The Ben Mulroney Show - The no-longer Prince Andrew/Farming in Canada/BS or Real -- we have it all!

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

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Welcome back. Welcome back. No, I should say welcome. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show on this Halloween edition. It's Thursday, October 31st. Tomorrow is November. And by tomorrow, we could have a new World Series champ. And that World Series champ could be the Toronto Blue Jays. They are up three games to two, coming back to Toronto to take on the Dodgers. And we'll see how that shakes out tonight. But in the meantime, there's been a shakeup of the royal family in England. With Prince Andrew, it's being announced that he will lose his title of Prince,

as well as other honors over continued scandals surrounding his past behavior. A statement says that Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. That's how he's not Prince Andrew anymore. He also has to move out of the Royal Lodge, which is the home in Windsor Great Park that he has had for decades.

And from what I understand, had like 30 bedrooms or something like that in it. It's quite an opulent place. And yeah, now, this is not the first kind of demotion that the prince has had. He no longer, it was a working royal. He retired from public duties in November of 2019, rather, following a controversial BBC Newsnight interview. So you may remember that in the face of the public pressure that was mounting on him because of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, sex pest

who ended up in prison and ultimately died some people suspect it was under suspicious circumstances but it's been ruled a suicide he decided

the prince decided to take matters into his own hands and according to public record he got a lot of people saying don't do it don't do it but he did it he gave a notoriously

terrible interview to BBC News night and it was so bad in fact that two movies were made about it. Two, at the same time. One on Amazon Prime. One on Netflix. That's how big of a deal this was.

And he got up there and he tried to defend himself and his friendship and pushed back with some pretty bad defenses of why he was not guilty of any of the things that Virginia, Virginia Jafray. That was her name, right? she was the woman who accused him of essentially raping her. Yeah, she was 17 at the time. Yeah. And so this is Prince Andrew during that interview saying that some of the allegations could not be true. She, Ms. Jouffre, who sadly passed away of suicide earlier this year, had alleged that when he was on top of her, he was sweating profusely.

Here was his defense of himself. One of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts, has made allegations against you. She was very specific about that night. She described dancing with you and you profusely sweating and that she went on to have bath, possibly... There's a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition,

which is that I don't sweat, or I didn't sweat at the time. And that was, oh, actually, yes, I didn't sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at. And I simply, it was almost impossible for me to sweat. Yeah, that's not good. So on the heels of that, what he's lost,

he lost his official royal status, no longer a working royal, the titles that went along with it. They're gone. Stripped of all military affiliations, royal patronages, the use of his royal highness style, HRH. His public roles in access can't perform any official duties. He lost his Buckingham Palace office. Publicly funded security was reduced. Obviously, the reputation and the residents, severely damaged public reputation, is set to lose the lease on his royal lodge. And his annual allowance from the sovereign grant, that's gone as well.

And so prior to any of this stuff, I mean, his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was out there. But prior to any of the stuff that we just described, he, I was in attendance at Harry and Megan's wedding. My kids were in the wedding party. And so I was just a guest. I was a plus one. And I had a wonderful seat. That was 2018. That was 2018.

All this stuff came to light in 2019. And after the beautiful wedding on that gorgeous day, We got into a sort of a sprinter-esque van And we were taken to the reception And our bus was the first one to get there And I was at the front of the bus So I was one of the first people in the reception And some of the family members had already gotten there early

And one of those people was Prince Andrew And I walked in out on the lawn, on the grounds of, of, I can't remember what the castle was, but just unbelievably beautiful. I think the Queen Victoria Mausoleum was in the distance. It was beautiful, gorgeous. And a gorgeous day, and no one, practically no one was there yet except for members of the royal family. And Prince Andrew came to talk to me. And he was telling me all about some of the stuff he had some of his duties and one of his duties was like this entrepreneurial program that he had been working on and it was sort of like a royal

version of dragons den from what i could understand and he he was clearly proud of it and i thought okay well we're going to i get to chat with a prince this is this is going to be interesting but then it went on like for 20 minutes and now the party's full and now I'm seeing George Clooney and I'm seeing Elton John and there are other people I kind of want to talk to

and I'm not doing any talking by the way I'm just listening to the prince telling me about all the cool stuff he thinks he's doing and I just I found it perplexing that he would want to talk to me versus anybody else there and at one point I think I, I think I bowed out. And I said, thank you. Like, I, I must go find my wife or I must go do

