The Ben Mulroney Show - Hot Takes Friday! Nato, trucking and extortion!

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

  GUEST: Cole Hogan /  political strategist   Guest: Chris Chapin, Political Commentator, Managing Principal of Upstream Strategy If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Like I said, we are kicking an up-a-notch here because we're joined by Cole Hogan, political strategist, and Chris Chapin, political commentator managing principal at Upstream Strategy for a wide-ranging conversation. Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Happy Friday. Happy Friday, indeed. Cole, you popped up on my feed like two hours ago, I think sitting in that exact same spot with those exact same AirPods.

So I'm very pleased that you're joining us today. Let's jump into the first story. We haven't talked much about the Russia-Ukraine war recently, but it's taking on a new dimension with seemingly, I don't know if it's an inadvertent attack or an actual attack on a NATO member. And NATO has vowed to defend allied territory against this drone hit in the apartment block in Romania. Does this concern you? Is this an issue? I mean, we don't exactly have a leader of NATO,

Cole, in the United States that's terribly bullish on the organization. So I wonder what you think. Yeah, sure. Well, if you remember around this time last year, we saw Russia's allies lose the Romanian presidential election. I believe one of them was the leader of the AUR, the alliance for the Union of Romanians.

So that at the time was another defeat for Vladimir Putin and his efforts to spread a lot of misinformation throughout Europe, which they actually did repeatedly during the Romanian election. So I think Romania will continue to be an important ally of Ukraine, especially in light of Putin's war, especially after this attack. And I know Ukraine's allies are worried about Russia's war spilling over its borders. And I think this is evidence that it might continue to do so, especially when you consider Roman or Russian drones.

have been infiltrating Romanian airspace repeatedly. So it's going to come down to what NATO can actually do to help Romania fight back against this insurgency. Yeah. And I guess another way of looking at it, Chris, is we're living in a new era of warfare. Drone warfare is highly effective. And it's being used more and more around the world.

However, with signal jamming technology, you can have an entire fleet of these things. hundreds of them going haywire. So you can have accidental hits, drones accidentally going off target and exploding on somebody's house or in this case, if that's what happened, an apartment block in Romania.

Is this just something we have to accept now? I think probably, you know, this war has become like the least sophisticated, most sophisticated war at the same time. Exactly. I think like I've ever, like it's perplexing at times that I'm reminded that this war is still ongoing because Russia is seemingly incapable of being successful in this war, but it continues. Yeah.

You know, much of the plight and the, you know, the destruction of parts of Ukraine and parts of Russia. But yeah, I think, unfortunately, like in this era that we're living in bed with drones and the technology that's seemingly getting there, but obviously not quite there yet, where it's, you know, the same as a man pilot going down in a plane. I think this is probably going to be what warfare looks like for the foreseeable future is that there's going to be access. like this. And I think especially when you look at Russia and the way they've handled this war to

date, they don't exactly seem like they know what they're doing. No. You know, it seems to be, you know, casualties after casualties of their own sacrifices and sacrifices of the Russian people and, you know, failed technology. I mean, it feels like they're just burning themselves to the ground. But Cole, is it not incumbent upon NATO to sort of figure out what the rules of engagement are in this new era of drone technology? Because I, I'm not, I'm not, steeped in knowledge of NATO, but an attack on one is an attack on all. This looks like an attack. So maybe they should figure out, like, is there nuance to what an attack is?

Can we figure this out so that we're not all asking ourselves these questions every time one of these drones goes, well, seemingly haywire? And what happens when an attack, what happens when they say it's a drone that went haywire, but it's actually an attack? Yeah, this absolutely needs to be looked into to see, you know, because, you know, Russian drones have been invading Romanian airspace repeatedly. So is this just an errant drone or is this part of a more coordinated attack against one of Ukraine's allies? So NATO absolutely has a responsibility to have a coordinated response to figure out exactly what this is and then do something about it.

And I mean, lastly, we'll end on this one, Chris, is like if this is an attack and Romania is a full member of NATO and let's say, Donald Trump wakes up on the right side of the bed to be in the frame of mind to be bullish on NATO. Why would Putin risk a two-front war? I mean, he wouldn't, right? And that's why I think we go back to this was clearly an accident. Like I do think the Russians, and I do think Putin likes to instigate. I think he likes to get as close to the line as possible because I think he knows NATO is not the unified force it used to be. Right.

I think he knows he kind of has President Trump. I won't say in his back pocket, but he knows that that's just not going to happen. He knows the president's not going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and come to his senses and realize he should defend Europe the way America has always defended Europe. So I do think there's an element of this where I think Putin knows exactly what he's doing. I do think this was probably an accident. But his willingness and Russia's willingness to continue to push closer and closer and tiptoe along that line and just see what they can get away with and see what they can do to agitate and kind of disrupt that union that is NATO.

So they seem to be quite effective at it. All right. We've got a few minutes to talk about this story. The next segment is going to be, is we've got to spend a lot of time on the recession. Congratulations, Canada, by the way. But no, we've got to talk about this Ontario Attorney General Report. Talking about the dangers in the trucking sector.

