The Ben Mulroney Show - The Liberals ratchet up the rhetoric in this election

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The Liberals ratchet up the rhetoric in this election Guest: Dimitris Soudas, Senior Vice President at Cavalia, Former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper Guest: Sharan Kaur, Political strategist and partner at Sovereign Advisory 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

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And my goodness, my Twitter was on fire yesterday. And I was so angered when I saw a liberal candidate and Olympic gold medalist, Adam Vancouverden, write, Congrats to Pierre Poliev on his endorsement from Stephen Harper. He joins felons like Conrad Black, conspiracy fraudsters like Alex Jones,

Nazi salutes like Elon Musk, and far right influencers, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro, good company. And I wrote back, I pointed out that there is literally a picture of his guy standing next to a convicted sex trafficker online. And I pointed out, I use that by way of illustration, but I said, I don't, I have, it's never occurred to me

to bring that up on my show in any substantive way beyond illustrate, to illustrate my point. It's never occurred to me to bring that up on my show in any substantive way beyond illustrate to illustrate my point and and I never would because it's beneath me and this should be beneath Adam vancouverton and Twitter had a lot to say about that You know else had a lot to say is my next guest Demetri Soutis senior vice president Kavalia and former director of communications for Stephen Harper, the man who gave the endorsement and sparked this fury inside of Adam Vancouverden. But I want to talk about this with him because you urged him to apologize. Has he since apologized, Dimitri? He definitely hasn't been and it's nice to talk to you again. I really found that that tweet by Adam to be completely out of line. My only conclusion, Ben, is what Adam has in muscles, he lacks in brains. And at the end of the day, making a parallel

and literally accusing Prime Minister Harper of being a Nazi is just completely, completely unacceptable, unfathomable, and beneath anybody who truly wants to represent the people of Canada, I'm surprised nobody from the Liberal Party has asked him to withdraw those comments. Oh, I know. But this is a party who likes to do as I say, not as I do. We are going to champion kindness in sunny ways, and then we are going to disparage people in the worst possible ways.

Or mock female premiers. It is, it is, it is hypocrisy, it is base hypocrisy. And I'm gonna be digging into that a little bit later in the show specifically about this. But like, I'd like to remind people that there's only one party that invited a literal Nazi into the House of Commons, the People's House, and gave him a standing ovation.

And then when they were called out for it, they want to have it removed from the record and pushed it as a teachable moment for everyone. And it's, it is, I, I, I, it hurts my brain that, that, that, that, that this is, that this behavior is rewarded at the polls and during election time. Well, the reason it hurts your brain, Ben,

is because you have one. And I can't necessarily say the same thing about Adam van Coogherden on this issue. He truly should be ashamed of himself. A former prime minister who, by the way, the candidate he's supporting to be prime minister was unemployed to Stephen Harper. Yeah. So does that mean that? Mark Carney is also a sympathizer by association? Does

that mean that ultimately, Adam van Cooverton gets to say whatever he wants without any form of impunity? Yeah. It's, it's, as you said, do as I say, but not as I do. Well, let's talk about Mark Carney's sympathies and where they lie. I think there are a lot of fair questions that have come up, not because of opposition research by the conservatives, but naturally

through the election campaign popping up on social media, popping up in the news. People have been wondering where exactly Mark Carney lies and what he actually thinks about about the Communist Party of China. And that we can dig into the reasons why people are asking those questions later. However, there is a question looming out there.

Why Mark Carney do you think the Communist Party of China is praising you? And he had a disastrous uh... answer from understanding you know some of the campaign that have pushing positive narratives about you why do you think that china and pierced seems to like you what why are they praising you

i have absolutely no idea and i'm uh... uh... yeah i've absolutely no idea and i, yeah, I have absolutely no idea and I think, well, I'll leave it at that. Demetri Soutis, you were a communications director for a prime minister. If there were questions about your leader's allegiance, what would you have urged him to say in a moment like that? Well, I worked for Stephen Harper and when it came to his moral compass, he did not need communications advice. I take your point.

However, let's put ourselves in a situation where you've got a candidate who is being questioned. Well, what Prime Minister Harper would have said and what Mark Carney should have said yesterday is I utterly reject any form of support from the People's Republic of China. Why do I reject it? Because it is a totalitarian regime that abuses basic human rights. It is a totalitarian regime that has literally assassinated

and imprisoned Canadian citizens. He was not able to say that. So is it fair then, am I an honest broker? Am I a good faith? Canadian to ask the question. Why didn't he ask that? Why didn't he say that? I Think it's a very fair question Why did he answer? I don't know much about this. Well, don't you have a security clearance? Yeah Like like how can you not know anything about this? And even if you know nothing about this,

do you accept the endorsement? Yeah. Yeah. People's Republic of China, a communist totalitarian dictatorship that has no respect for basic human rights. Okay, well, let's go back to he's fighting a number of fronts in terms of his, who he is and what he stands for. It's been released that, you know,

Brookfield has found ways to shelter their revenue, to avoid taxes in a place like, I think it's Bermuda. And he was asked about his stance on tax havens by a reporter, and this was his answer. On tax havens in relation to Brookfield, you've said that you know how the world works. Should Canadians infer from that that you wouldn't condemn the use of tax havens? I've very strong, I have a long career in the private sector, I have a longer career in the public sector. What's important is that we have an effective

tax system and the companies, every company, follows the rules of those tax to not just the letter but the spirit of those regulations. And we need to continue to refine our tax system to ensure that companies are paying their fair share of tax. Demetri, again, I'm a smart guy. That makes no sense. That's not, he had the opportunity to say, you know what, those were the rules I played with before.

