The Ben Mulroney Show - Demovictions, Nationalist Australia and a Sharpe look at Hunter Biden

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

GUEST:   Megan Kee / No demovictions Toronto Guest: Andy Gibbons, Principal at Walgate Advisory, former VP WestJet Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former senior aide to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty GUEST:   Wyatt Sharpe / the sharpe exchange 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

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. We kick off this Wednesday edition of the Ben Mulroney show with a congratulations, because breaking today, Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation

and Chorus Entertainment have inked a five-year partnership for all Calgary Flames, home and away games to be broadcast on QR Calgary 770 AM radio. That's great, great news. Fantastic news. I'm thrilled for it. We were out in Calgary earlier in the year and stuff. Love the people there at the radio station and happy that this is.

It's a homecoming because they used to have the Games games. And now it's, well, it's back. They're back where they belong. Congratulations to the entire team. And an update, well, we've got a few updates for you. Here's an update on the mutation currently affecting Mike Drolet. Mike, care to let everyone know how that spider bite is healing? Well, I mean, I'm not a dad again.

Fortunately, it doesn't appear. You're not spawning another body. I was worried. I was like, is there something inside of me now? Oh, my God. I could have been dad to a million little spiders. No, it's my neck swelled up. It was not comfortable.

And you already have a fairly sizable neck. What's your neck size? I don't know. It's bigger than, you know, most people. It doesn't matter. It's, it basically, it's, uh, it's swelled up. It was uncomfortable. And now I'm wearing a, here, get that.

So I'm wearing a hoodie today on a day when it's warm. It's very warm. Yeah, it's very soupy outside. But I'm doing it so then because it's to sort of mask it into the, my wife wanted me to wear a scarf. And I'm like, I'm not a scarf guy. A jaunty scarf. Do you think I can walk around the office with a scarf? That would be very funny.

I would love that. Um, I'm sure you would, which is why I said no. I love that for you. That's what people say that. Are you sure that it was a spider? No, no, no, no. So how come when I told you yesterday was a tick? It could be a tick.

No, because a tick, you would be able to, you'd have to pull out something out of it. No, there was no bit of a tick or anything like that, no. And, yeah. Well, I learned something about myself yesterday. You did. I learned that if one sneezes hard enough, one will lose one's voice.

I was in the middle of just talking to my kids. and then I'm very susceptible to temperature changes. If the temperature changes like two or three degrees or like something very quick and quickly, I go on a sneezing fit, like 20, 20 sneezes. And one, two, three, four, five, at you, at you, acho, acho, acho. And then I just want to continue the sentence that I was saying and the words would not come out.

It's not surprised us here because Joy and I, Joy, you can confirm. We just all, we know you as such a sensitive guy, sensitive to so many things. Like what? Everything, just everything. Just a sensitive guy. Ben is prone to tears. He cries. Oh, my God.

That's true. No, it's true. And I'll tell you when I start crying. I start crying a lot. Like the floodgates open. Remember when Jerry Seinfeld accessed that part of himself about the, and just all of a sudden he was crying about everything? That happened to me the day I became a dad, which was 16 years ago today.

You sure? You remember a six? It was a 16? I was about to say something very nice. And you jump in and muck it up. Damn it. That's not good radio production. You know what it is? Let me weave my story. It's the spider bite talking.

Yeah, it is. Bush League. Bush League, baby. Bush League, Canada. Right, go on. Yeah, thank you. Trying to put some distance between you and my story. You and your mutation and me and my lovely beautiful boys.

Brian and John Mulroney were born on this. day, 16 years ago, they were four pounds, four ounces each. They were so small that I could hold each one on one on each forearm. And they were too small to leave the hospital. They weren't maintaining their weight and they weren't maintaining their body temperature. And until you can do those two things for a certain amount of time, you stay in the hospital. So we were very fortunate to have these incredible nurses helping us for 10 days. And I was learning how to swaddle. I was I was learning how to do the diapers. I learned how to all the stuff.

I got a course. And their wrists were so small that the wristbands did not fit. They kept falling off. And I tell that my sons, it's entirely possible that one day they fell off when we put them on the wrong kid. Oh, yeah. It's entirely possible that Brian became John and John became Brian. I've asked you that question before. And you were like, yeah, I have no idea.

