The Ben Mulroney Show - PM Mark Carney on Nato spending. Also, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Guests and Topics: - Dr. Charles Asher Small 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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on Wednesday, June 25th. Thank you so much for spending some time with us and thank you for finding us wherever you are. You may be listening as a podcast or as a part of a streaming app or on the radio, or you may find us on YouTube. In all cases, we say thank you and welcome and let's build the Ben Mulroney show together. Canada's commitment to NATO on paper has been unfailing. We have been, we were founding signatories back in, I believe, 1949. However, in practice, we have been derelict in our duty by not adhering to one of the core tenets of that organization,

which is that every member nation needs to spend a minimum of 2% of their GDP on military spending and upkeep so that we can be prepared to defend ourselves and each other. Because fundamental to NATO is an attack on one member is an attack on all. You attack one member, everybody else joins in the fight. That's why we were founded. That is their safety in numbers. And it has been essential to keeping the post-World War II peace. And so our prime minister, following what many believe and I believe was a successful

um, hosting of the G7 summit in Candanaskis, Alberta, went to Brussels for the Canada EU summit. And after that ended up at the NATO summit. And here is the NATO secretary general talking about sort of a re-evaluation, a re-envisioning of the importance of NATO thanks to one person in particular. It will also be a massive achievement in making NATO fairer. For decades the United States sought to get Europe to truly step up. Now, European allies and Canada will equalize their defense spending with the United States.

So let me salute President Trump's long-standing leadership in calling for NATO to increase defense spending. Today, I am pleased to announce that NATO has already added an additional $1 trillion in defence spending over the past decade. Mr President, dear Donald, that is thanks to you pushing us. And tomorrow we will build on that foundation and add trillions more in defence spending, because we need to do this. Listen, if you are like me and you believe that Canada has been derelict in its duty as it relates to our commitment to our brave men and women in uniform for decades, then you have to give credit to Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, whether you respect him

or not, whether you respect him or not, whether you think he's a felon and shouldn't be allowed to travel internationally or not. He has been like a dog with a bone, sometimes negotiating, sometimes speaking behind closed doors, oftentimes deriding, chiding, and insulting his NATO partners in public in an effort to get them to do what

they have signed on to do. And we had a prime minister for 10 years who refused to acknowledge the importance of our military and treated it in that way. He was consistent, but he did so. And now we have a Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who seems to want to reassert Canada's relevance on the world stage and restore Canada's military to a place where it can be revered, respected,

and in certain circumstances, feared. It has to, you gotta take one with the other. And so credit must be given to Donald Trump on this particular file. That being said, so we're going to get back to what Mark Carney is doing on that file in a moment. I scratch my head. Let's listen to an interaction that our prime minister had after the EU Canada summit and in anticipation of this very important NATO summit. Here's what he said to CNN's Christiane Amanpour

about Canada and the United States and where we find ourselves today. I'm coming here in the last 12 hours ago, I was in Brussels agreeing at the Canada-EU Summit, agreeing a very comprehensive partnership and a process to have an ever closer economic defense and security partnership between Canada and the EU. That is an example of two jurisdictions,

in the case of the EU that believe in multilateralism, believe in the rule of law, believe in fair and open trade, believe in defense cooperation. So that's an example of leadership, if you will, that's positive. It's not a re- it's a reaction, if you will, to what's happening in the United States, but it to what's happening in the United States. But it's not a reaction against the United States. It's for something, not against. And by the way, I really appreciate the nuance that he brought to that near the end, that

our reactions to a wildly different worldview that Donald Trump has from previous administrations is a move in Canada towards something, not against something. And I appreciate that. And I thank him for verbalizing something that others may not be able to do. However, what is NATO, if not a commitment to multilateralism? What is NATO, if not a commitment to work together on the military front? That is what they are and what it has been since 1949. And Donald Trump, yes, he has mused in the past about abandoning NATO, but I believe it was all in service of getting to this moment.

And yes, he is not a dyed-in-the-wool multilateralist. He believes in one-on-one negotiation. He believes in bilateral communication. He's not a big fan of organizations like the UN and its tentacles that have spread far and wide. I get that, but NATO is central to security in the Western Hemisphere. And it is nothing if not a multilateral security arrangement.

