The Ben Mulroney Show - Pierre Poilievre says life sentences for Fentanyl Kingpins. Will that stop the Drug trade in Canada?

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Pierre Poilievre says life sentences for Fentanyl Kingpins. Will that stop the Drug trade in Canada? with Guest: Hank Idsinga, 640 Toronto’s Crime Specialist, former police inspector 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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Ben will be in the chair at 10 o'clock, don't you fear? And I think this is the very last morning. I'm trying to make sure things don't go too great so that people don't say, hey, four and a half hours of solo radio on four hours of sleep suits you. It's going well. Keep this up. Let's constrict Ben to two hours.

No, more Ben, less Brady. You don't have to touch the paychecks, but more Ben, less Brady is my policy around here. Let's see if that kicks into gear tomorrow, but Ben should be here 53 minutes from now. So you're almost there. I'm almost there. But what I saw yesterday, you know, we're going to get to these hot mic moments as well involving Doug Ford, the Premier and Bonnie Cromby, the Ontario Liberal leader, NDP leader, Mark Stiles, concoct your own hot mic situation.

Say something and go, oops. But I'm going to get to that in just a second. What I saw post-tariff eve is the best way I can put it. We all were worried. Threat of tariffs from President Donald Trump. We're in a bit of a chaotic situation here. We got a prime minister that's resigned. We don't have a government right now. We're getting a bit of a chaotic situation here. We got a prime minister that's resigned. We don't have a government right now.

We're getting a provincial election we don't want, and we don't get a federal election we do want. That seems to be the common consensus from Joe and Jen Average. But what I thought was great yesterday, and I'm no political advisor. What do I know anyway? But after the Monday afternoon reprieve yesterday, and I'm no political advisor, what do I know anyway?

But after the Monday afternoon reprieve from the 25% tariffs on all Canadian goods being exported to the United States, what I thought was super smart, and I don't know if people got together and utilized this policy on their own. If they did, brilliant strategy, because I would figure the day after, the Tuesday after you get your Monday reprieve, it's like getting another third, and getting more time, extension on an essay, or those TPS reports you're supposed to push into your boss. You got a bit of a reprieve, but now the work can start.

But you know what I want? Actual, tangible work. And I want less bloviating. I don't want people going on American television networks. And I think I'm so glad that every single politician decided that they would have a quiet day. We all need that. Here's a quiet day.

Unplug from the constant appearances on, oh that that didn't happen. What? Him? Again? Here's Doug Ford from American TV yesterday. With your support, with a strong, stable four-year mandate that outlives and outlasts the Trump administration, we will navigate this period of economic uncertainty. We will stare down the threat of Trump's tariffs and do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary to protect Ontario, our workers, businesses and communities. Because make no mistake, the threat of tariffs is still very real. Mark my words, President Trump is on a mission. He wants to take

Ontario's auto jobs and send them to Michigan and North Carolina. Those are his words. Oh my gosh. Now that got picked up. That wasn't an actual American News interview, but they ran the clips. We couldn't have one day, like just a quiet Tuesday. You know how people have dry January? Can we have quiet Tuesday? Can all you people who escalated this and dodged a bullet because Trump decided, nah, I got other things to do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna occupy Gaza because that's, that's a real winner as far as potential real estate opportunities go. We couldn't have 24 hours where you stay quiet and just let the

sleeping dog lie. He'll move on to something else he already has, but don't antagonize him. So at least, and thank goodness he was the only one. I didn't want to see any, oh God, here's Canadian Deputy Finance Minister, former Deputy prime minister, whatever, whatever, Krista Freeland on CNBC, MSNBC yesterday. You're business people, right? The customer is always right. And your customer is really angry at you. The whole country is behind the retaliation the prime minister has announced.

So now we are going to tax American exporters who are trying to sell us stuff. That means Americans are going to lose jobs. So this is really, it is self-mutilation. America is hurting itself. We think that it is utterly crazy. And we're also really, really angry at you. Oh my gosh. Who's in control of this person right now? What are we doing? And I get that it's not Justin Trudeau. They've kind of they've kind of separated and and and split split ways. She wants his job.

