The Ben Mulroney Show - Judge suggests a 52-year-old man sending porn to a 15-year-old, is merely flirting

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Judge suggests a 52-year-old man sending porn to a 15-year-old, is merely flirting If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With partial shares from TD Direct Investing, you can own less than one full share, so expensive stocks are within reach. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD, ready for you. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your ears. All right, this is a story that, I mean, it should make your stomach turn. It should make you very uncomfortable but the results should should give you she should give you peace that the right the right decision was made and I want to hear from you I could be wrong four one six eight seven zero sixty four hundred or one triple eight two two five

talk so there was a guy on trial for sending explicit sexual videos. He's 52 and he was sending them to the daughter of a friend of his and she was 15. And he was not convicted. He was found not guilty by a superior court justice. The justice, his name is Michael MacArthur. And he, according to him, that this was not as the law says, transmitting sexually explicit material to a child, but rather he was simply engaging in, quote, flirtatious activity.

engaging in quote flirtatious activity. So let's, let me just say it again. The 52 year old man, sending explicit materials to a 15 year old who is a minor, but I mean, on its face, it is the transmission of sexually explicit materials to a child. That's the law that he ran a foul of. The judge said, no, no, it wasn't that,

he was just being a flirt. So he's replacing a legal standard with a moral one, and he's normalizing grooming behavior. That's what he's doing. That's what he did. And the court of appeal, thank God, saw the man's actions for what they really were. And they took the rare step of replacing the acquittal with the conviction and calling out MacArthur by name for language that normalizes

patterns of predatory behavior. This is a case of the justice system writing a wrong, in my opinion. And so my question for you, our listeners, is how does someone like to me, this guy should be kicked off the bench. If you can't get this right, if your moral compass allows you to see what all of us, all rational good faith actors would see as illegal disgusting grooming behavior. And not only do you not call it out, but you mitigate it, normalize it, and say he was just flirting? My God! You have no claim to be a judge, legal or otherwise. So I'd like to hear from you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. 6400 or one triple eight two two five talk. This is not a man who who has demonstrated that he has the requisite wherewithal and an understanding of basic human decency to be a judge. Like that's that to me is.

That's the lowest of the low hanging fruit. If you can't get the protection of minors right in a court of law, if you can't side with the victim and instead you, you empathize with the 52 year old predator who thinks it's acceptable to send sex videos to a minor and you say he's just flirting, then I can't count on you to get anything right. And you should not be on the bench. That's what I think I'd like to hear from you. Chantal, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben. That is absolutely ludicrous and disgusting. I'm a mother of five daughters. And let me tell you

something. If the judge can't get it right I will. This is crazy. Yeah it is crazy. It's crazy and it's well it to me it's it's a it's very concerning because like I said if you can't get this right then you can't get anything right. What's going to happen when a more complex case shows up before you? It's a litmus test and you failed it. That's right. It also tells you a lot about his morals and what he thinks is normal. He could also be doing the same thing. This is absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, well, listen, I am not going to make that leap in assumption. I have no reason to think that this man is not living a good life,

but he certainly doesn't have the moral compass to take justice in the right direction. Thank you for your call. Let's welcome Brad to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for calling. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. Love the topic here.

Love this getting brought up. I've worked in the law enforcement justice system for a better part of my working career now. So i've had to exposure to justices judges all that stuff there's a there's two big issues one they're not elected officials um... so realistically their own opinions can enter the courtroom much in the way of this case right it's not the opinion of people it's not the application of the law and how it's written uh... they're just kind of deciding on their own how to

apply it yeah and another issue is there's really no oversight there's no like OIP RD there's no SIU like there is for police officers and other members of law enforcement so if an incorrect decision is made yes it can go to the Superior Court or the appeals court and they can overturn it but at the end of the day there's really nothing that happens to that judge or justice for misapplying the law. But I mean, listen, the embarrassment

that his position was overturned is gonna hurt his credibility, that's for sure. But you're right. I mean, we need a far better protocol to get rid of these guys when they show themselves lacking to this extent. Alan, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you for calling. What do you think? Am I being too harsh here? No, I think you're being 110% on the money as far as I'm concerned anybody that gets elected to serve the public

uh should govern himself accordingly and the fact that He ended up doing what he did, he should have been charged. He should have been charged criminally. Well, yeah, listen, a couple of things and stay on the line. He's not elected, he's appointed. We don't elect our judges, but no, that's okay.

