The Ben Mulroney Show - Liberals survive some classic Political Drama

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Liberals survive some classic Political Drama with Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former Senior aide to minister of finance Jim Flaherty 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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Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show. And thank you so much for helping us grow The Ben Mulroney Show on radio. If you're listening on radio, if you're listening on a streaming app, if you're listening on Amazon, if you're listening on a streaming app, if you're listening on Amazon, if you're listening on Apple podcasts, or on Spotify. And now, if you find us on YouTube, we say thank you. We take you where we get you. And we really appreciate you helping us build

this community. And one member of that community who joins us quite a bit to talk politics and various other things is Regan Watts, the founder of Fratton Park, Inc, former senior aide to Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty. Regan, I was calling this segment, Around the Horn with Regan, and you had a better name. What's up, Wednesday? How are you doing, buddy? Good to be with you. I'm good.

So we've got some political stories to talk about, and typically I don't like talking about procedure, and I don't like talking about sort of how the sausage is made, but the fact that the throne speech was adopted without a vote in the House of Commons, it surprised me. I just assumed confidence vote required a vote and it didn't happen. So explain this to me because I think a lot of people are scratching their heads today. So it's good to be with you, Ben. And before I get into the politics, I should acknowledge,

even though he's not listening, my son, Henry turns And before I get into the politics, I should acknowledge, even though he's not listening, my son Henry turns 11 today. Hey, happy birthday, King Henry to King Henry for to his fans and to the press. So on procedure, sorry, I just need a sidebar. He's not listening to the show. What kind of kid are you raising? Well, I'm just getting to the show onini show on podcast, but not live. Gotcha. Better be in school. Fair enough. So, um, uh, so on procedure, I do not want to bore your listeners with the, with the

intricacies of parliament. I'll just say this, the throne speech passed in a legitimate way. There is no backdoor legislative trick that the liberals pulled on this. I think there was a recognition in the House by all parties that Canadians certainly do not want an election right now. And I think the parties that felt that the most were the NDP and the conservatives,

because I think if we went to an election, Canadians would be so angry that they would throw a majority to the liberals. There are many ways that votes are counted in the House. One of the ways that votes are counted in the House. One of the ways that votes are counted is by members getting up and answering the vote. Other ways that votes are counted are on division, which is a legislative term.

So these things can get passed in many, many ways. And sometimes it's legislative spook and sometimes it's not, but the throne speech was always going to pass. And how it passed is less of a story than the fact that the prime minister and the liberals have had some issues in terms of counting votes in the house. And they lost a motion, which I know we're going to talk about. The one thing I'll say, Ben is a motion on tabling a budget, pardon me, not the throne speech. One thing I will say, Ben, is that if I know Mark Carney, and I do, and I like Mark Carney, is that that man does not make the same mistake twice. So he will have seen some of

the legislative challenges that they're having in the House and have a very quiet but firm meeting with his House leader, Steve McKinnon, who's a wonderful man and an excellent minister and an excellent parliamentarian, and the human incarnation of a Twitter troll named Mark Gerritsen, who, incarnation of a Twitter troll named Mark Gerritsen, who, neurodivergence aside, should be able to count to 173. And Mark, Mark Gerritsen is going to get a lashing from the prime minister and rightfully so, because it's their job to count the votes, his job to count the votes. And he messed that one up. So, right, because they won't make the same mistake twice. The throne speech that effectively passed is not the throne speech that we all heard, because the conservatives were able to win a vote by adding an amendment to the throne speech that calls on this government to give us at least an economic update before the

House rises for the summer. And so my question to you is, if this has been passed, does that mean that that amendment has the same a force of law as the throne speech? Well, yes and no, again, sorry to be, I don't wanna get into the meat before you're listening. Our listeners need to know this stuff because I don't know and I wanna learn it.

Look, in our democracy, the House of Commons, the representatives of the people, uh, reign supreme. And so when the house of commons demand something, and in this case, they have demanded by virtue of voting for this motion, an economic update in the fiscal situation of the government of Canada, it is incumbent upon the government of the day to table that motion that, and the house can by the way, request documents on anything it wants or any update it wants.

That is a prerogative of the House. That is the nature of our system. And so I can't believe, and I'm very surprised the liberals decided not to table a budget or to take this issue proactively, because it's a good way for them to say the new guys are different than the old guys. It's a tale as old as time that when a new government gets elected. And in this case, Carney's government does feel like a brand new government. Um, you, you table a fiscal update and you show the country just how bad the previous guys were at managing the books.

Yeah. Uh, they didn't do that this time. So I, maybe they'll take advantage of this, this, this record, this demand from the house to table a fiscal update. But again, it goes back to the, the, you know, the inability of Mark Gerritsen to count to 173 because they should not be losing boats in the House at this point. It's just unacceptable. That was, that was, yeah. When I woke up to that news, I was, I was gobsmacked. And every, every person I've talked to points to one person and one person only for why that happened. It's Mark Gerritsen. Hey, look, Regan, we always want,

ideally we want the best people to present themselves in politics. We want the best people to want those jobs. And one of the best people in a very long time we lost, and that was Mark Garneau. He was the first Canadian in space. He was not of my political ilk, but he was a gentleman of the highest order

and I think represented the an example of, of, of those best people trying to do good for Canadians. I completely agree. Then Mr. Garneau, incidentally, has a as a connection to your father. Shortly after your dad got elected in 1984, Mr. Garneau was that first Canadian in space. And he helped usher in an era alongside your mom and dad and the government that was elected in 84, a hopeful, optimistic era in Canadian life. Regan, listen, growing up in my bedroom on the wall right by the door that led to the hallway was a frame.

