The Ben Mulroney Show - Retail Armageddon is upon us: Why so many big stores are struggling to compete

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Retail Armageddon is upon us: Why so many big stores are struggling to compete with Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founder of Chatter AI -Canadian universities grapple with evaluating students amid AI cheating fears with Guest: Francis Syms, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Applied Sciences & Technology at Humber Polytechnic -McGill University accused of failing to prevent antisemitism in class action with Guest: Representative plaintiff in the class action lawsuit filed against McGill University 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

Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to. Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers, you know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for what gov by

name. Visit what gov.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And this is the time on the show where we we rely on our good friend Tony Chapman to come in and break down sort of the business news as it relates to some of the biggest brands out there. Tony, welcome to the show. Oh, it's a pleasure. So, actually, I have to admit, I've never heard of this brand, but that doesn't mean it's not a big one. Retailer Oak and Fort that has asked for, is seeking a creditor protection. They're saying that they're blaming tariffs for the

financial crisis. Are we dealing with a retail Armageddon here? Is the retail landscape in Canada beyond redemption? If you're a boring retailer, if you don't have a point of difference, a point of distinction, absolutely. Because people aren't just meandering around shopping for, on impulse. They do that now online. So you've got to be exciting. You have to have a, be unique. And they were just yet another fashion forward. They're blaming the terrorists,

but the reality is they over-expanded in the States, had trouble making rent payments. So they're looking for an excuse, but their category in general, the Tsaras, the Ritzias, this sense of buying fashion and dispose of it is going away. And you have to just study the youth. They're looking at vintage. They're looking at classic items that they build their fashion around because they all want to be unique. They don't want to all look like they're from the Gap or like they're from Zara. And that's the situation they're in. But isn't like a Ritzia, I've gone in there, I went over Christmas to buy some gifts and it was,

I couldn't walk around, I was shoulder to shoulder with people. So are they doing well? I think that they're at their point of inflection where they've got to reinvent themselves because that sense of noise and music and we don't want parents in our store because we're going to create that wall of sound. All of that really worked for them for time, but retail, if you're not reinventing yourself, very quickly the world passes you by.

One of the biggest names in all of entertainment is Disney, right? They own Marvel and Star Wars and ABC. I mean, they are a massive, massive business, and yet they're laying off several hundred people in their film and TV divisions. How does, like, explain that to me? The easiest way to explain it is cable was this river and streamings become an ocean and that ocean's a massive waves of change and within it you've got to say what do I

really need to put out there and it's all now based on data. It's no longer intuition. I'm no longer betting on 50 shows hoping that I get the next Seinfeld. I'm using the data. I'm creating the product that I know my audience wants, I'm doing a lot of sequels. And so you just don't need the entourage you used to have. And then add to that, which we're going to talk about for the next year, AI is replacing what used to be thought of the irreplaceable. Not just coloring animation cells, that was computer graphics, actually designing the cartoon, the storyline

and producing it. So all of this is up for grabs. And this is the beginning of what is gonna be tsunami and layoffs in the creative class, which is a shame because creativity is what really fosters that human imagination. So is it because, because I guess Disney Plus is a few years old now.

So, and they've been collecting that granular data that you're talking about. Is it because they now have access to that data through Disney Plus that they can tell, all right, well, this show's not working and this type of show's not working and the people that we thought we were gonna be attracting to this entire business unit in terms of TV shows

or movies, that didn't work. Is that why they're making these cuts? That's possible because that's their data lake, but also they're studying Reddit and Instagram and Facebook. And they're truly, they're really understanding where the consumer's moving and they want to be there to meet them. And Disney is one of the best at it. So you can see right now,

even in their theme parks are exploding great numbers, lots of energy, cause they re even recalibrated the theme parks. Guess what? People wanted more rides and wanted more immersion. So that's what every major company that's got the dollars are going to do. Use the data excreted by the consumer and use it to fertilize the content. And that's really is that what we should be thinking about as consumers is we're leading the world right now by just simply what we're looking for online. Well, I remember there was a time under the Trudeau liberals where they, anytime

they'd get in front of a microphone and they were talking about American media companies, they were viewed as the big, bad, evil guy coming to Canada to steal jobs, peddle misinformation and all that. So they were the dark forces that were invading Canada. But now those companies are fighting back. They're fighting the CRTC ruling that said that they've got to pay 5% of their annual

