The Ben Mulroney Show - Fraud in Minnesota/Stranger Things/Online Betting warning

Episode Date: January 2, 2026

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by giving your team a tax research tool they'll actually want to use. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ, AI for tax experts. Well, hey there, everybody. Hi, I'm your host, Ben Mulruni. I've been gone, but I'm back. I'm back. It's been a great, a great little reset to end the year.

Happy New Year to each and every one of you listening. I'm one of these people who says, I think I should say it until Monday. I said to say happy New Year until Monday, right? We'll finish saying Happy New Year. Well, I figure we've got people listening right now, but there's some people on vacation. They're going to come back on money. It'll be their first day, really back in the city, back in the groove. And we will say Happy New Year until Monday.

I was planning on saying it to you every morning and to see how long it took for you to say, stop saying it. No, no. You shouldn't say it to me anymore because you've said it. But I believe that there are people who are listening and watching who will listen and watch for the first time on Monday. I would like to wish them a happy new year. There are people who just are listening now. We were on for an hour in Toronto. And now we're starting our national portion of the Ben Mulroney show.

New listeners, new viewers. Happy New Year to them. I think it's sort of what we've got to do. But beyond Monday, I think then that just annoys people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you haven't gotten the point by the fifth, you're never going to get it.

Then again, Christmas shopping starts in early November. All right, well, listen, one of the stories we want to talk about this morning is how weird it's getting in Minnesota. Right, there was a story that happened while I was on vacation, while all of us were on vacation, but some of us were on beaches and stuff like that. We want to sort of bring some of you up to speed.

Now, I'm still getting up to speed on some of it because it's a big, big story. And we're talking about, you know, the story that really got amplified by YouTuber Nick Shirley. He's a young. He's a 23-year-old citizen journalist, if you will. And the video that he put out about alleged fraud in the daycare space run by the Somali community of Minnesota has been viewed well over 100 million times at this point. and he exposed allegedly exposed daycares because we don't know whether it's real fraud

but he exposed what he says were daycares that received millions in taxpayer funds where there are no children there and this became all sorts of other stuff then people are alleging that there are Somali frauds in the medical space

where they set up medical medical practices to diagnose to falsely diagnose their children with diseases or illnesses that could then get them additional funds from the government. This story was huge online.

You were down in Florida. How big was it? It's the biggest story in America right now. Because Minnesota's nowhere close to Florida, but... Because it's taking on all sorts of different aspects which we're going to jump into now. But the FBI took note. They started rating offices. Legacy media started covering this. It wasn't really being covered.

before but did the question is did this shirley guy really break this story open the answer is no right there were already prior to this dozens of active investigations minnesota's child assistance oversight unit reported about 62 open investigations um they're federally funded child care providing there's suspected fraud since last year as a matter of fact authorities also stopped payments to 79 providers suspected of improper billing since 2021 so this is nothing new right but What's new is how he went about it. It's how he went about it. And look, a lot of things can be true at the same time.

What's his name? Nick Shirley might know nothing about how to put together a journal, like a story with journalistic integrity, right? And you're a journalist. So you would know there might be, he might not have sourced his, like he might not have properly sourced things. He might not have gone about things properly. He might not have identified himself

in the way that a journalist might identify themselves. All that could be true. But what can also be true at the same time is he brought attention to a story that needed attention. Yeah. Right? And he may have uncovered some fraud.

That doesn't mean everything that he looked at was fraud. All of this can be true at the same time. But people are really digging in their heels. And if you're on the right, there are a lot of people who's like the whole thing's got to go and everybody's corrupt and on the left you're it's like oh well we next really got one thing wrong and therefore it's proof that everything he did was politically motivated or racially motivated both of those to me are unhelpful right both of those are unhelpful tones to set in this conversation because this is a con this is

only the beginning of a long conversation that they're going to be having in the united states he found some interesting things right despite not probably not not being the most optimal of journalists. I think that's fair to say. He uncovered some stuff. He found one center with no kids. And it's a learning center and they misspelled learning on the sign. Now, is that an example of fraud?

No, not necessarily, but does it make you wonder? Yeah, it does. It does. And the fallout is, was easy. The next day, the sign was changed. It was fixed. It was fixed the next day. and kids were visibly being bused to the center.

And they made sure that the people made sure that this was caught on camera, right? Like they were visibly being bust. Okay, so it's a daycare, right? The owner claimed that his operating hours were 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Okay? He said, no, we were more after school. We're more after school. Two to 10 p.m.

