The Ben Mulroney Show - The Canadian stories of the day -- Carney, CAF, Hockey and the economy. Phew!

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

- Steven Ellis –Associate Editor and Prospect Analyst for @DailyFaceoff - Dr. Eric Kam If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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your first month. That's better help. HLP.com slash Mulroney. Swarma in a Doritos bag. Yeah, that's real. The walking swarma is crispy, saucy and made to move only at Osmos. Limited time only. Bold meat shawarma. Go get it. It is Thursday, July 10. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Ben Mulroney Show, a little public service announcement for you. Yes, we are a show that broadcasts from Toronto, but Pearson Airport here is the busiest airport in the country.

People come in from all points. So this is a national public service announcement. If you're coming in from wherever to Pearson or leaving from Pearson to go wherever, the UP Express, the Union Pearson Express will be shut down temporarily. Buses will be replacing the train service, running express between Union and Pearson, late night on Friday, so tomorrow,

until Saturday, July 12th and Sunday, July 13th. You don't want to take the bus, guys. You just, it's not, you might as well, you might as well not. But so you've been, you've been warned. All right. Something I didn't think I would be saying with any liberal government is here come the cuts. Certainly after 10 years of Justin Trudeau, where there was no such thing as doing more with less. And Mark Carney is signaling that he wants to do things differently. In fact, he has to do things differently because we have reached the end of the road of terms of what we can do with the money that we don't even have. And he, he, you'll remember last week, or maybe it was earlier this week, he signaled to his ministers that they needed to find

15% cuts across the board in their own ministries. They should do it. And if they don't do it, he's going to do it. And now there is a he's asking for a review of all the red tape within within the bureaucracy. You know, he's he was someone on his staff said something interesting, that if bureaucrats who've been there too long have this institutional muscle memory and they're more obsessed with process than results. It's all about checking the boxes rather than in the process of checking those boxes,

are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? Are we getting the outcomes that we want? So this I like very much. However, this review of red tape, some would say, oh, that sounds a lot like Doge. I don't think it sounds like very much. However, you know, the this review of red tape Some would say oh that sounds a lot like Doge. I don't think it sounds like Doge I think it's a smart move on and I promise you as the host of the show to our listeners and to our viewers I am NOT going to Look at any one of decision policy speech and say oh, that's very Donald Trump of him. Donald Trump is one of one. And nobody else is like Donald Trump.

No one in Canada is like Donald Trump. And you will not hear me try to score political points by vilifying somebody because I'm going to loop them in or lop them in with Donald Trump. There's enough of that out there. It is unhelpful and it is patently political and I'm not gonna do it. Now, if we stay on the issue of cuts,

Ron Chinzer, who is a former police officer and former candidate for the Conservative Party, he's also sat in this chair as a guest host here at this radio station, tweeted, RCMP members received an internal email advising them that the federal government is cutting $98 million a year from the national police budget. Programs will be scaled back, shut down and completely restructured.

This is happening while gangs, cartels, terrorist networks and repeat violent offenders are embedding themselves into communities across Canada. Not only that, first of all, that's if you're going to make cuts, that's the wrong one. Especially because yesterday we heard the RCMP found, identified and broke up a ring of four people made up two of whom were members of the Canadian military who were pushing for an extreme right wing ideology that could lead to some sort of terrorist attack. This was a massive success and a massive win for the RCMP.

And it seems like on the heels of that, they're being told, thank you. And now we're gonna take $98 million away from you. I got a problem with that. I also have a problem with the next thing we're gonna be talking about. And I'm glad we have got the time to do it. The CBC, the CBC did a story

that far right extremism is an ongoing problem in the Canadian armed forces. As part of their story, they interviewed a professor of international relations at the University of Alberta named Andy Knight. Here is the conclusion that he drew. I would like to say that I'm surprised, but I'm not. There were some individuals that joined the military to learn the skills.

