The Ben Mulroney Show - The Political Panel -- Can they solve Canada Post?

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Guest: Warren Kinsella, Former Special Advisor to Jean Chretien and CEO of the Daisy Group Guest: Chris Chapin, Political Commentator, Managing Principal of Upstream Strategy 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 Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Sounds like a plan, you know, just one thing. What's that? I'm choosing the music. What? And I'm sitting in the backseat. The whole way? The whole way. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show and welcome to our This Week in Politics panel. It's the Friday edition. We're joined by Chris Chapin and Warren Kinsella. To the both of you, I say happy Friday. Happy Friday. Okay, big question for both of you.

I'm going to expect fulsome answers. I need you to solve. Great problem with this country. What to do with Canada Post? Chris Chapin, you go first. Sell it. But, you know, I think, listen, I think it's past its time. I think we need to have an actual national conversation, you know, at the federal government level about what we do with Canada Post moving forward.

You know, I don't think the future is, you know, mail delivery the same way it was 20, 30 years ago. I think Stephen Harper was probably down the right path and heavily criticized, you know, over a decade ago for what the federal government was then looking to do. But listen, the private sector, I think Scott and found a better way to certainly handle parcel delivery. That seems to be the future of, you know, mail delivery in this country. And so I'm just not sure we need the same concept of a nationally owned door-to-door mail service that we did, you know, in decades past. Well, yeah, and Warren, in 2013, when Stephen Harper said he was going to end door-to-door delivery, he was lambasted for it. Trudeau came in and got rid of that as a policy. And now it's being brought back.

Everything that's new was, you know, everything old is new again. and I sit there saying where has the government been over the past 10 years as this crisis has been building to the point that we find ourselves in, as they say in French, don't you.

Yeah, I think you know, Harper backed off because of the seniors lobby. Seniors would be disproportionately affected by eliminating mail delivery. Yep. And like honestly, guys, and I say full disclosure,

So I've been a lawyer who's represented Cup W, and I've been a chief of staff who helped run Canada Post. So I've been on both sides. They are completely dysfunctional. On the union side, on the management side, they are very, very difficult people to deal with. They're stubborn. They're inflexible and they're unreasonable. But of course, as usual, it's the taxpayer and citizens who have to pay the price. I think the government is as landed on.

the only solution that they could but like I'm amazed that they're attempting to do this with a minority government like this one is big this is changing the way people receive mail and I'm picturing seniors you know climbing over mountains of snow to get at their OAS check in February not that's not a vote getter no so I I'm surprised that Carney's doing this but I guess they feel that they had no choice as to privatizing it, I disagree. I don't think you'd have a buyer. I don't think anybody would take it.

You know, we had, this has all been exacerbated by Amazon and the delivery services and the pandemic. The problem that you described, Ben, just got way worse about five years ago, and it's gotten dramatically worse since. So the solution to me is not privatization. It's probably doing what the government's talking about. Warren, I want to stick with you on this next one.

What did you make of Mahmoud, Abbas's speech at the UN, where he did suggest that a lot of the issues that our government has brought up about those preconditions. He said, Hamas will have no part in the future government, the governing of Gaza. He said, he condemned what happened on October 7th. You know, there were words there that a lot of people were hoping to hear a long time ago. Is the action going to match the words, do you think? Okay, Mahmoud Abbas, who did his thesis on Holocaust denial because he's in support of it,

is an anti-Semite who pays out reward money to people who kill Jews. And most notably, the democratically elected guy that Mark Carney spoke with hasn't actually had to face the people, the West Bank, for 20 years. Like he is a criminal and a thug. He's not as bad as Hamas, but he's. pretty bad. So that was one of the things that was, in my view, particularly pathetic that the Prime Minister of Canada was able to take the word of this charlatan, of this crook, as somehow an assurance. Like Hamas, you know, Ben, you've been there, I've been there, I've been there, I don't know,

Chris, you've been there. In Israel, everybody knows. I haven't been yet. I am going at the end of November. Good. Well, you'll see, a boss is not taken seriously by Hamas. Hamas does not listen to anything that Mr. Abbas has to say. So this is farcical. It's a joke. And like, you know, this is one of the consequences of what Mark Carney and France and England did is it is emboldened Hamas and it is made Israel even more and flexible. And then, you know, saying, well, the hell with this.