And then when parents were asked, and they're all part of the same community, they all parroted back almost the exact same lines. So there you go. Is it logical to leap that maybe there was a script that was being handed out? Kind of feels like there might have been. And remember, the FBI are starting to take a closer look into a lot of these places. Yeah. So, and these places know they're coming.

Yeah. Oh, so they know they're coming there. Yes. There's another daycare. Thank you for saying that, because the owner of the daycare goes out and he says, our daycare last night, we were broken into. Now, this is where they say the vandals got into the daycare through cinder block and appeared to be unsuccessful when trying many other ways.

The daycare says it appears the vandals first tried to saw into the door of the family dollar next door in the shopping center, but that didn't work. The manager claims those who broke in when straight to the office... Okay, yes, okay, because here's the thing. Like, when I, when I first heard that this daycare was broken into, I was like, you know what, this is, this is a proof of like the negative knock on effect that maybe they were targeted, right? They were unfairly targeted by vandals who were upset at perceived fraud. But then when you ask the question, well, what did they steal? What did these vandals steal from the daycare?

Maybe your opinion changes. Unfortunately, we saw that there was important documentation, enrollment of the children, and also employee documentation that was gone. There were also checkbooks that were ripped from our check papers that were ripped from our book. This is devastating news, and we don't know why this is targeting our Somali community as one video made by a specific individual made this all happen. Wow. I mean, the fact that the fact that the vandals came in and didn't steal computers or TVs or an audio system, but instead, instead stole the very things that law enforcement officers would be after were you to be under investigation. I don't know what you call that. I'm not, I don't know if you can connect one to the other. Some might call it lucky. Some might call it lucky. Some might call it. a little lucky. But there you go.

They stole our checkbooks. They stole our checkbooks, yes. Writing checks about, you know. And look, like, I think you lose the argument. I think you lose the argument immediately. When you look at what Nick Shirley did and say, racist hates the Somali community, racist, because you're not engaging with the meat of the argument. In fact, you're sidestepping it completely, which begs the question.

Why? why aren't you engaging with what he's written? Why aren't you engaging with the fact that, yes, he did in fact go to a bunch of places and there were no kids there. Federal funds going to those places and there are no kids there. And so when Tim Wall says he's a racist,

when the mayor of Minneapolis says he's a racist, I ask, why aren't you engaging with what he did? And what do you have to hide? And what do you have to hide? If you're not engaging with the actual crux of the argument, what do you have to hide? And then when you hear, okay, this is my favorite part. Remember we said

off the top that this is the Minnesota story is getting weird? This is one of the weirdest parts that

I'll play it quick Okay Oh yes In a show of support for the Somali community The National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration deployed their Rapid Response Choir The world can give it to me The world didn't give it The world can take it

away Yeah, we're just going to leave that there. The choir, the rapid response choir was brought in to make amends. The rapid response choir of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All right, much more to talk about. This is a story that will ever evolve and we'll be on top of it. Up next, how strange are things managed to estrange some of its audience. That was a good tease.

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they'll actually want to use. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJay, AI for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and that's the theme song for Stranger Things. And when that show dropped almost, what, 10 years ago, it dropped like a ton of bricks. It was just incredible.

It took us all back to the 80s. If you ever spent a second in the 80s, it really felt like they nailed it. And then over the course of this decade, it's the show has has has um streamed in fits and starts there's been no like set schedule like okay every in November of every year you can expect a new season that's not how it's been and it's been for a person like myself who love that first season really tough for me to stay with it and so I'm I'm somebody who's looking forward to getting back to it but I haven't seen anything past

the first season and uh and so I knew this new fifth and final season was coming out I think they broke it up into two parts. Two parts. And so a lot of people, a huge anticipation. I know that Netflix put a ton of money around promoting it. And so I didn't know until this morning that as part of the finale, was it the finale? No, it was the episode seven. Okay. He was in the second half, right? Yeah, yeah. So in that, there was a big emotional moment when Will Byers, who was central to the whole story, played by Noah Schnapp, came out to his friends. And, his mom. And that Noah Schnapp came out publicly as gay in real life very early on. No, last year. Oh, it was last year? Yeah. Or this year. No, no, no, no, no. This is what it's saying.

