The Ben Mulroney Show - Is it a Tarantino movie or real life terror plot? Is the CIA always listening??

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

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Tools that make it possible to go from tax question to client comms in minutes. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ. AI for tax experts. Welcome to the Ben Mulrune. show on the 16th of December 2025. It's Tuesday, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us here on the show. And look, I think justice moves faster in the UK than it does in Canada because there was a story from the 26th of May of this year that we have an update on that

demonstrates exactly what I just said on that on the 26th of May during the liver liver Liverpool FC championship parade there was a massive crowd in the streets celebrating Liverpool's FC's a victory and I guess a man was so upset with the fact that he couldn't get through the crowd and couldn't drive to where he wanted to go was experiencing such a high degree of road rage that he just drove his car through that parade mowing over anybody he could see. The video is clear that at certain points he had a clear path to avoid certain people and it looks like deliberately drove over people, injuring 134 people.

The dash cam footage shows Paul Doyle deliberately accelerating through pedestrians. He lost his temporary claims. He later pled guilty to multiple serious offenses, including attempting to cause grievous bodily harm. he's 54 and as of now has been sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison for driving into the crowds the judge said Doyle acted in a furious rage with total disregard for human life turning a citywide celebration into a scene of fear and devastation and when you see that video when you see the callous disregard for human life and then you see that the guy got 21 years and six months in prison,

that to me feels like justice. That to me feels like this man got what he deserved. His life is over as he knew it. And the people who were injured, let's hope and pray that they all make a full recovery. And even if they don't, perhaps some degree of satisfaction will be given to them,

knowing that the person who did this to them, he's 54. He's going to be in jail for, 22 years, prison for 22 years, he probably will not come out of jail. He probably will die in prison. There must be a sense of satisfaction and that justice was done. So I commend the UK justice system for doing just that because far too often in this country, we do not feel like justice is done. Far too often we feel like a crime is done and the time that is given for that crime does not match. This feels like the exact opposite. So honestly, this is a day where you mourn

the bloodshed, but you celebrate the fact that the system got it right. The system got it right. Speaking of the system, this one looks like a Hollywood movie. It looks like a parody of the Manson family, Quentin Tarantino movie. Yesterday we told you in the middle of our show how the FBI had done a massive sting and a series of arrests of a radical left-wing terror plot. The FBI and the DOJ arrested four alleged extremists in the Moj Desert who were reportedly testing improvised explosive devices ahead of a plan coordinated bombing across Southern California. Let's listen to FBI director in charge Akeel Davis about the details that were planned. The subject arrested and envisioned planting backpacks with improvised explosive devices to be detonated at multiple locations in Southern California targeting U.S. companies. These bombs were to blow up at the same time on midnight this New Year's Eve.

Yeah, this is the foiled plot to sow chaos and probably death on New Year's Eve. But if you look at the people that were arrested and you, look at their names, but also their aliases. I mean, this sounds like a video game or it sounds like a Quentin Tarantino movie, Reservoir Dogs. So apparently the head honcho was this woman named Audrey Carroll. And her, she goes by Black Moon. Then there's Zachary Page. He goes by Ash Kerrigan.

Then there's Tina, Tina Chen Ting. She goes by Kickware. and Dante Anthony Garfield or Gaffield Nomad These are I don't know I mean it feels like these people pick their own nicknames

But some of them are pretty bad stereotypes So you have the Asian woman and her nickname is kickwear Yeah yeah That is something that's a Tarantino-esque And then you have the one the ringleader Black moon Black moon This is

so here's what we know the suspects are linked to a fringe faction of what's called the Turtle Island Liberation Front and they are part of an odd subgroup named the Order of the Black Lotus I mean this stuff this feels like a this feels like a really bad Hollywood writing

yeah those aren't good names they're not good names well they're predictable names they're Order of the Black Lotus And we're laughing at it because no damage was done. Yeah. I promise you, we would not be laughing about this if these people had actually carried out their terrorist plot. They're terrorists in the same vein as the ISIS people, in the same vein as the Muslim Brotherhood, the same vein as Hamas.