What's the point of compromising? I'm going to expand my settlements in the West Bank. Like, it's a disaster. And unfortunately, Canada was part of creating it. Chris, how do you see it? I think Warren's spot on, you know, I can't decide whether it's, you know, the George straight. I've got oceanfront property to sell you in Arizona or, you know, George Bush fool me once, you know, I can't get fooled again. It's ridiculous to think and to believe them that,

you know, that Hamas is not going to play a role. They haven't had a proper election. Hamas runs, you know, all of Gaza and to think that that's going to change simply because, you know, he got up in front of the UN and swore this time it'll be different. I just don't know who we're fooling. But I think Warren's spot on. That's what's. happened when Mark Carney and some of these other world leaders have decided to take this stand and emboldened Hamas so that they feel that they can, you know, proclaim this kind of thing and expect people are going to believe them. Do you think, and this wasn't part of our notes, but I know that we've all been following this, you know, when Donald Trump signals that this

could present a roadblock in our trade renegotiations, is that him throwing something into the conversation that doesn't belong, you know, Canada's foreign policy? Should that play a role? in our renegotiation? Or did Mark Carney play this in an irresponsible way where he should have been cognizant of the values of our American partners as it relates to Israel and flew in the face of it knowing so? Chris, what do you think? I think absolutely, Ben. I mean, you know, for the longest time, you know, we stood by our allies. You know, we stood by Israel and we had unified positions with the United States. And Donald Trump couldn't have been more clear on where he stands and and where the United States and who the United States supports in this in this dispute and in

this attack on on Israel so I think when our largest trading partner who we are in the midst of a trade war with who we desperately our economy desperately needs us to resolve this um because we are not going to fix this overnight we're not going to start having you know as much as as you know Mark Carney said you know our relationship with the United States was you know was dead you know as we knew it that you know that can't be the case moving forward with a significant pain for Canadians of all stripes for the next decade. You know, we need to resolve this with the United States. And, you know, doing what we've done towards a former ally, who our strongest ally is in support of, I think absolutely has long-term harm for the country and our ability

to reach a deal with the United States. Warren, when you saw Donald Trump's truth social saying, oh, look at what they've done, they've made it very hard now to get a trade renegotiation done, what were your thoughts? Did you think, my gosh, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's conflating two things, or why didn't Mark Carney see this coming? The latter. Like, you know, I mean, Donald Trump is a jerk, in my opinion, and he's up and down like a toilet seat. Everybody saw that with his Ukrainian pronouncement this week.

You needed whiplash after you heard that one. But, but, but, you know, if I were Carney and I saw that truth social post, I bet she was saying in myself, you know, I should have gone an Nien and an end, or I should have picked up the phone and at least called Marco Rubio to say, hey, look, we're serious, we are going to do this. What is the guy in the Oval Office? How is he going to react to that? And they didn't do that. And so, you know, we've seen that Trump is willing to use flimsy pretext like fentanyl or, you know, the dairy industry to come after us. Well, it's almost predictable he was going to use this too. So yeah, they should have picked up the phone and done a bit of

legwork to make sure that they had some cover. They went ahead and did what they did. You know, that's a really good point. I mean, we, we disputed the validity of his claims on fentanyl, and yet we gave him a fentanyl czar. We told him that our issues at the border actually were technically their issues, and we promised to beef everything up to placate him. It feels like this could be another one of those scenarios where we're either going to have to walk back this position

