The Ben Mulroney Show - Mid-week political panel/How Brad Smith was used in a catfishing scheme

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Guest: Andy Gibbons, Principal at Walgate Advisory, former VP WestJet Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former senior aide to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Guest: Brad Smith/No B.S. with Brad Smith If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Only till January 21st. Shop in store or at metro.com. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It's the 21st of January, 2026. I hope everybody is doing great. It's Wednesday, and you know what that means? It means we are joined by Andy Gibbons, principal at Walgate Advisory and former VP at West. Jedding, Riegen Watts, founder of Fratton Park, and former senior aide to Jim Flaherty.

And gentlemen, I'm just going to say it once, because I thought I was clear. On Wednesdays, we wear black. Unacceptable. I can't hear them. I've lost my men. I've lost my men. Can you hear me? Yes, there we go. There we go. Perfect, perfect. Great. Okay, fantastic. Yes, we wear black and I really don't want this to be a problem in the future. All right? Come on. Come on. Come on. You both look fetch. Okay, let's talk about the, listen, it's a story that we can't get enough of because it's ever evolving and there's always something new when Donald Trump finally showed up in Davos after our prime minister gave what I thought was a very good speech. I don't have to agree. with everything in the speech, to say it was a good speech. And it was.

But Donald Trump didn't like that speech. He did not like it one bit. Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful also, but then not. I watch your prime minister yesterday. He wasn't so grateful. But they should be grateful to us. Canada.

Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about this because we got to play. There's the short term, there's the medium term, there's the long term. In the short term, the speech worked. I think it did a great thing for carding politically, I'm sure, in this country. I heard a lot of people say best speech by a prime minister in the 21st century.

But, you know, medium term, long term, we've got to do a deal with the Americans. So, Regan, your thoughts? Well, look, I think then the Prime Minister had a remarkable performance in Davos, and he did what many of us had been hoping for, which is to restore Canada to a place of prestige globally. Canadians are a proud nation. We were proud of our history, proud of the values we stand for. Those values are under stress and under pressure, no doubt.

But the Prime Minister did something that the country has been dying for for a very long time. You know, look, the fact is he campaigned on a pledge to double non-U.S. exports over the next 10 years. And part of his trip prior to Davos to both China and Qatar was to support that endeavor. The reality, though, is, and I suspect my friend Andy will agree with me on this, is Canada is in the Western Hemisphere, which he is obviously going to agree with. But we're also a North American nation. And we do need to tend to our garden back home while also looking for new markets abroad. And so while I thought the Prime Minister's speech was outstanding, and I do support his engagement in China and Qatar, you know, I think people like Michelle Rompel Garner, who's a conservative MP, who issued a, wrote a very thoughtful substack of critique of the Prime Minister, has a point which she says, okay, so what's the results? And now what?

And the most immediate way to get results for the community economy over and above the big key strategic things that the Prime Minister's been doing is to engage with the United States and to try and remove some of the bearers. and irritants that will allow trade to flow more freely once again and commerce and trade between two wonderful nations and great neighbors in the United States of Canada to get back to where it ought to be as opposed to where it is currently. Listen, everything you just said I agree with. I would go a little bit farther and say that I'm now at the point, Andy, that I like the speech. I thought it was a really good speech. Made me feel good to be Canadian.

Here we had a thoughtful prime minister who is laying out his vision of where the world has been and where it needs to go. Doesn't mean I have to agree with everything in it, but he's my prime minister and he acquitted himself with honor on the global stage. So that's all great. But it also reminded me that we've had 10 years of speeches, mostly bad, but 10 years of speeches and not a whole lot of building. And it frustrates me.

It reminds me of the lost decade. And I want to see action. I don't want to give people credit for saying they're going to do stuff. I want them to do it. Yeah, a lot of thoughts. here and I'm not as, I'm a little bit more cynical than Reagan, Ben. What frustrated me is that all the things that Mark Carney said make middle powers strong are things that his own party made worse than Canada.