X or Y or Z. And it always lingered in me that with everybody else there, he bent my year for 20 minutes, or at least it felt like 20 minutes. And I finally had to just, this could go on forever. If I, if I, if I don't dip out, it is going to go on forever. That's my one story of him. And now I will say, how did you dip out? How did you? you end the conversation. I can't remember it. I might have said I wanted to go get a drinker. I want to go. Now, I think I said I had to go find my wife. I think, that must have been it. It must have been it. But, you know, his Fergie, Sarah Ferguson, his, his ex-wife, and she's had her own run-ins with notoriety, but on a personal human level, she's just about

as wonderful as any person you'll ever meet. She's a kind woman. And she's, when you speak to her, you have her attention and she listens and she's funny and she's charming and warm. And, and yeah, so that's my experience with that family. But I just, I, it always sat with me like, why, why for, why would you want to tell me that story for 20 minutes? Did he want you to be involved in it in any way? Did he think that you were an investor? Did he, well, he, he, he knows I work in Canadian media. Okay. There's no, there's no, there's no And if you're in Canadian media, you don't have a lot of disposable income,

and that's on a good day. So, yeah, it was that, but that's my story. That's my story. And you must be obviously happy that nothing came of it, that you didn't get involved. No, oh, yeah, no. Yeah, well, no, I never thought I would. I never felt that I had a connection that would expose me in any way.

But when you saw all the stuff coming out about him That must have been a weird feeling though No no not at all No the question is what's he going to do next And he was offered a home in the UAE Reportly offered a lavish palace in Abu Dhabi Reports suggested Andrew Has had access to a fully staffed palace for some time

He's not formally accepted the offer Or moved there But it feels to me like There have been many opportunities for him to Exit with Grace And I just don't think he's got that chip that allows him to step out of himself and see himself the way others see him.

He doesn't ever want to fully close the door. Yeah, but because of that, he now finds himself with limited options, right? He could have exited more with more grace than he is now. But I think that's what happens when you overstay, you're welcome. Up next, the sector of our economy that's taken for granted, but we cannot live without. You are listening to the Ben Mulroney show, and we at the Ben Muleruny show listen to you.

When you send us comments and ideas and suggestions, we listen and we pay attention and then we try our best to deliver on those suggestions. We've heard many, many times that there is a key aspect to our. economy that is often overlooked. We spend a lot of time talking about the EV supply chain. We talk about the batteries. We talk about the auto sector. We talk about the startups. We talk about entrepreneurs. You know what we haven't talked about enough? Farming and farmers and the agri-food sector. And in Ontario, for example, agri-food contributes over $50 billion to the provincial economy. About 11% of Ontario's GDP comes from farmers. And And in this era of governments standing up for this sector or that, I think it's incumbent upon

us to highlight the hard work, the essential work done by our farmers. And in an attempt to make sure that they do not get overlooked when push comes to shove and Ottawa needs to, and Queens Park and various provincial governments need to come to the defense of the farmers. And we are very happy to welcome two of those people to our show, Teresa Van Ray, and Phil Van Rae, Ontario farmers of, among other things, garlic. Theresa, Phil, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show.

Thank you so much. And thanks for reading my letter. Well, thank you. Thank you for writing it. See, we pay attention. Like I said, if it were just me screaming into a microphone, I don't know that we would be still on the air.

But Teresa, if I can ask you a question about how you farm garlic, because my video producer, Amy, was gobsmacked that it was such a big thing, and I've pointed out how much we use garlic. But how is it farmed? Well, actually, we just finished planting it, what, a week ago, Phil. Yep.

And we've started it about 12 years ago. My brain is working there on that one. But how we do it is we have to plant it in a different area of our fields every four years because you can't plan on each. We planted the fall, and we harvest it in July. And then we have to take it in. we have to cure it, and then we have to trim it, and we have to, what else you have to do, Phil? Package, send it out.

