The Ben Mulroney Show - Is another federal election around the corner?

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Guest: Andy Gibbons, Principal at Walgate advisory .  Former vp WestJet Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former Senior aide to minister of finance 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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Built for breakthroughs, with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and it's not a Wednesday without our Wednesday panel for this week in politics. We got Andy Gibbons from Wallgate Advisory, former VP at WestJet, and Mr. Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park, Inc.

And former senior aide to Jim Flaherty. Welcome, gentlemen. Bonjour, my chum, Megwitch. Morning, Ben. How are you? I'm doing very well. I'm doing very well. Thank you very much.

All right. So a few weeks ago. one of my panelists on another this week in politics panel, I believe it was the Monday panel, suggested that we could be in danger of reliving 1979, in that a young minority government, it was Joe Clark's conservatives at the time, and now it's Mark Carney's liberals,

were unable to get their ambitious budget passed. Government fell, and we went into an election, and then we were subjected to another five years of Pierre Trudeau-Père. And I got to wonder what you guys think, because there is a worry, at least according to the Toronto Star, Mark Carney is worried that his budget won't pass. Regan, do the arithmetic for us.

Who needs to support this so that we don't have a repeat of 79? So a couple things, Ben, first is I think it was last week I said that there is zero percent chance at this budget. Yeah, I remember that. And that was in the context of the Black Quebecois and their ridiculous demands in exchange for votes in the House of Commons. I remain of that view that the budget is going to pass. The math is pretty simple. The NDP and likely Elizabeth May, I expect to vote for the budget.

Let's be clear, Prime Minister Carney has spent his career counting, whether it's economic data, financial data and whatnot. And Mr. Clark, who was a fine foreign minister, was not a great counter, which is why your father didn't make him finance minister. And so the Clark government failed in 79 because they couldn't count in the House of Commons the most basic of counting, which is votes. I think the prime minister, and from what I understand and have read in media reports, has done outreach to the opposition parties to find out where they might have interest in the budget, the block aside. And I suspect there will be enough in the budget for the NDP who are in the midst of a leadership race. Ann Elizabeth May, who is quite fond of the prime minister and shares a lot of, let's call it, progressive conservative values. She's an outrageous extremist when it comes to climate change in Hamas and her love for Hamas in Palestine. But there's enough commonality between the two of them that I expect that he will get the votes to answer your question directly from those two parties.

Yeah, and Andy, look, I don't think the conservatives, I think the conservatives will be able to look themselves in the eye if they don't vote for this and say, look, we're a conservative party. We're not going to vote for a budget that contains this much spending and this, you know, this, a budget, or a budget deficit of whatever X is. But the NDP for self-preservation purposes, even if they disagree with this budget, just for political pragmatism, we're going to have to vote for it. They have no leader. They have no money. They have no vision.

They have no connection yet to their base that they lost in the last election. So they got a lot of rebuilding to do and they need, they need runway to do it. Well, I thought if you caught Minister McKinnon's scrum yesterday, the day before, he kind of had a smirk on his face. I think liberals think they have everyone right where they want them, and it's win, win, win. It's interesting the media coverage about this budget. When Stephen Harper was Prime Minister and had a minority government, it was always, well, what efforts has the Conservative government done to make sure the opposition supports the budget? And this time the media coverage sort of is, what efforts has the opposition parties made to support the Carney budget? So I just find that a little interesting.

I think liberals are a little bit smug going into all this. Sorry, I want to interrupt you for just a second, Andy. It would be interesting if the coverage wasn't laid out, as you just described. That would be interesting. This is part for the course. Yeah. What is everyone doing to support this great prime ministerial privilege to have run our nation, you know, that makes Regan Per every week, right?

So I think the liberals are just a tad smug on this, and I think that the lesson for them and what the mandate Canadians gave them is get down to the nation's business, be workman-like and business-like. So I think they're kind of half there, but, you know, Minister McKinnon was really smirking

when he took these questions. Well, if there's an election, it's on them. And they'll have to answer for that and, you know, grinning like the Cheshire cat. Okay. Well, we won't have to wait too too much longer. It should be coming in just over a week. Okay, let's talk inflation.

