The Ben Mulroney Show - In an effort to be diverse, have we completely corrupted how we hire people for universities?

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Guests and Topics: -In an effort to be diverse, have we completely corrupted how we hire people for universities? with Guest: Tristin Hopper, Columnist and reporter at National Post -Justin Trudeau says AI shouldn’t only benefit ultra-wealthy 'oligarchs,'. with Guest: Mohit Rajhans Mediologist and Consultant, ThinkStart.ca -How do EV batteries hold up in the Cold weather? Turns out not so good with Guest: David Booth, Automotive Journalist, Senior Writer for Driving.ca -What are Americans saying privately that they can’t say publicly? with Guest: Reggie Cecchini, Washington Correspondent for Global News and Global National If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Now I've got a law degree and I, you know, I've, I've, I had a lot of qualifications, um, but they were different from a great many people on that board. And the person who brought me onto the board said that he was done only having lawyers and business people on the board. What he wanted was differences in perspectives, different perspectives that could offer up perhaps a different way of looking at problems and therefore solving problems. And that was the justification for me being on

that board. And I was on the board for 10 years. I'm very, very pleased to have contributed in the way that I did. So I'm really happy to have Tristan Hopper for the first time, hopefully not the last columnist and reporter at the National Post to join us right now because he's written a story in the National Post about how universities seem to have fallen into that very trap of Hiring with diversity in mind, but only a specific type of diversity and so welcome to the show Tristan. Thank you so much for joining us No, thanks for having me. Yeah, so so talk to me about what you uncovered because the numbers are quite stark. Oh I'm just reporting with the Aristotle Foundation. This is

what you would call a think tank. Yes. So they were looking into they thought that something I reported on a lot in that within academic hiring, you've started to see in the last few years. So over the last 20 years, universities would say, Oh, we prioritize, you know, ethnic diversity in our hiring. But in the last few years, you've started to see examples in which that's very explicit in which there will be a position.

I'm thinking of two years ago, there was a couple of positions that opened up at the University of Waterloo. And the advertisement specifically said, oh yeah, don't apply unless you're, you know, identify as a woman or you're black or brown, etc. So you've started to see advertisements like that in which jobs are very specifically, you know, targeted to a unique identity or the job posting will say, you know, we're going to prioritize black people before we get to the non-black people.

will say, you know, we're going to prioritize black people before we get to the non-black people. So the Aristotle Foundation said, well, let's try and figure out how many, how often this is happening within academic hire. So they said, well, we'll just take a representative sample of academic job postings and we'll see how often diversity is sort of prioritized in the hiring process. And we'll see, you know, maybe it's 50%, 60%. And they found by their criteria, it was almost all of them. There was only 12 positions out of 489 in which you didn't factor into the hiring process in some way.

So it's a range. The most extreme is when they say, you have to be black or you have to be Asian or something. You have to be indigenous to have this job. That was only 16. And then the least extreme is where there's just a boilerplate diversity statement. And that's everywhere. I even found postings for, they're hiring a janitor. And even before you get to your qualifications as a janitor, they're like, well, we prioritize diversity and you must believe in diversity, equity, inclusion to be a janitor, like, well, we prioritize diversity and you must believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion to be a janitor at this particular university. So

there's a whole range. A lot of them had to fill out a diversity survey, which just means you're checking boxes of what race you are with different identity. Are you queer? We need a queer janitor for this. Of course you do. Of course you do. But Tristan, it seems to me that it's it's a it's a performative diversity. It's it's diversity of how people look, not necessarily diversity of thought. And in that never you practice it. Yeah, and Aristotle foundation. Let's call it a right wing think tank.

They point this out. There's like, oh oh yeah, this isn't diversity of opinion, this isn't, oh, we need, you know, this particular political leaning to balance out this particular political leaning, it's entirely immutable characteristics. So, you know, what you look like and who you like to sleep with. And the irony that this is happening in, you know,

in our institutions of higher learning where diversity of thought and the collision of diverse thought is what you should expect from those places. That's actually the low watermark. That's the least you should expect from a university, that you're gonna be able to have robust debate between divergent opinions.

