The Ben Mulroney Show - The big reason immigrants want to stay in Canada, and it's not financial.

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

GUEST: Daniel Bernhard, CEO of the ICC  (Institute for Canadian Citizenship)   647-706-4066 Guest:  Francis Syms/ Associate Dean of Information and Communication Technology at Humber Polytechnic GUEST:  Dr. Shannon Charlebois/ Study author   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 Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh? I bet you it went straight into your bank account and you didn't even check your pay stuff. My what? Your pay stuff. Back in my day, you had to wait for a physical check. Then, you had to go to the bank. Deposit it, and wait for it to clear.

Your pay really meant something. Payroll is incredibly complex. It's art and the science. It literally keeps the economy moving. Parole professionals do a lot for us. You know, it's about time we do something for them. How about we ask our leaders to name a day in their honor, a national day to recognize payroll professionals?

I got it. This is perfect. Why don't we explain to people just how important the roles are the payroll professionals play in our lives. We can even ask them to sign a petition. We can even ask them to sign a petition to recognize the third Tuesday in September as the National Day to recognize payroll professionals. We'll rally support and bring the payroll party to the nation.

National payroll party? Precisely. Sounds like a plan, you know, just one thing. What's that? I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the backseat. The whole way?

The whole way. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places. the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help.

That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors, time at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada

with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's BetterHelp. g-l-p.com slash Mulroney. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on this Tuesday, September 9th. We appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much.

I am coming to you from beautiful, and it's a gorgeous day here in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I'll be here today, tomorrow, and Thursday. I'm here as part of an event for B'nai Brith, which is Canada's oldest anti-hate group. We are taking over the Museum of Human Rights for an event where I will be doing a sit-down with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. And so we'll be bringing you hopefully part of that conversation on Thursday. And if not, our hope is actually to speak with the former Prime Minister in person. So stand by for that.

If you missed the announcement last hour, I will be on, in addition to my responsibilities at the Ben Mulroney show, I am honored to be taking over from Mercedes Stevenson, the incredible journalist at Global News, as the host of West Block during her time on maternity leave. So starting on Sunday, I'll be hosting the number one Sunday political talk show in the country. It is a responsibility I do not take lightly. And I promise the viewers of that show that I will equip myself with as much honor as I possibly can. I will try to do the show proud, Mercedes Proud, and indeed my family proud. So thank you very much to Global for trusting me with this very important job. I will not let you down. Years ago, in another life when I was in entertainment television, I was hoping.

hosting the red carpet for one of the Juno Awards. And Russell Peters, the great Canadian stand-up, was hosting the show. And so my job was to introduce him on the red carpet in anticipation of him doing a great job doing what he does on stage. And I had a producer who got in my ear and said, whatever you do, Ben, don't call him Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul. And I said, why would you say that? It hadn't even occurred to me to call him Russell Simmons. It's like asking someone not to think about a pink elephant, and all of a sudden you think about a pink elephant.

And so, of course, when he is getting ready for his introduction, I do what I was not supposed to do, and I introduce him as Russell Simmons. And not just a small introduction. Like I gave it my all, give it up for Russell Simmons. Anyway, Russell Peters did what he does and proceeded to make that the entire focus. of our conversation. And he reminded me in that moment that not only would he get my name right,

but he knew my entire name, Benedict Martin Paul Mulroney. And ever since then, every single time I spend time with Russell Peters, he calls me Benedict Martin Paul Mulroney to remind me of the snafu on that red carpet.