But it's also possible that we switched them back. and I swear, I promise you, they have never, they have never given me a problem worthy of like anything remotely close to crisis level. They were born with an incredible temperament. They are kind, they are smart, they are funny. They love each other and they love,

they love with their whole heart, and they are becoming incredible young men. And I love every second, Ben with those boys. Let me ask you some technicality. I just don't know how this works. Wouldn't Brian be Brian Mulroney the second? No. No. Because it's not. Well, first of all, my dad was Martin Brian Mulrooney. Oh, okay. So, and I, because, like, I'm, my, my grandfather was Ben, Mulrooney. He had Brian Mulrooney. Brian Mulrooney had Ben Mulrooney. And I had a Brian. So we, we, it was by accident that we did that. But now I told Brian, I was like, you might want to have a

Ben one day. I don't really care if you do, but you might. And I don't know if I told you this, but a lot of people ask me why John, like Brian Mulroney and I got this John Mulroney and there's a million Johns out there. I was on vacation reading my dad's memoir. And on page seven of the book, he wrote it all by hand. So as I'm reading it, I'm hearing his voice. He is, he's speaking in my head. And on page seven of that book, I learned that my dad had an older brother named John. And he was born. He died on the same day that he was born. And then my dad was born years later. And my dad finds out and he goes, my, my grandmother says, where's, where's he buried? She didn't want to talk about it. Repressed Catholic at all. They didn't want to talk about it. She'd moved on.

She just stuffed it down. He went to the Catholic church. Where's my brother buried? Couldn't find him. Ask the RCMP. Is there anything you can do? Can you help? Ask the Vatican. Like, do you have records? He tried everything he could. I could never find the name where his brother was buried.

And he writes then, I think these were his words. It's one of my greatest sadnesses that I could never let my brother know that he was loved and he was remembered. And I just lost it. Lost it, lost it, lost it. and I made a vow, and Jess was very kind enough to allow me to keep that vow, that when the boys were born, one would be Brian and one would be John. And I tell John that his name is not as famous, but is just as important. And speaking of which, so while I'm swaddling, you'll like this one, Drillet,

while I'm swaddling them, and Jess is resting, and I'm holding them both, I look over at John, and I just start talking to him, and I say all the things I want them to be. Like, I want you to be, I want you to listen to your mom, and I want you to be good and kind and all the stuff. And then I look over at a tiny little Brian Mulroney. And I gave him the only advice that I thought was warranted in that moment. I said, Brian, don't Google yourself. There you go. That's actually really good advice.

Well, I got to say, though. Joy, don't Google yourself. They are so, they are such wonderful boys. I'm so proud of them every day. And, um, solid, man. And happy birthday. Happy birthday boys. Happy birthday from Joy and myself as well.

There you go. There we go. Yeah, so that's, there you go. You've learned a little bit about all of us today. A drollet is turning into a mutant. I lost my voice because I sneezed too hard and my boys turned 60. And Joy? Joy, any news from you? No, I just turned 28 yesterday. Oh! I knew about the day before. And then I told you to remind me. And I told you to remind me too. Anyway, happy birthday. What did you do?

I just had a dinner with my family and went out for desert. That's it. Where'd you go for dessert? There's a new place in Mississauga downtown, known as Desertomania, something like that. So you're trimming down for the wedding starts tomorrow. Yes. There you go. Starts today, it starts today.

It starts today. Well, look, we have so much to get to today, including a story that's going to come up right after the break about how some Toronto tenants are saying, that the federal cash that's going to developers to help spur development also inadvertently will demolish their homes. We're going to talk about that next right here on the Ben Mulroney show from coast to coast to coast

on the chorus radio network. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready,

we're ready with a whole world and more. And you may be listening live right now on the radio, on the chorus radio network. You may be listening anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, rather, on the IHeart radio streaming app. Or you may be listening a little bit later on any number of podcast platforms or you may find little bits and pieces, little breadcrumbs on social media. However you choose to enjoy the show, we say thank you. So there's a story in the Toronto Star. about these people who live in a very lovely neighborhood. I know it quite well.

And they have been, they were told that they were going to have to leave their houses to make way for a big development. But it felt like the axe was hanging and it never fell because COVID happened and the economic slowdown happened, making it hard for this building to get to get the funding to do what it had to do. And so they were hoping, hoping against hope that maybe this thing would go away and they could stay in their homes. Well, then the government came in and gave a whole bunch of federal cash to build affordable housing.

Like I say, these people could already afford their houses. And that helped close the gap. And now the development is on its way. And we are joined now by Megan Key of no. Demavictions, who was interviewed in this story. Megan, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I apologize for my voice.

It's a little raspy today. So tell me, where are we now? And how many people are we talking about in this one case who will be told, yeah, your house, it won't be your house for long? Yeah, so there was $2.7 billion in federal funding to go towards 18 projects in Toronto to build of rental housing and the development. that my building is a part of is 121 units. It's a purpose built, rent-controlled building,

and it serves the needs of the people who live here. And they have beautiful, livable floor plans compared to some of the newer condos that we're seeing today. And prior to this money, this windfall coming in from the federal government, you were probably quite hopeful that this thing wasn't going to get off the ground, at least anytime soon.