You know, one individual said that he joined the military to learn how to kill brown and black people. Okay. People are joining the military to kill brown and black people. He came on as an expert. He came on with a man with a depth of domain experience. This is furthered by again, a perspective that should not be shared because I think it's unhelpful. Here's

RCMP Staff Sergeant Camille Hebel talking about how traditional values are extreme values. Well, radicalization in general quite often will show by people isolating themselves and changing their behavior, like changing what they're saying on a subject, like becoming more extremist. And if someone you know was very believed in equal gender rights, but all of a sudden are leaning towards traditional values. And that might be a sign that they're becoming more extremist.

Okay, a person like that who says something like that should not be in front of a microphone representing the RCMP. Traditional values is not a bad thing. It's just not. And in a lot of cases, it is a reaction to what a lot of people believe has been a social re-engineering run amok.

Shame on this person, and the RCMP should come and correct what that person said. But I wanna go back to our good friend, Andy Knight, the professor of international relations at the University of Alberta. So he conducts research on institutional racism and white supremacy with a focus on how it affects military structures.

That's from his bio. So that's his job. He's looking for that. If he doesn't find it, he's not doing his job. He was commissioned by the Department of National Defense to write a report that found that here's the conclusion of this report, quote, deeply rooted in systemic white supremacy, xenoracism and discrimination has penetrated the ranks of the Canadian military.

That is terrible. Oh my goodness. We have to rip it out root and branch. But how did he come to that conclusion? What sort of research did this man from the University of Alberta come up with? Well, Knight's report that claimed deeply rooted in systemic white supremacy.

He interviewed, oh my goodness, the depth of work that he did, more than 40 interviews with senior serving retired and junior military personnel. I'm sorry, say that number again, because. More than 40 interviews. Okay. Okay, so we here at the Ben Mulroney show with a grand total of two people working on this, and I suspect they're more than that working at the CBC, did some back of the napkin math. And we found out that if you combine

the number of active serving military, and that includes reserves, active military, Rangers and the like, plus the total number of retired military in this country, because that's what he did his interview based on. That total is over 550,000 living Canadians. So he interviewed over 40, we're gonna be generous and say 45.

That represents a grand total of 0.008% That represents a grand total of 0.008% of the total number of people that should be in his sample size. With 0.008% of the people interviewed, he concluded that there are deeply rooted in systemic white supremacy issues, xenoracism and discrimination that have penetrated the ranks of the Canadian military. If two people in five minutes at the Ben Mulroney show can uncover that about a guy who's willing

to say stuff like that, and the CBC can't look that up and say themselves, this is not a dude we want on the show. This is a man peddling BS, this is a man disrespecting our men and women of the armed forces, this is a man causing more harm than doing good, then you have to ask yourself, maybe that's the story they want to tell. How helpful is that today to be peddling this sort of nonsense?

I could interview 40 people in this building about whether or not they like pepperoni pizza over cheese pizza. Like this is the Canadian Armed Forces. These are the people who protect us. And you are relying on a man from Alberta whose job it is to find institutional racism. That's his job.

In a world of hammers, everything's a nail. This guy is a hammer and he is going to find a nail whether there is one or not. And the CBC, after uncovering two dudes, two dudes who had bad intention, has decided that they are going to tar and feather the brave and honorable men of women, men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces as all racist, deeply rooted in white supremacy. They should be ashamed of themselves. I cannot believe that they would be this cavalier and this irresponsible. Shame on the CBC. I will not forget this. Don't go anywhere after the break. We're going to be talking about, oh, the golf course fight, as well as what's going to happen with minor league hockey in this country.

Welcome back wherever you may find us on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Music, on Apple Podcast rather, on Amazon Music. You may find us on the iHeartRadio streaming app or on all of our social media platforms. Please join us everywhere, always in all ways. I honestly did not think that on this beautiful day in the middle of summer, we would have two pretty big stories in hockey to talk about.