And he is responsible for getting, for strengthening it, for beefing it up, and for ensuring its viability and essential nature for generations to come. So I'm having a difficult time understanding the thrust of that comment by our prime minister. Listen, it's not multilateralism in every occasion for Donald Trump. It just isn't, but it is in this case and it is further reinforced by Canada's additional commitment. I mean, it's ambitious. We, Justin Trudeau said we couldn't hit a 2% or 2% GDP commitment in military spending until like 2035. Mark Carney on the campaign trail said 2030.

And then a few weeks ago said we were gonna do it this year. That's ambitious on its own. Now he says that we are going to hit 5%, not two, not two and a half, not three, 5% annually over the course of the next few years. And that will total $150 billion a year in military spending. How we get there, I have no idea. Am I happy that this is a goal?

I'm sure it's a stretch goal. Am I happy that this is a goal of our government? Yeah, goddamn right I am. This country has a history stained in blood. We have died on the beaches of Europe for democracy in World War I, in World War II. And there are forces in this country that want to start our military history with the creation

of the blue helmets of the UN. That is a lie. It is a fiction. And it is a disservice and a dishonor to those men and women who died for this country. After the Second World War, Canada had the second largest or third largest Navy in the world. That's how significant our contribution was

to world security. And to have an ambition, not to bring it back to that, but to understand that the world is complex and it needs honest brokers and good strong actors like Canada to be able to step up, not just with rhetoric, but with military might when needed. I'm very happy that this government is doing that. However, where are we gonna get the $150 billion from?

$150 billion. That's not change that you find in a sofa. $150, and I don't like these comparisons when others make them, so I'm only going to make them quickly. I mean, $150 billion, you can give $3,800 as a one-time gift to every single Canadian walking around today. So if we're going to find that, I think we're finding it in the ground underneath the feet of Albertans.

That's what I think. And we will discuss that, obviously, as this government becomes it in the ground underneath the feet of Albertans. That's what I think. And we will discuss that obviously as this government becomes longer in the tooth. All right, don't go anywhere. Much more to come on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and with this new front in the Middle East, the war in the Middle East with Israel slash the US

and Iran that presents opportunity for the possibility of regime change in that terrible in that great nation with a terrible regime. But it also presents risks both for the region and abroad. And Foreign Minister Anita Anand recently said that she's deeply concerned about foreign interference by Iran's regime and the possibility that Tehran could be activating terrorist sleeper cells on Canadian soil following the US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. That should be terrifying for every Canadian.

Accessory to that, the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy has put forth a study with some key findings in it most notably that the there have been failures by Canadian governments and Canadian authorities to address radical Islam as a threat and it's become a national security issue and they urge the full a full government investigation tighter regulation on federal donations and increased scrutiny on nonprofit and academic institutions linked to extremist ideology.

To break down the salient points in this study, we're joined by Dr. Charles Asher Small. Doctor, welcome to the show, thank you for joining us. Thanks, it's a great honor to be with you. Thanks for having me. So, Doctor, it's been, you know, people like myself who've been watching the federal government's actions on files like this over, you know,

certainly under the Trudeau government, thought that this was a serious issue that we did not take seriously. No, I agree. I grew up in Montreal and I was recently there for the Passover holidays and listening to the conversation around the table with four generations of Canadian Jewish people all born in Montreal. And I have to say, I do not recognize the city. I do not recognize

the country that I grew up in. The Jewish community is living in fear in Canada, which was a great democracy, a great multicultural democracy that we all helped to build, and it's changing rapidly. And as Professor Elie Wiesel taught us, the Nobel Prize winner, anti-Semitism is not a parochial problem for the Jewish community. We know from history that anti-Semitism may begin with the Jewish people, but it never ends with the Jewish community. We know from history that antisemitism may begin with the Jewish people, but it never ends with the Jewish people. And this is a direct assault on Canadian democratic multicultural principles that I urge all Canadians to take very seriously. And let's be clear off the top. I mean for

decades Canada invited to our shores scores of hardworking, good faith, Muslim immigrants who helped build this country into what it became. What we're talking about today is not that. We are talking about, I mean, there's something, listen, I was banging my head against the wall for years as the Canadian government refused to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. It was only under pressure by the conservatives in opposition that Trudeau's government

actually did what they were supposed to do. And so that to me is sort of like the canary in the coal mine. Like look at that, that's the example from which everything else makes sense. Now, this study says, and I'm going to talk about a couple of bullet points and then maybe you can add the context. There's the claim that Canadian taxpayer dollars are funding extremism. What do you mean?

