The Ben Mulroney Show - It's official -- Canada has recognized Palestine as a State. Will Hamas walk away?

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

- Andrew Fox, a former British airborne army officer with extensive experience covering events on the ground in the Middle East. Andrew has spent much time in both Israel and Gaza - including last month to investigate the aid crisis - and is currently a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.  -  CARMI LEVY/technology journalist, analyst, and digital marketer - Gideon Hayden  co-founder and managing partner at Leaders Fund 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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Canada recognizes the state of Palestine. And we offer our full partnership in building the promise our full partnership in building the promise. of a peaceful future for both the state of Palestine and the state of Israel. You're listening to The Ben Mulroney Show. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney show on Tuesday, September 23rd, and you just heard the voice of our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the UN General Assembly, announcing that Canada has recognized the state of Palestine. So many questions.

I think we've got more questions today than we had yesterday. So let's back this up. Let's paint a picture. they're on on the on the uh at the time that this country was departing from its longstanding commitment to israel because that's how i see it you may not that's how i see it the jews around the world were celebrating russia shana it's a jewish new year it's one of the holiest days in judaism and simultaneous to this announcement uh our prime minister put forth a Rosh Hashanah Celebration

tweet where he said tonight Jewish Canadians will come together with loved ones to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Had the chance to meet with colleagues in Ottawa for an early celebration of this important holiday. I'm wishing all who celebrate a new year filled with joy, health and renewal.

Like, come on, man. Come on. Why? Why did you have to do this? I said it yesterday. It feels like it was rushed because you knew you were going to be at the UN General Assembly and if you didn't do it now you'd have to wait till the next time and that is not a good reason to do something like this

in my humble estimation. So yeah, there you go. You can go find the post yourselves. I have a lot of Jewish friends who looked at this and felt insulted. They felt slighted. They felt like they'd been kicked either in the tummy in the face or somewhere else on their body. And it was not a good feeling for them to feel like

the prime minister and his government were talking out of both sides of their mouth. You think there's something to the fact that he did this with just his Jewish staffers because normally the prime minister goes and does it within the community in some synagogue or something. Yeah.

I wonder if he did that for a reason. Yeah. I mean, he had his Jewish MPs with him to show, look, I've got a Jewish friend. I'm kidding. I don't want to ascribe that. I don't want to ascribe that. I don't want to ascribe ill motivation because I'm confused by this. I don't understand why it was done. I don't understand why on August 1st there were preconditions

and then today we have a state and none of those preconditions were met. However, somebody out there has a theory as to why this happened. Mark Emery, the Prince of Pot, he had a pretty insightful tweet. He said, Mark Carney and the Liberal Party math. Muslim voters in Canada, 2 million and rising daily up from 500,000 in 2001, 500,000 to 2 million

in 25 years. Jewish voters, 335,000 not rising and has remained static for 20 years. This is why Canada's governing liberals announced their, quote, unquote, recognition of, quote, unquote, Palestine. Listen, I mean, everything is political. There's every decision made by a government is political. And is it cynical to say this? Well, listen, later on in the show, we're going to be telling you about a minister who was caught on tape. He did not know he was being recorded. And he admitted that there was a policy that they were pursuing. And that was a useless policy, but they were doing it because of the votes in Quebec.

So look, it was said about that policy. Why can't we suggest that that's what's going on here? And let's look at the other side of the equation. Let's look at those who should be celebrating in the streets because they were given a recognition for the state of Palestine. Do you remember when that group tried to burn a Canadian flag and they couldn't burn it? So they ripped it into one of many times.

Let's listen to the Palestinian protests in Ottawa. Okay, let's listen to Mark Carney because he sat down and he gave a sort of fairly fulsome explanation as to why Canada was doing what it was doing. So let's listen. It's not, we're not doing, we're under no illusions that this is any sort of panacea. But it's necessary in our judgment. It's, and the judgment of most other countries in the world. uh that we have to push on this now because as i say the the the possibility in absolute violation of the u.n charter and an absolute violation of international law

of self-determination for the palestine peoples is is being erased um so this is we're doing what we can uh but recognizing recognizing the limitations okay so the limitations is not a panacea uh i i would challenge the prime minister that most countries in the world believe as he believes. I don't know that that's true. I'd like to see the numbers to support it. But that's what he said. So it's not a panacea,

and there's a lot of stuff that has to happen. So it's a recognition of a state that is not yet a state. Okay. So then why do it, man? Like honestly. But he continued, and this is where stuff got interesting.