And that have very little to do with anyone's performance on the ice, to be honest. But I didn't we talked about a little bit yesterday because my depth of knowledge is shallow. So we decided to bring somebody who plays in the deep end and knows a lot about a lot. Please welcome the show, Stephen Ellis, Associate editor and prospect analyst for daily face off. Stephen, thanks so much for calling in. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Okay, so let's jump right into the story that went viral around the world, which was the fight on the golf course in Alberta that involved former NHL player Nick Tarnaski,

where he just leveled a drunk Tasmanian devil who was playing too slow. Let's listen to a little bit of a fight real quick. I got it all on record. Hey, leave him alone. Come on, man. Get him the **** out of here. Okay, so I don't want to spend too much time on this because we've got lots to discuss,

but I find it interesting. The latest that I heard was that the RCMP says it is not investigating the incident. There's nothing to look at. There's nothing to see here. And yet Red Deer Miner Hockey is investigating. What do you think they could possibly be taking issue with here?

If this didn't go viral, I don't think we're talking about it. Or they're talking about it as a team. But I think the best part about the video was the fact that the guy, Kester, had fallen over multiple times, kept coming back for more. He kept wanting more. So obviously it doesn't look good for a red deer minor hockey, but it feels like something that once the dust settles, no one's gonna be talking about it. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm looking at. I don't think I would ever go get to the point that I would beat anybody up. But I'm not built

like Tarnaski. I'm not I haven't been tested in the crucible of of professional hockey. And this guy was getting on his last nerve. And so, frankly, I think I was there for the hockey. And this guy was getting on his last nerve. And so frankly, I think I was there for the fight and everybody walked away from it so I don't have a problem with it. But here's the real reason, Steven, I wanted to talk to you today is because watching what happened yesterday

with or a couple of days ago with Connor McKenna and his decision to forego junior hockey, Gavin, I'm sorry, Gavin McKenna and his decision to forego junior hockey in favor of going to college. That's happened before, but it's the fact that there are now financial incentives in the hundreds of thousands of dollars where he was offered the possibility

of making $700,000 US from Penn State because of the new NIL name, image and likeness rules of the NCAA that make it that it is now attractive for a far more attractive the value proposition of going to college and playing college as a top prospect is far more attractive than it ever has been in the past. And I wanted to your take on what the potential knock-on

long-term effects could be on the viability of junior hockey across Canada. So it was this past season where the NCAA allowed players that have played in the CHL, Canadian Hockey League, to go play in the college ranks in the States. Because the past, those players were considered pros and in fact they were given a stipend to play.

But now that the NIL, where we've seen everything on the basketball and the football side and basically letting these high end athletes that the schools are making a lot of money off of, now they're able to make some money off of it too. It's something where hockey's starting to kind of see what's happening and Gavin McKenna is the biggest name so far for over $700,000. Like the numbers that we've seen for some of the other top players are 100,000, 75,000.

So this is a big deal but this isn't just one guy, this is a lot of the top talents that are not gonna be there for those final years of junior hockey, which is when those teams typically start making more of their money when people realize like, oh, this guy's really good. Like, let's go watch them. Those guys are now leaving and Keaton Verhoff is another one. He's going to North Dakota and he might be the second player taken in the draft behind

Gavin McKenna. So it's a big deal because like these smaller areas, like players are living with families they don't know throughout the season and they don't have to go get their own gym membership. Right. And all that you've got, you've got the world's best facilities at these universities, and the the football programs and the basketball programs, the money that comes from those, some of it gets siphoned into the smaller program. So maybe hockey isn't the biggest draw, but

they are going to have the money where these guys live in a dorm. And, and just as importantly, Steven, is they're getting an education. And because I was having this conversation with my wife yesterday, she's like, well, yeah, a guy like McKenna, he's gonna go do that and he's gonna go to the pros. But these other kids who may not go to the pros,

I mean, they'll go to junior hockey, I suggest think about what you're saying. They have less of a shot of getting the pros, I mean, they'll go to junior hockey, as I said, Jess, think about what you're saying. They have less of a shot of getting the pros, all the more reason that if they can go to a top US school and get an education as that fallback, all the more, they're incentivized to go follow that big talent, even if what they're gonna be making is, you know, 10, $15,000 because of the NIL rules.