Canadian revenues to funds devoted to producing Canadian content, including local TV. So what story do they tell so they don't sound like carpet baggers coming across the border and taking up our time, our bandwidth and and horning Canadians out of the market? What if Canadians reversed engineered and said, we now have access to streaming services that can put our content around the world, not just on CBC. What if we created the content the world wanted? We did the Downton Abbey's of the world. We got the best storytellers, the artists, the comics, we've got the musicians, everybody

top of the list all through Hollywood are Canadians. So why don't we instead of saying, well, we're not going to beg you to put 5% in, we're going to pitch you every month with some of the best content ideas you can get. And next thing you know, we're Hollywood North, but it's Hollywood North owned by Canadians versus just supporting the Hollywood studios. So it's the carrot, the stick versus the carrot. Absolutely. The whole mentality of Canada has got to start, instead of being a victim and going, please give us a handout, let's step up and say, listen, man, Netflix, if we have a hit show, it's going to go around the world.

Why are we creating White Lotus? Instead of mandating it, we should incentivize. Absolutely. And with a 70 cent dollar in a tax incentives, this industry should triple in size as opposed to going, please spend 5% of your money on Canadian content. It's going to end up nobody's going to want it because they feel they had to have it. I mean, I remember a time where, where it was commonplace to say that something on TV, quote unquote, looked Canadian.

And that was a euphemism for look cheap. That's not the case anymore. Murdoch mysteries is a hit show in 100 countries around the world. There's no question we are capable of producing the bombers came out of Canada and one of the top, especially retail stars. So what we've got to do is we got to think bigger as a country and say listen that is access. They could stream anywhere. All they want is hit shows. Let's create the next white lotus and next thing you know they're gonna be coming to us and saying

can I spend 30% of my budget in Canada because you're creating content that sticks versus content that I have to tick off in a box. You see, one of the problems that I've heard from creators in Canada, from producers in Canada, is that there isn't necessarily an incentive in Canada to go mass market, to tell a story that could be a big hit at the box office or in the ratings because of the incentives from the government from

all the funds and the bursaries and all of that stuff they if they tell a niche story if they tell a story about about like one particular group that will that will trigger a whole bunch of money for them as opposed to going out there and writing a blockbuster. Well, no question if they film outside a major city if they make sure they have diversity if they're telling stories about indigenous, all the things that we dictate. Let's create content the world wants and guess what? There'll be indigenous stories within it. It's typical Canada, which the government tries to herd you in a pen that nobody wants versus opening this up and saying let everybody release and go

let's create content that everybody wants. All right, let's talk about the NBA because their sponsorship revenue is up 8% to $1.6 billion. And that was boosted by those logos on the jerseys, the patches, which a lot of people thought was gonna be terrible. And it's been this massive windfall for them. It seems to me that in terms of business stories, the NBA sports writ large are recession proof.

Yeah. I mean, listen, who would have thought Jersey's was the new real estate? Who would have thought they would have found yet another thing to sponsor? I mean, it's almost a handle to the bathrooms now is being sponsored on it, but they're doing a great job in them because sports is about optimism. It's about winning. It makes you feel good. It's exciting. In the world where we're drowning in negativity and impossibility, it's great to see positivity and possibility, hence why they get commands such a premium for the real estate, because they have the eyeballs to deliver.

Again, coming back to data, they'll tell you how many impressions those sweaters will get per year. And therefore that's why they're worth 5 million, 10 million, 15 million a team. So are we done now? Have we completely capped out on terms of what we can sponsor in game? Well, listen, now we're going to have to get 5 million, 10 million, 15 million a team. So are we done now? Have we completely capped out on terms of what we can sponsor in game?

Well, listen, now with the new CGI and virtual and artificial generative AI, you're gonna see sponsorships in the game that's just for you, Ben, because they know what you like. And George is gonna get a completely different suite of stuff that he sees on the screen because they know what George likes. That's where it's going next.