I'm gonna make sure those rules are beefed up. I'm going to make sure that we close those loopholes so that companies pay the taxes that are owed to the Canadian people and we are able to support our social services for those who need them. Again, why doesn't he say these things? Well, I'm a very harsh critic of Mr. Carney's French. As you know, I'm a francophone then. Yes. Yes. I saw you, Antoine Monnotal. I will start becoming a harsh critic of his English as well, because this just makes no sense. At the end of the day, what does this come down to, Ben? It comes down to every Canadian dollar, should it stay in Canada, be invested in Canada, or should it be sent to a tax haven with no benefit to Canadians and again his answer yesterday reflects his views what are his views one set of rules

for the rich and famous another set of rules for the hard working blue collar workers young families who are starting to start to who are trying to start their career, his inability to even condemn. You know, over the last 40 years, tax shelters always come up during election campaign. Every single politician goes out there and condemns them. He wasn't even able to do that. At the same time, I do want to drive a contrast because yesterday, it's the first time, at least in the 30, 40 years that I've been following politics, that a leader says, we're going to shut these down. Not only that, we will name and shame those, but ultimately take Canadian dollars out of

Canada, send them to tax havens to no benefit, to zero benefit to Canada. I just, I, Demetri, I don't understand. He had the opportunity to say, you know, I had a fiduciary duty to my company. I did that to the best of my ability. I will have an obligation to the people of Canada to work for them for the best of my ability. And because of that, I'm going to make sure that CEOs or chairmen of the board of companies like Brookfield in the future cannot avail themselves of these loopholes in the future. It exists in the past. It doesn't exist anymore. Demetri, thank you so much for being here. I hope you come back

soon. Thanks, man. Have a great day. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for spending a little bit of your Wednesday with us, wherever you find us in podcast form on a streaming app or on the radio. I'll take you where I can get you. Thank you so much. And look, yesterday was an interesting day for me

on Twitter. I don't, I engage every now and then. I pop in, I pop out. And yesterday I felt compelled to pop in because Adam VanCouverden of Olympic fame and the Liberal Party decided to post on Twitter, congrats to Pierre Poliev on his endorsement from Stephen Harper.

He joins felons like Conrad Black, conspiracy fraudsters like Alex Jones, Nazi saluters like Elon Musk, and far right influencers, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro. Good company. As the Big Lebowski would say, this aggression will not stand, man.

And I simply pointed out by way of illustration that his guy, the guy that he's picked in this race, has a picture of himself standing shoulder to shoulder with a literal sex trafficker online. It's there for anybody to see, anybody who suggests that the picture that I'm talking about is AI is full of it. And I said, I have never, it's never occurred to me

to address that on my show or online. And I never have, I only brought it up, as I said, by way of illustration, because it's beneath me. And it could be explained away and I have no time for it. We have other fish to fry. And I told him it was beneath him. And he may have seen it, he may not have seen it, but he turned his comments off, which will tell you, I don't think his comments are on ever, which tells you about how much

he wants to engage. And I'm just, I am sick and tired of being talked to by the liberal party that holds itself up as a bastion of moral clarity and angelic behavior when they go around and do stuff like this. And so I'm joined now by a friend of the show and who's a good and honorable and honest broker who calls it like it is, who happens to be on the other side of the fence.

And I respect her for that. And I'm happy that she's here, but we're gonna have a real conversation about this. Sharon Carr, political strategist and partner at Sovereign Advisory. Sharon, what'd you think of Vancouverden's BS? Sharon Carr So listen, I totally can. I appreciate why this is troubling for you.

And it's not my style of politics. Adam is a friend and I personally would not do that. But what I do want to say is we live in a time where divisiveness is not helpful. And I think that and you're right. Listen, there is a photo out there that people have used of the leader in a picture with someone who is troubling. It's and what I've said to everyone is that he doesn't have a relationship with that person. People can take pictures with.

Yeah, happens all the time. It shouldn't happen. And I think if an MPs or anyone from my party wanted to say something about someone like Jordan Peterson, there are real true things you can say about them without it, like without bringing Stephen Harper and other folks in it. So I this is not the type of politics I would do, to be honest. I personally, I do have issues with someone like Jordan Peterson because of what he has said about women and some of his controversial posts, but it's not the type of politics I like to subscribe to.

And I don't think it's the type of politics that Mark Carney would subscribe to either. So I think we all need to be better. We all need to be better. You and- Okay, Sharon. We have to stop you because I have heard whenever far too many times under Justin Trudeau, when he was found to be lacking morally, he turned it into a teachable moment for all of us. And I don't have time for that. I don't need to learn from his mistakes. I don't need to look inside myself when somebody else fails.