And in it was the Canadian flag patch that he wore on his space suit. And there was a picture of him, I believe on a space walk. And there was a lovely note that he had written to my dad. And that was, I looked at that every single time I came into my room or left my room. And it was such a point of pride as a kid growing up that I had this piece of history in my room, I no longer have it,

I believe it's in the archive somewhere now, but he meant something to me and to see that he found, I mean, when you go into space, the fact you come back from space and you say to yourself, the next achievement, the next hill to climb, the next rocket ship for me is politics, that's somebody who definitely felt the calling of politics. Well, he and Mr. Garneau represented the absolute best of

us. And I was speaking with our friend Sharon Carr yesterday, and we both agreed that his loss is a tremendous loss for the country. He was a naval captain. He was an astronaut. You talked about him being a cabinet minister. I'm not sure politics was for him, but he was certainly there for the right reasons. Yes. And he ran the Canadian Space Agency and you know, Canadian heroes like Chris Hadfield and Roberta Bond are, were in the media yesterday talking about what Mr. Garno meant to the country. And you know, I believe Ben, and

I don't care, and this is partly why I am as bullish on Mr. Carney as I am, we need more people like Mark Garno, Mr. Garneau, pardon me, and Mr. Carney in public life if the country is going to reach its full potential. Now I hope they wish for them to run on the blue team. But I, but, but that's my own preference, but we need the best of Canada. We are going to reach our full potential. Okay. We don't have a lot of time left, but you know, you did say something before that Mark Carney doesn't make the same mistake twice, but his cabinet ministers don't seem to have that same compunction.

Another cabinet minister who had to sort of reverse course and apologize for something he said this time, it was a cabinet minister who said no First Nations veto on projects quickly had to backtrack. And I got to think Mark Carney doesn't like this. It doesn't look serious. Well, so I think you're right. And I think, but at least it's only one mistake this time and not several cabinet ministers. Yes, he's getting the number down. Yeah, so, you know, as I say,

Mr. Carney doesn't make the same mistake twice. I suspect the cabinet minister in question was on the receiving end of a telephone call from the prime minister's office, ensuring that they understood the gravity and the importance of the issue, hence the apology. I do suspect as well that as the Prime Minister's Office gets staffed up, we will likely see fewer of these mistakes. Now look, it's Canadian politics and Canadian public life and you know, we referred to and talked about neurodivergent Mark Gerritsen

previously. There are, you know, there's a House of Commons filled to 338, 343 people who represent all walks of life in Canada. Inevitably, there's going to be mistakes. And as Canadians, we should allow for a little bit of flex. But the political management is something that Mr. Carney is going to have to wrap his arms around and his PMO. They're getting better at it, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. And we'll see what it looks like in the coming weeks. Regan Watts, my friend in What's Up Wednesdays. Thank you so much for being here. Have a great day and happy birthday. See you on YouTube. Okay, talk to you soon.

You are listening to the Ben Mulroney Show and for that I say thank you. We always appreciate any listeners. We get all the listeners we get and now we also have viewers because we find ourselves on YouTube. You can find the Ben Mulroney Show on YouTube. We post content all day long. And we're trying to grow this show by finding you wherever you hang your hat. This is we the affordability crisis, and food insecurity, and the cost of living. All of these issues are key drivers in people's anxiety. These days, it's we have less money and the money that we have isn't going as far as it used to. There are certain things you cannot get around. We have less money and the money that we have isn't going as far as it used to.

There are certain things you cannot get around. We must eat, we must pay for the food that we want to eat and feed to our families. And every politician in the last election had a plan on driving down the cost of groceries. The liberals got elected, reelected. And so when I see the food professor telling me that beef strip loin is up over 34% in terms of cost since the beginning of the year,

sirloin up 33%, oranges 26%, percent, apples almost 19 percent, white rice 14 percent, sweet potatoes 12 percent, on and on, coffee almost 10 percent. I can promise you I don't have 33 percent more money. I have less money and so do you. This needs to be dealt with immediately. I don't know what's going on here. There are some people who are pointing to attacking the conservatives saying, oh, the consumer carbon tax went down

but the price of groceries hasn't gone down. So clearly the consumer carbon tax has nothing to do with it. It's not the consumer carbon tax, it's the industrial carbon tax that's foisted on industry, including the trucking industry that is forcing them and farmers on all the electricity required to hydroponically grow fruit, for example. This is a crisis that is not getting better. I know it's early days. I am not saying that this, we shouldn't have seen this. Of course, there are issues that have not yet been dealt

with by this new government, but they got to get on this. They got to get on this because at some point, we're gonna get to the point where we can't afford to feed our kids, right? We're already making choices today that we never had to make or have rarely had to make, certainly not for a sustained period of time. Like now there are people who have to choose

between heating their home or now cooling their home and, you know, gassing up their car. And now we're being forced into making choices at the grocery store that not only can they alter our choices and our diet, but I'm sorry, like the mental health hit that a provider of a family must take and has to take. By the way, I've had to make some choices like this as well. The fact that a provider, somebody who takes pride in being that person who cares for two, three, four kids, is the fact that they are feeling on a daily basis every time they go to the grocery store, that they are not providing in the way that they feel they need to.

