The Ben Mulroney Show - Doug Ford apologizes and Project Fare

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

-Brad Smith hosting. -Ben Mulroney on Project Fare Guests and Topics: -We're not Los Angeles yet, but it might be coming with Guest: Terry Glavin, Journalist and Author 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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFriills.ca. Hey everybody, this is the Ben Morooney Show, but I am not Ben Morooney, I'm Brad Smith. Wait, does this voice sound familiar? To those who do listen to the Ben Morooney Show, you're going to know me from the Dilemma Panel, you're going to know me from the Political Panel this week in politics, which is actually happening today at 1030. So I'm excited for that. I've been a guest on that, but now I'm moderating it. So one of the greatest things that I've heard when, when you're listening to 640 in Toronto here and the next thing you know,

you hear the bumper for what's coming up. I get to hear Ben Morooney, who I call the my radio godfather, does his promo for the show and says, my very good friend Brad Smith is coming to fill in for me and I said, oh my god I've made it! I got the Morooney seal of approval! But that was only because he had to endure two weeks of listening to me fill in for John Oakley at the 3 to six, which was my first foray pretty much into radio. I'd done a few Saturday shows. I, you know, all transparency. I worked 13 years on Canadian television.

I hosted breakfast television right after this reality show that I became infamous for for taking my shirt off and dating women on TV and getting married. We'll skip over that one. But I also played in the CFL, but I did. I didn't play in the CFL. Let's be honest. I sat on the bench. I rode the pine. If you read my stat line in the CFL, you'd be wondering how I ever ended up guest hosting

for the Ben Moroney show. But after 13 years in TV, you come into radio and I'll tell you this, if you're listening right now and you're like, Oh, TV and radio, like he must know what he's doing or sound like he knows what he's doing. But in actuality, radio is so much harder than TV. First of all, on TV, you know, somebody writes your intros, everything is on prompter as long as you can read, which funny little anecdote the first time I was ever on TV, I didn't realize that prompter reading skills was an actual thing that you had to have. I swear to God, the first time I was ever on TV, I didn't realize that prompt reading skills was an actual thing that you had to have. I swear to God, the first time that I sat on that breakfast television couch doing my

own segment, it looked like I had failed the entire Canadian scholastic school system. The industry had failed me because it looked like I couldn't even read it. But when I came into radio, what I realized was not only do you not, uh, you get, sorry, you get to be a freer version of yourself. You get to have less constraints. You know, I worked on food network for 10 years. I loved every single show that I ever did on food network. 10 years of being around some of the best chefs, the best people I've ever met, best sets I've ever been on. But you had to be the four chefs think they have what it takes to be the next chop with that voice. And I came into radio and I realized, oh, it's just such a freer version of

yourself. And I got to see that firsthand when I've known Ben since my first day in the industry, because we basically had the same job on competing companies. So you'd think you'd have a natural kind of apprehension towards each other. We found out that we're both movie nerds at heart and that's how we kind of bonded. But even seeing Ben and who he was with the success on you know, we'll go Canadian Idol, I watched that from every show that ever came out. And of course everyone watched E! Talk when it was in its heyday. And to get to see him do what he's doing now inspired me to be able to be like, okay, you know what, don't be TV Brad

Smith, be Brad Smith. So it's a little intro for wondering why I'm filling in on the Ben Mulroney show. Because what I will will say it's a familiar spot to be in because when I worked on Food Network I always got compared to I hope you know this name Jesse Palmer. Jesse Palmer a very famous Canadian kid was the first Canadian quarterback to start an NFL game I believe when he played for the New York Giants. But then he went on to be the bachelor. And then he went on to be on all these Food Network shows. So everyone compared me and called me the Canadian Jesse Palmer, which means you just make 10 times less and you're just not as good.

And now I'm filling in for Ben Mulrooney. We're both Quebec kids and that's probably where it stops. We're both from Montreal, but you want to hear about the lesser version of it's the best story ever. Well, Ben comes on, he goes on the number one entertainment show, and I'm just talking entertainment on TV. His dad's a prime minister. My dad's a senator. Nepotism in its finest, but mine's still a little retracted down. And then you just have Ben being Ben. He's got better hair than I do. And that was my thing. But now I sit in a seat, I'm so happy to be here with you. I'm so happy to be able to talk to you beautiful listeners

all day from nine to 12, because right now, what we're going through in Canada, even since the election, but specifically in the last seven days, as we've witnessed the G-S G7 summits and how that's transferred over into our daily lives of what's going on, the policies that are trying to be rammed down the parliament's throat before this summer break when a lot of us are sitting here being like, why aren't you working for summer? I know speaking to my father,

he was like, I hope that we get to work for summer because we've been promised a lot. And we were told, you know, we're going to work really hard to get this legislation done. We're going to work really hard. And then we're just going to take a quick three to four month break. But today on the show in this week in politics panel, we're going to talk about a lot of those issues, specifically Bill C-5, the Stronger Borders Act.

