The Ben Mulroney Show - The Political Panel -- Why Poilievre should eat his words about jailing Trudeau

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Guest: Dimitri  Soudas, Former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper  Guest: Max Fawcett, Lead Columnist for Canada's National Observer - 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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So the best hapice in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ.

Built for breakthroughs, with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. It's Monday, which means it's time for our Monday edition of this week in politics. We're joined by the illustrious Dmitri Soutis, former director of communication for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and just the affront to all that is right and just in Canada. Max Fawcett wearing a hat that will live in infamy. I'll quote the Big Lubowski for the second time today. This aggression will not stand, man. Hey, I saw that you were wearing your hat.

I had to represent my team as well. You told me on this very panel that you were supporting the Jays. No, no. I said they're my second team. So if they get to the World Series, they have my full support. Oh, but they have your full support. But right now you're rooting against them. You see, I, it's liberals.

West Coast, man. Liberals. Anyway, great talking to both of you. Thank you so much for being here. I do want to start with Dimitri because you had a heck of a weekend, my friend. And it started with Pierre Poliev making some pretty bold claims about the RCMP, Justin Trudeau, and whether he should have been prosecuted for his behavior in the S&C Laval scandal. And you made your opinion known.

And then people came for you. Why don't you tell us the situation as you see it? Sure, absolutely, Ben. So, first of all, I've never had a busier weekend than when I worked for Prime Minister Harper for more than a decade. So every weekend after that is a quiet weekend for me. I'll tell you a couple of points. Yeah, there was some pushback from, you know, social media influencers. But I will tell you, I'll tell you why I have an issue with what Mr. Poliev said.

We are a democracy of rule of law. Therefore, the leader of the opposition, Prime Minister in Waiting, cannot just throw out there that we should be jailing a former prime minister that the RCMP covered up evidence and that the RCMP leadership is reprehensible. These are institutions that while they are imperfect, somebody who vives to be prime minister of this country is seen as a moral compass and sometimes has to, you know,

when I remember 2006, we campaigned against the federal liberal, on the sponsorship scandal. It was a political scandal. There was corruption. Money, taxpayers' money ended up in Liberal Party of Canada coffers. Stephen Harper did not call for the jailing of Paul Martin and John Cretchen.

I will tell you, though, that I also spoke and received phone calls and text messages from more than 20 Conservative Party of Canada caucus members over the weekend. Not a single one told me, Dimitri, would disagree with you, and I will point out to this.

that not a single Conservative Party of Canada member of Parliament has publicly agreed with what Mr. Poliev has said. Not a single member of the Conservative Party caucus of Canada has publicly said what the opinion that I expressed, that it was wrong. Is the RCMP perfect? Absolutely not. But I will also remind you of this. The RCMP charged, Mike Duffy on 17 counts, it went to court, and he was found innocent on all 17 of those counts. This just means that at the end of the day, rule of law means police is in charge of charging people, and the court is in charge of deciding whether or not those people are innocent or guilty. It is not up to politicians. So, Dimitri, very quick, and we'll button this up.

was there a way for Pierre Poliev in your estimation as a communications guy to make his point without crossing a line as you saw it? There's always a way to make your case. And the biggest case one can make is the liberals are corrupt and do what needs to get done in order to what? Win an election, become prime minister and fix the system. You cannot fix the system from the sidelines. And the other thing I'll say is the following.

Justin Trudeau's gone. He's somewhere on a beach with Katie Perry. This obsession to constantly campaign against Justin Trudeau of the election that never was also needs to end. Mark Carney's prime minister, take him down. All right, well, let's talk about Mark Carney, Max Fawcett, because I think a lot of us, this is another one of those cases where I have not only have a problem with this,

I'm glad to see this sort of news that our prime minister is investing. He's putting his money where his mouth is. It's not just the big, the big giant checks that you actually can't cash, he's putting a lot of money behind a thousand new CBSA border patrol agents as a way to stem the tide of illegal drugs and everything else that shouldn't be coming in the country. It looks like we're going to be investing in those frontline border people to do what we should have been doing for years,

which was take our border security seriously. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure there is some small element of this that is political theater aimed at the White House and at Donald Trump. You know, they continue to have this belief that we are sending massive amounts of fentanyl there, evidence notwithstanding. But I think this is a broader thing than that, a bigger thing, which is, you know, we are in a moment where we have been allowed to kind of coast on the back of the Americans and their security infrastructure. And we can't do that anymore. We have to have our own borders, our own infrastructure, our own sovereignty.

