The Ben Mulroney Show - Jeff Bezos' radical tax proposal/Fixing the reps of the CBC and CAF

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

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and we're not talking about, you know, the inclusion rate of any particular tax. We're talking about the idea of taxes, what they're for, what they're intended to do. Sometimes they are used as a carrot and other times they're used as a stick. And more and more these days, it feels like there is an idea out there that taxes are supposed to be punitive. We're supposed to be punishing people with taxes so that those who have have it, have been hard done by by society are relieved of their experience in some way. And we hear about it with Zoran Mamdani. We heard about it from Justin Trudeau. And we sort of want to flip the switch and talk about possibilities. You know, maybe today is the opportunity to blue sky some ideas on

how we can reinvent how we tax people and why we tax people. And Jeff Bezos, the fourth richest man in the world, who has made our lives completely different. You can say better or worse, but different with Amazon, was doing a big interview. And he said some pretty bold things. Not the least of which is that the bottom half of Americans should pay zero federal income tax.

And before you think to yourself, wow, that's a big deal. Well, it would be a big deal for that 50%. But in terms of the contribution to the overall revenue of the federal government, it represents 3% of the taxes. 50% of the people, the top 50% pay 97%. The bottom 50% pay 3%.

And so you could make that 3% up elsewhere. And it would mean quite, a lot to those people. Let's start with his idea of, he gives the example of a nurse in Queens. I want to start there. A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays $12,000 more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense? So people talk about, you know, making the tax system more progressive.

How about we start by having the nurse and Queens not pay taxes? At all. Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes? That's $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything. And by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the $3% of the money. of the taxes. It's only 3%.

Yeah, listen, there's logic there. So we'll follow the logic. I mean, he did also say like there's, he knows that he and other billionaires are perceived. He knows how they're perceived, right? He knows that in the narrative of 2026, there are roles that people play. Sometimes it's roles that are due to them and due to the things they do. And other times it's because somebody ascribes them that role. But it doesn't change the fact that if someone was wrong.

writing a story about life in 2026, there will be some people with black hats and some people with white hats. I'll give you a guess. Who do you think, Jeff Bezos, knows he's seen as. A nurse in Queens who makes, I think what's going on

is that it's kind of a tale of two economies. So you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling. So you would pay rent, groceries. And so what's, you know, what's happening here is politicians are using the kind of age-old technique. So there's this tale of two economies. And they're using this age-old technique

of, you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers. But the problem is that doesn't solve anything. Well, he's right. It doesn't solve anything. And also it's, it is so devoid of nuance to say that there are bad guys and good guys. I can promise you in any given day I do things that would put me on the positive side of the ledger. And there are things I would do that probably wouldn't. And again, if we were to be judged on the worst things we've ever done, we would all be going to the fiery pits of hell.

If we were judged on the greatest thing we ever did, we would be right there with a VIP pass through the gates of heaven. And none of us are either one of those things. And yet politicians very much want to ascribe villainy. and heroism as it suits their purposes. If you want my two cents, and we're talking taxes, so somebody wants those two cents, this is, it's a very good idea,

it's a good idea for a number of reasons, the tax relief for the bottom 50%. But it's also, it's also Jeff Bezos coming up with a pressure relief valve for that ascribing a villainy. This would be a way to get everybody to shut the F up. Some loud voices to shut the F up. If Jeff Bezos was able to get the taxes, the income taxes, reduced completely for 50% of Americans, he would be doing more to alleviate poverty than Mom Donnie could ever do in five lifetimes and a fever dream.

Like ever, that would be significant, especially if it was coupled with additional ways to raise revenue elsewhere. But the problem with a binary system with good guys, the bad guys is, well, nobody ever thinks they're the bad guy, right? Nobody ever thinks of the bad. And Mom Donnie thinks he's a good guy. And here's Bill Maher, a voice of logic, talking about, you know, what happens if you keep coming after the people you think are the bad guys? The top 10% pay 72% of all federal income taxes.

And the bottom half, 3%. The Democratic Socialists talk about socialism. like we don't already have a lot. Social Security, unemployment, Medicare, nutritional assistance, Medicaid, Obamacare, disability, housing subsidies. Again, not against it. Just the same question.

