The Ben Mulroney Show - Golden Globes/Iran uprising/X ban in the UK?/Tony Chapman

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Guest:  Drew/ Iranian Canadian /instagram “drewsperience” Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founding Partner of Chatter AI 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] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That was the dulcet tones of Ben Mulroney and the Intrepid producers. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on this Monday, the 12th of January, 2026. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Intrepid producer, how are you? I like the name of the band. Ben Mulrooney and the Intrepid producers. I think it's pretty good, man.

Yeah. Well, Mike Ben Dick... Listen, to be fair, Mike Ben Dixon said, we should come up with a name for our fake band. And I've been thinking about it and it popped into my head right then and there.

Ben Mulrooney, the Intrepid producers. Amy Siegel, back in her box. Nice to see you. Hello. That means that she's in, she's not actually in a box. She's in a little side studio producers thing. And Santiago, on the ones and two.

Yes, how are you, man? Oh, good, good. How are you? I'm good. Hey, happy birthday to, not to you, but to the Hal 9,000. What's the Hal 9,000? Open the pod bay doors, Hal. I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. In the movie, 2001, a space odyssey, Hal became operational on the 12th of January, 1992 at Hal Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois.

And so happy birthday hell. Yeah, I just thought that was funny. Yeah, the homicidal maniac computer that everybody was worried that would become the future. And then they said, no, it won't. And then it sort of looks like it could be that. See, I love these fake anniversaries. I really do.

I love fake anniversaries. And that one, it resonated with me because if I make it to 263, and I promise you this, on a stack of Bibles. If I make it to April 5th, 263, I am going to Bozeman,

Montana to celebrate first contact. Is that a Star Trek one? That is the date that Zephram Cochran broke the warp barrier and experienced first contact with the Vulcans. Because they didn't want to have anything to do with any pre-warp civilizations. And so he broke the warp barrier in the Phoenix, right?

And went around, went out of the Saturn or Jupiter and came back or whatever. They noticed. They came down to Earth. And that's when they start sharing technology. And that's when the lore began. So April 5th, 263, I will be going to Bozeman, Montana to celebrate first contact. I'm just, yeah. So I'll invite my kids and my grandkids.

they will politely decline, and I will go alone. Yeah, I'll go alone. All right. Maybe Santiago will go with you. You just got back from a trip. You just got back from Colombia. That's correct. So you went to visit your family?

Yeah, yeah, it was fun until the news of what was happening in the neighborhood. You were there when what happened, the incursion into Venezuela that took away the illegitimate leader and brought him to New York City. Legitimate in Trump's size. No, no, illegit. I mean, he's pretty legitimate. He is, but he doesn't believe he's legitimate. Sure, but we're not, I mean, I'm not speaking as Maduro. You should.

Yeah. So, yeah, so you were there. Yeah. So what was it like? We're talking about the, you're watching the news? What are you seeing? Well, the very first day, it was full of happiness. You know, there are near to two million Venezuelan that were displaced from the country

because of the situation that was going on it. So it was all party, all dancing. People were so happy about it. What city were you in? I was in Medellin. Oh, okay, Medellin. Yeah. And so how close are you from the border?

No, not that close, but it's because of the Venezuelans are everywhere. So you got Venezuela neighbors and friends. Yeah, everywhere, everywhere. So the first thing was happiness. Everyone was believed that everybody was waiting for this. That was the first day. The next day was like, okay, but now what? And was it the next day or the day after the Donald Trump sort of created a list out of whole cloth

and put Colombia on the list of countries? that may be next. Oh, yeah, and then there were some protests around the major cities supporting the Colombia's president, which his left-leaning president is our first left-leaning president, like in 200 years or something. But we were not as concerned. Colombia is the biggest ally of the U.S., but, yeah, it's just the president that gets all fired up and that's it.

Yeah, yeah, from what I understand, originally there were all sorts of, because apparently, if I may say, of what I was listening, when I was listening to Brewery, I can't remember who has taught listening to. But there has been, there's more cocaine being produced out of Columbia now than ever before. That's what they say. Yeah, that's what they say. And they say that the work by the DEA in conjunction with the Colombian government has slowed down. Yeah.