And this is a big part of that. So, yeah, I'm sure some of these new hires will go towards fentanyl. and the southern border, but a lot of it is, you know, uh, interdicting people coming in and trying to set up, you know, uh, organized crime operations, whether it's in the GTA or Vancouver or wherever it might be. It's, it's foreign pressure operations. It's, there's so many ways in which our border is not just the southern border. And we need people that have eyes on that and are protecting us from, from the threats that are

out there. So I'm very happy to see this. Yeah. I think it speaks to this government's commitment to to, to actually, you know, delivering on the. things it says it's going to do rather than just doing a press conference. Dimitra, like I said, I co-signed this. I'm pleased to hear this. I do hope that it comes with a commensurate look at other things and say, okay, well, we need this and we've needed this for a while. It's going to cost a lot of money. Let's go look at all the things that we've been doing for years that we haven't needed to do. A lot of these pet projects, all these performative checks that we've been sending to X, the group or Y group. I don't know that we'll necessarily

see that, but of course we'll have to wait for the budget. Yes, but Oh. Oh, we've lost Dimitra again. Dimitri, we lost you. I think... Can you hear me? Yeah, oh, there we go for it, my friend. Keep talking.

And you've got about 30 seconds, and then I'll give you a chance to finish up on the other side of the break. Well, the only thing I'll say is, why does it take Donald Trump for Canada to reinforce his border? Why have the liberals not kept our border strong? To what?

Prevent guns from being smuggled into Canada? The vast majority of gun crimes in Canada are not committed by law-abiding citizens, gun owners who use guns for hunting, who use guns for sports purposes. So, you know, some would say too little too late, but hopefully they're serious and they're actually going to get it done.

All right, we're going to come back and we're going to be talking about a new trade representative out of Manitoba. He's a name. A lot of people will know if they've watched the news. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulrini show. Listen, every province needs,

advocates for business, for trade. And they can come in all shapes and sizes from so many different sectors. In Manitoba, the Premier's office has chosen former journalist Richard Madden. And nothing wrong with someone coming from that sector to help out with trade. But a lot of people are pushing back over this appointment for a couple of reasons. One, his salary is about $400,000 a year. And two, according to opposition, this job has led to no memorandums of understanding, no trade deals whatsoever thus far. And the premier was caught, I found flat-footed for somebody who's so good at expressing himself, he didn't do a great job explaining why Richard Madden was the guy. And I'd love to start with you, Max, about your thoughts. Yeah, I have no problem with

this, you know, especially in this time with the volume of threats to our economy being sent our way by the Trump administration, $400,000 is a great investment if you can get their attention on an issue that's relevant to your province. You know, we do this in Alberta. We've done it for a long time sending people to Ottawa or to excuse me to Washington to pledge our case and make, you know, make the arguments on our behalf. I think other provinces should do it as well. Obviously, Ottawa needs to do it, but provinces have their own view on things. And again, you know, if people are upset about a $400,000 salary, imagine if he could have saved Manitoba, you know, call it $200 million in economic damage from the Trump administration. That is a great investment. So, you know, I understand

wanting to keep an eye on where you're spending these things and it is a big salary, but it's one with a potential big payoff for taxpayers. Oh, yeah. Listen, I'm not one to nickel and dime. It costs a lot of money to run a country and run a province and it costs what it costs sometimes, right? And not to say you should be profligate your spending and just light money on fire, but, you know, there are costs associated with running an economy. And so that's not my issue. What I found, Dmitri, and again, I go to you because of your expertise in communications, Wob Canoe has acquitted himself so very well over the past few months as a great and effective communicator. And it just felt like you got caught flat-footed in the legislature when asked about this appointment.

He said he's got the looks. He's got the connections. I mean, you got to have a better answer if somebody asks you, why is this the guy? So we'll see if Richard, and I've known Richard for 20 years, smart guy, hardworking guy, great networker. But I'll give you an example. The top diplomat in Washington is the Canadian ambassador. It's current Kristen Hillman. Her compensation falls anywhere between $270,000 and $320,000 a year. And I can tell you on her desk is an exponential amount of responsibilities much higher than what will be on Richards.