Yeah, and a lot of these, I think part of also it's making this story so big is the fact that a guy like McKenna, like he's not really going there for school. He'll be there for one year. He doesn't need the education. He doesn't need it. But there's other guys, the guys who will be supporting him, the guys who would be, you know, second, third line in, in the, in, in junior hockey, they're going to get it. They're going're gonna wanna go and play with this guy for a year and they're gonna wanna live in a nice dorm and have their food taken care of and their travel taken care of

and living and being the big man on campus. And they know that their chance of making it to the NHL far less than McKenna. So all the more reason for them to be there where they can have a top tier diploma to fall back on if their dream and their plan A doesn't materialize. Yeah, you see so many players that go to college and they become business majors and they get to do really big things outside of hockey and for all the players he's going to play with, like Penn State's

never been a big hockey program, but it's going to elevate the whole program and give new opportunities for so many of these other guys. So that's why it's so big and And it's, you know, you've got the Canadian universities that are going to suffer the most, but the top end talent, the guys who are going to go play highland high end pro hockey, weren't going there to begin with. So, so what, what does that mean for junior hockey in Canada? Where, because look, when these NIL rules came in, it was like, there is no real bonafide farm system for basketball players and certainly not for football. And so it was all about keeping them in college

as long as possible and doing what was fair. But this has the knock-on effect, the negative knock-on effect of directly affecting a fully formed farm system and development league that small towns across Canada depend on. Yeah, so some of those teams are going to benefit from guys that were previously going to the states to keep their college eligibility coming over and staying in Canada. I think

that's going to be big. We know that Western Canada for sure. And you're definitely in Ontario. But it's something where once those guys hit 18 years old, a lot of those best players are going to leave. And that's going to hurt because some of these junior programs rely on the money that the ticket sales bring in of a star player coming to town. Well, those star players won't be coming anymore. So it's gonna be tough.

It's gonna be the smaller places like Sault Ste. Marie are gonna have to work even harder to try and convince players to come. But I think the one thing is college is not gonna be for everyone. Some guys just need to be able to play 60 games a year. And you can do that in the CHL. You can't do that in college.

Actually, that's a good point. So let's go there for a second. I've been talking about the sort of a system built on the advantages of going to college. Talk to me about what is the value proposition for staying in sort of the status quo? Yeah, being able to stay in the CHL, you play close to double the games

and you can play against top quality competition. Like it's still, the CHL has still been the best development league throughout its entire existence. So there's still, that hasn't gone away. But for guys, you know, you might lose some of the star players, but some of the guys who just needed that extra ice time, they're gonna get it now and get that opportunity

to show what they could do in front of scouts. Yeah, and I have to assume as well. Yeah, you still have the coaching staffs that are known by the scouts and they are known by the players and the teams themselves in the NHL. They know that system and therefore that's probably still going to be a big draw for a lot of these kids. So I guess what we're saying, it's not a straight line between McKenna going to Penn State

and the irrelevance of junior hockey, that there is still some fight left in junior hockey. I wanna thank you so much for joining us, Stephen. I really appreciate it. And please come back soon to the Ben Mulroney Show. Yeah, thanks so much. All right, when we come back from the break, we want you to call us here at the Ben Mulroney show. Yeah, thanks so much. All right. When we come back from the break, we want you to call us here at the Ben Mulroney show. Do you think that Gavin

McKenna signing is a threat to our junior hockey system in Canada? Give us a call right here on the Ben Mulroney show. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Adidas. When the frustration grows and the doubts start to creep in, we all need someone who has our back. To tell us we'll be okay. To remind us of our ability to believe.

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But thank you. Regardless, we appreciate your time. And we appreciate your ears and your opinions. And that's what we're looking for right now. We hope you give us a call right now. You may be a fan of junior hockey across Canada. And we want to talk to you about the Gavin McKenna of it all. Top prospect, going to be a huge star in the NHL, could be a game changer for whoever is able to draft him. And typically in years past, a player of his caliber would find his way into junior hockey and then eventually make his way into the NHL.