or we're going to have to temper it or mitigate it, none of which is a good look for an independent sovereign nation like Canada, and yet it seems like we've done his work for him. We don't have time to get into that next, but we've got lots to get to after the break, including Danielle Smith, telling her ministers in new mandate letters to relentlessly defend the rights of gun owners. So we're going to talk about that next when we come back with our this week in politics panel on the Ben Mulroney show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to Chris Chapin and Warren Kinsella, who make up our Friday this week in politics panel. Guys, thanks so much for sticking with us. What do you make of Danielle Smith giving new mandate letters to her ministers saying part of their responsibilities is to defend gun owners' rights to self-defense relentlessly? Chris, is this a bridge too far or is this a natural reaction that a conservative in Alberta would have to say this new gun buyback program that's going to cost us money that we do not

have that is not going to, that as the Minister of Public Safety said himself, because it costs too much money, isn't going to solve crime and they did it to placate Quebec. Yeah, I mean, is any bit, any one of us surprised that Daniel Smith and the UCP are moving forward with this kind of an announcement? I mean, listen, a mandate letter can mean a lot. A mandate letter can be nothing more than, you know, in my opinion these days, just a political communication tool. You know, if mandate letters were overly serious, Mark Carney would have more than one for each one of his ministers, you know, instead of just one sole direction he's given his government. So I think this is just,

you know, good political communications and good politics for Daniel Smith and the UCP. Gun rights are taken way differently and way more seriously in Western Canada and specifically Alberta. And I think just, you know, the timing and how poorly the federal government's bungled this and left the minister. out, you know, frankly, in my opinion, just out to dry on this issue, given the mess he made of it himself, I'm not surprised that Alberta is seizing on this opportunity to try to really hammer home the importance of gun rates in Western Canada. And by doing so, continuing the conversation of just how ridiculous I think this buyback program truly is. It's going to cost Canadians a fortune.

And to the minister's own admission, it's not going to do absolutely anything to address the real root crime. We know the guns that are causing, you know, homicides on our streets are not the guns of of law-abiding, you know, hunters and gun owners. So I think, you know, I don't know what the end result of Daniel Smith's, you know, mandate letters will actually, you know, turn into. I'm not sure a whole lot, but I think it's good politics for them for sure. Warren, is it as simple as that? Is this good politics?

Did Danielle Smith recognize that she, that the liberals screwed the pooch on this one? And she's just, she's capitalizing politically. 100%. And I say as a gun owner and as an Albertan, when you're having, a rainy day and you're daniel smith and she's been having a rainy day because this alberta health care scandal is not going away it was back on the front pages in alberta again this week then you change the channel and one of the things you do you know you you get the gun issue whipped up again it's a winner for her it's a winner for any conservative politician and get the

the liberals back on their heels and i've talked to members of the liberal caucus who kind of agree that this minister is just you know stepped on one rake after another and that he needs to be moved out. So I don't, I'm not a fan of hers at all, but I don't blame her at all for taking a swipe at this one. It's, it's politic and she's being political. Well, let's move back to the Premier of Ontario, where he took a few stabs, a few jabs at the Minister of Justice, Attorney General. He said in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, with the context of the letter that was sent to the Supreme Court seeking to circumscribe provincial rights to use the notwithstanding clause, the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, who has,

there's no love loss between him and Pierre Poliyev. He started sounding an awful lot like Pierre Poliyev, saying, this is a guy who ruined immigration, he ruined housing, and then they gave him the Attorney General. He should be worried about bail reform. I mean, quite literally, this could have been ripped from the pages of a script from Pierre Poliev. And I just find that very, very interesting. Chris, what do you make of this? Because Doug Ford has made it a signature part of his character to work well with any level of government. And these are deliberately antagonistic lines.

Oh, for sure, Ben. But I think, you know, if you look at the track record of Premier Ford, he also knows a good opportunity when he sees it. And I mean, I think for him specifically, you know, as a Premier that's probably used the notwithstanding clause more often and definitely under the greatest level of scrutiny than probably any premier in the history of this country. I'm not surprised that he wants to push back against it. I think he and many other premiers in the province or in the country saw what Mark Carney did as a significant overreach from from their perspective. I think it speaks volumes to you know the difference between governing and being a banker or operating in a Bay Street office. I mean you you open up these