Yeah, they used to do a lot more to tamp down on it than they do now. Yeah. Are the people in Colombia taking Donald Trump's threats seriously? Yeah, I mean, now they are using that. to make politics, right? So there is one side that's say that we should bring the U.S. troops and intervention and all that.

But now the president of Colombia had a phone call with Donald Trump and apparently everything has come down a bit. Normalized a little bit? Yeah, it has come down a bit. But I mean, this is the last year of that president to be in office. So I think if anything the U.S. is going to do

in Colombia, they need to wait until the next elections. And look, that's what the speculation was. They said, because Donald Trump didn't say, I'm coming for Colombia. He said something like, well, maybe he won't be there next time or something like that. And some people think that what he meant was, well, he's not running in the next election. No, no, he's not running. So that's what he meant. But you never know with Donald Trump. Anyway, welcome home. Thank you so much. Welcome back. Where do you consider home? Oh, Toronto.

So if I said, yeah, okay, well, that's good to know. Yeah, I'm from Bogota. And then when I went down to Columbia, I didn't go to Bogota. That's the city that I was born. But yeah, I have everything here. So it's, it's nice to be home. Yeah, Toronto's my home because this is where my stuff is. Yeah, exactly. I think that's the, the best way ever put it. My stuff is there. My stuff is here. So this is home. Welcome home. Appreciate it. Yeah. So last night, a place there where I used to be, I used to call Los Angeles home almost all the time at this time of year because it was award season. Stayed down there. Practically. It would have been a lot easier. I could just park myself down there for two months. The Golden Globes happened last night. And it was an interesting one.

It was, first of all, my brother and sister-in-law were there, and they looked like movie stars. They looked like movie stars and they had so much fun. And they walked the carpet. and they enjoyed the show and very, very happy for them. They looked terrific and I hope they had a great time. Nikki Glazer, the comedian, she hosted for a second year in a row. And people are saying that her monologue was sort of hit and miss. I mean, she took some jabs at CBS News over editing practices, largely avoided major political commentary, which I'm glad she did.

But she did take a stab at Sean Penn. Sean Penn is also here, Colonel Lockjaw himself. Hi, Sean. You're the best. One of my favorite characters of all time. I love you, Sean. You're such an original. You know, everyone in this town is obsessed with looking younger.

Meanwhile, Sean Penn is like, what if I slowly morph into a sexy leather handbag? And I feel like that's... It's good. No, that's well done. I like that. That was a good joke. She was criticized.

She was... But then again, she was not Ricky Jervais. She wasn't Ricky Jervais. Ricky Jervase wasn't Ricky Jervais. He wasn't there. He was nominated. I don't know what it was for. He was nominated for something. And Wanda Sykes was giving out the award for... He's a comedian actor. Yes, for whatever he was nominated for.

And she... Do we have the whole idea? Very special. Yeah. We've got... Well, most of it. Okay, so let's listen to Wanda Sykes referencing Ricky Jervase, the former host of the show. Ricky Javis, I love you for not being here. No, I love you, Ricky, but... But because if you win, I get... to accept the award on your behalf, and you're going to thank God. Trans community.

The Golden Globe goes to Ricky Jervais, because he would like to thank God and the trans community. Okay, let me tell you why I love that so much, because... He would find that funny. He would find it funny. It was absolutely topical. You could say even political. it was entirely funny

and it wasn't trying to be mean it was all like it was not to say there are plenty of things that are mean that are funny but that was just perfect for that show and I think she did a great job and congratulations the reason that she was doing that we have to say is because Ricky Jervais in past years well his various specials and stuff

he has made fun of the trans community he makes fun of everybody and he's an atheist he doesn't believe in God so that's why that worked But congratulations to the TV show The Pit, the studio, Hamnet, and one battle after another. Those were the major winners last night at the Golden Globes.

We move on until ultimately we get to the Oscars in a couple of months. Hey, what got nearly 100,000 Canadians off the couch to hit the streets over the weekend? We'll tell you after the break. What does top talent really want? Do our tax research tools make us seem outdated? What does top talent really want? How can we stop losing people to our competitors? What does top talent really want?

Really? What if new grads don't want to work like it's 1999? With BlueJ, you can give your people the tools they need to succeed. Tools that make it possible to go from tax question to client comms in minutes. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. Welcome back. Thank you so much for taking time out of your Monday to spend some time with the Ben Mulroney show.