But because of the changes at the NCAA level in the United States, the NCAA is sort of the governing body of amateur sports, college sports in the United States. The NCAA is sort of the governing body of amateur sports, college sports in the United States. They changed their rules to allow stars who help build their programs, who help put butts in seats and make people watch their games.

They're giving them the opportunity to leverage their own personal brands with something called name, image, and likeness. And a lot of the biggest football players and basketball players are able to make millions of dollars because of that. Now hockey is a little bit of a different beast. And because of that, it doesn't garner the same amount of money. But Gavin McKenna was told by Penn State that were he to play there, he can make as much as $700,000 US a year.

And so he's decided to take his talents to Penn State. And he's the biggest name so far to make that jump. And we're asking the question, does this signal a changing dynamic and in a world of winners and losers, does this make NCAA hockey a winner and make junior hockey a loser? Are we witnessing the beginning of the drip, drip, drip

of talent out of junior hockey into college, a US college hockey that could hollow out entire towns across Canada? So this is a conversation that we wanna have with you and we already have our first call. So let's welcome Paul into the conversation. Paul, welcome to show. Hey, Ben, how are you? I'm well, I'm well. So what do you think of all this?

Well, I'm just saying, I think ultimately, it's really what should be best for the kids and the parents that their future is what they want. And it should be, you know, I mean, like that's really what this is all supposed to be about. No, no, no, listen, of course you're gonna do what's best. And that's always what's governed so many of these decisions. I think one of the reasons that NCAA sports got

into such a hole and they had such a black eye is because they weren't asking themselves that question. What's fair for these student athletes? And that's where this name image and likeness paradigm showed up. But we've got to remember that the biggest impetus, Paul, for that as it relates to college football and college basketball is there is no flip side to that. There was nowhere else for them to go. The NBA developed a developmental league, but it's not nearly the same thing as, as, yes, as junior hockey.

Hey, Ben. Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm just going to say to you that, you know, I had a golf scholarship down south, south and then when I wanted to play mini tour stuff, you, the people in the States that were members of private clubs, they could sponsor, give you money to help you, you know, get, get around and travel around the States to play professional golf and they could use the tax incentives and travel around the states to play professional golf.

And they could use those tax incentives and tax rate. We don't do that. No, no, we don't do that. And that's one of the things we're not talking about in this dynamic as well. We're not talking about what's going to happen to the quality of play and the quality of players attracted to Canadian universities. And so, Paul, I thank you very much for your call. And listen, college sports in Canada, from what I understand, is not nearly on the same level as the money generated from these massive TV contracts in football and basketball, and regionally for hockey

as well in the United States. It just doesn't exist up here on the scale that they have there. And so, but to me, it was just such a shocking thing to think about yesterday, about the implications of what this could have for small towns that really depend on their junior hockey team.

For them, that is, that is the big ticket event. That's where you go, that's where you spend your money, that's where you come together as a community. And in a lot of cases, there are, it's the cottage industry of that town. So much of it revolves around that. And if you don't have that, what happens to the town? And that is a real concern for me. We just talked about it in our previous segment

that it's not gonna be necessarily a straight line between Gavin McKenna going to Penn State and junior hockey across Canada being hollowed out and being destroyed. But I don't know that it's a good indicator for what's coming down the pike, but I'm just one man. Let's check in with Jason. Jason, thanks so much for calling in.

Yeah, my pleasure. This is a great thing. This is like a leveling. This is a reset. It's a great thing for, sorry, it's a great thing for whom? like a leveling. This is a reset. This is a leveling. Sorry, it's a great thing for whom? For everybody. I'll tell you why.

All the way from U10, AAA, hockey, all the way up through the junior ranks, there are parents who are extremely wealthy who pay the organizations for their kids to be on the team. I'm not talking about the team fees. I'm talking paying 20 to 50 grand to the coach and to the organization for your kid to be on the team. That goes through the junior.

