The Ben Mulroney Show - Justin Trudeau chimes in on his legacy... and it's exactly what you'd think

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

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And that packaging is so cute. It practically wraps itself. And I know I should be giving them away, but I'm keeping the summer Fridays and rare beauty. by Selena Gomez. I don't blame you. The best holiday beauty sets are only at Sephora. Gifts sets from summer Fridays,

rare beauty, way, and more are going fast. Get full-sized favorites and must-have minis, bundled for more value. Shop before they're gone, in store online at sephora.ca. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Happy Monday, Monday, October 20th. We're waking up today.

The Jay is breathing new life into their prospects of making it to their first world series since 1993. And I had a gift dropped into my lap. A friend, Matt, lovely man. Gibbons, thank you very much. Asked me if I wanted to go to the game. I said, sure. I thought he was bringing me as his guest. And next thing I know, I checked my email, four tickets right in my lap. And I was super, super, super psyched. I brought my sons, brought a friend with me. We were in second row. Like, this is how, I haven't been to a game in two years. I'm into a game in two years. And every time we talk about it on this show, I reference how much I've

wanted to go to that park. I want to be part of that energy. And it was such a gift to be able to go on a night like last night. And a gift for second row. Okay. So, yes, second row, about 10 or 15 seats past the Blue Jays dugout. All right, right on the third baseline. And that would have been awesome to go. It was spectacular. The view was great. The game was great. The energy was up the whole game. So second row, you think it's going to be the best view. And right in front of me and my boys are two guys standing. They're in the front row. Okay. They have, by definition, an unobstructed view. So I decided I'm going to be patient.

I'm going to be patient. And at one point, they're not sitting. They're not sitting. So I just, I just say, I say, boys, I'm like, we're going to sit at some point, right? And the guy looks at me and goes, no, no, you're going to be standing. I was like, my sons are shorter than you. Like, yeah, well, I don't know to tell you. And I had a few choice words for the man named Anthony.

And he didn't seem to care. some people started throwing popcorn at him but then the game started out like it was exciting right off the bat and so obviously people

are getting up and sitting down and the guy was charming I'm not gonna lie Anthony was charming and he looks back he goes ah told you we're gonna stand so we hugged it out

and then I thought I should do a little better because I did call him a few names and I bought him a beer and by the end of the third inning we were thick as thieves but it was... You know what?

The nicest thing... Buying someone a beer? It's not the same as buying somebody beer at a bar at a J-Same? Yes. What is it? 28 bucks? It was not cheap.

It was not cheap. But I did not want there to be any toxicity on such a lovely night. And so we were good. We were good. I'll tell you what I loved about the game. What I loved about the game, it felt like...

It felt like we were playing from behind the entire game. The fans behaved that way. and the team didn't take their foot off the gas. They never trailed at all. And it didn't feel like they got lazy or getting into a rut or just expected to win. And like I said, I haven't been to a game all year, but I've been to a lot of sporting events.

And when a team is up by a certain amount, you know, by the seventh or eighth inning, people start trying to figure out how they're going to get to their car and how they're going to beat the traffic. Nobody left. Nobody left. I looked around and I had to double check. I was like, am I in a section where everyone's just really invested?

No. Well, it's not a blowout. They're not, they're winning. They're not losing. It's close enough game. It's high energy. And it's also a big game. Sure. But also don't forget that statistic. Because at one point they were up by five. And what's the statistic when the Js are up by five? Yeah, stop saying that. Because the last time you said it, they lost. At home, up by five. At home up by five, it's almost a lock statistically. My point is, you would think that, you would think that, I don't know, a thousand people out of 44,000 would leave?

Nope. Everybody stuck around. Everybody stuck around. It was a wonderful thing to experience. And I was so happy. So, Matt Gibbons, thank you very much. And to Anthony, I hope you enjoyed the beer. And I know my kids loved it.

Like, they want to watch the game with me tonight. My sons are not the biggest sports fans. So how do you choose who to invite to one of these games? Oh, my God. Yes. So, yeah, so I invited this guy over here. I invited this guy, and then I found out that we sort of, my sons had their sight set on going to the game, and so I had to rescind my invite. But you've been to a game.

You've been to a game. You've been to a game. You've been to a game. You've been to a game. I don't remember getting an invite. It wasn't my ticket to give. Oh, I see. I see. Okay. Well, anyway, I will make it up to you.