And for our listeners around the country, just recognize that if there's an issue in the trucking sector in Ontario, those truckers drive around the country. So that problem becomes a national one. The Globe and Mail investigated, and they suggested it is far worse. Here's a quote, this essential sector is riddled with accusations of wage theft, exploitation, and safety lapses, despite persistent warnings from industry experts and drivers themselves. How did this vital industry? I mean, we need our truckers to get us the food from coast to coast to coast and all the products that we depend on.

How did it become this corrupted? Cole, I'll start with you. Sure. Well, that's a very good question. And I think, you know, we're accepting lower and lower standards for, you know, the workers that we have driving these trucks. Yeah, the continued use of temporary foreign workers in the trucking industry is now, unfortunately, responsible for dozens of innocent Canadian deaths per year with bridge strikes and jackknife trailers. This is now a weekly expectation on our roads and highways. In BC, there's a tracker online to see when the last time is, you know, a trailer is jackknife or someone's.

hit a bridge because they didn't have enough clearance. And with some of these instances, for temporary foreign workers, temporary needs to mean temporary. Canada can't afford to bring in murder truckers who risk everyone's safety. Canadians new and old alike, they suffer the consequences of the decision to pivot our labor market from something that's measured in terms of capability to something cheap, replaceable, and implicitly not Canadian. So the more, you know, we need fewer low-skilled temporary foreign workers and temporary residents. And they should go without saying, but if you're driving one of these trucks and you're a non-Canadian citizen and you murder someone, you should be deported.

Yeah. I mean, there's, we have lots of examples of what should, what should mean immediate deportation in this country. And there's no such thing. We don't have a system that allows for, you know, go straight to jail. do not cross-go, do not collect $200. That doesn't exist. I'd like to live in that world where if you do something so egregious, it is a direct, you're on a bus to the airport and from there,

you're going back to where you came from. And Chris, I'm going to give you the last word, but before I do, something tells me that the expression murder truckers is going to capture the attention of some of the people online when we post this. So I'm going to do the responsible. thing and say, that wasn't me saying it. The views expressed by my, by my guests are not necessarily those of the Ben Mulrooney's show or the broadcaster, chorus media.

Anyway, on that note, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying it's not my view. So, Chris, your turn. Yeah, listen, Ben, I think I like she a lot about, you know, you hear stories like this. And I think back to you, and I'm going to give your sister her flowers today on her exit this week from provincial government. But what she did with, you know, regulating the tow truck industry. We had similar problems in the tow truck industry here in Ontario when your sister was minister brought in the tow truck pilot. Because we recognize like in these toe zones,

like these were industries that were getting abused by temporary foreign workers who were not following the rules that we already had in place. And we, I'm the last person that thinks we need to bring in more and more regulation on anything. Yeah. But when you see these sectors being abused and we see it in the trucking industry. We saw it in the towing industry. It's a lot of new Canadians, a lot of immigrants, a lot of temporary foreign workers that are taking these jobs that aren't properly qualified, aren't properly trained.

And they're easily abused. And they're easily taking advantage of by, you know, the CEOs and the companies that operate these businesses because they can do things like threatening, you know, misclassification of employment statuses. And they can threaten, you know, that if you don't do this and you don't, you know, work those extra hours, we're going to take away your license.

Those kind of things ran rampant in the tow truck industry for years and years. I thought your sister did a heck of a job reining that in. And I think you look at the trucking industry as a whole in this country, not just here in Ontario. Obviously, the AG, you know, focused on that, but like across the country, we might have to have a similar conversation about bringing in some really heavy restrictions on how and who's allowed to operate behind the wheel of a truck. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, we're going to take a break.

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Ford Basics, always more for less. The Ben Mulroney show in name only right now because front and center are Cole Hogan and Chris Chapin. We're talking all things that matter politically. And right now I think one of the biggest stories. It's unsurprising to me, Chris, this news that we are in a technical recession, despite what we were promised in the election campaign of the fastest growing economy in the G7,

this is where we are. I think a lot of us saw this coming. Not to say there haven't been some wins for this government, but the economy is not where I think most of us thought it would be. Yeah, no, it's not then. And I will be fair. Like, I think there are things that I want to give Mark Kearney credit for that his predecessor are certainly refused to do.

You know, the movement on LNG is great for Canada. The idea that we might be getting closer to a pipeline is great for Canada. But let's not pretend that this was not, you know, they're going to blame the United States for the fact that we've, you know, turned into a technical recession. This has been in the making for years and years and years. Canada has been lagging behind where we should be for the last decade. And I mean, I'm sure you've seen the chart, the graph that shows.

It used to be a parallel line with the American. Americans. And then in 2015 happened, and I can't really remember what happened in 2015, but something happened in 2015 that just led to us flatlining and the Americans still taken off like a rocket ship, despite tons of economic headwinds

against them. And there you go. Absolutely. And I think like it wasn't just politics. Like it was the direction the liberal government put us on in this country. You had both President Biden and President Trump oversee, you know, the terms in office.

that saw the U.S. economy continue to grow while ours flatline. Yeah. And it was because of decisions we made, not we, but decisions the liberal government in Ottawa made to, to, you know, refuse the idea of extracting resources and allowing us to prosper. And so I think it was only a matter of time. I hope it doesn't last long. I'm not confident. It won't.