The NCAA does not care about your money. They don't want your money. They want the best players. to 50 grand to the coach and to the organization for your kid to be on a team that goes through the junior. The NCAA does not care about your money. They don't want your money. They want your the best players. So this is like, hey, take that money. And some of the not all the teams, some of the teams tell you tell those these rich people to stuff it. And this is this is not me.

I'm telling you, people listening will be like laughing right now going, yep, that dude's right. People from Utah all the way up will pay their kids not good enough. It's not, it's not a knock on the kid, but you don't pay for your kid, pay extra for your kid to be on a team if he's not good enough. Yeah, it should be a meritocracy. It should be meritocracy. Exactly. Now the NCAA, that's how it works because they're not asking you to pay 20 grand to their plan. No, no, no. They don't. Yeah. You pay to go to the college, but you're not paying to get don't, yeah. You pay to go to the college,

but you're not paying to get on an NCAA team. They're not gonna do it that way. So this is like a level set. Yeah, so Jason, but it seems like what you're saying is this is going to be, it's gonna make things even worse for junior hockey. Cause if you're saying that there's this pay to play component that we're not,

maybe not, yeah, yeah, through junior you said. Yep. And you have, I mean, for lack of a better, based on what you said, it seems a fair assessment is that there's more of a, it is more of a meritocracy in college ranks in the United States. Then how does that information that you just gave me make it so that these junior teams could end up in a better spot?

Well, I think that you make your bed you sleep in it, okay, if they're not gonna be in a better spot Yeah, well, you know what? Maybe maybe you shouldn't have accepted all that expense all that all that all the money from those people with you know billions Yeah So you're saying like if you built a system based on a revenue streams that have no business as part of your business model, then you were doomed to failure at some point. Someone was gonna come in and build a better widget. Thank you, man, you know what?

And all that money that you spent now, if the system pivots and it goes to the meritocracy system, all that money that you spent because you think you're gonna get your kid in, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.

You threw good money after bad. Yeah, to me, like the greatest fear, like if my concern is small town Canada, then my greatest fear for small town Canada is that Gavin McKenna then attracts, you know, makes it so that young players who probably aren't starters, but they might be good on a second or third line could end up wanting to play there.

And they were, and they also know that because they don't have the same shot that he does to get into the professional ranks, having a college diploma is better than not having one moving forward. And then because those guys are there, then the next step is to attract the coaching staffs from those teams because, and those coaching staffs come with their institutional relationships to the NHL.

And at that point, as the French say, les jeux sont faits, like it's over. Well, you know what, you went a little deep on me there, but I think that the fact of the matter is, like, you went a little deep on me there, but I think that the fact of the matter is like, if you have a really, really good junior coach and somebody offers him more money and you look at it and you say, well, this junior coach in Owen Sound

or Sudbury, wherever is being paid 80 grand. I don't know, 100 grand. I have no idea what they get paid. And a college comes in and says, hey, we'll pay you 120 US. And they turn it down. You gotta look at that and go, wait a minute. You you 120 us and they turn it down. You got it. You got to look at that and go, wait a minute, you turned down $120,000 American for 80,000 Canadian. Yeah, something stinks here. Like,

what's going on? Well, because a lot of that income isn't declared, because it's behind the scenes. No, no, I pay. Yeah, these are facts. No, I'm taking your word. This is all new for me. I'm exploring this for the first time you're coming in with information I do not have all the way from 10 years old up. Yeah, I'm telling you right now all the way from 10 years 10 years old up guys are cutting

checks for 2030 40 grand for their kid to be on a team. And I'm not saying I'm not saying that each individual kid is the kids have nothing to do with this. The kids don't know. But I'll tell you what your kid doesn't make a team. Yeah, because because he's not good enough. You work harder in the next year you try again. And if he doesn't make it, he doesn't make it. This is life. When you start throwing 20, 30, what lessons is it teaching the kid? Number one. I agree. Hey, Jason, we got it. Yeah. Okay. We're going to have to run. I really appreciate it. That was a great conversation. Thank you all for calling in.

