The Ben Mulroney Show - Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump are aligned on one key issue. The vulnerability of our Arctic region

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Guests and Topics: Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump are aligned on one key issue. The vulnerability of our Arctic region 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. Thank you so much for listening to us on the Chorus Radio Network from coast to coast to coast. One of those coasts is obviously in Canada's North and that is where conservative leader Pierre Pauly have found himself the other day for a big announcement on Arctic sovereignty and Arctic defense. It was a heck of a visual, that's for sure, to see the leader up with the vastness of Canada's Arctic behind him, making a massive announcement that a conservative government would build a permanent military base in Nunavut and pay for it by, as he said, dramatically cutting Canada's foreign aid budget.

So he spoke at a press conference at CFB Iqaluit, and it would serve as a base for the Royal Canadian Air Force operations defending Canada's Arctic and for search and rescue missions. He also said that the base would be operational within two years of him becoming prime minister. He said 100% of the cost of the base will come from the foreign aid budget. In fact, as he said, today's announcement will actually reduce the deficit because I plan to cut foreign aid more than the full cost of the announcement that I've made today. And then he went into the foreign aid budget. According to the parliamentary report that was tabled last year, Canada spent $15.5 billion on foreign aid in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. And depending on who you talk to, that this cut is

either heartless and cold-blooded, or it is rational and pragmatic because we have been addicted to giving money to places and for reasons that are just absolutely insane. And look, the proof will come out when if the conservatives form government, they will expose either the waste and the grift, or they will expose themselves as prioritizing or deprioritizing helping those who need it most. I suspect that the vast majority of the foreign aid that's been going out the

door over the past nine years would not pass the smell test, but that's just a feeling I have. I have not seen the books, but it's a feeling I have. I've seen a little bit of it. I've seen indications that we have a government willing to just show off Canada's magnanimous benevolent benevolence at the expense of values and priorities here at home. So as he said, he criticized foreign aid spending saying too much of it goes to dictators, terrorists and global

bureaucracies. And I think look, so long as we are in the fiscal hole we're in, we need to tighten our belt. And the first place we should tighten our belt is money that goes out the door that does not directly help Canadians. That doesn't make me heartless. That is a priority that I have chosen. And, and you can say you prefer spending what little money we have outside of the country. That is your right. I believe that what little we have should be spent here at home.

Let's actually listen in his own words. All of these improvements will be funded by dramatically cutting foreign aid. Most of which are a lot of which goes to dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracies. We've got enough problems at home. We've got our own backyard to protect. We can't be sending billions of dollars to other places. Often, if much of it is wasted and stolen and swallowed up by bureaucracies that act against our interest, I will be bringing our money home with massive

cuts to these wasteful and corrupt foreign aid grants. Yeah, okay. So he said it better than I did. That's for sure. But so this has been one of the chief complaints of Donald Trump. And he's been levying these threats of tariffs in the hopes of getting a country like Canada in line with his priorities. Let's listen to how he views the issues of the Arctic problem. Let's call it. You know, you have Russian ships all over the place. You have Chinese ships all over the place. They're sailing all over Canada. They're sailing right next to Greenland. We're not going to let that happen to Greenland. They're sailing all over and we're going to stop that. But if you're a Canadian and you pay much lower taxes, you have much better military protection. You know, Canada is in default. With everything with Donald Trump, there always seems to be a nugget of truth and he and he and he and he coats it with a bunch of BS

and a bunch of feelings that he has and a bunch of bluster. But yes, for years we have we've known that Russia and China have been exceptionally aggressive in, in, in the North. They're going to the, they're taking their submarines to the ocean floor in the hopes of staking their claim, pushing inward into Canadian sovereign waters. We know that they've been doing that and we have done nothing to push back to buttress against that aggression. And now we have one leader who is making very concrete promises about what he is going to do. There are apparently two new icebreakers that are being built for the Canadian Coast Guard.

He's going to add to that two new icebreakers for the Canadian Navy. So doubling our presence in that area, breaking through the ice, essentially demonstrating where Canadian land begins and where the water begins. So to me, this is a net positive. And Donald Trump should be pleased to be hearing that from somebody who could be presented as his Canadian counterpoint in the future. Now on Fox News, the other day, a guest by the name of Guy Benson,

he was musing about what's being called Justin Trudeau's hot mic incident, where he essentially asked the press to leave the room, and then he was quote unquote caught on a hot mic talking about the threat of Donald Trump. where he essentially asked the press to leave the room and then he was quote unquote caught on a hot mic talking about the threat of Donald Trump annexing Canada. Here's what he had to say. I have another theory here, by the way.