Yeah, the original proposal for the site that's north of us that has gotten the federal funding originally was going to be condos, but as we all know, the condo sector is not doing so well. So they decided to steer towards building rentals and now have the federal funding to move forward with the phase one of their development. The second phase being the demolition of our building. And yeah, you must have, I mean, who lives in your building? Who is it? You must have people of all walks of life. Yeah, I think most of the rent controlled, uh, affordable purpose bill rental stock, uh, from the 1960s tends to have a mixed.

diverse number of people living in it from like seniors, we have young families, we have newcomers, and oftentimes the demolition of buildings like ours tends to target more marginalized vulnerable people, unfortunately. So what options are they providing for you and for your fellow tenants? I mean, if they can't just say, okay, you're comfortable in your home, you got to go now because we're bringing in a whole bunch of other people. Do you get first crack at renting in the new place or how does it work? Yeah, so in Toronto, we actually have the best emeviction bylaw out of all of Ontario cities,

but it's still not adequate enough. But basically, we get a first right of refusal on a new apartment in the new building that is being built, and it has to be at a similar rent rate. There you go. Yeah, one of the frustrating parts about this announcement specifically is the fact that the government is focusing so heavily on building supply, but we're not focusing on maintaining affordable, rental stock that already exists. And in fact, we're actually losing rental stock

at a pace faster than we're able to build it. I wouldn't have known that. And to what do you attribute that? Profit. It's more profitable to build more than it is to preserve existing housing. And a lot of the regulation policy and legislation that would protect rental housing,

as it currently stands, is not politically popular necessarily. It's things like broad sweeping rent control, it's vacancy control, it's inclusionary zoning, and these things tend not to be broadly popular. So when you look at this deal, are you surprised the feds put a deal like this together? Does it seem a bit shady to you?

Because I'm sure somebody out there could argue that this is sadly an unintended consequence of the need to build? I think it's the plan is moving forward in its original vision, which is out of the 5,800 units that the federal government is providing funding for to build. Only roughly 1,800 of them are going to be affordable. But the thing that many people don't know is that the caveat is those units that are

going to be affordable only need to be affordable based on a specific time period based on their deal with the CMHC. So it could be 10 years, it could be 20 years. It depends on the deal that they strike with the developer. And so this housing is not going to be affordable in perpetuity. It's not going to be affordable forever. So we're using public money to prop up developers and units that aren't going to be for public benefit long term. So if you have, let's say you've got a neighbor who's a senior, you know,

in the late 60s sort of thing and in rent control and living on a fixed income, And then they're told, okay, you got to leave that, but don't worry, we've got a brand new apartment that we've just built for you. Very similar in price. And you're going to love the new amenities and all that. Your senior neighbor says, okay, I'm going to go do that. You're telling me that after 10 years, conceivably, they could jack up the rent. So if that person lives there, let's say 20 years, as long it's the same tenant, they will maintain the same consistent rent with the monthly annual provincial. guideline rent increase.

But if let's say in year 10, the tenant moves out and year 11, somebody in you moves in, it no longer needs to be affordable or rent control. So we're sort of put in the problem further down the road. Wow. That's interesting. That is interesting. So if you had the ear of the prime minister who touted this deal and there were a lot of people who celebrated it, what would you tell them? That we need to ensure that any public money that is spent on how.

needs to be purely for public benefit. We need to be ensuring that the money is going towards units that are going to be affordable. They're going to be affordable in perpetuity and that 1,800 units, keeping in mind that in Toronto there's over 100,000 people on the wait list for subsidized housing is a drop in the bucket. So we need to take a holistic approach and make sure we're protecting affordable housing because we're losing it to face faster than we're able to build it. And building is expensive.

There's so many different barriers there. I think that's the broad message. Do you know if they're doing this sort of thing in other cities in the country? I mean, we all remember the Vancouver condo bailout of the developers. Have you heard wind that similar things are happening around the country? That's a good question. I think the condo bailout that was happening in Vancouver is the most popular one that's gotten the most attention.

I'm not sure of other Build Canada homes money that's going to other problems. But I would imagine that the strategy is pretty similar across the board, which is continuing to give money to the developers that have fundamentally made housing expensive in the first place. I just got to say there's something that it just doesn't sit right. I feel quite sad knowing that there are people who are living currently and happily in affordable housing. and we're going to make their lives harder and possibly less affordable to make way for this, this development. It seems, it seems unfair and it seems like a tragedy. And I'm sorry that that's going on. But I thank you for highlighting it.

