The Ben Mulroney Show - Did a sitting judge just rip the Canadian judiciary?

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

  Guest: Dr. Eric Kam, Economics Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University - GUEST: Emmanuelle B. Faubert, economist at the MEI (montreal economic institute)  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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All right, I can see this fact that when I sit in this chair behind this microphone and I give an indictment of issues that I have with the criminal justice system as I see it, You would be sitting at home and you'd say, yeah, of course you are, Ben. Of course you would say that. But you don't know what you're talking about. You're just one man. Fair enough. I'll give you that.

Like water down my opinion as much as you want. You're absolutely entitled to that. But when a sitting judge issues in his own words, in his own learned words, a very similar indictment as well as a warning as to what could happen if we stay on the path we're on, I would submit to you that those words should carry more weight. And that's exactly what happened as chronicled in the National Post. There's an Ontario judge who spoke out against the way the justice system treats foreign-born offenders. And that's key, by the way. This guy's guilty. Like he's not accused.

These aren't rumors or allegations or he said, she said. The court has rendered their judgment and they've judge this man guilty of the crime of which he was accused. And so the National Post was recounting essentially his judgment in this case. And the case, like, let me tell you. Intrepid and I, we talk a lot about the show, about what we want to see on the show and how we want to approach things. And every now and then there's an article that just grabs us. There's a story that is like, did you read that part? Did you see that?

And then that takes us on all these tangents. This one can go in so many different directions, but they all bend towards, in my opinion, the same conclusion. We are not on a good path as it relates to our criminal justice system. Would you agree intrepid? Yeah. Okay. Sadly, we're hearing, we spend too much time, and I hate putting the stories in.

I avoid putting some stories in because otherwise we'd be doing it every day. Every day. We predicted that. We predicted that a few months ago. We predicted and we also said this and this is relevant. You know, we spoke about the speed with which these problems have to be addressed. And the liberal government, in my opinion, has been dragging their heels. Like they've got their changes to the criminal code that still haven't been turned past into law. And I said, while we wait, justice will be denied to a number of things. victims. And sadly, someone's going to die. And I don't put that on the, I don't put that on the shoulders of our legislators, but it's justice denied or justice delayed is justice denied. And so here's the story. A Nigerian international student, his name's Boss Omira. He was involved in a relationship with a Canadian citizen, a law abiding Canadian citizen. And because of the world we're living in. It's important to note. She's a woman, right? He had some compromising videos that they made when they were intimate. And then he threatened to post them. And give me,

and this is the, is the, give me 50 bucks or I'm going to post them and ruin your life. She begged him. She begged him, she begged him not to. She gave him the 50 bucks. He posted them. And the back and forth with them, he, he's a, he's a terrible, terrible. person who was relishing the pain. He was relishing and watching her squirm and watching her life crumble. And he was deliberate in it. And he was mean-spirited. There is a rot in this person who who derived. He's a misanthrope. He derived joy in the pain of others. He said he would decimate her life and decimate her life he did. That's a crazy thing to say to someone. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to decimate your life?

And yeah, and an international student. And so all he kept, so then he's arrested, right? And he's told, he's out on bail and he's told, you can't contact her. He contacts her over and over and over again, violating his bail. And so let's dive into his background a little bit. Came to Ghana from Nigeria in 1914, 1914, 2014, studied chemical engineering at Waterloo. And you think, oh, there you go. he's on a rocket ship to success.

Nope, no. He, and the judge said, what serious student takes nine years to obtain a four year degree? Well, this guy does because in his defense, we were told

that he had mental health issues and he was, oh yeah, he was busy decimating a woman's life. I mean, that takes time. And meanwhile, he's not here legally anymore, but he has, started an online ministry

to evangelize and mentor youth. I'm going to say this with the deepest respect. You better not come anywhere near my kids. I don't need you mentoring my kids or evangelizing to my kids. His visa expired in 2023. So,

but he shouldn't have been here. This guy is not Canadian material. You said it to me once intrepid. He said, people have forgotten that we're not running a charity here. The point of Canadian immigration,

