The Ben Mulroney Show - Ports, gas, booze and borders -- all the issues America has brought to Canada

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

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We've made it to the top of the mountain in the middle of the work week. And we are beginning the slow climb down to a long weekend, Labor Day weekend, where we can finally send the kids back to school. Welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. Our prime minister is in Europe. And he was making a few announcements where he said that he signaled that two port proposals could be among the first major projects approved under a contentious liberal law amid a European tour where he sought to bolster Canada's economic and security influence abroad. So, yeah, so he was there and he said, let you have these projects of national importance that he's, he's been laying the groundwork for he said

the port of Montreal and the port of Churchill in Manitoba could be the first approvals under the Building Canada Act which fast tracks nation building projects and the economic and strategic aims Carney said that the projects could unlock opportunities

in LNG in critical minerals and Arctic trade routes while involving indigenous participation and strengthening Canada's economic sovereignty. Now the context as I just told you for his trip to Europe was that he announced a critical minerals and energy partnership with Germany.

He pledged to extend Canada's NATO mission in Latvia and he continued trade talks with the U.S. amid tariff tension. But the devil is in the details, right? And so when I said to you, Carney said the projects could unlock opportunities in LNG, critical minerals, and Arctic trade routes. what I'm actually saying is those things don't exist yet

or certainly not at the scale that Canada will want them to be. So making announcements about announcements is that's not the lightning fast speed that we were promised or that we need and I don't know. I remember Wob Canoe the I think he's great the great premier of Manitoba. He got very excited about the potential

for Churchill. But again, potential is unrealized. And so he, uh, uh, this is all great. But in the here and now, none of this helps. Like none of it. And, uh, the critical minerals, those are still in the ground. The LNG that we don't have the pipelines we need. And we certainly don't have the, uh, the end points of, uh, of the, say for Churchill, uh, that we're going to need in order to get Canada from where it is to where we need it to be. so just a reminder that yes we spent a we had a lot of talk in this country for 10 years a lot of it I don't need four more of it I need a government to do and I know that there's a lot that that

this prime minister has done but I I know it's a different government and I know a lot of it's performative down there as well but Donald Trump at least appears to be doing a lot of work and it might not be work you like I didn't say that but it is work. And here it just feels like things move a little bit slower. Just a little bit slower. All right. We're going to move on. Let's bring things closer to where I am right now in the province of Ontario. The, we've got, we've got, this is, this is rich. You're going to love this one. Okay. So as you know, after Donald Trump decided he didn't want to play well with others, Canada did what it could do

and retaliated in every and all ways to let the Americans know we weren't happy with what they were doing. And so in a lot of cases, a city like of Las Vegas has suffered from Canadians all but giving up on that town. And I don't know if you know

how many Canadians visit Las Vegas every year. 38, no, 30% of all travelers that go to Las Vegas, come from Canada. And a lot of them have said, yet we're not going anymore, and that city is suffering. And then you've got certain distilleries and certain states that are fueled by alcohol like Kentucky with the bourbon. We don't sell it up at the LCBO. And the LCBO is the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world. Largest. They have more purchasing power than anybody. And so if they say they're not going to carry your stuff, you're going to feel that on your bottom line. And

And so it appears that we've had the effect that we wanted in these very small cases. Here is the president of the Distilled Spirits Council, the CEO Chris Swanger. Here's what he wants to have happened. 65% decline in U.S. Distilled Spirit sales. There are distilleries right here in Louisville who just shut down their business going to Canada and had made investments and big plans. So, yeah, it's having an impact. The overture by the Prime Minister were corny in removing the tariffs on American

distilled spirits. Hopefully, the provinces will consider putting American distilled spirits back on the shelves. So, look, I like, I love America. It's the single greatest republic in the history of the world. More has been achieved under the stars and stars. stripes on so many fronts, in science, in philanthropy, and culture than any country has ever experienced or given the world. As many problems as America has, they've solved twice as men.

And so, but in this case, they are the problem. They are the problem. If Donald Trump has signed any deals with other countries, it is not because he saw a problem and created a solution. It's that he decided that he was going to be the bully that was going to steal. everybody's lunch money. So if we're causing problems for Kentucky, good, good. You have any idea how many problems you're causing us and you want us to, you're hoping

that if you tell us that things are bad for you, we're going to make your life easier? Why? Why? What are you to, I'll tell you what you should do, sir. You should go to the president of the United States and you should tell him how much pain you're in. you should tell him how his trade war how his beginning us down the road

of tit for tat tariffs and uh and uh and and the like that's on him he caused your pain you want your pain to go away get him to back down that's why that's why we put these on in the first place so that you guys could have these conversations

this is a this is not I love the this is not us problem this is a you problem figure it out on your own. Because we are doing the best. We're all trying to roll in the same direction up here and you need to get on team.