She is able to open way more doors, most likely, than Richard. So I'm not against the position. It's probably a position where you should be getting paid $250,000, $300,000 a year. I think the premier went way overboard on paying somebody $400,000, especially in these times. And why do I say especially in these times? Because in these times, the only true voice that matters is the federal governments. There will not be any side deals with Manitoba or Alberta or Ontario or Quebec. So good appointment. I believe it is a merit-based appointment.

Richard is the right person to do this. I would definitely would have considered him and possibly chosen him. he should take a $100,000 salary cut. All right. Well, we'll wait and see on that. I can't remember the last time I ever saw somebody will willingly give up 100K, but we'll have to see if Richard listens to the show. And by the way, for the record, what you just said about Richard Madden,

I've heard echoed from other people as well. So I don't dispute his qualifications whatsoever. My issue had more to do with the Premier who's been such a good communicator, seemingly being caught flat-footed over being able to justify this. this appointment. I do want to talk about, you know, the terrifying letter that some some property owners in, in BC got, Richmond, BC, where they were told that because of the decision that came from the BC Supreme Court, that their property rights over the homes that they've had in some of them as long as 50 years may be up for grabs. And look, I wanted to spend a moment on, I don't know

whether there is a causal relationship between the years of what I feel have been empty and performative land acknowledgments and this. But there's no way one doesn't have something to do with the other. And I have felt for some time, Max, that stopping with a land acknowledgement without filling the void, you open up an arena when you say something like a land acknowledgement. But if you don't fill that arena with some meaningful dialogue, then somebody else is going to fill that arena with meaningful dialogue. And in this case, the BC Supreme Court did that.

I think there's been a lack of leadership on going beyond these land acknowledgements and doing anything meaningful. And here is where we are today. I think I agree with that. You know, the Supreme Court in BC doesn't care about what politicians say around land acknowledgments. They care about the facts and the facts going back to, you know, the 19th century and beyond. I think the decision by the mayor of Richmond to send this letter out the way it was written is incredibly irresponsible.

I think some of the media outlets who have kind of seized on that fear and amplified it are being incredibly irresponsible. I think what we need in this moment is a calm, mature, and fact-based approach to this. The couch and tribes, their representation, they've said they have no interest in invalidating fee simple title. They don't have any interest in impacting homeowners. It's just the governments that have violated the agreements they made with the Cowich and tribes, right? If we believe in private property, and I think we all do here, then this ruling is effectively upholding the private property rights of these, the Cowich and tribes, right? They entered into agreements with governments that have not been honored. So this is not going to impact landowners, you know, the fear campaign around that, I think, really irresponsible.

And you see, you know, the BC government is appealing this. The courts have said they're giving them time to reach an agreement with these tribes. I suspect there will be compensation, which they are due. And that is the nature, that is the form of reconciliation that we need to be seeing more and more. It's not just land acknowledgments, not just empty words, but real promises and real substance. Dmitri, how do you see it? Just to jump on everything that Max said, you know, at the end of the day, indignious reconciliation has to be pursued, sorry.

fairly with respect, but you're not going to build reconciliation by destroying certainty, rewriting land ownership overnight or threatening the very foundation of private property in Canada. So it's a court ruling that ultimately the government will have to address, you know, right of possession is whoever legally owns it. yeah listen i i i i i'm learning i was learning from max there his perspective is the one i hadn't heard yet so i do appreciate you bringing that in it's going to give me a lot to think about i do think and i and i'll throw this back to the both of you that i know that the the decision has been stayed for 18 months in an effort to allow the the government to negotiate i don't think

staying the the the decision is the right move i think appealing the decision is the right move because You can't negotiate with one arm tied behind your back. You need certainty, as Dimitri said. I hope it gets appealed so that those negotiations can happen on an even playing field. But yeah, I don't know if either of you would agree with that or disagree, Max? Well, part of the issue, the reason why these tribes have had to go to the courts is because governments have refused to negotiate with them in good faith. They haven't struck deals with them to honor existing. agreements. You know, Andrew Coyne wrote a really good column about this in the Globe and Mail

saying, you know, again, if you're in favor of private property rights, you should support the couch and tribes here. They are standing up for their private property rights. This does not have an implication for the rest of the country. BC is a very unique legal environment because there were no treaties. You know, it is kind of on its own in that respect. But this is not going to invalidate private property rights. It's simply going to mean that these communities get the redress that they have long dessert. All right. Well, guys, I love starting the week with you. I hope you have a great next few days. And we'll talk to you next Monday. Ten chefs are on a culinary quest.

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