And I think we're in a pickle. And Cole, here's the problem as I see it. And people might not like the analogy. They might think it's too dramatic. But I've been saying you don't hire the arsonist to put out the fire. And because they changed the figurehead, because they replaced the drama teacher with the banker, a lot of people thought this was going to signal a brand new government. And you guys know this more than I.

But when you bring back 85% of the same people and all of your functionaries and all of your bureaucrats, when everybody, the entire machinery of government is identical, then that means the spider web of relationships is identical. You cannot start peeling away all the bad programs. You can't peel away all the bad spending, all the bad traditions, all the bad customs, all of that stuff is still intact. Had this been a true turnover in government, you would have people coming in saying, all those people over there, they're not doing that job anymore. That program over there, gone. This thing over here, gone. We don't care about your relationship with this group or that group.

It's a new day. And we're charting a new course. You can't chart a new course when you are tethered to the past of the previous government, which this is, it's the same government. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, this is demonstration and proof of that the fact that that's completely the case. You know, they pretend to be Canada's new government and brand themselves as such. But in reality, all of the cabinet materials mostly the same.

You know, perhaps with some of the by-elections, we will see, you know, Carney gets some of his more, some of his own people in there to sort of switch up the brand. But, you know, Stephen Giebeau just left the other day because he says, you know, Giebos out, but, you know, the four crosses are in. So it's topsy-turvy to see what the Liberal Party ever actually stands for because it just has this natural elasticity where it's everything and nothing at the same time. And that's truly the essence of the Liberal Party. But with the recession here, you know, like families are struggling.

There's a shrinking economy. no other G7 leader is in a recession. They're also facing tariffs in the same global challenges, but they're not in a recession. And Mark Carney doubled Justin Trudeau's debt. He's kept the industrial carbon tax, the same anti-development laws.

And, you know, Pierre Pauly was fond of saying Canadians can't eat speeches, but they can't pay their bills with them either. Yeah, well, and I'm glad you brought up Pierre because he was doing a presser earlier today talking about this technical recession. And the reaction from one journalist, I think is endemic of a real problem,

which is this weird obsession with criticizing, analyzing, and holding to account a man who quite literally has nothing to do with the economic pickle we're in. And rather than looking to the group of people who did it, he is being criticized. I want to play the question and a little bit of his response. In Q3, 2025, the economy grew at an annualized rate by two, We have economists saying that today's numbers are so nominal that it could be forecasted away and revised away.

So aren't you jumping the gun a little bit, calling this a full-blown recession? Right. So I know there's a lot of excuses being made for Mark Carney today, and I'm not surprised. By the way, which outlet are you with? Is 2.6% economy growth the excuse, or is that just the numbers? It's actually, there's no 2.6% economic growth. The economy, if I could, if I could. He's getting heckled by the journalist.

So you're having to go back? How many quarters are you having to go back now? Okay. So you're having to go back. Okay, so let's get this. He sounds like a liberal plant. He doesn't sound like a journalist. I think we have a real problem in this country.

The same thing happened with the how much the press was relishing in the, in the rumors of the floor crossers and what that signaled for Pierre's leadership. But when 14 people from this previous government, I mean, to be fair, on the issue of natural resource extracts, action, this new prime minister is different from the previous guy. However, his team is the same. And 14 people who joined Justin Trudeau to keep that stuff in the ground are now upset. And I think we should have the right to talk to them to say, how upset are you? And is this a rift that can improve over time? What happens if three years from now, we are digging more than we ever have? Are you still going to be a member of the liberal caucus? These are all questions I think journalists should be asking because that speaks to caucus management.

And it would be holding Mark Carney to the same standard. And frankly, it should be held to a higher standard because he's the prime minister. But we, there's, it's really weird to see, Cole, that there's, that we've got a press core that some of them almost feel like it is their responsibility and their duty to protect this prime minister against Pierre Poliev, who did not contribute to this recession. Yeah, the, the reverse. culpability is really like really interesting when you get you know down in the dirt on this issue. Why is Pierre Pollyev answering these questions when really they should be put directly to the

Prime Minister and the people who are responsible for this recession, you know, over the past few quarters, consecutive quarters, which is, you know, the definition of a recession. So there's been multiple policies that have contributed to this. And again, you know, Mark Carney doubled Justin Trudeau's debt and deficits. So really, you know, they are the ones that are accountable for this. But, you know, laying ground cover for the prime minister, I don't think helps anyone, nor does getting into back and forth the opposition leader. I don't think that helps political discourse, nor is it helpful for anyone for, you know,

the opposition leader to go through, you know, a much further filter of scrutiny than the prime minister should be facing on this issue and many more. Yeah. Well, guys, Chris, I apologize. I've run out of runway by I promise to start with you next week. Guys, have a great recession weekend. Talk to you soon. Yeah, talk to you soon.

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