this might sound callous, but you've got to think about it, stay with me, is to help Canada. We go out there and we find the best. What are the holes in our economy? Who do we need? Let's go talk to them. Let's attract them. Let's bring them over. And together we can all build Canada. And the success of the immigrant

comes from being in a country that is built for success. And you're a part of that success, immigrant. But for some reason, we seem to think we're not running sort of a blue chip company, country. We are running a charity. And so many times in these court cases,

when immigrants or illegal immigrants or anyone who is not here that maybe at one point was allowed to be here, any time their immigration status, it's almost automatic now, could be used against them, it's turned into an advantage. It's turned into an advantage. In his decision, the judge blasted this growing trend of lighter sentences for non-citizens. Why?

To help them avoid deportation. I mean, we've lost the plot. We've lost the plot. And here's where he starts speaking my language. Here's where he starts saying things that we on this show have been saying for a long time. He says this creates a two-tier justice system where immigration status becomes a shield. It becomes like a superpower.

It becomes of benefit to shield you against consequences. And he says two-tier justice system. And that's important. When you think of the imagery of justice, you think lady justice. What are the two things about lady justice? She's wearing a blindfold and she's holding a scale. In other words, we are equal before the law

and there's balance in the law. In Canada, based on all the stories we've ever talked about, and this one in particular, she is most certainly not blind. In fact, we're telling her, pay attention to what this person looks like. Pay attention to their cultural background. If you don't, you're racist and perpetrating

white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, cultural genocide, you name it. That's what we have told Lady Justice that she should be focusing on. And the scales of justice, well, forget about that with the Glad You principles, with these analysis of impact of race on the criminal. No, no, we're sticking our thumb on that thing to make sure that if a white guy and a guy from a First Nation commit the exact same crime, the white guy is going to be in prison a lot longer.

Why? Because the other guy had a worse life. prove it, systemic racism. And what's lost in, and here's where the balance matters, you're supposed to ask yourself, and what about the victim? If the white guy rapes a woman, she's raped.

If a guy from First Nation rapes a woman, she's raped too. But that rape victim is denied justice or gets less justice because we're told that because that guy had a worse life, he gets less time in prison. So you're essentially,

and you're essentially saying that a woman, a woman from a First Nation, who was raped by a First Nation guy, she will be denied justice. This is where we are. And what did you say intrepid? I'll never forget it now. A nation that doesn't believe in its laws,

in the sanctity and the belief in the criminal justice system is is eating itself from the inside. It's doomed to failure. Doom to failure. We can reverse course, but we have to listen to learned judges like this. We have to.

This is fundamental to our nation for our survival as a country. We see the iceberg. Are we going to turn in time? Only time will tell. I am going to start this segment in a very similar fashion to the way I started the show.

I'm going to say this. You may believe that When I criticize aspects of our country and the decisions that have let us down what I consider a negative path, you say to yourself, of course you would say that, Ben, you're a conservative. And I grant you that. Again, I'll say, you know, put, dilute my opinion as much as you want, you're entitled to it. But when RBC reports that more than $1 trillion of investment exited Canada, a trillion dollars. Between 2015 and 2024, so one of Canada's big banks, one of the banks that helped us build this country, is saying that a trillion dollars exited between 2015 and 2024, calling it one of the largest capital outflows in Canadian.

History, I think you have to pay attention. And so let's talk with Dr. Eric Cam, economics professor at TMU, who I'm sure drilled down into this report with greater detail than most. Welcome to the show, my friend. This is not something I'm sure you were surprised to read. No, I'm not surprised to read it. And I have to tell you, this has nothing to do with being a conservative or a liberal or anything in between. This just has to do with understanding the difference between what data says and being an idiot and trying to rationalize it away as anything else. And this says one thing, right?

