing me into your lives in 2020. Well, I'll see you before 2025. I'll be back before the end of this year.

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