The Ben Mulroney Show - Hot Takes!! Immigration rulings ignored! Sports journalism under fire!

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Guest: Andy Gibbons, Principal at Walgate Advisory, former VP WestJet Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former senior aide to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty 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

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Yes, indeed. Time to lock in with our good friends, Andy Gibbons, principal at Wallgate Advisory, and Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park. Time for Hot Takes, gentlemen. Happy Wednesday. Happy Wednesday.

Happy Wednesday. Migwitch, my friend. Okay, let's start with, with the issues that we seem to have that are persistent in this country, that we can't seem to get around. The Globe and Mail is reporting that asylum claimants who cross the border illegally are, keep finding ways to stay here or even go to the United States. And this is not a question about immigration. It's about our inability or our unwillingness to enforce our own laws. Maybe I'll just say, who should start?

Andy, why don't you start? We'll go alphabetically today. Well, the good news, the good news is that in that article and that feature that you talk about in the Globe, Ben, asylum seekers actually have received letters asking themselves, asking them to leave the country, and have said, on your way out, please send a polite email to the CBSA that says, oh, by the way, I'm leaving. So the good news is there is some action here. There is a bill that was passed that is intended to.

take action. Letters have been sent. But also, there's a whole industry around protecting these people and that the place they have to deport themselves to is too unsafe and so on and so on. So I guess the enforcement is going to be chapter two, but chapter one, the government actually taking action, actually sending letters, actually communicating their intent to enforce. That's a good thing. We've talked about that on the show a lot. So Regan, I'm going to tell a quick story. And I hope the parallel will be clear. But whenever I get into a debate about the safety on our streets in a city like Toronto, as it relates to pedestrians and sharing the road with the vulnerable, the pedestrians

and the cyclists, I always say, like, I know that I in my car can kill you. And you know that I can kill you. But I need you to behave like you know I can kill you. If we're, stop putting me in a position to play a game of chicken. And if these, if these people who are here, illegally, know that the place that they would be returned to is dangerous. Why don't they behave in Canada like they know that they would have to go back to a place that's dangerous? And the only answer I can come up with is they know they can get away with sticking around here for a really long time, even if they behave badly.

Well, there's a bunch of things in what you said there, Ben. I do want to remind your listeners and your viewers that in talking about immigration, you bridged back to municipal issues like bike lanes and potholes and driving. So we know your heart is not far from municipal. Even though we're immigration. Second thing is, look, a country without borders is not a country. It just doesn't exist. It's not a real thing.

So to Andy's earlier point, at least the government of Canada is doing something about enforcing its borders. Having said that, you know, I happen to agree with what Andy said and the intonation of your lead in there. which is, you know, people who come for as legitimate refugees, that's one thing. Yep. What these articles you refer to, Ben, are talking about are not legitimate refugees in the traditional sense. I'm the son of an immigrant. My father came to Canada in the 70s. I know Ben, your mother did the same.

And so this is, you know, enforcing borders and asking people to leave who have outstaged or welcome or are not allowed to be here is just a normal and rational thing to do. The point that you make, I think, is also germane, which is Canada has been a sucker for people, or for, of a country, for people who want to squat and show up and enjoy all the benefits of this country. That's not to say we shouldn't be welcoming, but, you know, you have to come here lawfully and legally. I'm not, I don't think anybody on this panel today will suggest that we need to see actions from CBSA, for example, akin to what was happening in the United States under ICE. I don't think anybody's calling for that. is if you don't have a border, you're not a real country, and if people are crossing our border illegally or they're not legally allowed to stay in this country, they should go back to the door that they came in from, and to whatever country that is, whether that's the United

States or elsewhere, they should go back and try and enter in the door as everyone else does as prescribed by law. There's a story that just came through on global news very recently earlier today, and it's a pretty stark, stern condemnation of, you know, I've said it before. take the things seriously in this country that need to be taken seriously. And when the headline reads dozens of inmates released from Ontario jails every year because of errors or oversights, these are self-inflicted wounds. And I don't know what it's going to take to force our leaders at all levels of government, of all stripes, to close the loops on whatever programs they have.

What is our end goal, Andy? And how can we ensure what systems do we need to have in place to ensure that that goal that we're spending millions and billions of dollars on is achieved? And in so many cases, it would be immigration or asylum seekers or, I mean, AI, we talk a mean game by having AI. We don't have AI sovereignty in this country or data sovereignty in this country. And then in terms of jails, we don't do the things to make sure that the end result can. be achieved. Yeah, and, you know, it was only a year ago that 70% of Canadians said Canada agreed with the statement Canada is broken. Now, I'm not describing all of that to this, but it feels like our basic institutions are failing. Now, I would hate to be the head of prisons meeting

Doug Ford this afternoon or tomorrow morning after his comments today because, boy, is he pissed off and rightly so. But just basic administration, you know, think about this 20 years ago, Ben. And when an Auditor General report came out, it was, it dominated the news cycle for weeks. Departments were accountable. Agencies were accountable. The scrutiny seemed much higher. You had more journalists following these things. Right now, we don't have journalists following these stories.