Hyper personalized sponsorship. Hold on. So you're saying if he and I are watching the exact same game at the exact same time, I'm going to see different in-game live logos and things like that? And television ads. And the television ads. No, but yes, I get the television ads. And sponsorship. Absolutely. It's all going to be done on the screen based on what they know you click on. And by the way,'s all going to be done on the screen based on what they know you click on. And by the way, you're going to be down the road with your Google glasses or your Apple

glasses looking at it, next thing you know they're sending a link to it. I mean, I kind of like that future, but I'm also fearful for what it means in terms of my enjoyment of the game. But hey, Tony Chapman, I always enjoy talking to you. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your week. A pleasure. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your week. A pleasure. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for

spending a bit of your Monday with us. If you're a regular listener to the show, or even if you've just popped in every now and then, then you know my opinion on how our country how our governments of this country have treated the Canadian military. We have been woefully underfunding this vital institution for generations. It's a badge of shame that we as a country have to own that we have allowed our storied and brave men and women in uniform to be treated with such disdain,

in uniform to be treated with such disdain, cutting their budgets and never providing them what they need to do the job that they signed up to do. And eventually it caught up with us and the world started calling us out for this irresponsibility, this dereliction of duty, if you will. And finally, when the loudest voice in the room, Donald Trump started beating that drum, saying that we were relying entirely on the Americans

to defend us, which is kind of true. Justin Trudeau said, oh, we'll get up to our 2% NATO commitment by 2032, I believe, something like that. It's going to take a long time to get there. And that was not good enough for Donald Trump. Mark Carney comes in, takes over, says he'll do it, but it's going to take a few years. And then lo and behold, the announcement comes that Mark Carney and his government are announcing

the largest, the largest investment in our military since the Second World War. Let's hear directly from the Prime Minister. The brave women and men who are protecting our sovereignty do not have the resources they need to risk your world. Our military infrastructure and equipment have aged, hindering our military preparedness. I'll give an example or two.

Only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Less than half our maritime fleet and land vehicles are operational. Or broadly, we're too reliant on the United States. And so for all those reasons, I'm announcing today that Canada will achieve NATO's 2% of GDP target this year, half a decade ahead of schedule. All right, allow me to say it because a lot of people think that the Ben Mulrooney show is a reactionary, knee-jerk reactionary against everything that this government does. If he were here right now, I would shake his hand and I would tell him what a brave and wonderful decision this is. I say it all the time, the devil's in the details, where that

money goes, how it gets sent throughout the forces, that's a question for another day. But this is a bold pronouncement. This is something that should have been done over the course of decades. And it's falling on the shoulders of Mark Carney to take responsibility for. And it looks like he is rising to the moment. He is meeting the moment. And this is like he is rising to the moment.

He is meeting the moment. And this is truly, this should be viewed by everyone across the political spectrum as a great day for Canada because our military is essential to this nation. If you believe that Canada is a country with great values, then those values need to be propagated around the world. And that happens in one way through the military, not through force, but by presence. And so just a few details on this.

The government is going to commit to rapidly procuring the equipment and technology needed to protect Canada, assert the country's sovereignty, and meet its obligations under NATO. This is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Now, how are we going to pay for it? I think pipelines would be great. But we will have to wait and see on that. I'm not worried about that yet. I'm just basking in the pride that I'm

feeling because of this announcement. Thank you to Mark Carney for that. Now, while at that same press conference, he was asked, we'll talk about whether or not I think the question is a good one after, but here's the question he was asked about China. We recently had a call with the Chinese Prime Minister as well. Do you trust China? We have, this is the start of a process of recalibrating the relationship with China.