There's no way that doesn't hurt you on the mental health front. There will be a knock on effects that psychologists will be able to point to in years. And this affects our identity, how we see ourselves, how we value ourselves. It affects how our family sees us. There's no way that that's good. None. So the government's got to get on this.

Fortunately, I didn't present myself in politics. I don't have to give you a solution. That's their job. Get on this, please. A lot of promises made by Mark Carney to show that he is not going to be a leader like his predecessor. And in many ways, he's showing that in real time. And I think that's a good thing. But the rubber is meeting the road where the promises are now being costed out. And the parliamentary budget office is saying that simply capping the public service, slowing the growth of the public service, which has been out of control for years, will not be enough to pay for Prime Minister Mark Carney's tax cut and defense spending promises. Something's going to have to give. So you'll remember that he promised to pass a tax cut for

middle cut middle class families, a 1% tax cut, reducing the rate from 15 to 14%. That is expected to cost the government $27 billion over five years. So let's just say $5 billion a year. He's also committed to raising our NATO funding to 2% of GDP, which is the barrier to entry for NATO. And I'm happy that he's making that priority. I think it's shameful how we have been discounting and devaluing our armed forces for way too

long. And if he can get that back up, he's got my full support. But that costs something. What else is he? But he says he's planning on paying for all this stuff by capping the public service. He's not going to fire anybody. He's just going to slow down how many people we bring in and by reduce the number by attrition.

The PBO is saying that's not good enough. And I think a lot of people are saying, I told you so. Of course I knew that there's no way he was gonna be able to afford all of his spending, reduce taxes, increase spending in certain places and pay for all of that by limiting the growth of the public sector. So at some point when he's back from these all important trips

that he's gonna be on from the G7 summit to the NATO summit, he's gonna, well, unless the House rises, for all I know, I think it rises after that. So probably no more accountability in the House of Commons for him for a while, but these questions will be waiting for him when he gets back, I can promise you that. Someone who is hoping to have the ear of the prime minister

for about three hours is the premier of Alberta inviting prime minister Mark Carney to an Oilers game. Now, even though Mark Carney has spent a lot of his life abroad and certainly not in Alberta, he was born, I think he was born in the Northwest territories and raised around Edmonton. He is an Edmonton Oilers fan. And you'll remember that last night,

they took the first game four to three against the Florida Panthers in overtime. And so prior to the G7 summit, which is taking place in Kananaskis, the Premier is hoping to sit with him at a hockey game. And I hope this happens. These are two very important national leaders and they need to find a way to work together.

The all important energy sector deserves Mark Carney's respect. And there's a lot that the Alberta government wants from the feds so that it's a two-way street. And sometimes if you take the business out of the arena and put it into a hockey arena, maybe good things can happen. Maybe they can see each other as more than just opponents

or at odds. Maybe they can commune over their shared love of hockey. Maybe they can commune over their shared love of hockey. I'm doing my best to be optimistic about the future under a Mark Carney liberal government, and perhaps this is a way for that to happen. Maybe they'll build a friendship. I mean, odd things have happened. The NDP mayor of Toronto is BFFs with the conservative premier. So if that can happen, maybe these two can break bread and find common cause. At least that's my hope. Okay, so we were kicking around laughing at a video

that we saw online. And before I play that video for you, you ever had that moment where somebody says something to you and you let the moment pass and only a few moments later, do you figure out the perfect comeback? And you're like, oh, I'm gonna do this. you. You know, you ever had that moment where somebody says something to you and you let the moment pass and only a few moments later do you figure out the perfect comeback? That was encapsulated perfectly in an episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza was insulted and only after

the meeting where he was insulted, he come up with the perfect comeback, but he didn't know how to get to it. So anyway, let's listen to this. You're proposing a snow tire day at Yankee Stadium. As long as I don't throw him on the field. Happy stuff is some shrimp, I brought it up for everybody. I have to say this, this proposal doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Well, you never know.

Let's see how many I can fit in my mouth. You know, George, the ocean called. Let's see how many I can fit in my mouth. You know, George, the ocean called. They're running out of shrimp. Oh yeah, right? Well the jerk store called. They're running out of you. What's the difference?

You're their all time bestseller. Well, I had sex with your wife. Okay, here's an example of a politician in real time finding the perfect thing to say in response to somebody else. Representative Leach, are you aware that my grandfather was an assistant attorney general for the state of Texas? No. Congratulations. Are you aware that he represented Texas in front of the United States Supreme Court nine times? No. Are you aware that my dad worked for Oscar Meyer for 25 years and drove the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile?

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