He wants Mark Carney to have his job. By the way, Justin Trudeau is going to get his way. He often does. He's Walter White on Breaking Bad. He always gets away with it, so it would seem. Freeland wasn't finished calling— By the way, Donald Trump gets—he gets rabbit ears. He hears everything.

He's got an antenna. His aides would be like, oh, boy, let's serve him up. Christa Freeland calling the policies insane. I know you think Christa Freeland stopped there. You know better than that. She didn't. These tariffs are being imposed truly for utterly no reason. The pretext offered is the flimsiest pretext possible. Less than 1%, in fact around

0.2% of the fentanyl that comes into the US comes through the Canadian border. If border security were the issue, this could be solved in five minutes. We want to secure border too. We would like to stop the illegal US guns that are smuggled into Canada and cause deaths on Canadian streets. And we are very happy to work together to not have asylum seekers cross in either direction.

Oh, the asylum seekers your government said nothing about for months and years. The illegal guns that you pretended weren't happening. The conservatives, even the NDP, were like illegal guns, illegal guns. And the federal liberals were like, what are you talking about? We're going to take guns away from registered gun owners. And listen, you have to have some restrictions. You have to have some regulations. Nobody thinks that you don't. But all of a sudden, issues that the liberals were completely in the dark on, the light bulbs get switched on,

and then you talk about it. Not even at parties and backyards, but on American television. I must be going crazy. It's almost like Christa Freeland is trying to wreck things for Justin Trudeau. I can't imagine why she would want to do that. All right.

There's a couple of hot mic issues in the provincial election. I'm going to save this for on the way back and give you a little chunk of this. But there was a liberal ad that I guess I would class the Ontario liberals are attacking Doug Ford for something with a hot microphone. I must be, it's possible that this is good political strategy. I wouldn't advise that the Ford government and the Ford government are already has a couple of minions out talking about Bonnie Cromby's hot mic moment. You tell me when we get back, I don't see anything in either particular hot mic issue.

I don't see anything in either particular Hot Mic issue. I don't think it's going to change one vote. And I'm shocked. And I don't want to play media on media crime. I got my own issues. You've listened to the first nine minutes. You're aware of this. I got my own issues, OK? But I don't see a story where they see a story.

And I'll give you some of that on the way back. You can text the show, 416-870-6400. We'll certainly let you hear these clips. Also another anthem boot in the City of Toronto and Canadian anthems being boot south of the border now. We're on our way. Fantastic happy days ahead. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. TD Direct Investing offers live support so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing.

Thanks for being with us on this Wednesday morning on 640 Toronto, 9 a CFPL in London, Ontario, two police associations, Toronto where I'm sitting right now and Durham where I'll be laying flat and prone about four hours from now when I'm napping. Don't get too excited. Both had a bit of a call out of the federal government and this is unique I think, but getting more commonplace, so less unique, for police union associations to do that. I promised you these sort of hot mic moments.

I don't think there's anything here. We're 22 days from an election. I don't think there's much to this stuff. But let's give you the first one. This is something we don't know how much the Ford government's going to jump on this. They have a little bit. Way back when Bonnie Cromby was the mayor of Mississauga, you'll hear some leaked audio, there's no video for it, having the current Ontario Liberal leader document,

someone asked her I think about going to Brampton for something and she said well, no I don't need to, I don't live there, I don't care. clip but two of things two of three things she says are simply facts and then you can debate whether the two and a half second throwaway line is somehow significant here's Bonnie Cromby no no that's here no no no no I don't go to anything in Brampton it's not my city I don't care okay you heard the I don't care I don't know what anything in Brampton. It's not my city. I don't care. Okay. You heard the I don't care. I don't know what the opportunity was. I would guess it was something political. So is the I don't care a bit of a throwaway at the end and with a laugh? Maybe so. Crombie's documenting, I don't go to Brampton as in I wouldn't be required as the mayor of Mississauga to be in Brampton for an event. So when she said,

that's not my city, that means that's not the city that she's the mayor of. I don't know that that's a story or a controversy. All you could debate is the, I don't care. Remember, there's also been notable tension during that proposed Peel Region amalgamation between Brampton mayor Patrick Brown then Mississauga mayor Bonnie Cromby. They don't like each other, not one bit. So is there something there? Don't know. Let's give you the Doug Ford explanation. You know that he had a hot mic moment Monday, notably while wearing a yellow t-shirt at a firefighter endorsement. He got a big endorsement from the Ontario Firefighters Association to vote for the Progressive Conservatives. First time ever that union has endorsed the PCs. That's good for Doug Ford. But as you know, there

