The Ben Mulroney Show - The media lets Mark Carney off the hook in a way they wouldn't for Pierre Poilievre

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The media forgives Mark Carney in a way they wouldn't do for Pierre Poilievre with Guest: Regan Watts, Founder Fratton Park Inc., former Senior aide to minister of finance Jim Flaherty -Let’s not complicate things—whoever wins the most seats in the next election should win power in Ottawa with Guest: J.J. McCullough, Writer and professional YouTuber 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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You don't see how the birds sing to you. Anna Lee Ashford and Dennis Quaid star. I am not responsible for what my dad did. The score and how you hoped? Happy Face, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show, and if rumors and reports are to be believed, we will be on an election footing any day now. It's anticipated that Mark Carney, our Prime Minister, will drop the writ, and we should have a new government by the end of April or by the beginning of May, which means the scrutiny on everybody should go up, right?

Well, I don't know if that's necessarily the case because I'm noticing that Mark Carney's getting a pass for some behavior that had another leader demonstrated the same mistake, demonstrated the same mistake, misspoken, it would be a bigger story than it is. And so to discuss this and a number of other political stories, I'm joined by friend of the Ben Mulroney Show, as well as friend of Ben Mulroney, Regan Watts, founder of Fratton Park, Inc. and former senior aide to the Minister of Finance,

the late great Jim Flaherty. Regan, welcome to the show. Bonjour mon chum. Mark Carney had two major stories this week. He telling Rosemary Barton to look inside herself as claiming that she was acting with ill will and then quite literally the next day confirming that her line of questioning was accurate

by saying that he would recuse himself somehow of a decision-making that if there was a conflict. And then he got what a lot of people are interpreting as an endorsement by Donald Trump. Now, those stories were in the news for about 24 hours, maybe even less. It's hard to think that had that, those same things happened to Pierre Poliev,

we wouldn't still be talking about them. I think you raise a good point then. Mr. Carney comes to the job of Prime Minister with an excellent resume, but just because you have a good resume doesn't make you a Prime Minister. And part of the job of being Prime Minister is to answer difficult questions. Your father, when he was in office, certainly did and every prime minister before him in since Had the same I have to say I think if on the president Trump Endorsement of mark Carney that certainly was not on my bingo card for this year

But you know here we are. I think if if the reverse were the case and president Trump said something nice about mr. Paulie I expect we would have had 24-7, 365 coverage across all the major networks, radio, television, podcasts in this country, alleging that Mr. Poliev must love President Trump and therefore President Trump loves him, he must love him back and that is simply not the case. It is also abundantly clear to me, Ben, as I reflected on what was said, you know, there's now no ambiguity whatsoever with respect to who President Trump prefers. He it's not hypothetical. Does he prefer Mr. Carney? Does he prefer Mr. Playa? He prefers Mr. Carney. You know, Canada has never been weaker. And we have never been more poorly led, starting with Justin Trudeau, and everybody in the world knows this. Yeah, but we know.

Look, with Mark Carney, he is trying to sell himself as a brilliant steward of the economy, and yes, his depth of knowledge of markets and his connections around the world are myriad and deep, but we just spent 10 years being told that a man with no economic knowledge whatsoever was the right guy to lead us, and now we're being told the a man with no economic knowledge whatsoever was the right guy to

lead us. And now we're being told the only guy who can lead us is a guy with Mark Carney's resume. So it's a bit rich that we get that flip flop. But it does seem that every time or almost every time Mark Carney opens his mouth, it's not an optimal moment for me. And I'm putting that mildly. I mean, just just a few days ago, he was asked a pretty simple question. What do you anticipate happening

on your very first phone call with Donald Trump? And he hummed and hawed his way, took him about 15 seconds before he said something about the Houthis and talking about geopolitics. And is it just a question of, is he just gonna talk himself out of this? And is enough evidence going to mount that comes out of his own mouth

that maybe the Tories should just sit back and let it happen? Well, there's a couple of things in your question there, Ben. First is on the word salads that Mr. Carney serves up. He is used to the opaque, equate world of central banking where word salads are an acceptable response to questions from journalists. Politics is much, much different. And I think Mr. Carney, because he is not a natural politician and has not done this before, is going to have a learning curve in real time. And it is unprecedented.