But also, I don't know about charging him, but to me, you are revictimizing the victim. This is a person for whom a crime was clearly perpetrated and you are siding with the aggressor and you're essentially saying, oh, because if you say he was flirting, then you're essentially saying, she took it the wrong way, it's her fault.

It's her fault and the fact that we're even here. Yeah. So how do we deal with it? We just let him get away with it? Well, I think sanctions are on the table. But look, if I were, I mean, I don't know. I think he's got, I think the bar can sanction him.

Suspension, I'm not quite sure what can come from it. But if I were him, this public outcry, I would resign. I would absolutely- I would agree with that. Because you know what? If it was my daughter, or say that it was one of his children's daughters, I'm not sure that he would have taken the same position.

Yeah, and I can promise you, if my child found themselves in a similar situation and we found ourselves in court with this guy as a judge, I would work nonstop to get him removed from the case. Nothing would stop me because I would look at him and say, you cannot, you do not have the requisite ability to judge this case fairly. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. All right, new topic for you. We want to hear from you at 416-870-6400, one AAA-225-TALK. This isn't taking place in Canada, but I believe the implications could be felt here.

I want to hear what you have to think. So there's a McDonald's in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York that is asking to ID asking to card customers under 20. After the owner says that unruly teens have been terrorizing the restaurant, and the customer is requiring customers who are under 20 to be accompanied by parents. And I guess this comes from the fact that the belief and the anecdotal experience of this owner, this McDonald's, that roaming bands of teens are causing chaos. They are buying French fries and sitting around loitering for hours at a time, bugging the patrons, making the quality of the experience of the McDonald's lesser than less than the owner

expects and less than the paying customers want Probably making it so that the sales in the area are down and I'd love to hear from you at four one six eight seven zero 6400 and love to hear from restaurant owners as well art So like such an old guy here our teens nothing but trouble when it comes to restaurants. Should restaurants be allowed to set an age limit even if they're not serving alcohol? I am of the opinion that it's private property and you can do whatever the hell you want. It's your house, your rules. 7-Eleven's been doing it for years. No shirt, no shoes, no service. It's not illegal not to wear shoes, but it is against the rules inside of 7-Eleven. You want to be served, you want to be treated as a customer and not as a problem who's loitering,

put your shoes on, put your shirt on. I have no problem with this. And, you know, if this helps the restaurant owner, great. If it in turn, if it in fact has a negative impact on his sales, he will change his policy. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And if in his experience, a certain type of customer is causing him problems, and it's not against the law,

and it's not discrimination, I don't see a problem. David, welcome to the show. David, you there? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah, welcome to the show. David, you there? Yeah, I'm here. Yeah. What What say you? I'm in Toronto. Yes. No. What do you think of this? Of this Brooklyn McDonald's owner's idea?

I think that he's 110% correct to do what he's doing. And the reason why I'm saying that is because you have to understand as a tenant tenant he's paying rent there and every square foot costs him money and what people are occupying valuable space than people that truly want to come in there and have a good experience or not having that good of uh an experience because uh they're being disrupted by people that are sitting ordering an order of fries and sitting there loitering for hours at a time. Yeah.

And you know what? You see it in shopping malls as well. The other day I was in a mall with my wife and we wanted to sit down in the food court. We couldn't sit down because you have all of these people that are sitting there playing backgammon and you know, not eating and not really using the space for what it's meant to be used for. Sure. So I agree. Yeah, absolutely.

