The Ben Mulroney Show - Is the trucker convoy punishment worthy of the crime?

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

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BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. Welcome back to the Ben. Welcome to the Ben Mulerney show. It's Wednesday, October 8. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of hump day with us. And look, today is we've got another baseball game. Hopefully the Jays can close her out. And you never know who you're going to meet around this building. I'm very happy to be joined now by Rachel McAdam, the VP of Marketing of Skip. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, happy to be here. Good morning. It's so interesting. Talk to me about this company that, I don't know, 10 years ago, most of us were living our lives, completely unaware that this new way of shopping, of ordering food, of ordering pretty much anything, was right around the corner. So, I mean, Skip is a big company. Yeah, so we started 13 years ago in the Prairie provinces.

And at the time, it was about, you know, skipping the dishes. skipping, you know, making dinner, going out to restaurants and bringing the convenience of that home. 13 years later, you know, we've dropped the dishes. We're skip because we deliver far more than just your Friday night pizza. So now you can get groceries and pharmacy and LCBO and really it's about skipping the everyday hassles, not just groceries and dinner, but, you know, the pharmacy runs and all of those things.

Oh, yeah. And you've got to be busy. I have to assume, what's the busiest time of year for? skip when it comes to food. So, hey, NHL starts tonight with the Leafs. Great night for ordering in. It's actually, it's a HAB's game. It's a HAB's game featuring the Leafs. But, you know, it's going to be a great game nonetheless. And it's a great night for ordering in. So we find, you know, people when they gather together, they want the convenience of Super Bowl's got to be a big one too. Super Bowl's been the fall. You know, when it's cold and you

don't want to go out and you don't want to shovel the walk, you can just order it straight to the door. And you guys are known for some great commercials. You've got somebody. knew who's going to be in front of the camera. We're excited today, yeah. So, you know, as a Canadian brand, we wanted to work with a Canadian celebrity. And there's no one bigger right now than Seth Rogen. And so we're thrilled to launch our new spot with him today. Not only is he starring in it, but he and his partner, Evan Goldberg.

Yeah, they actually co-wrote the spot. So it really is authentically Seth's voice. I mean, look, you're catching him at a time where he is one of the most successful TV stars in the world now. His show, the studio, I think, won like 20 Emmys or something, something ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's impressive. Did you, did you negotiate with him before the Emmys? Because something tells me he would have cost a little more after. You know, sometimes these things take a long time and that's a good thing. And so certainly played to our advantage. But, you know, he's a Canadian that loves being Canadian. We shot in Vancouver. He had his mom and

dad come to set. You know, it was just, it was really, he's a great guy. And he was really a great guy. And he was really authentic. Let me ask you a quick question. Rachel and McAdam, is there anything where you'll deliver for wedding crashers? You worked on that real hard, didn't you? Thank you. Yeah. Okay, you can turn your mic off now. Is there anything that Skip wants to deliver, they don't deliver yet? Well, I think if you were talking to Seth, he'd love us to deliver marijuana. Oh, yes, of course, weed, right? Yeah, I didn't even think about that. Sure, of course that's where he would want to go. But pretty much everything else, we can deliver your. to your door in 30 minutes or less.

Well, Rachel McAdam, thank you very much. Congratulations. I actually didn't know it was a Canadian company. Yeah. Yeah, born and raised in Prairie Provinces. Our head office is in Winnipeg. Well, congratulations. Thank you so much.

And congratulations on this new partnership with Seth Rogen. He is a great Canadian, a talented guy. And I'm sure he's going to do great things with you. So thank you very much. Thanks so much. All right. We are going to get back to the news now. And something that we haven't necessarily talked about yet,

because we were awaiting, we were awaiting the conclusion, if you will, of the trial for the two people involved in the Freedom Convoy. And now that they've, now that that's done, we can talk about it. Let's listen to the lawyer for Chris Barber. I think the message from the judge was really clear that my client and Ms. Leach had the best intention when they came to Ottawa. It was a lawful protest. She found that it turned into unlawful because of the blockage of the streets. And that's where the message is like protests, but don't block street. Don't interfere with other people's enjoyment of their property is the clear message.

I think the judge wanted to make sure in her decision today and even in their decision on conviction that protest is allowed. That's not the issue. It's the matter of the protest. So this concluded in a way that I think it needed to conclude because Chris Barber and Tamaralich both got house arrest, right? Yes, they both get a year of house arrests and then probation afterwards. Yeah. Now, like, listen, there are people who believe that the moment they were arrested, that was already too onerous, right? But this was going to go through the courts.

I think they want to make an example out of these two people. and frankly given how permissive we've been with actual real hardened criminals who have go who who have been terrorizing neighborhoods and break-ins and armed robberies and you name it and they just get out on bail and they never see the inside of a jail cell really this you could argue this was a tale of two justice systems however listen they broke the law and they ended up in the criminal justice system. Had they had the judgment against them resulted in them spending even one more day behind bars, that would have been, to me, offensive.