That's who these people are. But the fact is they were not able to kill anybody. And so therefore they get our disdain, but also derision. And their plan was to, was to announce. act simultaneous terror attacks across southern California. They are anti-government, pro-Palestinian, anti-capitalist that not surprisingly promote decolonization, very small social media following. Yeah, I went to their Instagram page and their Facebook page.

Dozens of followers, that's it? Did you catch any, was there any correspondence on that page? Were people writing? I didn't see that. I just saw all of the various things that they posted. and it's all what you'd expect, hardcore. But the leader, Audrey Carroll, they were able to get a lot of the documents

about what she was writing and what she was saying online. Yeah, didn't you have like an eight-page handwritten manifesto? Yeah, they have that. So they have a good sense of what this group allegedly intended to do and how they intended to so chaos. Yeah, well, there's also a video, right? There's a video that was taken from a plane. Feels like it was a drone.

Yeah. These guys went, they went into the Mojave Desert thinking nobody would see them. Like they were in the middle of nowhere and nobody was going to see them. The FBI sees everything. The FBI sees everything. And we'll get more into that. Yeah. But listen to what they said about Audrey Carroll and her goal.

Carol also made clear her desires. She said, quote, what we are doing will be considered a terrorist act. Carol and Page also discussed plans for follow-up attacks. after their bombings, which included plans to a target ice agents and vehicles with pipe bombs. Carol stated that those plans would, quote, take some of them out and scare the rest. Yeah, they asked around and now they found out. Yeah, this is, yeah, and I suspect, as we were just talking about before, this is going to be one of those cases where the FBI and the Department of Justice

want to make an example of this group. You know, we talk about it a lot in this country, how that's not even part of our justice system anymore, scaring people off from doing something similar. There are people out there who are looking to this case wondering what's going to happen to the Turtle Island Four or whatever, the Turtle Island Liberation Front. I think you've just named them. The Turtle Island Four. And when these four people, I guarantee you, they will be searching for life in prison.

And they're going to throw away the key with no chance at parole. and if I'm a betting man, I bet you they're going to get it. I bet you they're going to get it. I promise you that will scare away anybody else who feels the same way. Not anybody else, a lot of people who feel the same way. And in this country, we don't do that anymore. In fact, we almost plow the road for anybody who follows somebody else in a life of crime because somebody does something in this country and they get a wrap on the knuckles.

And next thing you know, they are somebody else. else says, well, if they did it, nothing happened to them, then I can do it. I like that. I like that they're making an example out of people who do egregious things. Or a let, you know, are set to do egregious things. And thankfully, they caught them in the planning stages. But the planning of it is in and of itself a crime. And the catching, how they caught them?

Yeah. Very interesting. Oh, we're going to talk about that next. Don't go anywhere. The Ben Mulroney show continues. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right. In the previous segment, we were talking about this very significant bust by the FBI and the DOJ.

Detailed in Operation Midnight Sun where the government arrested and foiled a massive terrorist plot. by a group calling themselves the Turtle Island Liberation Front. They were actually a subset of that group called the Order of the Black Lotus, and the four people arrested were planning to sow chaos and death on New Year's Eve in Southern California by detonating, improvised explosive devices across, I believe, Los Angeles. And we were talking about, you know, how the heck do they do this? How do you foil a plot like this? small group of people

probably operating as quietly and under the radar as they possibly could but when you hear from this former CIA agent later whistleblower you realize

the government's everywhere everywhere let's listen to John Kariaku former CIA agent who says that CIA can hear everything you do does the CIA listen through our phones and laptop cameras. Yes. I hate to say it. There was a dramatic leak in 2017 that the CIA came to call the

