The Ben Mulroney Show - Justin Trudeau's grocery bill is WAY more than the average Canadian... and taxpayers are on the hook for it

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Trudeau billed taxpayers $81,000 for groceries in one year with Guest: Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation -Pope Francis hospitalized for going on two weeks now with Guest: Michael Higgins, Author of The Jesuit Disruptor: A Personal Portrait of Pope Francis 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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Raise your game to the next level this year with BedMGM, a sports book worth a slam dunk, an authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BedMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only, please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And normally I'm a little apprehensive about doing stories that that could be viewed as me taking issue with our prime

minister as a father, anything that has to do with his family, I'm a little reticent to do. However, when I was a kid, and my dad was prime minister, a newspaper in Ottawa decided they were gonna do some investigative journalism and reported in a little blurb that one day after school, I apparently stopped at a corner store and bought a couple of chocolate bars that cost me $2.50.

That was the high level journalism that was being done at the time. And I had to talk about it with my dad. Like that was an issue I had to bring up. So I think this next story is fair game. And if anybody has a problem with it, I will fight you. Not literally. I've never been in a fight in my life, believe it or not,

despite having the punchable face that I have. So this story is that, okay, the average Canadian family spends almost $30,000 on groceries. And that was a couple of years ago. A year, that's $288 a week. Justin Trudeau billed taxpayers an average of $1,500 and $1,515 in household food expenses per week. That is five times more than what the average family spends.

It was essentially $157,642 in household food expenses. To talk about this, what this means, what the nuances, what the carve-outs are, what that actually comes out to, we're joined now by one of the people who sort of blew this wide open is Franco Tarrazano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Franco, welcome to the show. Hey, my pleasure, happy Friday.

Happy Friday, okay, so Franco, I see this. And before I want to before I my head explodes, I have a few questions. So when the prime minister bills money, that amount of money for food and food related services, I thought to myself, well, maybe that includes the chef, because every prime minister has a chef, except this there is a line item in the budget for a chef that makes just over 60 grand a year so what so I get food what is food related services well you know that's a great question now there's a couple issues here so this isn't talking about the chef right this is mostly talking about you know like groceries that are brought to the Prime Minister's official residences,

right? Like Rideau Cottage and Harrington Lake. So the best way to think about this is that it's essentially groceries, right? Where the government spends money on the groceries and the Prime Minister reimburses a certain amount and the leftover is paid for by the taxpayer. And, you know, to your point at the beginning of the segment here, it's a huge amount, right? In the most recent year that we got our hands on the records for, I mean, look, taxpayers picked up $81,000 of the total household food bill

for the prime minister and his family. Now, 81 grand, the year before that, $76,000. Okay, so this is a huge amount of money. I mean, you mentioned a couple things off the top, like this is five times more than what the average family is spending on groceries. Look, another way to put it, we all know the prime minister has a very big salary, right? 406,000, nearly six times more than what the average Canadian worker makes in a year. But like, look, another issue here is twofold

and I can get into both of them. But number one, the cost for household food for the Prime Minister to the taxpayer has increased significantly over the years. Okay. And the second issue here is that there's a huge lack of transparency and a need for policy change. Well, and listen, let me, let me push back and I know you're going to have something to say, but we keep talking about this as more than the average Canadian being prime minister is not an average job, right? And so there are things that a prime minister does and meetings that a prime minister has to have and dinner meetings at the house that regular people don't necessarily have to have. So could some of this inflated costs relative to the average Canadian family account for that unique need that the role of

the prime minister has? Yeah, let me just say two things because I actually think you bring up very fair questions. Okay, but two things. Number one, the prime minister is also very fairly compensated if not even more so right So like not a single penny should be covering covering any personal groceries as I mentioned $406,000 a year like very well-paid. Okay, right So number one cover your own grocery bill number two is kind of to your point But the problem is there's a complete lack of transparency. So what the government is doing is lumping in all of the household food expenses into one basket.

Yeah, and to your point, I don't know what that means. Like, again, there is a staff that has to be at the house. That's just part of the job. We're not going to get rid of that. There's a chef. You got to have that. Brian is not gonna cook his own meals. So, but those things I'm sure are, if the chef is a separate line item, then the staff is also a separate line item. So I don't know what else is in this, if not just food. Is it booze as well?