was an eight second hot mic moment where Ford said, like I was a hundred percent happy Donald Trump won the election and then he knifed us in the back and he swore. He was asked about that.'re also going to hear a question sandwiched in the middle from City TV reporter Mark McAllister you decide as well as I will whether there's anything here or not. I always believe in working with anyone and yeah on the hot mic yeah he makes me swear once in a while I think he makes a lot of people swear in this country so I thought it'd be a little different, a little change. How many Ontario voters do you think supported the idea of Donald Trump getting elected?

I don't know. You know, I mean, I know there's support across the country, but we aren't talking about that. I'm talking about the most serious situation this country has ever seen. I think it's even more serious than the pandemic. Okay that needs some context maybe later on today but there's nothing here either with the hot mic moment about Donald Trump. The headline conservative premier, right-leaning premier, wanted right-leaning presidential candidate to become the

president as he was before. Full stop. And he's mad at him right now. Okay? Same way that you might be mad at him right now, whether you're a conservative or not. The same way you might have been stressed over the weekend, whether you're a conservative or not. We got columnists in the city writing, is Doug Ford's hot mic mistake the turning point in the Ontario election campaign? No. That's my column. No, it isn't. All right, let me get to these policing issues on a couple different fronts. Let's start here. One is really, really fascinating. There's two ex posts, one from the Toronto

Police Association documenting a 24 year old with 397 total charges, assault, assault with a weapon, dozens of break and enters and multiple failures to comply. The talk is about getting bail reform now. One where I live, Durham Region Police Association, who jumped on a tweet by Mark Gerritsen, a liberal MP, who wrote, 90% of gun crimes in Ontario are linked to weapons from the USA. Maybe Trump should appoint a guns czar. And the Durham Region Police Association had their basketball in their net ready and they dunked.

Extremely interesting. This has been pointed out to your government by police associations, chiefs and others numerous times over the past several years and has been largely ignored. So associations are ready to get their fingers dirty a little bit. Hank and Zing is our 640 Toronto crime specialist and a former police inspector and he joins us now on Toronto Today. It's great to have you on. All right, good morning, Greg. Great to be on on Wednesday morning.

Is this a, how would I put it, a new sensation to evoke in excess that we've got police associations quite ready to take on politicians with verbal jabs on social media. I should note we had the Toronto Police Association ask for Justin Trudeau's resignation about three weeks before we got it. This is new to some, isn't it? This is definitely a new wave of communication coming from the Association. So we saw this about 30-35 years ago back in the days of Susan Eng and Bill McCormick and a lot more spoken politics amongst the members and the associations.

And then it died down for years and now it seems to be coming back. And I think it just shows the level of frustration amongst not just the police associations, but also the police chiefs. The police chiefs group spoke out last week about, you know, drug charges being withdrawn in courts and never going to trial because of the lack of prosecutors and lack of courtrooms. So I think everybody on the law enforcement end is getting a little bit frustrated, probably long overdue with a lot of the inaction. Is some of this frustration and some of it may be an explanation to the public, you know, without being right out there and saying so, when people say,

come on, how are these guys still on the street over and over again? And they tell the cops, you know, do your job. And the cops are like, we are, but they get out over and over again. Yeah, the cops absolutely are doing their jobs with what they have and they're finding the uh the courts and the bail system very frustrating and I'm sure you know I've got some friends who are judges and justices of the peace and they find the legislation and uh and the case law very frustrating to deal with as well the uh if you walk into bail court in downtown Toronto you're going to see it's overloaded with the number of people that the police are arresting.

Uh, and these bail processes are very cumbersome. Uh, you know, so to get out on bail, uh, because of the lack of, uh, of, of jail space and the lack of, uh, facilities to actually process these cases, that's what makes the public a little bit frustrated, I think. Something Hank, I want to note, because we saw it very early this morning, and I get it too, it's easy to make an announcement when you're not in government.

