The Ben Mulroney Show - The hurdles with getting Canada working again

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Shamira Madhany -Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones 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

Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you for joining us on Tuesday, June 24th. A lot of news to get to and of course we're still, a lot of us are still mourning the passing of the Hudson's Bay here in Canada. The retailer, oldest publicly traded company, or I think the oldest chartered company in North American history, went the way of the dodo bird for a number of reasons. The hollowing out of Canadian retail, the fact that this company was taken over

by bean counters that decided that it wasn't a retailer, but it was a real estate play, sold all the real estate, and now we find ourselves in a situation where Canadian Tire owns Hudson's Bay's IP, and a very wealthy woman, a billionaire, as a matter of fact, in British Columbia named Ruby Lou, has purchased some of the land,

some of the actual department stores themselves. And so I've had a number of conversations with Tony Chapman on this show, who a brand expert and just a guy who thinks about all of these stories that we talk about, he thinks about them on the next level, on the level beyond that. And he predicted if a company like Canadian Tire got the IP of a company like a Hudson's Bay,

that you would still see that spirit live on in the form of a store within a store inside Canadian Tire where you could buy the striped blanket, for example, or pop-up stores within Canadian airports where it would be a tourist impulse buy so that people could purchase that iconic Hudson's Bay memorabilia, if you will,

before going back to all parts around the world. So it would still live on, and that history would still be maintained. And I'm actually quite glad that Canadian Tire secured that IP. But what I find interesting is Ruby Liu has taken over the leases of three Hudson's Bay properties in the malls that she owns.

She's looking to lease other ones in Ontario that she doesn't own. And her goal is to start a new department store. And she says she's going to name it after herself. I don't know if she's going to name it Ruby. I don't know if she's going to name it Lou. I don't know if she's going to name it Ruby Lou. But it's not a bad name by the way.

And her last name is written L-I-U. I think a name either Ruby or Ruby Lou written L-U or L-O-O could be a really fun name. But here's what I think is interesting is that she wants to reimagine the department store experience to include fine dining as well as children's play spaces and really try to diversify what it means to go into a department store.

And given the fact that a lot of our malls are facing an identity crisis, and I think that's a nice way of putting it, others would say existential crisis, but I think we overuse that expression. Fact is, those pillar tenants that you find on the end parts of most malls, where you used to have a bay,

and you would have a Sears. Those are gone now. What do you do with those massive structures? What do you do with those massive cavernous former department stores that are sitting empty? Well, in a lot of cases, some people are saying, given the fact that the real estate around these malls is improving in value,

a lot of real estate guys are gobbling them up and they're building sort of towns next to these shopping malls, which means you're gonna need schools, you're going to need play areas, you're going to need fine dining, you're gonna need daycare, you're going to need medical assistance,

all of those things, grocery stores, all of those things could exist in gyms, health facilities. All of those things could exist in what used to be those massive department stores. And here along comes a woman who ponies up the cash, buys some of this massive company out of bankruptcy. And she says she's ready to invest in these malls, but court documents say the landlords for the spaces

are overwhelmingly opposed to her moving in. Now, I don't know enough about this to take a position one way or another, but what I do know is, what I do know allows me to sort of lean towards the belief that beggars can't be choosers, right? And if you're sitting on a piece of property that is just that nobody is paying rent on

and here comes someone who buys the lease, you would think that you'd say, hey, have at it, Ruby Lou, do whatever you want. So long as you drive people in foot traffic into our mall, and so long as you pay rent. I don't understand why they are overwhelmingly opposed to her moving in. We will obviously follow this story very closely. Another story that we're following is, you know, the early days of Mark Carney's liberal government. He's impressed me on a number of files. I'm not gonna lie.

I never thought he would be a disaster, by the way. I never suggested that the sky would fall if he became prime minister, but I was skeptical. Then a lot of the reasons that I was skeptical is I didn't know who he was. He was very good at limiting our exposure to him and what we knew about him. And so what I am learning, I'm liking in a lot of ways.