Hey, when we come back, our good friend, Eric Kemp joins us. Lots of economic stories that we're going to delve into with you. So don't go away. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the show. Sorry, during the break we got all consumed in a conversation about all sorts of summer movies. Apparently Superman is on track to make $200 million worldwide. Very happy about that.

I'm taking my kids back to see it tonight. It's a great movie. First 15 minutes are really clunky to the point that I was really concerned and then it just level sets and becomes great. And we were talking about Jurassic World Rebirth, which I think is a fantastic addition and really great new story, great new cast,

great new dinosaurs and the visual effects are great. It's a different story than we're used to. So I was really, really happy about it. But now let's go back to somebody we've had on the show before. Well, also Toy Story is a great summer franchise, and we're very glad to be joined by Woody the cowboy now. Woody, welcome to the show.

And I say, I just realized we may have a bunch of people who are listening to the show and do not see you, but Eric Kam, our great friend and economics guru, is dressed exactly as Woody right now. It's wonderful, sir. Well, Benedict, I appreciate the shout out to that franchise. I really miss Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head. But actually today is my tribute to the Calgary Stampede. Oh,

supporting my brothers and sisters and horses and chuck wagons and whatever the hell else they do in deep fried food, lots of deep fried food. All right, let's so let's jump into some of these conversations. And one of them, you know, every time we talk about young people in the economy, most of the time it's young people on the outside looking in with no way of getting in.

And here's a story of young Canadians trying to get passive income. What's this all about? This is the worst example of Jen wherever the heck we are now. So what people are talking about with this is that they're trying to come up with in a sense, either get rich quick schemes, or get rich quick in the medium run schemes.

It's people that don't wanna work and generate an income. Drop shipping, everything's about drop shipping. They wanna be influencers and they wanna be landowners and they wanna be rentiers and they wanna rent out condos. And so what they want is they want an income stream then yeah, but they want to figure out can I do it without actually going to work nine to five Monday to Friday, either in person or virtual. But how many problems with

Yeah, but hold on. I like to rail against the youngins a lot. But let's be like, they don't have a whole lot of options these days. Like, if you know, and and they got a drip. Some of them, despite being told you're priced out of the housing market, are still still are dreaming of getting a house. I can't blame some of them for looking at a get rich quick scheme. No. OK, we're going to get to housing in a second. But no, but again, get rich quick

scheme, you know, let's face it, you have a better odds of winning craps in Vegas, number one. And number two, if you want one of these jobs, where you're going to stay home and just collect income as a landowner, or the head of a pyramid scheme, what you have to have, of course, is the initial endowment of money to buy the condos or buy the apartments to generate the income scheme. And we know that the young people today don't have that kind of money lying around. So they're, you know, yes, I love entrepreneurship and I love when a young student comes up with

a company idea that does well. But to me, this is just saying, how can I earn a living without leaving the couch? And guess what, Ben, that has rarely been the case unless you picked your parents super well and left you millions. Yeah. So years ago, years ago before Shopify, I had this idea for a pocket square company, because back when I was on TV, I always wore a pocket square in my breast pocket. I felt like you have to fulfill your pocket's destiny. That was actually the tagline of a company I came up with. It was a hanky, a handkerchief company called Hank HNK. And what we did is we found, we found old designs, like old posters, like communist China posters and wild west posters and, and USO posters and

pieces of art, everything that was in the public domain. And we just changed the color schemes of them completely changing them, so that when you wore it as a puff, it looked like just a design. It looked like a Rorschach test, right? And it was, making these hankies was cheap, didn't cost a lot of money,

and but we had to go store by store to sell these things. If we had come up with it in a world where I could have set up a Shopify shop, I could have made a lot of money off of this. I really could have. Maybe I'll even try to bring it back at some point. So what you're saying is if somebody has a real idea for a business, it isn't that hard to do,