How can you be soaking the rich and failing the poor so badly? And of course, we know that Mayor Mom Donnie, who sees the world through the eyes of a simpleton, the eyes of poor people, good, bad people rich. Yeah, that's pretty right. That works. You see it that way. And when the world doesn't pan out that way, you have a problem.

And he's already been saying enough to scare capital out of New York City. A lot of people have left. A lot of money has left. And more and more companies, corporations, entire executive offices are decamping for places where they are more welcome. And now he has to do damage control. He went to visit with Jamie Diamond, who's CEO of a huge investment. bank, J.P. Morgan, in the hopes of building bridges and keeping that company in New York. And now, for the record, J.P. Morgan already has a larger headcount in Texas than they do in New York.

But here's what Jamie Diamond said about Mom Donnie, quote, I don't care what he says. What does he do? I will judge that because you can talk about morality and ideology all you want. But if things don't get better, you didn't do a good job. And here's some numbers for you about J.P. Morgan. If J.P. Morgan pulls the stakes in New York City, they would lose roughly $61 million in corporate taxes alone, hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes related to payroll and property tax. And, you know, that's a big number, but it's not, it's a big number without a comparison.

It would take more than 50,000 average earning New Yorkers to equal that tax revenue. JP Morgan goes, it's like 50,000 people leave your city, except a lot of those people, again, they don't put their kids in public school. They're not taking the bus. They're not taking the subway. They're not going to a hospital. They're going to emergency rooms. That's what you would be losing.

You'd be losing all of the money and none of the pressures on your resources. And we got a text on the text line regarding Jeff Bezos. He said that would be great. No tax. We'd have more money to buy stuff on Amazon. That's good thinking, Jeff. Well, I mean, unless you're going to tell people how to spend their money, yeah, they can do what they want with it. They have agency over themselves.

individuals and we live in a country where you can make your own choices good or bad. Like I said, we're all endowed with the ability to make both. But I'm not going to tell somebody how to spend their money. And if that's the stuff they want to spend it on, that's the stuff they want to spend it on. Amazing Days is on now at your local Metro. Save big on amazing items like selected varieties of black diamond cheese for only 488 each. Only till May 27th. Shop in store or online at metro.ca. Wausa is back at Food Basics.

Get 325 to 35-millimeter dove body walk or hair care for just 485 each. Shop in store and online until May 27th. Food Basics. Always more for less. All right. So there's a couple of sort of big issues that we've been tackling on this show. And we've asked your opinions and we've asked all sorts of people, some experts. And now we've invited our friend from Oyster Group,

Solan in. We're going to call this segment, Mike. Nobody Ask Me But dot, dot, dot. Okay. So let's start with the latest in the CBC prank show Gone Wrong. Yes. I mean, it's a disaster. It's a disaster for them. And now that the latest is, there's a guy on YouTube, sort of a conservative commentary guy named Clinton Jaws, as he goes by Clinton Jaws. And very successful. He's got about 50,000 subscribers on one channel.

He's got another channel. It's got like half a million. So he's quite, people listen to him. And I didn't know that he was yet, again, another one of these people who got caught up in this drag net of lies. And he laid it all to bear in a new video explaining how they caught him, how they caught him, how they lied to him, what they said to him, and how the whole thing went. Let's listen to the first video, like when he realized it was fake. And when Prince William comes out, I look at him and I go, that's not Prince William. This guy's chubby, short.

Prince William's thin, good-looking ass hair. But I convince myself in my head. And now I'm realizing I'm sitting there for a reason. These people, these production people, wanted me to feel humiliated on stage, which I did. Yeah, you'll remember that part of this, this part of the story, the prank that they were pulling was they wanted to ask former members of the RCMP what they do in retirement. And the reveal was going to be holding them to account, holding these individual people to account for all the ills, perceived and real of the RCMP over the course of their history. and across this country. And they had a video that was made

that signaled, symbolized Prince Charles closing down the RCMP because of all of the crimes that they perpetrated on First Nations. And these members of the RCMP were expected to sit there and take responsibility for those things