We've never had a prime minister who's never had political experience like this before. Do I think Mr. Carney will get better? Yes. Do I agree with you that his early responses have not been great or not been strong? Absolutely. Do I agree with you that his early responses have not been great, or not been strong? Absolutely. But I don't think we should discount Mr. Carney's ability to improve. No, he's a very intelligent man. Now, I will also say, particularly with your comment around Mr. Trudeau and his his life experience as a drama teacher and other things. The end of the day, elections are about one thing, which is

who is the best leader with the best team and the best ideas to move Canada forward? Yeah, well, look, and look, I want to stick with that because that was going to be my next question. It was going to be an election on Justin Trudeau. Then it was going to be a carbon tax election. Now, the liberals most certainly want this to be a jump ball election,

who is best equipped to fight Donald Trump. What do you think that the Poliev's main messaging should be? I'm noticing with the ring of fire announcement with the Canada first shovel ready zones, with his announcement on an emphasis on the education for tradesmen. It feels to me like they are quietly pivoting to making this all about the economy.

So I think the election was always going to be about the economy, whether Prime Minister Trudeau was in the seat or not. And I think carbon pricing was always going to be an issue regardless of who the liberal leader is, because our ability to compete against the world, uh, is, is going to determined, uh, whether the Canadian economy does what it has done for the last 10 years. And I saw a report on per capita GDP growth among the OECD. That is how is Canada performing relative to the 20 other countries we measure ourselves against. And we are second last place. 1.4% growth, 1.4. Over 10 years, which is, you know,

honestly, it is not acceptable. And so when I see Mr. Poliev, and you asked the question about what is his message, I don't know if you caught his rally in, in the Nickel City last night, or the announcement this morning, or the announcement yesterday, he is, and I thought he looked and sounded great.

He is an optimistic warrior. He is a defender of Canada, and he's demonstrating himself as the agent of change. I believe it was your father, Ben, who many years ago talked about the Liberal Party after they changed leaders from Mr. Trudeau the Elder to Mr. Turner. The Liberal Party, Ben, was the same old liberals.

And I think that is going to be a message he's going to take to the Canadian people. The country's going to have to ask itself whether it wants a fourth term of this liberal government. Mr. Carney, I don't believe has made the case for change. If you just look at his cabinet picks. And so I think Mr. Poliev will have an optimistic like he's a message like he's had the last two days.

I think he will continue along that path. I think, and I'm thinking of your dad today, Ben, on his birthday and what he might think of the state of politics in this country. And I think he would say similar things, which is Mr. Poliev needs to be optimistic and look like he wants the job of prime minister. Looking prime ministerial is a phrase that many use. And his message, I think, will be one of hope. And the policy announcements that are rolling out, inevitably are going to fill in a gap where people perceive him to be negative. And I think Pierre, Mr. Poliev, pardon me,

can be perceived as an attack dog. And that's his instinct. But he's got a hopeful vision for the country with some considered ideas. And I think the election is going to bring those to the fore. Yeah, I think a lot of people are suggesting that the liberals are simply lifting conservative policies. But I don't think that when all is said and done

and we get to election day, I think there really will be a stark difference and a leadership clarity coming from one side. And I really, I've been noticing this, they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. You've got Anita Anand and Champagne who are tweeting that Canada is gonna be an energy superpower, but then in French at a press conference,

Mark Carney is asked about how he's gonna lead on pipelines. He sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, that's really not up to me. It's up to a lot of other people and a lot of other factors. So I think when push comes to shove, you're going to get a lot of opacity on one side, a lot of clarity on the other. At least that's my hope because I'm looking at these polls suggesting that we have amnesia over the past 10 years. Well, I don't know if it's amnesia, Ben. I think it was, you know, let's celebrate the long national nightmare known as

Justin Trudeau finally being over. I think the minute he announced he was leaving in the minute, the Liberal Party decided to elect a new leader, whether it was Mr. Carney or somebody else, I would even surmise it, even if Christy Freeland was the Liberal leader, the polls would tighten. This was inevitable. Yeah, I think it's healthy for the country to have a race. I don't think it's healthy for the country to have a race. I don't think it's wise to have a steamroll.

