The Ben Mulroney Show - Political panel hot topics / An ICE fiasco with Canadian ties

Episode Date: March 26, 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:   Amelia Boultbee / Independent BC MLA Penticton-Summerland 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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Please welcome to the show to start this hour, our political panel for Wednesday. We've got Andy Gibbons, principal at Walgate Advisory, former VP at WestJet and Regan, not Air Canada, not Air Canada, let's be very clear today. And Regan Watts, founder of Frat, and Park and former senior aide to Jim Flaherty. Gentlemen, happy Wednesday. Hello, monchargesque. Speaking French, that's good. That's how we're going to start this first story,

because as we know, the tragedy that happened at LaGuardia, lots of questions still requiring answers so that a tragedy like this never happens again. And the CEO of Air Canada, who is oddly unilingual for such an important company for all Canadians, put out a social media post of condolence where the first word was French and a last word was French and everything else in it was English with embedded subtitles. And that's not a good look.

I think we'll all agree on that. But on this day, with the bodies not yet in the ground, the government of Canada took great great umbrage with the fact that this is this happened. And the CEO is being hauled before committee to discuss this egregious attack on

our bilingualism. So before I pass the mic over to Regan, I'm going to say this. Our prime minister has never given a speech on bilingualism. And he wasn't hired because I think he's

thought long and harder by bilingualism. So why today, why now, and this could have happened after that company is done mourning? And those people are mourning. Why now? And my theory is it's all about Tehrbon. It's all about that election. The election on April 13th where they are locked in a battle with the Bloch-Khebecois. The Bloch-Khebecois are going to politicize what's happening at the Supreme Court with the secularism law saying,

look at this. Look at Ottawa, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. And they've got to push back. So they're going to push back by saying, we are the party that will defend French, even against the big, bad air Canada. Look what we did. Look at the power we have.

We can do this for you. That's my theory. And now I hand the mic over to you. Well, Ben, I'll start and then turn it to my air aviation friend, Andy, for his thoughts. But listening to you kick it off there. You sounded like Captain Canada. And I swear, it sounded like you were getting ready to run for federal politics the way you got amped up there. But kidding aside, I'm going to say a couple things about Air Canada.

and Michael Rousseau and the Prime Minister's comments. First, I absolutely 1,000% agree with the Prime Minister in his comments, expressing disappointment towards Air Canada's corporate communications, particularly around this tragedy. For a couple of reasons. One, it is our national airline. Everyone knows that. We, two, we are a bilingual country, English and French.

Of course, everyone knows that as well. Three, Air Canada is a Montreal-based airline. And so they have Francophone employees. And my understanding is at least one of the victims, victims in this tragedy is a quebeccois and so look if the employer is is going to go out there and and communicate on a very sensitive issue and yes the airline is absolutely in mourning then it is incumbent upon the airline to figure out a way to communicate in both official languages you know mr russo we can talk about the words he used whether they're the right words or the

wrong words the fact is they weren't used in the lang in both official languages and that's a real problem you know not to mention, and we haven't, you know, I don't want to confuse things too, too much, but, you know, Mr. Rousseau, as a CEO, has had a number of problems with respect to Parliament and his posture towards Parliament, and language has been foundational of those challenges. You know, shareholders have had challenges because the guy can't seem to keep the stock price up either, and they struggle with making money. So, you know, Michael Rousseau is in a real problem right now. The airline used to be run by a gentleman by the name of Kailen Robinescu, who, for me, is perhaps Canada's greatest CEO.

And maybe it's time to either bring Kalin back or to find somebody within Air Canada who speaks both official languages to take the reins because this is yet another bad day in corporate communications for Air Canada. And I suspect it will continue to get worse when he appears before Parliament. But Ben, you are also right. And I think it's fair to say that Ter Bonn is on the Prime Minister's mind when he makes these comments. It was Speaker of the House, I believe, Tip O'Neill from the United States who's all that all politics is local. And yes, there is a by-election coming. and certainly that would have been reflected somewhat in the prime minister's calculus. But he's absolutely right around Air Canada and its inability to communicate with Canadians in both official languages, as is expected.