It's very important that we reopen dialogue with Chinese authorities for several reasons, but I'll focus on a few. They are our second largest trading partner, the second largest trading partner for Canada. We have a number of trade disputes with China. Farmers across this country, fishers across this country, are being affected by Chinese tariffs. People across this country have been affected by fentanyl and its precursors. Those are issues I raised directly,

and we spoke at length about our concerns there, and have initiated processes including ministerial level dialogue on trade and other issues. So it's important issues with China. You know just let me take a moment here and just and give more credit to Mark Carney. We've got defense spending, we got China, we've got renegotiation of free trade. We've got the bringing down of the interprovincial trade barriers. This guy's got a lot on his plate. And you know, that's that's significant.

I don't remember a prime minister who had this much on their plate. Now some of it is the crisis that we were told he was coming in to fix. I personally think a lot of it is self-inflicted stuff that we as a nation were irresponsible on. So we're fixing our own messes, but that doesn't change the fact that these are vital things that need to be addressed. The relationship with China is one of them. Listen, I was going back and forth with my producer about whether or not that it was a gotcha question. At first blush, Do you trust China? I don't know what

point that serves. He's not going to answer yes or no. He answered the way he did. I think he answered the appropriate way. And maybe it's not a gotcha question. I just don't know that it's helpful. And I don't know. I don't know what narrative that fits

in because he's got a job to do. China exists. China is going to act as China acts. And it's not really germane to the conversation, whether or not you trust them. It's how do we deal with them? How do we build a relationship with them moving forward? And so that to me, it was the right way to answer a question that I don't know whether it was a bad faith question. I just think it was somebody who was trying to, I don't know, I don't know. I'll just say that. So those are the good things. I think I've heaped a lot of praise on Mark Carney right now. So here's something that I might be a little bit critical of. He was coming together

of a large group of Muslims for Eid Mubarak. And here is what he said about Muslim values and Canadian values. Canada, our Canada, our Canada is a diverse country, proud home to different languages, different beliefs, different cultures. Those are differences that make us unique and make us strong. We can pray differently. We can gather in different places of worship, but all of us come together, all of us must come together around the values of Eid, the values of community, of generosity, and yes, of sacrifice. These are Muslim values. These are Canadian values.

Oh, so listen, he was at a very nice thing to say, and there's a lot in there that I think we can all agree on. But, uh, it bears pointing out that at Easter, when given the opportunity on social media, Mark Carney's Twitter feed never mentioned Jesus Christ at Easter, never mentioned Jesus Christ. And so I would, I would have said, you know, Muslim Canadians are Canadians, Muslims are Canadians, but are Muslim values Canadian values? Some of them are. There is overlap on certain things, the ones he pointed out. But, you know, if you're a practicing Catholic, you are not allowed presenting yourself as a candidate for the Liberal Party because of your position on abortion and a woman's right to choose. So I find it's selectively highlighting certain cultures over others. And it's not my cup of tea,

but I tried to thread that needle and a good on them. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And as long as there have been schools, there have been students within those schools who try to get around the rules and cheat. It's as certain as the tides. And with the advent of AI and chat GPT and all sorts of new technological tools, it is getting increasingly hard for universities not only to keep up, but to be able to decipher between what is something that a student wrote of their own hand and what was written by a computer. And so what I want to do is I want to play you some audio from an interview between

Eric Kam of Toronto Metropolitan University and another show here on the Chorus Radio Network where Eric talks about what he has to do, the changes he has to do to his curriculum and his testing protocol to deal with chat GPT. We thought we were really smart during COVID when we went online and we custom tailored these assessment techniques to COVID when we were stuck at home. The problem is, is that AI has undermined each and every one of them.

So what we have to do is we have to start assessing differently in an age of AI and I'll be blunt for myself, I don't really know how to do it yet. So until I do, I am going to go back to the future and my students are going to do their midterms and their finals in person with a pencil. And yes, it's going to cost the university a little bit of money in terms of grading help and in vigilance help. But I right now, Greg, I hate to admit it and some professors listening are going to send me hate mail online assessments don't measure anything. Cheating is too pervasive. The students are too smart. AI is too smart. And so for me, I'm not going to lie and say I figured this out. In fact, I waved the white flag. He waved the white flag. He's giving up.

He's conceding defeat to the machines. So here to sort of give us a sort of to take that on and to add some more color and put some meat on the bone, we're joined by Francis Sims, the associate dean in the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology at Humber Polytechnic. Francis, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Yeah, happy to be here as always, Ben. Thank you.