Vault 7 disclosures, gigabytes worth of documents leaked by a CIA technology engineer. What he told us was that the CIA can intercept anything from anyone, number one. Number two, they can remotely take control of your car through the car's embedded computer to do what to make you drive off a bridge into a tree to make you kill yourself and make it look like an accident they can take over your smart television and turn the speaker into a microphone so that they can listen to what's being said in the room even when the TV is turned off God knows what else that they can do

that hasn't been leaked I'm sorry you could turn a speaker into a microphone I didn't even know that was possible I thought they were two separate things I thought I mean I'm looking at my phone and I got a speaker up here

that I listen into I got a microphone down here you're telling me they are one and the same yeah I guess so but then again the smart TVs nowadays allow you to do voice control yeah that's true that is true

Even if you have it disabled, I guess they can do that. I thought it was interesting when he said they can take control of your car remotely and force you to drive off a bridge. Well, that doesn't surprise me, right? Like, they're all, every phone, every car is just a computer on wheels now. Yeah. And if you can take, if someone can remotely take care of, take control of your laptop, they can, you can do the same thing with a, with a car.

So that doesn't surprise me. It's the fact that they can turn things on or they can, they can take control of something even when it's off, that surprises me. But we also know from past whistleblowers that the capability of the United States, along with other governments, to be able to listen in on conversations. And they have these vast server farms that just listen into the airwaves. Yeah. And they look for, they listen for keywords. Yeah. They listen for things that might set them off. And then they target those people and they go in And they can, and you have to wonder whether or not that's what these people don't seem like the smartest ones in the world.

No. No. Well, look, they had a Facebook. They had Instagram. They had Instagram. And, you know, because you got to make sure, listen, if you're going to, if you're going to sew chaos, you got to make sure you have, you have a social media profile. But they only have like 32 followers on Instagram. So maybe. But my, my question is like, does, you got 32 followers are, who's following you? And does that automatically mean that, that if you're following the Turtle Island Four, as I'm calling them, are you going to be, are you on a watch list now? I would think so. The safe money is yes.

But I think if you are putting anything out there on social media that's a little wild, then, you know, you're going to be on a watch list. The states have said that anybody, Canadians going into the United States, they'll take a look at the last five years of your social media posts. And if you think deleting them Means they can't see them Yeah I don't think so

But what this also tells me is I have to believe that the government The U.S. government has a never-ending bandwidth To search Like they're never going to run out of the Their compute power is such

That there's no such thing As they don't have the ability To search for you Because they're too busy doing other things Yeah But when I looked at this story When I saw this And I saw this before this story came to light out of California, and it just sort of connected.

I went, oh, geez, this is interesting. I was thinking, I was like, wow, so those conspiracy theorists, those ones who think, they're always listening, always listening. They could be right. Yeah. I remember going to, I remember going to Afghanistan in 2008, and I met up with the reporter for, we had an overlap for about two hours. Yeah. And I met up with a reporter I was replacing. And we're in the media tent.

And I said to him, I started to ask him questions about what's going on. And he goes, shh. And he took me outside. And he was like, you know, there's rumors that the tents are bugged and that they're listening. And I was like, okay, I think you're, you've been here too long. Yeah. Time for you to go home. Yeah.

Because I don't see how that's possible. But I wouldn't put it past them. There was a movie from at least 20 years ago. It was a Will Smith movie called Enemy of the State. Enemy of the State, yeah. And 20 years ago, they were doing stuff like this. Well, that was also Hollywood 20 years ago. I don't think that that was inaccurate.

I don't think it was inaccurate at all. I think that movie's more accurate today than it was back then. I guarantee you they were doing that back then. That's what we knew they could do back then. You think the government wasn't light years ahead of what Hollywood thought they were capable of? Joy, you're looking at me. You want to say something? I saw one of the chiefs of the U.S. government said that whatever you see in the movie, it has been, like, we have that technology 20 years before that.