And the fact that they are building up their staff from the janitors up With this level of group think but so long as they look diverse then that's what we want This is also why? You may have noticed we have a bit of a pretend Ian problem in Canada in which you know every couple weeks We find out there's there's someone else often in higher act higher learning who is just They've been white the whole time and they just have a heavy tan and they're wearing heron braids and pretending to be native. That's because you get to the

hiring process and it's, you know, your three diversity surveys deep and you're like, you know what, maybe the family rumors about the high cheekbones were true and I've been pretty dismal fun. Tristan, I mean, I've said with no data to support it that while it does seem like generally speaking in the Western world, the pendulum is swinging away from, you know, the worst aspects of the past few years as they relate to sort of identity politics. That if there's going to be one last bastion, it's going to be Canada. And within that last bastion, the holdout is going to be the higher education. And within that last bastion, the holdout is going to be the higher education. This is going to be where identity politics have their last stand, right here in Canadian universities. I think so. Yeah, because it hit us harder than I think almost anywhere else. Because we had no defenses against it. We have sort of a much more centralized system.

And we had a very high high-trust society so when you know so called woke policy started to be used uh... it canada federal that this seems fine no it's anti-racism that sounds fine so i i think uh... yeah we we we've got a much more extreme version of all of these and that particularly true in academia so i think the the extent to which it's been applied uh... in academia if you just look at grant funding, I mean people don't believe me when I say this, when I say like you know when you're filling out grant funding for like computer science

something that's it's not sociology where it maybe you would make sense that you want you know a range of different ethnicities reporting on it you know just the basic law of sciences. How much different ethnicities reporting on it, you know, just the basic law sciences, how much identity factors into it, like there's, you know, you have to, there's an identity statement, there's an identity survey, there's a statement saying, oh, we're going to prioritize, you know, this particular race for this computer science grant before we get to the other races. So it's much more prevalent. If you have an academic friend, just ask them a few questions and they'll get the thousand mile stare and then they'll tell you what's really going on.

Does a report like this that sort of exposes the flaw in the hiring practice, does that move the needle in terms of demanding change at these universities or are they set in their ways? Are they insulated against the criticism? Oh, I think they're going to be real set in their ways. I mean, just just look at how we saw when we saw like pro-intifada protesters, you know, pro-Himathic encampments. The problem

is obviously much more acute on university campuses than anywhere else. So I think it's, I think it's, yeah, they're not going to be able to turn around on a dime on this. So in terms of moving the needle, I don't know, it's probably going to be, I mean, you're seeing it in the United States right now, there's probably going to be a change in government. And then it's going to be quite blunt. It's just going to be you know, funding is cut, you know, quite bluntly to the university sector on on the grounds. And

you've seen you've seen what's happened with Donald Trump doing that in the states. He's made a very clear, keep behaving like this, and you're gonna lose all federal funding all federal research is going to go elsewhere if you are if you insist on perpetrating these these hiring practices. And I could absolutely see the same thing happening here, especially because these universities in Canada depend even more on government funding than they do in the states. That's right. So I guess in terms of moving the needle, it's just changing public perception. There's actually something a friend mentioned to me a while ago.

If you met a professor, someone says, oh, I'm a professor at the university. Say it's circa 1984. And you'd be like, oh, you must have a better view of how society works and how things are working than almost anyone else. And now if you meet an academic and you meet a professor, at least me, my first inclination is like, oh, you probably don't know where meat comes from. You're probably completely out of it on several aspects. So I think, yeah, in terms of a study like this, moving the needle, I think there was a growing public

perception that, yeah, there's something what universities are supposed to be. Tristan, Tristan, we got to leave it there. We got to leave it there, but I hope to talk to you soon. Thank you. I'm so glad to have my next guest in studio. It's always a special treat when I can look my guests in the eye. So everybody say hello to Mohit Rajans. He is our tech expert, mediologist and consultant at thinkstart.ca.

Mohit, welcome to the show. Thank you. I didn't need makeup. That's nice. Okay. So we, welcome to the show. Thank you. I didn't need makeup. That's nice. OK, so we're talking AI. And Justin Trudeau has been gallivanting around the globe. He found himself in Paris, areas on TV right there, talking about AI at a big conference.

And he had some pretty bold pronouncements about the future of AI. Let's listen. We, governments, the private sector, and civil society, some pretty bold pronouncements about the future of AI. Let's listen. We, governments, the private sector, and civil society need to think responsibly about how AI is shaping the world. We cannot let AI pollute social media with empty slop and cunning disinformation.