This says that business does not want to. live in Canada. And this is not just about fewer businesses. This is what I would call a structural weakening of the Canadian growth engine. And so with all of these companies leaving, for lots of different reasons, by the way, summer labor costs, summer tax related, there's lots of different reasons. But when you put it all together, any way you strike it, it means less innovation, less competition, less productivity, slower income growth. So some may call this an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial drought or some such. But the reality is this is speaking to the long-term health of the Canadian economy,

and far too much of it is going out the door for greener pastures, and nobody seems to care about making our pastures a little more green. Yeah, look, in the previous segments, we were talking about the issues with the justice system when a certain type of activist says, we want a particular outcome. I have to talk to it before. we want to make sure that certain cultural groups are not overrepresented in the judicial system. And so we are going to, we are going to mandate that they are treated differently in sentencing, that sort of thing. Problem with that is when you're mandating outcomes, there are unintended consequences that you have not planned for.

And it feels to me that a lot of decisions were made in Ottawa and I'm sure other levels of government over the course of a decade where they said, we're going to do this thing because it feels good. And it helps one group or another without asking themselves, what is the consequence of that action? And it feels like what we're reading here is the consequence of many of those actions that in the moment probably felt really good to make, but now we're dealing with the hangover. And you know, it's funny, this is really, and not to preach here,

but this is why I find economics to be kind of interesting and more interesting in an age of what we call kind of wokeism. because I hear lots of emotional arguments, but when I look at the neoclassical profit function, it has no time and no use for people's emotions. It's factual. It says you have to have output minus costs. And unfortunately today, output is going down,

costs are going up, which only drives the profit function in one direction. And that signal, of course, Ben, the signal of that is to tell entrepreneurs that this is not the place. to continue or start your company. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because, you know, there may be somebody who wants to defend the last 10 years and say,

look, yeah, sure, that's a big black eye. But it's just one bad indicator. When then enter CFIB, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, their entire job is to advocate for small and medium-sized businesses across this country. And if any of you are wondering what I feel about small and medium-sized business, I go back to the words that my dad or my dad drummed into my head every single, Not every day, but every time the topic came up, small and medium-sized businesses are the engine of the Canadian economy. And even in this world that we're living in, Doc, where government GDP is way too big as a function of the larger national GDP.

If I'm not mistaken, the GDP is by the private economy, still the lion's share of our GDP. And Canada is losing businesses faster than it can create new ones. That is according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. So less money is coming into the country. And the people who are supposed to be generating the GDP and generating the jobs, we're losing those businesses faster than we can create them. And so the logical conclusion is the job market's going to take a massive hit. We know it already is because these small and new businesses that your father,

may he rest in peace, was talking about, are the major job creators. So fewer startups means fewer startups, means fewer opportunities and weaker wage growth. And maybe even most concerning is that this becomes a cycle, Ben. If entrepreneurs see high cost, heavy regulation, too much uncertainty, they simply stop trying. And that just makes the drought even worse and even pushes it into what I call a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think it's bad, it makes it worse.

Can we stay on this for a second? I mean, as somebody who has studied the past, so you can warn against the future, At what point is, I mean, is anything irreversible? No, nothing is irreversible. In fact, you know, it says nothing is a dead issue, Ben, until the situation is dead. Yeah. And it's not. The Canadian economy, you know, if you were looking for a house, you would say the Canadian economy has decent bones.

Yeah. It really does, right? There are a lot of things that Canadians can stand up and say, we have a large labor force. We have lots of natural gas, lots of LNG, lots of things that live under the ground that we can use to produce economic consequences. There are a lot of things that Canada could do to relieve the belt of the economic consequences. The problem is you have to have the will to do it. I mean, it's not like Canada got stupid in a day, right? And I really do stress that.

It's not like we forgot how to run a capital. capitalist economy. We've been running one for a very long time. It's that you've got to have the political will to fuel the engine that is our economy. And for some reason, for about a decade, the power in Ottawa has decided to choke off that fuel supply. It's not rocket science. If you don't give it fuel, it stalls. I don't like to oversimplify things, but there's value in finding the simplest way to explain something. And I remember under Justin Trudeau, like at at peak anti-trudeau sentiment, people are saying the damage that he has wrought to our economy over the past 10 years is going to take at least 30 years to undo.