It's harder when you're in government. But Pierre Pauliev has been very firm on these convictions. He announced as prime minister this morning, if he ascends to that post, he'll reverse Liberal Bill C C5, impose life sentences for fentanyl kingpins to shut down drug manufacturing and super labs saving lives. We talked about fentanyl before all over the place in several different segments. It is far more of an issue than the federal government has hinted at.

And even though I think the provincial government has hinted at, how would longer sentences for fentanyl kingpins help police and make streets safer? and even though I think the provincial government has hinted at, how would longer sentences for fentanyl kingpins help police and make streets safer? Well, even if it does come to pass, there's some sentencing guidelines that are already available that are fairly high to legislate it and say life imprisonment might not survive judicial review, but it's certainly if there's repercussions for these types of offenses, it's going to make some people very wary about what they're doing.

And that's going to help the police officers out there, you know, to see those repercussions and see those people going to prison for a long time for these offenses that they're committing. So like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. There's a lot you can dissect there with that announcement and exactly how that's going to happen and when that's going to happen. But it's certainly swinging that way is positive news.

And I wonder though, about judges, because many judges have been appointed by liberal governments and they may have a different philosophy than Mr. Poliev on this. Could there be a clashing with a federal government making a promise about the federal government been appointed by liberal governments and they may have a different philosophy than Mr. Poliev on this. Could there be a clashing with a federal government making a promise about changing legislation? Can't the judges do what they want anyway?

It's their courtroom. Well, absolutely. And that's where you have the two pillars in Canada, the legislative branch and the judicial branch. And back when we had mandatory minimums brought in for gun sentencing, you know, it lasted for one or two years until those cases made their way up to the superior courts, which are judges appointed by, uh, the federal government as opposed to the provincial government.

And eventually it gets shut down by the Supreme Supreme court of Canada. So you'll see judges, I think at the provincial level, abide by this as much as they can. I don't think you're going to see fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking cases be heard in a provincial courtroom. And like I said, we'll see if it withstands the scrutiny of the legal side of things. Yeah, it's a door opening at least that we haven't had before. Hank, I gotta leave it there. Thanks so much for your insight, man. Appreciate it. My pleasure, Greg. Take care. Hank and Zenga, 640 Toronto Crime Specialist, former police inspector.

Let's open it up to you on this front and just talk and just go through the lens. You want safer streets? I do too. Not just in big cities, but even in our suburbs. They're not what they used to be. There's not too many people that would push an argument back the other way. So do stiffer drug laws alone change that? 416-870-6400. You tell me what you're seeing and how you'd love it to be differently. 416-870-6400. Your calls are next.

Greg Brady, fill me in for Ben Mulroney, who will be with you top of the hour 10 to 12. We're talking about a new promise, but a lot of them, but there and there'll be pressure to keep these and there'll be a lot of people trying to prevent promises from being kept. That's what you do when you move to opposition. But Pierre Poliev, who's likely via the polls, the next Prime Minister of Canada after Mark Carney will reverse Liberal Bill C5 and impose life sentences for fentanyl kingpins to shut down drug manufacturing and super labs saving lives. I want to know your thoughts on that 4168706400. One of the most frustrating things of the last couple days is people getting caught up on language and I get it you know Trump's

a moving target. He's got the attention span of a parrot. And it does feel like there's more than enough things. He just moves from one thing to the other. You saw he wants to get US control of Gaza yesterday. Like it didn't have that on my bingo card at the start of the week. But people need to get over, and it's not just one party, one level of politician. Get over the idea of comparing us to Mexico.

Oh, the drug problem is way worse in Mexico. Great. Wonderful. Mexico didn't match tariffs or try and escalate things. They looked and said, okay, what do you want? Let's make, let's make you happy here. That's kind of what they need to do. Doug Ford said to compare us

to Mexico is the most insulting thing I've ever heard of from our friends and closest allies. Get over it. Do we have a fentanyl problem on our streets? Yes. You wanted to close safe injection sites in our major cities and you're right for wanting that. Pay attention to what's being asked here and the federal liberals have been no better at this process clearly. Canadian industry minister Francois-Philippe Champagne's quote, we shouldn't confuse the Mexican border with the Canadian border. Will you just do your job?