Yeah, let's listen. Let's listen to the, the show. I just, I, I just, I, I, I, I don't like girls. Now, I watched most of the scene and it's emotional. Apparently it took them two days to shoot because it was so emotional. And that was much longer than that. Yeah, it was much longer than that. But the show suffered. The ratings dropped. The show's audience score dropped to a series low 57% after the release of season 5, volume 2.

Criticism intensifying on social media. I think it was one of the lowest rated shows on IMDB. Interesting. Well, fans cited weaker writing, heavy exposition, bickering, pacing issues. the backlash that focused on him coming out is now the lowest rated on IMDB and critics say it disrupted the tension and the momentum and some viewers labeled it as forced

some people they labeled it as woke others in the LGBTQ plus community praised it as authentic and overdue and this is the part that I agree with noting how hard it would have been to come out in the 80s right and that the, that context makes sense. I remember kids at school.

There was a handful of kids. I was like, okay, I'm sure they were gay. Yeah, my friends were gay. And they didn't come out, but they didn't come out. But you're like, and it never bothered me one way or the other. Yeah, but you're like a very liberal guy. I'm sure if you were, like, I'm one of my best friends. I know, but a liberal guy.

I'm a very progressive guy. But one of my best friends grew up in the 80s, he didn't come out to a university. Yeah, no. And I don't think that's, I think that's, that there's real valid claims to that. But I think you've got to ask yourself, why do people tune into this show? Are they tuning in for social issues to be discussed? From what I saw in the first season,

it was just a, hey, let's throw kids in the 80s, have fun with the nostalgia, and tell a really cool sci-fi story. It's a friendship. It's a friendship, it's community. Yeah, I just think, again, I'm only learning about it now, but, like, I thought the big deal

was when Noah Schnap came out in his personal life. 2023. Okay, 2020, And why is that a big deal? Well, it's not a big deal anymore, but I don't I don't care. Look, the Duffer Brothers created something out of nothing and therefore they have the right to do whatever they want

with their show. But apparently, if you look at the ratings around the world and Netflix is a global marketplace, it's not just shows design. If those shows are going to be successful with the budgets they have, they have to appeal around the world. And apparently in the numbers across

sort of the Middle East and in more conservative, countries, nobody was having any of it. And the numbers just fell off the shelf. And look, we were talking before the show. There is not a single one of us that I don't, that doesn't love all sorts of great romantic stories. One of my favorite romances in all of TV was a show you worked on with Schitt's Creek, especially with Patrick and David. But no, when Patrick sang simply the best, first of all, and he did that acoustic thing when they opened up the coffee house and And it was, nobody wanted to go to the open mic

and then he sang and blew everybody away. My heart melted. I freaking love that. And then to see the reaction when David did his own thing with that song, that is great writing. It was great pacing. It was right for the show.

It made sense. Like that was awesome. Yeah. So nobody's going to accuse me of saying there's no place for this in TV. Of course there is. Some of the best things I've ever seen are those things.

But if fans of the show say, my complaint is it felt shoehorned in, and then you're doing it for, you're not doing it for the story, you're not doing it, you're not doing a service for the fans. I, like, I get the idea of it because I think the speculation had been that Will has been gay since season one, which is weird because he's like nine or however old. But, and I get like, they wanted a coming out moment because he was gay, I guess. and and

okay so you watch it yeah it just feels contrived could they have done it in a different part? They should have done it years ago like Maya Hawks character came out in season three yeah so why do we need another big moment like that yeah it just

it's once again and the thing that's annoying that's annoying people out there is that it just feels contrived it feels it feels unnecessary and the reaction is like we're not just friends we're best friends Yeah, so Gord and I are huge Star Trek fans, huge. And I was super excited when that, years ago they announced Star Trek Discovery and they

was, the captain was going to be a black woman. And she's a, so Niko, I can't remember her last name is, but amazing actress, right? I was so down for that show. So excited. But by the end of it, it turned into one big, woke piece of nonsense. Like, nonsense. Unwatchable drivel. It was, and it angered me.

as a fan of the... First of all, like 80% of the fans of that show are of a particular demographic. Nerds like me, I live in my own house, but most of them live in their parents' basement. And you were actively finding ways to marginalize that viewer. I mean, if you believe, as I do,

that you can't be what you can't see, which is why we need more diversity on TV, then you've got to recognize that if your show is made up of a lot of white dudes, you kind of have to give the white dudes something. And they were actively working against that. If there was a show that was already ahead of its time in terms of having representation, it was Star Trek. Yeah.

