The Ben Mulroney Show - Is Ottawa rife with political poachers? And a radical proposal for Calgary's schools

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

GUEST:  Rick Perkins – former Nova Scotia MP GUEST:  Wing Li / Communications Director Support Our Students Alberta GUEST:   Lucy Hargreaves / CEO of Build Canada 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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by completing hours of tax research in seconds. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ, AI, for tax experts. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on Thursday, November 6th. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your voice. We appreciate your opinions. I will say one thing real quick, right off the top.

I get a lot of pushback on my Twitter for my comments yesterday claiming the caption in the Twitter was I didn't like Mark Carney's tone as it related to the budget saying if you don't, the implication of if you don't support it, you don't support Canada. And I got a little pushback from people saying Mark Carney never said that. Listen to me. If you think that, if you want to take it literally, of course he didn't say that. His minister said that it's Mark Carney's budget. If you think that the words of that budget and the words of that speech weren't run by Mark Carney's office, then you're too dumb to engage with. That's all I'll say about that. Meanwhile, let's talk about what happened around that budget because there was a floor crosser from the conservatives to the liberal party in the form of, what's his first name again?

D'Antremont? Chris Dantremont. Let's listen to him after you join the Liberal caucus, as he got a hero's welcome in his first caucus meeting. Let's listen to his message to those who think he's being disloyal or disingenuous. Well, I think they should look at themselves and see if they're offering the right thing to Canadians of trying to build for the world. I mean, we have a great opportunity here in Canada. and rather than knocking people down, we should try to find ways to work together.

And that's what I've always tried to do in my career. Okay. That's one tactic. Let's talk to somebody who knows him, ran side by side with him as a conservative in Nova Scotia. Didn't win the day, former MP who's been on our show, former Nova Scotia MP for the Conservative Party. Rick Perkins, Rick, welcome back. Thanks for having you, Ben. Okay, so when you hear your former.

colleague, say that people who are taking issue with them should look within, look within yourself, Rosemary. What do you, what do you say back to Mr. Don Tramon? Yeah, it didn't take them long to adopt the Liberal Party speaking lines. I actually think it's quite disingenuous for Chris to say that because for his six years in Parliament, he has stood with me in. All the work we've done here in Nova Scotia and federally to bring to the attention of the government, what they were doing to destroy the primary industry in his riding and mining the fishery and literally destroy.

I mean, they've had... In what way? So you guys found common cause around protecting the fisheries. Tell me what you thought the liberals were doing and what they were up to. They refused to enforce the law. So what's happened is a massive lawless society, particularly in the southern part of Nova Scotia and his writing. mind. You may recall in 2020, there was a lobster pound burnt down. That's Chris's writing, and that's over the tensions of all the illegal fishing. So when you have thousands and thousands

of commercial fishermen, and it's your number one industry, when the government refuses to enforce the law, which encourages more lawlessness, then you have a responsibility to speak up for it in Parliament. I actually brought some of Chris's constituents to the House of Commons committee last year who had consistently had their house fired and shots fired into it at night during the illegal elver fishery, baby eels, and they had to go into hiding. And I worked with Chris on those issues. So for him to now say that he's joining the party that has had essentially a war against the primary industry in his riding over the last 10 years, that's disingenuous to be polite. You know, I want to bring up something. I want to play devil's

advocate because I had somebody on my show yesterday who said, you know, a party that is that loses somebody like anyone should ask itself a question, why did that person feel they didn't have a home there anymore? What do you say to that? Floor crossing happens all the time and the conservatives have welcomed liberals into their fold. It's not, it's, it happens more than I like. I don't like the idea of it at all, but it does happen. The conservatives have welcomed liberals in. So what do you say to those who would say, you know, there are rumblings that there are more people who may cross the floor. Does the party need to look internally and ask itself why this is happening? Well, in most cases, I've always found that it's actually the self-interest or the self-preservation of the individual

who believes that somehow under the current party banner they got elected under that if they were to run on that again, and they would lose their job. And Chris essentially said that to me on the weekend when we talked. Yeah, and by the way, I want to get into that when you finish your point here. And so it rarely is all over a matter of principle. It's usually about one's own self-interest or in some cases, as we know in the past, offers that have been made for cabinet seats or whatever. So I think when a person crosses the floor that says I have an issue with the

the tone and didn't feel comfortable with the leader, it sort of runs counter to the fact that he continually asked for the leader to come to his writing. If the leader was such a drag on his riding, why was he always begging him to come, including when Pierre went last summer? And again, he made a mention of it when, on Tuesday, he crossed the floor, saying the leader didn't spend enough time in his writing. Well, if he disagreed with the leader, why did he want him in the writing?