and atone for them or something. I mean, it's, it's ludicrous on its face. insulting to our history, it's insulting to them. And so what do you think of that one right there when he said they were designing to make him feel humiliated? I mean, there's so many layers to this story. It's an embarrassment for the CBC. They are, of course, super slow to sort of come to the realization and I think the proper

public apology, where they will end up. I find it, you know, I could take it in a few layers. One, satire, political satire is some of the best. you can find. And when it's done right, it's something I love and will consume endlessly. Satire is also really hard to do. And all the descriptions of this, it's hard to even imagine what was in their head. Like, where were they going other than trying to sandbag these people and make them feel really guilty for it? The PR department at CBC is moving too slow. I think it's ironic that this guy is called Clinton Jaws. because I always think of big organizations in times like this of having a glass jaw.

This guy who's not even giving his real name has brought this organization to its niece. And they are spinning. I can only imagine there's consultants and boardrooms of people trying to figure out what to do. Even though it's really obvious, you violated basic journalistic principles. You probably perpetrated a fraud on these people. They would have defamation cases if any of this ever came to air. it is a it is a and of course it's CBC it's using doing this this little foray yeah on taxpayer dollars like there yeah but there's no good part to this no there's no good

part to it and but he continues and like I said it's a very raw inner a very raw video he he it's a stream of consciousness thing he doesn't appear to have notes in front of him so he's really speaking from whatever he's got inside him right and this is uh this is quite a revealing clip uh about how he saw his role as a police officer, especially his role as a police officer in relation to First Nation. Every time you guys called the cops, I came. I didn't do anything to you. I helped you.

I catered to you. I served and protected you. And I can't get away from this. And people are going to, they're going to take this for what it is and they may like it. Or they may think I'm on to something. Or they may think I am full of it. But I have had just about enough of living in a world. living in a country, I should say, where I, the son of an Irish guy and an immigrant from Serbia,

must be responsible for the ills of people who I guess look like me forever. Right. And individuals today are not responsible entirely for their own behavior because of supposedly what the people that looked like me did years ago. So I have to assume the responsibility over history, and a lot of people today have no responsibility over their behavior in the moment. And that's what he's saying. He's saying, when you called, if you were first, I came and I helped you. And you're looking at me because what?

And he was hurt. Look, we've lost the concept of personal responsibility in society as we've increasingly come into our different camps, and it's all about identity politics. What gets washed away is personal responsibility. We are willing to offer groups empathy, but we're never willing to give them agency and say you have responsibility for your actions.

The RCMP have, of course, there are great stories to tell of the RCMP and their work with First Nations communities. I am also really confident that reconciliation is not solved or improve by sandbagging other groups now. Yeah. Like what is an RCMP officer today going to help out in a First Nations community

going to be looked at? Like what was their goal just to create more division between First Nations and RCP officers just to make it even harder to work together? Yeah. What did you think of that? What did you think of the CBC's first attempt to damage control when they said, hey, this is an attempt at truth and reconciliation. And comedy can be part of that.

And I thought they used the word truth of reconciliation. to shut people like me up, but also, like, you can't get there from here. You can't strive for truth by building, by creating fiction. And you can't get to reconciliation without the truth. So just saying it doesn't make it so. No, I mean, people know what it's like to work and to get along with people and to build trust and to build community.

This is not it. If I were to drag you into my house on a surprise, like, you know, what, Ghost of Critics? Christmas passed and say, Ben, here's all the things that I believe you've done. And when you thought you were just coming for a dinner party, you're not going to feel more willing to hang out with me. You're not going to feel closer to me. And you're certainly not going to trust me. So in the last minute or so that we have, you are now sitting there in the office of the CEO of the CBC. And they say, please help us. What do we do? Give me the bullet points.

Get to the end game fast. This is ridiculous. You have to apologize. This violate at all. your journalistic principles. I'd bring in a third party to look at how this happened, and I would issue an apology to everybody who fraudulently was dragged into the CBC's studio under false pretenses. Now, but what would you, if they push back and said, but this wasn't CBC News. CBC News didn't know this was going on. It doesn't matter.

CBC News was ultimately the biggest single agency involved in this. It was their funding from them. Take responsibility. Don't try to diminish your role. own it, show leadership, and move on. Should people lose their jobs over this? I think accountability is important. Yeah.