And I thank you for sharing your perspective with us today. Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. All right. That was Megan Key from No Demivictions. Drolle, this is, I don't know. I know that neighborhood very, very well. and there's a lot

and we saw all the condo buildings that went up in that area. It had an explosion in growth. It was all based on oh, the Crosstown LRT is going to be. It's right at the nexus of the Crosstown and the Young Line. And so this feels like it was part and parcel of that

but knowing that all of these people on, so many of them are on fixed income, so many of them are in rent-controlled apartments and they are going to be sacrificed. It seems almost as if it was an oversight. Yeah. Or was it an oversight? Was it intentional?

Was there some intentionality here? Did they just, are they? Because it really does seem like the people who live in these places are being overlooked and screwed over. Collateral damage, right? Collateral damage. Well, I'm sorry that that happened to them, but we'll stay on top of this story. Well, they say that today is hump day, which means. we sort of climb the mountain or at the top of the mountain.

What they say when you get to the top of the mountain, you're closer to God. And I'm closer to God because I'm here with Andy Gibbons and Regan Watts. Gentlemen, welcome. Ben, on Wednesdays, on hump day, I say migwitch. So migwitch and Bonjour, my chum. And migwitch, my friend, my friend, also. Andy Gibbons is a principal at Walgate and former Westjet VP.

And Regan, of course, is the founder of Fratton Park and senior aide to the late crate finance minister, Jim. clarity. Guys, I want to have some longer conversations today. We only have two topics I want to broach. And the first one is what is happening politically in Australia.

And because there are so many parallels between the history and the demographics, culture, traditions of Australia and Canada. But it seems like we've been at a fork in the road and in terms

of their politics, they are going closer to what we've seen in the UK with the rise of political parties to the right of the Conservative Party. And that doesn't seem to be happening here. So I wanted to ask you, A, should we be paying attention to this? And are we as different politically from Australia as it appears right now? Regan, you go first. So, Ben, it was an interesting discussion point to have when the mic sent over the topics for today.

And as I admittedly, I'm not a keen observer of Australian politics. I certainly pay attention more to what's happening in the UK. But I do think there's some analogies in terms of what's happening there with their One Nation Party in Australia and what's happening with the Reform Party in the United Kingdom. And that is they are both led by leaders who have been saying more or less. the same things for the better part of 30 years. You know, like him or loatham, Nigel Farage has been consistent in his views with respect to Great Britain and issues that affect that country for a very long time. And the leader of the One Nation Party in Australia, the lady who leads that party, you can

make an analogy or a direct tie with her consistency and the surging popularity of her party. And why is that it? well we know affordability is something that people are talking about that has been a public issue in this country for some time but it's been an issue really since COVID when inflation really ramped up and and people got squeezed in the pocketbooks and inevitably pocketbook issues are what drive public opinion immigration is certainly something that affects Australia if you talk to an Australian about how they feel about immigration from Asia you will see and hear many of the same themes about Asian immigration and I'm not just talking those from India but

but also China and other places. The Australian mood around immigration has shifted and evolved just as it is in Canada and certainly has in the United States. Lastly, is around public safety. You know, the Bondi Beach terrorist attack on the Jewish community there, which must not ever be forgotten, it focused Australian public around issues like public safety in a way that they hadn't for many years.

And so when you have a politician who has been consistent in his or her language and rhetoric and themes over a 30-year period, and they are, if nothing else, authentic and appear to believe what they are saying, they're absolutely going to get traction, which is why you're seeing the One Nation Party, one-Nation Party, pardon me, in Australia, do as well as they are right now in the polls, and reform in the UK doing as well as they're doing. But Andy, everything that Brighan said makes sense, but I want to look at it from a slightly different perspective, because Nigel Farage was, for all intents and purposes, a spent force in

politics. Like he was that his party, the UKIP wasn't going anywhere. And but what I think happened, yes, he was consistent. But I think there were, you had the rise of wave after wave of unchecked immigration. And you also had this narrative that native born Brits were a problem to be overcome. Now, it's structural racism is everywhere and you guys are the problem. And then they would say, well, hey, can we do something about the border? Oh, you're, you see, proof you are a racist.

you hear that enough, you're going to go talk to, you're going to start listening to a guy who says you're not the problem. And so I think that's one of the reasons that happened. And we saw that happen. We're seeing that happen in Australia as well. My question is, play out that dynamic for me in Canada. Well, in Canada, there's similarities and differences. So think back to pre-Marcarni,

pre-Justin Trudeau's resignation. Pierre Paulyev had thousands of people at his rally. in cities where no politician came in history had ever had thousands of people. And he made common cause with working class people and a constituency that just believed they were not being hurt. They weren't being hurt on crime. They weren't being hurt on affordability. They weren't being heard on the ethnic mix of their communities, we'll say it. They weren't being heard on the pace of immigration and refugees, on foreign students, on all of these things.