You know, we don't have a breakdown of the records. I would assume it's all of the purchases, right, that go into household food and groceries and all of that, right, is lumped into the $81,000. Now let me just go into the actual policy issue and the actual transparency issue. Like when I say that all of the household food and grocery expenses are lumped into one basket, that means taxpayers and Canadians have absolutely no idea how much of this money is spent on personal groceries for the Prime Minister and his family, or how much of this is going to, you know, official government events or

the meetings that you just mentioned. Right? So like, look, it's one thing for taxpayers or the Prime Minister to expense Canadians for official government events or official government business. But it's a completely other thing for the taxpayer to pick up the personal groceries of the Prime Minister. And the way the government is tallying up these records, we have absolutely no idea how much of taxpayers money is being spent on personal groceries, or how much of taxpayers money is going to official vent. Yeah. And look, that has to change.

And look, the prime minister doesn't pay a mortgage and doesn't have to worry about pay car payments. It doesn't have to worry about a whole bunch of stuff that average Canadian families have to pay for as well. So I absolutely take your point, Franco. I wish I had more time because I want to talk to you about this Canadian taxpayers Federation lawsuit against the CBC, but hopefully we can get you on next week and we can drill down on what that actually means. But thank you so much for your time and for your insights on this matter.

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Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. Register by March 15th. Additional terms apply. Mulroney show across the Chorus Radio Network, or you might be listening to us in podcast form, or you might be listening to us on the iHeartRadio app. In any event on all platforms, we say welcome to this Friday edition of the show. We made it to the weekend. But next week is going to be a tough week for Canada. If Donald Trump is to be believed, if he doesn't say something different today, if he doesn't reverse course, if he forgets what he said yesterday and says something different today, we could be in dire financial economic straits on March 4th when Donald Trump believes or says that his 25% tariff threat will finally become a reality.

You'll remember the pretext for that threat was problems at the Canadian border. And one of the issues, fentanyl coming across the border, even though a tiny percentage of the fentanyl that's going into the United States is coming across the Canadian border versus what's coming in from Mexico and China so he was asked to get give an update as to how things are going at the border and This is what he had to say. They're only apprehending 1% you're right about that it's a little more than that, but they should be apprehending much more because a lot comes through Canada. And as Mexico gets stronger in terms of the border, it goes up to Canada and a lot of

drugs are coming in through Canada. We can't have that. Well, a couple of things can be true at the same time. One, he's wrong in that we're not apprehending anything. That's your job, sir. That's the job of the American border to stop the drugs. Just like it's our job to stop the guns that are coming up and killing so many people

on the streets of Canada. It's our responsibility. Now, that's, so he's wrong on that, but he's not wrong that like we are producing the fentanyl. So we have to do more to stop the production of fentanyl. Seems to me that we're getting there with all of these new announcements that we've made about what,

like how we're gonna beef up the border and how we're gonna work with our American counterparts and how we have a fentanyl czar. So I can't make hair nor hide of what he's saying. I don't think anybody can. It might be by design. I don't think he wants to be able to be nailed down on what his actual issue is with the Canadian border, because I think he's dead set on these tariffs.

We'll have to wait and see. Obviously, there's going to be some pushback from people in his administration saying, if you do this, especially if it's blanket tariffs, which includes the automotive industry, good luck Detroit. Like good luck Michigan. We'll see how long things are swimmingly good in a place like Michigan, when also the automotive industry

more or less grinds to a halt thanks to this, thanks to the tariffs. But that's okay because Donald Trump has a... Everybody knows, everybody knows that tariffs are a tax on everything. And if you place them on stuff coming into your country, then it's going to make everything coming into the country more expensive and the people who are going to pay for it are your own citizens. That's the fact. Donald Trump says no, no, no, that's that's not reality. Let's listen to how he views tariffs on tariffs.

You just said with China, I'm with the independent. That's good. It's on tears said that uh... charge them he charged them as a charge china but the tears are are paid eventually by american importers and consumers no that i don't know i think that they're for by the country

but you know that we can get into that i had a lot of tears on my first time we made tremendous amounts of progress because of those tariffs. Well, I think tariffs are paid for by leprechauns and unicorns. I mean, we can all say whatever we want. That doesn't change the actual economic reality

that they are ultimately paid for by the consumer. And it doesn't mean it only hurts the consumer, it hurts the people producing the goods because our goods are more expensive. Chances are we're not going to sell as much. But Donald Trump. Okay, let's look at the counterpoint to Donald Trump, at least for the next few days. Justin Trudeau. He will be the leader until March 9th, when Mark Carney ultimately assumes the role of leader and Prime Minister after this coronation, disguising as a competition. And the Prime Minister had some very strong, strong words

for the President. The first thing on tariffsaces to emphasize that our government and indeed all of team canada premieres business leaders community leaders are focused on one thing making sure that come tuesday and for the weeks that follow there are no tariffs imposed on Canada. The tariffs that the president speaks of for next week are

centered around the fentanyl crisis that they're facing in the United States, but that we are also facing in Canada. And for months now, I've been emphasizing that less than 1% of the fentanyl that arrives in the United States comes from Canada. That's a number that is unverifiable. First of all, most of what he said, I don't think you're going to find a whole lot of Canadians that disagree. Most of us. But what he says there about the one percent, unverifiable.