We cannot let it grow even more, the rifts within us, rifts that are already so deep, between the haves, the have-nots, and the have-yachts. We cannot let it drive our citizens further towards cynicism, populism, hopelessness, and hatred. AI could unleash the potential of every human being to contribute, to create, to positively impact the world around us, but only if we choose to shape it that way. Okay, I mean, I want to live in a world where when I hear him, it doesn't sound like he is reading a soliloquy on stage that was written in by chat GPT to sound like Shakespeare. But that's what I hear every time he speaks.

I feel like that speech should have been made 18 months ago. Yeah, it is not a timely one. And instead, if you look at the summit alone where people have gathered, there are so many different issues that have to be tackled that Justin Trudeau standing in front of the people with the opportunity to basically sell Canada for what our value is from a people standpoint, land standpoint, and resources standpoint, and the opportunity to show that we in Canada have built so many great things when it comes to AI. Let's continue that history. No, no, if he can condescend, he's going to condescend.

But also I personally think, you know, you think that's 18 months too late. I think from a political standpoint, that's exactly what he wanted to do. I think because the next person that one of the next people to speak was JD Vance, the vice president of the United States. And so where you have Justin Trudeau talking about the need for guardrails, you've got JD Vance saying guardrails are going to stifle innovation and this is part and parcel of his tactic right now which is to position the Liberal Party of Canada as the vanguard against Trumpism. I mean you heard him say it we can't we don't want it misinformation, disinformation, populism, hatred, division, all these things

that he's those that's that's red meat for his base against Donald Trump. Well, and also, remember, in the US, they're really encouraging private sector investment inside of the country in order to be competitive. We are in an AI arms race right now when it comes to the world. The rest of the world is not showing their cards the same way that Justin Trudeau is in speaking with this. We should all hold hands and make artificial intelligence the thing that we all collaborate on. Instead, he's referring to issues

that you and I can create with our phones. This is the social media, synthetic media creation with AI is stuff that's already left the station. Right now, if you're not telling people from the medical field right down to construction how you're going to create opportunities for the future, then you're already missing the point. So whose vision is winning? Is the guardrail, it shouldn't just be for the wealthy oligarchs vision of Justin Trudeau

or JD Vance saying heavy regulation could kill AI? Which vision is winning right now? I don't think any country is openly saying that their regulation is the way you should follow what they're doing with AI. In fact, most people have shut things down before they're letting them inside. So what I think is that somebody like JD Vance is already alluding to America's approach.

They're already saying, listen, you're not gonna tell us how we're gonna play this game. You don't wanna use our products great. We've got enough of a population. We've got enough people to test out our stuff. But the bigger issue is Big Tech is at the table with America yeah they're not with Asia Sam Altman went and did a tour of Asia and tried to get people all riled up again about chat

GPT being safe prior to this conference there's a lot of that political stuff happening but we still don't have that middle ground right now that is going to prevent us from not looking back at both grok and azure which is Microsoft and deep mind and all this stuff, and say some of it's problematic. So you got Grok as part of X. But now I hear Elon Musk and investors are offering nearly $100 billion to control open AI. I must have been sleeping on this story

because I didn't hear anything about it till I got in today. So can you explain this drama to me? That's exactly what it is, is drama. We're now in a situation where you have on one side these fantastic products being developed. You look at them every day and you're like, that's cool now. No, that's cool now. It's getting better. It's getting faster. And then you've got these bros, these brothers. Essentially, Sam Altman and Elon Musk started OpenAI together with this promise that to control AI

and what they were doing with ChatGBT was going to be something that was going to be fundamental and important to the world. Of course, now they are polarizing about both the value of it and what should be done with it. And what scares me the most about this is what they actually know. Think about how many times we've asked ourselves, how did ChatGPT come up with that? I feel like both of them know and that scares me. But what, what is, what's the direction of open AI that is so problematic for Elon Musk that he

feels compelled to put a group together to buy it. Oh, I wouldn't even pretend to understand how much of an ego play this is versus a product play. But I do know that Sam Altman has had a playbook for, you know, what are we in chat, GPT 4 to 5 right now, he has one for 10 iterations that, you know, what are we in chat GPT four to five right now? He has one for 10 iterations that show that it'll be fully integrated in so many things.