I would obviously like the conservative party to win, but I think it's a healthy debate, healthy for the country. I think it's tied, give or take. The conservatives may be up a point or two on some days. It may be tied. I just don't, I don't believe that four in 10 Canadians are stampeding to the liberal party. I just don't. And it'll be

a battle of ideas. And I think that's a good thing for the country. And may the best candidate win. Reagan, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a great day. Thanks, Ben. Take care. This next conversation I'm going to have is with a gentleman I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with at an event a few months ago. And I was taken by how much we agreed on, but also how he challenged the way I thought on a number of things. And if you go, if you find him on YouTube

or on social media, or if you read his articles, you absolutely will find yourself thinking about things in different ways. JJ McCullough is a writer and professional YouTuber, and he's written for the hub.ca. The article is called, Let's Not Complicate Things. Whoever wins the most seats in the next election should win power in Ottawa.

JJ, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Okay, so I read the article, and if people just hear the title, they'll say, well, it's not complicated if you win the most seats, then you should win power in Ottawa. Why bring this up in the first place? Because there has been an effort afoot on on social media and in some of the, you know, sort of prestige publications of this country and elsewhere, to kind of normalize this idea that actually, there would be nothing wrong with a sort of prime minister refusing

to concede power to a minority government, which is to say there would be nothing wrong with, you know, Prime Minister Carney refusing to concede power to a conservative minority government. I see. You know, as opposed to just kind of stay in power and just kind of ignore the result of a minority conservative government. And this, you know, this is this I think strikes most people as like deeply counterintuitive and unfair and unjust.

But it is an idea that is sort of being increasingly sort of normalized in some corners of the commentary space. Well, not just in the commentary space. We've heard leaders and we know that the Green Party and the NDP have said, if the conservatives win a minority, they're going to lose the confidence of the House at the first possible opportunity. And so they've explicitly said so. And there are people who would argue, well, that's how the system works. So what do you say to that? Well, but it's not how the system works. So what do you say to that? Well, it's, but it's not how the system works because like what you're describing and like what, you know, uh, like the idea that, oh, well, we'll just non-confidence vote the conservative

government at the first available opportunity. It's like, that's fine. That's the prerogative of the opposition parties. But the way that our system traditionally works is that the prime minister is inaugurated based on his seat count. And it usually happens very shortly after the election. Yeah. Right? So it's like you have an election, we get a result, whether that's a majority or a minority. And then the prime minister is inaugurated by the governor general sworn into office,

usually like a week or two after the election. And then it can be like quite a long time before the parliament actually convened. You know, we may recall that Joe Clark's famous minority government in 1979, you know, he went months and months and months before convening the Parliament. You know, he was sworn in as Prime Minister as a result of the election and went a long time before convening the Parliament. And then ultimately the Parliament did vote non-confidence in him.

But what some of these people are proposing is that we skip that step of inaugurating the prime minister of giving him a chance to sort of make his case to the parliament and the nation and instead saying like, well, we don't really think that this conservative minority government is going to last. So we're just going to decide not to allow that prime minister to come to power at all. Yeah. If it's just for a few months. Yeah, I see what you mean. Because when I hear these opposition parties lining up saying, if we have the opportunity, we are not going to let him form government. And that, to me, is disrespectful to what?