So when you hear a professor like Eric Kam, who has huge classes, and he's saying, we're going analog for our testing moving forward, pencils and paper, because we can't get ahead of AI. We don't know where it ends and the student begins. What do you say? Well, I say teaching is hard. I taught as well during the pandemic with many students online doing those online exams. But what I think about is, we live in this AI integrated

world and does it make a lot of sense to go back to paper? I'm concerned about that because countries like the United States and China are now mandating that AI is in the classroom being used on an ongoing basis. So while I think moving back to paper may help in this moment in time, it's definitely not a long-term solution. And I also think AI is an equity issue, right? Like one of the things that it's done is for students that don't have, can't afford a tutor

or don't have educated parents that have the time to help them at home, or maybe the parents are doing two or three jobs, it's the free tutor that's there with them right away. And in the classroom, it helps them to write assignments or maybe write tests in ways that, you know, doing on pen and paper just impacts so many students. Not many students are able to do that anymore.

So while I understand his frustration and his concern, I do think that we need to talk about the ways that we evolve assessments. Because we're not going to be able to stop it. No, we're not. But I wonder whether, is it because a lot of our institutions, and this is a guess, it's a good faith question on my part,

is it because a lot of institutions haven't done that work that you just suggested of bringing AI into the curriculum, and therefore it's been othered. It's out there. And so students go to get it, and they use it to better their position, whether it's fair or not, as opposed to really incorporating it

and meshing it into the curriculum so that it becomes a tool that they use every day. And then the testing reflects its role in the curriculum. Yeah, I think it's kind of the cart before the horse here where I think AI has come out and the students, as you expect young people to do, figured out how to use it and take advantage of it before the older generation like myself

was able to adapt to it. But I think that it speaks to another problem here. And I think this is, it's highlighting a problem that's important to fix, which is that we shouldn't focus just on recall, right? We shouldn't be asking students to memorize dates of the war or you know how to recall some particular term in the medical field. You need to focus on reasoning and I think what AI has done is it's completely exposed that because the recall is easy. Now what we have to do is think about how we change the assessments

so that the students are focused on connecting it to their lives and their community. No, you make a good, you make a very good point. Like I was a history and political science major and I don't remember most of the dates of the big battles. I don't remember exactly what, but I do remember the reasoning behind sort of, you know, talking about the reasons for the war and, you know, touch points throughout history that have commonality. Like that's something that I'm not gonna get necessarily

from ChatGPT if we can get away from the rote hoops that they jump through and focusing on the sort of the macro aspect of the reasoning, then maybe there's a role for AI to be playing in the classroom. Yeah, let me build on that. Great example. So I think about your father in the Cold War. So you may go to school these days and they may ask students to write an essay on the causes of Cold War. Well, CHAT GPT can do that, no problem at all. But maybe what we should be doing is asking students to compare the Cold War to modern geopolitical issues like the AI arms race or the riots we're seeing right now in LA,

and then submit that essay, which they may have AI help them with, but maybe also submit a recorded panel discussion with your peers. Because in that moment, AI is not gonna be there being able to go back and forth in that dynamic. And maybe it needs to change. So the AI submission or enabled submission is one part of it. And you submit the log of how you used AI

and maybe what worked, what didn't work. But then maybe you also submit the panel discussion that allows a sort of a different type of learning. And actually that's really the kind that we want to understand. We want to make sure that students can talk to each other about these problems and not just recall dates. So Francis, as the associate dean in the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Technology at Humber, are you part of the group that's trying to bring AI into the classroom?