And depending on who you talk to, what's going on in Iran is, is the expression of the will of the people that has been tamped down on for 47 years, or it is an ideological battle between the West and the East. Who knows? There's so many different ways of looking at. But what I want to do is I want to remind each and every one of us that it really is and should always be about people and the people on the ground, as well as members of the Iranian diaspora around the world, who for one, reason or another left their home country to plant seeds elsewhere in the world, but that means

that they are just looking to what's going on in Iran with all the more intent and emotion. And over the weekend, it seems like what's happening in Iran is finally affecting people here in Canada with over 5,000 people in Montreal and over 80,000 people in Toronto taking to the streets to show their support for the people of Iran who are putting themselves. in harm's way to affect positive change in their country. And we're joined now by Drew from the podcast, Drew Spirience, who knows firsthand about that connection to Iran. He's a second generation Iranian-Canadian, and he joins us now.

Drew, welcome to the show. Hey, good afternoon, Ben. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak on behalf of the 96 to 1002 million Iranians, whether they're in Iran or within the diaspora. I just want to also plug in the facts, too, that your big reason, your late father, the Honorable Brian Mulrooney is why I got involved with politics and a degree in history. As we speak, I have a copy of memoirs next to me. So when I see you in Calgary, I would love for you to sign it.

Absolutely. All members of your family. Yeah, he's a big reason. Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's a great book, isn't it? It changed my life. It changed my perception when I got involved with politics.

And I want to give a shout out to our friend Warren Kinsella. get his book the hidden hand because Warren is another great voice in this battle. And yeah, but yes, Ben, we're here to talk about Iran. Time is limited. So what would you like to ask? Well, I'd like to ask you were at the march in Montreal over the weekend. What was the feeling like? What did you hear from the people who were there?

What got them off the couch and onto the streets? Yeah, that's an amazing question. So what got them off the couch is right now is we finally feel as Iranians, around the world. We feel that this is our Berlin Wall moment where the 47-year nightmare of the criminal terrorist Mullah regime can finally collapse thanks to the contributions of Israel and Donald Trump, President Trump, in the 12-day war. We finally have a uniting leader, which is His Royal Highness, Reza Shah II. So when I was there, they were chanting Javid Shah, which meant long-lived the king. They said Iran will be free, Pai'an de Iran. And everyone was in a great mood.

It was as much as high emotions were. Everyone was united. There was not a single issue, a negative incident that happened. And we were five to actually, it turns out, six thousand people. So I was there. Yeah, and it was beautiful to see. And for the first time, we finally feel that we can finally end this nightmare and reverse what happened in 1979.

Well, and Drew, you know, you said it though. You said, you know, with the support of Donald Trump and Israel, we're getting in it. Now, those are two words that if you say them in the wrong company, that will mobilize other people off their couches to come and counter protest. For them, they see red. They don't see people liberating themselves from religious fundamentalism. They hear Donald Trump and Israel, and that's all they need to hear. I'm against it.

Yeah, well, listen, that's people's opinions. But, you know, I think a lot of people, thanks to the diaspora and those on X, By the way, for X, I would love for you to come to one of our spaces, which is like a group's panel where you listen or talk and ask questions. So Mike and I could talk about that. We're having one tonight with my friend Alex Kennedy at 8 p.m. if you can make it great. But, you know, Ben, a lot of people are realizing how evil this regime is thanks to social media too and other pages. So that's the thing. And, you know, a lot of people are realizing, wow, this regime is actually more evil than we realize.

And if it falls, this is like when communism and. in the Soviet Union. So yes, that's how we're looking at it. And, yeah. What are you hearing? I know it's hard to get information in and out of Iran because the regime shut down the internet. That's what you do in a free and fair country.

They shut down the internet, made it almost impossible to get information out. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. What are you hearing from the people you know in Iran? Yeah, of course. So luckily, there are some that are able to use a VPN in the spaces on X. They are pleading for intervention, not just support. They want to see action. They want to see deeds over words.

And they are fighting gallantly. They are chanting for the Shah to return. They don't want him to be a monarchy, but what they want him to do is come in as a transitional figure. He has a plan, a transitional plan for two years. Then do a referendum where Iranians will vote for either constitutional monarchy, i.e. what we have, or a secular democratic republic. This is what Iranians are telling us to tell those in the outside world.