Yeah. Well, talk to me about the conversation you had over the weekend. weekend with Chris Dantremont, because you tweeted that he said, I'm going to lose my riding. I might as well not even run. Tell us what happened, why you had the conversation and what we need to know to have a better idea as to what exactly is going on here. Well, the floor crosser rumors came out about three weeks ago. So as soon as I heard it, I heard there was a possibility that Chris was one of them. I approached him.

He was on a parliamentary trip in Europe. And he thought, he said, you know, that's just, you know, auto all wheel spinning craziness. That's not true. we talked about it again the next week we talked about it on the weekend in fact the context of the call on the weekend was I phoned up saying it looks like the government may fall so let's

get ready for and get our teams ready for fighting election if we have to fight the election before Christmas and what are you doing to do that and what am I and so we talked about that but right off the top he said I don't think I can win if the election is held right now

and and so he said after eight wins because he had won three federally and five provincially in his riding. He had a great deal of electoral success. He said, I don't think I can win, so I don't want to end up finishing my career losing. And, you know, I had a discussion with him of what I thought perhaps his view on his chances was wrong, but he was having none of it. Now, it all looked a little scrambly to me on Tuesday because no government in their right mind would announce a floor cross or two minutes before their budget because it basically took away any message they had of the budget.

But Rick, when you finish that conversation with him, were you left with a feeling like he was sticking around the conservative caucus? Yeah. Yeah. You know, we continued the conversation because we were also talking about things that we were working on on the fishery together and stuff that he had to. do with the fisheries. Rick, I don't have a lot of time left, so I got a couple more questions I want to get to. I apologize for interrupting you, but, you know, he made a point of saying he's been talking with his constituents, and that's why he made this decision, indicating that he believes

that he's doing the will of his constituents. What is your sense on the ground about his decision across the floor? Do you think people in his riding would be happy with this decision? There's a, I'm sure there are some who are very loyal to them, but from the reaction I've gotten, which is mainly from the fishing community in his writing, it's been outrage, right? But he didn't run and he should resign and run

in a by-election if he wants to get elected. Or he could have sat as an independent, Rick. He could have still voted for this budget. He could have still shown his displeasure with the party if in fact that is his motivation. He says he was not, he wasn't promised anything from, uh, in return for crossing the floor. Okay.

Well, then there, then there, then there was no incentive to join the liberal caucus. You could. Is it that he wanted the prestige of being part of a government? Is it that, you know, he likes the staffing that comes with being part of a government, the extra staff, the extra research funds? Like, what do you think? I only got only about it got 50, 20 seconds left. And I think it's just his belief that this is the only route for him getting the election.

All right. Well, self-preservation is a heck of a thing. Rick Perkins, we always appreciate your insights. We always appreciate your opinions. and thank you very much for joining us. Thanks, Tom. All right. So why is it that conservative MPs are having to declare

that they won't cross the floor? We're going to talk about that next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us. And I want to remind you that we're not just a radio show. We're not just a podcast. We're on social media. We're on YouTube.

We're all over the place. And so you don't, you're not confined to enjoying the show in one way. And we thank you for finding us wherever you want. And we hope that you're enjoying the show. We hope that you'll stick around with us as we try to build this. And we're not even one year old yet. Baby's not even growns up.

But we're getting there and we're getting there with your help. So thank you very much. I want to, I want to bring in my intrepid producer, Mike Drollay, who we haven't had a chance to chat today because there's been a lot of news. Yeah, no. There have been. There has been, and we were talking in the last hour about the radical sort of situation at TMU University here in Toronto with the attacks. And now we've moved on to this, the really the most interesting part of the federal budget. Yes, which was, because to be honest, it wasn't the generational budget that I think a lot of us were expecting. It was, it was kind of more of the same, a little bit different, a lot of stuff in there too like and some things to take issue with.