So, you know, something came along that made, something came along that was more important than all of that which was Donald Trump and 51st state and all of that. So, you know, Ben, it wasn't that long ago that 70%, 70% of Canadians believed with the basic statement, Canada is broken. Yeah. Canada needs to be fixed. Not Canada is somewhat shattered. Canada is broken.

So we're not, this isn't some phenomenon there that we didn't have here. It's just that we've had something overtaken temporarily. Yeah. But all of those issues remain there. Yeah. And that's why the leader of the opposition, you know, for good or for bad in history will show us whether or not he, the fact that he's consistent in his approach is going to, is going to bear fruit.

But if you look at in Germany, the AFD, Lafarge, Le Pen, Trump, and all of these movements, there is a new consensus on refugees and immigration in the West. Not everyone wants to say it or use the words. But all you had to see was Andy Burnham, the day after what happened in La Quetta in Spain, was on the shores of the English channel saying this is not going to happen while I'm prime minister. And you would not, Rishi Sunak didn't do that. Teresa May didn't do that. Kier Starmor didn't do that.

So I think everyone is cluing in now that there's a new, there is a new consensus on immigration and it's much different than the old one. Well, Regan, the left always tries to frame the rise of these parties as, you know, proof that the racists are there. when I think the truth is probably closer to the fact that the pendulum has swung so far to the right because you were so irresponsible with government of government so far from the left. It had to go that far. It's a product of the irresponsibility of a number of progressive governments. And so it's not that there's people woke up and decided to be racist.

It's that people needed to be heard. and that person was the only one taking their calls. Well, I think that's true. I mean, the left accuses anyone who is not of their ilk of being racist or worse because the left have no reasonable ideas and they're not good. And, you know, the woke movement that began in earnest 2016, 2017, 2018, and we don't need to go over everything that happened there. But there was a lot of collateral damage that was that occurred in society during that period.

But one of the things I observed is that the left across the, the world, I think, pushed too hard, too fast, and people recoiled. And I think the point that Annie made, I'll say it a little more succinctly, because I know we're cautious at time. Like many issues, the public is miles ahead of the politicians when it comes to immigration and the consensus around immigration. People just, there's a feeling and some people don't want to say it because they don't want to be called out lest they be called a racist, but there's a view that we need to take a different tact. And that is a view almost universal across the West. Annie Burnham's a labor. Prime Minister in the United Kingdom, but you can see parties all around the world taking similar

stances. And I think that's because the left pushed too hard too fast. And when they accuse you being racist, that's just an empty rhetorical argument. And the public has moved on and they're prepared to bear the consequences. I think he's going, go on. Go ahead. Finish up. No, no, it's the other thing to note, Ben, is it's organic. This is in response to people's experiences in their communities. Exactly. Look at this Tim Horton's example in St. Catharines. I don't if you remember the story. Two Tim Hortons across the highway from each other. One was all temporary foreign workers.

The other one was an old school Tim Hortons owned by the same guy for 40 years. And the company that owned the first Tim Hortons with TFWs bought the old Tim Hortons and fired everyone and hired TFW. The community said, no thank you. That's not what we want. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't, that's not what we want in our community. So there's, I think there's some confusion that people think this is something politicians

manufacture to get votes. But I don't believe that. I believe it's because of what people are experiencing in their communities and everyday lives. All right, well, there's a great conversation. Thank you very much. When we come back from the break, Regan and Andy and I are going to tackle a judge

who, shocker, seems to have made the right call from the bench. Well, every now and then, what they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. It looks like the, from the bench, We got something that resembles a good decision as it relates to a violent offender, awaiting trial, and a judge has said, yeah, we're not letting you back out. And to talk about this story, I'm very glad that my good friends have remained with us. So please welcome back to the show, Andy and Regan.

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This guy named Medhani Johans, 37, accused of breaching an order requiring him to stay away from downtown Guelph. He faces multiple breach charges. He has between 13 and 15 breaches of court orders dating back several years. The crown presented a 200-paid bail package, and the hearing was notable for lots of reasons. because neither the crown nor the defense requested a publication ban, so we know about this and we know about this guy. But he was on record saying that the only reason, you want to hear how broken our system is,

the only reason he pleaded guilty was so he could go back home. That was his logic. But it's nice to see one good judgment. This doesn't mean there's a trend of judges remembering that they are judges and not social engineers. But Regan, what do you think when you read this story? Well, I was appalled at the criminal record of the individual in question. And I was also trying to find the name of the judge.