I'm not sure that was an accidental hot mic moment from Justin Trudeau. I think Trudeau knows exactly what's happening and he wants to pump the threat of an annexation of Canada because he believes that can help his party. They have been floundering in the polls. They've been down for a year and a half to the Conservatives by 20 points. But the idea that maybe scary Trump from the U.S. would try to overthrow Canadian sovereignty

could be this political lifeline to the political left in Canada. And I think that's why he's gonna hype this. There's a political advantage potentially there for the liberals up in Canada to use that threat in the elections upcoming. Well, he's absolutely right. He's 100% right. And let's not forget, as I said yesterday,

when this quote unquote joke of Donald Trump annexing Canada first came up after the trip to Mar-a-Lago, it was dismissed by Justin Trudeau and his team as a joke. And now he's saying that it's real. Now he's saying it's a real threat. So were you lying then or are you lying now? Because that's the question I have. But he's right, this is absolutely not a hot mic moment. This is our Prime Minister doing what he has

done since Donald Trump got elected, playing politics with our economy, with our sovereignty, with every aspect of this country that matters. He is playing politics to better position his successor in the next election. It's as clear as the nose on his face, and a lot of people are falling for it. When we see in a poll, 40% of Canadians think Mark Carney would be best positioned to negotiate against Donald Trump,

and only 28% believe Pierre Poliev. That's Justin Trudeau playing politics with an issue that should be above politics. But he's been choosing party over country since the beginning of this crisis. And this is simply an extension of those machinations. At some point, we're gonna get a debate in this ridiculous liberal leadership race that nobody in this country wanted before getting into an election, but we were forced

to indulge the party. And one of the hopefuls, Ruby Dalla, says she wants a translator for the French debate. So she says her French is okay, but, and she appreciates the need to get better in French, but she says it's not good enough and she's gonna want a translator for this debate. That's a bad move for Ruby, Already that Aria Chandra was disqualified, and one of the first things he said was, I don't need to know French. At least she says she needs to know French, but she doesn't know it well enough.

That is not going to serve her well in that debate, but I do wish her luck. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for spending a bit of your Tuesday with us. A reminder, I'm going to be off tomorrow and the next day. Ben O'Hara-Byrne is going to be in the chair taking over for me on the Ben Mulroney Show, but I'll be back on Friday. Somebody, two people who will not be back in the next election are Justice Minister

Arif Varani and International Trade Minister Mary Ing. They have decided that they will not be seeking reelection. Minister Verrani has a very long statement and Mary Ing has an equally long statement, but both of them say that they've enjoyed their time in office, but that time has now passed. Mary Ing obviously has been making news recently, saying that in the next 30 days, all international trade, inter-provincial trade barriers will be taken down.

But when asked if that will include supply management of the dairy sector, she said, that is off the table, even though that represents one of the biggest sticking points in internal trade barriers. So take that for what it is. Donald Trump has, believes that, you know, he's very, he's partly responsible, if not majorly responsible for scaring the bejesus

out of Hamas with the threat that if he were to come into office and the, all the hostages were not returned home, there would be hell to pay. Well, the hostages were not returned home, there would be hell to pay. Well, the hostages are not all home yet. Now he's saying that he's prepared to let all hell break loose if Hamas doesn't free the hostages by Saturday afternoon. They've slowed down the debit of releasing. Here, let's listen to Donald Trump in his own words.

As far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o'clock on Saturday. And if they're not returned, all of them not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. President Trump, what do you mean by all hell will break loose? You know, who knows?

Are they alive? Are they not alive? But I saw the condition when I saw the condition of the last ones that came out and the women too, everybody. The one woman had her hand blown off because she was trying to stop a bullet being fired at her, okay? Kind of a situation is that you saw her. I just think it's time to either you release everybody.

They're not gonna be alive right now based on what I saw over the last two days. They're not gonna be alive for long. Saturday at 12 o'clock, and after that, it's gonna be a different ballgame. Mr. President, when you say all hell is going to break loose, are you speaking about retaliation from- You'll find out, and they'll find out too.