And yeah, so because of that, because there's just not a lot to sink our teeth into, we're instead focusing on the carnival around Chris Dantremont, the former, former conservative, now liberal who crossed the floor just a few moments before the budget. I mean, everything matters right now with this because they need three votes to pass this budget. And yeah, and so where are they going to get the other two votes? Yeah, well, as I say, like, I take issue with floor crossing in general. And so this is not me attacking the liberals. This is me trying to figure out the motivation behind why you wouldn't just sit as an independent.

If you had such a problem, well, let's talk about it. What was his reasoning? What does he say his motivation was to leaving the conservative party? I didn't find I was represented there. That my ideals of an Easterner, of a red Tory, I mean, quite honestly. of trying to find ways to to find solutions and help your community rather than trying to oppose everything that that's happening. And I think that's the opportunity that's being offered by Prime Minister Carney and the government caucus is to help find solutions at this critical time for Canada.

All right. Yet in April, way back in April where so much was different, he seemed to be on his leader's side. Should he stay on as leader of your party after what happened on Monday night? well I think you should I mean ultimately he he won extra seats in the in the country a lot of people that voted for me voted for change he voted for pierre poliav youth were voting for him

young voters are voting for him people concerned about the fishery were we're voting for him and I think getting rid of him would be the bad message all right well we just spoke with Rick Perkins a little bit earlier and and he said that you know

that he and Rick Perkins who had lost in the last election as a conservative. He had found common cause with Chris Dantramos to fight against what he thought were destructive policies by this liberal government about the fisheries in his area. Now, I would love, by the way, Mike, if we could dig into that maybe early next week and see if we could talk to somebody from the fisheries industry in that area to see what the lay of the land is. Let's find out what's important in Nova Scotians on that file and how they view this government or how they view the Tory opposition and who they felt was best suited to defend.

their interests. So hopefully we'll have that for you next week. But here's what's happening now, which is really interesting, right? Because it now feels like a lot of, a lot of Tories are being forced into positions of standing up and announcing their allegiance to the party. There's rumors flying that there are more Tories out there who could cross the floor. And I don't know where the rumors are coming from. You could argue that they're coming from a place where the The Tories themselves need to find out who's loyal. And maybe someone in the conservative party is throwing out these names to see the reaction that they get from these people. We know that there was a woman yesterday, a Quebec MP from the Conservative Party.

Dominique Vienne, who in French very proudly stood up and said, I'm not going anywhere. I've read this budget. I don't respect it. I don't stand for it. I will vote against it. I'm sticking around with this party. So she was very adamant. had heard her name. She heard her name. But then again, we also

knew a couple of weeks ago there was the tweets that went out saying, oh, I'm hearing three conservatives, are thinking about crossing, no names, and it wasn't attributed to anything. And yet we ended up seeing, obviously, one. Yeah. And Chris Dantremonts suggests maybe. Yeah, Chris Dantrumon suggests there may be more.

Sorry, and just in terms of how many other conservatives feel the same way that you do that are currently sitting in caucus. Yeah, I would suggest that there probably are those that are in the same boat, but I will let them tell their stories if that time goes. Now, that to me is very curious, because you got Rick Perkins, who hears the stories and the rumors, and he goes to his buddy, Chris Donchamo, on the weekend, and Chris says nothing to him, right? Like, he keeps it, keeps his cards close to his vest.

So how many people was Chris Dantromo talking to? Like, he wasn't talking to Rick Perkins. It doesn't feel to me like this was something he was sharing broadly. So how do... Melanie Jolie said she'd been working on Dantremont for five months. For five months. So since... Hmm. That's news to me.

Yeah. Interesting. For five months you had this guy in your midst who was listening, taking notes, talking to you about, you know, people were talking to you about plans and policy initiatives and tactics and getting ready potentially for an election if this government were to fall over the budget. And he's taken notes. God knows what he's sharing.

with that Liberal caucus right now. God knows. Well, it's also, you think about what he said back in April. Okay, that's April. Yep. But 40 days ago, he stood up in the House and Commons and ripped the Carney Liberals and their plans and everything they're doing and the way they're spending money. He ripped them to shreds. Yeah, and none of that changed with this budget.