What do you think? I think it's a great idea. I mean, I would take it one step further and not just card people, but like honestly, have a security guard going around and after 15 minutes, 20 minutes after somebody, you know, a group of people has finished their food, if they're still sitting there, like, sorry, you can't sit here all day. This is not a Starbucks. This is not our rule.

You're taking, using the free wifi and you're sitting here taking away, you're right, valuable real estate. They do it in regular restaurants. Once you're done with your meal, you gotta move because we gotta get this table paying for ourselves. We gotta pay our bills with this table.

Let's welcome Mike to the show. Welcome to the show, Mike. Good morning, Dan. I gotta touch on two of your subjects this morning. So years ago, a friend of mine owned three Tim Hortons. One of them was in Trenton, Ontario. A nuisance customer who he kicked out quite a few times came in one day and set fire to the garbage inside the restaurant.

Well, that's normal. Yeah, well, you know. That's normal behavior. So my friend called the police, charged him with trespassing, requested that there was an undertaking that he not be allowed to come into his store because he posed a threat. The judge deemed it and in his decision, un-Canadian, to deprive somebody of going to a Tim Hortons. Oh my God. So wow, you actually took both of our topics and addressed them in one anecdote.

I wish I had a prize to give you because that's never happened on this show before. Thank you so much for the call. That's great. My gut un-Canadian today. I mean, come on. These judges are losing the plot. It's ah. All right. Who do we have now? We got Ken. Ken, welcome to the show. Hey Ben, love your show. Thank you. Yeah, we have a Welcome to the show. Hey, Ben, love the show. Thank you. Yeah, we have a McDonald's in downtown Barry that is well known for it was well known for its homeless and drug, drug addict traffic.

Yeah. So much to the point where the owner, people would not go in there. The staff said they wouldn't work after midnight in the dining room because of all the abuse they took. And so the owner, because people would come in and buy like, you know, a happy meal and sit in there for seven hours, charging their phones, on the Wi-Fi, watching the TVs. And so the owner removed all the Wi-Fi, he removed the TVs and he removed the charging out, the plugs out of the wall. So the people had no reason to loiter in there. But people would be in there all day, like eight, nine hours a day just sitting there eating one. Yeah, no, and that

became a thing. Yeah, they if people aren't going to play by the rules, and people aren't going to, I mean, it's a social contract, right? We're giving this work, we want to create an atmosphere so that our customers enjoy the time that they spend in the restaurant, it is not designed for you to sit there all day long, you don't have that right, it is not your property, it's not a public park. You do not have that right. And I have no problem with an entrepreneur, a business person asserting their rights over the expectations of people who

think they can get away with what they want. They have no right to that space, no right to that space. However, the entrepreneur has every right to maximize the profit in their space. If they do so at the expense of the customer experience, then they might have to pivot, they might have to tweak the equation. But I think to me, I land entirely and exclusively on the side of the entrepreneur and the business owner, so long as what they are doing doesn't run afoul of discrimination laws. Like they're not targeting a specific race,

they're targeting kids. And look, it's not age discrimination. This guy has decided that it's, young people can't be trusted to govern themselves with respect. Who do we have now? We've got, we got David. Oh, David, I think you're going to agree with what I just said. 100%. But I think the main problem is the

lack of discipline. Yeah. I recently took a training course. And the instructor was telling us that sometimes they have to go to high school to do the same training. And they are taken aside and told that if a kid misbehaves, they are not allowed to correct them. If a kid falls asleep during the class, they are not allowed to wake them. And everybody gets a certificate. Everybody passes. So it was like sickening. I just don't believe it.

I agree with you. And I remember when I was a kid, if somebody fell asleep in my class, I had a teacher who threw chalk at us. I agree with you. I remember when I was a kid, if somebody fell asleep in my class, I had a teacher who threw chalk at us. He threw chalk at us to wake us up. The insult that he would level at us if we got an answer wrong, the humiliation and the shame that he would level at us, that's the world I grew up in. That's the world I grew up in.