All that to say he's funny, he's quick-witted. I've never in my life seen a stand-up comic who can throw out his entire bit, his entire set, and do crowd work. And not just crowdwork.

he will find four or five people in the front row of his show and maintain four or five different comedic conversations with four or five different people and just keep going back and forth through them remembering their names what they talked about last and keeping it funny for an entire arena of people he is truly one of the great stand-up comics not just working today but i believe of all time and given the fact that he is of indian descent he can have conversations and say things that other comics just simply can't and he is going back on tour, he's going back on tour, a Canadian tour, I believe he's going to Edmonton, Calgary, Windsor, Prince George, the Toronto area, Grand Prairie, Medicine Hat, Saskatoon, Brandon, and Regina. And it's called the Relax World Tour. Those are the Canadian, that's the Canadian leg. And the poster that I'm looking at right now is of Russell Peters. And it looks like he is working the drive-through at something that resembles a Tim Horton's. There's no Tim Horton's logo or anything like that. But as an Indian man working the drive-thru at a coffee shop, it speaks to the very serious

conversation we're having in Canada about temporary foreign workers. And I suspect he's going to have something to say from his unique perspective. And look, one of the best ways to keep a conversation going respectfully is to have somebody like him, as they say in England, take the piss out of it. Right? He has insights. He has opinions. He has perspective that if injected into this

conversation might very well allow us all to see things from a different perspective. So I commend my friend Russell on his world tour. I commend him on being able to tackle these issues and I know he is going to add to the conversation in a way that only he can.

So we all love movies about you know modern day cowboys and the modern day cowboy in a lot of ways has been like the drug runner you know there's a movie called blow years ago where it romanticized this one guy who ended up becoming one of the biggest cocaine importers in the united states and look not for i'm not saying these are these are good guys but they are you know that's how they're viewed sometimes in in popular culture but we have a view of like what that what does a drug smuggler look like. Picture it in your head. Okay, whatever you're picturing right now is not the story I'm about to tell you. Because a Canadian senior citizen who was on what amounts to a rascal. You remember

George Costanza when he faked his leg injury and they gave him a rascal to go around work? That's what this guy was on when he visited the UK. And he said he had been in Barbados for a week and they took a look at his at his rascal and they thought something was amiss and so they looked at it some more and underneath the seat they found eight kilos of cocaine with a street value of one and a half million dollars and at first he lied said i have no idea how that got in there i have no idea and after a while they examined him some more he finally admitted that he was a mule and it's it speaks to how um how wily i guess these these these uh these uh drug importers are getting because they thought who's going to who's going to look at an old man on a rascal and think that he's importing cocaine well they got him and now i'm sure they're going to be very weary of anybody who shows up on a motorized cart moving forward um i have a friend

in uh in the entertainment news world named kevin mccarthy he's uh he's there's no man in the world who loves film more than this guy he has spent his entire life every movie he's gone to he's He's kept the ticket stubbed for. He's got a story about every movie he's ever gone to. He's more passionate about film than anyone I've ever met. My wish for everyone in the world is that they are as passionate or at least one tenth is passionate about one thing in their life as Kevin McCarthy is about film. Problem for Kevin McCarthy is that name is the name of the former Speaker of the House, the highly political Republican member, former Speaker of the House. and so Kevin McCarthy the film buff who has not a political bone in his body would find himself getting assaulted on social media by people who just assumed that his Twitter handle was the former speaker of the houses and he would try to turn those lemons into lemonade by engaging with these people when they would say oh you're going to you're going to burn in the fiery pits of hell and he would say oh well I don't know what you're talking about but my favorite movie about hell is hellboy. Let's talk about that. So that was his way of dealing with it. Well,

there's a man out there who's having a real problem with meta, with Facebook, because his Facebook account keeps getting deleted or suspended because they claim that he is impersonating a celebrity. Which celebrity is he impersonating? Mark Zuckerberg. This guy's name is Mark Zuckerberg. And every time he sets up a new account, they suspend it. Now, this is a big problem because, from what I understand, he's a lawyer and he spends money promoting his law firm on Facebook. He uses his Facebook account for work. And now he's done playing nice. He's suing meta for the problems that this is causing him. However, he did say that he'd be willing to accept an apology. And he said, if Mark Zuckerberg, the rich guy, wants to fly here personally,

to say sorry or maybe let me spend a week on his boat to say I'm sorry I'd probably take him up on it but yeah look if meta can't figure this out that there are other people out there whose name is Mark Zuckerberg as well and if they're willing to take his ad dollars but not allow him to operate his business through Facebook then they have bigger fish to fry I wish we could have gotten to this next story but that maybe we'll have time for it at the end of the show. Hey, why are newcomers to Canada staying? It's not necessarily for financial reasons. We're going to explain that next right here on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thanks for sticking with us.