I mean... No, it didn't change. So the question is, can you really believe anything out of his mouth? Because he said those things and did he believe them at the time? Does he no longer believe him? What changed? Like, was he lying then or is he lying now? Like, that's the only way I, I don't respect floor crossing.

If this were to happen, if a liberal were to cross the floor and join the Tories, I would be talking in the exact same way about it. I find it unethical. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did it. I was watching the visuals of him entering his first caucus meeting, hugging the members of the party that he was fighting against. I don't know how I would be able to do that. And they were yelling his name, Chris.

Yes, I would feel so awkward, so awkward to do that. Like, what do I say? What did my dad? You say, you dance with the one that brung you. But think about this. If you were in business with somebody and they were telling you something, and then all of a sudden they switched, did a complete 180 about their position within business. And you're like, well, you were just telling me this a week ago.

And would you do business with them anymore? It's worse than business. It's worse than business. Politics is about your values. Politics is about your vision. I mean, it's hard enough to, my point is it's hard enough to trust somebody in business who does that. Yeah.

But in politics, I mean, politics can be nasty and people change. They say what they will sometimes. You can't always trust what they're saying. But now you look at this and you go, I really don't know if I can trust what he's saying. Yeah, I, this is, it puts me, it makes me feel icky. When I saw the video of him walking in and, and listen, this is not a judgment call on those who welcome him in. I'm not suggesting that there's anything icky about the liberal caucus, and the Tories have done it too. So everyone's always guilty of it, is capable of being guilty

of this. I'm trying to put myself in the mind and in the skin of a floor crosser who built common cause and went into battle with a team. And in this case, it was a conservative team. And And then on a dime, opens the door to a completely different team that he fought against. And I know politics. There were, I'm sure, words said that were not charitable. There were many impolite things said by Chris Dantromo about the people in that room. He also said that he did it for his constituents, but it sounds more like he did it for self-preservation. Yeah.

As being the only conservative who narrowly won. Yes, he narrowed by just a bunch of. about 1% of the vote. He took that election against, what's his name, Ronnie LeBlanc? Ronnie LeBlanc. And I will say it again, if anybody listening knows Ronnie LeBlanc, we would love to speak to him for no other reason except I would love to know as somebody who passionately fought for his side and lost by 1% only to see the person who stood against him on every issue to then turn around and then take his job and be welcome to a hero's welcome by the caucus that he was trying to join,

I would very much like to know how that feels. Because I think anybody threatening to cross the floor should hear those words from somebody like Ronnie Johnson. But anyway, this is going to be the drama of Ottawa continues. What is going on with the Calgary Board of Education that they're considering a Canadian first hiring translators? Don't go anywhere. This is The Ben Mulroney Show.

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We appreciate you joining us here on our journey to build a great show. And part of that is telling stories from around the country. And so we're going to Alberta now. And the conversation around public education has been divisive and has been dramatic with the government of Danielle Smith ordering all teachers back to work following a strike. And now is news that the Calgary Board of Education is requesting $148 million in additional funding to support students with special learning needs as well. And here's the part that we really need to want to dig in on as well as the growing number of students who don't speak English. There is a call to hire interpreters to sit in in these classes to help these students who don't speak English.

speak any English. I'm curious that I can't believe that this is such an issue that this is the solution that's being proposed and so to dig into what this means how big of an issue this is

and if this is in fact the model moving forward, we're joined by Wing Lee Communications Director for support our students, Alberta. Wing, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So at first, let's level set

and let's get a few definitions right. special learning needs what does that encompass it's a very broad umbrella but it can include students who have either diagnosed or undiagnosed learning needs complexities so that is in the form of you know neural divergence or you know ADHD or behaviors it can also mean you know students who have other physical disabilities in the classroom and as you mentioned language needs needs as well. So it is a very broad umbrella that includes just, you know, most students have learning needs, right? Like when they walk into a classroom, they need to be talked to. They need to be instructed. But some, it just ranges on a spectrum. So the special learning needs umbrella

just means those that need an extra set of hands or, you know, some extra time to work on whatever it is they bring into the school. And can you explain or does anybody know why over the past four years the number of students with special education needs has grown from 3,400 to 27,000? That's a huge jump. Is it that we are getting better at diagnosing issues or is there a fundamental change in demographics that is leading to this or a combination of the two? Yeah, it is definitely a combination.