Hamas will find out what I mean. You know, it's big talk, but if there's one thing we've learned over the past year and a year and a half, it's that this is one of the most difficult terrains in which to prosecute a war without killing civilians. I mean, it's deliberately built to ensure

the highest casualty rate for civilians. That's what Hamas wants. That's what they're banking on. And so for Donald Trump to make that suggestion that he's gonna come in and in short order take care of something that the IDF has been unable to do in a way that would make their critics happy, I should say, because I'm perfectly fine

with how they're prosecuting this war. I don't know that his depth of knowledge of what's actually on the ground in Gaza should allow him to say something like that. But Donald Trump believes that when he speaks, he can move mountains. So hopefully he can move hostages. We'll have to see.

Saturday at noon, the clock is ticking, Hamas. Jagmeet Singh made his way onto CNN. And he, the NDP leader has put Donald Trump on notice. Yeah, the first step is gonna be dollar for dollar, retaliatory tariffs. Imposed a tariff on us, we will impose a tariff back on you. Again, no one wins in these trade wars. But this is not a fight that we wanted to pick.

We were happy to continue to have a strong relationship. Donald Trump has picked this fight, so we're going to fight back. We just announced today what I would do is put in place a 100% tariff on Tesla directly targeting Elon Musk. Because Elon Musk is proudly touting this idea of the 51st state, so let's hit back at Elon Musk. I've also said we should shut down the supply of critical minerals. Another move that directly targets Elon Musk and his Tesla company, the batteries that

he needs require these critical minerals. We've got tools and we should be ready to use them. It's not something that we wanted to do, but if Donald Trump wants to bring this fight, know that we are ready. I'm putting Donald Trump on notice. Come on Mr. Singh. Come on, you can't even put the liberals on notice. You tore up your agreement with them and then you sided with them eight, nine, ten times. Come on. It's easy to talk tough. I mean, I can talk tough. I can talk tough from the from the from the cheap seats. But come on, Mr. Singh. And look, I mean, Elon Musk has built the most successful EV company on the planet.

Yeah, wouldn't help his bottom line if all of a sudden Canada was tariffing his cars at 100%. Is it really going to make that big of a dent? So it's great to talk tough. And it's about to come. Yeah, come on. Nice to hear. But speaking of Elon Musk, Mark Andreessen was on CNN and he was speaking of Elon Musk's brilliance. And I think it's really important to hear, Elon Musk, whether you like him or you don't, is gonna be around forever

and his presence is gonna be felt in our lives in so many different ways. And so to understand him better is I think incumbent upon all of us. So here's how Elon Musk solves problems. He has an operating method that he's developed that I would say is very unusual by modern standards. The top top line thing is just this incredible devotion from the leader of the company to

fully, deeply understand what the company does and to be completely knowledgeable about every aspect of it and to be in the trenches and talking directly to the people who do the work, deeply understanding the issues and being the lead problem solver in the organization. Basically what Elon does is he shows up every week at each of his companies, he identifies the biggest problem that the company is having that week and he fixes it. Right. And then he does that every week for 52 weeks in a row. And then each of his companies has solved the 52 biggest problems that year, like in that year.

Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty interesting. First of all, Mark Andreessen is a software engineer in business. He's an entrepreneur. And, and so for him to suggest that, not suggest, to say that Elon Musk spends time at each one of his companies, and every time he goes there once a week, he solves their biggest problem. What is your biggest problem? And let's solve it.

And then he moves on to the next company, the next company, the next company. First of all, that answers a big question I had, which was who's watching these companies while he he's running the department of government efficiency. I see him spending a lot of time in Washington at Mar-a-Lago and wherever Donald Trump is as part of his obligations to running this, this department. So to hear that he's actually, he actually finds time to go to every one of his companies from SpaceX to X to Tesla

to the Boring Company and God knows how many other companies he's got. Starlink to me this speaks to the bandwidth that he has, but ask yourself how many times at your company has your boss shown up and asked you what's your biggest problem and how can we solve it? Doesn't happen everywhere. It doesn't happen. And if that's the knock-on effect of working for Elon Musk,

I mean, I would love to hear from other members of, from people at those companies to verify this claim, because if it's true, it's remarkable, absolutely remarkable. And I still can't believe that he's got all this time and all this bandwidth to A, work on something as big as the Department of Government Efficiency and do all of these other things.

But yes, I would love to hear from people who work at X and Tesla and SpaceX and so on to hear if in fact, this is what he does because if he does, does a lot more with his 24 hours than I do. This is Carrie the fire. I'm your host Lisa Laflamme. Carrie the fire a podcast by the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation featuring inspiring personal stories about what happens when world-leading doctors, nurses, researchers, and their patients come together to ignite breakthroughs.

Carry the Fire launches Monday, January 27th, wherever you get your podcasts.