100%. At Humber, like many institutions, our mandate is that AI should be everywhere. that's trying to bring AI into the classroom? A hundred percent. Okay. And at Humber, like many institutions, our mandate is that AI should be everywhere. You know, if you think you're in the health sciences department, and you're going to be a medical sector attorney or a nurse, well, there's an AI tool on ChatGBT

that allows it to be a patient simulator where you can ask questions and it can help you figure out what medication you need to do. That's amazing, right? Like you think about it. So you need to bring that into the classroom because it's able to do things that you're not able to do. And when you go to the doctor's office in five, 10 years, that doctor is going

to be using whatever AI tool, you know, that they've been sold in the office. So it's going to be there in practice. So I think, yeah, I think our goal in like many institutions is to incorporate it wherever we can. In the technology area, it's obvious, right? You can ask somebody to code something. It can spit out Python code or C code or any type of code you want better than any first-year student can do. So then you need to think about, well, maybe it allows them to do the foundational with chat GPT, but then they could do something more exceptional that'll actually help them

get a job later on, right? Instead of just the spitting out how to do the basic code to say hello world, for example. Now, as part of the work that you're doing to bring AI into the classroom, my guess is that you're looking at other areas around the world for best practices. And you referenced to the United States and China,

being ahead of a lot of other countries. Is there are there any other areas in the world that are doing it right, that maybe we could learn something from? Yeah, like the EU, the EU has an AI act, and they're trying to figure out how to incorporate it into the classroom. You know, I had the pleasure of visiting an institution called fontys in the Netherlands last year, and they're focused very much on assessing people many through solving problems, as opposed to just getting slides and then regurgitating those slides. What they do is they bring a problem into the classroom, and they assume the students are going

to be able to go get the research themselves. Right now, the students probably have access to anything that the professor can teach in the classroom. So the lecture completely goes away. And instead, the professor sits there with the students and they talk about how to solve the problem and doing that means the professor can learn they understand quickly what the student knows and where they have to fill in the gaps. Now that's amazing and in the Netherlands you know

they have a high teacher to student ratio which is a challenge here in Canada if you're at U of T and you have a classroom that's 140 people, it's hard to do that. And so we need to think about how you can use AI to do the routine stuff. Maybe you can use it eventually to do an interview. My daughter's boyfriend went to an interview last week at an RSD company and it was an AI. Really? Okay, that's interesting. Hey, Francis, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your insights on this matter and hope to talk to you soon. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show.

Thank you so much for spending time with us and thank you so much for tuning in to this segment in particular. So many of us watched our college campuses across North America get taken over by the pro-Palestinian slash pro-Hamas protesters who laid siege to these schools of higher education. And depending on who you were, you had a different reaction. People like myself were on the outside looking in, looked at it with disappointment and anger and frustration and sadness that these great institutions of higher learning had been co-opted and taken over by purveyors of misinformation and supporters of

terror. If you were just a student on campus, you might've been frustrated that you couldn't get to class. But if you were a Jewish student on a number of campuses, the reaction was far, far worse than anything I just described. Because if you were a student who went to one of these schools, excited to open up this new chapter in your life, and then October 7th happened.

You probably began to feel dehumanized. You probably began to feel unsafe. You probably felt harassed. You probably felt victimized. And that's the action. And now here is the reaction that McGill is accused of failing to prevent anti-Semitism, and a McGill University undergrad is hoping to launch a class action lawsuit against the school for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism and discrimination

since October 8, 2023. The lawsuit is seeking reimbursement of 33% of the aggregate tuition and student fees paid by each class member, to the amount of $5 million for harm suffered by the class as a whole. And I'm joined now by the representative plaintiff in the class action lawsuit filed against McGill University. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for much for joining us. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for having me. So there's going to be a time for me to sit with the lawyers on the case, to talk about the ins and outs and the legal ramifications and tactics and strategies.

But because I have you, I kind of want to remind people of what I talked about at the top, that this is about actual students, actual human beings who were treated as less than because of alleged failings by McGill. So tell me why you wanted to go to McGill in the first place. Well, growing up, I worked very hard. I was born and raised in Montreal and I've only heard amazing things about McGill. Like, my father went to McGill. I've seen the campus from afar, like passing by. It's a beautiful campus. And when I finally got in, I was, I was like, ecstatic.

Yeah. And walking on that campus for the first time, like on McTavish Street. It was incredible really. I was really excited to go to this really esteemed establishment and to learn there and be a part of it. Yeah. Do you remember when you got in? Because everyone remembers when they... Back in my day, we opened an envelope. In your age group, you probably clicked on a website. It was an email. Yeah. I was with my parents and like, I was jumping up and down. Yeah. Yeah.