I will make it up to you. But anyway, go J's go. It was great. Really amazing experience. And like here's the next game style. Like it's it's coming down to today. Coming down to today. That's it.

Yeah. That is it. And positive vibes, right? And you were making, but you were making an argument that, look, they're at home. And even though the series is tied, they've played better than the Mariners. Yeah. They have played better. They've lost three games, but one game they lost badly.

One game they should have won. Yeah. And one game they could have won. Yeah. And the games that they did win, they won convincingly. Yeah, it felt like they were in control. I mean, I hate doing this when I'm a J's fan because I feel like we always have to think the worst. But I feel good.

I will say, it ain't cheap going to a J's game. Oh, my God. I don't know if you should say how much you spent. That's horrible. Let me just say, I bought two jerseys for my sons. And they're going to keep those forever. Are there names on the back? Or are they blank?

Blank. and they were Yeah, yeah, exactly. A couple bills. Yeah, and I have twins. Everything's always more expensive. However, first and only game we've been to, totally worth it. Like, the memories that we had, oh, God, I loved it. I loved it.

So thank you very much. You brought your sons. You could have brought Dave and myself and bought us jerseys. Oh, now I'm buying your jerseys now. Now I'm buying your jerseys. All right, all right, moving on. I'll tell you something I did not think we'd be talking about today. Because yesterday, yesterday a lot of us sort of had this communal eye roll when our former prime minister decided to commemorate the 10th anniversary of him winning, the liberals winning, well, coming from third place to winning a majority in the House of Commons in 2015, here's what he posted.

Ten years ago today, Canadians chose a more hopeful path. I'll never forget that night in 2015, the energy, the optimism, blah, blah, blah. A decade later, we've lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty, strengthened and grown the middle class, built a $10 a day child care system, led the fight against climate change, advanced reconciliation, and made Canada more inclusive and fair for everyone.

All right. You know, listen, to be fair, sometimes we give it to the prime minister, the former prime minister, but the most we've said recently was you shouldn't wear jeans on a yacht, right? And you really shouldn't. And you shouldn't. No.

You shouldn't. It's not a breathable material. and and so that's the worst we said but we've also said like there will be there will come a time where we will evaluate your legacy and when we do talk about it it's so the about face that this current incarnation of liberals have have done in essentially canceling their own policies from just a few short years ago but it's way too early to determine whether some of these policies will be viewed more favorably down the road. Parks Canada said they needed another 25 years to judge my dad's legacy.

And this guy is doing a victory lap today. And I got a problem with that. I wasn't going to talk about this ever for a very long time. But you're the one patting yourself on the back, sir, and I got a problem with this. You've lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty that explain why this government has made permanent to feed 400,000 kids a day at school for breakfast. because you've impoverished their parents so much that's now on the government to feed them. That ties very much into the child poverty thing.

Strengthen and grow in the middle class, really? What's your definition of middle class today? Because I'm pretty sure it shrank. Pretty sure. Food banks? Yeah, food banks. Never before in the history of Canada. Have we had this many people availing themselves of food banks?

On the regular. This is not a one-off. Oh, we had a tough week. No, no, no. This is where they go now, sir. Inflation. Inflation's out of control. Yep.

You built $10 a day child care. Well, based on what we've seen, there's a long wait lists. It's hard to get in. There's a whole bunch of childcare services that can't get in, that want to get it. I mean, it's not what you're touting it to be, sir. You have led the fight on climate change? Okay. Do the carbon tax.

Explain the carbon tax to me, demonizing anybody who says that might not solve it for years. Anybody who had a problem with it wants to light the world on fire and doesn't care about their kids, only to have your party turn around and presto, it's gone with a stroke of a pen. I've never seen anything as craven as that in my life. Oh, are we done? And then reconciliation. We've got a story a little bit later that we'll talk to that. Thank you.

Saved by the bell, Mr. Prime Minister, because I was just getting it. getting geared up. So Canada clearly has some issues to deal with. The question is, will we have to go down the same road as Portugal? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Really appreciate your time. We appreciate you joining us on this Monday morning. Let's have a great week, shall we?