And when you say who is going to do that, there are many proposals, as I suspect you're aware, from a variety of Arabic, states, combination of Arab states, and European states, to which Canada would be party if they were to come to pass, for multinational forces to be deployed in Palestine to enforce a peace and to drive that process, that process forward. Does anybody remember this coming up in the election campaign?

Canadian boots on the ground in Gaza? I don't remember this. This is new to me. A little bit shocking. And how's that going to work? Who's going to let them in? Something tells me, something tells me that the IDF is going to have a problem with that. Just I'm throwing it out there because I have no idea how any of this is going to work.

And I suspect the people making these decisions don't know either. One note, the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. and dozens of Palestinian officials will not be at the UN General Assembly in person and that is because the U.S., which is a staunch Israeli ally, refused to issue them visas. And so Abbas is going to appear via video.

But when you hear, yes, of course, oh, and he wants that money, don't forget, he wants Keir Starmor to give him $3 trillion. But, you know, when our prime minister says this is what all the responsible countries are doing, I would ask you to turn your attention to Singapore. Because Singapore says they will recognize the state of Palestine when it has an effective government that accepts Israel's right to exist. It must also categorically renounce terrorism.

Yeah. So unlike the West, it seems like Singapore is not put in the cart before the horse. I think everyone agrees on these preconditions. It looks like Singapore is actually like being consistent and they are going to wait for those preconditions. before recognizing a Palestinian state. You recognize Israel's right to exist. You renounce terrorism and you show us that you can have an effective, free, and fair government, and we will absolutely recognize your state, but not until then.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has slated to speak. Oh, he's speaking now. He's addressing the UN General Assembly. He has 25 U.S. Republicans sent an open letter to Mark Carney and leaders of Australia, the UK and France, warning of possible punitive measures for recognizing Palestinian statehood. And not for nothing, the GOP lawmakers call the move reckless, arguing it rewards violence over diplomacy and undermines peace talks. It's probably going to undermine our trade talks as well as the president said on truth social yesterday. So listen, this thing's a moving target.

And I don't know that it's going to settle in a place that makes our lives easier with Donald Trump. After the break, we asked the question, how will Hamas respond to troops on the ground? Will they capitulate? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. I told you before the break as we were laying out Canada's vision and plan and recognition of Israel that I had more questions than I had answers. How is this going to work? Does this proposal make any sense? would Israel let Canada in with our army to be the boots on the ground to keep the peace in Gaza?

These are all questions I have and our next guest is going to be able in his own way to answer them. Please welcome to the show Andrew Fox. He's a former British Airborne Army officer with extensive experience covering events on the ground in the Middle East. Andrew has spent a lot of time in both Israel and Gaza, including last month, to investigate the aid crisis. He's currently a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. Andrew, thank you so much for being here and thank you for your service. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me, Ben.

So tell us about your last trip to Israel. Yeah, so I was the first neutral observer invited by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to examine or observe one of their distribution sessions in Rafa, which is in the south of the Gaza Strip. It was a fascinating experience. It was interesting that they showed me the good and the bad. frankly, there are better ways to deliver aid, but in a war zone, it just underlines the point that it is an exceptionally difficult thing to do.

And the most interesting thing was that the GHF didn't have any of their aid intercepted, and the UN and other NGOs had upwards of 90% of their aid deliveries intercepted by militants. So it's a system that has its strength. The downside is that the garden civilians have to walk a very long way. And the IDF are using large fire for crowd control, which is really, really not good to see at all. So there's good bits and there's bad bits, but it was a fascinating visit. Well, we're going to get into the questions that I have for you in a moment, but just quickly, based on what you saw, what do you make of the accusations of genocide and starvation?