The one that you think, oh my God, of course we want strong borders. Why wouldn't we want strong borders? Yet the back end, I was talking to Greg Brady earlier on his show about it, we referred to some of the stuff at the end of the bill as almost like the Patriot Act after 9-11. It infringes on your privacy. So we're going to get to talk to Warren Kinsella, Chris Chapin, and Chris Day

about that, see what their take is on it, because this is the bill that they're trying to put in front of Parliament to get passed before the summer break, and some of the stuff is crazy. It's crazy. Some of the stuff is like having the ability to warrantlessly access your IP. For the Patriot Act, you had to worry about your phone being tapped. Who was listening to me? Who was listening to me? But guess what? Now we have to worry about, well, who's looking at my phone data? Who's looking at all the stuff I have in my search history? And then this transfers into the political situation that's happening in Ontario with Doug Ford. Obviously, Doug Ford came out and said some pretty outlandish comments about the First Nations community, referring to them essentially as beggars. He said hat in hand, but that's what that means in layman's terms. It means beggarsers and said that he treats them like gold.

And then he had to issue an apology and this was the apology. Well, you know, you know, you know, something called I sit back, I get passionate because I want to help people. That's what it is. And I speak from the heart and sometimes my words don't come out properly, which I think you've all seen over a number of years. But I'm never too shy to go up, stand in front of the cameras, stand in front of, there's about 30 chiefs in the room, 30, 40, somewhere around there, and say, you know,

my words that came out yesterday, this is what I'm trying to do, is prosperity. And I sincerely apologize if that has offended anyone. I've never been too proud to sit back and apologize for something that I've said or have offended someone. But at the end of the day, I want the communities to prosper. That's what I want. Listen, I know everybody has a strong take on Doug Ford. A lot of people were like, why didn't you back Pierre Poliev before the election? You helped Mark Carney win. And now you look like a little bit of a liberal side puppet, but he has come out

as being, you know, making some very conservative statements. This was not one of them. Being passionate about something doesn't mean you get to call people names, regardless of what you feel about the situation that goes on. Because there is two sides to this. A lot of people don't understand the historical context of what these treaties are between the First Nations and Canada. And most of us are being told on a large scale that the First Nations are the ones impeding the projects being built. And that's what they've been labeled as. But this apology, albeit needed,

it seems sincere when you looked at it. It did. It seems sincere. But that's what we're going to do. We're going to open up the call lines. 416-870-6400. Triple 8. 225-TALK. Now he did seem sincere, but do you believe that he had to say it? Do you believe that he wanted to say it? Or do you believe that that's what he really meant? Because being passionate about something is okay. But taking it back right away and kind of second-handedly going, yeah, well, he did seem sincere. He didn't wanna say that, but I do think Doug Ford is kind of pissed off about not getting all these projects moved through.

Again, Brad Smith filling in on the Ben Moroney show for Ben Moroni. That was redundant, but I'll go from there. Before we get into this Doug Ford thing, I do have to say one thing. At the end of the show yesterday, when Ben said, you know, I'm off for the weekend, but I'm going to leave you with Brad Smith. I hope you enjoy him. I laughed so hard because his next comment was, but not too much. Which I just loved because that's,

you know, very few people in this industry can you create great relationships with. Who else can call Ben Moroney nepotistic? Because I am one myself. But listen, we were talking about the Doug Ford situation. Obviously, he put his foot in his mouth when he said that the First Nations communities, they come hat in hand, we treat them like gold. And essentially that hat in hand comment meant that he was calling them beggars. He was called racist after, which I will clearly say that's not a racist comment. You're demeaning them by saying they're coming looking for handouts, but it wasn't defined by their race. So the racial word blows everything up to a huge situation and then Doug comes back very quickly and has his apology, which for me seems sincere.