They had an Asian man flying the ship, and they had a black woman in charge of the communications. Yes, they throw their hands up and say, oh, that's no big deal. It was a big deal. It was a big deal. Martin Luther King himself told her Michelle Nichols to stay. And if you want to talk about a show that was ahead of its time, Schitts Creek, and the way that they approached their character. They, they, I mean, one of the main characters was gay and it was never at, oh my God, you're gay, nobody was like that. And in a rural setting.

Yeah, they just created a world where nobody cared when we're, it. And again, just to go back to the Star Trek of it all, like, are you telling me that in the future, if somebody's non-binary, that matters? I'm pretty sure that's settled law by the time the 23rd century comes about, right? So, and the fact that they made such a big deal about having a non-binary care is like, no. what would have been a really big deal is if it was never talked about. Totally. And instead, you guys are pretending

that you're trying to shoehorn 2015 into the future. And instead, and that is bad storytelling. That shows me you have no respect for canon. Like, come on. But also, like, your audience, you're dumbing down your audience. They know.

Yeah. Yeah. No. And so that, which is why I was very happy that they went old school with the new one, with the strange new worlds. Yes.

Because that is the bomb. Do you still watch Star Trek? Every second of every day. There's a new one coming out. We got to see the new one's coming out. Starfleet Academy, baby. Heck yeah. Heck yeah.

Nerds, nerds, nerds. That's right. Yeah, nerds unite. Okay, so it turns out we talked about everything. We didn't get to any of the other stuff because I got on my Star Trek train. Up next, whatever to do about sports gambling and kids. We're going to talk about that next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrini show.

If you are a casual viewer of sports, maybe you didn't watch sports for a long time, but you got sucked into the playoffs last year or you got sucked into the Blue Jays run into the postseason, you might have noticed that things are a little different on your screen than they ever were before. You may notice that there are logos for online legal sports betting on helmets and on jerseys and on the field or on the ice or on the boards. It's on the graphics that you see on the screen.

They are referenced. The companies are referenced by the on-air personalities. And then you go into a commercial break and you see commercials for those companies. I mean, it's everywhere. It is everywhere, and in a lot of ways, it's probably bigger than the sport itself for some people. Because, yeah, it's not just advertising. You actually have these announcers who are, in a lot of ways, the language they use, it feels like they're trying to get you to take that off ramp from watching the sport to betting on the sport.

And so we wanted to talk about that because there is a bill in the House of Commons. that has a goal of limiting or outright banning the marketing of sports gambling. So let's bring in a professor of psychology from the University of Toronto, Steve Jordans. Steve, Professor, thank you so much for being here. Great to be with you. Yeah, it seems, look, I'm, just so you know, I don't gamble. It's not an itch I need to scratch. I don't, it doesn't affect me one bit.

Even if I had the money to do it, I wouldn't know how to do it. It wouldn't excite me in any way. But for a lot of people, it becomes, you know, what can start out as something small can become a really big problem and it just feels like it's everywhere now. Yeah, and I think, I mean, that's the first thing I want people to realize. I think a lot of people think of addiction and they think of, you know, heroin or opioids, that sort of thing. They don't think of something like sport gambling, but these psychological addictions are

every bit as strong. And just to give you a taste, you know, what happens is you get, you get hungry for those random rewards. You never know when that next win is going to come. And the really dangerous part about that is if you now lose a bunch of times in a row, you know, usually you would quit something if you lose a bunch of times in a row. But with things like gambling, you begin to think that win is just around the corner. And if you quit, you're actually going to lose out on that.

And so it's almost like the more people lose, the more engaged they become. Upwards of somewhere around 5% of people who engage in gambling admit to having problem gambling. And we know those surveys are biased because most people addicted to something will not admit it. But Professor, tell me, like, the fact that, listen, it's never too late to do the right thing, right? And this Bill S-211 that would establish a national framework to regulate sports betting ads in Canada, and it's aiming to limit or restrict how and when these ads appear. Like, we know gambling is addictive. We know that it's, it presents social ills. Why wasn't this dealt with prior to baking the cake? Like, if you say we're trying to add ingredients now that the

cake is baked. They will themselves. So Senator Marty Deakin is the one that's really leading the charge here. And she herself has said on many occasions, they just didn't see the train that was coming. America had already made sport betting legal. So Canada just kind of followed suit so that the Canadians wouldn't all send our gambling money to America. But they just did not see the marketing train. And as you described at the beginning of the show, none of us had ever seen marketing with this much force, with this much embedding in the actual programming that we've seen. And they themselves are saying openly, wow, we missed this one. We made a mistake.