And I couldn't help sitting there watching saying, wow, this is really a brilliant man of high intellect that clearly people respect. And that is a good thing for country. Back to the fact that we will talk about on the show all the time, Canada has received a prime minister upgrade like no other. That is crystal clear, especially yesterday. But all the things that make middle power strong, his party did worsen and weaken. And also, I could not divorce myself from the political, domestic calculations of that speech.

Because it is true that we have benefited more or as much as anyone from American hegemony. That's just the truth. We're the closest allies. We have privileged access to their economy. and so to give the portrayal that we've been living some kind of lie, I just, I didn't really like that. I think it's fine to talk about finding a new way in a complicated world, but to sort of signal what a lot of people are saying,

a divorce from the U.S. or a separation from the U.S., Regan's right, there is no replacing the American economy and our access to it. It doesn't exist for Canada. and I'd like to see him be more truthful about that with Canadians and what his plan is to rebuild that. That will be around after Donald Trump is gone. And just one more note, then, there are 19 states in America

for which Canada is the number one import country and the number one export country. So I don't accept nothing can be done. I don't accept there's no path. I think that's something I want to hear the prime minister talk about and work on. Yeah. I want to go back to something you said, Regan, you talked about supporting the trade mission to China and to Qatar.

And I think some very good stuff came out of it, especially for our farmers who did nothing wrong in this trade war and found themselves as collateral damage. I'm glad that the majority of those tariffs have been lifted. But I did find it curious. And I want your take on this. Where it's something that hasn't been talked about too too much. As he said, you know, I brought up Greenland and an Arctic sovereignty with Chairman She. and there's a lot of alignment there. And Norman Specter pointed out,

the former Canadian ambassador to Israel pointed out that it seems oddly naive to think that there's any alignment on Arctic sovereignty. And because you're not seeing eye to eye with your biggest trading partner, that you're going to look for geopolitical alignment with China. Well, look, I think there's a couple things, then I actually want to go back to something

that Andy just said, when he talked about the upgrade from the long national nightmare to Prime Minister Carney, it is almost like going from WestJet, where Andy used to work to Air Canada. And I think Andy's right in terms of that context and that upgrade. With respect to the respective comments, I will also remind your listeners and viewers, he was a former clerk of the privy council in a government that was led by your father. He's a thoughtful guy and has certainly experienced. I didn't hear the prime minister in China say that Arctic cooperation,

with the U.S. was off or that it was a fobore with the Chinese. I think the prime minister is dealing with the reality that the Chinese are already floating subs through the Northwest Passage, as are I suspect the Americans. And Canada is in a very delicate position where it is our territorial land, but we need to find like-minded partners to defend our sovereignty in that part of the world. Your father was a visionary in creating Nunavut, which was focused on providing additional governance, among other things, governance and self-determination for the people of that territory, but also expanding and ensuring that the landmass and the maps that covered

looked at Canada and drew Canada on a map were accurate. That was further reinforced in many ways by Stephen Harper, who was prime minister in 2010 when I was working at the Department of Foreign Affairs and for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, where China declared itself an Arctic power. So the Chinese have had a view on the Arctic for many years, and the Americans have looked to Canada to defend its Arctic. We have more to do, and we have work to do. And I think that, The fact is that it is not a straightforward resolution. But the Prime Minister, I don't believe, just to gently push back to your question, dismissed American partnership in the Arctic.

And I don't think he fully embraced Chinese partnership on a security basis in the Arctic either. It's somewhere in the middle. And that's just the nature of the world we're living in and the game he has to play with those two superpowers. All right, Andy, I'm going to get you to comment. Hold your guffaw for after the break. then we're going to cast our regard to Calgary because the conservatives have a convention, a leadership convention, and up here, Pauliev's leadership will be put to the test. We'll talk about all of that when we come back on the Ben Mulroney show.

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And selected varieties of VH sauce just 244 each. Only till January 21st. Shop in store or at metro. com. and welcome back to my political panel made up of Andy and Regan. And before the break, Regan had such a hot take on Carney and China that Andy thought to himself, I don't even want Regan to be able to see me anymore. That's how upset he was.