So we have more advances in understanding certain symptoms, right, or manifestations. And now we just have more tools to diagnose or also, you know, give out a set of tool kits for what historically we've probably just ignored and not had the know-how, right? So advances in scientific and educational knowledge. But also, Alberta has seen a large jump in growth and enrollment growth. Our Alberta's calling campaign really worked in 2022, you know, when Jason Kenney was aggressively courting, you know, people from Ontario and BC to come. So it is a combination of, you know, as well as exacerbated by stress, right? Like our society has been through a lot.

I'll mention the pandemic as a key social stressor. So all of this layered on with, you know, growing inequality in, you know, work conditions, etc., etc, family conditions. Yeah. This is what we're seeing. When kids were the most vulnerable, right, coming into school with all of the kind of the symptoms that are mounted onto them. I think the thing that's really striking people is this idea that there are so many kids

who are coming into the school system with no knowledge of English. I'm trying to figure out how that happens. And I'm not making a value judgment. It's a genuine good faith question. How are we at a point where kids entering the public school? system in Alberta and there are so many that do not speak any English that it is that one of the solutions that we're trying to bring to bear on it is hiring translators for the classroom. I think it's, I think a lot of people are scratching their heads at that.

Well, this is not really a complex. It's about, it's not a complex situation because we have seen a lot of newcomers to Canada, right? Since 2022, we have statistically. seen an immigration booth. Oh, no, and I appreciate that. I appreciate that. But part and parcel of coming to a country is, I mean, I mean, I know in Quebec, you got to learn French, you got to know French. They make, they're pretty, they're pretty strict about that there. I'm trying to figure out how we have this many people coming to the country who, who don't have an understanding of the language yet. And it feels like, it feels like that should be sort of part of getting in means, hey, do you speak at least a rudimentary

level of English so that you can start participating in society once you get here. Okay, well, I don't know if it's like zero percent, right? Kids are very adaptable. So it doesn't actually take very long for children to learn an immersive language. And that's what we're offering is immersion. Right? We do immersion for French. We do immersion for Spanish. So English is the language that we, that's an official language, obviously, in Canada as well as French. But English being in the classroom as an additional learning tool is enriching for all kids in the classroom. That's absolutely fair wing. I want to ask you about the pressures now put on teachers, right? Like if we have, the way we've just described these special learning

needs, I mean, it's quite broad and it encompasses a lot of things that require each one of them seems to require something else because some people have physical issues, some people have language issues, some people have learning issues. And within those learning issues are different processes by which they process information. And so who is, what kinds of teachers are responsible for, I mean, it feels like they're juggling a lot of balls. It used to be, like in the simplest way I see it, a curriculum is broad enough that it can be taught, you know, if a teacher's lucky, they've got a room full of people and they all

learn the exact same way and the exact same speed. That's, that's the ideal situation for anyone and everyone. everyone, right? But that's not how life works. Everybody is different. And it feels to me like we're putting a lot of burden on a teacher to be able to teach at different speeds, to teach with two different needs. How are the teachers feeling about this increasingly complex paradigm? Well, you know, we've just been on the end of a teacher strike, right? And these are exactly the demands that not just teachers, parents and families were being very vocal about teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. They're one and the same.

They're in the same classroom, right? So when we were having professionals that are juggling a lot more students in a class, which have ballooned to 40 kids, what you're describing is impossible. And which is why the key ask in the strike, and also for many years as our organization, is smaller class sizes, right? So the small group pulling away method works for all needs because the model of having just smaller classes, having one-on-one attention, giving kids just that extra instructional attention works. And when you say, wait, when you say smaller classroom, what is, what is in your mind is,

look, it's never going to be perfect, right? No one's ever going to get everything they want. But what is a level that you would deem acceptable? So there is actually a list of recommendations, right? So that's between 17 to 25 depending on the grade. Because we're talking about, you know, wide range of grades. But especially for younger kids, they need more targeted attention because they're younger and they have more, you know, needs because they are just smaller.