That's what I just said. That's what I just said. So enemy of the state, they were doing that in the 80s. That's why whenever I go online, I say that I'm Joy. Sorry, buddy. Oh, you don't think they can tell the difference? You don't think they have the ability to tell this. They're not monitoring, not just the words that you're,

typing, but the keystrokes, the speed and I are interchangeable. Every person, I guarantee you every person, the speed with which we type, that is like a fingerprint to them. They can tell whether it's you or somebody pretending to be you. Yeah. Well, hey, you know what? I think you have to pay a little respect to all those people who've said this for being screwed with this for years. This is a former CIA agent who's saying this. So I don't want to be, I don't want to poop. I just talked about how cool this stuff is, but can we talk about the civil liberty? implications? Like, how does this stuff get entered into, like, I get it. If you're doing

something illegal, then there's probably no route that the government can't take to uncover it. But at some point, there are fundamental civil liberties at play. Well, it absolutely, it feeds into the argument that we aren't as free as we like to say. And America is the land of the free, right? That's their whole thing. They are the freedom people. And it's not entirely true because they are being monitored at all times. And yeah, we have far stricter privacy laws here in Canada. Far, far

stricter. Well, I know. I mean, we see it happening all the time when stuff gets thrown out of court for charter violations. Yeah. It's annoying to the nth degree. But you know what? You might complain about it, but then are you not happy that they caught these

guys? No, no. 100%. It's so you take it's, what are you okay with? Listen, with an increasingly radicalized group of people out there, and increasingly increasing number of radicalized people, yeah, I think sometimes the methods need to change as well. The methods need to become increasingly draconian. And yeah, to me, it's, I'm glad they caught them.

I'm glad that I guarantee you they're going to make an example out of them. and I hope that scares away the next Turtle Island four because of Franchement, we don't need any of this. I don't think you can scare away a radical ideology. That's a tough thing to be able to overcome. Yeah, but they'll have to change tactics then. You know, they'll have to change tactics. All right, up next, the pain and the anger

that is manifesting in different ways in Australia. Don't go anywhere. The Ben Mulroney Show marches on. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and I want to highlight a conversation that my colleague from 640 Toronto, Greg Brady, had with Imam Mohamed Tauhidi. He is the Imam of Peace. They had a conversation this morning about what happened. happened in Australia. And given the fact that Australia and Canada are so very analogous, they're so very similar in terms of age and demographics and the issues that are facing our countries are so very similar in terms of a housing crisis and immigration crises

that what happened on Bondi Beach two days ago, I believe, could very well just as easily have happened here. Jason, Kenny was on our show yesterday, and he echoed that sentiment. And here is Imam Mohammed Tauhidi, saying that Toronto has some of the same ingredients that Australia has. I do not like to fear monger at all, but I am also a realistic person. Toronto has the exact same ingredients that Australia has that led up to this attack. There are extremists in Toronto who raise the flags of Al-Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah,

and these are terrorist-designated organizations by Public Safety Canada. And we need to make sure that these extremists are not just under watch, but also disrupted and to make sure that these processions do not continue to control our streets because they are radicalizing the vulnerable Muslims within our community. Yeah, I mean, listen, don't take my word for it. He's the Imam of Peace. Listen to him. So that's sort of the – he's not saying anything that shocks me. He's not saying anything that shocks me.

And if something bad happened on the streets of Toronto, I would be sitting here saying, I wouldn't say I told you so, but I'd say, come on, it was predictable. It was predictable. But let's go back to Australia. And from the bosom of pain comes the outcrop of something beautiful. And there was a huge, huge line of people giving blood yesterday, just beautiful. And it looked like hundreds of people waiting to sort of offer. their support because the blood services and the hospitals would need that with over 15 people

dead and dozens wounded from the shooters on Bondi Beach. And so the need for blood on the day after an event like that would be huge. So congratulations to the people of Sydney for doing that and for recognizing the need and for giving of literally giving of themselves to help perfect strangers in a time of need. But we got to contrast that to what was seen in a Muslim cemetery. There were people who decided to take it upon themselves to, I don't know, where you get a pig's head, you know, the severed pig's head, but they were thrown into a Muslim cemetery. Of course, you know, Muslims do not eat pork.