And he's been at the NATO summit following his, what I think was a successful G7 summit. And he gave a talk, a speech rather, about making a deal with the EU, rearming Europe, talking about how Canada is the most European of non-European nations. And look, I get it. Like we were the two of our founding nations,

two of our three founding nations are European, the British and the French. And then of course you have First Nations. But when he says something like that, I know it's to be polite to the people welcoming us. I know that he is on European territory and he wants to be generous and magnanimous and be a good guest in Europe. But I guarantee you there are some people out west, Saskatchewan, Alberta, who don't feel European.

And when our prime minister says something like that, it doesn't help matters if those people believe he's not speaking to them or representing them. And so it's not a big deal, but it is something. Like we are Canadian and we really, after 10 years, not for nothing, I saw this on social media, after 10 years of apologizing for all of

what our European traditions have brought to the world, we had a government that would self-flagellate almost routinely, almost reflexively apologize for every ill that was brought to these shores by our European forefathers. It's a little rich to now start, I don't know, pumping our tires as to how European we are. It might signal a change, maybe a welcome change

from what preceded him, but it is quite jarring given how apologetic we've been for being European. And now we're talking about how proudly European we are. Something I am proud of is is our commitment to our ambassador in Washington, Kristen Hillman. She was I mean, she's now served under three prime ministers. She was brought on as the chief negotiator, I believe for our Pacific negotiations under Stephen Harper. Then she was brought in as the US ambassador, where she played a pivotal role in the renegotiation of NAFTA. Well, she's been named our chief negotiator with the US and I've had a chance to spend some time with

Ambassador Hillman. I went down to Washington, probably about four or five monthsS. And I've had a chance to spend some time with Ambassador Hillman. I went down to Washington probably about four or five months ago and I had I went to the Canadian embassy which is just a gem. It is for people for people who don't think that our public buildings are symbols and and have a symbolic and emotional resonance. Go take a tour of the the Canadian symbolic and emotional resonance, go take a tour of the Canadian embassy in Washington. And if it doesn't fill you with pride that we have the only embassy that isn't on embassy row and what that means about our special relationship with the Americans,

then I don't know what's gonna convince you. But she is a woman of great reputation and the results to back that reputation. She is down to earth. She is steeped in knowledge, steeped in the connections that are required to get us to where we need to be as it relates to renegotiating any trade or security deal

with the United States. My hat goes off to Mark Carney for making what I think is an astute decision. She will be pivotal, central to our success on all of those files. I wish her the very best, and I hope to have her as a guest on this show in short order, where she can lay out her role,

her vision, and her priorities on all of these important files. Mom, Mom, did you see my race? Of course I did, darling! Look, you did your best. You tried. The thing is, it's not about winning. It's about taking part.

Next year you might do better. But I did win, Mom. You did? When it's sunny, make sure you can still see. At Specsavers, get two pairs of glasses from $149, and one can be prescription sunglasses. Hey, the sun won't wait. Visit Specsavers.ca for details.

Conditions apply. This is The Ben Mulrooney Show, and this is The Ben Mulrooney Show on YouTube, on podcast YouTube, on podcast platforms, on streaming platforms, as well as on radio. Wherever we find you we say welcome to the show and let's build this show together. If you are a regular listener of the show or if you're somebody with eyes and ears and opinion then then you probably fall in the camp that at the very least you

believe that the last 10 years as it relates to our immigration policy have not been optimal, they have not been effective, and I think that's probably a charitable way of putting it. A lot of people believe that the consensus on immigration in this country has been broken, and people who used to feel that we were building towards a better future by way of immigration, think that it was co-opted or it was perverted or it was broken to the point that it is now not necessarily in service of the betterment

of the country and we need to rethink on that. Now that is a conversation that absolutely needs to take place on the daily. However, that's a conversation that requires long-term planning. You can't turn that ship overnight. What you can do overnight is look at what we have, who we have in this country. And while, yes, there are certain aspects of it that would rise to the level of being

considered a crisis, true leaders and visionaries take a crisis and in that crisis, they see opportunity. We have people in this country who are here for whatever reasons and however they got here that have talents, that have skills, that are underutilized. And what we do with the people we have here today could very well determine the success of the future,

of Canada's future. And to talk about that, we're joined by the Managing Director of World Education Services, Shamira Madhani. Shamira, welcome to the show. And good morning, Ben. Yeah, I'm a proponent, Shamira, of taking the world as it is. And Canada as it is today, we have people who are either spinning their wheels or are working in occupations that aren't optimal to the skillset that they have. And yes, I believe I don't know how you feel about it.