I would suggest they're nonsensical. They make no sense to me. If you look at the actual statistics and numbers, that even the United Nations pushes out, he's on Israel's numbers, they're the United Nations. There is enough food in Gaza for every, man, woman and child with food to spare more than enough aid. Double the amount of aid has gone in during the war that went in pre-war, and we're looking at an average of over 3,000 calories

per person per day has gone into Gaza. The issue is with distribution and that's because the UN hasn't done its job properly because it's a war zone and it's really hard to get food to people in the worst areas and because of course Hamas and other militants have been intercepting the aid and stopping

it getting to the people who really need it. So there is undeniably hunger in certain parts of Gaza, but it's nothing like a sort of African famine that we all remember from the 80s and 90s. It's nothing like, you're not seeing xylophone ribs, you're not seeing that emaciation, human skeletons. You know, people are hungry,

but they are not starving to death. And the numbers of deaths from starvation also support that. Even Hamas themselves are reporting only 400 people out of 2.3 million have starved to death and the duration of the war. Wait, wait, is that true?

Is that their numbers, say, 400 people have starved out of 2.3 million since the beginning of the war? So it's a stroke from the Gaza Ministry of Health. So it's very, very low. And yeah, the idea that it's a famine is nonsense. The idea that the Israelis are deliberately starving them is nonsense. And the idea that it's a genocide.

Don't hold up to any real scrutiny at all. All right. Well, thank you so much for level-setting with us there. Let's now talk about Canada, the UK. I think we have France in there. There's a few other countries that have recognized the state of Palestine. Based on what you know, based on the current state of affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, how can this work? I don't see it as a recipe for a peaceful solution.

Unilaterally acknowledging one side without asking any concessions of them has given Hamas probably their biggest win of the war. This is an astonishing victory beyond their wildest dreams for Hamas, no matter what Mr. Carney or Mr. Starmer in the UK might say. There's also talk that Hamas can't take part in any future governance of Palestine. But how do you enforce that? If you look at the opinion polls in both the West Bank and Garda, together, Hamas are polling at 70%. Palestinian Islamic jihad, one of the other terrorist groups, are polling even higher. If there were an election tomorrow, these insurgent militant groups would win power with a landslide victory.

So there's a real inconsistency here. It doesn't bring the Middle East any closer to peace, as I see it. You know, we were talking about how on August 1st, our prime minister set out preconditions, which promptly went the way of the dodo bird, and now they are sort of goals for the future. But then you've got Singapore that said they'll recognize the state of Palestine when it has an effective government that accepts Israel's right to exist. It must also categorically renounce terrorism. I don't understand why people couldn't get behind that sort of idea. We will recognize you when you do these things.

that will allow you to be welcomed into the responsible community of nations. I don't get it. How do you make sense of it? Yeah, it's very well coordinated to the three countries, certainly, Labor, the UK, Connie in Canada, and the Labor Party in Australia. There's no coincidence that they're all using the same in book and they're all using the same language and they're all coinciding the timings of these announcements. I think they're working to a political agenda rather than a practical agenda. They're not doing this because they think it's the right time.

They're working it because they are taking an anti-Israel position and a pro-Palestine position, and they're doubling down on that. Unfortunately, what that does is back Israel into a corner. It gives neither side in Gaza any incentive to ceasefire. Hamas are getting everything they want, so they'll keep going. And Israel, of course, then doesn't have a choice but to keep going in turn, which, first of all, is terrible news for the poor hostages. There's now no incentive for either side to come to a deal for their release.

And it also means the suffering of everyone in Gaza and all those poor IDF families who are getting death notification of their loved ones. Their death suffering is going to be prolonged as well. So it's just the worst possible outcome. I don't see any benefits that come from this whatsoever other than pushing an anti-Israel broke Palestine agenda. Meanwhile, you've got, I heard the tone in the voice of the Prime Minister of Israel after these announcements.

And he looked in the camera, he said, this is not going to happen on my watch. I mean, he's digging his heels in. So how, you know, our prime minister said that there is going to be an international military force made up of a number of countries, including Canada, that will, well, I don't know, parachute into Gaza. I don't know how they're going to get there. And, and defend the peace. As a man steeped in the military, tell me how.

something like that could happen, because I don't see Israel letting Canada in for one second. No, and that's clearly where this plan falls over at the first hurdle, is getting Israeli agreement for this multinational, international force to go in. The other thing, of course, is that you're putting Canadian troops in to die for Palestine. It's a fascinating idea. It's not one I would be keen on. We're a Canadian voter. And look, we've got 20 years. of what happens when you try to do this. We've got Iraq. We've got Afghanistan. We know this stuff doesn't work.