I have two friends because I do Kiyokushin karate, and that's my main content in you spend, besides politics, but, you know, it's a battle, it's an arena battle, one intellectual, one physical, and I haven't heard from them. I don't know if they're okay or not. They are in Mashdad where some of the most violent fighting is happening. So the ones that I've heard from, yeah, it's very difficult. You know, the hospital massacre in Elam was one where the IRGC sent their thugs in to get protesters, shoot them, kidnap the injured.

And then what they do is they would charge the grieving families for the body, but also interest for every bullet use. So this is how Amos learned from the IRGC. And so this is why this regime has to go and why I. have to speak because if I don't speak for the Iranians and my late father who passed away in 2014 from brain and liver cancer, I failed everybody and I have a purpose to do. So I really want to thank people like you, Warren, Senator Leo Husakos, Michelle Ferreari, Pierre Puella, Melissa Lansman, and Goldie Gamari, who I think you need to talk to as well. I've spoken with her

before since she was on one of the shows on this radio station earlier today. But I got a couple more questions for you. I had an international, an expert on a Middle Eastern Affairs on the show last week and the question was, what needs to happen for this to go from a moment into a movement that will lead to revolution

as opposed to intense protests that can get tamped down on? And he says a lot of the stuff has already happened, but there needs to be on the regime side, there needs to be a flashpoint that emboldens that emboldens the protesters.

And it seems to me that because the Iranian regime has signal that they are willing to negotiate or compromise on a solution out of this, that to me should it be emboldening the people to believe that they keep the pressure up. You're doing it right. They're at a tipping point. They're trying to save their own skin. And they're saying they're willing to compromise. They're willing to negotiate. All they're doing is that.

They're biding for time until they can marshal their resources and push back. What do you think? Yeah, I agree. That's the thing. It's just a trick to buy time. and to do horrendous massacres that are going to make that, like, are going to, like, exceed what was seen in other conflicts. Like, this is an evil regime.

So there needs to be intervention now militarily, whether that's by getting, like, weapons in to help the revolutionaries or coordinated strikes. So that's what needs to be done. That's the flashpoint. The negotiations are just a ploy to buy time and then commit massacres on those fighting. So, yes.

That's what needs to happen. It'll be very, very tricky if we keep seeing images of massacres, of innocent protesters by the powers that be inside that regime. But very tricky for support to come in from outside. If the United States comes in, that changes the dynamic completely. But what do you think it would take for an army like the American army to be compelled to come into? to Iran? Well, listen, the President Trump said at best he goes,

if you shoot, we're going to shoot back harder in the phrase locked and loaded. So if they get word that the death toll is even more than they imagine, I think that should urge everything, urge the administration

to get involved. And I just want to say to all those who are at demonstrations, if you have, if you're in the state, contact your Congress people. If you're in Canada, contact those who are involved,

like Melissa Lansman, Roman Babber, and others. So, yeah, but I do believe, Ben, I'm bullish. And, you know, this is not 2009. This is not 2019 or 2022. We have a leader now. I really want to thank you for this. My pleasure. From the Drew Spearings of a podcast, Drew, we will see you in Calgary, my friend.

And you better follow me back, Ben. I'll follow you. Okay. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And the segment after this one is normally a segment where we talk to our good friend, Tony Chapman, but he was hanging. out what loitering, I think this is the expression. I think he's trying to sell

candy bars. Yeah, he was just loitering out there. Yeah, just loitering, just hanging out. And hanging out of business cards. Yeah, see, clearly not a busy guy. So we roped him into this segment because I think having your take on what's going on in the UK as in terms of their

response to the issues with Twitter, right? So there is a big problem because Grock, the AI chatbot, that's been built specifically for use in the Twitter ecosystem. is increasingly riddled with AI deepfakes, and some of them of explicitly sexual material of young people. I mean, it's gross, right?

It's gross. Now, that platform is by no means the only one that does that. Chat, GPT, like the Anthropic, they can all do that, right? But Elon Musk is such a firebrand and lightning rod that everything is being focused on him. But let's listen to Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister of the UK, and how he sees this on the ground. Disgraceful. It's disgusting.