That's one percent, one percent that is apprehended. We don't know how much is actually getting through because we don't know how much is even being produced in this country. We're only now learning. It's only because Donald Trump put the spotlight on this that we've been forced to address this crisis, which by the way, not for nothing, Pierre Poliev has been calling out for months. He actually was in the House of Commons a few months ago where he said Fentanyl will be a sticking point with this administration.

And he was laughed down. He was told he was being divisive. He wasn't looking at that, you know, you're suggesting Canada is broken. Well, on this front, we frigging are. So yes, that 1%, that is unverifiable. And I don't like the fact that it's being bantied about as if it's a nothing number,

because the number is absolutely bigger. We just don't know what it is. And one of the reasons we don't know what it is is because we don't know what's going on in our own country. And that is a real, that has been a problem on a number of fronts with this government for years, not taking the things seriously that they should be taking seriously.

How many people are here on visas that should be gone? How many terrorists are in our country? How much fentanyl is being produced? How much contraband is coming in through our ports of entry? We have no ability to track any of that stuff because we haven't cared to track it. So that to me, when I hear that,

that kind of angers me a little bit. By and large, Mark Carney's march to the leadership of the Liberal Party and ultimately to be prime minister has been unencumbered by any sort of friction. He has been, it's been a cakewalk. However, one person is pushing back a little bit, and that is his fellow candidate for liberal leadership,

Karina Gould. When Mark Carney suggested that he could balance the budget in three years, she pushed back. Apparently there's anything wrong about balancing the budget. I just think that we have to be honest with Canadians about what that means, and that means cuts. And so if that's what Canadians want, we have to be honest with them. Look, you know, he talked about balancing the budget in three years. And the way that he wants to do that is by growing the economy. I'm

all for growing the economy. I'm all for increasing productivity. But to do that to such a degree in three years that it'll balance the budget, I just don't think that's realistic. So my position is let's work towards balance. Let's make sure that we are responsible fiscal managers. But I'm also not going to tell Canadians that I'm going to do something that I know is not possible. Couple of things. Not all cuts are created equal. Certain services that we Canadians depend on have been there for years and it's about bolstering them and strengthening them. And others are nonsense programs that this government has been throwing money at

to buy votes and to look progressive. And a program that was just put up and running yesterday does not have the same value to Canadians as something that's been around for 50 years. So I do appreciate that she said that. And we got, no, we don't have any more time for any of this stuff. But later on in the show, we are going to be talking about the pushback that Mark Carney should be getting, especially on the lie that he told the nonsense, crazy lie that he

told. And now he's in hiding. He's in hiding. Other other candidates have been felled by less. He lied about something very significant. Now he hasn't justified himself or explained himself. And so we're gonna be talking about it a little bit later with our political panel. I'm very glad to have our next guest on the show, because he is the author of a book that could not be more topical could not be more relevant, and to a certain type book that could not be more topical, could not be more relevant, and to a certain type of person, could not be more important. Given the health problems of Pope Francis, I'm very happy to welcome to the show Michael Higgins, the author of The Jesuit Disruptor, a Personal Portrait of Pope Francis.

Michael, thank you for joining us on the Ben Mulroney Show. It's my pleasure. Before we talk about Pope Francis, just a little bit of my background. I actually had the honor of meeting Pope John Paul II a couple of times when my father was prime minister. He gave a mass up on Parliament Hill. I believe it was about 100,000 Catholics, if I'm not mistaken, were assembled on Parliament Hill for an immense outdoor mass. And because of that relationship

that my father had with him, I got to know a little bit about the Pope. And correct me if I'm wrong, but generally speaking, it feels to me that if John Paul II was what I would call a foreign policy Pope who used Catholicism in his personal battle against communism, then Pope Francis is more of a domestic policy pope focusing on the definition of Catholicism in a modern world. Would that be a, I get that that is very reductive,

but would that be fair? I think there's some truth to it, Ben. Certainly, as you indicated, John Paul II had a large political agenda. He was an epic pope by certain standards. And he concentrated on what is called the ad extra, meaning that world outside of the immediate reality of the Church. Francis has concentrated to some degree on the ad intra. That means those things that are particular and immediate concern to strengthen Catholicism's witness in the world. Now that is a bit of a generalization because Francis was also, I shouldn't put it in the past