Andy, look, anybody who flies Air Canada knows that it is a completely bilingual experience. And if you speak both languages, it's annoyingly bilingual because you hear the same messages twice. And if you are a Francophone, you're going to get the same service anywhere in this country as you are an Anglophone. So everything that Regan said, I, believed to be true. I don't know that most Canadians care. It's like when we sit around talking about what happened in question period or some parliamentary committee, we find it fascinating, but 99% of Canadians don't care. They just don't, it doesn't register for them. It's only registering, in my opinion, because the prime minister made such a, such a, an issue out of it. And again,

I just find it really, it's tacky to do so before the funerals. But, I'll now pass the microphone over to you. Well, I think it's, I think it's registering Ben precisely because of how all of this started around Mike Rousseau. And just a caveat, I respect Mike Rousseau. I think he runs his company very well. And he's an absolute gentleman. But, you know, he is the author of a lot of this because this all started when he said,

one of the great things about Quebec is he hasn't had to learn English. And that started all of the French, excuse me. And it was a source of pride for him. and it just went off the rails from there. And then about two years ago, he appeared before a parliamentary committee. And people just don't believe him that he's made an earnest effort to learn French. No, yeah. And this is sort of evidence that that's true.

Yeah. And I think two things are true at the same time on this issue, Ben. One, it's incomprehensible to me that they did not record a bilingual video with a French executive on his side. I just actually, that's just a colossal error. I mean, by the way, WestJet would have done that. In that, in an instance like that, yes. You know, in terms of day-to-day bilingualism, no. No.

We would not have had the same requirement or expectation of Canadians for valid reasons. Yeah. However, I think Carney was really over the top today and really piled on. And my phone is blowing up saying, is this really a problem in modern Canada? So I think two things are true here at the same time. Mike Rousseau sadly for him because he is a gentleman really is the odds. of a lot of these language issues that dog him. Yeah.

And also, too, the reaction is a little bit over the top. But also, can I say one more thing? If you've ever worked in an airline, this is the nightmare you never, ever want to see. And if anyone ever gets a pass for a misjudgment or a miscalculation, it's in a moment like that. And I think they deserve a little bit of grace, given what they're going through. And I say that as a former airline executive. it is traumatic beyond belief. Reagan, you're shaking your head.

But look, like I said, I genuinely, and I say this without, there's not an attack on the prime minister. I looked it up. He hasn't given a single speech on bilingualism. And why would he? That's not why he was hired. And that his career did not have him thinking long and hard about the dual linguistic nature of Canada.

That wasn't what he, that's not his wheelhouse. So for him to turn around. But Ben. Yeah. But there's a. The two solitudes of this kind of. are precisely why this is an issue. English and French, Protestant and Catholic.

Quebec is a nation within the United Canada. This is something your father fought for years about. And for the CEO of the National Airline, who's had plenty of time to learn French, to not have this, as my friend Andy says, huge miss. And Regan, there is a mechanism by which that can be resolved, and that is through the board that elected him of a private company that has, he's accountable to shareholders.

To me, I get it. Everything you said, I agree with. However, let's also remember that this prime minister, because I was talking to a French-Canadian radio host today, he said, do you have any idea how many unilingually anglophone cabinet ministers there are in this government that I can't talk to on my radio show? And not for nothing, he's had the power over the past year to change the controversial decision of having a unilingual governor general, and he hasn't done that. And so we have a King's representative in this country that speaks.

one language and when that person did a condolins video, they did so in English as well. So I think there's a lot of, like, take care of your side of the street before you start lambasting the other side for equally unfortunate activity. And to do so

politically today, I just thought it rubbed me the wrong way. I knew that was going to take us to the end of this segment. When we come back, I think what I'd like to do is talk about the Ontario government and the schools and what's going to happen with graduation this year. This was, I think, a fascinating,

this is a fascinating exercise in getting ahead of a problem. We'll talk about that next on the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to this week in politics, the Wednesday edition. It's the second segment with Andy and Regan, which means it's time for the voice.

This is the political play of the week. As always, Regan, you're up first. Well, look, Ben, this was an easy one for me. I was thinking about my political play this week. And I thought about who it could be. And for me, there's a superstar emerging in the Carney Cabinet, and that is a gentleman by the name of Tim Hodgson, the Minister of Natural Resources and Energy. He was down in Houston this week talking about Alberta and the importance

of oil and gas and LNG in the Canada-U-S relationship. It was respectful. It was statesman-like. And following his visit to Texas, we had an agreement today between the government of Canada and the government of Alberta around methane emissions in that province. And so for me, Tim Hodgson continues to just be a busy worker be quietly, but fastidiously getting the job done. And so for me, his comments in Houston and his work in Houston this week on the margins in an energy conference and the MOU with Alberta, for me is my political play of the week. And listen, I want him to succeed very much. And I think a lot of Canadians do. And a lot of Canadians will succeed if he succeeds. And if nothing else in that liberal government changed from the previous one, so long as that guy, that person was different, I think that is the one that will yield the biggest benefit to the economy.