We do, in my opinion, need a rethink on our immigration policy. But now that these people are here, we need to find a way to integrate them into our economy as effectively and optimally as possible so that we can build the best version of the country that we have today. Ben, I absolutely agree with you, but let me just start with some statistics that become

really important as to why immigration and immigrants are important to our country, Canada, and why we need to harness the skills of the highly skilled immigrants who are already here. So more than 500,000 Canadian baby boomers will hit retirement age 65 annually and we've had a declining birth rate. It used to be 3.2 children per family. Now it's 1.2 children per family. And so in fact, when you think about what's going to happen five years from now when people turn 65, you're going to have a situation in Canada where we don't have enough talent. And as you have an aging population, you don't have enough health workers. And on the other side, what we have had is a million

immigrants coming to the country every three years. And yet one in three immigrants were highly skilled, highly skilled. You know, 80% have graduate degrees. They are not working in the fields that they have the graduate training program. So, and listen, I co-sign everything you just said. I agree with everything that you just said. And I view that the problem that you just described as one of those self-inflicted wounds, it's Canada getting in its own way,

it's akin to me to inter-provincial trade barriers that we are so dead set on removing so that we can get out of our own way and unlock our potential. I believe that if we can find a way to fast track the harmonization between the training that these immigrants got in their home countries with the requirements of the jobs here in Canada,

that can unlock yet another level of potential for the Canadian economy. So a hundred percent. I mean, you know, one of the things that keeps on happening out there in terms of the way people view immigration or immigrants as coming in and basically, you know, taking away from. And yet what we have, as I just said, immigrants who are here highly educated. And what I think that we need to do, you know,

it's an opinion that I've had and, you know, continue to reiterate is rather than the federal government blaming the provincial government, blaming the licensing bodies, employers saying it's the government. What we really need to do to harness the skills of immigrants is clear information to individuals even before they arrive so they can be prepared.

Rather than arriving and saying, oh, I didn't know it was gonna cost this much, this is how long it's gonna take. Secondly, harmonization between the federal policies and provincial policies. Yep. And you can all see in terms of, you know, the one economy messages out there, the reduction of interprovincial trade.

Yep. It's a huge picture, and if we're doing it in our own country, we should also do it globally. Yeah. Because these individuals are coming from countries where we need the skills, health, trade, STEM, engineering. And what this really is having people around the table, federal government, for government licensing bodies, settlement agencies to have a constructive conversation as to what needs to be done.

And but Shamira, like what you are are saying to me is self-evident. And to any rational person, what we're discussing right now makes perfect sense. And I guess the question is, why is it taking so long for the powers that be to recognize that this is, this is a layup, this is the low hanging fruit, this is the easy stuff, clearly. And there's no way Shamira, other countries aren't doing it better than Canada There's no way that there isn't a best practice out there that we could Learn from I'm not saying we'd ever take somebody another national policy from a different country and just apply it directly to Canada but we could learn from another country and and use that as a model on which to build a

Canada specific model of harmonization. Why is it taking so long? Where are the choke points? So, Beth, we actually have been leaders in Canada. We have been leaders in Canada. What has happened though is that we have moved from the conversation of what do we need as a country to be economically prosperous to how many immigrants do you wanna bring in

and how many should leave? So the question asking is, you know, what has been the roadblocks? What should we do? Again, I just go back to what I said a few minutes ago. Instead of every single sector blaming the other and saying it's not our problem, it's those gatekeepers, it's those gatekeepers,

it's the policies of funding. We really truly need to have a conversation together. It may sound really pedantic, it may sound like why wouldn't people sit around and have a conversation, but that has been working in silos. Again, I go back to the one economy. You see the provinces and the premiers working together with the prime minister for one country. And I believe that that's the same that needs to happen now. There is an opportunity now. We're already having conversations. This is the time.