And it's not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip of this. And Offcom have at full support to take action in relation to this. This is wrong. It's unlawful. We're not going to tolerate it. I've asked for all options to be on the table. It's disgusting.

And all options include, according to the press, banning Twitter outright in the UK. And the story was that there was a call between the leaders. of the UK, Australia and Canada to discuss all of these options and our Minister of AI, Evan Solomon, made it very clear that banning Twitter in Canada is off the table.

That's not going to happen. However, the fact, Tony, and welcome, Tony, thanks for being here. The fact that Kier-Starmer is even proposing this, I think, is a bad move. If you ban Twitter, you're not solving the problem. The problem still exists. You're just closing your eyes to it.

However, there will, there is a solution. somewhere. And if you invite Elon Musk in as a contributor to it, he'll help you find a solution. But if you treat him like the enemy and you say you're the problem, sir, that's a problem. Yeah, I totally agree. If you paint Elon Musk as the reason why this is happening, you're painting the wrong person. Yeah. I totally agree with you. I think what we're seeing is a politician trying to get some sense that he's still running the country and he's in control of a country that's quickly evaporating, the power base is evaporated.

And it's the same mistake we made in Canada with Facebook and this whole sense of journalism. Bring the people in, explain the problem, and say you've got to help solve it because you don't want these images. Elon Musk doesn't want these images on X. Yeah, he doesn't want it. But instead, because he has been kind of turned into enemy number one on this front by the UK, Elon Musk and his God knows, how many followers does he have on Twitter? Can you find out for me?

I will. So Elon Musk has an army of people who follow him. And a lot of those people follow him, will follow him through the fire. And he says, he tweets, real fascism is arresting thousands of people for social media posts. And that brings us to what's going on there. Approximate number of arrests for online and social media posts. So goodbye country.

So the United Kingdom last year, 12,183. Now, Belarus, that is the closest thing we have to an authority. The authoritarian region, the closest thing to the Soviet Union that still exists, 6,200. China, 1,500. Turkey, 500. Russia, 400. And then you go all the way down, Hungary, 10. In other words, Belarus, China, Turkey, Russia, and Hungary do not even hold a candle to how many arrests for thinking and saying the wrong thing are perpetrated in the UK.

So if you, and Elon Musk is making sure that that's how they're framing this debate. opposed to spending their time, focused on finding a solution, Elon Musk is going to troll these guys to death. Yeah, but that's that bully mentality we seem to be seeing in Parliament, that we're going to be able to just state what's going to happen, and therefore the problem goes away. I totally agree with you, Ben, it's not going to solve the problem. And the second thing is, but Evan Solomon said we're not going to ban X,

but isn't some of the bills that we have in front of parliament also censorship? Also saying we're going to. Yeah, I think that's why they're not going to. By the way, Elon Musk has 232 million followers. Right? So if he... Five times the population of the UK. So he posts that and everybody in the UK is going to see that. Everybody who is on Twitter.

No. On X. It'll get reposted. It'll get shared in the media. A lot of people will see it for sure. But I'm not saying... Not everybody is on Twitter there. But I didn't say everyone on Twitter.

I said everybody's going to see it. You got to hope. I'm a man of nuance. Oh, okay? I really do... I think I'm weaving a tail. I'm weaving a story. And sometimes you just, you're so did not use that word, right?

No, probably not pragmatic. I just want to reframe it. What you said, making Elon Musk the enemy is that is the last thing you want to do. You have to argue whether you like him or not. He's one of the most brilliant humans that have ever graced his planet. He's done some very bold things. He's to let promises made promises cap. So invite him into the tent and say, how can we solve this?

I still want the spotlight as a prime minister for saying I help solve. of this. But without him in the table, all he's going to do is just absolutely point millions and millions and tens of millions of social media slingshots back at the prime minister. He's going to say, look, we talked about it earlier on with Donald Trump and how Donald Trump, as great a negotiator as he is, he believes that everything's a zero-sum game. You have to have a winner and a loser, right, as opposed to saying, no, no, it's not you versus me. It's us versus the problem. And we as in Canada have been hoping he would do that in our, in our tariff war and every problem that we have with them.

And he hasn't done that. Kier Starmers doing the exact same thing here. It's like it's me versus Elon Musk as opposed to saying, no. Elon, we want to have a summit. We want to invite you and we want to invite all the AI illuminaries from around the world into one room. And we, I'm going to bring my key strategist from the cabinet together and all the key players that we have here in the UK.

