The Ben Mulroney Show - The Government's failure to stop Anti-Jew Hatred in Canada is appalling

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The Government's failure to stop Anti-Jew Hatred in Canada is appalling -Do we need a barrier on every bridge that's above a road way -Is it time to make parking at Hospitals free 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

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. According to the Toronto police, 19% of hate crimes, there was an increase of 19% of hate crimes last year. That's a spike. That's not a good look. last year. That's a spike. That's not a good look. 443 instances of hate crimes across the city. 40% of all of those were anti-Jewish incidents. Now, when you realize that Jewish Torontonians are only 3% of the city's population and they are shouldering the burden and the shame and the pain of 40%

of all of the hate in this city, all the hate incidents. That is a blight on the reputation and on the culture and on the fabric of the city of Toronto. And I want to take calls right now at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. The city needs to do something. The people in charge need to be held to account for allowing this cancer to metastasize inside the soul of this city. I refuse to let anybody off the hook with trite words like this is not who we are. Thoughts and prayers. That's BS. This is who we are because we've allowed it to fester

and become part of who we are. We have normalized hate towards the Jewish people of this city. We have allowed for hate to happen in our streets. And I think even more disgustingly so in the neighborhoods where Jewish Torontonians call home. We've allowed people to enter their safe space and Harass them harangue them threaten them insult them demean them dehumanize them on a regular basis to the point that now it's just commonplace and Now those who do it feel entitled to it because we've allowed them to do so

So give me a call at four one six eight seven zero sixty four hundred or one To do it, feel entitled to it because we've allowed them to do so. So give me a call at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Let's get specific. How do we fix this? Who do we go to? Is this a question of going to the mayor? Is this a question of going to the head of the police, Myron Demkew? Do we write letters? Do we protest at City Hall? What's the quickest way to getting justice

and writing the ship? I don't know what the answer is. I'm just tired of seeing these numbers uptick. seeing these numbers uptick. And I'll say, I'll repeat something now that I've said before. I refuse to live in the false, naive, binary world where me sitting in front of this microphone, calling out anti-Semitism, is in any way a not supporting or being supportive of other cultural communities that feel the brunt of hate.

That is not the world I live in. We are complex people who are able to hold many truths in their souls and hearts simultaneously. And I condemn any act of hatred towards anyone all the time. But when 3% of the population is being affected by 40% of the hate, that's a special category and it needs highlighting and it needs fixing. It's at the top of the heap for me. Let's fix this. Brad, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey Ben, good morning. How are you? I'm well, thank you. I'm well, these are not the numbers I wanted to wake up to on a Monday, but here we are.

No, listen, and I would strive even further. Instead of being mayor, I'd go a little bit up. You've got what it takes and you've got logic. My question is this, why don't we get to the source of why something isn't being done? Yeah. And I don't know, it's been blowing my mind since the beginning, since after October 7th, where this explosion of anti-Semitism began and has been sustained.

Brad, it doesn't make any sense to me. I watch our frontline police officers on, you know, at these protests, following, you know, groups into Jewish communities. And I know that they are just, they are, they are following the protocols that have been laid out for them. But I don't know how high up those go. I don't know. But I'm sure that most, if not all, of those police officers, if they were told, yeah, arrest anybody you see breaking the law, they would be backing up the paddy wagon and shoveling people in because they are breaking so many laws.

You're not supposed to be protesting with your face covered. There are certain places you're not supposed to be protesting. There's all sorts of provisions within the criminal sorts of provisions within the the the criminal code that they're breaking on the daily. And so Brad, like, I don't know why I don't know how high up it goes. Maybe you do. No, but that's, but that's my point is that which mechanism

what's in place to find out why we're not doing something about this. Yeah, like, it's, we would certainly do it if somebody attacked the gay community or somebody attacked another group. Yeah. They raised the flag. Anyway, I do want to know. Yeah, no, you make a good point, Brad.

Thank you so much. Let's welcome Mark into the conversation. Happy Monday, Mark. Hi there, Ben. I would like to first and foremost, thank you for your unwavering support of the Jewish community since day one. I want to let you know that it doesn't go unnoticed with people of the Jewish faith.