So it was a point of pride for you. You had a connection to McGill the second you got there. It was a point of extreme pride. Yeah. And let's back up a little bit because you're part of the cohort that was studying during the pandemic. So finally being able to be on a university campus

was a connection with a larger community that you hadn't had in a while. Yeah. The COVID thing sort of actually, I got in in fall of 2021, so there still was some COVID aspect there. Some classes were online, so it was a bit subdued, but actually being in class for the first time in a while was really, really nice.

And so for the first little while, everything was great, hunky-dory, classic college campus stuff, building friendships, going to class, just learning about like being a university student. And then October 7th happened. Talk to me about what started happening as of October 8th. From then on, you could feel the shift in tone at the university. It started with protests. I would walk to school and I would

see huge protests right on the McGill lawns and they weren't like a normal peaceful protest. They were hateful signs. They were like saying like these anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist chants, they were violent. Like, I would constantly see news of like windows being broken and it just kept escalating and escalating and escalating. Well, let's talk about the escalation because it'd be one thing if the protesters were cordoned off in one place and they were spewing their venom and their and their bile. It'd be one thing. But the they they went beyond that. They started coming after people, didn't they?

They did. They did. There was this one incident actually when I was trying to go to class in the morning in the Bronfen building. It was like 830 a.m. And like I saw like these protesters hold up a sort of barricade around the Bronfen building, around all of the entrances. I hadn't received any notification about classes. I saw some police and security outside. I asked them what was going on

because I didn't see anybody from the guild. And they said that like, they didn't really know and that I could, like I asked if I could go to class and they said that I could try and get in but not to hurt anyone and that they can't hurt me technically because they weren't even allowed to be there. So like I tried to very safely like maneuver around them and tried to somehow get in. I tried to like walk around them and one mass protester, they were all masked, had actually

pushed me to the ground and it was right in front of all the police and the security. Like they witnessed it. So you got physically assaulted. You were physically assaulted in front of campus security and in front of some of the people working at the university. I was, yeah. And what did they do? They didn't really do anything. They said because it was a mass protest or they couldn't identify them and, you know, like do the normal justice. They didn't try and ask them to identify themselves. They just let them continue to be there to do hateful things and block everyone that day from entering their classes.

It was like, I was just dishonest. It would allow that. And it's one thing if this had happened once or over the course of a week, but this went on month after month after month. What did that do to your mental health? What did that do to how you felt about your place at the university?

Well, I didn't really feel I had a place at the university. I felt that like, I was like second class, like my rights and my, like, I just felt that I didn't really belong there at all. And that McGill wasn't there to protect me, they were there to protect their own identities. Like they would send out emails recognizing all the bad things that actually happened, but I never really heard of any justice on anything. Like I never heard of any students being reprimanded. All I heard was McGill saying that there's anger on both sides and like all of

this hate and these violent protests and everything that happened were allowed to continue by McGill for like, well, like the whole entire time after October 7th. My last question for you is what do you want to come out of this court case? Well, I'd like justice for the students, for the Jewish students that had attended McGill in like the past few years, because certainly their experiences have been disrupted. They've been like on the receiving end of hate, hate that Miguel has allowed to persist. I would like Miguel to enforce its policies going forward. Because I don't want like, I have two younger siblings, I don't want them to have to go through this. I don't want anyone to have to go through this. I want justice and I want like future students to be protected.

Well you are an exceptionally brave person to be putting yourself out there on something this important but it is important and I wish you courage and I wish you the very best. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. To celebrate the days of our lives 60th, W Network and Stack TV invite you to enter for a chance to win the ultimate fan experience by watching new episodes of Days of Our Lives. You and a guest could win a three night stay in Los Angeles, a VIP Days of Our Lives set tour, a helicopter ride over LA and so much more. ride over LA and so much more. Watch weekdays at one and look for the weekly code word to enter. Days of our lives. All new weekdays at one only on W. Stream on StackTV.