They need other types of care and compassion as well. So in the classroom right now, in Alberta, that's not what we have. we have like double or even triple what's recommended. And are we witnessing, are you witnessing test scores going down? I can't imagine that with those many different needs and those many different speeds at which kids learn, some kids are just not going to get, they're going to fall through the cracks or they are going to, they're going to be, they're not going to get the attention they need. Have those scores, have you been witnessing scores and we have seen, we have seen changes in testing.

So the government thinks that the key is just having more testing, right? So, but then what are we doing with the scores? So there's no support on the end of having more testing telling us exactly what you're seeing, right? Like, we are going to see lapses because students are not being given the resources that they need. And that's really on resourcing. Wing, we're going to have to leave it there. But I thank you for joining us. I've been talking with Wing Lee from Support Our Students, Alberta.

I really appreciate the update on education in Alberta. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me again. All right. Up next, do entrepreneurs think the liberals set them up for success? We're going to discuss next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. A couple of weeks ago with Small Business Week here on the show,

and we wanted to highlight it by talking with small business owners, and we did a little deep dive into some study that was done by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. And they found a couple of things. is one, 52% of Canada's non-governmental GDP is driven by small and medium-sized businesses across this country. And within that poll, over 70% of small business owners in this country would not advise a friend to start a small business. There have been so many headwinds from the pandemic onward.

Our dip in competitiveness, tariffs, taxation, regulation, you name it. There is always a reason not to get into the fray, not to bet on yourself and not to start a small business. And so I think a lot of small business owners were hoping that with this new budget by Mark Carney and his liberal government, there would be some relief, there would be some appreciation of the entrepreneurial class, and there would be tools in there that could be leveraged to grow small business and therefore grow the GDP. And to talk about the lay of the land as they see it is Lucy Hargreaves, the CEO of Build Canada. This is not Build Canada homes, Lucy. That's a completely separate thing.

That is a separate thing. Thanks so much for having me on, Ben. Tell me what Build Canada is. Build Canada, not Build Canada homes. Build Canada is a nonpartisan mission-driven movement focused on making Canada the most prosperous country in the world. So we've been around for almost a year and we started out by sharing our. actionable, bold policy memos from Canada's leading entrepreneurs and business leaders. And look, we got a ton of traction, attention, and interest more than we initially anticipated

at first, especially with young people, 18 to 30-year-olds. And so we're now focused on bringing together this constituency for growth across the country. We're thousands of members now. We're growing 10 to 15 percent week over week. Wow. We're still publishing actionable policy memos on transformative policies. It would meaningfully grow our economy, but we're also building out digital tools to help people better understand government and bringing people together in person. Okay, so, well, that's a, I mean, let's say that's a tall order, very ambitious for such a young, nascent organization.

We have a young, nascent government in the form of it with a brand new prime minister, relatively to anybody else in politics. And he has said he, on the campaign trail and over the course of the early days of his mandate, had said some very ambitious goals for this economy and for what his government wanted to do, transformative, generational, building the fastest growing economy in the G7. So a lot of heady words from the prime minister, you've seen the budget as it relates to small businesses. What is your assessment of this government's? a budget and what it does for small business? Yeah.

So, I mean, expectations and rhetoric leading up to this budget were sky high, as you said. Having seen it, digested it, look, overall, I'd give it a fairly mixed review. It's a better step in the right direction for growth than we've seen certainly over the last 10 years. But it has a massive price tag. There's huge debt levels. I mean, the debt is sort of double what we've seen in the last couple of years in this budget.

And it clings to this view that prosperity. is reliant on a top-down government-led industrial strategy. And I'm not convinced that's the right vision for this country. Well, yeah, there's a, and we keep going back to the austerity budgets of Jean-Cretzian. One of the things that he did while he was trying to rest control of the deficit was he actually cut taxes on small businesses so that they could reinvest in themselves and they could buy new technologies and hire new people. And that was a way of generating a larger tax base for the government.