But did he mean it or did he just have to save face? Did you think his apology was sincere? 416-870-6400. That's for each of us to decide. But how are we going to get through these debates or how are they not going to get derailed when acus and accusations and apologies get intertwined, get mixed up, the wires get crossed. And we don't know what we're actually saying, who we're offending. And we have to take back words right away. Like he should have apologized for saying that, but was his impetus to point out the fact that maybe there's an issue in

how we deal with the community that hasn't been brought to the attention? And first, I want to go to our resident stalker on the line who's followed me now from Saturday shows to the John Oakley show. And now Rob, the angry electrician is on the Ben Moroney show with Brad Smith. Rob, how's it going? How's it going, Brad? What's up, buddy? Listen, man, I don't think Doug should have apologized. I know it's not going to be a popular going, Brad? What's up, buddy? Listen, man,

I don't think Doug should have apologized. I know it's not going to be a popular opinion with you on the radio now. Tell me, tell me. So let's change the narrative slightly. What if he'd said, if Quebec gets in the way of pipelines, they shouldn't come asking for more equalization payments from Alberta? Right, but he called them baggers, Rob. Like he said, hat in hand. He said hat in hand. That is an Oliver twist. Where's the money going to come from? When the Indigenous people come and say,

we want more money for clean water that Trudeau promised us, where's that money going to come from? Well, Robbie, here's the issue, right? If you're going to get in the way of the revenue generation that you want and need for your for your for your community. Right. But Rob, I got to stop you. This isn't an isolated situation with just the First

Nations. A lot of people get subsidies. They get a lot of subsidies. Yes, they do. But the issue is, is that the subsidy companies that are doing this, the large companies that get handouts, they have a functional track record of being able to turn their money into a profit system. Doesn't mean that they're making money. The issue that I think that is not being put to account for Canadians is that this system of what we're doing, this 200 billion dollars that has been given to the First Nations community since 2014, is the same thing as health care, same thing as an EV mandate, same thing as the Canada Post or a large station that we all know the name of, which is we throw money at problems

and yet we don't fundamentally figure out how to fix them. And without the infrastructure, without the infrastructure, the people can't succeed if you don't give them the tools and just the money. So Robbie, you can't just give people the money, man. You got to give them, you have to give them the opportunity and just the money. So, Robbie. You can't just give people the money, man. You got to give them, you have to give them the opportunity to generate that revenue on their own as well, right? So, you teach a man to fish and you feed himself for life. Robbie, Robbie, I agree with you here, but I got to get to Cam. Thank you, Robbie, for calling in. Cam, you're on the line. What's going on? Yeah, we haven't learned that even in the Premier's conference out in Alberta or

Saskatoon, wherever it was, you have to go through the hereditary chiefs. The hereditary chiefs control everything. They take it to the band chiefs. They make a decision. If the proposal will be right, if everything is protected with the land then we have a deal and that deal has gone through time after time I do think that Doug meant the apology but we didn't take a lesson from the pipeline out in BC which was a gas pipeline move it nine kilometers and you can build your pipeline or the pipeline and okay so nine kilometers right so Cam I just have to play

devil's advocate here. I'm not saying I believe this but when you have you know less than five percent of the population regardless of treaties right they do have to be included that's part of the agreement but when it is being perceived from the outside world that five percent of the population are getting in the way or the impediment to 95% of the population are getting in the way or the impediment to 95% of the population wanting things to get done. How do we make that more of an issue of how do we understand how these treaties actually work? Did we miss it in civics class?

Were we not taught properly? Because the message isn't getting through to a lot of people. Yes. Well, that's what the general public perceives. If you look at the question even this goes way back to the referendum the Crees were laughing when Canada had the referendum with Quebec okay and because the Cree said well you know what we're the largest landowners here in Quebec so the separatists will be a very small a

very small piece of Quebec. Then what are you going to do? You're surrounded. We had the example of the rail strait before, or not the rail strait, but the rail shutdown over the same pipeline where the hereditary chiefs flew from BC to Ontario to thank their brothers of what they did. If he gets it, they stood back and said no, we're not gonna do anything here No, I understand

Cam I understand there's tons of situations here and I have to thank you for your call before I let you go here There's tons of situations that have happened before right where the the logistics behind it were very simple The issue that I'm trying to understand here is how this continues to be an issue when the infrastructure that we need to put in place is critical, especially now in a time of crisis. And why are these discussions happening out in front of everybody? And why are they not being done and tabled together in the back room so that we can push these things forward?