Remember how difficult it was to decouple from windows back in the day? And we're just like, what do you mean you can't have a computer that doesn't have windows? That's what I feel like we're getting to with what OpenAI is trying to do right now. Gotcha. In knowing what would be sort of the reverberations

of DeepSeek that came out of China last week, was it last week or two weeks ago? Anyway, but that was sort of that was felt like a neutron bomb in the markets and across open AI or AI platforms around the world. So resetting what excellence was and who the benchmark and the high watermark were. Is open AI still, according to you, a leader? Definitely a leader in North American parts in terms of the benefits that we're going to get. But what people forgot about DeepSeek was right after that, Alibaba came out with their own version. Alibaba is a huge, huge e-commerce play in Asia. And if you see what they're doing with e-commerce, you're going to forget about what DeepSeek is. That's how quick we're moving.

Okay. Well, I want to finish with a story that it's going to make us feel good. These tech stories oftentimes scare us and perplex us, but the Portland Trailblazers have made it possible for blind fans to quote unquote watch games live. Tell me what this is all about. We're quite simply in this phase where actually Portland Trailblazers have been very progressive in the way that they've used everything from analytics to data. But the in-game experience right now, they're changing for blind people so that you can have a physical board and listen to the haptics at the same time.

Anybody who doesn't understand haptics, just think about somebody who doesn't need to use their eyes, but can still cause something to either snap or use their hands and still create an interactivity. The amazing part about it is they're considering the immersive side. Yeah.

So you're wearing the headphones, you're getting involved in your feeling like you're a part of the game. I think people, I think when we start to realize how much we're spending for sporting events and all of that stuff, it's going to come down to some of this immersive experience that's going to feel good for everybody.

It just happens to be a good story for a blind person. Well, yeah, that mean it's this, I believe live sporting events are at the vanguard of these new immersive technologies, whether it's in sort of in game or the ability to watch a game remotely. I mean, I saw it with VR goggles where you can sit courtside at a Laker game, right?

Like those sorts of technologies are being developed for that live experience, which I find really fascinating. I think it just makes it so much more easier and fun for the kids, especially. Sometimes I've taken kids to the basketball games and I've been like, it's not all like three hours of fun. Yeah.

It's all part of it, but you know what? We'll see the price increase accordingly, but the accessibility was what we're talking about here. And it's a major part of what I love about our conversations is we can talk about the evil oligarchs all we want, but the truth is the technology is pushing innovation to a point where the accessibility is doing some great things. Yeah and once the price comes down on those on sort of these innovative technologies it's they're gonna be

available in the accessibility of these sporting events that are you know normally hundreds of dollars can drop to a couple of you know you're gonna get a subscription right next thing you know you're gonna have a permanent seat at the front row of a Laker game if you want. Mohit, thank you so much for joining us. Like I said, I love looking at you eye to eye. Really great to talk to you and I hope you come back soon.

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Switch to RBC Avion Visa and get up to 55,000 bonus Avion points. Limited time offer, condition supply. Visit rbc.com slash Avion. This is Carrie the fire. I'm your host Lisa Laflamme. Carry the fire, a podcast by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation featuring inspiring personal stories about what happens when world leading doctors, nurses, researchers and their patients come together to ignite breakthroughs. Carry the Fire launches Monday, January 27th, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And you know, when it comes to the EV marketing in Canada, things have not been looking particularly

good over the past few months. The uptick in terms of how many people are purchasing them hasn't been what what the governments have wanted hasn't been what industry has wanted and now more bad news. There was a big study that was done on the range of EVs in Canada during cold weather and the cold can sap up to 40% of an EV battery life that is according to the Canadian Automotive Association tests. So to join us to talk about this and more David Booth, automotive journalist and senior writer for driving.ca. David, this is a this is a really concerning number for people who may be on the fence about getting themselves a car but have, you know, EV range anxiety?

It is, it is. And to be honest with you, their numbers are actually quite on the border of optimistic because they actually copied a Norwegian test the CAA did. In Norway, they don't have hardly any super highways. The speed limits are very low and they'll basically repossess your house if you're 10 kilometers over the speed limit. So I actually did the test with the CAA and we probably averaged 80 kilometers an hour and we drove all these secondary streets. People who have range anxiety in Norway, that may be the way they run out of range. But here in Canada, the way we have range anxiety is we jump on the 401, we boot it at 120 to Montreal, and that's where we need range and charging.