And that didn't happen in this budget. Were you surprised by that that taxes for small businesses stayed where they are? Yeah, I was surprised. Look, I mean, overall, like, it was great to see some of the ideas from the Build Canada community being adopted in this budget. Like what? So we had things like changes to Canada's main research and development program, the Shred program, making it more streamlined and making the application process easier for entrepreneurs

and small businesses. I think that will actually make, it seems like a small thing, but will make a meaningful difference. In what way? So right now, that program is so complicated and the application process is so cumbersome that most small businesses end up hiring out consultants and middlemen to do the application for them. So that program is, you know, spending $5 billion a year. 30% of that is actually going to middlemen consultants, not to the entrepreneurs and small business owners. Can you repeat that? Five billion dollars a year. Five billion dollars a year that would that could have been, if the system was as simple as it is now, that $5 billion would have gone to where

it was directed. But since, but because it was so burdensome and cumbersome to fill out these forms, it was offloaded to third parties that got rich. Yeah, 30% of that, $5 billion goes to third parties. So, so you, and so the government's fixing that. That's good. Well, that's good. Listen, we got to give credit where credits do. And I'm not, I'm not all doom and gloom. And if there's some, if there's a reason to celebrate, then let's celebrate. Yeah, but things like, look, like where I was looking for more boldness and more urgency are things like corporate tax cuts. I mean, you know, the government, you know, there were some things in the budget around how, you know, corporate tax rates are competitive. I think when you

actually look at it, you have to add together the provincial and federal tax rates. And when you add those, like combined, our corporate tax rates are not competitive with other leading jurisdictions like Ireland. Yeah. And I would love to have seen. something much, much bolder there to actually bring that combined rate down to something more like 15%. Yeah. And what's, you know, we've got, you know, Mark Carney knows the economy better than anybody. That's, I can't, he's bulletproof on that front.

And, and so when it's perplexing to me that that would not have happened under his, under his leadership, especially because of the, because of the, as you said, the high expectations that were set by his party by saying these things were going to happen. Do you think that we have set ourselves up for building the fastest growing economy in the G7? Is this the first step in that? I'm hoping it's the first step, but look, I think you, like, I would have loved to see way more ambitious spending reductions. I would have loved to see bolder corporate tax cuts.

I would have loved to see, like, a lot of, a lot more boldness throughout this budget. I think you have to understand this government also that it's in a minority situation, and they probably were trying to also put together a budget that could get passed. So to be fair to them, I think we have to recognize that. But I think from a growth in productivity perspective, like it's kind of a missed opportunity to put something much bolder in the window. Let's spend the last couple of minutes talking about the perspective and the outlook of small business owners.

You know, I referenced a CFIB study that said that even small business owners are not bullish on small business, over 70% of them saying they wouldn't advise somebody to start a business in the environment that we're in. What are you hearing from small business owners about how hard it is out there for them? Yeah. I mean, look, the solution to so many of our challenges of the nation is just to unleash our potential and our energy. And so ultimately, that is what small business owners and entrepreneurs and

innovators across our country want to do. They want to build and they want a government, not only the federal government, but they want provincial governments to just set the conditions for them in which they can just kind of cook and build and get going. And that means lowering friction, reducing red tape, getting out of the way in many cases, and setting those conditions so that they can just get going with building their business. Yeah, well, it's, it's, I'm glad to hear that, you know, I'm talking to you on this, I'm glad to hear that you are optimistic. I mean, I think there's something about an entrepreneur. or there's a every every problem is an opportunity if it's looked at the right way and and so even though you didn't get everything that you wanted in this budget that you're still finding a way to

make it positive i think listen i i i want to believe that this government is going to solve a lot of the problems that were caused by the previous government and but they're benefiting i think from the things were so bad that even a small change is being we're heralding it as as the most wonderful thing when you know it's just it's just good because everything else before so bad. Yeah. I mean, I think execution is just going to be key here. Like, we can quibble of, like, whether or not the budget should have been bolder or whatever. But, like, it is, it is what it is at this point. And I think, you know, what I'm focused on is, like, is the execution going to be urgent? Is it going to get done? Are we going to spin our wheels for

another year or 18 months on some of these issues? I hope not. I mean, there was a piece in that budget around reducing red tape and regulations. It was great to see that. However, the results of that review won't be reported on until budget 2026. Oh boy. Okay. Lucy, we got to leave it there. I really appreciate your insights. I hope you come back sometime soon. Thanks so much, Ben. Thank you.