We don't have journalists digging up things and making people accountable and ratcheting up transparency. So I don't think it's one thing. I don't think there's been a cohort of incompetent people that just arrived on the scene and messed everything up. I think it's a bunch of different things that are adding to the to the deterioration. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, it's really too bad. Really too bad. Regan, I'm just going to, I'm going to, I shouldn't assume.

Do you agree with my principled belief that we don't take certain things seriously that need to be taken seriously? Well, so I think, Ben, there's merit in the direction of your belief, but I'm not sure I fully agree in particular on this case. And here's why. I think you can, what the article said, I didn't read what the journalist wrote, but I do know, because my father-in-law used to work in correctional services for correctional services Canada. I do know that there is an element of corruption that also takes place in the correctional services program, and that has been well documented at the federal level. I'm not familiar with the provincial level, but I do know that sometimes these things happen. But let us not forget, the government of Canada allowed Paul Bernardo to go from. from a maximum security prison to a medium security prison.

Yep. And, you know, that foolish idiot minister, Marco Medecino, claimed he had no idea when, in fact, his office had been told about this. So I suspect in the case of Ontario, there's probably more shoes to drop. Inmate transfers and people getting released in prison is not typically something that gets shared up the food chain, either with assistant deputy ministers or deputy ministers in the government or even with ministers. But ministers are the ones who are accountable.

And while genuine mistakes do happen, we also can't rule out. maybe crime and corruption and some other nefarious motivations for why inmates more than 100 over the past few years yeah that's how many inmates are in the area in the Ontario Correctional Service I don't know is it 10,000 50,000 I don't know how many people we have in in jail right now but the number 100 in absence of a denominator is is not shocking but it is something we should talk about yeah it's uh it's yeah you're right it's a number if if there were a million people in then that's a small number but it's still a hundred, it's a hundred people who should be behind bars that are accidentally let free because we either don't have the systems in place or we don't

have the funding or don't have the manpower. Or there was corruption. Or there was a crime. Yeah. Well, there's, and unfortunately, it feels to me in the stories that we tell here that so much can be traced back to that sort of thing. You look at, you know, you look at the BC permissive drug culture that they were supposed to fund mental health supports to get.

get people off of drugs. They did no such thing because why spend money when you don't, when you don't have to? And so to me, it's just clearly there are people who are, maybe they're just not serious about things. I don't know what they are. But all right, we're going to take a break and we are going to downshift into an interesting story in the world of sports. What happens when a journalist is potentially canoodling with one of their sources?

It's a big, big story in the United States. We're going to talk about that next right here on the Ben Mulroney Show. This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security.

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I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Season 8 drops April 21st. But you can hear the first story now, one month early, only on Amazon music. Welcome back. And, you know, we've got to talk, guys, about this controversy involving one of the top reporters for the athletic, which is an outlet that is powered by the New York Times. And this woman, Diana Rossini, has been the allegations of that she was sleeping with the New York, I'm sorry, the New England Patriots coach. And she covers that. team. So essentially a journalist was allegedly canoodling, to use the words of Dave Portnoy, with a source. And so she was the top paid person there making between $1.5 million and $2 million a year. And this is sending shockwaves through the industry, but also through sports journalism

writ large. And earlier, after this had surfaced, NFL insider Adam Schephard. was asked point blank as somebody who is a colleague of hers and does a similar job. What are your rules? What is protocol for you and people like you in your job to keep the gathering of information process professional and not too personal? You know, I can only speak to me, how I do. Okay. That's all I'm going to do. Okay.

Like me. I'm not like a third of my business, people, my business, me. I've done the job for 36 years. covering the NFL. And I like to think I have strong professional relationships with many people. I don't think you do this as long as you do if you don't have that. So how you do that, everybody goes about it differently. Well, if true, she certainly went about this differently than Adam Schaefter.

Regan, this is going to, depending on who you are, you're going to look at this. Oh, it's sexism because she lost her job. coach kept his, their apples to oranges, comparison. But how do you see this? And sports journalists are journalists. And the rules governing them very, very similar to, you know, somebody covering a political beat. So, Ben, there's a lot in here.

I'm going to start by saying, as a Buffalo Bills fan, Go Bills, anything that destabilizes the New England Patriots and the Evil Empire is welcome by me. So, you know, Coach Vrable, hell of a player, hell of a coach. But if it screws up their season next year, go bills. I'm happy for that because we need to get back on top of the AFC East in Buffalo. That's the first thing. Yeah. Second thing is, look, journalists and their subjects, male or female on either side,

it is a tale as old as time that every once in a while in certain circumstances, the horizontal mongo is something that is entered into the professional chat. And that's like, it happens. And I'm, you know, that's when there's male journalists covering female subjects and female journalists covering male subjects. That's not sexist. That is a fact. You know, that happens in Ottawa on Parliament Hill. It happens in Washington on Capitol Hill. And it happens in the business and sports media too. This doesn't really surprise me all that much. You know, obviously there was something inappropriate that was happening. You know, I've never been to Sonoma with a professional colleague and hung out in a hot tub and was holding hands and, and, uh, Not just holding hands, interlaced fingers.