Because the First Nations community are all saying we need to sit a seat at the table and yet essentially with the the treaty structure that we have in the constitution act of 1982 they do have a seat just not in the legislative process but they are the decision makers. I'm going to go right now to Anne Marie. Anne Marie what are you thinking? Good Brad. Or I should say Mr. Smith comes to grade eight class. Mr. Smith is my dad. You don't call me anything but Brad. I just want to say, man, you are the best supply teacher for this middle school. Hey, it's the guy that you love once a week and then he goes home and you forget about

him. No, no, no. Story of my life. Go ahead. We're glad you're here. I just, um, I just said to your producers that, um, you gotta keep the communication lines open. So you gotta accept his apology. I think it was fair. He was love him or hate him. He was buffoon at times and, um, he was great at Ford Fest, but at the same time, he's the man. He's not afraid to get in there and sure he shoots his mouth off, don't we all?

Well, he speaks like a normal everyman, and that sometimes comes back to bite you in the butt. Yeah, I'm not happy that he dropped our beloved Pierre and didn't get behind him and all of the other folks there at 648 but anyway I just want to say Brad you're the best stop it stop it I don't take compliments and Marie I appreciate you though thank you so much hey stop complimenting me thank you so much for the call and Marie gosh you're gonna realize that compliments do not do me justice I hate them they make what I criticism! Call in and tell me I'm an ass! That'll be better! But guess

what? Coming up after the break, the namesake of the show himself is coming back! Ben will be joining me to talk about this massive taxi scam that he was directly involved with. Stick with us, we'll be back! with. Stick with us, we'll be back. This is The Ben Moroney Show and I am Brad Smith filling in for Ben Moroney who ironically is waiting on hold while I describe the situation that he's come on, well two-fold he's come on to talk to me about. One, to make sure that I'm not burning down his studio. The second being to make sure that I'm not changing the lumbar support in his very uprighted chair. You can tell that Ben just has perfect posture.

But we've been talking about this all through, Greg Brady brought it up a few times. This taxi cab scam thing that was going on. This has become global news as the fact of the matter is, is you have arrests, 10 arrests being made for men who defrauded over $500,000, over half a million dollars of money from unsuspecting victims. What they were doing was the classic bait and switch.

It's happened to me before, you know, when you think that you're getting something, in this case, people thought they were getting their fare taken care of. And I will let the audio clip describe how the actual bait and switch worked. Unsuspecting victims were picked up and asked to pay for the ride using a credit or debit card. During the transaction, the suspects discreetly swapped the victim's card with a card that looked like theirs. The real card and their pin is then passed on to accomplices.

Yeah, I mean, it's almost like you're watching Sleight of Hand Magic and you don't even think that this can happen to you because the actions are so fast, they're planned out, they're prepared and it's orchestrated almost like these individuals were working at Cirque du Soleil and doing this for five months until it was perfect. Now, the man, the myth, the legend is on the line right now. Mr. Mulrooney, how are you? Good morning, my friend. I just got back from Montreal, which is why you're in that seat. And I do appreciate it. Thank you very much. I was with Warren Kinsella at a fireside chat for the Foundation for Genocide Education. It was a tremendous event.

And we'll talk about it on Monday on the Ben Mulroney Show. But in the meantime, what you just described, yes, it did happen to me, but didn't happen last week or two weeks ago. It happened well over a year ago, almost. Well, this has been happening for 11 months. Two years ago. Well, no, it happened to be two years ago, September. Really? Yeah. I was down on King Street. I was finishing

up dinner with my friend at the. This is how long ago it was. There was a wonderful Sousa Lee's restaurant. Lee was still it was still on King Street. So that and he's since moved slightly north of there, but that's how long ago it was. And you know, I had been noticing for a while that I always felt like an idiot when I was downtown and I would order an Uber. And while I was waiting the five or 10 minutes, even though it said it was going to be two minutes, 50 cabs passing.

Yeah. I'd watched 50 cabs. So I was like, I'm not going to be that guy tonight. I'm going to grab a cab. And I got into a cab. I got into something that looked exactly like a cab and the guy took me to my house. Now, was it the Ben, was it the ones that actually are the colored with the orange and green or was

it one of the just ones with the standard light on the top? No, you know what? I, I, I, I can't say for sure, but there was no, there was no doubt in my mind that stepping into an authentic cab and, and I got in the cab on a best-of-ride home and when I got home you know he parked right in front of my house and it was dark and I did exactly what was described there and I don't know if I pulled the card out of you know the replace card out of the out of the machine or if he handed it to me.

And then as I was walking into the house, I was taking a few steps up to the front door. I was trying to put the card back into my wallet before I got in. And I looked at it, it wasn't my card. I looked back, I was like, son of a bitch. And so I walked right into the house and I called the bank and they canceled the card. So no chance that there was any fraud on it.