Thank you. And we very much respect you and appreciate you. I will tell you Ben, as a Jewish Torontonian, I lived in peace and didn't have to see this garbage for much of my life. I remember when I was a kid growing up, these were very isolated incidents. If someone did do something anti-Semitic, they were ostracized, they were punished, and it was squashed. And there's a common denominator over the last 10 or so years, and that's an influx of immigration from people around the world who are bringing their tribal type of attitudes

and their disgusting stance towards the Jewish faith. They bring it here, they import their problems here. Okay. And then we have, as you've spoken before, we have for the federal government, even the municipal government, ultra far left ideology. There's no mistaking that they like to group people into, uh, they like to pit people against each other and they like to have this whole colonizers and oppressors type of, uh, frame for everything everything and nothing is going to happen. The toothpaste is out of the tube. As long as you have these people in charge,

these liberals, and you have a far-left NDP mayor, they will never change because it's gonna go against everything that their people stand for. Well, Mark, thank you very much for the call. And look, I take all those points. I just want to know who we can go to. Like, who do we have to send a memo to? Because I don't know what it's going to take. I've been saying since the beginning that if you don't, if the police aren't able to take a hard stance against and draw a hard line in the sand, then it will enable and embolden those who are out to cause this sort of hate. It will embolden them to cross the line. If you don't tell them, you know, you shall not pass, as Gandalf said, they shall pass.

Who do we have now? We've got George. George, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning, Ben. I'd just like to say that we failed at this 18 months ago. When you have a police force like Toronto and a protester from this group in the Ethan Centre, I believe it was, told the police officers to escape with five of them there armed, I'm going to bury you, I'm going to kill you. Yeah. Six feet deep. Six feet deep. They de-masculize them. They have them nothing. This money is coming from other outsourced streams. This is an agenda. This is done intentionally. So who's paying our politicians to keep their mouth shut and to allow this to happen to Canada? Well, I want to know about, like,

it's cost $20 million to the police for all of these. But let's also not forget about the lost opportunity costs every Every time they shut down a street, how much business is lost? How much time are people stuck in traffic that they otherwise would be out making money out paying taxes out buying things? I mean, the lost opportunity cost must be far bigger than that. We've got time for one more call. Adam, welcome to the show. Adam L. Yeah, so I'm very Jewish and very Zionist, but I'm fed up with the local Jewish community. David Why? Adam L. Because their line and particularly Ben-Abrith, because Ben-Abrith, Ben-Abrith

is, they made it so that all anything is anti-Semitism, even when it's not anti-Semitism. And the Jewish community has basically decided if you don't support this particular Israeli government you're an anti-Semite. Oh I don't think that's true. There's a there there are a lot of Jews that I know that do not take issue with many aspects of the Netanyahu government and a criticism of government policy is not a criticism of Zionism writ large and and so no I humbly and respectfully disagree. Hi I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get Global National every day as a podcast. The biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news

journalists. New episodes drop every day so take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National podcast. You can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney Show and there's just a terrible story that we need to talk about. There's a family is suing the city after their father was driving north on the Don Valley Parkway on Father's Day. He was on his way to a Father's Day event and he went under a bridge.

And at the same time that he was driving under the bridge, someone fell off the bridge, landed on his car and he ended up dying. And I have to assume both of them died. So now the family is suing the city, it's claiming that the city didn't take the responsible steps to make sure that something like that wouldn't happen. And I wanna get your calls on this at 4168706400 or 1-888-225-TALK.

I'm of two minds. Of course, this is a terrible accident, but is it the city's responsibility to ensure that no accidents ever happen ever? How often does something like this happen? Just south of that is the Bloor Viaduct. And in a few years, I think 2013 or something, they put up anti-suicide or suicide prevention block,

like a barricade to make sure that people wouldn't jump off the Bloor viaduct. And as it turned out, it was actually a very popular choice for those who were in crisis and wanted to end their lives. I think about nine people a year on average were jumping off of the Bloor viaduct. They were second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in terms of how many people

chose to end their lives that way. And so they put up a barrier and since then only one person has died that way. And so in that way, that's a success. But do we have to put that on every single bridge in order to ensure that lawsuits like this don't happen? This is an, to me, it feels like an unfortunate accident that if somebody decided to, you know, end their lives this way a dozen times,