No one's asking you to fix the Mexican border. Focus on your tasks. And yes, got it. I know dealing with Trump is like dealing with a gorilla. As I said yesterday, give him a banana. Don't try and out muscle him. So I asked you about the promise from Poliev on this front for fentanyl kingpins. It won't be an easy one, A, to commit to and B, to follow through on given some of the issues in

our court system. Dean, thanks very much for the phone call. You go right ahead. Morning, Greg. Hi. Fast Canada keeps stats online that you can Google and check out on recidivism rates of crimes. Violent crimes, drug crimes, sex crimes, they're all broken down into various categories and they're all accessible. And the recidivism rate among a lot of those crimes, including drug dealers and manufacturers, is really high.

Reason being because there's not much of a consequence these days for most of those crimes. So I've always firmly believed that if a criminal is locked up for longer, they can't be on the streets causing problems. Yeah, yeah. There's not a lot. And thanks for the phone call. These aren't exactly rehabilitation issues.

They're meant to be punishment issues. And again, nobody wants addicts to go to jail. Nobody wants people struggling with usage, getting handcuffed, taken down, and sent off to sit in a cell. We want people who manufacture and sell. OK? Breaking Bad focused on the drug makers, not the users.

OK? That's why you watched. A, it was more fascinating, and B, they were at a higher level. Melissa Lansman was on my show, Toronto Today with Greg Brady, a bit earlier, talking about the problem with fentanyl. We have to have more politicians have honest conversations about this. She's the deputy leader of the conservatives. Here's what she said. We've got a plan. We're going to instill life sentences for anyone caught trafficking, again, producing, exporting over 40 milligrams of fentanyl. And just for some

context, it takes two milligrams of fentanyl to kill someone. So that means 40 milligrams of fentanyl is enough to kill like 20 people. Okay. So that's, that is a huge issue. Again, we're not punishing the users here. Everyone's like, Oh, you'll stigmatize people. I don't care about stigmatizing the kingpins. I don't care about stigmatizing the manufacturers. Ben, you're on the Ben Mulroney show.

Thanks for calling. You're on 640 Toronto. Go right ahead. Good morning. I'm elated by this. I am, it's like Pierre was reading my mind. I've spoken to my MPP about this. Who's that? Who's your MPP? Shout them out. Who is that?

I don't recall, but I know my MP federally is a sheer something or another. He's the crazy guy trying to push Bill C63, the offence law. Okay. Anyhow, anyone who understands fentanyl, this is no joke. If he didn't touch his weed or if it's in everything now, you don't know how to track it and some guy working out of his basement can kill someone. So to me, anyone trafficking it is literally able to be a mass murderer. So why wouldn't we put them away for life?

And even the lowly drug dealer on the street at this point, they're going to be contaminated. They know what they're carrying. They should also get a harsh, a sentence that there is a, um, another effect to this. If you have an overdose, people think, Oh, it's an overdose. And then they either die or they go home. No, they're going to be in ICU for six months taking up a team of 10 nurses and doctors every single day, taking up a room at a hospital, then rehab. They're taking up a lot of spaces and resources from the health system. We've got to get rid of this issue. Yeah. And again, nobody, everybody pushes feelings. Everybody says you're being insensitive, everybody says you're stigmatizing. The central argument about safe

consumption sites, to me, sends a message to drug users, we give up, we don't think you can stop, we want to keep you alive, we have no confidence that you can stop your usage. And again, families do that too. You're out of my house, I can't trust you, you're gonna steal money, you're gonna bring bad people home, you're gonna keep using drugs. So we're spending no money that we should be on abstinence-based treatments and we're spending money, government money and keeping people's careers alive, floating the concept that we give up on you but here, you know, keep using safe drugs. Cam, thanks very much for the phone call.

You're on the Ben Mulroney Show and you go ahead. Hi Cam, go right ahead. much for the phone call. You're on the Ben Mulroney show and you go ahead. Hi Cam, go right ahead. Yeah, infiltrate and destroy. Initiate, infiltrate and destroy. Get the troops involved in this. This is a federal problem plus a provincial problem. Are you talking to the border or law enforcement? I'm talking law enforcement and Canadian troops. If you know where the labs are, see if you can destroy. Simple. OK, Cam, I'm going to move right along here. I love the concept.