We need to fix it now. But to me, it's a miss on two fronts. One, what you just described. But two, it's the, I mean, if you allow for it everywhere, then supply and demand dictate that you're not going to, it's not going to yield the results, the financial boon, and therefore the tax, revenue that you could have if you applied the law of scarcity to the situation. You know, if you kept it to a minimum, then that minimum is worth more money to those companies. And they would bid for that, that those few precious moments on TV as opposed

to saying, all right, it's tabula rasa. It's a blank canvas. You can paint as many of those logos wherever you want as much as you want. You're not going to get the value for it if you don't value the space. Yeah, and it gets really difficult to talk about this in terms of value because we're talking about making people addicted, introducing them to addictions. These ads are aimed at children. They're aimed at our children watching TV with us. They're already indoctrinating these children into a life of gambling. And we've heard the Premier, for example, in another situation, talk about a money grab, you know, with speed cameras. Well, this is a money grab with people's addiction. You know, we're really when when people are focusing on, hey, look at the money that we're bringing in the tax revenue. Where's that money coming from? It's coming from the pockets of regular Canadians. And therefore, my humble belief is that a huge chunk of that money that's coming from

their pockets needs to be mandated to be directed to increasing the availability of mental health resources and addiction treatment. Which is, of course, what they will say and they will show that a certain percent of that is. So, you know, if you create 100 addicts and you treat 20 of them, you take the money from 100, is that logic good? But, but I mean, I think the, not to seem all so negative, because I think the important real point right now is there's so much wrong in the world. There's so many difficult challenges. This is one we can solve. This bill has already passed the Senate. It's in the house. A letter was recently sent to our prime minister that 40 of our MPs signed on to from both

parties. There is now a sort of momentum that if the general public says, hey, we've had enough of these ads, we don't want, and we're not talking about banning gambling. You know, the revenue will still be coming in. We're just talking about not pushing people into it. Can you give us a few of the bullet points of what this Bill S-211 would do if it were to become law? Sure. So Bill 211 is actually stopped short of a full out banning. So it's all about regulating sports betting advertising. and different countries around the world have taken different levels of aggression towards, you know, for example, you could have no ads for some period before a game, up to some period after a game, or there's a variety of ways you could limit the marketing.

Now, one more extreme way is to ban it, and that's what the letter to the prime minister was about banning, right banning. So that could be done as part of 211, but 211 is more flexible. And so that'll come up. It's still awaiting study and debate. And so it's going to, you know, go through a little. bit of discussion and ultimately see where it comes, I'm certainly on the side that we should be banning it. And that's because a ban does another thing, too. A ban sends a clear signal.

You know, think of the ban on THC or something, on advertising THC. It sends a clear signal of, hey, you know what? We live in a free country. We're going to allow you to do those things. But we're going to tell you very clearly, that's a dangerous thing you're engaging in. Like smoking, like what we've done with smoking. Like smoking. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And we should be signaling, gambling that way. We should be letting people know, hey, this is a dangerous behavior. We're certainly not going to endorse it by just accepting a bunch of money so we can push you all into it. But you know, I want to get back to one of the things that I've noticed is a lot of these sportscasters, they've got scripting. They've got language that they use that's sort

of like, it's like the soft cell, right? And I don't know that anyone would be allowed to do that with a, you know, oh, well, I enjoy the smooth taste of a camel cigarette when I'm done. They're not telling you to buy. it, but they're telling you what the smooth, oh, the pull on the filters. Like, you couldn't do that. And I would love to talk to sportscasters about how they feel about this language that's been introduced, because a lot of them didn't get into this business to peddle sports gambling. They got into it to be sportscasters.