and therefore it's definitely an insult to the Muslim people I find that to be a disgusting reaction to what we saw the answer to hate is not more hate it just isn't and that is disgusting

and I condemn that in the strongest possible language but it happened there are those who will immediately say Islamophobia Islamophobia yeah it's Islamophobia of course it's Islamophobia but it's also like I you know what someone I mean it's a knee-jerk reaction it's a it's a I was going to swear there it's a crappy knee-jerk reaction it's it makes matters worse does not

make them better uh there is a small part of me that I I'm trying to fight against that says at least they didn't at least that wasn't physical violence you know it's a it's a really it's a terrible thing. It's painting a large Muslim community with a very like with a brush and it's it's it's not fair to the broader community but there's also a big problem

within that community. Yeah and again because we're dancing around what the issue is you know and you could argue the people doing that are trying to refocus us on what the problem. The problem is not guns and the problem

is not Islamophobia. The problem is not Islamophobia. The problem is Islamic radicalization. But let's talk about what the Prime Minister of Australia had to say because he's pointing the finger. He came up with his own conclusion as opposed to

feeling, as opposed to listening to what Australians are saying, this was what he had to say. I would put them all together, making sure that they operate effectively and that they're kept up to date and that they're updated for the change in threat. We live

in a more dangerous world in 2025. The threat of anti-Semitism, as we have seen, is very real. Threats of other occurrences, such as the rise in the far right, which has also been identified, of course, by Mike Burgess is also a threat

as well. So gun laws, he's talking about gun laws there. Yeah. And the far right, that's who he's pointing the finger out. So he said anti-Semitism, and then he also pointed to the far right. At no point did he say Islamic jihad radicalization. No.

Meanwhile, both of the, okay, so Australian federal police say the attack is being treated as a terrorist attack, inspired by ISIS Islamic State. The alleged attackers are a 50-year-old father and a 24-year-old son. Wasn't one of them on a watch list? One of them was being watched because he had been cited as having connections to ISIS, pictures with flags, that sort of thing. And his father was able to buy guns legally after this, even though they lived together. So the police are saying, the police are telling you, Prime Minister, that this is an ISIS Islamic State-inspired terrorist act. and you go on TV the day after and say we have an issue with anti-Semitism and right-wing radicalization.

But at no point do you use the word Islamic radicalization. What's wrong with you? That is a deliberate choice. You have chosen not to say the thing that this is. Why? Why, sir? Why? You won't answer that.

I know you won't answer that. Instead, you're going to try to come up with a solution that solves nothing. You're going to say this is a gun issue. You're going to say there's a right-wing radicalization issue. And yes, it is an anti-Semitism issue. However, anti-Semitism is only part of it because we know we've seen it around the world. We've seen it in Europe. They're not just coming for Jews.

They're coming for Christians. They're coming for anybody that doesn't subscribe to their toxic worldview. We know that because they say so. Down with Canada. Down with Australia. with Israel, down with the West, globalize the Intifada. The globe has a lot of religions, a lot of them aren't Muslim. They're coming for all of us.

And when I say they, I'm talking about the radicalized Muslims. I am not talking about the massive, massive amount of the majority of the well-intentioned Muslim friends and neighbors that we have. I'm not talking about them. Do not ascribe that to me. I am not tarring the entire community with the same brush. Remember of the clip that we just played from the Imam of Peace. Yes.

Imam Tauhidi. And he said the same thing. He said, we have these people walking around with these flags in Toronto. Yeah. And he urges the police to crack down on them. Yeah. And we're not doing it. I believe I heard the mayor on a different radio station yesterday,

the mayor of Toronto, saying, oh, well, the police arrest these people, but then they get let out. So she's, she's punting the ball saying the problem is with our judicial system. Explain to me why these arrests stick elsewhere and not here. Let's, we don't have a lot of time left. Let's go to this last clip here, the one, the very end here. Yeah, let's end on a good note. Yeah, let's end on a good note here. This is a, so this is not in Australia.