And let's problem solve. Let's figure this out together. And then we will come out of that room and we will announce to the world that we You have a raft of new tools at our disposal to fix this problem. That's how you, that's leadership in a moment like this. And you know what? You call it a hackathon. So you're talking his language.

We're going to solve this over 24 hours. So you bring your brightest. We have our brightest. And at the end of it, we're going to come out and face the media together and say we've got an answer. Yeah. And I mean, that would be, Akir Starmer would come out looking like a hero. Instead, he just looks like somebody picking a fight. I don't know for cheap headlines.

I don't know. Isn't that when you're desperate, though? You always try to fight enemy number one and say, I'm going to take you on? Yeah, I guess you're right. That's a playbook of politicians that are failing. But what I derailed us because you brought something up, yes, with this suite of online harms legislation in Canada,

I think is the reason we're not contemplating the Twitter ban. We've gone so far down the road in this country, putting together a suite of laws that are supposed, they're supposed to protect us, but really what they're doing is tamping down on free speech and creating, and creating, creating out of legal behavior, turning that into illegal behavior. And so because they've already gone down that road to do this other thing would just be...

But you bundle it all together is attack on democracy. Yeah. If you put all those bills together, you have to say what is going on in the world right now that people that are fearing what the public has to say about what they're doing? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But this is... I want to point something up because you made a good point. You threw this in here in terms of just how cockamamie things are in the UK. there was a 71-year-old retired special constable

who was arrested at home by six officers over a post warning about anti-Semitism at pro-Palestinian protests. All he posts was like, yeah, things are getting a little rough there. Six officers came and arrested him. And while we pointed out that less than 10%, about 10% of those arrests lead to charges, those 10% those people have to take a day off of work.

They might lose their job because they got arrested. They have to hire a lawyer. All the things, by the way, I wish would happen when people break the law at these pro-Palestinian pro-Hamash. Yeah, and they never get through. Those charges never go through. They don't even go through. But make them accountable for their own behavior on their own dime. And if you look at Twitter and you see these arrests, you talk about these various arrests, so many videos online exist of people getting arrested and speaking to special constables in the UK.

And it is just the most asinine thing. I thought that they were AI because they were just so ridiculous. And some of these police officers are just like rolling their own eyes. They know that this is not what they signed up for when they became cops. They didn't want to arrest somebody for saying something that somebody found offensive. Are you carry? Is that flag you're carrying? Yeah, it's the Union Jack. You're not allowed to carry that because you're going to incite.

Excuse me? There was a TV writer, Graham Linehan. He was arrested in question at Heathrow Airport over social media post critical of gender identity policy. Like, so he He probably agreed with JK Rowling. Yeah, probably. It's intimidation against the narrative

that the government doesn't agree with. And we've got to really wake up to this because if that's what the bedrock of democracies is at freedom to speak. Freedom to protest, the freedom to vote. We got a lot of stuff to speak about in the next segment because Tony Chapman is sticking around and I promise you in 10 minutes,

he's going to solve the problems of the CBC and public education. Don't go anywhere. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish.

Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life. visit Medcan.com slash moments to get started. That's right. It is the Ben Mulroney show, and we always love being joined by our good friend Tony Chapman. He's the host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, and founding partner of Chatter AI.

How is Chatter-A-I? How do I use Chatter-A-I? Chatter-A-I, what we really do is we use AI to garner incredible insights on how people think, feel, and behave. So if I'm working with a client, it could be Humber River Health, it could be Patterson Food Group,

where is the consumer moving and why? And when you understand that, you're a better position to place your brand to help them get to where they want to go. So what sort of information has been trained on? It's, I'll be training on a variety of different things. We're looking at sentiment online. What are they talking about?

We're looking at economic trends. We're studying best practices around the world. But the big hook is we're also getting into scientific studies that have laid dormant because 20 people gave them citations and they pat themselves on the back. But there's billions of dollars of scientific studies on human psychology, how we behave, how we take on risk, how women buy versus how male buy. So you're putting all of these studies into this sort of cauldron and they're coming out with

what we do very well, saying based on that, here's the insights that matter, here's the ideas you should be thinking about, here's a strategy you might need to find that point of differentiation. Okay, so you sent us two ideas and we're going to go through both of them. They're big and bold about the CBC and the others about education, public education. Did Chatterayi come up with it or Did Tony Chapman come up with you? You know, I came up with it, but I used chatter AI to make sure I was on the right path. Okay.

