The Ben Mulroney Show - Former Privy Council clerk accuses the opposition of playing politics, not the government who shut down parliament

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Former Privy Council clerk accuses the opposition parties of playing politics for wanting to bring down the Government at first chance. What about the Government who prorogued parliament in the middle of a national crisis? If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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welcome to the bed mall Rooney show thank you so much for spending a part of your Monday with us I hope your post-superbowl hangover is going well and I want to thank you for listening across the chorus radio network from coast to coast to coast and you might be listening to us on podcast. Oh, so you might've found us on Amazon or on Spotify or Apple Music or Apple Podcast. Wherever you find us, we say thank you very much. Donald Trump, every time he opens his mouth, he has an impact on this country that's undeniable

and will be undeniable for the next four years. But our domestic house is in shambles. We've got a prorogued parliament. We've got a prime minister, eh, more or less in name only because his caucus support is being divided up, not so equally between Mark Carney, Christie Freeland and the also have beens, has beens. There's a former privy council member, and the also have beens, has beens.

There's a former Privy Council member, the clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, has said opposition leaders calling for parliament to resume need to retract the threat to immediately stab the government in the chest and force a six week election. That is such an abuse of democracy, I can't even believe that he had the gumption and the gall to say that. This government has been playing politics with our very nationhood as Donald Trump levies threats of economic chaos and annexation.

We've known it was happening and rather than do the responsible thing, our Prime Minister chose party over country, deferring what 77% of Canadians want, which is an election yesterday, so that his party could be better positioned to not get decimated in the election. Despite these looming and very real threats, we are now forced to endure the soap opera that is the Liberal Party leadership race, where they are casting aside every single thing that has made them, that has defined them as a party, that has destroyed us as a country. We don't believe in that anymore. Give us another chance. So we're subjected to these role reversals, to these come to Jesus moments that you may or may not believe, before finally being allowed to have an election, and suddenly it is on the opposition who've been calling for this election for over a year suddenly it's their fault that we are in this position

that the threat to immediately stab the government in the chest is not stab the government this is a minority government propped up by the NDP artificially for years, despite scandal after scandal and cost overrun after cost overrun and lie after lie. Despite that despite the fact that this, the people of this country went to the polls twice and said we do not trust this party with a majority mandate. We're going to give you a minority which means we can pull the plug at any point. They found a way to secure power and when the

polls didn't line up with what they wanted they held on, held on playing keep away with your vote for years and now we find ourselves in this incredibly uncomfortable and difficult position through the fault exclusively of the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP. And suddenly it's all of a sudden it's the Tories' fault that that's why Parliament hasn't been recalled because they may force an election, an election that we have been due for years. I'm sorry, that dog don't hunt.

Our industry minister, Francois Philippe Champagne, says Canada now needs a West East pipeline. Given the economic security challenges posed by U.S. President Donald Trump, let's listen. You know, the you know, the rules of the game have changed over the last few days. So you cannot be in the past. You need to look forward in the future. And that may need that. We need to be able to have transmission lines that could bring electricity East West. That may means that you need pipelines that would go East West. One thing that Canadian understand is resiliency. We cannot be dependent. We have these natural resources. We need to be able to export to markets.

And you know what? I think people understand better now the nexus between energy security, economic security, and I would even say national security. And in that context, that's what we need to be doing together. And I would say, you know, the worst we could do is to keep with the old rules, when the rules of the game have changed. And this is a different time. This is a different moment.

This is for us now to shape the future together. No, sir. No, sir. The rules have not changed. The rules have always been the same. Canada is more successful when we can sell our goods and our natural resources to more people. That has never changed.

What has changed is you've now realized as a party that you can't win on the policies that got you elected three elections in a row. That's changed. You now see it's politically expedient to change your political stripes. That's the only thing that's changed. Your values, you've shown us that you as a party do not have any deeply held values except

your deeply held belief that you deeply want to hold on to power. That's all that has changed. And let's not forget Justin Trudeau turned down Japan's desire to import Canada's LNG. And so what did Japan do? They turned around and got a deal with the US and is investing one trillion dollars in the US economy. Canada is poorer because of that. That's what happened. Those are the facts on the ground. And you're you're now suddenly realizing this? That because, oh the rules of the game have changed? No, no, no, no, oh, the rules of the game have changed.