So I co-sign that with you, Regan. Andy, you're up. Yeah, Adam, I think Adam Chambers is texting you, Regan, wondering why he didn't win again this week. My political play of the week goes to the leader of the opposition, Pierre Pahliav, for his Joe Rogan appearance. and the reason I know he did a great job is one, I've watched the whole thing, but two, the mainstream media is not telling me how bad it was and how much damage. And how much damage he did. So let's give him full credit because he does take a lot of criticism on this show.

It made me question my own assumptions for him, Ben. I thought he did such an exceptional job. He was intelligent, thoughtful about the issues of the day, Canada's place in the world, and all kinds of things I didn't know he had passion and interest in. And let's face it, we've talked on this show, about we need to engage Americans. Forget Trump, percent, Latnik. We need to engage Americans where they are,

where they read, where they watch, and rebuild the relationship with that country. And Canadians may not be in the mood for that perfectly right now, but that work has to be done. So full credit to him for doing it. And for securing that position. And he did a really good, he represented this country well. And that's a good thing to go into the belly of the beast

talk about not why Canada's good. Why Canada is your friend? Why Canada can it help you achieve what you need? And I just think we need more of that by a multiple of a hundred. Karni, all of these people should be doing that work in the United States and rebuilding our relationship. And maybe it's a bit early to think about that. But it should be done. And credit to him, he did an excellent, excellent job. And you know, the way I was looking at it, I don't know how you guys feel, but the image that he was projecting was that we have one prime minister at a time and our prime minister's in charge and I will help in any way I can. And this is me helping at the grassroots level. He's the tip of the spear talking, going into the belly of the beast, going to the White House, talking to the power brokers.

I'm down here talking to the people doing what I can. And if my prime minister says there's other things I can do, of course I will rise to that challenge. I very much liked him promoting that image of a one Canada approach, but everybody does something different. Yeah, I thought that was a really nice takeaway for me. I don't know if that's actually happening, but it's a nice image to put out there. All right. I want to move on to public education. And regardless of what province you live in, in my opinion, the role of public education is twofold.

One, educate our kids and two, support teachers in furtherance of that first goal. That's it. That's it. That's the whole shebang. And in Ontario, for those who are listening, who are not aware, we have a minister of education, Paul Calandra, who I think is probably one of the greatest ministers at that position ever. And I know that because he actually enjoys the job and he's actually doing the work. He has been putting school boards and schools on notice. He has been bringing fiscal responsibility, accountability, transparency, and sanity back to an increasingly political environment.

And that is not the right place for that. And he got ahead of a problem when he put out an order. They sent all the schools and school boards ordering all school boards to keep graduation ceremonies apolitical, warning that he will not hesitate to take action if the events aren't strictly student-centered, inclusive, and respectful. And this comes as he was getting word that there was going to be, what was one of them. It's the commencement guiding principles. We're going to be focusing on ensuring an anti-oppressive, anti-racist, anti-colonial lens in planning ceremonies,

also detailing land acknowledgement expectations, and citizens of Turtle Island asking Sewells to consider how commencement events can show our role as treaty partners. and also notes that not all learners or guests in attendance may choose to stand for the national anthem. Yeah, he got ahead of that pretty well. And I just think, I don't know what you guys think of public education. I'm just, it's more of a conversation. There's nothing specific I want to ask. Just take it away, Regan.

I'll say a couple things here, Ben. First of all, I am a supporter of public education and a product of the public education system. But I'm also parent. And I don't mind being firm when I say this, that schools, whether they're public schools or private schools, should stick to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and values in politics should stay out of the classroom. You know, there's been this trend over the last 25 years or so, particularly in Ontario, but I'm sure in other jurisdictions, where teachers' unions and large blocks of teachers have taken to this view that they, you know, that they should hate the country that they live in. And not standing for the national anthem, I'd never heard of anything more nonsensical in my life. And look, people are entitled to have their views, but teachers have an important role, and they spend more time with kids than parents do, just given the nature of the workday and schedules. So they should stick to reading, writing, arithmetic, and graduation ceremonies should stick to celebration of the accomplishments of those students, and they should leave all the politics and philosophy and values and all that other nonsense that they try and jam down the throats of students out of those events and out of those ceremonies and out of the classroom.