sense, has been active in a number of different ways on the political front, particularly in relation to Beijing, but also in relation to Tel Aviv and to Kiev and to Havana, where all these places where he exercised soft power, which is what the Vatican has, using Vatican back circles and diplomats, what are called papal nunsios, using various conduits to mitigate the worst errors, but also move towards conciliation. And he has been quite successful in some regards, but again, a lot of this goes on underneath the radar. Yeah. So people don't really know about it until somebody comes along and writes a text on it or does an historical expose. If somebody is just tuning in right now and they say they hear, oh, they're talking about the pope, that a lot of people would be forgiven if they didn't know a

lot about him besides what they've read in the headline. So in your estimation, your expert opinion tells who is Pope Francis? Well, Pope Francis, but he's, he's Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He is an Argentine of Italian descent. He's a Jesuit. He's the first Pope in history to take the name Francis. In fact, his pontificate is a series of firsts. Rather than live in the apostolic palace, where popes usually reside or have at least for centuries, he chooses to live in an apartment building, basically, called the Santa Marta, the Casa Santa Marta. He is an individual who prizes the priority of the heart over reason. It's not that he's irrational, anything but.

He trained as a chemist, some of his closest friends are scientists. He's got a very good, it would appear, working knowledge of artificial intelligence, and he maintains a strong interest in various of the shifting technological paradigms of the world. So he's not uninterested in things, but he privileges the heart as the primary means for communicating, preaching compassion, and making the message of the gospel relevant in our time. Now he's currently experiencing some significant health issues. Apparently his pneumonia has improved, but his health has been a question

for a while. And you know, some people look to the future in moments like this and wonder, you know, what happens next? A lot of us are aware of, generally speaking, of conclave and how important that is in the selection of another pope. But one thing I've noticed about Pope Francis, Michael, is that he surprised a lot of Catholics in some ways progressive view on certain social issues. Do those sorts of issues come up in conclave

when the selection process is happening? Are the candidates vetted in those moments? Are they asked those pointed questions? What is your position on X, Y and Z? Or is that not, am I thinking about it too politically? Well, yes and no. I mean, the murmurations and intrigues and other things that go on in the Vatican in conclave are just absolutely normal and they are human and they've been doing that for centuries long

before the rise of democracies. So the the Vatican's process of electing a successor to Peter means that you know the Cardinals need to know something about each other. Yes. Pope Francis created and the term then is create, he created a number of cardinals, and these cardinals are from the peripheries, they're from the margins, so you have a cardinal from Myanmar and you have a cardinal from Manchuria, and there are a very small number of Catholics in these jurisdictions. But Francis wants to heighten the global presence of the Catholic Church at the same time as he wants to bring particular groups that may feel that they have no voice in Rome.

And so he creates cardinals in jurisdictions that would never have happened before, even in relatively non-Catholic countries, Christian but non-Catholic countries like Sweden as its first cardinal in centuries, if at all. And so, Francis always pays attention to the outliers. And one of the reasons why he does that is he wants to underscore the universality of the Church. Now, this means that when the cardinals get together, they don't plot, but they do sit down, figure, maybe to some degree connive, because they're candidates they don't want to go forward, and there are candidates they think are best for the Church. But they don't hold press conferences to discuss

these things. What they do is they hold congregations where the cardinals would be invited to give a particular address on a particular topic of concern for the Church, and the other cardinals would be invited to give a particular address on a particular topic of concern for the church, and the other cardinals get to hear them. It is a bit of showcasing. It is, it is. Michael, I only have a moment left, and so I'd love your answer to one last question

in about 60 seconds. The book is called The Jesuit Disrupter. What makes Pope Francis a disrupter? What makes Pope Francis a disrupter? Well, you know that he's often spoken to Catholic youth around the world and told them to make a mess. Now, he doesn't mean it in the kind of subversive, chaotic manner of Donald Trump. He means disruption in the sense that he's overturning expectations, protocols, ways of doing things that have atrophied. They no longer have life. They

become museum pieces. They're not the best way to live and work at the church. So, his disruptions are not inspired by a radical overturning of everything, as if we were a revolutionary, but the subtle readjustment in priority so that people see, and here's the important point, make it end with this, we can see what Francis sees as the most important point of the church. It's the image of the field hospital. It's where the wounded, the vulnerable, the desperate and the broken go. That's where the wounded, the vulnerable, the desperate, and the broken go. That's the church for him. Michael Higgins, author of The Jesuit Disruptor, a personal portrait of Pope Francis. Here's hoping that this discussion is a little

premature and that the Pope has many years ahead of him. However, in the case that we do, the church is in search of another pope, we hope to talk to you again. Absolutely. Take care now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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