One of the conversations that we have that is ongoing that will not go anywhere anytime soon is the role of immigration in defining who we are as a nation. and the contention by many, including myself, that the path that we've been on in recent years has caused great strain in the consensus that used to exist over responsible immigration and building this country by way of immigration in a way that makes us better than we were and bigger than we are. however we're also not afraid of introducing aspects to this conversation that may push back on that belief and there is a new report out that says that some of the biggest reasons immigrants stay in Canada aren't just financial but that they are about the immigrants belief that being in Canada is best for

their country the optimism in the future and try to square that with what I just said about what I think is the broken consensus is, I mean, it's incumbent upon us to try to figure that out. Are those two things mutually exclusive? Are they part of the same conversation? Does one negate the other? So here to discuss this is Daniel Bernhard, the CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. They're the ones who put forth this study. Daniel, thank you for joining us and welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Great to meet you over the radio. Yeah. So look, I don't think me saying that we're currently in a time where the immigration system and how we view immigration is under attack and we have more negative feelings. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. But I'd love for you before we get into that to lay out this report, what it means and how many people you talk to. Just give us the bullet points in the flyover.

Sure. So as you said, there is a growing discourse in Canada mounting skepticism about our immigration policy and it's a fact. And we can debate that. You've done quite a bit of that on your show. But even if you think that Canada is admitting too many immigrants, especially if you think that Canada is admitting too many immigrants, then it becomes more and more important to retain the people who are already here and already contributing. And so what we've looked out in this study are the reasons, the fact that factors that support and promote retention so that this talent stays and contribute to Canada's success, instead of contributing to the success of another competitor nation. And this is a survey of 5,000 verified adults who are users of our canoe app, which is Canada's largest integration program. We can talk about that later, if you like. And what it found is pretty insightful, I think. It's not just dollars and cents. It's not just how much money you're making or the house you live in today.

the two most powerful factors are optimism for the future, as you said, whether you think that tomorrow will be better than today for you and for your family, and a sense of belonging and identity. If you feel that this is my place and these are my people, you're much, much more likely to stay in the country and contribute to our success long term. And so what this does actually is it shows that belonging and welcome, these aren't just fluffy, nice to have. These are actually core success strategies for retaining this important talent in Canada.

Well, the devil is in the detail. So tell me about the numbers. Like, talk to me about the number of, when you talk to these 5,000 immigrants, how many, what were the numbers associated with optimism towards the future or a sense of belonging? Sure. So the statisticians at the University of Toronto who helped us with this study, they do all sorts of fancy math. But the way that this basically works is a 1% increase in the optimism index correlate to a 28%, rather, increase in intention to stay and a similar 1% increase in the belonging and identity index

translated to a 25% increase in attention to stay. So these are now proven to be actually quite powerful factors. Now when you say identity and a desire to stay, what exactly do you mean by that? Because identity could very well mean feeling comfortable just by staying in one's community, right? Like the idea of, are they feeling a sense of belonging to a larger Canadian identity? Or is it, hey, I'm just, they're letting me be who I am. They're letting me remain exactly the person I would have been had I stayed in my home country. No, it's a sense of belonging in Canada feeling wanted here and wanting to contribute to cheer for our team and to to play for our team.