This is the moment to be around the table, to look at what the policies are, what the issues are, and then having a joint conversation and how do you assess credentials so you're not putting additional barriers? Shamira, is there a way for us to kill two birds with one stone? And I don't want to be reductive here, but based on what you said, where you said,

we went from having a conversation about who do we need that are best to help us build the economy and build the country to a question of how can we bring as many people in as possible? I know it sounds reductive, but it does seem like there was a shift between, so quality and quantity. And I think in making that shift and in making that choice, we may have prioritized numbers over bringing people in

that can contribute to not just the economy, but the character of the country. And so questions of social cohesion come into play. And I guess my question for you is, is it too ambitious to suggest that we can sort of harmonize our system to allow these highly skilled new Canadians to enter the workplace in a valued and skilled manner. At the same time, bring them into the Canadian national character where we don't have these disparate visions of what it means to be Canadian.

We can all work together towards building a united Canada. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Oh, okay. I mean, I do apologize. I spoke for so long. We've run out of time. I would love to continue this conversation Shamir at a later date. But thank you for your time. Thank you, Ben. This is the Ben Mulrooney show. And I've said it before, I will say it again, never before

in our history have we put more investment into our healthcare systems across the country and never before have the outcomes been, for lack of a better expression, less desirable, so to speak. And I'm of the opinion that when you are dealing with a crisis at this level, any and all ideas should be welcome, right? Nothing should be off the table. We should be we should be throwing everything at the kitchen sink at the problem to see what sticks.

Well, the Ontario government is proposing a solution at least to one aspect of what ails their health care system. We're joined now by the Health Minister of Ontario, Sylvia Jones. Minister, thank you for being here. Well, I'm glad to be able to join you, Ben. So you've got a massive announcement of a massive infusion of cash. Tell me how much and what's it being directed towards?

Yeah, it was exciting news. So we announced a $2.1 billion investment in primary care, and that is going to be able to connect everyone in Ontario to a family doctor or primary care team. And I have to say, Ontario does lead Canada with over 90% of attachments. So that's individuals who have a primary care provider that they are regularly seeing.

But we really want to focus on that last 10% to make sure that everyone is looking actually gets that family doctor. One thing I've been paying attention to is that we have a very strong they are regularly seeing. But we really want to focus on that last 10% to make sure that everyone is looking actually gets that family doc. So one thing that I've been paying attention to a lot over the past few years, whenever there's a, there's always, there are these big announcements by various levels of government for various things where they say, oh, we're announcing the biggest announcement in, in, in funding for this or for that. And I thought to myself, you know, if I were building a sports team and I announced that

I had the biggest budget, the highest budget for players, that really wouldn't matter unless those players translated to success on the field and ultimately won a championship because people care about the championship. They don't care about the budget. And so I'm always concerned when I hear this is the biggest investment, but so long as until it leads to those better outcomes, all it is to me is an announcement of money going into the system.

I'm not trying to be cynical. I'm just trying to be realistic. Do you understand what I'm saying? Absolutely, but yesterday's announcement, we announced another 130 new and expanded primary care teams that are gonna be able to connect 30,000 people to primary care.

And Ben, I have to say, we did an announcement in February of 2024, 78 new teams then, and all of those teams are operating, all of those teams have hired and taken on patients. To me, that's the model of success that we need to see and we are seeing with these investments. And Minister, I have to say this idea of sort of teams

that people are associated with as opposed to simply having one point of contact with one doctor, it feels to me like that's where the system is going. A couple of weeks ago on the show, we were discussing a new study that was comparing hospital wait times across Canada. And they noticed that there were these choke points when people were being assigned to

for elective surgeries. And they said, the problem is if you have a primary care doctor, they will, and you need a hip replacement, they will link you to the surgeon that they know. Now that surgeon may have a six month wait list. However, there may be a surgeon they don't know who doesn't have a wait list. And so if we were to switch to a model where you get put on a list

and the next available surgeon is assigned to you as opposed to the personal connection that your doctor has to that surgeon, that could cut down wait times significantly without adding any massive burden of additional cost to the system, with the exception of sort of building out these new network nodes. And it seems to me like your ministry is following something like that. Yes, we are. You're basically referring to electronic referrals. So imagine that that is a new family physician

or a family physician who is new to Ontario. And they don't have those connections to the specialists that perhaps others do. So it allows the physician to be able to go to a central place and say, I am practicing in Toronto. Where are the surgeons that are taking on this particular surgery? And it's really exciting work. It takes some time and it obviously still is foundational on the patient being able to make the choice if they want that surgery in their home community.