I don't know that they would ever land on somebody's car at the same time. And if they did, I don't know that that person would die. And is it the responsibility of the city to, And is it the responsibility of the city to ensure that nobody ever, that this exact thing never repeats? I don't know. I don't know if there's a solution here. But this also reminds me, like, this reminds me of the Rogers Center when the guy threw the beer and they banned beer. As opposed to ban, I mean they banned the dude too. But you banned the dude, you don't ban beer. By banning beer what you're doing is you're legislating for the lowest common denominator.

As opposed to recognizing that one bad dude did one bad thing and we're going to make sure that that bad dude doesn't do that bad thing anymore. In this case, are we supposed to put up those multi-million dollar suicide prevention barriers on every single bridge across the city? Because someone might jump and if that person jumps they might hit somebody's car and if they hit that person's car the person driving it may die. I don't ever want to see anybody die but is that the response is that where we're going? I think that it's I think it's uh it's trying to it's trying to kill a fly with a bazooka. Steve welcome to the show. How are you? Good morning sir. Good morning. Your favorite Greek plumber here. Welcome. I'm driving down a DVP so what we got a baby proof every single bridge

down? Well yeah I mean I think that's where that's where this might be headed if if this lawsuit is successful. And there's not a single part of me that does not feel for this family. It's awful. But 100% you're right. It's a tragedy. But you know what? How about the city stop giving safe supply?

How about they stop making these drug addicts that are now eventually going to, you know, go and take their own life? Well, to be fair, we actually don't know if the guy was pushed or if he fell or you're right, he might have been in a mental health crisis and he didn't know where he was and ended up falling. I don't know what it is, but still, I mean, that would probably be really important as well. Like what was this person's motivation? We could find out it wasn't a one in a thousand chance that this tragedy would happen. It's one in a billion. We don't know.

Yeah. Yeah, but you're right. It's a, it sounds heartless, but it's true. We're looking to baby proof the whole city. And I thank you, Steve, for the call. Ian, welcome to the show. Hey, Ben. Thanks for taking my call.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we have to baby be proved the whole city but we can do the obvious things that will protect other people you'll never stop anybody from committing well hopefully you can stop so we can use the side but if someone's during the kill themselves will kill themselves if that man had fallen let's say sixty feet to the west, he would have landed in the grass

and he would have met his demise. If we had a simple barrier up over the roadway, plus maybe even the bike path that's also underneath that bridge, and you'd protect the people under it, it seems pretty simple to do. We don't have to know the bridge. Is anything simple in a city like Toronto?

There would be, there would be discussions on it and committees and exploratory studies and environmental impact, then the bidding process would happen and then construction. I mean there's nothing ever that is simple in the city of Toronto. I think we can both agree on that Ian. Yeah but that's something that actually should have happened at a public works meeting on the Monday morning. What are we going to do this week? Oh, we're going to see if we can get the money to build this fence because it only makes sense. Why do we need all these committees and studies? Because that's how the bureaucracy in the City works. And I thank you very much for your call, Ian.

And look, I want everybody to be safe everywhere all the time, but that's a practical impossibility. And so you got to ask yourself, and you got to be cold about this. Have a cost-benefit analysis. Does the cost of building this barrier benefit us more than it costs. And I don't know that you can make that case. I haven't I haven't made the case. But I don't know that you can make that case. Who else do we have now? We've got Mike, welcome to the show. Yeah, Marty, Ben, I was just saying to the screener, get the Ontario government to pass

legislation that makes the insurance cover cover the interests on something like this it's so infrequently it happens you know I don't yeah that we could each pay a couple of bucks they don't need to charge us another thousand dollars but a couple of bucks from everybody and the one that lost their loved ones there is some sort of consideration and compensation well and I and I thank you, but I don't know that you can, I think a good lawyer, if this goes through, could then bring a complaint or a lawsuit against the city when somebody runs a red light,

you didn't do everything you could, or there's, I don't know, there's a traffic accident, there's, or there's an accident with a snowplow. I mean, there's any number or there's an accident with a snowplow. I mean, there's there's any number of ways you could go. So well, if that family was awarded money because we were successful at proving that the city was derelict in its duty, where else can we find an argument that the city was derelict in its duty? And I guarantee you in a city like Toronto, you can find a lot of gray areas where the city could have done something. and somebody could say you should have done something.