And is it as simple for people to understand as it's a lot easier to, it's a lot quicker to burn down the house than is to build one? Well, it's an awful lot quicker to burn it down. I mean, because economics isn't, we always say, it's not a physics laboratory, Ben. Even if tomorrow, even if tomorrow we did everything perfect to kick a, start the economy. Yeah, it would take years for it to come back. And some of the losses, sadly,

we'll never get back. But is it, is it, like, let's say we start doing everything right tomorrow. Let's say Mark Carney, rather than, I don't know, trying to have his cake and eat it too, not recognize that the last 10 years were god-awful and he did have a hand in that as an economic

advisor and therefore he's going to change everything. And rather do things incrementally, he was going to do everything right to turn everything on. is how long would it take for us to get back to a place where we are leading the G7, which we were promised, by the way. Probably a decade to 10 to 15 years, to be honest, because nothing moves quickly in economics.

And I think what you're actually, I think I like what you're doing, because you're kind of being very politically correct. But I think what you're saying is, and I like it, is that Trudeau never made any allowances. He was blunt, he was bold, he was right in your face, to tell you he knew nothing about economics and how monetary and fiscal policy worked. So it's really no shock that he put the economy in the toilet. I'm more concerned with someone that has a doctorate in economics who says, I know what I'm doing,

who is making matters worse. That actually scares me more. Yeah, and just, I mean, the irony that these two indicators are front and center in the news, and just yesterday, he was touting his, he was touting his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, he in economics. I was like, I know you're the smartest guy in the room. Now just take that superpower and help us. That's not in dispute for me. But anyway, maybe the second smartest in the room with Dr. Eric Cam. Thank you very much for being here, my friend. Stay healthy, Ben. All right. When we come back, more good news in this hour. Is Canada becoming a second-class

citizen in health care when it comes to the technology that we can leverage to make people's lives better? That's next right here on the Ben Mulerney show. You know, I just asked Google to give me a list of Canadian medical firsts, scientific and medical and technological advances that made the lives of people suffering of medical ailments better. Insulin, obviously, is a real point of pride for Canadians. The artificial pacemaker, stem cell research, the Ebola vaccine, HIV treatment. The child's safety cap is one. Neural stem cells, liver bowel transplant,

A hospital, a stone's throw from here, was responsible for the first double lung transplant in world history. We are capable of advancing medical technology in ways that the world can leverage and take advantage. There is no reason why Canada should not have access to the greatest technology in the world because we've contributed to that great technology over the years. Well, now we're learning, thanks to the Montreal Economic Institute, that Canadian patients wait too long to benefit from medical innovation and new technologies. Please welcome to the show Emmanuel Foubert, economist at the M.E.I. Emmanuel, welcome. Thank you for having me.

I mean, we've got so many indicators that healthcare is a top priority for Canadians. We see it in polls. We see it in provincial budgets. We see it in transfer payments to the province. from the feds. We care about it so much that we spend, I think, too much money and not optimally on health care. And I say not optimally because your study shows us that Canada, for example, is the only G7 country without, well, you'll have to tell me what proton beam therapy is, but we don't have it. Exactly. So what we see is, as you said earlier,

Canada is very good when it comes to research and innovation itself. We're good at that's finding new ways to treat patients, the issue is not there necessarily. The issue is when it comes to implementing new technologies and deploying them countrywide. And what we see is that you have patients who are unable to benefit from those medical innovations, and that includes proton beam therapy. So what is proton beam therapy? Because I'd never heard of it before we started doing some research for this conversation. Yeah, so proton beam therapy.