I need them to take accountability. And we have to level set the conversation because I don't wanna be accused of what aboutism. I believe that when one side seemingly out of the blue and for no reason attempts to claim the moral high ground by disparaging their opponents with disgusting smears, we've left the realm of what aboutism. And in my humble opinion,

the liberals do it more than anybody. And yeah, and I get it. And I listen, it's something triggering for a lot of people. And I like you don't do it. But in all fairness, I see a lot of conservatives like, I'm sorry, Canada proud, which is a very big platform for the conservative base was putting out those pictures that you referred the picture of the leader. So like it is out there and it's not it's not only people like this MP from the Liberal or the candidate from the Liberal Party and I think that we we might not like doing that but there are people in our base in our parties that do that and when Canada proud like a massive following does something like that we should be able to call those people out too like I think we should all stop being stupid with this stuff. Let's not go to a level that is so beneath us

that we are tarnishing politics to this grimy, and then yeah, you know what? There's things that Trudeau made people feel crappy about and we should not be re-litigating that in this campaign. But no, but I think we have to re litigate it because thus far in the campaign, the liberals I think have gotten a pass on defending their legacy.

They've been very good at saying, look in front of us, look through the windshield because Donald Trump is in front of us. Don't look in the rear view mirror where we've got 10 years that we should be judged on. And until we have a discussion on Canada's natural governing party and how they behave when they are in power,

because they've been in power for 10 years, and they're looking for at least four more, I think it's incumbent upon us to ask ourselves what will the next four years look like in terms of tone? I think we lost her, but look, I'll continue and hopefully we'll get her back. This is a party to me that claims to be for feminism, standing up for women, even though our prime minister had a history of turfing strong women from his cabinet and telling

and then and the new one has told female reporters to look inside themselves. We talk about they talk about elbows up. They talk about Team Canada. But if you're if you're not if you're not subscribing to what their view of Team Canada is, you're a traitor. I've heard that many times. Welcome back, Sharon. I'm sorry we lost you there for a moment.

They claim to be the party of the charter. And yet, anytime Quebec has a problem with the charter, they don't do anything because it's politically expedient for them. But anytime someone else does, and it's a conservative, they will disparage them. So these are the these are the issues that I have. And I don't think I am picking on them. I think they've got 10 years to answer for they want five more and I want the tone to change. And listen, I think I'm with you on that. I would like to see us in a place where we

as a country are not divided and we're not picking and choosing. The one thing that I do wanna say, and we talk about 10 years and 10 years, and yes, Justin Trudeau was the Prime Minister for 10 years, and maybe this is not the best analogy or comparison, but if a company isn't doing well and you replace the CEO, does it require you to replace the entire workforce as well? And maybe this is not the same, but I-

It's not, Sharon, it's not the same. Because not every decision in a company has to get voted on by everybody in the company. And 85% or 75% of the company is still there. And look, yes, you replace the CEO, but you got employees like Adam Vancouverdon, like Mark Miller, who are some of the worst at smearing people when they disagree with them. And then when they turn around and change their policy to adopt the policy that they smeared the other guy for, now it's all okay. This is, this to me is so infuriating and so frustrating. And this,

this is the cause of a lot of the polarization that we have. And I ascribe it to the Liberal Party. And I completely can appreciate that. Listen, as someone who was in the Liberal Party my entire life and deviated out of it from 2020 after not agreeing with how folks in Trudeau's center and PMO were handling things, I'm with you. I have been one of the most vocal proponents of telling them where they have done stuff wrong. I do believe that there are caucus members who need to be better, but you know what? There's also caucus members who need to be better

on the conservative and the NDP side as well. And I like to hold people accountable, but I also think that Mark is a different person. And I know we're gonna say, people are gonna say he's an insider and all this stuff. And I do- I haven't seen him come out and condemn Adam Vancouver,

and his comments yet that that to me should have been an automatic slapdown. You know, they clearly know each other. They were together in a pub a couple of days ago. So clearly he could call him up and say, you're going to apologize for that. You're going to take it down. This is not how we do it in my party. The comment is still up. He has not been chastised by his leader. So I don't know.

I don't know yet that I can agree with you that he's a different guy. I haven't seen it yet. Show me the evidence and I'll believe it. And I think that's fair. I think that we are in a campaign period and people tend to get overly, I would say partisan with some of these things

and I wouldn't tweet something like that. And I think that, again, I can't speak for Adam. I know what kind of person he is at heart and I don't, and I know he's not a, he doesn't mean ill intent, but I think for people within the Liberal Party, it is triggering when you have people like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and some of these folks who do say things. Again, Sharon, Sharon, I wish, I'm sorry that we lost you a little bit. I wish we could have talked more, but I got to leave it there.

But I really thank you for coming on and I really appreciate you and thank you so much. Thanks Ben. Want to kick your cooking up a notch? This is the moment you've been waiting for. Flavor Network is giving one lucky viewer $15,000 to put towards the grocery bill. Oh I love that. Tune into Flavor Network every night at 9 Eastern or stream live on Stack TV. Look for the daily code word and enter on our website for a chance to win $15,000. Oh my god, that's so good.

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