It's creeping up again, which is not a surprise. But here's a question. Because you guys know economics far more than I. I mean, Regan, you worked for a minister of finance. So why is it that when prices go up, they go up and they go up, and then when whatever pressures were put on those prices to go up, when those pressures disappear, the prices don't come down. Or at least it feels that way.

To be clear, I worked for the finance minister, but not because of my deep understanding of economics. I think I got a D in my first year economics course in my undergraduate. However, I do know a little bit about economics, and that is there's this thing called priced stickiness, which is a Kenzian term. And that is to say when prices go up, they're quick to move up, but when inflation or cost of down, prices typically go down. And that is because, and I'm oversimplifying it, of course, I am certainly not economist.

But the rationale is that consumers adjust faster to price changes than companies and producers. And so it really is a factor of, as I understand it, price economics and how quickly people respond. Companies aren't quick to turn around and lower their prices because if consumers and consumers are habitual beings, when they get into purchasing something for a certain price, they sort of tend to forget about it. And so that really is the rationale as to why that takes place. However, I should be clear, I am not auditioning to be governor of the Bank of Canada.

Come on. Laying out price stickiness, I mean, you're speaking the language of the people, and maybe that's what we need in the Bank of Canada governor's position. Andy, how do you see it? And let me ask you just a personal question as well. are where do you land on the idea of brand loyalty like look if if company a raises their prices are you more apt to look at company B when you go the grocery store if if if they're giving you a similar product at a cheaper price yeah I mean I think everyone's been forced to do that I mean

I haven't historically been one who's you know really been focused on you know whether butter is 799 or 499 or what have you but I do find myself lately doing that I think every Canadian is doing that. Loyalty is kind of gone. You're just not going to pay $9 for a pound of butter. Well, hold, hold on. You're not going to do that. No matter how much you love Galen Weston,

no matter how much you love no name or president's choice, you're not going to do it. Yeah, but I think you are because I sort of parallel to that impulse is the bi-Canadian initiative, right? And it's pretty, pretty, it's conventional wisdom that between two products, if one's Canadian, one comes from China, the one from China is going to be cheaper. So, so, so where, what does that do to this, this impetus to go getting the best deal? Regan? Well, I think, I think, I think, Ben, Andy's point about, about cost of living is germane, to our earlier conversation about the budget.

It is something that Canadians are feeling from coast to coast. Everything is more expensive, you know, whether. it's a coffee at Tim Hortons or you're buying your butter at the grocery store, you're buying an auto, a car. And so I think that's the real challenge that policymakers have coming in this country, both at the federal and provincial level, which is how can they continue to lower the cost of living for Canadians? Housing obviously is the one that gets most attention, but it's right across the board in terms of goods and services that people consume. One thing is for sure, though, when governments run deficits, it does lead and add to inflation. That is an empirical fact

that has been demonstrated certainly during COVID, but over the course of time. Now, there's reasons for that gold standard being gone away with and whatnot, but that is a fact. What we have in this country, though, is governments who have a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and the people are taxed. It is absolutely insane in this country that anybody in the highest marginal marginal tax rate of 54.6% in the province of Ontario, for example, that more than half of your income goes to government. If you add up sales tax and gas tax and all these other kind of user fees,

it's insane. And for one would be in favor, institutional amendment that makes it illegal for governments in Canada to take more than 50% of your income in total and an aggregate. Because it's, as I say, it's not a spending, it's not a revenue problem that governments have at all levels. It's a spending problem. See, like first I thought you're

going to be the head of the Bank of Canada. Now I think you're running for leadership of the conservative party. Hey, don't go anywhere. Much more to come with our panel. right after the break. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be.