We're on team Canada. You need to get on Team America. And don't come to us if you've got problems with the fact that we just don't want your stuff right now. Okay? We'll get back to it.

We will get back to it. But until we do, this is a problem that you need to figure out on your own. And there's only one person, only one person who can fix this is the big bad orange man in the White House.

and, I mean, I don't even know, I don't even know what else to say about this. This is, we hurt them, we hurt them well, we hurt them well, we hurt them effectively. And now we're getting, we're getting the results we want it. Well, the problem is, is that, I mean, as we've seen throughout the since, since the day that Donald Trump took office, he's got sick of fans around them. People just say yes, yes, yes. And they just. The court jester? Yeah.

And they refuse to, we hear it so often from various people saying, you know what, everybody behind the scene says that we don't like this, but they won't say it in person. So for this distillers, and I love the acronym is discus, for discus to come up and say, you know what, can you please start selling our booze again because it's hurting us? No. You know, you're right. Take a look at what's going on here. Take a look at the bigger picture. Yeah. And, yeah, don't be so self-serving about your booze.

Think about the society and all the issues that we have up here. Yeah. And like, yeah, exactly. When, when you cause problems up here, we didn't cry to you and say, can you go tell him that he's really hurting us? Because you would have told us to go fly a kite. This is your issue to solve. You guys, you guys brought this guy in. He saw problems where there were not problems and has created solutions that aren't necessarily solutions. But if he insists on keeping these tariffs in, then there's going to be a generation that grows up, not knowing what But you know what this story does? I mean, you look about just that entire segment and how you sort of set that up. It feeds perfectly into what we're going to talk next because you know, you're complaining about all of this. Well, you know what? What else you're doing? You're causing grief at the border. That's right. Oh, that's correct. Absolutely. Are you crossing the border? U.S. officials are seizing phones and laptops at record rates with Canadians in the cross hairs. How safe is your data? We're going to figure that out next on the Ben Morinie show.

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Air travel in this country, around the world. It's always the evolution of how you get through security. It's a tale of, it's like one step forward, two steps back sort of thing. And everything was progressing very well. until 9-11 and then after that it just became impossible to carry anything on or to get through an airport in 10 minutes like you could just a few short days before. And then Richard Reed decides

he's going to wear bombs in his shoes and then you've got to take his shoes off. And that recently changed. In my humble estimation, if you are a member of the trusted traveler community, if you're in a nexus or in the states, if you're unclear or one of those trusted the traveler communities, you can travel as quickly today as you ever could with the new technologies and the fact that they realized if a woman is wearing stilettos, she probably doesn't have a bomb in her shoes. And so you can now keep your shoes on again. But now the Americans have thrown a new wrinkle at people who are traveling from Canada to

the United States. For some reason, U.S. border officials are now seizing and searching travelers' phones, laptops, tablets, and other electronic devices. at the highest rate ever recorded, with Canadians potentially caught in the crosshairs. So to discuss this, we're joined by Francis Sims, the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Humber, Polytechnic. Welcome to the show. Hey, happy to be here, Ben. Why are they doing this?

Well, because they can, right? I think the Trump administration is very focused on enforcing the laws, especially as it comes around, you know, people coming into the country. and so they have the legal ability when you cross the border to take your phone and to search it, right? So just because you can do something doesn't mean you should, what should determine whether or not you do it

is if there's some sort of risk to not doing it. Yeah, and I think the idea here is that all they have to do is determine that there's a national security risk of some sort. It could be anything from maybe a legal material on your computer, maybe you downloaded a movie, a song. Sure. But you don't, but if they don't have, I mean, I'm using expressions that probably don't apply,

but if you don't have probable cause to look in it, like, why would you? It takes up time, it takes up time and money and slu, gums up travel, which we just, I just talked about off the top, it's finally getting better in terms of getting through the airport. So I, is this, is this the Donald Trump administration peacocking, like showing they're doing something when it's really a, they're really not doing anything? Yeah, I think, I think there's a messaging, a storytelling piece here for sure. But what we know is this year, we're on track for having 50,000 devices searched at the border in Canada. And that's like 10 times more than it was just 10 years ago. Yeah, 85. So it was 8,503 in 2015 to more than 47,000 in 2024. And that's

going to go up, and that's gone up 2024, 2025. Yeah, it's going to be over 50,000. Okay, so what do we tell people If they're going down to the States And they've got their work computer And they've got their cell phone for work as well What do you tell them Or what do we tell them about how they can protect their data? Yeah, so there's a couple of things to do

One is you could have two devices Which isn't affordable for most Canadians or practical And you never want a clean device When you go to across the border Because that raises suspicion too So I think what you'd in principle What they can do is they can look at anything That's on your device

So if you have sensitive data make sure it's in the cloud. If you're going to cross with Facebook, social media on it, and you might have a friend that says some stuff that might be sensitive or they not like, log out of Facebook, log out of Instagram, simple things like that. If they ask for your phone, unlock it for them. Don't give that password because that passport would be recorded. 10% of all the phones that they take, roughly speaking, are now being used by this forensic software to basically copy it or clone it on their system, and they can retain that. For, for days, days, if not weeks.