opportunities for the provinces to snipe back at you. They're going to take it whether that's gun rights in Alberta or the notwithstanding clause for Premier Ford in Ontario. So I mean, I think there's some out there that somehow forget that Premier Ford is in fact a conservative and quite conservative and sometimes mistake that he might, you know, sound a lot like Pierpoli. But that's because I think in this case, they're, you know, they're both taking very principled conservative stance when it comes to this issue. And if you can score a few points, taking a shot or to it, Minister Fraser, I don't think

they're going to pass up that opportunity. Warren, how do you see it? Well, we talked about this last week. week and I just recalled the advice I learned at the knee of my boss, Jean Crecia, is it's Monday and we're not going to talk about the Constitution today. And it's Tuesday and we're not going to talk about the Constitution today and repeat and rinse and repeat over and don't talk about the Constitution because it's all downside and no upside. So that's why, like I said to you guys last week, I don't understand the politics of the Kearney guys doing it. As a lawyer, I do agree,

section 33 has been used not by Doug Ford but by the province of Quebec to trample on minority rights that's not right so maybe that's their motivation but the politics of it I don't get is here we are talking about the damn

constitution again and there's nothing that drives voters crazier than that yeah and I mean there's an entire generation of kids who do not remember the ladies or early 90s and and yet but I think they've got

intergenerational trauma or something because they probably react the same way their parents did. They couldn't find Section 33 with a guide dog. They don't care. And neither does anybody else. So I don't get it. Like everybody's getting worked up about nothing. But that's, you know, that's Canada.

All right. Well, we don't have a lot of time left for this. But, you know, there was a story that took place in Toronto, but it could be taking place in any city. We exposed a drop-in center in Toronto for having a harm reduction site sign on their front door. And the area in question, Queen in Bathurst. had a supervised consumption site.

And the question that I have is you've got a city like Toronto that seems to be flouting the rules and going against the direction of the Ontario government that said, no, you're not allowed doing these things again. They found a workaround. And in a battle between a city that thinks it's right and a government that if they wanted to could take complete control over the city of Toronto, how do you think something like this should happen? Chris, very quickly.

Well, I mean, I think the, or the city should follow the province's guidance and the direction. They are a creation of the province. But, you know, we just finished the conversation, Ben. It's, you know, if the province wants to, this is the kind of thing that they will bring in, you know, something like the notwithstanding clause. If they feel like they're, you know, if this eventually gets challenged in the courts, which I suspect there's definitely a pathway that many want to take the province to the courts on, that's how this is ultimately going to get resolved. You know, they, they, it is their right to, to, you know, respond to and take the direction of the provincial government on this. Well, yeah. And, you know, I could see that happening here, Warren. I could see the, the city said no more handing out needles within, you know, called whatever amount of distance it is to school. They find a work. A city finds a workaround. If this, if the province then comes in and does what they're, they're constitutionally allowed to do and take control over the file, I could see the city taking you to the court and I could see the court saying that, you know, deciding with the city.

as they have on bike lanes, as they have on a number of issues. And what does that say about the use of the notwithstanding clause after that? What does that say about the overreach of our judicial system, which I don't think has reached anything close to a crisis, but I do think it's of concern. I'm the lawyer, but there's the two of you talking by lawyers. This is not a legal problem. The problem is this.

How has this problem grown to the point. where Belleville is now in a state of emergency again. Barry just declared a state of emergency. The problem, guys, is the drug. Fentanyl is the most addictive drug in the history of humankind. It is a game changer. I did a magazine piece a year ago talking to experts, talking to addicts. I spent time with the addicts.

They said, this is it. Like, as soon as you take it, you're hooked. And so these people can come up with programs and plans and sue each other as much. much they want until they deal with, and actually Donald Trump's right in this regard, until you deal with the fentanyl problem, all the lawyers in the world and all the social scientists in the world ain't going to solve it. We need to solve that problem because that's what's caused this crisis in towns large and small across Canada. All right, we're going to leave

it right there. Chris Chapin, Warren Concella, always appreciate you closing out the week with us. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country, like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain, and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to build a stronger Canada.

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