It would have been offensive given the stories that we tell you each and every day of people who break the law, use guns. And considering it's four years. And it's been about four years since this entire process started for them. So the fact that they are now more. or less, you know, free of this. I'm glad. Listen, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, I feel to me like they've paid the penalty already.

It does. And it's, it's, it's just the, uh, I guess it's, it's penalty equivalency. Yeah. Through the, throughout the, throughout the law, because you could get six months for a sexual assault. Yeah. But then also six months for a fraud. It just, I just always find it hard to sort of, uh, uh,

find a balance. Yeah, and you'll remember last week on this show, we had a lawyer. Ari Goldkind was here to talk about how you can have four different people from four different cultural communities doing the exact same crime and the penalty that they will get. You'll have four different, you'll have four different outcomes. Because I guess in Canada, we have to take into account that person's cultural background and any associated perceived structural racism, poverty, you name it, inequities.

Those things have to be taken into account when rendering judgment on those people. So a murder doesn't get you. It doesn't matter. Not about the murder victim, it's about the perpetrator of the murder. But they're also, with this judgment, they are attacking one subset of Canadian culture

that has been very vocally anti-government or at least anti-Trudeau, right? And that was becoming a huge, problem yet the justice system is not doing the same with other voices that are becoming a problem now yeah we'll look at look at how many the protesters that are clogging up our streets you could you could argue that those protests have been as um they've been as um they've had a stranglehold on this city for the better part for toronto and other cities for the better part of two years and you know what happened in ottawa i thought was i think they made their

point after a day they should have left uh and they didn't but that was, how long did that last for? Was it four weeks, five weeks? Whatever it was, it was too long. I was there, I was there for like five days and it was too long for me. Well, listen, we've got so much, gosh, we didn't get to any of this stuff. How do, should we just, should we, here's what we're going to do. When we come back from the break, we are going to be talking with someone I've actually

known for years, but I did not know that he had taken on this new role as one of the, I guess founders or leaders of unapologetically Jewish. He and his organization have taken it upon themselves to do something, I think, extraordinary, which is bring human rights violations cases against the mayors of Montreal and Toronto, the police chiefs of Montreal and Toronto, the police boards of Montreal and Toronto, and the cities of Montreal and Toronto for what he says are human rights violations to the Jewish people of Montreal and Toronto. So we are going to dig in

to what I think is a pretty big lawsuit that's facing those two cities. Next, don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome to back to the Ben Mulroney show. We appreciate all of you, everyone who joins us here on the Ben Mulroney show each and every day.

I'm very, very pleased to be joined by my next guest. And look, back in the day, he used to train me. He was my trainer, and he was always the one of the most positive people I was ever in, who was ever in my orbit. And then life got in the way and I moved and it was harder to go see him, but we stayed in touch on social media. And then all of a sudden he pops up on my social media feed, not for his, for health care or for training or the fact that he's been sober for God knows how many years. No, and now he's taken up the defense of the Jewish people of Canada.

as part of an organization called unapologetically Jewish. Please welcome to the show, Matthew Taub. Hey, Ben. How's it going? I'm good. How are you? I'm feeling great. It's been a long time. It has been a long time. Now, before we get into all of it, what is unapologetically Jewish? All right. Unapologetically Jewish start off as an online advocacy through social media of trying to get a voice for the Jewish community and expose things that weren't right.

And over the last two years now, it evolved into a larger movement of more people doing unapologically Jewish things and speaking out. And a few months ago, I decided to take it to the next level and we became a nonprofit, a federal nonprofit. It's designed to lobby, defend, empower, and unify the Jewish community across Canada through grassroots advocacy, legal action, political engagement, and public education, holding people to task for their failings. Well, look, have we been chronicling what I think have been the failures of the city of Toronto? And sometimes we talk about Montreal as well over the past two years by omission and by inaction and by silence and by also creating a permission structure for protesters to do what they want and protest where they want. They have, in my opinion, have created an environment of hostility and a lack of safety for the Jewish people. of their respective cities. And so when I saw you get in front of a microphone

and throw down the gauntlet and say, yeah, that all happened. And we're coming for the people who could have done something about it. So talk to me about what you're pursuing against Montreal and Toronto. All right. So Montreal and Toronto, as we know,

I mean, Montreal seems to be the hotbed. It's actually hotter than Toronto is. And the protests that are occurring that are breaking so many rules and so many laws and you discussed with Kevin yesterday, you know, the charter is actually thrown in there as well. So the inaction, as you mentioned yesterday as well, Kevin, the inaction of the mayors of both cities, the boards, as well as the command of the police, allowing these protests to occur. There's nothing wrong with

protesting in Canada. We know that. But there's a line that is crossed. You want to social when comes to the charter, charter, you know, article one, supersedes everything else. You can't just do what you want because you feel like it.