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In the 70s, four young women were found dead. For nearly 50 years, their cases went cold. I'm Nancy Hixed, a senior crime reporter for global news. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer. And hear exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon music by asking Alexa to play the podcast Crime Beat. This is the Ben Mulroney show, and thank you so much for joining us.

We are at the middle of the week. This is our midweek political panel. This week in politics, we're joined by Regan Watts. We are joined by, oh my gosh, where's my... And we're joined by Andy Gibbon. I apologize. I lost my... I lost my place in my script.

Guys, it's that time of the week where I ask you to take control of this conversation for the political play of the week. This is the political play of the week. Regan, you first. Ben, it's always my favorite time of the week. My political play of the week actually have a couple. First is I want to start because I'm feeling a little off today. I got a bit of a fever. And that's because I've got Blue Jays fever.

And my first political play of the week actually goes to Edward Rogers, Roger Ray, Ross Atkins, and Mark Shapiro, and everybody involved with the Toronto Blue Jays. You know, Mr. Rogers in particular, but also Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Atkins, they took a beating in the public from idiots like Catholic Kelly about his handling of the Toronto Blue Jays. And the Jays are in the World Series and have been competitive in the Major League Baseball playoffs pretty well for the last 10 years under Mr. Rogers' stewardship. And I think he deserves a lot of credit for just keeping his mouth shut and running a great team. He spent a lot of his own money on improving facilities for the Jays in Dunedin and in Toronto. And they deserve enormous credit. And I think that we should have an open line, Mike, where Mr. Rogers comes on this show and people call in to apologize for being so stupid about him. My actual political play of the week, there's two others that I want to raise.

One is the new Prime Minister of Japan, as a woman whose name I cannot pronounce. Her first act as Prime Minister was to create a new minister. of mass deportations. I think there is a global movement around migration where people are, the general public are very concerned about what is happening with immigration. And to address that very early on in her administration was quite, I thought, interesting. And the other political play of the week, and that's a good one, the other political play of the week that I have is Mr. Pollyev, who seems to keep stepping in and doggie do every time he does an interview on a podcast, he says something stupid, as he did last

week talking about the RC&P being a political organization. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but I can't think of anything more stupid than that. Well, we are going to talk about that next. I will say one thing, because I agree with everything you said about the Rogers family, everything you said about the Blue Jays. But when I heard the story, today we had an interview with this young man who caught the Mariners' home run and did what everybody would do in that situation and threw it back on the field to show his support for his team.

and he was promptly and summarily kicked out of the Rogers Center. That is a rule that needs to change. But that's the exception that proves the rule. It's a lame rule for an awesome team. And I'll leave it there. Andy, your turn. Yeah, it's Melanie Jolie for me. There's been a couple of bad news stories.

One we discussed last week, which was the Stalantis moving to Illinois. and there was an issue with the Ingersoll plant this week. And, you know, I'm not criticizing her personally, but it's beyond underwhelming. I think she performed really poorly. Her response to the incident, Ben, was to say that she had commissioned a response group, quote-unquote. And I just think if you're the average Canadian

or you're working these factories, you would assume that the Minister of Industry is the response group, that they are on top of every single industrial, industrial measure that's happening. That's a good point. It's literally your 24-7 job. I'm not saying she's not on top of it, but I thought her response to say, we're going to

have a response group was really underwhelming. And she's clearly struggling a bit under her new prime minister. And let's hope she all finds her feet, but I thought that was a bit of a misstep. Well, we're going to be keeping an eye on those committee meetings as they try to get access to those Stalantis contracts. I think what is written in them is going, because I believe one of two things happened. Either Stalantis broke the word and the spirit of the contract, in which case there is financial redress to seek, or they did everything that was in the contract, in which case

it was a terribly written contract. In either case, neither side acquits himself well. Speaking of not acquitting themselves well, we're going to go back to what you just talked about, Regan, Pierre Poliev, saying that in the, wake of the investigation that wasn't an investigation of Justin Trudeau on the SNC Lavalant file that he believed that the RCMP was a the political arm of the liberal party of the government of Canada making all sorts of accusations that look whether I you agree with them or not I got bigger fish to fry today I'm there's a lot more on my there's the