No, no, no, no, no. The rules of the game have been exposed for all to see, but they haven't changed. And the fact that you've had your head in the sand, where you should have had, we should have been drilling in that sand, but no, no, no, your head has been in the sand, pushing your climate change agenda

at the expense of all other things. That's the fact on the ground. A trillion dollars going to the States where a big chunk of that could have come to Canada. And now today, when we don't have parliament sitting, now this is when you guys get to go in front of microphones and tell us, oh, everyone's waking up to this. No, no, no, sir.

No, your government, your party may be waking up to it, but a lot of us have been awake for a long time. Just go check the tapes, man. Pierre-Paul, the her majesty's loyal opposition has been banging this drum for years. And you've called them all manner of sin for raising the alarm. And now today, because it's politically expedient, you are singing from the same hymn book. Vashis Kapoulos on CTV asked Francois Philippe Champagne. What Justin Trudeau meant by saying that Trump is serious about annexing Canada?

Well, I would say Canada is a proud nation. Canadians are proud. And we will always stand up for Canada. Canada's sovereignty is not in question whatsoever. What we're going to do is to make sure that we engage with our U.S. partner and with mutual respect, making sure they understand the strategic nature of Canada. You know, I want to move from the friendly neighbor to the North to the strategic partner of choice that they have, and therefore we're going to stand strong. Again, you, Monsieur Ministre, you said nothing there. There's nothing, nothing we can hang our hat on.

Standing up for Canadians is a talking point that you use whenever you want to avoid a question in the House of Commons. Whenever somebody leveled a direct accusation of a failure by your party and your government, you would say you're standing up for Canadians. And I said on this show months ago, I don't want to hear that expression anymore. I certainly don't want to hear it in the era of looming tariff threats that can destroy our economy. Give us more.

We deserve more. We deserve to hear more from our government than you're standing up for Canadians. You're going to engage with our American partners. Great. What does that actually mean? I feel like I've taken crazy pills. This is the stuff that a kid who didn't do his homework says to his teacher, throwing out as many words as possible in the hopes of playing out the clock or boring them to death or having them turn their attention to another student. Word salad, word salad,

word salad, look somewhere else. Delivering for Canadians, engaging with our partners. Canadian sovereignty is never at issue. None of that actually means anything. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us and wanna thank you for listening wherever you're listening, either on the Chorus Radio Network

or perhaps you find us as a podcast each and every day. You can find us on Amazon, on Apple, and on Spotify. Just search up Ben Mulroney or The Ben Mulroney Show and enjoy us at your leisure. It feels like every day is five days when it comes to the amount of news that we are flooded with by Donald Trump. It's exhausting, sometimes exhilarating, most times frustrating. But it's nice to know that I am not the only one. Here's CNN's Caitlin Collins comparing the Donald Trump administration to the Biden administration. It is insane. And I think everyone is kind of like readjusting and re-remembering what it was like four years ago, pre four years ago.

I remember when Biden first took office in January, the New York Times wrote the story about how quiet the weekends were because for reporters, every weekend had just been like another, it was like a seven day work week. And now we're back to that basically where it's just essentially nonstop every day. You kind of wake up like not knowing what you're gonna be doing, what the schedule is. I was walking to get breakfast one day this week. I was like, okay, I'm gonna have a nice little breakfast

where I go to work. And halfway there, they're like, Trump's doing a press conference in an hour. And I physically ran back home so I could change and get ready. Yeah, she's not wrong. She's not wrong. And to that point,

Donald Trump obviously gave an interview with Bret Baer that aired before the Super Bowl. And then he was on his way to the Super Bowl where he spoke to people from Air Force One. Let's listen to what he said to Bret Baer, talking about craziness. What he said to Bret Baer about whether or not he believes, he truly believes

that Canada should become the 51st state. Now the Prime Minister said this weekend to a group of Canadian businessmen, he was a private meeting. He said that your wish for Canada to be the 51st state is a quote, real thing. Is it a real thing? Yeah, it is. I think Canada would be much better off being a 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada, and I'm not going to let that happen.