Yeah. So the police standing by, and they're using that charter to say, they have the right to do it. They have a charter right, a charter right to protest. It's sacrosanct. Right.

But there's more than one amendment on that charter. There are more than one articles on that charter. So standing there and not allowing it to happen and boldens the protesters. Yeah. It gets worse and worse every day. What started off, especially in Toronto, at the overpassed Avenue and the 401, to what we're seeing just last night with, you know, honoring the martyrs on October 7th. Shutting down the street and lighting smoke grenades and all that, it's going to get worse. This is not where it started.

Where we are now is not where it started. So we're taking the task, the cities, the. boards and the command to say you're not protecting the rights. And I don't even want to say right now it's of Jews, but this is a Canadian issue. Yeah. Well, the Jews are always the first, right? If hatred for the Jews spikes, they're the tip of the sword. It's coming.

The hatred for everybody else is just like a short, just wait. Just wait. It's coming. But I wanted to ask, okay, so you're taking them to task. You're saying you didn't do your jobs, and now we are now living in a world where our rights have been infringed. So what is the process by which you seek redress from the Human Rights Tribunal? Well, so the process now, we've done it both in Montreal and in Toronto. So we've submitted to the Quebec as well as the Ontario Tribunals.

And they take it on, they look at it. If they accept it, which they don't accept it, that's a whole other issue. Right. If they see that this is not a problem, then we have another case to go forward. on an other court. Then you take the human rights tribunal to the human rights tribunal. Exactly.

It's maddening. So the idea is to get the tribunal to take it on and look at what is happening and look at the laws that they have within the police services, including within the Toronto Police, the Montreal police, to enact the laws that have to be enacted.

So if they're not enforcing criminal charges, if they're deciding, which is what we're seeing, front line responders and just the inspectors and all the police there, they're playing crown as well as judge right there. Yeah. That's not their job. You know, I agree with you.

That's a very good point. Like what has struck me since the beginning of the protest culture that's taken root in cities like Toronto and Montreal is that on the spot, like we've seen, we've seen protesters, masked protesters threatened people's lives right in front of cops. They're, that's, I'm sorry, that's an automatic. go to jail. I don't get why those, when you let something like that slide, they're going to do it again next time, but they're going to go just a little more past the line and again, and again, and again. The second that they decided that they were going to protest inside a Jewish neighborhood,

which is there's no, no meaningful reason to do that except to intimidate and scare and strike fear. And when they were allowed to do that, not once, but multiple times, I thought, like, what, what is going on here? And that's the problem. You see that even in Montreal. They're doing the same in both states. And it's not just Montreal, Toronto. This is a nationwide issue to Vancouver.

And I apologize, I'm Jewish. As we move forward, these aren't the only two cities that we're going to be tackling. But these are the first two cities we're going to be tackling. Well, I want to be, before I let, we only have a couple of minutes left. And I want to spend a little bit of time with you just to, you know, take a look at the lay of the land as as it occurred yesterday. Like the fact, the fact that at a school in Toronto, the Canadian National Anthem on October 7th was played in Arabic. And the principal in his statements about October 7th,

neither mentioned Jews nor Israel. What do you think of that? I get, we are in Muslim Celebration Month or whatever it's called. but of all the days to play the National Anthem in Arabic October 7th with Jewish students in the room seems to me I'm not going to describe stupidity

I think there was an agenda I think there was an agenda as well let's start off with the simple stuff again go back to enforcing the laws in Canada there is a National Anthem law that we're only supposed to be playing it in our two official languages that is it English and French

No other language should be played. Well, so listen, we looked at the law itself today, and there's no language explicitly saying that it has to be in English or in French. However, we are, I'm choosing to interpret it because we have two national languages, two official languages, I think it's implied in the law that it has to be English or French. Right. And I agree with that. And doing that on October 7th, it wasn't the 6th, it wasn't the 8th. It was on October 7th. Everything was done with intent.

There's an agenda, not mentioning the atrocities that happened on October 7th in the announcements. There are Jewish kids and even non-Jewish kids who sit there and see what happened and say, this is wrong. Yeah. And I think the biggest step now is a statement from the principal and the vice principal over the announcement to, again, teach the kids. We screwed up badly and we're going to take accountability for that. that. I deal with my own children all the time. I screw up. I'm going to say, right?

Yeah. But you know, Matthew, what is so disappointing is, you know, to sit and mourn the loss, the losses that were felt on October 7th does not have to mean that you are in opposition to the Muslim students in the school. It doesn't have to be oppositional, right? Two things can be true. You can respect and celebrate Muslim cultural month, and you can honor the passing of those on October 7th. And the fact that people want to put us in a binary oppositional world is disappointing.

But I thank you so much for joining us. Please keep us up to date as to what's going on with this pursuit of justice. We appreciate it. Thank you, Matthew. Absolutely. Thanks, sir. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country,

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