That would be good, yeah. Package and send it out. So you've got garlic as one of your crops. Talk to me about the other crops. So, Phil, you can talk about the pigs. Yeah, actually, our main big operation is we do a wean to finish, which is from six kilos to market weight. When we do 20,000 plus pigs a year, we built a brand new barn in 2021.

We, and we've been doing that since three generations. With garlic, we've just made some really big investments this past couple years. We used to be able to plant our garlic at one acre an hour, and now we bought a new one. And then we do three acres an hour. So we're pretty excited about that. But yeah, we got 113 acres in personally this year, and we work with other growers to take in their garlic and process. We do anywhere from packing small bags to bulk to take the skins off and process it also from there for our offshoots. Yeah.

Yeah. We're in a couple of stores like Beola Costco and Walmart and Sovies and they take all of our local garlic, which we very much appreciate that you. Yeah. Phil, I've got to ask, you know, I'm getting ready to give a speech in Saskatchewan. And I was speaking with, I was trying to get bone up on things that make Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan. And the person I was talking to said, Ben, one of the things that you need to appreciate is there are very few industries that are as innovative as farming. The new technologies that become available are farmers are early adopters. And everything is done in an effort to

yield more crops and do the job faster so that you can then plant again and so on and so Is that a fair assessment? More than fair. And I always compared it to as much as the military can upgrade in war, farmers can upgrade to create more food. When we have our GPS, it's called RTK, and it is a military grade GPS where you are doing sub-inch year after year in the same field. We have trackers in our trackers that will track each individual row and how much seed you

are dropping in individual rows. When we're spread our manure from our pigs, we can calculate how many gas. gallons per acre, and it's all graded on a sheet that you can compare year to year to year. So when you get a yield map where it changes, obviously, as you go down the field, you can be like, oh, it's a little low here. You can go back in your maps and be like, oh, we put a little nitrogen on that field or fertilizer. But that also means, Teresa, that you guys have to, as if you're early adopters, you are investing so much money. You've got, you need so much capital in order to do these things, in order to take that next step.

your yield, in your crops. And that's, I don't know. Where do you get the money for something like that? Well, our bank manager is a very helpful person. And for some reason, banks like to see cash flows. So this is really important that, like, as you know, farming is not, it is a small business, but it's a big business. And we have to be on top of that all the time.

And one of the concerns is, like when governments make policy, that affect our costs without any income. So, for example, when the carbon tax was put on our propane, that we heat our barn. And some of the comments that were made by the people that voted to put that on, that well, the farmers can find other alternatives to heat. I remember that. Right, but we can't because so we tried to get natural gas down the road.

And it's literally like less, it's literally attached almost to our farm. But to get it to our barn, it was over like $150,000 just to get it to our barn. So it's not, it's not reasonable. But people that are making decisions for us don't realize that lateral damage. Phil, why do you think it is that this, that your industry that is so vital, that is so big, that is so needed that why do you think it gets overlooked like that? Why do other industries that may be smaller get all the attention? Do you not have, is it a lobbying issue? I think it comes, I've always said it.

It's funny it is. I'm like, we're just not hungry enough. But then again, our food bank uterus is off the charts. What I mean by that is when you go to grocery store, our shelves are always full. Whether you can afford it is a different answer. Yeah. But when it comes to, I remember in COVID, remember toilet paper ran out. Often people became like, what, where does that?

this toilet bear come from? We, our shells are always full, so you just assume it's always working. When behind the scenes, farmers are making sacrifices like you wouldn't believe just to keep their farm moving forwards to put food on people's plates and keep it affordable for Canadians. So I only have about a minute and a half left and I really want to focus the rest of this time on this upcoming budget. It's a budget of choices. It's a budget of sacrifices. At least that's what we're being told by the prime minister. And I'll ask you, Teresa, what do you? What are you hoping to hear and see in this budget for farmers? Well, first of all, like agriculture mentioned in the budget, that would be, that would be

to start. And secondly, that we, when the government talks about making investments like in the battery plants and this sort of stuff, investing in agriculture and understanding the importance that we need to have food security in Canada. And it's a big deal. We have the natural resources to grow and export food. Let's celebrate that. And let's make it because every one thing that we do on the farm, it puts seven jobs out to others.