And so the difference between what the range you get at 80 or 90 kilometers or 120 is quite a lot. So in other words, I think the worst one here was minus 34% or minus 37% compared to its advertised range. If you were doing a real test in Canada at 120 kilometers an hour in the temperature we were at minus five, you'd lose close to 50 percent of your range if you were in a car. If you were in a truck, it would be about 50 to 50, maybe even 60 percent of the range. David, that is such a huge number. I've got to wonder, how is this not part of the standard testing of these

vehicles before they're ever put out into the market? Well, it's not a limitation they can do much about. I mean, no, I'm not suggesting they do anything about it. I'm suggesting they let people know about this long before they ever purchase it. Then I could do about a two hour radio show on the limitations of government testing versus range and fuel economy compared to what they actually do. This is just one of the limitations. You got to remember all of the actual estimations come from a laboratory test. It's in a lab in a dyno room. They put the car, they tested according to a program that the EPA and Natural Resources Canada puts out and there's a schedule and they're about 15 minutes a piece. It's an optimal temperature, all like that.

That's all they do. They don't test real-world fuel economy by going out on the road with all the cars. They don't test it in really warm weather. They don't test them in really cold weather. They never have. It turns out that cold weather is more of a detriment to electric vehicles than it is to gasoline or diesel fuel vehicles. And, you know, unfortunately, the data you've seen bears that out. So David, there's there's no way that this is good news for the EV market that's already feeling the pinch. I mean, we were expecting adoption to be far greater today than than it is.

And with news like this, it's going to, like I said, if somebody's on the fence, oh, maybe I'm maybe I'll consider one. And then they hear something like that, especially on a on a cold day, we're experiencing very cold weather this winter in lots of parts of this country, they were gonna say it just wouldn't hold up on a day like today. It can't be part of my life. Well, I mean, let's I, I agree with everything you said,

except that, to imply that there's no use to EVs. But understand, if you're driving all around town, an EV is going to be quite nice. It'll be warm when you get in. That's part of the deal of plugging it in. And even though you have reduced frames, you don't really care. It's great as a second car for sure,

but in order for it to be the second, but given the fact that we, the liberal government has imposed this, this mandate on us that every new car in what, 2030 or something like that needs to be an EV. Well, that, that means that everyone's cars, including their first cars will be EVs. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Look, EVs are perfect for delivery vans in town. They're perfect for second cars. And what they're the very best at is for suburban commuters coming in from say Aurora to Toronto

or Chilliwack or wherever to Vancouver, because it's a back and forth. It's a set mileage. It's probably within the range and you're saving a whole bunch on gas. That's true. Commuter cars. Okay. Absolutely wonderful. So what's a single car to go as far as you want saving a whole bunch on gas. Yeah, that's true. They're perfect as commuter cars. Absolutely wonderful. So what's- As a single car to go as far as you want, no they're not.

So what about this other news, the Canadian consumers who purchased say the Audi Q4 e-tron vehicle reached out that they say that there are so many technical glitches that it has eroded their confidence in their vehicle that a lot of people who buy EVs, the car almost immediately goes into the shop. Well, I'll say two things and one of them won't be kind. If you're buying a German car,

thinking it's going to be as reliable as a Japanese car or even a North America built car. I suggest you look at consumer reports and another reliability records. In general, they're just not. The other thing that I'll say is we're in the age of the software developed vehicle, the STV, okay? We got so much computer hardware. I mean, there's a hundred computers in the car

and an electric car is even more so. It's all electric. There's hardly anything mechanical. So the point is that where most of these problems are occurring are on the electronics side. And you know again, Again, German car electronics are not nearly as reliable as the electronics in other cars. Now that EV is more focused on the electronics, that problem is just exacerbated. Especially since Audi is relatively new to this business compared to say a Tesla or somebody like that, that's where the problems are. Do I think they'll get some fixed? Yes. Will they ever be as reliable as a Toyota? No, I don't think so.

Hey, before I let you go, I'd love to spend a couple of minutes wondering, I wonder if you've been in communication with anybody who may be feeling the impact or the worry of the impact of these looming steel and aluminum terrorists from Donald Trump because he literally said that Canada has stolen America's automotive industry and I got to wonder whether this is part of his plan to steal it back. The big plan is to return certain amounts of production to the United States. His trick is he's got to do it extremely quickly before the inflation that those tariffs will cause piss off his MAGA supporters.