Andy, I know that your camera is off for some reason right now. We're going to try to fix it. But why don't you tell us why you were so offended by the comments made by our colleague? Well, I'm with Michael Kovrick on this. He said, I don't know if you saw his tweet, this is one of the two Michaels. He said, diplomacy is one thing, grinning is another. So, you know, do we need to do business with China? Sure.

Is it important that we have a trading relationship with them? Sure. Is it good that they stop punishing us as a nation? Yes. But it was a little too much for me. And also, Ben, it's hard to accept this. We don't bow to anyone and we won't compromise. our values for anyone or to anyone unless we're in Beijing.

Then we'll do it completely. So I just, I struggle with that a little bit and maybe final point on China. The prime minister hasn't been to Japan. Japan is a G7 nation begging for our energy. And so there is something a little bit provocative about China and there is a domestic political calculation to his speech and to his China maneuver. So, you know, I think that's relevant too when we're discussing what these things mean

and what they don't. It plays very well at home. He could have easily gone to Japan, which is a democracy and a G7 partner as his first stop, but he did not do that. I hadn't thought about that. So thanks for highlighting that. All right, now, speaking of highlights,

it is now time for the political play of the week. This is the political play of the week. Regan, you're up. Well, who else could? it be but the Prime Minister. He continues to dominate the agenda. He continues to drive headlines. He continues to move his agenda forward. As I started the show, Ben, rare has it been in the last 10 years where we've had a Prime Minister who's driven the global dialogue on any issue, much like we had with Prime Minister Carney. And he continues to have very good weeks. You know, there was a question

about when he entered into politics, whether he'd be any good at it. Well, I think we have our answer now. All right, the least surprising political play of the week winner from Regan, Andy. Give me something I don't know. Well, that was the most predictable, predictable play of the week I've seen. Mine is going to be cleaner Doug Ford because the way he's standing tall on the Chinese EVs and noting that Chinese companies are not going to create jobs and build cars here, that there's a legitimate security risk.

and he's highly what the experience in Europe has been. So I just want to give him credit. One, he's standing up to a liberal prime minister, and I think anyone with a conservative bent would have appreciated this a couple dozen times in the last decade. But he's doing it on this, and he's telling the truth in his perspective, in his way, about his cherished sector. So credit to him, it doesn't mean he doesn't respect the prime minister.

It doesn't mean they don't have a good working relationship. And Ben, you talk about this all the time on the show, let's see our politicians working together and being able to disagree on things but still get along the national interest. So credit to Doug Ford for not bowing down and saying everything is great because we have a prime minister who's intelligent. I'm going to talk about what matters to my workers and my people. So credit to him. All right. Well, let's move on.

There's two other points I want to get to. We don't have a lot of time. But I want to look at the other political parties. I want to look at the conservatives and then the NDP. There's a conservative leadership race. There's a convention happening at the end of this month in Calgary. What's going to happen? Are the conservatives planning on running a different candidate in Pierre Poliath's Alberta riding in the next election?

And if they are, does that mean anything, Regan? So I think, Ben, that candidate or that riding where Mr. Palliyev is the current member of parliament has already been, it's already going to go back to Damien Turek. who is the MP who stepped aside for Mr. Polyev. He announced that. I thought earlier this week, actually, I think. The question will be, where does Mr. Polyev run in the next election if he does stand for election? I do expect Mr. Polyev to make it through the leadership review.

I think the party membership more or less will endorse his leadership. That doesn't mean he's out of the woods with respect to his own political management. I suspect if polling numbers continue to soften for him that he will have a problem with caucus. but I don't expect any surprises next weekend in Calgary. It'll be interesting for me, Ben, and viewers and listeners should be mindful of how many people show up in Calgary. I suspect it will be a lower turnout because Calgary in January can be pretty cold and hard to get to. But I do think Mr. Palliab will, whether you're on Air Canada or West yet, mind you.