Okay, so you have what you call, well, you say it right here. I have a transformative idea for the CBC. Absolutely. Right there, I got very interested. Because look, all things being equal, I, we were talking about defunding the CBC. I feel that the people working there are leaving people like me with no option but to say, shut her down. Because they're behaving in ways that are, they flaunt the rules, they spend money

that they shouldn't be spending. They compete against private corporations for the same ad dollars and the stuff that they put out there, nobody watches. And then they sit on their high horse and say, well, Canada needs us. Without us, it would fall into a dystopian hellscape.

And for that reason, we must get more money from the government. All that stuff makes me say, your time has passed. You believe you have a third way. Yeah, so let's take the $1.8 billion and let's say you're no longer a broadcaster. What?

You're no longer broadcasting. You are going to fund with that money, our superpower and content for Canada. We've got all the talent all over the world, but like every other industry in Canada, we send to monetize it outside of the country. So we want to bring back the drakes and the weekends. We want to bring back Justin Bieber and music.

We want to bring back Cameron in the movie studios and say, look, we've got this capital. We're going to feed ideas and we're going to populate the world. We're not talking about content that Canada wants. We're going to talk about content the world wants, and we're going to monetize that IP. We're going to get streaming revenue and merchandise revenue. We're going to create IP.

we're going to create serious. So you're saying there's no broadcasting anymore. Are they streaming as the CBC? No.

Okay, so they're not the CBC or the CCC, the Canadian content corporation. Absolutely. And we completely transform the leadership because instead of being on your high horse,

we're getting entrepreneurs, maybe Michael McMillan and runs Blue Hat, get people in there and say, okay, we've got this capital now. You don't have to go and produce that stuff

in Hollywood anymore. We've got all the studios, Pinewood. We produce more content from Hollywood. Produce it here and own the IP here. Yeah.

So we start creating the series in these platforms. You know the case study? The BBC, they created the BBC studios. The EastEnders was the beginning of it and top gear and so many different epic things in the documentary. They sell 1.8 billion pounds a year of revenue and they make over $200 million profit. So why aren't we doing that here and creating these incredible creative jobs in Canada

versus just being a production arm of Hollywood? So shops like CTV and Global would buy content. from them. Absolutely, but so with Netflix and Amazon and all over the world. Guess what? We've got this multicultural thing. What does Iranians want to hear? What do the Persian population want to hear? Because now with AI, content creation is so inexpensive. It's the ideation. That's where Canadians excel at, script writers and everyone else. And so, yeah, so listen, it would definitely change. It wouldn't need that big, beautiful building anymore. And I don't want a big bureaucracy. I want a small group. It's an investment fund. Yeah. And it's funding entrepreneurs. It's funding the Canadian

entrepreneurs and say, I've got a great idea for a show. I've got the weekend just signed up. We're going to do this whole thing of finding the next international talent. Yeah. We're going to build, we want to find the next big pop band, boy band. We're going to build it in Canada. We've got the talent here to do it. Yeah. But again, the appetite is the content's got to be sold to the world. Yeah. Not under this auspices of Canadian content because no one else is producing it. B.S. We are, what we watch on TV, that data exists, build that kind of stuff. Yeah. All right. Well, let's pivot from that to public education. And there's a difference between sort of the public education system

and the teachers that populated because there are some great teachers out there. I mean, I've heard, I've watched the teachers that... You remember your great teachers. Well, I'm growing up, I didn't have a time. But I went to a French private school. So, from France. So, but I've watched the teachers

that cared for my kids. And they cry at how much they love those kids. So that is not what we're talking about. No. What we're talking about right now is when my started showing me what they learn in school and how the fact that Marxism and Leninism and socialism is celebrated and anything to do with being successful or capitalists or an entrepreneur is shut down. In terms of identity politics, all of a sudden, white people are the sins of the world. So I'm looking back and I'm going, well, if all of this exists, first of all, let's teach