I remember a time where progressives would look to Europe as an example as to how we in North America should behave and take our policy initiatives from oftentimes it was the Scandinavian countries as a reason why

look at how they're doing it there they're doing it right you know they have a tax rate of 80% or something like that and we should be doing that because it could work in Canada I'm hearing a lot less of that on all fronts

as it relates to hey let's look at Europe for guidance on how we should deal with X, Y, or Z, because it feels like there's a reaction to migration in Europe that is causing governments to adopt more right-wing positions on a whole raft of issues. And so you're not hearing, you're not hearing the chirps from the progressives over here anymore. So let's look at one of the, I think, hot-button issues in Europe right now and ask ourselves, is it something that's going to happen here? I'm not making a value judgment,

but it's something that happened specifically in Portugal. And yet we have to ask ourselves, is Portugal the canary and the coal mine? Are we to expect this sort of debate here at some point? Portugal is looking to ban the burqa and the kneecap. And look, wearing the burqa is a complex issue. And it's influenced by various interpretations of religious texts and cultural traditions.

For some women, it's a personal expression of empowerment, and for others, it's not. And there's issues of modesty and piety. The debate about banning the garment has been raging in various countries, including France. But in Portugal, the proposed face veil ban is a thing. Let's first tell people in case they're not familiar with it, because the terms can be confusing sometimes.

The burqa, the difference between the burqa, the kneecap, and the hijab. Well, listen, I wish I had the proper nomenclature to describe them with the words that are assigned to connote respect. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. But the hijab is a headscarf, right? It's a headscarf and where you can see the woman's entire face. Then there's a, so I didn't know. And it's loosely worn at times. And it can be decorative and very pretty.

But you can see the woman's entire face. And there's the, I guess, the shador. And that looks like... You can see the face, but the head and chin are covered. Your head and chin are covered. It's basically a whole cutoff. It comes right below the eye. You can't see the forehead.

And from what I can gather, it's also more of a, it's more of a robe as well. Then the kneecap is the entire body is covered, including the hands. and all you can see are the woman's eyes and eyebrows. That's it. And then the burqa is a complete covering of the woman. And she's looking through essentially a grill. Yes. Yeah. So these are the four and I don't know whether those are gradations or those are completely separate experience. I have no idea. But in Portugal, it's become the first European country to implement a national ban on full face veils in public. That was in 2011. They passed legislation 2010 to prohibit face coverings. And now in October of this year, Portugal's parliament approved

a bill to ban face fails in most public spaces, including burqas and kneecabs. The bill, which was proposed by the far right party, still requires approval from Portugal's president to become law. If enacted, it would impose fines for violations and make it a crime to force someone to wear a face covering. Now, there's a few of these laws that are similar in other countries. You've got France. I said it became the first European country to implement a national ban of full face veils. Belgium, we just talked about Bulgaria, introduced a ban on face coverings in 2016. Denmark, a law banning face coverings in public spaces took effect in 2018. Austria adopted a ban on full face veils in public in 2017. Switzerland voted in a 2021 referendum to

implement a nationwide ban, which is set to take effect in January of this year. And Portugal, in October 2025, Parliament approved a bill banning face fails in most public spaces. There's the latest one, yeah. Yeah. And so it's not unique to one country. As a matter of fact, a lot of countries are staking their claim to that. The argument against, so it is a difficult argument because there are people who say, yes, it's liberating for women. And it's hard to argue against that because, I mean, they are being.

told to they have to wear a certain thing where the men don't wear anything right they can do whatever they want but then but when you force um when you put these bands into effect some families could be in the put in the position because they're so pious that they put the women basically under house arrest yeah and and look uh i may i'm this just popped in my head now so i may i may say what i'm about to say and change my mind as i'm saying it but i remember the debate you'll remember years ago in Quebec they made it so in an effort to promote equality between the sexes

when a man and a woman got married the woman did not was not able to, she didn't have to change her name right? It was why you have so many hyphenated names for kids now in Quebec. Yeah, thank you Quebec for that. But the pendulum seems to have, has been swinging back with a lot of women saying I want it to be my right that if I