It was not in the news report. But I'm wondering if we could put him on a shortlist for promotion, either to the Ontario Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada, because it's about time. We have a judge who wants to enforce the law and not make laws, because that is their role. You know, there's a couple of other elements of this story, not least of which is the Canada Border Services Agency who wished to deport this guy could not because of his legal status, requested from immigration refugees and citizenship Canada a danger opinion, which would, if this gentleman found to have been a danger to society, would have allowed CBSA to put his butt on a plane and send him back home. Right.

And according to reports, and I take this as not a hard fact, but certainly a soft fact. Apparently, the Department of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada decided that, no, he did not present a danger to the country and therefore would not allow for him to be deported. Now, I want to know what part of his criminal record was not dangerous, or, and I suspect this is where the IRCC department fell, whether they felt him going back to his home country, by the way, which he came to Canada from, Arethia, presented more dangerous. to him. In either case, the public, and in particular, the residents of Guelph are owed an explanation, not only by their federal member, Parham, but also the Minister of Immigration and Refugees, Lena Diab, who, you know, herself as a lawyer, she would not have crafted the legal opinion that would have come up with the determination, but she's a minister. It's her job to say to officials who present this advice, I disagree, and I'm going to make a decision that's in

the public interest, and she hasn't done that. Yeah, Andy, it looks like there are so many things that Justin Trudeau did wrong. And in this one story, we probably have three or four examples of boneheaded decisions that were repeated over years, which turned then into culture and turned into policy

and turned into all sorts of things. And the one that's standing out to me and you can either talk about this or anything else is the fact that this guy came here and in no way integrated at all in Canada. There was nothing. At all.

He showed up here. And you can, You can tell. I am not absolving him of any responsibility. But, you know, if you don't create community and if you don't, if you can't attach yourself in any way positively to the country that you're in, you're just, you're going to, you're more likely to be this guy. Yeah.

Come to this country and love this country. It's not a big ask, right? Yeah. But also, Ben, this week, there was an amazing article about CBSA had actually chartered planes in order to take. deport people and I thought, I couldn't believe it. So people are waking up. You know, the Carney government isn't making big announcements about it.

They're not attacking anyone, but it looks like they're getting to work on actually enforcing the laws in this country. If you accept that chartering those planes, I mean, that's the best charter money that's ever been spent in my opinion. But also, Regan is right on this judge. This judge in Guelph should unmask him or herself and accept the flowers and chocolates. from everyone for getting something right. And thank God for him or her because someone finally looked at it and said,

look, my first decision is not how this is going to impact this gentleman. My first decision is how it's going to impact the children, families, and communities in Guelph. So credit to him or her, full credit. But on the issue of enforcing the law and our values, I do think people are waking up. Yeah. There is going to have to be, at some point, there's going to have to be a reckoning with our our asylum process because it just feels this as soon as you're charged with a crime you you you you claim asylum and then you're in the system for three years this is this is gaming the system

for beginners like it's if that if it's that easy well then it goes back to something I said last week which is if you are a guest in this country yeah and you commit a crime and in this case the individual in question was convicted yeah if you were convicted in this country of committing a crime and you are a guest in this country, guess what? You get seat 1A on the charter flight from CBSA back to whatever country it came from. And you can apply to come back through the legal means, but you're not welcome here. And the mood of the public, as we were talking about an earlier segment, has shifted dramatically. And they've had enough of this nonsense.

And I tip my chapeau. If in fact the CBSA is deporting people on charter flights, guess what? Those flights are taxes worth paying because it's cleaning up the country and bringing order to our streets, which is a major, major public issue in Canada, which is why the Carney government's tackling it. And what we have to do is we got to make sure that the following script does not get repeated, because my logic, I believe, is airtight bulletproof. If you truly believe that the country that you fled is dangerous and you would die if you went

there, then you should be behaving as if you know that. And you should be behaving and respecting all the laws here because you know, that if you get caught doing something illegal, you'll get shipped back. To then, to do the illegal thing and then claim asylum is backwards because the logic doesn't hold up. But then what happens, not this judge,

but then what happens is a judge will say, well, yeah, he's, it's, he did the bad thing. And, and, but sending him home would be worse. So we're going to keep him here. And it's, you're setting yourself up for failure. But the people who want these reforms the most, Ben, are new Canadians. Yeah. Are people who play by the rules who came here.