here and now there is crisis after crisis that is intersecting and messing with Canadians on a daily basis. I really don't want to go back and litigate the past, Regan. So I agree with that, and I thought that Paul Wells, who is an eminent Canadian writer and political observer, had a wonderful column out last night about this. Look, Mr. Poliyev is in a political pickle right now. He's fighting for his leadership with the leadership review underway. But I don't think that's why he made these comments. You know, Mr. Poliyev, these are his views. And people's views are allowed to evolve. And look, I have been a supporter of his and campaigned for him and wanted him to win the general election. But his comments show, and I think crystallized for

many Canadians, and I think this is going to be a much bigger issue than I think, I believe he initially thought this was going to be in his team. And this really crystallizes the decision that will be in front of Canadians in the next election among the considerations. And that is around tenor in tone. And in the last election, you know, Prime Minister Carney came in and campaigned as the guy who can fix the country and deal with a crisis. And that was very much on brand for him. And compared to Mr. Carney, Mr. Poliyev didn't look quite as good as he did when running against Mr. Trudeau.

You know, Bennett was your father who used to say, don't compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to my opponent. And compare it to his opponent, Mr. Carney appears, sounds, looks, feels like a prime minister with the right temperament and tone. And these types of comments do nothing to add to or to address the concerns that many people have about whether Mr. Paul Yev is the right person to lead the country. The attack ad is coming. You better believe the liberals are going to clip that and run that back during the campaign and compare him to President Trump because it's a Trumpian thing to say. And I, you know, there's

many things that President Trump does that I also support. Doesn't mean I love everything he does. But I do know that Canadians don't respond well to the look, feel, sound, and tone of President Trump. And Mr. Polyeav once again has found a way to make him look and sound like himself, a version of Trump, and I don't think that's going to be additive for his leadership. And Andy, you know, on, in the same week where Pierre Pollyev attacked the RCMP,

our prime minister committed to hiring a thousand new RCMP members. The law and order was the exclusive domain of the conservatives for a very long time. And now that you could make an argument that they're going to fight for those votes

and do what they need to do to be seen as Syria. on that file. Yeah, same goes for national defense. I mean, I'm with Regan. I think this is a really bad moment for Pierre. I think it really triggered a lot of feelings in people. I don't think it's just the CDC and liberals who are making hay of it. There's something about it. You know, at least it rates that it well been, I thought, which was, it's time to move on. Yeah. But the time was, the time to move on was a long time ago from this. I thought this was way in the past for it to come for it to come back up I was really shocked

Bobby Ewing is not in the shower these these things happened Justin Trudeau is not Prime Minister anymore like I just it just reaffirms every negative sentiment people have about him and his instincts

so it's a tough one for him I think I think this has legs and I think man it's it's not good it's not good yeah and I will say one other thing yeah the RCS We did press charges on the Mike Duffy scandal. Like, I'm not saying there's nothing to some criticizing some of the charges laid historically,

but it's just, it's time to move on from that era. Yeah, no. The Canadian has got to as well. And that's it. I mean, you can, you can hear what he said and agree with every, every point, every sentiment, if you want. But the time to say that is not now. The time to say that is we're facing another budget, or we're finally getting a budget,

rather, as we are staring down Donald Trump, the time today is to be the guy presenting alternatives to, you know, solutions are being proffered by the government. And anything short of that is, is time not well spent. And on that, of a speaking, it's distraction, exactly. And on that point, I will say, it's always time well spent with the two of you. Thank you very much for joining us. Enjoy the rest of your week. I'm on you too. I'll see you soon. Go Blue Jays. Go. A kidnap child whispers dark secrets from his past in a language he no longer understands. But a lost cassette will reveal the ugly truth.

From Curious cast in Blanchard House comes a cross-continental. Odyssey to recover a stolen past. This is Stop Rewind, The Lost Boy, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.