I mean, it's hard to fire people in places like that. And art is subjective. But if their apology is to be believed, probably somebody does have to go. Like, it does, the reality is this went up a food chain. And it was approved by people with real responsibilities. So look, either that, they got to be put on leave while the investigation takes place, something like that. But if you don't, you know, every action needs an equal and opposite reaction. And something like this happens. People are outraged.

You need, as a CBC, as an organization, to be able to push back in some manner at this time. All right. Well, we're going to talk about Ottawa and the Canadian military. And another tempest, which you may say as a teapot and others may say, It's not. That's coming up next on the Ben Maloney show. All right, welcome back to Mike Van Solan from the Oyster Group. We just dealt with solving all the problems, the self-inflicted wounds on the CBC for their boneheaded decisions to try to insult and besmirch some truly undeserving Canadians. Well, deserving of respect, undeserving of the treatment they got.

And now we're going to do the Canadian Armed Forces. And I think more importantly, it's those who have. have led the Canadian Armed Forces to where they are today. And every now and then, you get a snapshot of how bad stuff is. You wish you could get into a time machine, either go back and fix the past or go to, fast word to the future where we don't have these problems anymore, but here is where we are.

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But what happens when someone falls in love with one? I can't believe I'm doing this with somebody that's not a human. What if a chapbot makes you lose your grip on reality? She said that her life work was advocating for AI rights because they're sentient and they're enslaved. From CBC podcasts, this is understood, artificial intimacy. Available now. The headline in the global mail is a goddamn embarrassment. Military asks personnel in the capital region to return field gear, citing critical equipment.

equipment shortages. The Canadian Armed Forces in the national capital area have so few of the things they need, including boots and backpacks, that they're asking veterans, and they're asking military personnel. If you're not using it,

we could really use it back right now. This is some, this is, yeah, it's embarrassing. Well, and appreciate the context in that story. When you get down to the bottom of it, it's kind of like, why is this happening? And the officials explain,

And while in Latvia, the one place that we have any meaningful troops deployed, we're trying to go from 2,000 troops to 2,200 troops. And that is breaking the back of the Canadian Armed Forces. This is a commentary on over 10 years of underfunding. And it goes even before Trudeau, but it was really bad under Trudeau, because he almost had sort of a sneering distaste for anything to do with the military. And he wasn't even pretending that he would keep up to the obligations and promises. he was making.

So often we see the headlines about new fighter jets are getting a frigate in this piece. And you think, good, we're finally investing. We're doing something. Carney reported that, you know, they've hit their 2% target of GDP and they're moving on. But to understand how threadbare this place is, it's stories like this that really shine a light on it. And, you know, I will offer, you know, people, you know, a lot of distaste for Donald Trump in this country, and it's presidents before in him who've said, you've got to be a real partner,

a continental partner to the United States. By being so far behind, we give him this cudgel to hit us with all the time. He, you know, what would he have had if we had actually been meaningful partners for these last bunch of decades? Yeah. And we have, look, that's just one of the stories that is a black eye. Right. To not, I don't think, it's not on the men and women in the military.

It's on those that have promised that they would have the things they need so that they could defend us and do their jobs with honor. And then you hear stuff like this and this is. But it shows it's going to take, I don't know, I don't know, five years, ten years of real investment, real leadership to piece this thing together. But then there was a story a couple of weeks ago. It started in Juno News, ended up in the Globe and Mail. of real problems of cohesion, unit cohesion in new recruits.

One of the things is we've lowered the requirements for new recruits. So you've got people who are on the spectrum and you've got people who are, I don't know what I got vertigo. I don't know. There's all sorts of stuff that you would think. I don't know that every unit needs to be representative and reflective of the grand mosaic that is Canada. That's not the point. It's not supposed to be a mirror. It's supposed to be a scalpel.