Jamie, welcome to the show. Hey bud. Hey. Good morning. Good morning. Um, you know, I had to call in because for a moment there you sounded like a Republican, you know, you said, oh, it's not the bridge that caused the fault. And I right away thought, I thought, oh, it's not the guns that killed the person, it's the person that killed with the guns, right? So I had to call in because it almost sounded the same. And you're right, it's not the bridge's fault and it's not the city's fault. However, you know, I feel sad for this family

because they're gonna go down a rabbit hole now to try and sue the city. And I think because they're gonna go down a rabbit hole now to try and sue the city. And I think because they're angry and stuff and they want to blame somebody. And I think they're just gonna lose more money. I don't think the city is gonna push back really hard on us because they just don't want everybody to come out of the woodwork now to start suing the city. Which means they're gonna have to push back. But I do take issue with you calling me a Republican and comparing it to gun violence.

There are tens of thousands of people dying in gun violent crimes in the United States and we're talking about a single solitary person who possibly was under mental duress and took their own life. So I mean that the scale alone makes these completely different situations. I struggle to see where the comparison is, but I do appreciate the call. Whatever gets you guys to call in, I'm just thankful you do. And I want to thank everybody for joining into this conversation. And I'll end by repeating that what happened to both the person who fell

and the man who was on his way to celebrate Father's Day, a tragedy on both ends, and I never want to see that repeated, and we'll just leave that there. to classical music. Your adventurous side rocks out with the dynamic sound Yamaha. Regular U owns a library card. Adventurous U owns the road with super all wheel control. Regular side, alone time. Adventurous side journeys together with third row seating. The new Outlander, bring out your adventurous side. Mitsubishi Motors, drive your ambition. Welcome back to the

Ben Mulroney Show. Time to take your calls again. 416-870-6400 or 1-triple-8-225 talk. A few weeks ago I read that the Nova Scotia government had done something pretty substantial. They had made parking at hospitals across the province free. And the reason behind it makes a lot of sense. You know, for a lot of people, if their family members or friends or loved ones are in hospital for an extended period of time, you could be going to the hospital

a couple of times a day sometimes. And in a lot of cases, you didn't have in and out privileges at the parking lot, which meant you were paying two, three, four times a day, upwards of 20, 30 bucks. And you do that over the course of a season or a few months or a year or two. And you're out tens of thousands of dollars, the money that you just don't have.

And when you think, okay, I'm paying for this, the service of the hospital through my taxes, then why should I then also have to incur this massive cost just to visit somebody who needs me in the hospital? And so there's a private members bill that's being put forth at Queens Park through the NDP. It doesn't, it's not likely to pass, but it does open up the conversation. Like, is this a good idea?

I understand the principle of it that makes sense to me, but I also wanna know, how are we gonna avoid people abusing this? If you know that there are free parking lots in and around the city, close to hospitals, there's no way somebody's not going to abuse that. There's no way it's not going to fill up first thing in the morning and people are going to hop on the subway or get on a get on a streetcar and go to go where they've got to go or park there and go to go to a coffee shop

for a few minutes or go to lunch for an hour. There's no way people won't abuse the system and so give me a call at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. I'd love to hear if you think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea. I just don't know how this good idea can be put into practice. Unless, I don't know, you're going to have to have a new system where, I don't know, if you've got somebody in the hospital, there's some QR code that you scan to say, I have the right to be here for as long as my loved one is in hospital. But that's a whole other technology you would have to add to the system and that

comes at a cost as well in these days we just don't have that money. And I'm pretty sure in a lot of cases the hospitals, I mean this is revenue that the hospitals use and if they're using it's because they need it, not to say that the hospitals couldn't be run more efficiently. But you see, like, there are all sorts of questions here that just simply making it free, it might solve one aspect of a problem, but it opens up a number of other ones. John, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Hey, Ben, first things first. My wife and I met your dad 40 years ago, came up to a young couple of kids who were on a honeymoon, and he shook our hands and introduced himself.