So parents can do what parents do and teachers can do what they should be doing. Yeah, and Andy, look, the rule should be simple. You say, this is the only thing you say, please rise for the singing of the national anthem. And everybody rises. And if people don't rise, that's their choice. And that's probably because their parents didn't raise them right. But to give them the option, to give them license at such a young age, it's crazy. It's nuts.

It is nuts. It's offensive. And I'm so tired of this crap. I'm so tired of it. And I'm glad that there's a guy that we, in a position of it. authority that will give them no quarter. They have nowhere to run anymore. Like rats scurring back underground, they are being exposed.

I'm sorry, no, no, they are being exposed. How do you really feel, Ben? I can't stand this nonsense. Andy, over to you. But Ben, the best part is, the best part is Andy and you and I are old enough to remember when we would say the Lord's Prayer at the start of the school day. Think of how far we've come. Yeah, it's no.

Also, none of us were valedictorian, so we can't understand the following point I'm going to make, which is the one thing I don't want to see, Ben, is if students elect someone to be their valedictorian and they have a personal story to tell whether they're Jewish, Muslim, disabled, it doesn't matter, insert whatever. I don't want to limit valedictorians from telling their personal story and what fuels their passion and their love for Ontario and their life and their family's experience. That's the one thing I don't want to see, but should school boards be shut down and told what to do and enough of this nonsense? I'm with you on all of that. But I don't want young people to get the impression that if they're elected by their students, they should not feel fully emboldened to speak about their life and their family, their experience.

I don't want to know. No, but I also don't want someone to get up there at 17 years old and start spouting what a lot of us with a lot more lived experience, know to be hatred. I'm sorry, but a lot of stuff I've seen coming out of schools in the past few years is exactly that. And the kids are too young to know because kids are stupid. And it's our job to teach them. And anyway, on that note, this has been a very conversational this week in politics.

And I've appreciated it, guys. Thank you very much. And enjoy the rest of your week. Nice to see you, Ben. Thank you, Ben. All right. When we come back, we're going to drill down into that story that we were telling you about earlier. but why a mother and her child, originally from Penticton, BC,

found themselves in an ICE detention center for 10 days in Texas. Don't go anywhere. The images of ICE detentions, ICE arrests, ICE raids, immigration customs, and enforcement south of the border are omnipresent on all of our social media feeds. The algorithm is feeding that to us all. and depending on your political leaning, you either think this is exactly what the American people voted for and is what was promised and what is being delivered.

Or this is a slide into fascism. Jack boot thugs are arresting people who have done nothing wrong, incarcerating people who have done nothing wrong, and tearing at the fabric of America. You may fall somewhere in the middle, but those are really the two signposts on either side of the debate. And, you know, as Canadians, we have felt maybe a little bit of a disconnection, obviously because we're not there and it's not our fight and it's not our politics and it's not our story.

But also because the people who are being targeted mostly are coming from visible minority backgrounds. And so when we talk about this, This next story, it's going to bring the entire thing home to you. Because there's a woman, Tanya Warner, who was coming home from a baby shower in Texas. She's Canadian. She's there on a work permit. And she was with her seven-year-old daughter who is on the spectrum and with her husband who's American. They're coming back from, and they're in Texas.

She's from BC originally. And they were driving home. And they got stopped by ICE. Want to see her papers, which apparently were all in order. and she got yanked from the car, separated from her husband, and she and her daughter were put in iced detention for 10 days. The daughter is seven and she has autism. Can you imagine the fear of that young girl?

Well, you can imagine that this did not sit right with certain politicians north of the border who have been working diligently to get her released and to extract some level of justice for this family. Enter, hopefully the hero of the story, Independent BCMLA from Penticton Summerland in British Columbia. Amelia, Bolteby. Amelia, thank you for joining us. Amelia, you there?

Hi, hi, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So I gave my intro as best I could. Feel free to pick up the ball and run with it. Tell my listeners, the listeners of this show, what they need to know about this story. Yeah, thanks for that introduction.

So part of the reason that what's happened kind of shocks the conscience is because these are people who are going about their business, a woman, her husband, and her young child just coming back from a baby shower. They were stopped to be fingerprinted. According to the documents that I have seen, her immigration papers are actually in order. She married an American citizen and is in the process of obtaining a green card. and she has a valid work permit and permission to be there with an expiry of June 2030, according to what I've seen. Yeah. So, you know, that's the paperwork that I've seen.