But I do think, I do think Mr. Palliab will come out of next weekend, two weekends from now, still leader of the party and endorsed by the membership. Well, you know, but we've seen, we've seen people get the majority of the vote, the support of their members, and if they don't hit a certain threshold, they resign. Is there a magic number, Andy? Do you think that...

Oh, Andy can't hear me. So I'll stick with you, Regan. Is there a magic number? You know, in my mind, it was always, you know, 80% or 75%. But what if Pierre gets 70% of the vote? Oh, if he gets 70% of the vote, I think it'll be very hard for Mr. Poliev over the, the subsequent weeks to maintain a grip on his leadership.

His team are predicting north of 85, almost 90%. You know, you'll remember your father ran in the leadership after Joe Clark resigned after having only received 68% of the endorsement of his party. So every party is a little bit different. I was there with Scott Moe when he got 80% of the vote. I was at that convention just a few months ago. But yeah, you're right. Every party's different.

everyone has a different, they're in a different phase. Some are in opposition. Some are in leadership. Some are riding high. Sometimes the party is more popular than the leader. I think that has a, that's going to be part of the calculus as well. Let's ask Andy. Andy, is there a magic number? Do you think that makes, you know, that makes Pierre's leadership assured? We're having some audio issues. I think the magic number for him is 75.

I think when you're north of 75, no. can say anything. Yeah. But I expect them to be higher than 80. Yeah. That's interesting. That's very interesting. Well, we will wait and see.

And we, as a matter of fact, we'll be there broadcasting from Calgary and taking in some of the, some of the convention. All right, I want to move now to the NDP leadership because, you know, we thought Eve Engler was the crazy one. And he's been told he can't run. And it looks like, from what I can see, I haven't seen any polling, but it feels like Avi Lewis is probably one of the front runners. but there's a new brand of just off the wall bananas NDP

sort of candidate that's throwing her hat in the ring and it's this woman Bianca Mugiani and I want to do do we have some audio of this woman or no so she her positions are anti-imperialist

land back anti-militarist anti-tarsans which is not what they're called pro-Palestine and housing health care and post-secondary education policies she wants to burn the whole place down, guys. And, you know, Andy will start with you, your thoughts.

And your thoughts of the NDP is going to continue. Oh, we're here. Oh, unfortunately, we're going to have to go to, not unfortunately we're going to have to go to Regan. Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave Andy for a second and go to Regan. That's a better way to start, Ben. So my read on the NDP is this. The grand old party of Leighton and Broadbent's and Notley and Dewar, a party that was there for the working man and woman of this country.

who advanced social causes, Tommy Douglas, who was the father of Medicare in this country, that party no longer exists. And the NDP, as I said on the show, is nothing but cornucopia and petri dish of pink and purple-haired activists who care more about Hamas than they do about working Canadians. And this candidate, I watched the video, she posted, she railed against billionaires and corporate greed. Just behind her was a beautiful IMAQ made by Apple humbled in China. All right, I want to give the last 30 seconds to Andy.

You're up. Yeah, I'd echo everything that Regan said. And there is really no hope for them. And what are the pronouns that Don Davies used at the press gallery speech? Broke and irrelevant. That was a great speech. That was a great speech. But it's a great speech if that self-awareness can translate into a pivot for that party.

Hey guys, I know we had a little, a few technical issues. I thank you for sticking around and sticking with it. Really, all the, and just remember next week, it's all black all the time. Thanks so much and we'll talk to you next week. Who's ready to get smart? Time to put on our thinking caps and feel our brains get bigger because Craig Baird, the host of Canadian History X, is here to teach us stuff that we do not know. Craig, welcome to the show. Always happy to welcome you on BMS.

Oh, always happy to be here. Okay, let's, the first story we're going to tackle is, a personal story of yours. You did a cross-Canada trip this past summer. Talk to me about where you started from and what route you took to get to the other side. that day. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with acrobat. Find select varieties of dare cookies or crackers for just one ninety-eight each. Shop in store and online until January 21st. Food basics. Always more for less. Well, I did as much of the country as I possibly could. So I started just outside of Edmonton.