Right. And you hire the best people to get the job done. And then you hear about in certain units. In the leadership ranks, you've got people who are members of the military who've only been in Canada as long as three months. And they come from cultures that don't have the necessary respect for women for these people to see their sisters in arms as partners. and it's leading to fights between people in the units. So it's not just money. It's a basic conception of what they need,

what we need of our military to get the job done. Yeah, so many layers. I mean, one, of course, we're having to bring people into the military at record speed. Any organization's going to struggle if they suddenly have to, you know, bring in a whole wave of people and bringing those people on board is tough.

But the military, I think for two, long it's been treated by the Canadian government and the Canadian Armed Forces and how they thought of it as an employment strategy. You know, new Canadians, like, let's get them to work. Yeah. But really, the job of the military, and it's silly for me to sort of say this, is to defend this country. And we need people who can do those roles and those very, and do that training and be effective in theaters of war. And we're so far removed from even thinking of us of ever having to defend ourselves. Yeah. But, you know, I believe there's been a way. up call. The world's gotten a little more dangerous. We're playing catch up. And stories like

this are going to show up. We need people who can be effective in these roles. But you would think so, right? I don't know that that's true. I don't know the reaction that you're saying. The world is more dangerous. Unfortunately, there are very loud voices in this country who say we are the problem. Western culture is the problem. It's a banana's situation to be living through. And so the final, I mean, there's plenty of other stories as well, but the final one that we've been following is, is this, is this, the, the honoring of, of the military, the Afghan war, right, which they're not even calling a war. They're not even calling it a war. And this is, you can see a picture of it right here. This is what they've selected. They've,

they've, they've, they've, they've, indigenousized the, the Afghan campaign. And, and, and they've selected the imagery of, of helmets and flack jackets that weren't even used by our military in that war. Those are more akin to what the, Americans war in Vietnam. And there's so many problems with this one, the fact that no veterans spoke at the groundbreaking. And there were three land acknowledgments at the groundbreaking. I mean, it's, like, what are we solving for?

What is the Canadian military and the Canadian government think they're solving for when they commissioned something like this? Yeah. Well, that Justin did that. Yeah. It's Justin Trudeau. I mean, it has Justin Trudeau written all over. Yeah.

Right? Like, what are the objectives? We lost way too many great soldiers, men and women in Afghanistan. Honoring them is something that we should be doing 100% as a country. Somehow conflating now with reconciliation, truth and reconciliation, and I don't know, this ham-fisted effort to deal with both at the same time is serving no end. Look, I think, as I said yesterday, the only indigenous people that I want to honor with this are those who put the uniform on

and serve their country with dignity and honor. Of which there were. Of which there were many. I want them to see themselves reflected in that. And I want them to see their service reflected in that. I don't know. I haven't talked to them,

but I suspect our men and women in military are pretty much rolling in the same direction. They want to see their struggles. They want to see their sacrifice. They want to see their brothers and sisters in arms reflected in that, the memories that they shared. They want to know that we will remember it when they're gone. Look, I've supported many announcements and press conferences in my day.

And if you can't find a single former service member, current service member, to be at the press conference, to say a few words, to express their appreciation for the government and commissioning this piece of work, you know you got problems. Yeah, but, but, you know, I don't know if they, if they do, When I've talked to people, I say, you know, Mark Carney should do something about this. Oh, he's got bigger fish to fry Ben. I was like, yeah, but these are the small things. Yes, he's got an economy to turn around. He's got to figure out how to reverse course.

He's got a military to rebuild. He's got a military to rebuild. And you have to, you got to take care of the people who are there. And you have to take care of those who came before them. And I appreciate, yes, he's spending more on them. Everyone gets a 20% salary bump, right? That's great. That's one thing.

But what about those who came home broken? Yeah. Don't you think that maybe if you gave them a memorial where they could go and commune and mourn that reflected what they were feeling, don't you think that would make their lives just a little bit better? Let's also think of people considering joining the Canadian Armed Forces, and they look at this and go, how would the country, how would it honor me at the end of my career? Yeah. You know, am I going to be proud?

Is my family going to be proud of me? Do I expect that the government will treat me with respect for the service that I offer? All right, Mike Van Solan, thank you very much. I always love it that you come in. I really appreciate being able to look at eye to eye. The world is changing from the misuse of AI and the rise of deepfakes to the dangerous spread of misinformation. It's getting harder for Canadians to separate fact from fiction.

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