I'm not an immigration lawyer. Right. But regardless of, you know, her immigration status being pulled from the car like that, ostensibly for fingerprinting, but being taken away and not returned, detained in those kinds of conditions for over 11 days now, is, you know, it's truly an excessive situation. It shocks the conscience. So give us an update. Where is Tanya and her daughter now?

So they're still in a detention center. They've been moved from one to another. They have a very thin, not even a mattress on the floor, space blankets. They're not able to shower regularly, limited phone calls to their lawyer or contact with their family and no court date or date to get in front of a decision maker or a judge of any kind. And this is that due process, the lack of due process that people are talking about. Because those who support the ICE raids on, you know, people who are undocumented or illegal immigrants, they'll say, this is the due process for people who have broken the law.

But if you are there and you followed the law and you are still, within the boundaries of the law until, as you said, 2030, then this represents a complete affront to the notion of due process. I mean, I think so as well. And part of the reason that diplomatically, this is a difficult issue for politicians in Canada to handle it. It's a little easier for me because I'm an independent MLA, is that, you know, as much as I'm frightened by what's happening in America,

I recognize that's a sovereign country. They've enacted what they think are valid laws. I think it offends the rules of natural justice, but it's hard because, you know, we can't just go storm the gates of every country we don't agree with. We leave that to America, actually. That's what they do. Amelia, I want to ask you,

because as an independent provincial MLA, there's only so much you can do on your own. So I have to assume that you have brought in, or you're coordinating with different levels. levels of government all the way up to the cabinet level, the federal cabinet level. Absolutely. Absolutely. So our local MP, Helena Konan, is... Oh, hello. Amelia?

Hi. Hi. Yeah, Amelia, so you're talking about your local MP. Yeah, so our local MP is also working on this, but I'm in touch with Global Affairs, Canada. There's consular services and various contacts within... the federal government. So they're providing resources as they can. And as to exactly diplomatically or legally how we work through this, you know, it's challenging, as I said,

because we don't agree with what's happening, but we can't, you know, intervene with what they're saying is a legal process. So we're trying to make sure her conditions are better. Yeah. That she is getting access to legal advice. You know, these are folks with limited resources. and that she's not detained for an excessive period of time and just that there's a new process and some decency along the way here.

Now, I only have a couple of minutes left. And when I was reading this, I haven't heard the prime minister speak on this. In fact, the first I read about it was in the Vancouver Sun. And I appreciate the position that he is in, in that, you know, if he's seen criticizing Donald Trump, he would take that as a Donald Trump would take any defense of. this woman and her rights and her daughter as an attack on him as we need him to be negotiating this new trade deal. So I understand the precarious position he's in. But would it be helpful, do you think, if the prime minister spoke on this? You know, that's such a difficult question

because as you've said, things in America are extremely volatile. We know that that administration has a tendency to overreact, take things personally. And there's some pretty serious problems happening in the world. So, you know, as passionate as I am about this case, you know, there's a reason why I'm able to be the most vocal here is because I'm an independent MLA. I can really call it like it is. The media attention is very helpful. But, you know, ultimately, I think it's important that historically we're on the right

side of this as well. And say that a person who's committed no crime should not be subjected. to stop fingerprinting, excessive detention without the ability to speak to a lawyer, get in front of the decision maker. You know, we don't agree with this. It defends the rules of due process and natural justice. And these folks are from my hometown. And I'm going to be doing everything I can to get them resources and advocate for their

release as soon as possible. Well, I want to thank you for doing that and keeping this front and center and introducing our listeners to it. I will say this, though. This, they feels to me like there are eerie parallels between the unfair detention in the United States of Amelia and her daughter and the two Michaels in China. In both cases, it wasn't right. In both cases, they should have gone free. And in both cases, we have a precarious negotiation that needed to happen with those governments. And I I felt on the to Michael's side, it feels that like right out of the gates there was a lot more bluster from our government. I appreciate why there isn't necessarily here, but I still feel like it could be helpful for someone like Mark Carney to speak because when he speaks, everybody listens.

And I'll leave it there. Thank you, Amelia, for doing the work. If you'd ever like to come back to give us an update, we'd love to have you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared.

That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder any time. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.