However, I related that story to a friend of mine and he said, oh, that happened to me and I got binged for $3,000. Right. Well, cause how often are you putting your card back in your wallet and it's one of those second nature movements where you don't even look at it. And the police report says- Had I done that in the car, in the darkness of the car, I't even look at it. And the police report says...

Had I done that in the car, in the darkness of the car, I wouldn't have seen it. I was just doing it as I was taking my keys out of my pocket. It was just this thing, and the light was on right by the front door, and so I saw it as clear as day. But they made sure to give me a card that kinda looked like it.

I think it was my gold card, so it was a gold card or maybe it was a black card and it was a black card, but you know, they're, they're smart enough to have a selection there. How long before your friend realized that he was, he was getting rifted. He didn't, he didn't. It took, it took a few days. The bank called him, the bank, the bank called him and look, and what was really disappointing to me is this was the first time I said to myself, you know what, Uber's been screwing these guys. And after they were sent, I remember the motivation.

I was like, you know what, Uber's been screwing the taxis and I was happy about that in the beginning because I didn't think taxis were, I thought taxis were taking advantage of us and they weren't doing what we needed in terms of customer service. But then Uber, once they were successful in screwing the taxi cabs, then they started to screw the riders. And so I said,

you know, I'm going to give it back to them. And instead of taking an Uber, I'm going to take... You were trying to be benevolent. You were like, you know what? These guys have gotten a bad rep and I'm going to solve it right now. I was trying to even the playing field. But clearly, it made me think that this is one of the reasons that people have gone to rideshare because when you get into a rideshare you know the car you're supposed to be in is the car you're in. Do you know why I don't I don't I don't do that anymore because I used to go to the Blue Jays games I had season tickets one year. I don't know why I bought them Ben because I'm not a baseball fan I just was like you know

what I'm gonna support Toronto sport and you, they would line up outside the block and you would go and you would try to get in the back of the cab and every single person would say the same thing. Where are you going? And you're like, well, I'm pretty sure you can't ask me right off the bat before you even sit down. And then, and then when they would find out that it's only a five minute trip, they'd be like next and it would just keep happening. And so it would be better to wait for 15 minutes to get an Uber.

And now I know at least because I'm a dumb dumb Ben, I wouldn't have looked at my card. They would and I wouldn't have looked at my bank statement. I only looked at my card because of the circumstance. I could have been that guy. I could have been on the hook for God knows how much money. And so I got really really lucky. I didn't know whether after thinking about it for a while, was this a cab that they had borrowed from somebody so that they could pull off their nefarious games or was it a car that was made to look like a cab? So I was unaware of any of that. I certainly didn't know that it's been going on since then. Cause like I said, it's been at least 18 months.

Yeah. Well, the investigation says it's been ongoing for 11 months, so it's- The investigation has, but this scam is going on longer, I promise you that. These guys were so good that people didn't even know until it was too late. So $500,000 of stuff taken. I said, these guys are pros. When you do sleight of hand,

and just a quick little anecdote, Ben, in Montreal when I was growing up, it was during that age of you couldn't get or buy Xboxes or PlayStation and next thing you know there was all these guys on Craigslist and you can go buy them for cheaper and I actually had a friend that got one and showed me the box. I go they show you the box they put it down you get the cash you give them the cash you walk away and you three seconds later you're excited and you realize you just got a bag of

rocks even though you saw a fully functional Xbox in there, sleight of hand. They probably also had a really good way of... The box that you got, I wouldn't be surprised if it had all of the security on it. It was a switch bag. It was a switch bag. They put the bag down, I paid him, somebody else came and switched the bag. Didn't even know.

Well, there was a story a few months ago, I believe on global news about a guy who went to a guy's house through Facebook marketplace to buy a Rolex. And when the guy selling the Rolex looked elsewhere for like a split second, he swapped it. He swapped it with a fake. He knew what kind of Rolex he was buying. So he came with a fake and he was out, you know, well, Facebook marketplace in itself scares the ever living.

SHI, you know what, out of me, but yeah, yeah. Hey, let's, let's invite, let's invite. Yeah. Tell me your address. Yeah, sure. You seem good on Facebook. Yeah. And let's transact tens of thousands of dollars on blind trust. Yeah. Maybe, maybe let's not trust the validity of a Rolex, but Ben Maroney. Yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, my pleasure. All right, listen, I surveyed the studio before I left. I know where all the dings are. If I see anyone I get in there, I'll call on you out. Nothing will change, my good friend. Thank you so much for letting me be here today. No, I appreciate it, man. Thank you for coming on. Okay, bye-bye.