What do you think of, yeah, what do you think of that aspect of it? I would love to hear some of their voices. No, no. One of the, so I represent the Canadian Psychological Association on this issue. And one of the things that I think frustrates all of us so much is the degree to which psychology is being weaponized here. And I wrote an article about that. That normalization, that fact that, you know, here's a face that you look to for information

about your sports all the time, somebody you respect, maybe an ex player, maybe, you know, color commentator, whatever they might be. And them just talking like, yeah, here's my over under or here's what I'm doing for my whatever. And that normalizes it. It makes it seem not dangerous. It makes it seem, in fact, as you said at the beginning, the sort of next step, right? They'll say, get off the sidelines, get into the.

the game, put your money where your mouth is kind of thing. And that is just so, when it comes from somebody you like and respect, you don't have your shields up. And for our children, you know, they don't see the danger. It's not presented as a danger. It's presented as exciting. Yeah, it's fun. And the gamification of it. Like, it's not, it's not even viewed necessarily as gambling because it looks so much like a game, right? The interface, the user interface is such that it just looks like a fun game that you would play on your phone. We're going to take a quick break, Doctor.

When we come back, we want to talk about a number of other things with you, but I want to talk about resolutions and physical health and the things that people can do to get themselves in the right frame of mind in this new year. So don't go anywhere.

Ben Mulroney's show continues. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney's show continues. Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for being here and very glad to continue my conversation with Steve Jordans. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Professor, thanks so much for sticking around. Yep. I'm enjoying it, Ben. Thank you. So I want to talk to you about a number of things. I want to put a button on what we were talking about before. We're talking about sports betting on the issue of addiction, especially in kids. But we just heard before we came on the air that there's a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan and Rice University. found a significant increase in crime in states after they legalized sports betting.

Overall, crime incidents increased by 30 to 70% during and up to four hours after professional sports games. So my guess is people freak out that they lose a whole bunch of money and then they turn to crime. This is the knock-on effect for insurance rates, for people's lost possessions. At some point, the value of those things might outstrip any financial benefit to the state. Yeah. I mean, there are so many knockoff effects here. One of them, of course, is on the more extreme side, suicide. We know that 32% of people with gambling disorder have, say, a lot of suicidal ideation and 17% report actually trying. It's an addiction that leaves you without a bunch of money. And so then, yeah, what do you do? You either turn back to the addiction or you turn to crime or you turn to other, you know, dark places. Well, let's talk about how people can turn to a more positive place and talk about, you know, focusing up in 2026. Some people decide to hit the gym and try to change everything about their lives. And I think we're all guilty of that at some point in our lives. I'm personally at this point, try to, whatever change I want to bring into the new year, I try to get a running start by starting it prior to the end of the year. And it just helps me have wind in my sales. And, um,

But there's an argument to be made that those things can come if you take one step back and focus on social connection. Yeah, that is in fact, you know, a lot of us think about health. We think about our future and wanting to, you know, sometimes we just do kind of think healthy body. I want to go into the future with a healthy body. But in fact, when we look at the variables that predict mental health, physical health, happiness, success, the critical variable is something we call social. connection. Basically having a number, sometimes we throw around the thing fab four, you know, having three or four people in your life that are really close connections, you know, people you can share your stressful days with and that you will listen to carefully to them. Those people

who have those connections are far more healthy. And, you know, one of the things I think people could think of is instead of the gym or in addition to the gym, you know, maybe I will try to develop a social connection habit. Yeah. And that would probably be better for. for them in the long run, then going to the gym. Well, I heard a story a while ago on social media that I brought up actually right at the end of the year in a conversation with somebody about addiction. And it was a story about rat park, the experiments about rat park and how, you know, they were trying to test addiction in rats by putting some rats in a cage or a rat in a

cage and feeding him cocaine-laced water. And inevitably, the rat would pick the cocaine-laced water. water over regular water every time until he overdosed and died and then somebody pointed out that the problem with that was there was no social connection for that rat and so instead they created rat park which had all these tubes and fun things for the cat the rat to do but there was also other rats that he could form bonds with and the results were astonishing in that the drug addiction of the rat went down and no overdoses because they this person posited that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, but connection.

And I wonder whether there's a parallel between that and what we're talking about. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, from a lot of things, from the sports betting, a lot of times it's the youth that don't have that social connection. They're hanging around in their bedrooms. And the sport gambling is a way to be stimulated, as a way to kind of get a little bit of excitement into their lives. But social connection is exactly that.