But practically speaking, and by the way, the RCMP are involved in a ton of collaborations with a lot of the local and the and the and the provincial police as well. One more quick one on this I think we can squeeze in Justin thanks very much for the phone call you're on 640 Toronto and you're on the Bell Ben Mulroney show. This isn't the Justin is it? Well you are because you're a person but go ahead. Mine's boat was an ace, so I get the pass. What do you want to say? How you doing Greg? Good man.

I wanted to say thank you for always keeping up with the good stuff, man, the good news and stuff. Yes, appreciate it. Thanks so much. No problem. I vote last summer. I had some family battles going on and I was actually out front of courthouse and there was a gentleman laid on his back

on the ground and the security guard looked over at me and said, you know what the worst part about that is bud? And I'm like, what he says he'll be back here the next day. And you know, it's revolving issue. I feel like, uh, and like you guys you guys you just said it someone just said it doesn't take a lot point two milligrams Man, just to drop someone you can get contact by it too, right? Oh, it's I think for sure there's a Lot more than meets the eye here. Yeah, it's so big man. Like it's like where do we start and I Know that Canadians all of us are

agreeing on the same problem like it is here we don't know how much of it is here and but whatever the amount is it's more than we think and it's more than most government officials are telling us because Justin thanks for the phone call by the way they're not willing to tell on themselves like anything else go up make an announcement say we've got a major fentanyl problem. The first question a proper reporter should ask, not carrying their water, I don't care, liberal, conservative, whatever. The first question somebody would ask is, when did you figure this out? When it was suggested there was a major problem, you

said there wasn't on this date, that date, and that date. So they just never mentioned it at all. It's no good. Linda, I want to give you the last word on it on this segment. Thanks for the phone call. You're on the Ben Mulroney show. Go ahead. Hey Linda. Yeah. Oh hi there. Nobody's mentioned anything about the healthcare system and if you go into any emergency room on the weekend that's what you find is tons and tons of people that have overdosed. In addition to that, I'm a retired correctional officer. This problem started to be in the jails about 10 years ago and they stopped bringing in

the drug dogs because they didn't want the drug dogs sniffing that stuff. Really? So it's a huge issue. A huge issue for health care, a huge issue for corrections that somebody needs to fix it. Yeah, and I'd like more health care professionals, and I'd like more doctors, and I'd like more executives in hospitals.

By the way, again, all this is a little bit, how would I put it, skeezy because where do those people get their funding from? Governments. Is a hospital CEO going to call out the premier when the premier provides the funding for that hospital and praise, I want to give a big shout out to the president of SickKids or the president of Chio in Ottawa. They don't because their asses are on the line. So you're right. And it hits the rank and file. And it takes people like me again, who have no ties, I owe nobody any favors. And it's fun being able to call out whoever I want whenever I want and have it be data

driven and resource based. But the real people that should be doing it are the people that should care a little more about our society than whether they're going gonna get an angry phone call from a government official or a politician That's what i'd say about that. Uh, great calls on that front and some great texts I'll probably wrap up on the other side coming up next. This is a much bigger problem Clearly from this poll than anyone is talking about but it's got to do with the super bowl on sunday What could it be? Take a guess next on the Ben Mulroney Show.

OK, OK, Ben in the chair just after 10 o'clock. It's Greg Brady. You can follow me on X, by the way. Some of you just are not early birds. And you're like, who are you? Where's my Benny? So Ben will be in. I didn't call.

No, you did. Ben will be in the chair between 10 and noon today and likely back tomorrow between 9 and noon. So I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday. We said two things. One, and I think our producer George mentioned this as well, there's not been a lot of hype for the Super Bowl. We got a matchup we didn't necessarily want. We're kind of bored with the Kansas City Chiefs and the whole Travis, Kelsey, Taylor, Swift, Patrick Mahomes business. We're bored of it. And and the Eagles and Chiefs are a rematch from two years ago, which was a great game. The last two Chiefs games have been great games, winning last year obviously against the 49ers in overtime and beating the Eagles the year before. But there hasn't been a lot of hype behind it.

And I was, I don't know whether I'm encouraged by this or not. There clearly is interest in the game based on some of what this survey is in Ontario about wagering. Now, if there's one sporting event you wager on a year, it's probably the Super Bowl. What else would it be? It's probably maybe in this country if the Leafs ever made the Stanley Cup final, there'd be a record number of bets placed on their games if they advanced over and over and over again. But in this case, it's almost always the Super Bowl. So the Responsible Gambling Council took a survey.