identity politics. Human nature is nasty. Whoever the dominant population is tends to go after power. torture and slavery happened all across the world. I'm not saying that I agree with any of this, but teach that. Don't just make it look like as white, the colonists. And the second thing that I talk about is, okay, if you really believe in socialism, now that we've got Venezuela and Iran, why don't we bring streaming people into the classroom that actually live into those regimes and talk about what it's like

when ideology takes over power crops. You take away free speech, we just talked about it. You take away the permission, and next thing you know, because mediocrity. And you're dividing a shrinking pie. So the handful of people that are controlling the ideology are getting filthy rich and the rest of the people are starving. We've got to change that because these kids are not being taught what they need to be taught going forward. And what I've said, we are talking about this indoctrination, this brainwashing that a teacher in British Columbia was proposing about queering the natural world, you know, taking kids out in the forest and showing that like the amorphous nature of clouds is representative of the

amorphous nature of sexuality. And I said, well, time is binary. And for every minute that you're doing that, that's a minute that you're not teaching them how to properly work with AI. And they're doing that in China, and they're doing that in charter schools, and they're doing that private schools.

And if, and if, you got to ask yourself, why are you trying to get them so young? Like, these are complex notions that you want them to learn. That would be better suited for when they're in university, but you don't want to get them in university, because by university, they have, they have, they've staked their claim

to critical thinking, and you don't want them thinking critical. And why don't you want them to win medals? And why don't you want them to come first? And why don't you want to teach them how to compete? And what critical thinking is? Because competition is a product of colonialism and white supremacy. You didn't know that? You didn't know that?

Oh, yeah. No, no. For a second, third? No, no, no. That's a hierarchy. We don't want to teach hierarchies. We break down hierarchies. Because it's a hierarchy.

You know what hierarchy is patriarchy. We don't want any of that. Yeah. And this is what we've got to fight back on. As parents, we just sit back and going, oh, my God, I can't believe what they're teaching my kids. your kids are going to graduate. And before you know it, they're going to be helpless in a society where AI is

populating every corner, where jobs are competed for in the cloud. And they're going to sit there and go, what happened? What didn't anybody teach me to win? What didn't anybody teach me? That's because we threw away winning. We threw away winning a long time ago when we replaced it with participation medalists. Which is, and entrepreneurship is the only way this country is going to move forward.

Yes, you can harvest our gold, you can harvest our trees, you can take our oil out of the ground. But unless we have intellectual capital, creating our own IP and our own energy. This country is going to fail because it won't have a tax base to support those teachers that somehow, I think, money grows on trees. Yeah, years ago, we, we worried that Canada was becoming like a satellite office for countries like the United States where they'd come up here, we'd cut down our trees, we'd send them our trees, and then they would make the table and they'd make the chairs and send it back to us. And we'd buy that stuff back. And now that's happening.

That's supercharged because the same thing is happening technologically. Absolutely. As soon as we've got a big idea we start scaling it. We can't get the capital here anymore. I don't, which I don't understand. We got one and a half trillion dollars in debt, and we haven't found a way to capitalize and scale our own businesses here. They've got to go down to Silicon Valley to raise that capital. That's because we're so risk-averse. There's not enough capital. So what they do is that they place the safest bets they can, relatively safe bets. Yeah, you buy your big banks, you buy your big telcos, but you know what? The entrepreneurial community, and if we just take our time as a country and realize these kids have got to come out willing to fight to win and to survive,

unless somehow we find a way to continue to print money and just hand them money. Yeah. But I don't think that's the kind of society with energy. Hey, Tony Chapman, great to have you in studio. Really appreciate it. All right. We got a text that said, we were talking about Howl, 9,000 earlier on the show. Ben, did you know that Howl from 2001 is IBM shifted by one letter in the alphabet?

H equals I, A equals B, L, equals M. And as a matter of fact, I did know that. But thank you very much, Pete. My name is Jordan, and I'd like to invite you to join me on the Canadian Gothic, a podcast covering stories of Canadian crime, mystery, and the offbeat. The Canadian Gothic blends the spirit of late-night talk radio with the depth of a documentary film and applies that approach to both developing stories in historical cases. So if you're drawn to the dark, mysterious, and offbeat, search for and subscribe to the Canadian Gothic wherever you find podcasts. You were listening to Canadian Gothic. thick.