However, this is a Jewish rabbi, of course a rabbi, the rabbi on just on, just on the streets and he is somebody following the Bondi Beach massacre comes up to him and wants to wish him well I'm sorry about everything that happened over in Sydney appreciate you're saying that you celebrate Hannega

I'm Muslim yeah but I'm gonna give you a hug the fact that you were saying that you know in the Jewish community I got it all the time but it's the first time I get it from a Muslim so it means so much to me now absolutely but we're all in this together we're in this together in the same world we are so let's just

Just adding lights. Peace and love. That's all we got. Inshallah. Alhamdulillah. Thank you, brother. What's your name? Rabbi Lavee.

Rabbi Lai, Faroo. Yeah. Farooke, my pleasure. We have been fed a steady diet for over a decade. That there is nothing that binds us together. All we need to do is find the things that make us different and leverage those. Those two men went against that grain and congratulations to them. All right.

Ford bet big on the EV market. And now it's put its famed F-150. in full reverse. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and we want to do something we haven't done in a little while, is talk about the state of the Canadian automotive industry. There is news that Ford is canceling the all-electric F-4. F-150 Lightning after less than five years,

wrapping up production of the 2025 model. And this could mean a number of things. The move is part of a major shift back to gasoline and hybrid vehicles. The CEO, Jim Farley, says the change is customer-driven. And this could be a very, very big deal. Is this market-driven? Is it politically driven? So here to talk about all this stuff is a good friend of the show

and somebody whose opinion on these matters means a lot to me, is Flavio Volpe, the president, the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association. Flavio, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me back on, Ben. Okay, is this a cause for concern? I mean, I've read that this could cost Ford $20 billion. Yeah, look, if I'm at Ford and I'm a Ford shareholder,

it's probably a relief right now. Ford has been Jim Farley, who's their CEO, has been very clear about the fact that they're willing to electrify. They split the company into two. The electric ford and the ice ford, but have been saying for years now that if the market's not there, if the governments in the U.S., especially doesn't allow for a purchase incentive or the infrastructure, they're going to lose money. And what they finally said was, look, we've lost almost $20 billion, U.S.

So you can't say we didn't invest in it. He said they're superior products. We're still committed to electrification. but we have to do it against the backdrop of customer demand. Right. And it's really important. There's a lot of people in this country, especially, who are EV enthusiasts, who somehow have the ear of the environment minister and say, let's keep pushing.

Yeah. And we've got a company that has invested in this country for a hundred and twenty-one years saying, well, if you keep pushing us over the edge, all you're going to get is Chinese Chinese cars with no Canadian product on them. So meanwhile, so look, if they're giving it, they're giving up on the all-electric F-150, but the next lightning is expected to be range-extended EV or plug-in hybrid that combines electric drive

and a gas engine, which I think a lot more people would be receptive to. I know a lot of people in the city of Toronto, for example, who own hybrid cars and love their hybrid cars and use them all year long. the one thing they wouldn't do is ever go given their lifestyle and how much they drive and how far they drive would go all electric at this point not to say that they wouldn't be interested in it but the hybrid seems to be where the market is now and where it is today of course we've got to ask the question flavia where are we as a nation as it refers as it refers to the the mandate the all electric mandate that was imposed by justin trudeau well there was a 60 day review that ended the first week of November and we're waiting probably by the end of this week we're all expecting to see what the what the new regs look like um look Canadians just like anybody else um uh know that we that the world is electrifying and actually like their hybrid products yeah they like their plug-it hybrids um they're not convinced that a 150 000 f-150 is

better than a $75,000 F-150, especially if you work with it. Yeah, yeah. So I expect that we are going to continue to electrify, and Canadian consumers are going to demand hybrid products. Yeah. You know, companies like Toyota make 125,000 of those a year here. Yeah. Now, listen, I know a lot of families that have the Pacifica,

the hybrid Pacifica, that family, that family minivan, It's the most, as far as I can tell, the most popular one in sort of my friend's circle, every, almost every family has the hybrid version of that. Yeah, yeah, made in Windsor, number one in its segment, employing Canadians. Yeah. What I'm hoping is we're going to see, we're not going to see this EV mandate disappear. We're hoping that at least the curve, and the timing is going to reflect a little bit more of reality. Yeah.