We see from this research, but also from actually quite a bit of other research, that immigrants have a very, very strong desire to meet people outside of their cultural ethnic and religious groups to integrate into Canadian life, to participate in social and recreational activities with the whole population. The diversity of the country, interestingly enough, is actually one of the main attractions for immigrants to this country,

feeling that, yeah, they can be themselves, but also that being different does not prevent them from being able to integrate with other people and to contribute to the society as a whole. So basically, there are a lot of people who are coming here who want to contribute to something, who want, like, you and I to have meaning in our lives and to contribute to the community around us and to give back to this country that's given them an opportunity, when people find themselves frustrated and unable to contribute and think that the future will not be better them today. Let me just zero in on this point really, really quickly. Immigrants understand, this research is showing that immigrants understand, they're not just

going to show up and be on top. They understand that there's hard work that's required, that there's a cost to moving to a new country where you have, you know, no network and no experience, and you need to build yourself back up, and they're willing to put in that work and put in that time, as long as there's a credible hope that these efforts will pay off one day. And I think that's an important fine. Well, I'm glad you're highlighting it, but it does beg the question, where's the disconnect coming from? I mean, the studies that I've reported about on this show indicate that, you know, immigrants from, say, 20 years ago, who came here 20 years ago under a completely different set of circumstances, look at immigrants from their

home country who've come recently, and they say these people are not integrating. They are not valuing the Canadian identity. The call is coming from inside the house. So where's the disconnect coming from? Well, I'm not so sure that is inside the house. I think, you know, people, there's a long history of folks who immigrate here, thinking that the next generation is softer or less committed to Canada or less willing to put in the work. But this research actually shows what immigrants are saying on their own.

And there is a concern. There is mounting, there's a mounting exodus of qualified immigrants from Canada. Yeah, well, you've got to hear. 20% of them ultimately leave. And look, that's where the rubber meets the road here, and that's where everybody can agree. Like, if we're going to, if 20% are leaving, we want to make sure, like, are we losing the best that are coming here?

Yes. So the Canadian government prioritizes two main populations in immigration, highly skilled economic immigrants and francophones right now. And those two groups are also the most likely to leave, and they're most likely to leave quickly upon arrival. And it makes sense, because especially in the, the highly qualified, highly skilled category. These people have global options. And so if Canada doesn't work out, they can go and play for another team. So what are the recommendations of your

organization? Yeah. So our recommendation, first and foremost, is to take retention seriously. The number of people in the federal immigration ministry responsible for retention is zero. The government has no immigration retention targets at all because we're operating in this antiquated mindset that obviously Canada's paradise, everyone would love to come and stay here from their horrible, destroyed countries. So you're suggesting that at the federal level, there should be, what, a task force or an organization within the federal government focused on retaining that top talent? I think the government should set targets for itself, not just for how many people come,

but for how many people stay, and should make targeted investments in retention of this talent that Canada needs. We have major shortages in health care and construction in, in cyber security and really important in costly fields for Canada, and people who leave the country cannot contribute to Canada's economic growth if they are not here. Retaining a customer is always better than having to replace or win a new company. Yeah, I think anybody who runs a business knows that. Absolutely, you're right. Yeah, so that's the case. And I just want to emphasize, this should be important to you, even if you think that Canada is admitting too many people. I mean, that's not currently my view,

But, you know, even if you think that we have declining birth rates, we have more and more immigrants who are leaving the country, we're now admitting fewer people. Therefore, the importance of retaining those who are already here just continues to grow. And that's what this report tries to emphasize and hopefully is actionable for policymakers across the political spectrum. Well, Daniel Burdhart, the CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, really important information. There's an article in the Toronto Star about this very study. I urge people to read it. Thank you very much for showing us sort of a different side of this conversation. we appreciate it.