There's law enforcement software that that's being used. I don't know why they would do it, but it's happening. Okay, so I have to assume that they are not doing this to every traveler. No, it's actually less than, I think, one and a thousand people that go across the border. So we hear about the stories, 50,000 is large, but it's not everybody, that's for sure. Is it, so this is like a, you know, the secondary search line that they used to have. They put SSS on your boarding pass, and if you ever got that, it was an extra 10 minutes out of your day.

Is this the 2025 version of the SSS? Yeah, I think so. So they just say they look at you and they say, why not? Let's take this guy into the other room and let's examine his. It feels completely random. It doesn't feel like there's really any just cause. It depends on maybe the person that that Border Patrol person saw the previous, you know, just before you.

Maybe they had a bad experience and they're having a bad day and they want to search everybody. Right. And we have no recourse in Canada. you can complain to the privacy commissioner, whether or not it does a lot of good. You can argue about that. But the bottom line, if you are a foreign national in the U.S., you have very limited rights.

And if you refuse, they can just take your phone or worse, they can detain you or put something on your record that you can't come back in. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. What is the worst case scenario for a Canadian here? Yeah, so if you go across the border and you do not give them the password to your phone, they have two choices.

One is they can detain you under some sort of suspicion because they're concerned it's a national security. risk, or they can take your phone and hold on to it. I think they're allowed to take it for five days. And then beyond that, they have to get a supervisor's approval to keep it longer, longer. But you could leave your, you could have your phone there for years. But the worst thing that could happen is you could be turned away at the border. And there could be a flag put on your passport that says you can't come back in for another one or two years, which, if you have family or friends down there or business, that's a huge issue for us. To me, this entire thing is a

head scratcher because I would love to see the data from prior to when they were doing this that indicated that this was something that needed to be tackled. I know that there have been issues of national security with people from certain cultural communities who want to go down to the states, for example, the guy who want to kill all the Jews in New York City or something like that. And he got stopped. But by and large, I can't, I can't, that guy's an outlier. I don't know what problem

they're solving for and I get it it's a, it's national security, national security we're friends, we're colleagues, we're sisters, brothers, cousins, it just doesn't make any sense at all. So I think it's,

I think it's peacocking, like you said. Have you, have you been stopped? I have been stopped. They went across the Windsor border about two months ago. My daughter was starting her PhD in Chicago next month. Congratulations to her.

Thank you. So what happened to you? So they stopped me, they asked some questions, and then they took my phone. They took it aside in, you know, behind the, counter for about 15 minutes and then they gave it back to me and that was it and they

now my life is pretty boring so they were snooping through your stuff they were probably snooping through my stuff they didn't disclose i could see them doing it there but they didn't have to they don't have to show you exactly what they're doing because that's that's potentially secret methods for investigation well someone pointed out that in canada if someone is in transit from one country to another and they stop in Canada and then something goes wrong they run afoul of the law while they're waiting for their next flight the charter of rights and freedoms applies to that person. It applies to people in Canada. It doesn't matter who you are or what. So the protections that I have under the charter are the same for that person who was only

going to be here for two minutes. That's not the same system as they have in the United States. In the United States, they have, because all of this is violations of people's rights. That's right. It's egregious violation of rights. And were they to do it to American citizens, I think they would be in court really quickly. There would be lawsuits. But we don't have the same protections as they do. So the best thing you could do is clean your phone, as clean as possible, log out of everything you can, and just log in and give it to them if they want. Now, strictly speaking, they're not supposed to be able to get information from the cloud. So what you can do is put in an airplane mode. Now, whether or not the border officer actually complies with that, I don't

know. But put it in airplane mode, that means that if they can't connect to Facebook, they might not be able to see what your crazy friend put up there yesterday when they were camping. Yeah, it's just, it's so weird because what if my battery is dying? I'm going to be a, they're going to cast suspicion on me because I was, I forgot to charge my phone the night before. I mean, it's as simple as that. It could be as simple as that. It's just, it's crazy.

And I'm so, well, I'm so, I can't believe it happened to you as well. How long did that entire process take? I was probably, the border lineup was really long. I had to wait, I had to wait two hours just from the point where I was entering the bridge to crossing it. I suspect because they were searching a lot of people. Once I got to the border official, it was about a half hour. Wow.

So half an hour to get through that part, and then you're back in the car and you're on your way. That's right. Oh, my goodness. Francis Sims, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. Anytime, Ben. Thank you for having me. I do not like, I don't like this tone that they're striking, but I want to thank you very much and thanks everybody for listening.

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