Are people worried? Yes. I'd say the biggest problem amongst Canadian people in the industry, at least, is that they still think that Trump is fooling around. They still think that he's just using this as a negotiating tactic. I'd suggest they read some stuff by a guy named Stephen Mirren and Robert Lighthizer. That's his two tariff whisperers. And they're very serious about tariffs being, if not permanent, long term.

So I think the biggest problem we have to understand is this might not be transitory. It's not going to be transitory, it could be permanent. And this could affect the cost of cars, both EV and internal combustion. It could, I mean, it'll affect our cars if we put retaliatory tariffs on, and really we have to, because if we just let them roll over us,

he ain't gonna stop. It's gonna increase the prices of EVs and our cars when we send them down south, it could hollow out our auto industry. Thank you so much for your insights. I'll talk to you soon. Okay, talk to you back. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And one of the questions that I was musing on with my producer earlier today and yesterday was, where are all the voices in the United States that may disagree with Donald Trump? He's the only voice I hear.

He gets a microphone and he says, this is what I'm doing. And I don't hear any pushback from any meaningful people besides the people you would expect on MSNBC and CNN. And even those people, they don't even, they don't come close to carrying the heft that Donald Trump has. Where are the leaders that are, that if they take issue with how he's wielding his executive orders and making enemies out of friends, where are they? And so to discuss this, we're joined by Reggie Cicchini, Washington correspondent for Global News and Global National. Reggie, welcome to the show. Thank you. So where are all these people? Are they sitting quietly? Do they fear reprisals or does everybody agree with Donald Trump? I think it depends on who you're lumping into, where is everybody?

And I think that there is a realization, number one, at least within the Republican party, that in this new kind of era of politics, in this Trump v. 2, policy starts and ends with Donald Trump. It starts with somebody asking a question. It ends with him simply giving an answer. And sometimes there's no real policy to back it up other than what he's saying.

So how do you push back with somebody who is making things up and then forcing the policy to follow afterwards? And I think the second question is what can people who are actually standing up to push back against Donald Trump thinking that they're going to be able to accomplish if you're looking at Democrats, democratic leadership within the house or the Senate, they're in the minority. They don't have the numbers to step on Donald Trump. If you're talking about pushback from within the Republican Party, while it exists, it

doesn't really matter because for the most part, the Republican Party bends to what Donald Trump wants. So pushback domestically or internationally doesn't really seem to do anything. Now, how are American citizens reacting to this? Because depending on where you land, Donald Trump is either an agent of change or an agent of chaos. And we saw in the lead up to what we thought

was going to be the imposition of tariffs, the governor of Kentucky went on television and said that Ontario's move to essentially ban Kentucky bourbon from LCBO shelves would would be devastating to the economy of his of his state. So I've got to wonder, I can't believe that everybody thinks that this, this chaotic executive action era that we're living in is a good thing. No, of course they don't.

And Governor Beshear is a really great point here because he's a Democratic governor of a ruby red state that is entirely made up of Republican members of the House and Republican members within the Senate. So you have, and oddly enough, the two Republican senators from the state of Kentucky, Rand, Paul and Mitch McConnell, are both actively pushing back against the idea of uh... donald trump pushing tariffs uh... on goods that are brought in from canada c you actually have a bit of a bipartisan

uh... understanding there that what's going on is difficult ran paul going as far as saying what republicans used to stand against new taxes and tariffs are nothing more than a new tax. That is an attempt to try and get a message out to the American public that sometimes the things that Donald Trump wants to do, well, in the long run may benefit the United States. Trump sees tariffs as a way to fill the coffers, to get money so that he can push tax cuts. But in the short term, they're trying to say this is going to be a potential pain for you.

And we heard Donald Trump say, look, you could have to deal with a bit of a disruption here. Your prices may go up, but what's important here is you didn't hear Donald Trump say that on the campaign trail. He said that after he was elected. So to the American people, there is, there's a, there's a sense of uncertainty because they, they elected Donald Trump to to to do what they wanted him to do The question is now will they be okay for the short term?