Thanks, Ben. All right, a billion and a half dollar settlement is shaking up the AI world. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude Chatbot, has agreed to pay authors who say their work was stolen. And the fallout could change how every AI company builds its technology. That's next on the Ben Mulroney show. This show is sponsored by Better Help. let's be honest we've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places the group chat your barber maybe even a stranger on a plane and hey sometimes that helps but when it comes to stuff like

stress anxiety or relationships it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help that's what better help is all about they connect you with credentialed professional therapists online and what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment after a quick questionnaire better help does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs Most people get it right the first time, but if it's not a match, you can switch counselors anytime at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost.

listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulruni. That's better help.com slash mulrooney. Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover

all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for Esselor Stellis Lenses at your child's next visit. In the 70s, four young women were found dead. For nearly 50 years, their cases went cold.

I'm Nancy Hicks, a senior crime reporter for global news. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer. And hear exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat, early and and ad-free on Amazon music by asking Alexa to play the podcast Crime Beat. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Great to have you with us on this Tuesday, September 9th. There's not a day that goes by that we don't talk about the value of artificial intelligence in our lives,

the need for people to become fluent in it. But we also talk about the flip side. We talk about the sort of the growing intelligence of these AI chat box. and what they're being trained on and how it just feels like these companies just can't get it right. Listen, the errors are human. We're trying to build this artificial intelligence,

but the human intelligence behind them keeps making mistakes. And recently, there's a massive case of Anthropic, which is backed by Google and Amazon. They're sued by the authors of some books for using pirated copies of their books to train its AI model called Claude. And so to talk about this,

and a few other stories were joined by Francis Sims. He's the Associate Dean of Information and Communication Technology at Humber. Professor, thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me, Ben. So Anthropic is up there. It's up there with the chat GPs of the world, and people depend on it as much. I mean, those who depend on these things depend on them tremendously.

But Anthropic just was told by a court, you've got to pay up because you crossed the line. Yeah, it's interesting because Anthropic was started by a few people that worked at chat GPT. they left check their open AI because they felt that there were ethical issues there. And then now they're embroiled in this massive lawsuit. And what they say is that these tools have to be trained, right? And they get trained on data.

And so what they did is they plugged in all these books, right? You know, maybe a million books. And what the court said is that, okay, so Anthropics said that, yeah, a lot of the books we bought, maybe we bought them out of use bookstore, we scan them and we put them in. And the court said, okay, that's part of the thing. air use, no problem. But what they realized was that there was about 500,000 books that they got from pirated sites. You know, many of listeners might remember Napster 20 years ago where you do the music sharing. Same kind of thing. There's pirated sites where people trade in books. And, oh, you know,

approximately 500,000, and they think, came through this method. And they said for every book you got from a pirated site, you have to pay $3,000, at least to that book author, which totals $1.5 billion dollars a lot of money well the great irony is anthropics back by amazon that got their they got their they got their start selling books and they were the ones who pioneered digital books and e-readers and i remember you know back in the day i i really annoyed me about my about buying a book is i couldn't lend it to anybody like that's how that's how protective they were over the ip if i if i bought a physical book i could hand it to a friend and they could read it. And I could never do that with a copy of my digital book that I bought. That was all,

that was all Amazon. And they are one of the backers of Anthropics. So the irony is not lost on me. Yeah. And what's interesting is do we really own anything anymore in this world, right? Are we just borrowing? Are we just, are we just renting our lives, right? That's what it feels like sometimes. Yeah. What I'm not getting here is like more and more. Last week, we had a story on on this show about meta, building out chatbots with the, with the, that sounded, like celebrities without getting the permission of those celebrities. I don't understand how these boneheaded decisions are being made in a world where apparently the race to get to the top is as cutthroat as any technological race we've

ever had, and they keep shooting themselves in the foot. Yeah, well, what's interesting is there's another lawsuit with the New York Times and some of these leading AI providers where they're saying what you've done is you've scraped all of the newspaper articles. And then when people Google it or they ask for a question and say chat, GPP, you're basically responding with the whole article. And what they're saying is you're not rewarding us for that money. But the interesting thing is the New York Times about 10 years ago was being sued by the authors, the people that wrote the stories at the New York Times saying they weren't, they weren't being fairly compensated for their work. So it's kind of ironic that they're turning