I mean, for him to form a minority, he could get as high as 34% of the vote, I think, right? And so you're saying those votes don't count as much as the 22% that we got and the 5% that those guys got when you combine it all together, it's worth more. And they haven't even given a conservative minority government a chance to see if they could, you know, put some water in their ideological wine

and work with the liberals and find common cause with the NDP on how they could best serve blue collar workers and that sort of thing. And without giving them the chance, you're essentially saying the voice of the people who voted doesn't matter. Yeah, I think that that's I think that that's correct. You know, you can say that sort of like a conservative government that only lasts a few months or whatever is ridiculous or is sort of dopey in some way. But the fact is, is that's how our system works, right? We inaugurate prime ministers shortly after an election based on their standing. Their standing might be shaky, but our system is sort

of based on the premise that they deserve a chance. And to deny, you know, Pierre Pauliev, the chance to even have a small and shaky minority government just runs against over a hundred years of tradition in this country in the service of what I think will strike a lot of Canadians as a very sort of cynical effort to stay in power by pulling a stunt that no one in this country has ever seen a prime minister do. You know, whether we're talking about, you know, Paul Martin conceding power to Stephen Harper's minority government, or, you know, Dieffenbaker conceding power to Lester B. Pearson's minority government. Like this is something that we've seen how, you know, Pierre Elliott Trudeau conceding power to Joe Clark's. Pearson's minority government. Like this is something that we've seen how, or you know, Pierre Elliott Trudeau conceding power to Joe Clark's minority government that I just said.

Like this, the idea that there's something fundamentally illegitimate about a minority government is just a radical rake with established practice in this country. And I think we have to be very on guard against it. Hey, JJ McCullough, let me ask you about your take on the general tenor and tone and quality of public debate these days.

I'm finding it almost impossible to have a conversation, a good faith conversation with people who would disagree with me on Twitter, for example, because simply, and we like to talk about the Americans and how they can't even agree on shared facts. I'm noticing that that's happening up here. The idea that I could, to point out that we are living in a very unique moment with the ascendancy of Mark Carney, an unelected prime minister, that's not a knock on him. I'm not saying he's illegitimate. I would never say anything like that. He is my prime minister and I want him to succeed as my prime minister. But simply pointing that out, elicits calls of, you don't know our system. You're

a traitor. What's your take from your perspective? It is, it is interesting. And I've certainly been on the receiving end of that kind of thing. I like to call these people the our system people who just kind of think they can sort of bluntly say our system and that's supposed to sort of shut you up. But no, it's like it's a free country. We're allowed to express disdain and concern and worry for all sorts of aspects of how politics is playing out in this country. I do think it's perfectly legitimate to question the rise of a prime minister that doesn't have a seat in the House of Commons, you know, that was elected by what, like 140,000 just random people whose identities we don't know, you know, and then as a result, this prime minister is now sort of cavorting around and making policy,

you know, whether that's the carbon tax or, you know, going and signing contracts with the Europeans or whatever. Yeah, no, it's perfectly fair to say that there's something not quite above board, or at least doesn't sort of seem consistent with our Canadian standards of what we expect a democratic system to be. Well, JJ, my issue, my issue wasn't even that much. And I absolutely agree with you. I wasn't even taking issue with that. I was taking issue with the fact that he has been bubble wrapped and protected by the people who wanted him to become the leader, and that's fine. But given the fact that there has been this opacity and this lack of transparency about who he is, I thought at the very least to make Canadians feel better, he might want to be

a little more open and transparent with the press. And he wasn't even doing that. Yeah, yeah, because I think, you know, I think we're starting to see why traditionally we do like prime ministers with at least some political background to to hold high office because they're used to how to deal with the press in that kind of way. But no, he does have this kind of imperious, very sort of condescending demeanor that I think is quite is quite off putting. But nevertheless, you know, a lot of to to kind of get what you were saying before though about the polarization, like a lot of people do sense

that the stakes are incredibly high in this election. And I think it's made sort of partisans on both sides really in a very sort of like prickly kind of temperament where like the smallest sort of, they will not concede even the smallest objective reality because they view that as like weakening their guy which then will lead to the downfall of the country and all this. I mean, and frankly, look, I'm prone to bluster as much as the next guy, but when it comes to, but that's when I'm talking on the radio myself, when it's when, when I'm having a conversation,

I genuinely want my ideas to collide respectfully with somebody else's. And, and you're, you're right, they, they, they don't want to even concede one point even if it flies in The face of a of a verifiable truth that we can all see coming. Hey JJ McCullough. I want to thank you so much I know this is your first time on the show. I certainly hope it's not the last Thanks so much At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes.

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