However short term lasts with the fact that things are simply not getting cheaper here and it's going to be harder for Donald Trump To pin that on the previous administration if it's his own policies Reggie Chikini of watching and correspondent for global news and global national Thank you so much. We hope you come back to the Ben Mulroney show soon. Thank you. All right. So Donald Trump has said something that I think is quite insightful. Also made me chuckle. Let's listen to what he thinks of the idea of work from home. Many of those people, and we talk about reporting to work, right, I happen to be a believer that you have to go to work. I don't think you can work from a home. I don't know, it's like, there's a whole big,

oh, you can work from home. Nobody's gonna work from home. They're gonna be going out, they're gonna play tennis, they're gonna play golf, they're gonna do a lot of things. They're not working. It's a rare person that's gonna work. You might work 10% of the time, maybe 20%. I don't think you're gonna work a lot more than that. And I think they have an going to work. You might work 10 percent of the time, maybe 20 percent. I don't think you're going to work a lot more than that. And I think we, they have an obligation to

work and I have an obligation not to have a second job when they're supposed to be working for the federal government. You're going to find that a lot of these people have second jobs instead of working for, they'll be collecting a federal government check and they'll be working two jobs. And that's, that's big trouble for them. Yeah, listen, I think he's on to something. I don't believe that working from home is as efficient as working at your wherever your office is. The idea that they would be playing golf and tennis speaks to Donald Trump's lived experience. I think we can that's a generous way of saying it. But look, that sort of blunt talk on the work from home movement,

as we've been living in Canada with a public service that found it abhorrent, the idea of having to go into the office three days a week. Come on, like, let's be honest here. Three days a week, you're at home four days a week, that's not a bad deal, not a bad deal. So I like hearing talk like that. And he does have the ability, whether you like him or not,

he does have the ability to put his finger on what people care about, whether it's a big thing or a small thing, whether it's a life-changing thing or a symbolic thing. And here's what he has to say about paper straws. We're going back to plastic straws. These things don't work. I've had them many times and on occasion they break, they explode. If something's hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes. Sometimes a matter of seconds.

It's a ridiculous situation. So we're going back to plastic straws. I think it's okay. And I don't think that plastic's going to affect a shark very much as they're eating, as they're munching their way through the ocean. Look, I don't know anybody who likes a paper straw. And what I've learned about paper straws is the amount of chemicals and bleach required to make them durable enough for you to drink a diet coke, as the president no doubt enjoys, it means that it is far less

of a green alternative than we have been led to believe. I hate paper straws. And actually, I've told you before, I work for a company that has a technology that allows for plastic to biodegrade much like paper in a matter of years as opposed to decades and centuries with the presence of no microplastics. So maybe Donald Trump is talking about using our technology, Midori Bio, in plastic straws which could then be, then he could bring them back with far less guilt. Not that I think he's got any guilt at bringing back old-school plastic straws. Okay, I saw something yesterday. And I'm very, I want to be very

careful about this next piece of audio because I love Tim Hortons. But this gentleman went to 32 different Tim Hortons to see how many orders they got right. Here's what he had to say. I went to 32 Tim Hortons. I ordered the same thing every single time and we're going to see how many orders they got wrong. A small black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin. Can I get a small black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin please? Can I get a small black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin please? Can I get a small black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin?

You don't need to see me go to 32 Tim Hortons. And I went to 32 Tim Hortons twice. 32 Tim Hortons, between the hours of 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, they got nine out of 32 orders wrong. Almost a 30% chance that they're gonna get your order wrong on a very simple order. It was not busy, it was not waiting in a lot of lines. The next one I'll bring up here,

7.30 a.m30am to 1030am. This is their busy time. Same orders, same Tim Hortons locations. 15 out of 32. 46.88% wrong. I am not throwing shade. A lot. I'm not throwing shade to Tim Hortons. I'm not throwing shade to Tim Hortons. I love Tim Hortons. I don't believe they've ever gotten my order wrong. I am not throwing shade. That's a lot. I'm not throwing shade at Tim Hortons. I'm not throwing shade at Tim Hortons. I love Tim Hortons. I don't believe they've ever gotten my order wrong. You get every time I've ordered the farmers wrap, the sausage farmers wrap, they deliver. Oh boy, do they deliver. That is still my favorite breakfast sandwich in the country. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious. His escapes defy belief. And when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it.

His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt. But how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel? I'm Seren Jones, and this is a most audacious heist. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.