We know that all you're doing is putting Canadian troops into the middle of a vicious cancer insurgency. What will probably be also a vicious civil war with the Hamas's rival factions in Garda and the odds of it succeeding are absolutely minimal. For all the reasons we could talk about that Iraq failed, that Afghanistan failed. It's an insane idea.

And the fact that they're even talking about it shows how bereft of actual ideas they are. There's no practical solution on the table here for Middle Eastern peace. And the stupidity of this idea just underlines it for me. Well, I thought the cherry on top, Andrew, was Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority upon being granted statehood from the UK, asked for $2 trillion in reparations from the UK for their mistreatment of the people from 1917 to 1948. didn't get rid of the terrorists in his organization, didn't pledge to push for democratic reforms. Instead, he came with his handout saying you owe us $2 trillion.

It's astonishing, isn't it? And there was that rather sickening photo off of Kirstama in London with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, shaking hands. And you can imagine how that went down in Jerusalem. man who has a Ph.D. in Holocaust denial. His literal PhD dissertation was on denying the Holocaust. His authority pay the murderers of Israelis.

They pay their families of very, very incentivizing pension when they get put into Israeli jail for murdering Jews. And then to declare a state and think you have any goodwill in Jerusalem to make any diplomatic inquiry into fixing this problem, it's just ludicrous. And then, of course, the cherry on the Cape, as you say, is that demand for money. which knowing our prime minister is entirely possible.

I'll get it. Andrew, we're going to leave it there, but I appreciate the unvarnished truth. You cut through the politics and you're told us exactly what's going on, and I really appreciate it. You take care, sir. Thank you so much. Take care. us wherever we are, whether we be on a platform, a podcast platform or radio or streaming

or social media or YouTube. We appreciate it. All right, this morning is time to talk tech with our good friend Karmie Levy. Carmie, welcome. Good to be with your band. Thanks for having me. Okay, so the first story I want to talk about is AI being used for good to protect kids on social media. I don't often hear this, so let's dive in. Yeah, well, I mean, up until now, kids can put any age they want. You have to put your birthday on when you sign up. But if you lie about your birthday to pretend that you're older, up until now there's been really no recourse.

So there have been lots of kids who are below Instagram's minimum age. It's 13, by the way, or they're teenagers, but they pretend to the older so the teenage restrictions don't apply to them. Well, now they're going to force you to be honest, because they're going to use artificial intelligence now to scan activity on the account and be able to determine, this person says that they're 20 years old, but do the things they post that suggest that they're 20,

the people that they interact with, the things that they like, the comments that they leave, AI is going to look at all of that and go, no, you say you're an adult, but you're not, and if it finds out that you're a teen, or if it thinks you're a teen, it's going to automatically flip the account into being a team account,

which, of course, includes all of those restrictions, requires you to be connected to your parent, parents does not allow you to view certain kinds of content. It essentially keeps kids safe and prevents them from lying to work around those restrictions. It's a great idea, but, Carmi, what happens if an adult gets accidentally labeled a team? Yeah, that's the problem because AI, we know, often gets things wrong. It hallucinates, and it can potentially hallucinate or go rogue or just basically get it wrong here. And so a legitimate adult could potentially be tagged as a teenager.

And of course, if you find out that that's what's happened to your account, there isn't really much recourse. It's not like they have people, you know, customer service agents on a toll-free line. You're stuck in a bit sort of web-based loop where you've got to try to resolve it yourself. And there are lots of examples online of people whose accounts have been either suspended or otherwise compromised by AI. And they don't really have anyone that they can talk to. They're stuck without it. And that's a problem, if it's a regular account, a really big problem, if it's your business account, and now you're losing revenue. Yeah, like, what if you're like a children's performer, or you bake cakes, or you are a clown, or you sell balloons, you know, all those things could have you run afoul of AI because they would see the stuff that you're liking and they see the stuff that you're posting and say, oh, that's got to be a kid.