And perhaps there's a longer wait, but that's who they want. They can do that. But the opportunity to do electronic referrals and other innovations is really exciting work that we're doing in the Ministry of Health. Yeah, as somebody like yourself who has now a great depth of knowledge into the entire healthcare system in Ontario, I have to assume that what we just described there in one case, you know, we're talking about hip surgeries,

for example, I have to assume that that choke point exists in so many different places under different circumstances, but we must have, you know, we're looking to streamline, we're looking to save money, we're looking to cut down on wait times and costs. I have to assume that if we looked at every single choke point with the same scrutiny that we just described, we could speed up, improve, and modernize If we looked at every single choke point with the same scrutiny that we just described,

we could speed up, improve, and modernize our healthcare system in a way that it's never been done before. Yes, but the foundation will always be the primary care multidisciplinary team. The best way to describe it is if I need a family doc, I will see a family doc. But these multidisciplinary teams also have nurse practitioners, they have mental health workers, they have diabetes educators. So depending on what you are dealing with

in your healthcare journey, you get that opportunity to not just get a phone number and say call and talk to someone. It's literally, this is Jones, you just got a diagnosis of diabetes. There's a diabetes educator down the hall. Please go and have a conversation about what that means to you and your family. So, so minister, talk to me about timelines here. This is an investment, a lot of money,

but it takes time for results to be seen. And given the fact that in Ontario, but one in seven residents doesn't have a primary care provider. How long until investments like the one you announced are going to yield results? And we're going to see that number of Ontarians without a primary care provider improve. Well, I think that's the really exciting part about this announcement. So February of 2024, we announced 78 newer expanded teams, All of those new teams are taking on patients. This week's announcement of 130 new and expanded primary teams, then we actually anticipate that within months they will be taking on new patients. It really is driving excitement to ensure that people have access and

we're matching those individuals who have been waiting for a family practitioner to be able to say, there is a new team in your community, in your region, and we would like to connect you with that primary care provider. One of the B's that I've had in my bonnet for a while is the stories that we've talked about on this show about burnout from family doctors and nurse practitioners do in large measure to the back breaking amount

of paperwork that they seem to have to do every single day. They didn't get into the business to do paperwork, they got into the business to care for people and yet it seems like for every hour they spend with a patient they have a couple of hours at least of paperwork. And from the conversations I've had, AI could play a great role in reducing that paperwork. Is that a priority of this government, of your ministry, to find opportunities for AI and technology

to speed up those processes so that there can be more time spent with actual patients. Absolutely. So the electronic referral to specialists is one example where instead of having a family doctor to call around to multiple communities to find out where that surgeon is taking on new patients. That's an example. Another pilot that we've been doing with the Ontario Medical Association is AI Scribe. And it is literally having a patient and a doctor position in an AI Scribe does the review of the conversation that has happened. The doctor assesses it and the initial feedback has been unbelievably positive, literally hours per week saved for those family positions.

And that matters because if paperwork is causing people to leave their chosen profession earlier than they otherwise would, that is a loss for everybody. And so if something like this, a simple tool like this can help keep people on the job longer and keep them satisfied with their work, then it's definitely of benefit. Minister Jones, I only have a few seconds left,

so I'll give you the last word. Anything else you'd like to tell our listeners? Well, I think it's a really exciting opportunity for not only communities across Ontario, but listen, if you're a family physician, if you're a clinician in the province of Ontario, there are opportunities here and we welcome those changes as we drive forward this innovation.

Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, thank you so much for joining us on the Ben Mulroney show. Stay well, Ben. Now the competition has begun. What will you need to stay in this house? What do I need to give you to get you out of that house? This wall has to stay. This wall has to go or we go. What do you think of the house?

I hate it. Okay, so I have a little bit of work to do. Design expert Paige Turner joins David as they ask homeowners the all-important question, Are you going to love it? Or are you going to list it? You want to tell them? Love it or list it. All new Sunday at 9.

On Home Network. Stream on Stack TV and the Global TV app.