You know, my grandparents from Italy. Like, people who came here to have the greatest blessing on earth of being Canadian, it bothers them the most. Can we just, can we just stick a pin in that for a second, Andy? Your family's from Italy, the great Gibbons clan of Italy? That is Scottish, Mother's Italian. I'm both born in Europe. Via Pyongyang.

Yeah. Well, listen, I'm very glad we were able to have these conversations today. Sometimes we have so many stories that we have to hit that we don't really have a chance to chat. And the ball doesn't necessarily go down, move down the field. But I do appreciate you guys having a longer, more meandering conversation with your host today. Thank you very much. Enjoy it. informed, Ben. More informed, not meandering. It's an informed discussion for your listeners and your viewers who are hopefully better educated and appreciate the dialogue they receive every Wednesday on the Ben-Lrunnish.

There we go. I found my new fill-in host. Guys, they... Any time. Anytime, Ben. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, guys. All right. Take care. Welcome back. And first off, it's been announced that Caroline Levitt will be leaving her role as White House Press Secretary. And something tells me that if she does one, if she ever does a single interview in Canada, she's going to do it with our next guest. Please welcome back to the show from The Sharp Report. Wyatt, welcome back. Thanks so much, Ben.

Happy to be with you. It's quite fortuitous that you got a job on a show called The Sharp Report, and your last name is Sharp. It's funny how that lines up. Sharp Exchange. Oh, it's a Sharp Exchange. Yes, sir. Yeah. You know what?

Blame Droulet. He put in a report. I apologize. I apologize profusely. But let's talk about this new grand slam home run you got with Hunter Biden. How did you get this interview? Yes, sir. Yeah, well, I mean, your listeners, I'm sure, have seen him doing interviews with basically

the who's who of the podcast world. He sat down with literally everyone from Jennifer Welch, who is extremely leftist on the progressive side, all the way to Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens, obviously on the far right side. And so I thought if he's sitting down with all of these people, People obviously, they have much bigger platforms than I do, but I thought he was obviously willing to sit down with a wide variety of people. So let me reach out, see whether or not he's willing to do it. And he said yes. And he was very nice, very gracious.

It was a great interview. Very, you know, felt authentic and kind of unfiltered as people have been praising him for across the board. So all around, I thought it was a great conversation. Yeah. You know, just by virtue of being on air and communicating my thoughts and my opinions on all manner of stories, there's always this subplot that I did not invent nor did I invite that I am somehow preparing the groundwork to run for office. And it's just part for the course.

The last name and sort of the subject matter that we talk about now leads people to create fairy tales. But a lot of people are thinking that because Hunter is doing this press tour, there's got to be reason behind it and could that reason be an eventual run for office? You guys tackled that question. Yeah. So he asked him that question because he had joked when he was on Gavin Newsom's podcast when Gavin Newsom asked him that question if he would consider running for office and he jokingly

said, I would do it, but as your vice presidential candidate. And so it was a joke, but also I thought, well, maybe there's some seriousness behind it. So I asked him that question. He said he would never consider running for office, which I don't know if I entirely believe. I think if someone's doing this big, huge press tour going on all of these different shows, surely there's probably a reason behind it, but to his credit a lot of it as he's speaking on his addiction and wanting to kind of be a vehicle for other people who have went through similar things and showing people how we can address some of the underlying issues behind addiction,

as opposed to just focusing solely on trying to ban these substances, which obviously is necessary as well. Yeah. And so how did you tackle the question of his recovery? because recovery is in in his at least in his case is is ongoing right you're always in recovery yeah and and he's he certainly had a few kicks at the can that weren't as successful as this one did you ask him what what made this time different yeah so I asked him kind of one of the main questions I asked him on addiction was actually about people in Gen Z my generation and there was some stats that I presented to him from university college London one of the most

shocking ones was that a third of Gen Z young adults have tried some form of hard drug like cocaine or like ketamine. And so I thought, you know, my question was, how do we address some of the issues that are leading young people towards these substances? And he said, it's the same issues that we have to address that led me to my addiction. And that is making sure that, you know, after the course of, say, something like COVID, that there's effective supports in place for, say, people's mental health. And on his kind of looking back on things, I think he's very much understanding now of the fact that in the moment when he was facing his addiction, that sobriety would have cost him everything, whereas now his position on it is very much that he has good relationships with his children, with his wife, Melissa. And so it's very much for him a question of perspective. Look, I heard a podcast, or I know, it was a guy on stage. He said, maybe we've got it all wrong.