So what we mean is that the Muslim Brotherhood, and for your listeners to know, and I think you make a very important point, Canadian Muslims have contributed to Canada, to Canadian society in a very profound way, and I think we need to respect and understand that. What's happening is that the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood is a reactionary social movement. It's a movement that takes European genocidal antisemitism combined with Nazism with a perversion of Islam. It's a very narrow, hate-filled social movement. And sadly, it's increasingly in Canada and in other Western democracies, it's presenting itself as the

authentic voice of the Muslim community. And nothing could be further from the truth. The greatest victims of radical Islam are Muslims. And it's a tragedy that these reactionary groups are speaking for, increasingly speaking for the Muslim Canadians across the country, because as you say, the liberal government is turning to these extreme groups and working with them. So what's happening is that the Muslim Brotherhood, through the government of Qatar, is pumping billions of dollars into Canada.

We estimate that the Qataris are using up to a trillion dollars in soft power and investing it into Western cultural institutions and laundering money. And Canada is becoming an important hub in this international network of money laundering. And the Muslim Brotherhood through Qatar is investing in community organizations, into mosques and into universities, and it's changing the nature of Canadian political culture. Well, that's what I was gonna ask you, Doctor. So that's the snapshot that we've got a well-funded

perversion of Islam that's taking, has taken root in our country. But what are the impacts of that? has taken root in our country. But what are the impacts of that? So I think the impact is the radicalization of the Muslim community. So for example, Yosef Kowadawi, who's the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who preached his entire life that the true believer, the true Muslim is obligated to finish the work of Hitler. They want to destroy Western democracies. He himself has funded research centers at universities, mosques in Ontario and in Quebec.

They work with members of parliament. This is also in our report. And they're funding nonprofit organizations and charitable organizations in Canada So this you know in a sense the taxpayer is helping to foot the bill of these Contributions and you you also mentioned that it's sort of like a shell game that or a game of whack-a-mole Where when we identify one group as a as a terrorist organization or a dangerous organization? they rebrand as something else, as charitable organizations.

Exactly. Exactly. Once you identify one group, you know, the company or the charity is closed and suddenly the same names appear on a new company and a new charitable organization. So exactly. And they're very astute at that. They're very sophisticated. So studies like this typically come with a call to action.

What would you want the government in Ottawa to do with the information that you've collected? So I think it's a great question. I think we need greater transparency in Canada so that there's less risk of money laundering and investing billions of dollars into Canada to undermine our democratic principles. That's number one. Number two, we're arguing that the Muslim Brotherhood needs to be designated as a terror

organization. We were happy that the Canadian government recently labeled Samadun, a designated terror organization. They were representing the PFLP and other Muslim Brotherhood affiliated organizations. For years, people in Canada were calling for the government to designate them as a terror organization. It took the U.S. Treasury, it was required for them to intervene and to call on the Canadian government to act. And once the U.S. Treasury put some pressure on Canada, within 48 hours, they were suddenly

banned. So we're arguing that Canada needs to be responsible and protect its democratic institutions and protect the Muslim Canadian community from being branded as extremists, which the Muslim Brotherhood and these organizations, unfortunately, are doing. Do you think that with a lot of the changes that Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to bring to bear in very short order in terms of border security, intelligence gathering, beefing up our ability to crack down on organized crime, Do you think those legislative changes will be, will help in the goals that you want them to adopt?

We hope so. We hope with the new government that there'll be a bit of a change of political orientation on these matters. I think that the Canadian government, the current government and then some people around them understand that this is really a threat to Canadian stability. I think the American government is also concerned about what's taking place in Canada, that Canada is becoming a place of entryism into the United States, that money and nefarious actors and even terrorists are crossing the United States. And I think in this political environment, I know that Canadians want to have good relations with the United States. Doc, we're going to have to end it there, but thank you very much. I wish you the very best. We'll be right back. It's brutal. Just a roller coaster of backstabbing and craziness. New house guests, new twists, same epic drama.

Bro, I'm gunning for you. You're my number one target. Who can you trust when everyone's watching? Game on, baby. Big Brother, new season Thursday, July 10th on Global. Stream on StackTV.