What a true gentleman. And that's gone down through the family. John, thank you very much. And congratulations on 40 years of marriage. Anyways, if I was ever running for political office, I've said multiple times, pipeline across the country, and nobody would ever pay up the hospitals for parking. Yeah.

And absolutely revolting that they do that. There is such a simple way to do that. Tell me you pay for your first time in. Yeah. Register a card to the patient who's in the hospital. As long as that patient is in the hospital, you have free parking. The moment that patient is discharged, your card becomes deactivated. No matter how many times you want to use it, while they're there, it's

free. Once they're out, it's over. Yeah, I mean, listen, that sounds good. I just can't imagine that somebody isn't gonna find a way to abuse that system. I'm sure they'll try, but like I'm a pastor as well as a dairy farmer. And so I meet a lot of people in the hospitals. I have a privilege that I can. But I'll tell you, you can rack up tons of money going to see someone. Yeah, yeah. No, and I get it. Fundamentally, if the system is supposed to be accessible and equitable,

then the idea that there's a massive cost just to visit somebody, the barrier of entry to go visit, I mean, deprives us of that equity and deprives us of that accessibility. Thank you very much. Let's bring Bernadette into the conversation. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you very much, Ben.

Thanks for having me. I'm actually a cancer patient, and I've been to Sunnybrook many times. I've also worked for architectural firms, and it's really part of the strategy of government to help pay for the hospital itself through the parking. And when I go to sunnybrook, I have an option to, there's like free service from the cancer society if they want to drive me, but I prefer to drive on my own own so what i do is i usually go into certain parking lot park there and their

sunnybrook's very forgiving they won't uh as long as you pay once they won't give you a ticket and if you're not there for like many many many hours at a time i don't think they're going to give you a ticket if you've already paid. This is my philosophy. And I've also been to see relatives at, I think it's called Joseph Brandt Hospital in Burlington, and they're very forgiving as well. I think people have to realize that it's a system that you need to pay for and if you're not paying for it then it doesn't it's not worth anything and what you've suggested

is that that will happen will happen yeah the system and you have to stop that so it has to have a fee well Bernadette Bernadette thank you very much and I wish you the very best in your in your treatment and your recovery yes I I have fortunately recovered. Oh, good. Oh, that's great news. I'm just doing reconstruction surgery on my face. Well, I wish you the very, very best and thank you very much for calling in. Thank you.

Cheryl, welcome to the show. I want you to add, please add to this conversation. Tell me something I don't know. Well, first of all, I ran my first campaign for Terry Clifford when your dad ran on free trade. So we could go back a long ways. A ways. A long ways yes. This isn't a soft story this is a real story. My husband's been in the hospital now for a year and I paid $2,200 a month for him to be there. We're waiting for long-term care. And plus I pay over $600 a year for parking. So I don't mind paying the $2,200 because I understand because he's

long-term care, because he's not medically sick. But I do really not enjoy. And I think there's a huge possibility to have a year pass, six month pass, three month pass, but every month if I'm late I have to go and pay the money because the booth is never open on the weekend so I mean it's an it's an ongoing sort of it's it's annoying yeah more than anything I know Cheryl I'm gonna we have to leave it there I want to get a couple more calls in but thank you very much for your attention, and for calling in. I wish you the best with your husband.

Stan, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben. Yeah, hi. So I was just at the hospital's Sunnybrook Far clinic, and I was there for like 40 minutes, and it was still $10, $12 to park, which is about what you're gonna pay downtown or at the airport yeah I think is

unreasonable I agree however I can see paying a couple bucks an hour three you know two three dollars so a more reasonable rate Stan I'm gonna leave it there because I want to get this last call in Braden very very quickly should we be paying it at the hospitals hello yes very quickly you'll get 10 seconds left perfect I think that they should be, they should charge parking at the casinos. Use that money to work lost. Ah, look at that. Let's end on that.

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