Yeah, there's a huge sub-economy on Instagram, and unfortunately, if that gets cut off by AI, because A. I reads your account wrong and wrongly accuses you of being a kid when you're not, that can have very serious implications for your business going forward. And that's something that meta likely going to have to think about and something that obviously those who have been affected by this raise the alarm, make it, make it loud, make the company change their policies, and ensure that they have resources in place that allow this thing to be resolved. Well, a company that a lot of people wish would change their policies

because they always, whenever they are in the news, it seems to be because they're running a foul of some code of ethics or a law, and it looks like it's happening again, Ticketmaster is being sued? Yeah, and so the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. and seven separate states, they're all coming together. They're suing Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, basically saying that they knowingly allow brokers to buy tickets in bulk. And so, and then they sort of look the other way while they then mark them up and sell them on the second head market. And one of the things that really, I think, will great a lot of people. Tickets go on sale at noon, for example, and you wait in line, a virtual line,

and then by 1201 all the tickets are gone, you're wondering, how can that be? There is a law in place in the U.S. It's called the BOTS. It's called the BOTS Act, which prevents platforms from using bots or allowing people to use bots to snap up all the tickets and then instantly resell them on some other platform. And there's evidence that suggests in this lawsuit alleges that that those bots are in fact being used and Ticketmaster is allowing those bots to be used on their platform. And they're in fact providing technical support to brokers who, yeah, they're actually helping them with the technology to do this. And they're making money when they first sell the ticket.

They're making money from the buyers and the sellers when those tickets are then being resold. And they estimate that over the years, they have made over $16 billion in revenue from their. illegal activity and they want payback so you know this is and we see this here in Canada we know that the Canadian government has tried and thus far failed to rein that in but the cool thing about

this lawsuit is in the US of course your lawyer you know this based on common law this could set an important precedent which would then apply here in Canada then lawyers here would sort of pick up the baton and run with it so this is definitely a case to watch if you ever felt

that you got ripped off buying that's on Ticketmaster. Well, yeah, I have no idea why they keep going down this road. I mean, they already make a ton of money. There's tons more money out there for them, but why go down the road of bilking somebody who just wants to go see a show? I've never understood it. And neither have I.

And, you know, as a consumer, this is about as consumer unfair practice as we will ever see. I think they just maybe arrogantly think that they can get away with it. They think that they can use technology to hide a lot of this activity or that they think it'll take so long for cases like this to work their way through the courts that by the time of judgment actually happens, they will have made so much money that it really won't make a difference. Any punishment they get will be a slap on the wrist. So I'm kind of hoping that this case will finally sort of force the industry to behave a little bit better and maybe allow a little bit more competition because we know the ticket master owns the vast majority of the

market for event tickets for concert tickets. And unfortunately, consumers have been paying more than their fair share for years because of it. All right, Carmie, the last story I want to touch on is a cyber attack. You know, every time we talk, we talk about like different types of cyber attacks. I never would have thought could have happened. And here we are talking about a cyber attack on a car company. Yeah, so Jaguar Land Rover. You know, if you want to buy a Jaguar, it's not being manufactured right now because

the factory has been shut down for the better part of the last month by a cyber attack. And, you know, people go, well, how can a factory be shut down by a cyber attack? If you walk down the assembly line, most of the machines there are robotic. They're connected to a network. They're internet aware. And so a cyber attacker has gotten in and has literally forced the company to shut it down as it tries to figure out where it's coming from and how it can stop it from happening. The numbers are absolutely insane.

They're saying so far revenue loss of $6.5 billion Canadian dollars. profits, almost half a billion Canadian dollars so far and by the day this continues to go up by about $135 million a day. So the numbers are catastrophic. The good news is there's still inventory in the supply chain so that if you want to buy one of these vehicles, well, your dealership probably still has some of them on the lot,

but new ones are not being made. And this is unprecedented. We've seen automotive industries targeted by cyber attacks previously. But nothing on this scale, and I think this kind of illustrates just how vulnerable high-tech factories are. And I'm guessing whoever is a manufacturer probably needs to look at this and go, are we doing enough to keep our systems secure? It now might be the time to take a second look. Carmine, in about 30 seconds, let me know. Did these cyber attackers ask for anything?