I went up to the BC border near where like Dawson Creek is. And then I went all the way down to the Glenborough, Manitoba and more or less the Manitoba, U.S. border. But in all, I covered about 6,000 kilometers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which really just shows how huge Canada is that you can cover that much distance and just be in three processes. And what was the point of the trip? Well, I just want to be able to see the country and I'm kind of working on a project where I'm kind of making videos of the places I visit, the history of those places, the attractions, as well as trying to put together some sort of book that kind of looks at Canada's past and present and kind of shows what Canada, where we came

from and where we are right now. Did, let's see, if I were to do a trip like that, the thing that would get me to the next stop would be knowing that I was going to go somewhere that had great food. Did you eat great food on this trip? I really did. I actually made an effort that I didn't go to any chain restaurants. I only went to small town diners. That's great.

And you can find some amazing food in these places, just like the best burgers you could ever have in some. in some hole-in-the-wall diner in the middle of nowhere. I love it. I love it. Talk to me about, was there anything crazy that happened on this trip? As somebody who knows so much about so much, was there anything about the trip that surprised you? Not really, actually. It was, you know, a very nice trip that I was able to see a lot of the places I had never seen before. Probably the one place that I enjoyed the most was the International Peace Garden, which sits right on the Canada-US border, where you can actually walk back and forth over the border within the garden.

I was the only person. Time out. Time out. Hold on. There is a place where you can walk across the border and this is fine with Donald Trump? It is. Yeah. You go to this park and you park on the Canadian side and you walk through the Canadian gates.

And then the entire length of this park, you can just go back and forth over the border. And it was on a Sunday morning. I was the only person there. And it's a huge park with wonderful flower gardens. And what's it called? A beautiful area. The International Peace Garden. So it's a couple hours south of Brandon.

International Peace Garden. I've never heard of that before. Yet again, here we are. You blowing my mind. Okay, let's move on. This is an exciting episode of Canadian History X. The Vikings in Newfoundland. Yeah, so the Vikings in Newfoundland,

I'm kind of doing a thing where I'm looking at certain aspects of Canadian history. And right now in January, it's Newfoundland's history. So obviously, the Vikings in Newfoundland, they arrived about a thousand, years ago coming from Greenland, charting a course to Baffin Island and then south the Labrador and then to the island, which they called Vineland, which either means land of vines or land of meadows. And they remained in Newfoundland for actually several decades. They would harvest resources such as timber and fish. And they also interacted with the indigenous there.

But these interactions weren't always great. There was some trading done, but the two groups often fought with both sides losing several people. And eventually keeping settlements in Newfoundland, just it wasn't worth the time or the effort for the Vikings. And they went back to Greenland. And they had no interest in putting down permanent roots in Newfoundland. No, it was more or less what we have with Lands of Meadows. It was more or less kind of a stopping point. It was where you'd repair ships.

You would get things. But it wasn't an effort to kind of create another part of the Norris Empire, so to speak. It was just a stopping point to get resources. Now, is it just coincidence that this week we're talking Greenland nonstop? And you are bringing us a story of people from Greenland? It is an amazing coincidence. I have very good timing because I wrote this in December and I recorded it weeks ago. That's crazy.

And it just kind of lined up perfectly. So, okay, so let's tell me about, we're talking about Greenland. Is there any part of this story about Greenland that about Greenland that the audience would find interesting? You know, we're all going back and forth telling the same stories to each other about Donald Trump and Greenland and this and that. And I think, I think my audience would sound so much smarter if they had a tidbit. of historical knowledge about Greenland that you could impart? Well, it was actually kind of from Greenland all the way to Newfoundland. It was just a matter of the Vikings were just trying to find new lands

because their system was that the firstborn would get the land and everybody else fended for themselves. So they just kept going farther and farther west. And their long ships were, you know, these amazing ships. They were incredibly good with navigation. They didn't have compasses. They navigated just by the stars. and eventually make their way all the way to Newfoundland

and then decide they don't want to be there anymore and turn around and go back to Greenland after a couple decades. But there are still, I mean, there's still proof of the existence of the Vikings in Newfoundland, correct? There absolutely is. So we know that they went to Newfoundland because of the North Saga, specifically the Greenlander Saga and the saga of Eric the Red, but we always thought it was kind of myth.