You know, we built APMA, we built Project Arrow Canada's first. First, all-electric vehicle types. It's a good-looking car. Yeah, and all of the part, the objective there was, look, Canadian workers and Canadian companies can provide all of the technology in every single battery electric vehicle. And so the 60 companies that were on that sold the companies like Toyota and Ford. We're in the middle of it.

And I say when you're in the middle of it, you know the transition is slower. Yeah. than what the enthusiasts want. And I'm enthusiastic about a lot of things, but the Yankees don't let me write the lineup. Well, Flavio, talk to me about what you're enthusiastic about. Talk to me about where in the Canadian automotive landscape, is there a glimmer of hope?

We're still facing these terrible tariffs, and we've got a president who I think fundamentally misunderstands the automotive sector, the integrated automotive sector in North America. but that's just me. So what is there for us to be hopeful for and what is there to be bullish on? Well, I'll say we spent a lot of time talking about bad news from a couple of companies this year

that came from the pressure from the White House, but we haven't talked about the great news that Toyota, Honda, and Ford have continued to provide here. They continue to invest. They've laid anybody off. They continue to publicly express their support for the Canadian market for end, their willingness to convert their product, the product that they make here to Canadian

tastes so that they're less export-oriented. But companies that I represented are the suppliers and then 100,000 workers that are at those that are in the supply chain. They appreciate those most demonstrable votes of confidence. Also, look, we're unlocking critical minerals with real delivery dates in this country and real volumes so that when everybody is ready to electrify, Canadian critical minerals will be part of that supply chain. In a battery, in a car like the Ford Mustang marquee, which is their mid-size battery SUV, that's a $27,000 battery. If you want to play in the battery is $27,000. The battery.

Jeez. All right. But if you're Canadian and you're supplying into that battery chain, including everything down to the cells, that's good news. And so I like that this, that the government has understood, in both levels of government, understood, hey, by the way, let's stop talking about it. Let's talk about permitting times, the way that we can cut that down, and investments we can make to get there so that when everybody wakes up, it's not just China's the option. It's Canada's the option. Hey, let me ask you a question, Flavio, because you were, you know, you were in the early days of this tariff, where you were all over it, you were part of these, all these task forces

and things, is do you believe, as you're watching the Carney government, where we, as as a critic would say, we still don't have a deal. We are promised to deal. However, I'm willing to live in a world where he's playing 3D chess and he's recognized no deal is better than a bad deal and that he's waiting to hear back in the next few months from the Supreme Court of the United States as to whether or not Donald Trump has some of these significant tariffing powers at all.

Is that what he's waiting for? Is he waiting to see whether the guy opposite him, the table is going to be far less tariff able than he is right now? Yeah, look, at the beginning of the year, we had a prime minister that was going to lose and going to lose without a doubt. And the crisis provided an opportunity for him to, you know, have a few really good leadership moments, but also required him to bring in as many stakeholders as possible to help him out.

He created that Canada, U.S. Council. There were so many of us on it. the new prime minister is playing this a little bit more strategically, but also because he has a fresh mandate. He also knows that if you beg the president to come to the table, because there is no legislated table, then you have to offer something for him to get to the table. And that's not smart either.

He hasn't made a bad deal yet. We're still waiting for a good deal. I'm still satisfied with where we are. I'm not excited about where we are. I'm satisfied with where we are. The proof will be in the pudding. Flavio Volpe, thank you very much. I wish you a very Merry Christmas, my friend.

I look forward to talk to you in 2026. Anytime, then. All right. Same to you. there's Stack TV. What you want when you want it. Action, comedy, drama, reality, all when you want it. Dive into Rick and Morty's latest season. Cast off with new seasons of Survivor and the Curse of Oak Island, or stream binge-worthy gems like the paper and all her fault. All when you want it. This fall, StackTV has what you want when you want it. Visit StackTV.ca for more information and start your free trial.