around and suing it away. And look, $1.5 billion, it is a lot of money anyway. You slice it. But in a world where we're talking this is a race in a trillion dollar industry that's only going to keep growing in over the long even not even the long term the medium term that's going to be a drop

in the bucket yeah but I mean the reality is that you know real people can be harmed here if you write a book and your book is shared online you know from a pirated site that that's problematic but then if people can just read it through chat GPT or anthropics

quad well that's even more problematic because they're never going to buy the books from you. So it's hurting the small people, that's for sure. These large corporations, they're the ones that are probably going to make, you know, make the most money out of any of these lawsuits. Okay, well, let's take a story that's closer to home. You know, a lot of us are watching with great anticipation to see what benefits are yielded from Canada having its very first federal minister of artificial intelligence

in the form of, you know, Minister Evan Solomon, former journalist, and a personal friend of line. And, you know, we're waiting to see what, what is this going to do for us versus not having somebody at the federal level? And now it looks like the federal government is planning some sort of public registry for its new AI projects. What are the implications of this? So for a long time, you know, like when companies, you know, have an IT department, which is great, but then, you know, maybe somebody would buy something on the side, like an app that they thought would be great to help them organize or deliver the business. better. That's what we used to call shadow IT. So say you or I worked at a company, we would

just buy the software and start using it and not consult with the central IT department. That's what they're finding is starting to happen at the federal level, is that like the fisheries and oceans, you know, are buying AI tools that can do image recognition and help them, you know, plan better, you know, where people are migrating, you know, fish are migrating, except where you think about forestries with wildfire. And what they're finding, though, is that the individual ministries and departments are buying the software, and it's not necessarily consolidated or organized with the central department. And the problem with that is that you don't know where the data is being stored.

You don't know when you're dealing with AI if you're like a person like you or I and you're just interacting with the government versus when you're dealing with a person. And so I think it's the government's attempt to try to wrap their arms around this regulatory piece without necessarily making it like super top down. Well, that was going to be my next question. As a matter of the expression I was going to use in my next question was, doesn't this possibly feel like a very top-heavy, top-down approach that would prevent these industries from sort of following through

with sort of the bespoke, individualized needs that each ministry might require? Yeah, you know, I've gone back and forth with that since the announcement. Like, I use AI every day with my work. And it's sometimes tempting if you're in a rush to put corporate data in the tool. And I wouldn't do that. But, you know, Canadians are dealing with the same thing. If they have to write a report quickly. And you can imagine if you're a government official and, you know, maybe you have one tool that's the official tool.

But if you start using something else because it makes your life easier, it's very tempting. But the reality is that that's our data, right? And we don't want, you know, we love government officials. They work hard, many of them. But we don't necessarily want them to use these tools with our information. that could hurt us in the long run. So I understand why they're doing it, but it's a balance. You're right.

They can't make it super rigid that slows the innovation down, right? Yeah, Francis, last question for you. What are your hopes from this new ministry of artificial intelligence? Well, I think one thing that they're doing, which is good, is promoting innovation, right? There seems to be a lot of money going out the door towards companies. I hope that that money goes to small and medium businesses, and Canadians across the country and not just centralized in big cities, so I haven't seen that yet. And the second thing is the literacy piece.

We have one of the lowest literacy pieces for AI in the world. And if you want the local communities to innovate and develop, you need to teach them, right, how to use that, and how to actually give them that competitive edge. And right now I see that piece missing, and I'm hopeful that it'll come. Right now the focus seems to be more on the innovation part. Yeah, my issue is having worked with a number of startups, I find that the investment community is far less willing to take the leap in terms of investing in early stage AI startups in Canada as they are in the United States. Yeah, they're more nervous about the smoke and mirrors, right? And they're very much more conservative with the investment, which is unfortunate. And a lot of reasons why these young entrepreneurs move to the U.S.