But Lands of Meadows, just on the northern tip of Newfoundland, is a verified Norse settlement. It's the only one in North America. They could have had more, but we know that one for sure. Well, let's listen to a clip of this week's episode of Canadian History X, the Vikings in Newfoundland. During trade negotiations, one of the indigenous men reached down to look at a Norse sword, and one of Thorfin's men immediately killed him. It proved to be a major and unfortunate overreaction.

The indigenous people fled and returned with a much larger group that attacked the Vikings. According to the saga of Eric the Red, the Norse fled. Freedes, Eric's Dordier, the daughter of Eric the Red and sister to Leif Erickson, ran, but fell because she was eight months pregnant. She yelled, quote, Why run away from such worthless creatures, stout men that he are, when it seems to me likely you might slaughter them like so many cattle, let me but have a weapon, I know I could fight better than any of you.

She then picked up a sword, tore off her shirt, and beat the weapon against her chest as she faced the attackers. According to the sagas, the display of courage and ferocity caused the indigenous people to retreat, which allowed the Vikings to remain in Vinland one more winter. They returned to Greenland the following spring. And while it could be said that this was the most successful expedition so far, it was still a disaster in many ways amid worsening relations with the indigenous people. Their desire for this land, and many resources are provided,

would be a reason enough, though, to return. I've got to ask a question. It's fascinating. But if we know, what little I know, or I clearly don't know enough about the First Nations in Newfoundland, but I was under the impression that most of their history was recorded orally and passed down orally through stories. And if there's not much record of the Vikings, where are you getting your historical data from? Well, a lot of this comes from the North Sagas. And to be fair, they were written a couple centuries after all of this. happened, so there's a lot of creative

license to it. But by using the North sagas and then combining that with the history and what we know about the Norse and with lands of meadows and things like that, we can piece together kind of what we think happened. But a lot of that stuff with Freitas, that comes from the sagas. And, you know, whether she actually said that or not is completely

up to interpretation. And do we know if the Vikings landed anywhere else in North America? There are rumors that they went as far south as Maine. They could have gone to Prince Edward Island. The chances are that they did explore a little bit, but it wasn't their main concern. Their main concern was, you know, commerce collecting supplies and taking it back to Greenland

and Iceland. But there are rumors. They went all the way to Minnesota, but this is all, you know, unverified. But it's very likely that they probably could have gone farther and settled in places like Cape Breton, for example. I don't understand. You're in a place called Greenland and Iceland, and you have land in sight that if you follow south will take you to the warm waters of Florida. Why not?

Well, I think the indigenous were a bigger reason why they were having trouble. But we didn't have gunpowder and things like that. So it was very much an even fight at that point. Wow. This is absolutely incredible. So I want to go back to the story that we had off the top where you were talking about, you know, traveling the entire country. Last summer you did three provinces. Is your intention to hit the rest of the country, pockets of the country at different times?

Yeah. So what I'm planning on doing is a coast to coast to coast tour. I want to go all the way to the Atlantic, the Pacific, and then I'm, up to the Arctic on the Dempster Highway. And I'm going to be taking my dog Burton that I adopted in August, and we're just going to explore and kind of do the same thing. Document Canada's history, show our history, and, you know, kind of create some kind of book out of it to look at Canada's past and present.

Craig Baird, always appreciate your time and your insight, man. Oh, well, thanks for having me. All right, you take care. Hey, when we come back, a banana's story from my good friend and a great new broadcaster here at this radio station, Brad Smith, has a story. of a real-life catfish story that involves him in a very unique way. You're not going to want to miss it.

