The Ben Mulroney Show - It's easy for politicians to gamble with other people's money

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

B.C. NDP roll out controversial loan program for First Nations groups where taxpayers must cover defaults. Ron Butler, Principal Broker with Butler Mortgage debates this contentious initiative with Dr. Moshe Lander, Economics Professor, Concordia University. 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   Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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your inbox would be full of alerts over the past few months. And a lot of them kind of make you want to rip your hair out. But that doesn't mean that every single one of them is a detriment or a step backward. And I saw a headline today that stated that the British Columbia government was launching the First Nations Equity Financing Program, a $1 billion loan guarantee program designed for First Nations-led commercial projects. and it aims to help that that group enter a certain industry, break down some barriers. And the province is going to act as a backstop for commercial loans up to a billion dollars.

And so rather than do what, you know, we typically do, which is read the story, talk about it amongst ourselves, and then tear it to shreds. I thought I would be, I'm not an economist. and I am always here to learn. Let's get some people who are more steeped in that world to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. So please welcome to the show, Ron Butler, principal broker for Butler Mortgage,

and Dr. Moshe Lander, economics professor at Concordia in Montreal. Oh, I got Dr. Lander here. We're waiting on Ron. So, Moshe, welcome to the show. Oh, I got them both. Hey, guys. Hi, how are you doing?

I'm good. Moschia you there? Yeah. Okay, fantastic. Okay, so did that, Michelle, we'll start with you. Did, did you see this story? And what did you think when you first saw it? I'm always into minds as an economist.

I guess that's the way that economists behave is that we can always see both sides of the story. So let's make it a different story. What if I said to you that I want to build a pipeline in Alberta? And the only way that I as a private enterprise want to build a pipeline in Alberta is if I get the government to underwrite the project, that if things go sideways, the government will pick up the cost, meaning the taxpayers will pick up the cost. You and I might agree that, well, that seems perfectly reasonable that a private enterprise wants some sort of guarantee that there's going to be a market for its product. And so we would say,

yeah, I can see that. Now all you have to do is just substitute private enterprise with First Nation, substitute Danielle Smith with Premier Eby. And we're probably talking about something similar. I think that the only reason why you and I would collectively pull out our hair is if the project goes bad. Yeah. The project goes well, then we don't have anything to worry about. Ron, do you see things similarly? Are you cautiously optimistic about something like this? Or when you see NDP government, $1 billion, breaking down barriers, picking winners, be they cultural, from cultural communities or different industries, do you throw up some red flags?

Yeah, we have to throw up red flags because the truth is all the money for all these things comes from the taxpayer. I mean, every single time you hear about an Aboriginal band or a certain Aboriginal group has bought something or has acquired part of a utility or something, anything of that nature. The loan guarantees are all from the federal government, all. So you have to ask yourself the question, well, if this group is getting this treatment by the federal government, at least tell us about it. Make sure you say, yes, that's true. We are providing the loan guarantees. or we are providing the seed capital,

and then explain why, why is it just this group? Well, why? Well, according to their, according to the program overview, traditionally in those communities that want to get into this sort of industry, there are issues of limited credit history,

high borrowing costs, insufficient collateral. And look, in a world where all things are equal, this community isn't equal. And so I can appreciate I can appreciate recognizing that there's a problem, Moshe. And I just, I mean, look, I'll tell you where my concern is. I don't know that this government that is demonstrated to be so fiscally irresponsible

is capable of adjudicating this responsibly and dispersing funds responsibly or protecting taxpayer interest responsibly. I agree with you on that. Now, if we're talking about then, is any government in this country, capable of assessing credit properly, I agree that time and time again, so whether we're talking Trans Mountain Pipeline, whether we're talking about this project, government is always going to miscalculate. And I think part of the reason for that is that government is not an expert

when it comes to assessing projects where people in that industry are much more capable, right? So even if we were talking about just something as basic as the housing market, I don't trust that any government, conservative, liberal, NDP or otherwise, is better informed about the housing market than people who actually work in the housing market. So whenever you get involved then with trying to underwrite projects, you're almost inevitably going to be taken advantage of by people that are more expert than you.

So this is just one more example of that. And I don't think that that's unique to the NDP. Oh, yeah, but Moshe, I'm going to bring Ron. And I think what is unique to the NDP is just yesterday we told the story of a very, of a sitting member of this government lecturing British Columbians about their collective guilt in colonialism.

She said, even if you are not somebody who directly caused colonialism, as that should tell you everything about the dynamic at play. There is guilt. There is a very slanted interpretation of history.

And I don't know, Ron, if these people are the right arbiters for what will constitute a good bet or not. They may see something that if everything about it was if the project was put forth by someone who wasn't a member of a First Nation,

they may say, that's a bad bet, but oh, we have all this guilt and we cause colonialism. Might as well be cancer that we caused. We owe it to them for the historical injustices. And to be playing around with a billion dollars with a taxpayer money, I don't know that I trust their judgment. Well, if we're going to play around with a billion dollars of taxpayer money and we're going to try to redress historic wrongs,

then we should definitely give loan guarantees and money to the LGBTQ community. Because they were oppressed and abused for over 100 years. So let's start giving them money to compensate for what happened to them. Let's have them start to own enterprises. The bottom line is, look, yes, there was oppression. Yes, there was wrongdoing. Yes, all those things, yes. But as one of the local chiefs said not too long ago,

Is there no goal line? Do we ever get across the goal line and we don't have to keep paying forever? But Moshe, in this case, this is something at least closer to what I think the majority of Canadians want to see. Finding a mechanism by which you can help First Nations help themselves, creating that catalyst that will spur a self-fulfilling prophecy, a positive feedback. loop, if you will, instead of, as we said, just massive transfers of wealth with no end in sight, allowing them to be masters of their own domain. I think a lot of people get behind. It's the people who are doing it that I think are the concern, not the First Nations, as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, and I think that if the government were transparent about what they were doing, so if they're saying earlier in the week that we have this collective guilt that we need to address, then if you just say, listen, this is a project that is maybe not sound on. other wise financial grounds or that the private sector on its own would otherwise not want to pick up so we are going to address this collective guilt with this project then again that's for taxpayers to vote or not vote and that's why you have elections right and people are going to say well no I don't want you using your money for that or I'm comfortable with you using your money for this to me the the issue is always

going to be not what happens if the project goes right it's what happens if the project goes wrong and so if the government is 100% committed to making sure that this succeeds not not at the expense of just draining the taxpayers forever and ever, but if they have an extreme degree of confidence in it, then there's really nothing for us to worry about. It's what happens when it goes wrong or how long will they go until they admit that it's gone wrong? And are they just going to use the public as an endless funnel to keep channeling more money in? But again, I'll give you as a comparison point, Bombardier here in Quebec has been using government money for decades and decades and still yet to prove proof of concept. So you know, we can substitute

names and sometimes we say, well, that's different. No, that's, that's a very good point. Bombardier has been getting, I don't think the Bombardier people have been, were oppressed in any way, shape, or form. Ron, I'm going to give the last 30 seconds to you. If you could give one piece of advice to this government in British Columbia to, I don't know, make this concept a little more reassuring to people. What would that one thing be?

Well, just limit the scope of the results. Have an actual finish line. have a point where you can say yes, this is the scope. This is what we're going to do. We'll keep checking along the way. If it fails, it fails. And we'll figure that out quickly. And if it succeeds, it should be good for everybody. Gentlemen, I want to leave it on a happy note. Thank you so much for sort of filling in the blanks for me. I really appreciate it. Enjoy your weekend. I hope we talk again soon. Thank you.

Thanks. Take care.