Maybe the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And maybe that's what he's got now. He's got stronger connections to those, those, he's got a fabric woven into his life that gives him stability. Anyway, I'm always, I always cheer for people who come back from addiction. And I'm glad he is. You got, I mean, he talked about everything. He spoke about his father's cancer diagnosis, the Democratic Party.

and let's play one of the pieces from your interview. And before we do, I should give people some context. He's going to talk about Hassan Piker. Hassan Piker is a prominent Turkish-American Twitch streamer, influencer, progressive political commentator. I think he's full of it. He's known for discussing current events, promoting left-wing socialist viewpoints.

Anyway, let's listen to Hunter Biden on the Democratic Party and how it can include socialists. Is if the other side is capable of getting behind a 34-time convicted felon who was adjudicated as having raped a woman. Yeah. I think that our side 100% could live with somebody like Casson Piker who brings so much energy and so much thought and brings in a generation that no James Carvel ain't talking to. Yeah, sorry, he lost me there.

all influence is not good influence and he's not a thinker. If you've ever watched Hassan Piker, he'll do his diatribe on his, when he's solo, when he is challenged, he presents his point. And then somebody asks him a follow-up question

and it immediately becomes far less of a thought-out response because somebody handed him a piece of paper and said, here's what you're going to say about these things. And if anyone asks anything, you can go in these three directions. And he's not a thinker. He's, he got, listen, speaking as a nepo baby, he literally got his job because his uncle started the company. And when he started, he was doing the young Turks version of a girl, like girls gone wild.

That's who he was. He was that guy. I have no time for Hassan Piker and I have no time for anyone who respects Hassan Piker. But that's for another day. What did you think of that position? Well, just to set a little bit more context, he was saying that because I interviewed James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist on my show. And in that interview with Carville, Carville told me that he thinks that Hakeem Jeffries,

who's the Democratic leader in the House, would have to consider whether or not people like Hassan Piker should be allowed in the Democratic Party. So I think Hunter's point was about how even if people like Hassan Piker can be a pain in a number of instances that the Democratic Party, it's a big tent and that he should still be allowed within the party. Yeah, listen, the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists, the DSA said that if she could have been. They want to abolish the Senate.

Yeah, but she also said if she could have been at a celebration on October 8th after the biggest one-day Holocaust against the Jews since the Holocaust, she would have been there. And it was inevitably, it was always going to happen. that she speaks for the DSA and he is a socialist and I guarantee he believes all that cockamamie stuff too. We got a little bit of time left and I want to definitely talk about this. This is another one where I'm going to politely disagree with the assessment of Hunter Biden. Talk to us about this one where he talked about who should get another chance. Yeah. So he said that Kamala Harris should get another chance if she feels like she deserves another chance, which I think is his

way of saying that, you know, she should run if she is kind of but heard about the fact that she didn't do well in the last election. It wasn't an endorsement, if anything, the only endorsement that he made in kind of a soft way was towards Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. He had said that he thinks Gavin Newsom's been really nice to him personally, nice to his family and is a great communicator, but also stressed that we'd have to wait to see how he does on the national stage. Let's listen to Hunter Biden's assessment on Kamla Harris getting a second act. From an electoral standpoint, do you think she should get another chance? Oh, I think that she should get another chance if she wants to take another chance.

I think anybody that wants to throw their hat in the ring, and we'll see what happens. Like I said, though, there's that authenticity, I think, is the number one quality by what you will be judged in this cycle. Okay, well, okay, so I hadn't heard that yet. That's actually a really good answer. Of course, of course, throw your hat in a ring, see what you can do. And the people, look, if you believe in democracy, then you believe that the people are never wrong and you get the government you deserve. and if she can convince enough people, then they're not wrong, and we get the government we deserve. Lastly, what were your general impressions of him when the interview was done?

Just very nice. I mean, he complimented the interview. He said he's happy to come back any time, which I mean, a lot of people say that after interviews, but I think, you know, he's Hunter Biden. He didn't have to say those types of things by any stretch. So, and I think the, you know, sure fact that he took the 30 minutes he did to sit down with me. I was very happy about it and I thought it was a good interview. And I tried to, he's obviously been doing a ton of interviews. So I tried to ask him some things that perhaps he wasn't being asked in some of the more traditional interviews. When and where can people watch this episode of the Sharp Exchange? It is out now on YouTube.

Why is Sharp? Always great to talk to you, my friend. Congratulations. Likewise. Thanks so much. Ozone gives you a better way to play in Canada. Back to Five Practice. With so much experience to draw on, it's like having your own coach. Whatever your favorite game, we have your playbook. OZoon, well played. Discover free sports tips, casino games and poker guides at OZoon.net.