This is the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back, everybody, and strap in because we've got a story for the ages here. It's one that you're going to listen to. You're not going to believe. And then you're going to repeat to your friends. There was a movie years ago called Catfish, which then got turned into an MTV show that was hosted by a guy,

actually, I became quite friendly with, Neve Shulman. And to be catfished is to, be fed a lie on who a person is that you have met online. And it can go in all sorts of different directions. It can be almost always embarrassing. And Brad Smith, who is very new to the 640 Toronto family, but not new to purveyors of pop culture, is found himself in real time during his show yesterday, I believe yesterday, learning about a woman. who had been under the impression that she had been dating him for three years, for three months.

And here to tell the story, in his own words, is our good friend Brad Smith. Brad, welcome to the show. Ben, how's it going, buddy? Well, this, I'm glad you're telling it to me because I've heard bits and pieces. I heard a bit of it on your show, I think two days ago, or maybe it was yesterday, and you weren't prepared to share it all. And then today on your show, you actually had the woman who had been catfished. Yeah, Ben, the long story short is Sunday.

I got an Instagram DM and I usually answer a lot of my DMs and it was just a woman reaching out. I had no clue who she was. And literally the preface was is that, you know, Brad, I've come to recently understand through, you know, the internet that this person that was reaching out to me was using your picture. And I've been talking to him for about three months. Initially, I just said, excuse me, can you send me any screenshots? And then what happened from that, Ben, was about four pages of screenshots of her texting this guy. and he was using not only pictures that were online, but private pictures as well,

and sending them to her pretending to be me. And not only that, but pretending this entire life existed down in Austin, Texas. Yeah, so, and that's the thing. You're well-known up here. People who, there's tons of people who've seen your face. They wouldn't necessarily live, but they're going to go,

oh, that's a guy from Canadian TV, right? They wouldn't necessarily know your name, but they're increasingly knowing your voice on radio. But this guy lived in the States, or claimed to live in the States, and he was catfishing a woman down there. So, of course, she wouldn't necessarily know. And this went on for three months.

And how real was the relationship for her? Well, that's the thing. So yesterday, in real time, it's 11 o'clock. We're doing our switchover from our broadcast into the break. And during the break, I just go on my Instagram. I get all these messages in real time. And I come back from break and I say, listen, I think I got to talk about this. So as I start talking about it, I'm reading the text,

message. And this relationship went on for three months. They were, they had never talked on the phone. Just like normal catfishing stories, the chances to meet this person in person or talk on the phone or even FaceTime just kept getting postponed and postponed and dramatic things kept happening. So they were actually talking for three months. It was pretty intense. The girl came on the show this morning. I reached out to her and she had said that it was a full on romantic and emotional relationship via text. Well, speaking of sort of the emotion and the high emotion of this entire thing, we've got some audio from that conversation.

So now we've gone from amazing connection, like all these things to my daughter died in a car accident and I'm devastated and now my baby girl just died. And I'm like, holy. Right. No. So I literally am in my apartment with my best friend and I just kind of look at her and she's like what? And I'm like, dude, this guy's telling me that his daughter died. And she's like, Jen. I'm like, no, like, who does this? Like, who does this? Right. Yeah. I mean,

who does this? So what, what did we learn about this guy? Ben, the setup to this is even crazier because just like normal catfishing, right? This person works as a mental health professional. Her name is Jennifer. I won't say anything else. She is from Austin. That's what we do know. But it's almost like this guy scouted out who she was because two weeks into this relationship, as they were really developing their text messages, they were supposed to finally meet. He was going to get a hotel room. He had booked it. He was going to take her out to all her favorite spots. He knew the names of all these spots. But then calls her up and says, listen, it's been raining outside. My daughter's just been in a car accident. Two hours later, didn't hear anything. She writes