We didn't get one from the Irresponsible Gambling Council, but I'm about to make my point here. This survey showed 63% of Ontarians plan to watch the game. 48% of respondents said they'd place a wager on the contest. Now, does that seem high? It does to me. Half the people you found said they'd place a bet.

I'd love to know how that question was phrased. They asked about 1,200 Ontario adults in the last couple of weeks, 35% have placed a bet after seeing a gambling ad online or on television. Well, most of those ads are terrible. So, wow, think what it would be if they were good. And that's something I wonder about.

And I'd love to get a call or two, or you tell me. I think they're very, are they alarming numbers? Maybe you don't think so. Maybe this is nothing, but we already know that the preponderance of betting sites, the preponderance of wagering has gone up. There's just no doubt about it. Why we have access. Two things my dad's always told me, you would never have made it even to university had they been around at the time. Sports, gambling, and a satellite dish. My parents got a US satellite dish about a year and a half after I left to go to university.

I'd have been watching games all night. Not the other stuff. Don't get, keep your dirty minds to yourself. I would have been watching games all night. Not the other stuff. Keep your dirty minds to yourself. I would have been watching sports nonstop, and maybe the odd movie and a new wave band concert. What? That Duran Duran show's on again? Sure, I'll watch it. But I would have been watching sports nonstop.

But the gambling is very accessible. And had it been on my phone, in my bedroom, or on my computer, and again, Newsflash didn't grow up with a cell phone, didn't grow up with a computer in the room. And the Commodore 64 didn't even allow you a lot of access to online gambling sites that didn't exist. Is this a really disturbing number? You tell me because there's a bit of a chain of sequence

here. If you know somebody who has a gambling problem, you're like, the ads drive me crazy. Now, by the way, I have placed wagers before, but I don't wager on anything anymore. Maybe I will when I'm retired, but I found, and I certainly found this going into casinos, I found I couldn't control myself and I have great self-control. I can stop having the amount of drinks I need to have.

I don't use drugs. I don't smoke cigarettes. There's nothing I get into and I'm like, well, I can't stop doing this. Or if I have one of something, I'll do it more and more and more. But walk into a casino with a hundred bucks, lose it on the blackjack table in seven minutes,

I'm right back to the ATM. So you all know somebody that, but I'm smart enough to know, I, I shouldn't do certain things and probably you are too, but we all know somebody that is not. Let me give you that number again. 63% of Ontarians plan to watch that game. 35% plan to vote. 36% say they bet more they can afford to lose in the last 12 months. There've been one moment where they've done that.

That feels very, very high to me at the end of the day. A couple texts on this front I might be able to get to before the end of the show at 416-870-6400. Now, Donald Trump had a news conference yesterday where he talked about Gaza. He's there with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the thing that nobody expected to happen happened. Trump declared the US would take over Gaza and the Gaza Strip. That's getting globally condemned for this. Not many people think it will happen. Sounds like a bad idea on paper but the viral moment of the news or yesterday was Trump taking a question from an

Afghani reporter. Here's how that went. I'm an Afghan journalist, Afghan support woman. Any comment about Afghanistan? What's your future plan for Afghan people? I have a little hard time understanding you. Where are you from? Afghanistan. Actually, it's a beautiful voice and a beautiful accent. The only problem is I can't understand a word you're saying.

But I just say this, good luck, live in peace. Go ahead, please." And then he just went on to somebody else, like, what? And that's okay. It reminded me a little bit of Saturday Night Live and Phil Hartman as Frank Sinatra hosting the Sinatra Group several decades ago. You're wrong, schoolboy. You don't need to work blue. You'll never play to big rooms with that crap. Ask Red Fox. I mean, it's Luther Campbell from 2Live Crew. He can't understand what he's saying? Think of the implications. Anyway. We're in Jerusalem, we just heard the siren. For many people, the worst days of this disaster are still to come. Told by the best journalists in the country. I'm Donna Friesen in Berlin.

Just keep your head down. He's away, he's away, go, go, go. Watch Canada's number one national newscast. A rail strike could cost this one southern Alberta farm as much as a million dollars. The award-winning Global National with Donna Friesen.