therapy is a type of radiotherapy that is used to treat some types of cancers, specifically for tumors that are very hard to remove and to treat. And the thing with proton beam therapy is that this type of radiology, it doesn't really have any other substitutes. So when it comes to a point where a patient need that type of therapy, other therapies won't cut it. So since we don't have a single clinic that offers proton beam therapy, the country, we're obligated to send these patients overseas, whether that is in the U.S.,

where they have 40 centers that offers proton beam therapy. Okay, but let me stop you for a second, and let's just, I'll ask the question that I know is on the minds of a lot of people who may be dubious, who may be cynical, would that, if I said, well, proton beam therapy might be, it might not be mature enough. like the we have to wait for it to be a proven technology

is proton beam therapy a proven technology definitely just to give you a bit of a historical over you the first form of proton beam therapy

so let's say the grandfather of the modern proton beam therapy was first used in 1954 and it was approved by Health Canada

the modern one was approved by Health Canada in 2015 so it has been proven 11 years ago Exactly. And actually, there was supposed to be a clinic in Quebec that was announced in 2018, but it was supposed to be a public-private partnership. But due to a political party change, government change, and also due to opposition from people who wanted this clinic to be entirely in the public system, this project was abandoned.

And so far, eight years later, we still do not have a clinic in the country. Okay, and we'll talk about one more of these examples before we pivot over to why this is happening, because once we understand the why, then maybe solutions will become self-evident. Da Vinci's surgical robots, I've been hearing about these robots that are supposed to help with precision cutting and helping doctors do things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do. It feels like I've been reading about these for a decade. Definitely. These are not very new. I mean, the sense that we've been here for a while, but they've been getting better and better.

And what we see is that in Canada, we do have some of them. And we talk about the Da Vinci robotic surgery systems because it is the most known producer of these systems globally. And most of the systems are made by Da Vinci. So when you look at Canada compared to other countries in Canada, only 39 centers hospitals have. Yeah, and someone would say, well, 39 is not bad, but then you look at the states and they have over 2,000. So it's- 2,000 centers. And in terms of units, they have over 5,500.

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so those are two examples. Those are two examples of which I'm sure there are many, many more. Oh, definitely. Have we been able to identify the root cause of why we are so slow to adopt this technology? Is it budgeting? Is it political? Is it bureaucracy? Is it insurance? What is? All of the above. So essentially, the thing is, it's a major obstacle is the incentive structure of bureaucracy.

Let's, let's be real. What do you mean by that? In Canada, is very centralized, very bureaucratic, and the decision makers are very risk-averse. If you put yourself in the shoes of a decision-maker, there's a new technology. And then you have two choices. Adopt the technology at high risk, political risk for you because it's expensive. You might criticize for it. And if there's some issues, it's going to fall on you.

So the risks are high, short term for you, the decision maker. But the benefits for the decision maker are little to none. There's little recognition for adopting new technologies. And the benefits are actually for the patients who get the, advantageous from this technology, but it's spread out because it's many patients over the years. Yeah, but those metrics, those metrics, Emmanuelel, are the ones we're talking about now. You know, sure, it's many of them over, over years, but eventually those numbers compound, and you're able to draw a conclusion based on sort of the disappointing, the disappointing numbers,

like we just said, 39 Canadian hospitals versus 2,000 in the United States. That decision has to be owned by those administrators who decide to play it safe, no? I agree with you, but there is political risk for them. So that's the first roadblock that can happen. I want to spend just one more second on this. The fact that we are talking about the notion of political risk in something as important as the delivery of the best possible health care for all Canadians, to me is evidence of the problem. Exactly.

It is a big problem, the fact that, well, in a way, it makes sense because the decision makers are human and like everybody else, we are driven by self-interest at least to some degree. And it makes sense in their shoes, even though it's not right. It makes sense that they would choose it that way. That's the way the incentive structure is made. Okay, so tell us about this. You said another factor. I think we probably have time for one more factor.

Another factor is simply at the hospital level, because let's be real. We have in Canada, most of the funding comes from global budgets, which are based on historical needs. And most of the funding comes from the government and is dedicated to providing direct care. And every patient that comes through the door of a hospital is a new expense. And so investing in new technologies is cost. for hospitals and is often simply not even doable because it's not worth it financially. Yeah. Well, Emmanuel Foubert, it's a heck of another brick in the wall, which is a mural that people should be able to see from a mile away that says, we're in crisis here and we need

to fix it. If people want to drill down into this report, where can they find it? They can find it on our website, so www. IEDM.org Emmanuel Foubert, thank you. A la proxen. A la proxen, thank you. Firefighters rest their lives every single day. Friday's on Global.

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