Yeah, yeah. Well, Francis, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. These are important conversations to have. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, my friend. Thank you very much, Ben. All right, well, doctors say wall-to-wall sports betting ads are grooming kids for gambling, and it's happening right on Canada's playing fields.

So we're going to discuss that next, a really important conversation about where we go from here. Next on the Ben Mulroney Show from coast to coast to coast on the Chorus Radio Network. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And look, before 2021, single game sports betting was illegal in Canada. Full stop, illegal. And now in 2025, ads for sports betting platforms, they are everywhere. And I don't even know what to say. It's like the Wild West.

Sports betting advertising is seen on player jerseys, digitally projected onto playing arenas. Commentators have segments that are sponsored by betting platforms. I mean, it's a completely different world than it was just a few short years ago. What is the effect of this? Like, that's the question. You can't change the entire environment and expect the people living in that environment not to change as well. And the most influential people in that environment are kids. So to talk about this, we're joined by Shannon Charlebois, the author of a study that says that this is a problem.

Welcome to the show, Doc. Thanks so much, Ben, for having me. Yeah, so listen, I'm fortunate, of all the, of all the vices I've got, gambling has never been one of them. It just does not scratch an itch I have. And I think I'm pretty fortunate that my sons are, I think they're going to be immune to this, for no other reason except they're not too, too, into, like, watching sports. So I just, I don't think they're going to gravitate to something like this. But, well, I've got news free of Ben.

There's eye gaming now in Ontario that's that's legal and in BC as well. Kids are getting just as heavy into that. Oh, great. Okay, so let's talk about this. What did you study and what did you learn? So, Ben, this is an editorial I wrote with a colleague, Dr. Sean Kelly, who's a pediatric addiction specialist. I'm an editor. I'm a physician editor at the Canadian Medical Association General and a family doctor.

And we're seeing this in kids. And it's not that we haven't seen this in kids before. In 2019, we knew that 4% of Canadian teams, 12-day 18, were gambling and experiencing significant harms from it. Almost 2% met criteria for problem gambling, which is a medical diagnosis. These ads, as you said, saturate everything. And we're raising a generation of kids to equate. They're the same thing. Spectatorship, the way to watch a game is to have a bet on it.

That way you're more part of it. My eight-year-old asked me as many questions about, you know, what the rules are around icing, as he does about these, you know, over and underbets. It's really disturbing. We know that kids are gambling early. They already were before single-game sports betting was legalized. Now it's taking off. Age restrictions mean nothing. That is not effective.

Kids can work right around that. Typical story we hear, a 13-year-old boy with a dad's credit card, major losses. kids more at risk, most at risk, are kids who are being bullied who are living in poverty, who are growing up outside a family home. Why is that? Well, in the adolescent mind, evolutionarily, we're prone as adolescents to take risks to value social status, above all things, to want to pursue things like wealth as a symbol of social status. And these gambling ads play right into that. To say that, oh, gambling is illegal for those under 19, well, that's adorable. But if you're advertising something in a broadcast where you know children, and by that, I mean, under 18, are watching, you are directly advertising gambling to minors.

And that puts them at risk, even if they're not going to gamble now, they're going to do it once they are legal adults. And the greatest increases in gambling addiction we've seen in the last years are among the 16 to 24 set. And that's unprecedented. This is gambling leads to substance abuse, depression, anxiety, increased suicidality, nine times the risk in men of suicidal ideation, suicidal thoughts. It leads to youth assault charges, weapons charges, theft, of course. And just like any addiction, any addiction can cause the devastating. of an individual and all of those around them. Dr. Is there any jurisdiction that we could compare ourselves to that got this right

that was able to incorporate some sort of legal sporting betting framework in society and the outcomes for kids have not been devastating? I mean, is there a best practice that we can cling to or we could try to model? So we in comparator countries, so I'm not going to. I can't get into what's going on in a few Eastern European countries where they've outlawed it altogether, which is outlawed sports betting advertising, which is what I would like to see. But in comparator countries like Australia, this is also a disaster there. In England is our cautionary tale in Great Britain, single-game sports betting has been legal for a very long time. It's incorporated in society, and addiction is rampant in minors and young people there.