I want to take my husband's name, it should be my right. You're limiting my rights as a woman to do what I want. And in an effort to be equal, you are diminishing my rights because I then have to pay to have my name legally changed as opposed to that being part of the process of getting married. I should be able to check a box if I want to change my name or not. And so there is to me a little bit of a parallel here, which is like you don't get to tell me what it means to be a liberated woman. You don't get to tell me how I get to be a woman. If my choice is, and look, we hear about it. In the States, there's this, there's this resurgence of the trad wife model of marriage where there are women saying, it is my, my belief that as a woman, I have the right to

determine what kind of wife I want to be. And the wife I want to be is, is a wife that stays home and cares for the family while my husband goes out and, and provides on that front. Okay. So you do have some women, though. Some women who absolutely, you know, believe and they want to wear it, it's voluntary. Yeah. But should the government not, this is where the government's stepping in and saying, well, not everyone does. Yeah. And they're being forced to do it. And we're now saying it, we're fighting for those people. Yeah. No. Oh, listen, I'm not saying it's a cut and dry issue. Like there's, I think on an emotional level, a lot of us would say, no, women shouldn't have to cover up ever, right? Like they need, but when you, like how much, how much of someone's

culture is too much of their culture to bring into your culture. That's the question, right? Look with the leader of the Chega party. That's the, who put up this idea of banning the burqa in Portugal said, he said, do you want to wear a burqa? Do you want to wear a burqa? It's very easy. Go back to your country of origin. Take a flight to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, not here. There is, that is a rising sentiment everywhere in the West that those ideas that maybe 10 years ago would be viewed as regressive, would be viewed as anti-X, Y, or Z. Those ideas are finding purchase more and more. And this is what we said, when you take your pendulum and slide it to the, pull it all the way

of the left, it doesn't stop in the center. It'll swing as far right as it can before eventually finding its way to the middle again with more and more ideas on open borders. be exactly who you want and, and diversity being our strength, being a code for Western values are meaningless. There's nothing about your home country that is of value. And you can come here and import everything you want from your nation. Ills and all. You can bring it all. And we see, we see what's happening on our streets time and time again. Social cohesion, falling apart. No sense of community, no sense of national identity, or I should say a less. A less,

sense of those things. Really quick. Can you see, I mean, Quebec's got some bills to limit it in some ways about having faces uncovered and stuff, but can you see it happening in the rest of Canada or in the United States? I think, I think if with enough of

these negative knock on effects that we have been seeing in terms of a sense of national identity, you will get pushback. You will have a reaction by certain people and that might have been a sliver of the population is going to increase. That sliver will grow. I don't know to what point, but it will continue. Hey, housing, homelessness, drugs,

traffic, all issues that should be top of mind at city council. So what does one outspoken counselor want to focus on? Pickleball! Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and this is a segment we like to call Dysfunction Junction at City Hall, when it seems like the people that we elect have lost the plot, or maybe they haven't. Maybe it's all done by design. You would think that when we elect somebody, that they're going to be looking out for us on issues that matter the most, right? Issues of homelessness, drug abuse, making sure that our streets are clean and safe, making sure that the TTC is running on time, making sure that when our kids go out and play, they come home to us in the same

condition that we left them. And everyone's favorite city councilor Osama Malik seems to be bucking that trend. Bucking that trend. There is general consensus by the people that we've talked to in her ward. When they have questions for her, she's no to be seen. Yes, a lot of them do. People complaining about coyotes. Yeah. They call her, they can't get a hold of her. They call us. Yeah. How often do we get that? People call and they say, yeah, we can't get all the counselor. Who's your counselor? Osma Malik. Yeah. And it's got to be very frustrating that somebody comes to your door and rings the doorbell in your home to ask for your vote. But then when it comes time for you to get an update

on something that matters to you, they ghost you. They ghost you. And to me, to me, it seems like it's by design. You would think that at the top of her list would be, like I said, homelessness and safety in our streets. Instead, our favorite city counselor has decided to take up the scourge that has been, that at the heart of our city that is rotting us from the inside. It's the scourge of pickleball, pickleball. I'm sorry, did you say the scourge?

Scourge of, you know, coyotes. No, no, no, no. No, no. That stuff's nothing. Nothing. The issue is solving homelessness. Nothing. That does not compare to the scourge of pickleball. No, no, no, no, no, nothing.