Well, to use El Presente's terminology canoodling, that's something I've never done. It is a bit of a surprise. I raised an eyebrow at that. So clearly something inappropriate was going on. It certainly crossed a visual line or an ethical line. One of the things that I think is probably the case as to why she was no longer employed by the Athletic in the New York Times is because she probably, the journalist. journalist in question probably signed a code of conduct or an ethics rule that said she wouldn't do these types of things.

And, you know, she was, as they say in Ottawa for members of parliament who play away from home. She was probably set home and had a conversation with her husband and her family. But, you know, look, these are two consenting adults with an obvious power dynamic between them. You know, they obviously made conscious decisions here. But I have to say, as a Bill's fan, I'm not terribly upset. And I look forward to the season starting in earnest and go bill. Look, Andy, this is, this is to me, it's a black eye for journalism because, oh, come on. Hold on a second.

It calls into question her judgment and any bias in any of her reporting. It just does. The appearance of propriety is as important as propriety itself. She, she, I agree. Yeah. And the, and the athletic stood by her until, pictures came out that said that maybe she wasn't telling the truth. And all that to say, it's a black eye, but it's a black eye that should lead us to

the conclusion that we already already know, which is journalism is made up of people. And in a big enough data set, you're going to have flawed individuals. And so I'm not suggesting we tar and feather her or make this about women in sports broadcasting at all. but it is a big deal. And the reason, Andy, I'll forgive it to you after this, the reason that he's not being treated the same as her is not because he's a man and she's a woman.

It's because this doesn't call into question. It calls into question perhaps as morality, but not anything to do with his job. Yeah, I mean, maybe they were just canoodling, Ben, and then that couple at the Coldplay concert, they were just enjoying sky full of stars and having a nice moment. I mean, you mentioned one thing,

You said one thing that's maybe all your listeners, maybe your listeners don't quite know, and that is that sports journalism is no joke. Yeah. I mean, these ladies who are the rink reporters or the in-game entertainment people at MLSC, they have in their contracts what your rules are or are not around how you fraternize and socialize with players and sources. It's no joke. It's probably stricter even than political journalism in many instances.

But we can all name journalists we know who've not been not been perfect. I'm kind of glad the story came out around her. The resignation was a little bit weird. And I guess she probably figured out the scrutiny was probably not going to be worth it. Yeah, she read the tea leaves. But she read the tea leaves. And fair game on Mike Vrable. I mean, what does what does he get?

But, I mean, he did something wrong personally, but he didn't do anything wrong professionally in a crass, in a crass way. Well, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting to see the reaction from other women sports journalists because they had to fight tooth and nail to be taken seriously and then to eventually get into spaces that they were told they could not get into. And there is going to be a particular type of person who attacks women in sports journalism writ large because of this. And that's 100% unfair. and I wonder whether other journalists are going to come out and be annoyed that they have to defend themselves

because one person made a mistake. Well, and there's been rumors around Toronto for years around, you know, some of these sports pundits, the players they mention, the players they don't, the relationships they have with agents, what players they promote in their broadcast before a draft. You know, there's a lot of cozy relationships that could be exposed that aren't necessarily canoodling

in Sedona. So, I mean, I'd love to see that kind of scrutiny. Yeah. I think there's actually more there in the sports world than there is, than there is the rest. Andy Regan is, he's vehemently opposed to you. And I know that because he gave you a very small headshake, not a big one.

It's a small one. I don't know. Well, look, it's adults in professional positions can be focused, though, on the important thing, which is the Buffalo Bills are going to win the AFC East and be the AFC representative in the 2027 Super Can we talk about that, please? Because look, this is destabilizing for the Pats. Yes, the journalist made a mistake.

By the way, it's not the first time a Drew who works for a New York Times-owned outlet. Sweet-Regan. That has crossed a line or done something wrong. So, I mean, it's a tale as old as time. But remember, it's not just female journalists who do this. It's also male journalists. Oh, I know. But that's what I was pointing out.

I was pointing out that it's, unfortunately, I can read the tea leaves going forward. And there are going to, you're going to see essays from, well-established and respected women journalists who are going to have to, who are going to feel it's incumbent upon them to justify and defend their very job. And that is entirely unfair. I totally agree. Unnecessary. Not necessary.

And look, I'm going to allow, I just, you know, you're such a nice guy and I don't want to be, I kick you when you're down. You've got between your love of the Leafs and your love of the bills, you don't have a lot to latch onto but fantasy. So live in that world, my friend. Thank you. And don't forget I'm a conservative, so we don't linger out. Hey guys, thanks so much.

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