Did they demand anything? That's the problem. They don't know who it is. There have been no demands. There's been no ransom. Often these are ransomware attacks. There's been no ransom demand. it's just they know there's been an incursion

they know there's been a breach they're trying to figure out if data has been released in that breach but there's more unknown than known at this point which is also kind of frightening if a massive company like Jaguar Land Rover can be so waylaid and blinded by this imagine how this could affect any other company as well

yeah well thank you very much my friend I appreciate it great being with you Ben thank you there was also another story that we did not get to about how Spirit Airlines was, had a flight in the air at the same time as Air Force One and the pilots got a little too close to Air Force One and the air traffic controllers told them put the air, put the iPad down and focus on what you're doing. Air traffic controllers have the most stressful jobs on the planet. If they don't do their jobs well, people die. And so if they tell you to put the iPad down and pay attention, it's something that you have to do.

It seems like common sense. You see people on planes arguing and fighting with flight attendants all the time. Yeah, exactly. Well, all right, coming up, we're going to take the temperature of, no, is that? Yes, we're going to take the temperature of our tech industry. And I got to say, we might have to call a doctor. That's next on the Ben Mulerney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show.

Really appreciate your time. Really appreciate your passion and your, hey, your criticism too. If you send us a, if you send us a note or a tweet or a DM and you let us know that you didn't like our take on something, I pay attention to that. And I know that Mike Drolet does. You hurt his feelings. My producer has very, very thin skin. And so you got to be very polite to him because you hurt his feelings. Me, not so much.

But I do listen. And I do appreciate it. Listen, everyone in this country, we always say we're waiting for this. the next Shopify, right? Canada built one of the great companies in the world in Shopify, and everyone in this country is waiting for the next one. Why is it taken so long for this country to produce another world-beating tech giant, right? Well, our next guest may have the answers,

and it's not a good look, because apparently tech founders are leaving Canada at an accelerating rate. That's according to a survey. And so let's welcome to the show, Gideon Hayden. He's the co-founder and managing partner at Leaders Fund, which is a Toronto Venture Capital Fund and firm. And I thank you very much for being here, Gideon. Thanks, Ben. It's great to be with you. Okay, so how long – tell me about the Leaders Fund.

Yeah, so we started a Leaders Fund about nine years ago, started with my two co-founders, David Stein and Steve Tobacco. And, you know, the common thread that the three of us have is prior to being investors, all of us were entrepreneurs. We all built companies. We scaled them. sold them, most of which were based here in Canada. And we started Leaders Fund really to take some of those experiences and lessons and learnings that we had. We had a lot of help from other

local founders, Canadian founders, as we built our companies. And we want to kind of emulate that experience with founders here to try and build that next generation of great global companies here in Canada. Okay, so you started a leaders fund in 2019, you said? No, nine years ago. Nine years ago. Yeah. So, so 20, 2016. Exactly. Okay.

So, and what was, what was the lay of the land for startups and entrepreneurs in the tech space back then? Yeah, I think there was a general sense of optimism. You know, Shopify was, was on the ascent. We had a bunch of other companies that were winning globally, right? And I would say this debate around whether Canada has this brain drain problem has always been around. But at that moment in time, I think there are a lot of local examples that we could point to of companies being founded here, being built here, scaling here that we're succeeding on a global stage. And so it was kind of in the background, this discussion that I think we're here to talk about today.

Well, yeah, so because that's, I guess I got to ask you what happened from nine years ago when there, this was a place where you could be educated, you could have an idea, you could test it in the market, you can go find some funding, you could build your company, you could scale it and you could keep it here. And what we're finding now is that just 32.4% of Canadian led high potential startups launched in 2024 were headquartered in Canada. and that's defined as startups having raised 1 million U.S. And that number, I don't think, has been that low in a very, very long time. So people are starting companies here, and then at some point they hear the siren song of the United States. So what is different today from, say, 10 years ago where we didn't have, like, you could turn that that siren song off. You could say, no, that's okay, I'm sticking around in Canada. We don't do that anymore.