So it's a big deal with the economy and everything. And just we can solve. We do our environment stuff. We can help with our green energy programs and all this. We do take care of the environment. We do take care of our animals and our feet. and we grow really a lot of high-quality food for our Canadians. And I just want to celebrate that.

Thank you for us when we need to thank Canada for being Canada. Like, my gosh, we're blessed to be here. Phil, yeah, anything you add? And if you do, it better be one sentence. Absolutely. Processing capacity in Ontario for all things. Teresa Van Ray, Phil Van Ray. Hey, where is your farm, by the way?

It's by, is it, where is it? It's by Grand Bend. Oh, fantastic. It was a beach town, otherwise 45 minutes north of London. Hey, to the both of you, I say thank you for everything you do. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for feeding this country. And I wish you the very, very best.

Thank you. Thank you much, Ben. Take care. Take care. Up next, I put my meager deduction skills up against the legendary misdirection abilities of producer, Mike. I'm not reading these anymore. We'll be right back.

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All right, it's that segment where I put up with my producer, Mike Droulet, who is, he believes that he's locked in some sort of battle with me. I don't believe I am, but he does. And so this is his gimmee. This is his segment every week. This is not about me.

This is about him. It's is it BS or is it real where he puts together some stories that are real and some stories that are completely made up and then we have Dave Bradley the storied newsman Dave Bradley read them

and I have to sniff out the fakes from the facts and it's always a lot of fun play along at home I win more often than I lose I lost last week but I think I won I think I ran the table the week before

oh he doesn't remember nobody remembers that And so just warning you that this show, this segment, comes with a little bit of saucy language. I do, don't complain. It's baked into the show now. And so if you don't like it, don't listen. You come back in 10 seconds. We're going to listen to the opening credits and then it's good.

So just block your ears. See, now that's some bullshit. This is bullshit. Man, this is some bullshit. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth.

You can't handle the truth. You are fake news. I love that last part. All right, so, as always, we're going to listen to Dave Bradley, tell the tale, and I have to determine whether it's real or it's not. So Dave Bradley, take it away with story number one. The governor of Illinois has reportedly asked Homeland Security and ICE to pause immigration enforcement in Chicago over Halloween weekend, after claims that federal agents disrupted a neighborhood parade. Some parents say the tension has even made kids nervous. service about dressing up in costumes inspired by their own cultures, like mariachi performers, samurai, or traditional folk heroes, worried it might draw the wrong kind of attention.

Federal officials had pushed back, calling the governor's request misleading and denying that immigration agents are targeting families or kids dressed like Zorro. All right, we're starting off. You're starting off strong here, Droulet, because that one has the ring of truth. It sounds real. It does. And so I'm going to go with my instinct, and I'm going to say it's real. Is it possible this story is true?

Yes, it is. One, chalk up one for the good guys. Okay, so let's, see, I told you. Like, every show, I got to know, I got to get in your head. And it always happens with the first one, right? I've got to start going into the other room. I didn't even look at you.

All right, time for story number two. A tiny startup in Silicon Valley is taking the dating world by storm with its AI-powered relationship robot named Amico. The company reports it sold over 50,000 units in just three months thanks to features like mood-sensing conversation, automated dinner reminders, and expert-level advice on navigating office crushes. CEO Lena Park says the robots are helping lonely hearts practice empathy,

patience and communication skills without the heartbreak, yet denies she's marketing jacked-up sex dolls. I'm unclear. So it's a startup. It's an AI-powered relationship robot. And this robot, what, does it look like a human? Does it look like... Apparently so.

Okay. And it... I'm unclear as to what it does. But I've heard... to some really stupid things coming out of Silicon Valley. I think a couple of weeks ago, we talked about a wearable

that lets you know when you're underwater as if being wet and unable to breathe isn't a big enough indicator. And that was true. Yeah, that was true. I'm going to say this is true. This is bullshit.