It's that strong, insulating force. and we're living in an increasingly disconnected world. I blame, by the way, social media, or not social media so much as text messaging. Young people, the students in my class now, have trouble talking to each other in real time. They've gotten so used to asynchronous. They now have levels of social anxiety

that are beyond the clinical level on average. So wait, wait, tell me what that means. I understand asynchronous conversations, meaning you put something out there someone responds in their own time. But how is it manifesting in your students? Well, here's how they, I had to learn, actually, because the generation gap is huge. But what they tell me is, you know, they'll write a text message and then they'll, first

of all, ruminate is the word they really resonate? When I use the word ruminate, is that what you're doing? They're like, yeah, I think about it over and over and what to say and how to say it. And then I eventually let it go into the real world. And then I'm worrying about how it's going to land. And then I get a message back eventually. and I'm not exactly sure what they're saying and we're not exactly sure

what people are saying because we're lacking the non-verbals that you get in synchronous. If there's one thing we learned, if there's one thing we learned from Kramer on Seinfeld is that 90% of all human interaction is nonverbal. That's why you gave up speaking for a while.

Yeah, and that's the critical part because that's where we form bonds of trust by feeling emotional resonance. You know, if you and I are talking about something, let's say we're talking about sports gambling and we're both really frustrated and annoyed and we can hear and feel that in each other that makes us feel a kinship that that joins us that we actually literally have a neurotransmitter oxytocin that's released and we get a bond of trust that's how we get our bonds of trust by noting that emotional resonance and these text messages i mean we can

throw an emoji in there yeah but usually that 90% you're talking about that comes from our primitive brain. It's very honest. It's just reflected. You know, we know when somebody thinks we're boring them or when we're boring somebody. Yeah. No, you're right. And they're losing the opportunity to learn how to read those signals. And then when they suddenly have to at 18 or 19, they're finding it very stressful. So maybe part of the tips for parents, for example, if a parent is listening and they might be panicking that their kid could go that way, I mean, is it as simple as starting with like family dinners and everyone puts their phones down? Something like that.

Yeah, let me mention. I was part of something that's called the first Canadian social connection guidelines, just like the exercise guidelines and the food guidelines. So parents can go and find those and there'll be a number of tips like this. But yeah, I think one of the things parents need to realize is, you know, if you had a dog and you wanted it, you wanted to sort of get better behaviors in your dog, you know that you get something like food that they want. and you use it strategically. You don't just give them the whole bag of food.

They won't learn anything. With the phone, with that sort of digital experience, it's perfectly reasonable for parents to say, you can have your phone, but not during dinner. You have to do this, or you have to spend so much time playing with friends or doing something in real time in person to earn that other time.

And right now it's just like we've just given them the bag of food. We've given them the digital world to say, you can live here all you want. And I think we're now realizing that is not healthy. And we have to start having a little bit more control, helping our children learn the basic skills they need to be successful in life. It feels like the common theme of everything we've been talking about today is course correction, right?

The government's trying to course correct on sports gambling and parents need to course correct with their kids so that they can build those connections. And all of us need to course correct in one way, shape, or form at the beginning. choose to do so at the beginning of every new year. Now, we've talked about all this stuff. Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Did I make any New Year's resolutions?

Yes. I mean, I certainly do. I engage in that reflective thing. And a few years ago, I did the exercise thing. And I think I did it right, which I mean, I found what fit in my life. And I didn't try to do too much. I just found what would work. This year, like many, I find my self having a cocktail or two more than I would like

too in the evenings. So I'm training myself that just every second drink has to be water for me. I have to go through and have a good glass of water. That's good. What I would, what I recommend, I saw someone on social media say, you know, when it comes to making those big changes of exercise in your life, all you got to do is ask yourself, what's my floor, right? Like my ceiling is unlimited. I'll, you know, I want to, I want to become Superman. But just ask yourself, what's your floor? Meaning like, what's the minimum you think is required to feel good like you did something that day. Maybe it's walking for 10 minutes, right? And so long as you hit that floor, then those good positive changes will come. Doc, I wish we could talk longer, but feel

free to come back anytime. Fascinating conversation. And I wish you the very best in 2026. Doc returns this January on Global. My mind is trying to tell me something. With gripping new cases. If it doesn't work, you'll kill him. It will work. They're going to make you the fall guy for this. I just don't want to fail anyone ever again.

As her fight moves forward to recover what was lost. You can't undo what was done. Just let it go. Please. No. And rebuild her life. I'll do whatever it takes. I'm here if you need to be.

I know. Doc, returns Tuesday, January 6th on Global. Stream on StatTV.