That's not the world that these kids are grown up in. So the entitlement, the idea that and I'm I'm not saying every kid, but they are living in a world where reality bends to them. They are not subject to reality. Parents do it. Teachers do it. School boards do it. Tim, welcome to the show. Hi. Hi. Yeah, we had a coffee culture here in Berry, and it was a good place to go for you'd have your little business meeting lunches there. So you can order lunch and do what you're going to

do. But then as a local high school figured out that it was there. For the whole span of their lunch breaks, you couldn't get a seat because they come in order drink flip open their laptops, they'd all just be sitting there chatting away. And I guess the company lost so much money that had to close down. They're gone now. Well, that and the and the and the city is lesser for it, right? It's a it's one of those connectors that connects people who otherwise wouldn't get to see each other or meet or collide in the same on the same street and and it's gone, which

means that connection is gone and that is of of it's it's a loss for the city it's a loss for the culture of your city and that happens everywhere and look you mcdonald's you you can argue of the social value of mcdonald's mcdonald's is a place that matters to people and if all of a sudden this place that you used to go once a week with your kids to get chicken mcnuggets because your kids love them you're not used to go once a week with your kids to get chicken McNuggets because your kids love them. You're not gonna go there if marauding bands of teens are intimidating people or taking up space where they are not paying customers.

So I fall squarely, squarely and entirely walking lockstep with the business owner here. And I wanna thank all of you for your calls. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right here's a stat that should make you feel good about living in society. How many lost wallets do you think are returned to the owner in this country? The answer is a positive one. Over two thirds of them are returned.

And so roughly two thirds rather. And so I want to hear what is your lost wallet story? Have you ever returned one or had one returned? Was the money still there? Is there an expectation that if you lose a wallet that has money in it, the person returning it gets a reward. So I wanna hear from you, 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK.

I will just be honest. I lose my wallet all the time, all the time. It hasn't always been returned. Sometimes it's just lost because it's lost, no one finds it. But I forget it when I'm going through security at the airport all the time and somebody rushes to hand it back to me and I've been I've lost my wallet and somebody has sent it back to me with a

note inside saying I don't want a reward I just want you to pay it forward and I have always returned wallets I found a wallet when I was in University had a thousand dollars in it cash. And when I handed it back to the guy, he offered me $20. I thought that was low, given what I had returned him, what he could have possibly lost. I thought a reward should have been, I don't know, 10%. That's what I thought. But anyway, I didn't accept the money, I just handed him his wallet back. And I think one of the reasons people return wallets at this clip is because we all know how hard it is to get your life back on track, to get your OHIP card,

to get your credit cards. If you have a Nexus card, God love you. If you have to get a new Nexus card, good luck to you. So when you think about all of that, your driver's license, going to Service Ontario, it's such a headache. And we can all empathize because we can all lose our wallets. So I think that's why the number two thirds is up there. I'd love to hear from you. Let's start with Ruby.

Ruby, what's your lost wallet story? Good morning. How are you? I'm good, thanks. So incredibly enough, I was at the airport and I had $1,100 US in my wallet. I fell asleep at the Starbucks. Put the wallet on my chest because I was going through my ID.

I stood up and I was in a bit of a hurry and the wallet ended up, I guess, falling off my chest. 1,100 US. Wow. Okay. I got, I turned white. I almost fainted knowing, realizing that I'd lost my chest, 1,100 US. Wow. Okay, I turned white, I almost fainted, knowing, realizing that I'd lost my wallet, went to security, they say they couldn't do anything

about it, and anyways, I get a call, must have been about three or four days later, and a gentleman said that, asked me if I lost my wallet, says to me, he wanted to meet me, I go and I meet him, hands me my wallet, $1,100 US me he wanted to meet me, I go and I meet him, hands me my wallet, $1,100 US still in the wallet. Yeah, that's amazing. I pulled out $600 to give him more than half of the money and he insisted that that wasn't

going to be the case. I love people like that. Yeah, yeah. And I can't tell you how many times, and thank you for that call, I should also warn you, I also forget my wallet in Ubers all the time. And I don't know, it's my phone, no, not my wallet, it's my phone. Because when I sit there, I sort of tuck it under my leg. And then I just get up and walk out. And then the problem there is that you can't contact Uber because your phone is in the

car. But a lot of times it gets returned to me and I do a lot of times, every time I still have my phone, the Uber drivers deserve a lot of respect for that. Who do we have now? We got Scott, you found a wallet, Scott. What was the protocol that you adhere to? Good morning, Ben.