them back and she says, do you need me? He writes back and the first text message back says, I don't know. My daughter's been in this car accident. Now the doctor's telling me she's not going to make it. Silence for about five, six hours. Then she gets another text and he texts her and says, my baby girl is gone. So automatically you have a young divorced, newly divorced mother of a young daughter now thinking, oh my God, this guy's lost his daughter, look at my daughter. Then this goes on and on. And now, because she's trauma bonded to this person and she's in the mental health atmosphere, she just can't understand what this person. and going through. So automatically she's not going to call him out. She's going to think that this is completely real. And this is what hooked her in. Because who would do that? You'd have to, who would? So here's the question. Who did? This is the thing is that now this goes on for about another month and a half. And she can't kind

of push herself in there to see, is this real or is this not? It comes to the point where she starts kind of dissociating from him over the holidays. Next thing you know on the holidays, they connect where they say, you know, happy holidays, hope it's going well for you. He's like, you know what, just back at work, I'm just feeling good about myself. Literally two days after this, she gets a text from someone from his phone. And it says, and I'm reading this for you. Hey, this is his daughter. I just want to tell you that the person's name was Stephen at the time.

Stephen has taken his own life. Stephen has taken his own life. And I'm so sorry to drop this on you. I've been calling all of his friends. I'm sorry I got around to you at the last minute. I just wanted you to know what happened. Boom. That's how the relationship ends.

So, Ben, I'll do this quickly. But she then calls her brother automatically and says, listen, this is what just happened. She's bawling. She's crying. And the brother goes, have you looked up his phone number? Have you Google searched his images? In that moment, she does that. And she finds out exactly who I am, exactly where the numbers from, which is not registered to him.

And then reaches out to me. It's unbelievable. And was she able to confirm that that was, in fact, the daughter and that this man had had indeed taken his life? Well, Ben, she did the smart thing that you do in catfitch situations. She just automatically blocked the phone number and cut off all ties. But you just feel bad. And this is the craziest part, Ben, is as I'm opening up my Zoom to look at her this morning,

I didn't have the wherewithal to understand that this person that was coming online was seeing me for the first time in real time after thinking that she had dated me for three months. And I was just shaking. I didn't even know what to do. Did, did, and I think, listen, you had nothing to do with this. I know, but you feel. So how did you feel? You feel accountable.

I mean, this is probably the fifth or sixth time that I've had this same story, never escalated to this part. But at the same time, you're just empathetic that this woman who just newly divorced, a two-year-old daughter at home, got put through the savagery by this absolute piece of garbage that would do this, going to the lowest form to attach to somebody. And the next thing you know, and good for her, she's taking it in stride. but the last three months, let's just say, I've not been pretty for her. Yeah, I see, yeah, something tells me.

But let's not, let's not, let's tell the funny part of the story, which is, yeah, go ahead. One of the photos that was sent to her was of a photo from 2013, the Canadian Screen Awards, and it was me and you. And this person, Stephen, had a backstory for how you and him were best friends, which was hilarious. It's like, how far did these people go? They pulled all of 640 talent roster into here.

Ben comes down to Austin all the time. Yeah, we hang out all the time. He knew everything about me. He knew everything about you. His story was so planned out, Ben. But did you ask, is this woman prepared to trust anybody ever again? Well, I think she's just newly hopeful because she caught it before there was a monetary action, or sorry, transaction. She caught it before she was in too deep.

And, you know, being a mental health professional, I think she has the rations. rationale right now to understand that this was just bad luck and her hope was was just kind of it was it was almost too optimistic and too hopeful because she was this was her first foray into the dating scene that's this was the first guy she was dating wait wait but where is it real quick and where did she where did they how where did they collide online bumble and so are are you which is the app sure where you actually the woman has to start the relationship and again we only have a couple of seconds left are you taking steps to make sure that nobody on bumble is using your pictures? Well, I will as soon as I get off the phone with you. I didn't think about that,

but that's why you're my older brother in the business. Hey, man, thank you so much. I'm sure that you treated her with the respect that she deserved. Of course. And it's a wild story. And thank you for coming on and sharing it with the audience at BMS. Of course, Ben, cautionary tale for those out there on dating apps. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, thanks, man. That was Brad Smith and a crazy tale of cat fish.