given the resources out there. But they're even bypassing having a good idea for an attempt to make money. What I'm saying, well, I've always found you kind of puffy and kind of square, but number one, you still have to have that idea. And you know that it is work to start up a business. So nowhere in that story that you just told, were you sitting on the couch just waiting for the money to roll in. And I think too many young people today, not all young people, because I have nothing but faith in my students, but too many young people today, not all young people, because I have nothing but faith in my students,

but too many young people are just looking for the quick dollar and the don't get off the couch dollar. Nowhere in your story did you say you weren't willing to work. You were off and running every day trying to sell your product, and that's something that's never gonna change. Gotcha. All right, let's move on to mortgage renewals. What is the state of play there? So much depends on where you locked in on an interest rate and where it is when you have to renew. So what's the state of play today on mortgage renewals and what's the impact gonna be on home ownership?

Well, there's a lot of things going on. Number one, we know that rates are still quite low. They're not historically low, but they're still low. So the odds of you being, if you already own a home and you're in the mortgage market, the odds of you being able to renew your mortgage are incredibly high. Okay. That's it. Now, of course, if you're not in the housing market, that's another story. But if you're already within the market, it's high. The problem right now is not mortgage debt. It's non mortgage debt that's creeping up daily.

And so it doesn't matter for you and I, we sequester these things, but if debt is just debt. And so if you've let your other debt get out of control, then you might have a hard time renewing your mortgage. But a mortgage itself today that you own, whether you go fixed or whether you go variable, you're still talking very, very low rates and you shouldn't have a problem locking in. Gotcha. Okay. Well, that's good. or whether you go variable, you're still talking very, very low rates and you shouldn't have a problem locking in. Gotcha. Okay, well that's good.

And now our last couple of minutes, I want to talk about what Canadians are doing with their disposable income. A lot of Canadians have decided for a number of reasons not to take their disposable income and their personal time and travel to the United States. Now, some are doing it out of protest for Donald Trump. Others are doing it because of the high American dollar

and it's gonna cost them more than they want to spend in the United States. So where are Canadians turning if not to the United States? Latin America. And our money losing national airline has really doubled down on, what is it? 55 daily flights now to 52 destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean. So what they're doing Air Canada is kind of they're going to bet on Canadians

not wanting to spend their money in Florida or Texas or California or the usual spots they're going to kind of double down on this idea that we have to buy Canadian. Now let me tell you going to Latin America is not buying Canadian. Shopping at Air Canada over United Airlines, maybe. But yes, there is a trend right now that if you're going to travel and if you're going to spend your money, it isn't really a buy Canadian, it's a don't buy in the United States, don't invest in the United States. But you know, Ben, call me a skeptic. I think that these protests are very short lived. And I also think that as the price of Latin American and Caribbean holidays rises, because it's still more expensive to go there than it is

to go for a few days in Florida, you're going to see it balance right back and people may just put their ethics back in their pocket and make that trip to Florida again. Yeah. And look, look, right now it works because of the sort of the difference in the value of our dollar and the American dollar. But if that gap starts to close, I think you're gonna see people whose quote unquote anger

towards the United States is going to be replaced with, oh, it's convenient, the flights are there, I know the place and it's less expensive for me to go there now. And by the way, they've got Disney World. And so I agree, there's a situational convenience to be able to say, I don't want to go to the States right now. But if all of a sudden it's more convenient to go there,

that's where people are going to go. Ben, forget planes. 90% of Canadians live within an hour and a half from an American city. So you don't think if the dollar starts to balance out, my wife and my daughter and everybody else are going to run to Buffalo and go shopping. And then you know what?

I'm telling you, you got, you're already dressed for it. You don't have to go anywhere but Calgary, my friend. I want to thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a great end to your week and is that a snake in my boot? We'll talk to you later my friend. Big Brother is back! Let's break it go! and I'm gunning for you. You're my number one target. Who can you trust when everyone's watching? Game on, baby.

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