It's too much. Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially in subsidy to Canada? Now, if they're a 51st state, I don't mind doing it. I mean, I always say we've got to take the world as it is and not as we want it to be. And so we got to take him at his word, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept

that what he's saying is real. He's got smart people around him. He's got smart people around him probably telling him, it's never gonna happen, sir. It'll never happen. Canada will cease to exist long before, like this country would fall apart because Quebec would leave and Alberta would leave

and Saskatchewan would leave long before we ever became the 51st state. And just how exactly would that work, Mr. President? We have 10 provinces for a reason. We've got 10 provinces because we've got 10 completely different ways of doing things in this country. We got two national languages. We've got a we've got a I don't even want to get into it, because it's ludicrous on its face. But if it's what he believes and we have to deal with him as such, he did continue talking about something that is a bone of contention for a lot of people in Canada. Let's listen to this about Canada's military commitments. You know, they don't pay very much for military. And the reason

they don't pay much is they assume that we're going to protect them. That's not an assumption commitments. It would be a cherished state. And think of how beautiful that country would be without that artificial line running right through it. Somebody drew it many years ago with a ruler, just a line. You look at how beautiful that is, wow. It would be very exciting. But if you look at Canada, it would be cherished as a 51st state. They don't pay their share of military in NATO. They pay very little for military.

They're not protected at all. And the reason is they think we're gonna protect them. All right, well, park that last part about Canada and the 51st state. That's, we've already talked about that. Instead, let's talk about Canada's commitment to our military. It has been shameful.

It has been shameful. And we've had this talking out of both sides of our mouth, sort of syndrome in Canada, where we shirk our responsibilities on in terms of the military, and then we dress down those who we rely on to essentially provide us with continental defense. It's it's a fact there that the same the same people who have decided that they do not want to invest in our country's military are the same people who have decided that they do not want to invest in our country's military are the same people who look down their nose at the Americans. It's a really, it's a sad part of the Canadian character. And people like myself been calling it out for years. Pierre Poliev was most

very recently in the Canada's Arctic talking about what a Canadian, what a conservative government would mean for Arctic defense and Arctic sovereignty. And he is, he is putting meat on the bone on in things that should be very appealing to Donald Trump. And, and it should be very appealing to a lot of Canadians because for the he is he is giving us far more policy ideas than anybody else. And we're not even in an election campaign right now. But Donald Trump, Donald Trump is, a lot of people believe is these are all moves

so that he can either renegotiate or cancel NAFTA 2.0. And, you know, this, he's starting with the steel tariffs that are coming into effect today, those are gonna be very hard on the people of Hamilton. And John Stewart asked a very good question. Who made this terrible deal that he keeps railing against? You know, that's caused this $200 billion in subsidies.

Who made this terrible deal with Canada anyway? He did explain today why we're going after Canada. I mean, I look at some of the deals made, I say, who the hell made these deals so bad? So bad. The trade deals with Canada, they're so bad. He's just looking and saying, who made these? Ladies and gentlemen. Don't get ahead of me.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your dining and dancing Peugeot, come with me into the way back machine to 2018. I give you the culprit of the terrible deal with Canada. This morning, President Trump signed a new trade deal to replace NAFTA with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. The best trade deal they say ever made. Oh, a deal done by Trump's greatest nemesis, Trump. Yeah, he's he's not wrong.

This is the man that we are going to be negotiating with for the next four years. Something is true until he says something else and then he forgets what he said before. It's not a judgment call. I would prefer he be consistent, but he's not. So he's not going to be consistent. He's gonna be exactly who he is. And it's frustrating and it's annoying,

but God, wouldn't it be nice if we had a government with a mandate to negotiate with them instead of what we have, which is a clown car on fire, run, being driven by drunk clowns. And not to suggest that our leaders are drunk, it's more of an image that I'm going for. But one of the reactions to all this Trump stuff and 51st state stuff is a rise in Canadian patriotism.

What does that actually mean? Well, we've been seeing it at sporting events for a few weeks now, the booing of the American national anthem. And the first time we heard it, it was like, oh my God, things have changed. Now I went on record last week saying I would never boo the national American national anthem

because as far as I'm concerned, that is not a demonstration of Canadian pride. You're upset with the orange man who doesn't like us but nothing about our country structurally or historically or institutionally has changed since Donald Trump levied those threats and accusations. Nothing. We're the same country with the same history and the same people we should either be as proud of it today as we were yesterday and just as proud tomorrow. And I do not exhibit my pride by booing the national anthem. But here's what happened at a Raptors game. Would you please welcome 15 year old Kyra Daniels.

Alright, stop right there. Thank you. We don't need to hear anymore. She's a 15 year old black girl in a wheelchair. You can see her face. You know, she's 15. There's a highlight of her life and you were booing her. That is not Canadian pride. That is that is the exact opposite. First of all, all it is is anger at at an external force. And that is not by definition Canadian pride. And whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves. Because I tell you, as a Canadian, that shames me. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious.

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