but they are at least a bit further along with legislation. So, for example, they have a whistle to whistle law where until the hour of 9 p.m. From the, at least for some sports, including football over there, that from whistle to whistle, there can be no sports betting advertisement during, in any form. Oh, that's certainly not the case in Canada. No, sir. It is not. And actually, in fact, the University of Bristol over there did a study. in the final game of the NHL series this year,

the Panthers and New Oilers, every 13 seconds, that's an average, a gambling advertisement of some sort was shown to the audience. So that's a logo, you know, a sponsored segment, an ad. There's no limit, by the way, on the number of ads or the length of these ads that can occur during our sports broadcast. How did it happen in Canada, where we went from having a completely illegal, It was completely verboten to having essentially no limit to how much integration into the sporting experience you could have with sports betting.

Well, Ben, follow the money, I suppose, is always the answer. You know, governments stand to benefit significantly from the change in this law. And to give our leaders a bit more credit, I don't think they had any idea that this would explode the way it has. I think your average Canadian is pretty appalled right now by what they're seeing, particularly when it's bound up in a source of national pride that our athletes are. And since eye gaming, it was legalized in Ontario in 2022, for example, the first three years of that, Ontario saw a tax revenue benefit of $1.4 billion. So it's pretty hard to expect jurisdiction to effectively legislate.

But if we talk about the negative knock-on effects, okay, so $1.5 billion in the province of Ontario in terms of tax revenue from this sort of thing, but what are the knock-on effects in terms of the impact it's going to have on their mental health, their productivity, their ability to participate in the workforce, the hospitalization, you know, is like you said, suicidal ideation. I mean, those things have societal costs as well. Absolutely, gigantic societal costs, and we don't have the resources that we're into. we're going to need to treat gambling addiction. Certainly in extreme cases, you know, inpatient therapy, residential therapy is an option, but that's very expensive and difficult to access in Canada. What we know works for teens and youth, particularly are community-based treatments,

specifically family-based treatments, because that's where the money is, is for parents to know what's going on with their kids, to know what they're looking at it on their screens, because any smartphone is now a betting platform. Is there any way to compel the platforms themselves, say, okay, you're making all this money off of people, X amount of your revenue has to go towards, you know, mental health treatment or something like that?

Well, I think that's the same thing as having cigarette companies allowing them to advertise and then saying give 10% to lung cancer patients. That's the wrong way to go about things. What we need to do is have this off at the past, prevent what's happening, and disentangle sports from sports. betting with this impressionable group of young people because these companies are just preparing the next generation to fund them. It's insidious.

It's very well thought out. It's planned and it's smart. What we need to do is pass Bill 211, which is now before the House. That's going to allow for a federal level of legislation to control what could be seen and by whom when. All right. Well, Dr. Shannon, Charlebois, thank you so much. eye-opening, concerning, worrying.

But the more we talk about it, hopefully the closer we can get to a solution. We appreciate your time. Thanks so much, Ben. Yeah, this is scary. And to learn that even if my kids don't like sports, they might find a way to be betting on these platforms, that is absolutely concerning.

Hey, thanks again for joining us on the Ben Mulroney show today. If you want to keep the conversation going, you can follow me on Twitter, on X, Ben Mulroney. Of course, the show on Instagram, at Ben Mulroney's show. We'll be posting the podcast for the those of you who miss parts of the show and want to hear it. I'll be back here from Winnipeg tomorrow with my food review from Pizzeria Gusto, where I'm going to enjoy The Dawn Pizza, something I've been waiting 10 years to try again. Thanks so much for enjoying

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