What changed? Yeah, I think, well, let me take a step back and even talk about why we, why did we even jump into this in the first place, right? At Leaders Fund, we invest in Canada, US, and Israel. And so we have a front row seat to what's happening each of these respective ecosystems. And in recent years, we started to notice, we had this nagging feeling that the Canadian pipeline of opportunities, it just felt like it was less active, it was shrinking compared to the two other geographies that we, that we operate in, right? And so, you know, I also saw other signs, right? Like other VCs that I, that I collaborate with here, started shifting their language from, you know, we invest in Canadian companies to, we invest in Canadian founders wherever they reside. Almost every month, I would be on a pitch with a founder, local Canadian founder who had started their company or was planning to start their company in the U.S., right? So these are all kind of anecdotes. they are not data and what we sought to figure out was does the data actually back up these

anecdotes right and and and we we spent a few months digging into it and and we're honestly sad to find that the numbers confirmed this feeling and I think what was really interesting in the numbers is that all of these metrics that we looked at which was like company formation fundraising founding founders starting their companies here versus abroad, they all start to deteriorate after 2020, right? And, you know, what else happened in 2020? We all know COVID happens, right? And so, so.

But COVID happened everywhere. COVID happened. It was omnipresent. Why did it affect our startup mentality in the startup ecosystem so negatively? And it didn't do that in Israel, didn't do it in the U.S.? What's different? Yeah, I think every country, every geography had their own policies, right? And I think here we obviously experienced longer lockdowns.

We moved to remote and got back. We took longer to get back in the office than I think other geographies as well. So, you know, it's hard to say what exactly about that caused this. But I don't think it was the cost. I think like this feeling had been sitting idle for a long time and this this maybe was a moment for people to pop their head up and say, okay, well, you know, I'm, I'm going to go build my company. Building a company is hard enough already, right? And so where should I go do that? Where am I going to feel the least amount of friction? Where am I going to be supported the most? And I think that option became a reality in many founders' minds. right and so so so I think that I think that that contributed maybe just accelerated a lot of people were already feeling prior to that getting what do you say to the argument that um investment

dollars in Canada are far more risk averse than investment dollars in the states that they there's so much more of it down there that that big funds can place a ton of tiny little bets they can they can throw a bunch of money on a moonshot and here it's just people just more judicious with their money. So if you want somebody to see your genius and realize that if you're able to scale your company, you're going to change the game, you're going to go down to the United States where that risk aversion is not necessarily as present. Yeah. Listen, I think there's a reality to numbers, right? If you run a billion dollar fund versus a $100 million fund, you're going to behave differently, right? You have a little bit more

room and margin for error. But at the same time, I think that, you know, there are a lot of founders who do stay here. They obviously travel, you know, back and forth quite a bit and are able to access that capital while still kind of building their companies from here. So I think we have a lot of work to do as an ecosystem to, you know, raise more money, invest more. I think we have to decide. Is entrepreneurship and building companies here?

Is this something that we believe is important in our country, right? And if we do believe that, right, then I think we need to create the fertile ground for companies to be built here. We need to make sure that entrepreneurs feel like, and not just feel like, they're rewarded for the risk that they're taking. So, Gideon, do me a favor. Do me a favor. We only have about 30 seconds left. So in that short period of time, give me the high level one or two things that need to change immediately to create that fertile ground. Yeah, we can't just match the regulatory environment in the U.S., which is where most these entrepreneurs are going.

We have to do better, right? And so I think like we could start with eliminating capital gains for startups. In the U.S., if you're a founder, you build your company over five years, you don't have to pay capital gains up to 15. We should do better. We should just eliminate them altogether. we should make Canadian technology purchases tax deductible. Imagine if all Canadian companies were buying local. That mentality exists in other industries.

It does not exist in this industry. And I think we, you know, final thing is just we should, the people that are impacted by policy should have a say in how those policies are formed. Right. And so I think we should have a standing committee of entrepreneurs from all sectors, not to technology. Gideon. Who are involved in government and trying to form and form these.

policies. Idiin Hayden, co-founder and managing partner at Leaders Fund. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain, and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more.

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