So the story was we had a rental car in the US, picked it up at the Orlando airport, got it back to our condo in Daytona and realized there was a wallet from a gentleman in the car still from Ohio. And of course we felt really bad for this guy and tried to track him down online, could not find him. Eventually did find him, sorry, and found out he was a convicted criminal. There was lots of charges against him. a convicted criminal. There was lots of charges against them.

We actually sent a message to him on Facebook, came unresponded to. And we ended up having to take it to the Daytona police because we didn't know what to do with it. OK, my jaw is on the ground. How did you find out he was a convicted criminal? Just through Google searches. We were just searching up his name and

and matched it all up to what was on his driver's license and his Ohio voters card or something that was in his wallet and I was reading up on some of the charges and we did try and send him a Facebook message my wife found him on Facebook and just said hey you know we've got your wallet but never heard back from him and then so what did you do with the wallet? You gave it to the police? Yeah, we just we just decided, you know what? We kind of looked up what we should do, what we should do with it.

Didn't feel it was appropriate just to abandon it. So we just dropped it off at the police station and they they scooped it up and said, thanks so much. My goodness. My I did not expect that call today. Hey, thank you so much. Who else do we have? We've got Jimmy. Jimmy, you recently lost your wallet. Did you get it back? Two weeks ago, I realized I'd gone to my local coffee shop first thing in the morning. By mid morning, I had realized I'd lost my wallet. So I started to get on the phone and to cancel everything.

And then I get a phone call and it says no caller ID, which I normally don't answer. Yeah. I did and the local police, just around the corner from the coffee shop, somebody had turned in my wallet, it was 500, $100 bills. They were still there.

I said, did the person leave their name, their number? Nothing. Yeah. But for those, just want to tell a very small story. 45 years ago I was skiing and I found a very expensive watch and I was skiing with my dad at the time and he said well it's not ours we'll have to report it so we'll go to the front desk of the ski hill where we were skiing yeah he said we found a watch here's our name and number if the person you know comes up tell him to call us well the guy called us he said it was a you know a sentimental value watch and it's a very expensive watch.

Yeah. And did you give it back? The guy shows up at our house and I give him back the watch and he says, here's $100 for your troubles. I said, not needed. Yeah. I think I thank you for the call. I think what happens, like I said, there's this, when someone loses something of value, I mean, it takes a very, I think it takes a person of corrosive soul to look at that thing and not empathize and not say, my God,

if I could do something to make this person's life better, how easy is it for me to return the watch? And I think it speaks to the Canadian character that so many people do that. And then we're getting so many stories. We don't have a little bit of time left. So we're going to go quickly through these calls. Anne Marie, tell me your story. Oh, my gosh. Good morning, guys. Morning. This is so Canadian, man. So years ago, I think it was 1992. We were in the audience at that Friday Night Live with Ralph Ben-Murgy show at CDC right and some guy in Toronto lost his wallet another buddy

finds it turns it in there's $400 cash in it all the money's returned and Ben gets a whole or Ralph Ben-Murgy gets a hold of this story and doesn't he have the guy on stage at the taping of that show? We were in the audience. And he wants to commend this guy. Oh my gosh, he fills up a brand new wallet with $400 in Canadian tire money. Oh my God, that's amazing. Hey, thank you for the call

and thank you to everybody for calling. Anybody that we missed, I apologize, and we will get to you next time. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious. His escapes defy belief. And when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it. His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt.

But how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel? I'm Seren Jones, and this is a most audacious heist. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.