No, that's a, that's a kid's birthday party compared to the roaming gang, the roaming gangs of pickleball players. Traffic. No, no, no, no, none of that matters. None of that matters compared to the roaming gangs of pickleball players who are making life unlivable for the rest of us. Yes, it's true. Their motion was introduced by deputy mayor, Osma Malik, requesting city staff to study how other Canadian jurisdictions like Ottawa and municipalities in British Columbia has successfully mitigated pickleball noise. Looking at new regulations, the investigation will explore

possible new rules, which could limit the hours of play to prevent noise in the early morning and evenings because apparently like the noise of pickleball players is too much for residents and seeing as how like we've we've set the benchmark for what is acceptable noise from say the protests uh that have gripped this city for over two years like that's that's not a problem that's not a problem pickle ball pickle ball pickle ball is a problem yeah because uh the pop, pop, pop, pop at the sound of the ball and the... And never mind, like, people are getting healthy. People are outside, community,

coming together in public spaces, enjoying themselves. That's unacceptable. But where are you, Osama Malik, on the protests that have gripped this city, clogging arteries, making people feel unsafe, preventing first responders in ambulances for getting the people who need to get to the hospital or who may have had a heart attack? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. that's not an issue.

Frickin pickleball is an issue. This is Bush League nonsense. This is the reason that the Americans have recall rules because this, to me, is dereliction of duty. You are nowhere to be seen when people have real issues, but you've decided to clog up city council wasting valuable time from staff and members of government on this.

a problem that is not a problem except that you've decided that you've got you've solved every other problem so now you're going after pickleball? Well, I mean there's a reason for that. Yeah, well let's remind people that an advisor to Deputy Mayor Osma Malik

gave a TED talk so this is a woman who works for Osama Malik. Let's listen to her perspective on what the role of politicians of her ilk are. We are the ones who let cities break. we let cities break

when a city builder sees something that isn't working we don't ask how do we fix it because this work is hard convincing people even sometimes convincing myself that process is more important than outcomes is hard

because we need to let go of the idea that the best solutions come from experts wah this okay I want to keep playing that for you until the next election, because there is an army of people at City Hall that believe this nonsense. They let cities break. In other words, here's what this woman means, who represents and works with Osmimalic.

This is what they mean. It means why would we fix the problem of why would we stop the protests? Because if we stop the protests, then that doesn't highlight the problem, the real problem as we see it, which is an inequity on the other side of the world. Why would we fix the issue of homelessness when we could let it run rampant out of control, causing panic in the streets so that we can then highlight the systemic inequities in the system that we believe are the real problem. Rather than do what your job is, fix the potholes, keep our streets safe,

make sure that those who need help get help. No, no, no, no. We let cities break so they can reach crisis levels of it. The issues can reach crisis levels. and we can then address that problem. That's what they mean. Why would you work on making people feel safe in parks, making people feel safe in playgrounds,

keeping the streets clean, fixing congestion? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Pickle ball. Pickle ball is the problem. Here is a good rule of thumb, Toronto, when any city councilor or candidate seeking office comes to your door, and you and and they have a they want your vote ask them how they feel about pickleball if they say

it's a problem that needs to be addressed my humble opinion don't vote for them don't vote for them don't forget time and money are binary for every dollar that is spent on one issue for every minute that is spent focusing on pickleball that is a minute that your city counselor is not focused on issues that actually matter to this city the fact that Osma Malik has decided to task people with this question means she is not focused on issues that matter to you. And the fact that you can't get her on the phone, and we've tried to get her on the phone. How many times have we reached out to Osma Malik's office? I can't tell you. Too many times. Her office doesn't even get back to us. They don't even give us the courtesy of

saying, no, thank you. They just don't return our correspondence. So, and frankly, we got enough to know where she stands anyway at this point. If she wants to come on, she's welcome any time. And I commit to a respectful conversation where she will have the microphone and we can talk these things out. But in the absence of her sitting here, all you get is me.

And what I'm seeing here is an unsurious person looking to break the city according to her own staff. We are the people who let cities break. We have an opportunity next year. To reset the agenda with serious people. I would never tell anybody who to vote for because what matters to you is what matters to you.

But for the love of God, get out and vote. For the love of God, put real questions to people who want your vote. Ask them questions about how they have voted in the past, how they will vote in the future, and ask them questions about things that matter to you. Let those answers inform your vote. Do not just let someone escape by and get reelected because they had the position in the past. In fact, it is incumbent upon you to hold those people who've held the office to a higher standard.

You don't get to come back to city council just because you were there before. As a matter of fact, maybe a little fresh air and new life and new voices at City Hall are exactly what we need. Term limits. Term limits. We are the people who let cities break. I'm going to remind you of that every chance. I get. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all

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