Yeah, I mean, look... It could be real. It very much could be real. It could be real. See, I just want to point out that he doesn't write these stories. Oh, no, I wrote that. No, you didn't. I certainly did. You got a AI, you got chat GPT to do it.

I do not believe you. Show your work. Show your work, sir. There we go. It's like in math class, right? And when you take your math test, you got to show your work. Okay, let's go to number three. A Florida woman is suing SeaWorld for $50,000 after claiming she was knocked unconscious

when a duck flew into her face while riding the park's Maco roller coaster. The lawsuit argues Seaworld created a zone of danger by building a ride near water, increasing the risk of bird strikes from gulls and ducks. Her attorneys say the fast-moving coaster disorients birds, making collisions more likely. Seaworld hasn't commented on the case, but maintains guest safety is its top priority. The fate of the duck, though, remains unknown. Oh, the duck's dead. We know that. That duck dead. I've been on that coaster.

Disorienting. So you see what he just did there, Joy? He just tried to add a little reality. No, I have been on it. No, no. You have to lie down face first. You tried to anchor it into something that actually happened because this story is BS. It's fact.

Ah, damn you! Oh, that was a good move. Well done. I wasn't meant to me as a move. I'm telling you, though. Hold on. So I'm down to 1. All right, let's go for story number 4.

I got it back up to 500. A South Carolina woman was arrested on Christmas. morning after allegedly stabbing her husband with a ceramic squirrel during an argument over beer. Police say 44-year-old Helen Williams attacked her husband when he returned home, empty-handed after finding the store closed. The man fled to a neighbor's house, bleeding from deep cuts to his shoulder and chest, called 911. Williams told officers he had simply fallen, but her hands and clothes were covered in blood. The blood-stained ceramic squirrel was found in a pond nearby. So, this woman stabbed her husband with a ceramic squirrel because she sent him to the store to buy beer, but the store was closed.

This absolutely happened. This is real. A similar event did take place. Yes. It's Merca. Merca. Yeah, of course. Of course that happened.

All right. So now I'm back up to 500. So this, you know, this is the final one. The rubber match here, baby. This is the last one. This is for all the marbles. This is where I found myself last week, and I lost. Let's go.

In what sounded more like satire than city policy, Great Falls Montana City Council candidate Pete Anderson floated the idea of turning the city's homeless population into a tourist attraction. During a public forum, Anderson proposed building a homeless island, a sponsored community where homeless residents could live in ad-covered shelters, craft goods, and sell them to visiting tourists. He described it as a way to make the homeless issue into homeless profit, inspired by old-fashioned

poor farms. Later, Anderson admitted the idea was harebrain, but defended it as saying it was thinking outside the box to create self-sustaining housing, though critics say it sounded more like a dystopian theme park pitch than public policy. All right, this is a big deal for me. get this one right. I mean, there are plenty of idiots at the municipal level in every city. This guy's clearly one of them. It's such an insulting idea.

Like on its face, it's insulting. And city counselors have teams and they have staff. Someone would have told him, this is an awful idea, sir. If you have any dreams of being mayor, this will kill those dreams. it's so stupid like it's such a stupid idea i cannot believe that anybody at elected office would believe that this was no it's okay it's it's bs it's bs it's bs it happened you were correct it's fact well you got me two weeks in a row buddy yes there you go see like i said canada this is this is really more for him

that is for me. Celebrate good times. Come on. Look how I have. What a small life you have. Hey, you know, you've got to start the wins early in the day here. It's going to carry over for the Blue Jays tonight. Bam. You're equating this with the Jays win? This is the same thing.

I'm the Dodgers is what you're saying. You are. I'm the Dodgers. Yeah, you're wearing Dodgers. I really wish I had their budget, man. All right. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, Dave Bradley.

Thank you, Joy. A Kidnap Child whispers dark secrets from his past in a language he no longer understands. But a lost cassette will reveal the ugly truth. From Curious Cast and Blanchard House comes a cross-continental Odyssey to recover a stolen past. This is Stop Rewind, The Lost Boy, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.